travel

Sawing off the limbs we’ve climbed up to see

From the article "Holiday at the End of the Earth: Tourists Paying to See Global Warming in Action," posted on Common Dreams:

"The idea of global-warming tourism is full of ironies," he said. "If enough people expend enough fossil fuels to visit one Warming Island, they will ensure that there will be many more."

John Travolta’s private plane fetish brings the noise to a small Maine community

Oh, John Travolta. When will you and your planes stop p$#@ing off the populace?

Apparently it's not enough for Mr. Saturday-Night-Give-the-Planet-a-Fever to wander the globe in his private planes, trailing an excess of carbon emissions in his wake. He's also got to land his plane near his Maine residence during the area's voluntary no-fly period between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Come on, John. It's bad enough that you're contributing to warming the planet. Now you're going to keep granny awake in the process? For shame, Vinnie Barbarino, for shame.

Bike racks in rain, smokers under cover

I am pissed. I just learned that my county would rather provide shelter from the weather for its employees who smoke (and drive up healthcare costs) than let those citizen-terrorists on bikes park out of the rain near the county building.

Biofuels scam at 12 o’clock high!

Is there anything that the rich and venal won't do to stave off limits on jet flights? The new scam is a discussion of laundering the fossil fuels through "biofuels" ...

Tunnels everywhere!

First a train tunnel between Africa and Europe, now the Russians want to build the long-dreamt-of tunnel between Russia and Alaska. The tunnel would theoretically carry natural gas, oil, electricity, and fiber-optic wires.

The more and better tunnels we have for rail, the more competitive rail will be with less efficient transport systems like air travel. This is better for energy efficiency and therefore the environment.

This project still has a lot of problems -- it's not like there's a lot of spare rail up above the Arctic Circle, necessitating lots of construction -- but I'm sure Ted Stevens is already salivating.

Only the little people fly scheduled airlines

In response to this story, about how the airport tax paid by proles being herded onto commercial boxcars is spent to make life even cushier for the big guys flying Lear jets, someone defended the poor abused jet setters thus:

It is worth pointing out that those "Learjets" burn bunches of fuel and pay the corresponding fuel taxes, so they aren't getting a totally free ride. Figure 200 gallons an hour as a usable figure (jet pilots figure burn in pounds, with taxes of $.50 a gallon or so (I don't have the actual figures), and they are paying $100 an hour. The airlines do not pay the fuel taxes, instead getting a head tax from passengers. The story is not nearly as simplistic as many imagine.

Something that destructive outside SHOULD be unpleasant inside

A comment left on Sam Smith's Progressive Review discussion of cell phone bans on commercial airline flights:

I don't give a wet slap why the FAA continues to ban cell phone use on airplanes so long as the keep doing it. People who use their cell phones in public places are loud and obnoxious, and on an airplane there's nowhere for anybody else to go. I can always move to the next car on BART, or get off the bus and walk, but for eight hours across the Atlantic trapped in a metal tube with five hundred strangers ...

Rich Westerners bypass gov’t to save rainforests

I have mixed feelings about these "conservation cowboys" — rich Westerners who tromp down South in pursuit of grandiose eco-preservation schemes. They possess immense amounts of discretionary capital and can often sidestep cumbersome, slow-moving government machinery. But there’s a tinge of colonialism about it. If they tread too heavily, I fear they’ll end up sparking […]

When is it necessary, and what are the alternatives?

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

The Bishop of London recently proclaimed that flying on holiday is a sin, a view that seems increasingly to be shared by greens in the U.K.

Our environment minister, David Miliband, castigated Prince Charles for flying to America to receive an award, suggesting that he should have collected it via video-link. Mayer Hillman, author of How We Can Save the Planet and one of the more rigorous of our green thinkers, wants us to "drastically reduce or stop flying."

This of course raises a problem of public acceptability; for most people, flying is still something to aspire to.

It also raises some particular problems for environmentalists. Global travel and networking are important both to how we frame our challenges and how we resolve them.