For those interested, the arguments I previously posted on the Tyndall Centre website are repeated b

From the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers through to Stern and the International Energy Agency, analyses increasingly demonstrate how, without urgent and radical reductions in emissions, global temperatures are set to rise by four degrees Celsius or higher with, as the IEA emphasise, devastating repercussions for the planet.
My partner and I recently arrived in Sicily for a couple of weeks camping and rock climbing not exactly sun-kissed limestone (fifteen degrees Celsius and damp), but still a little warmer than the Arctic blasts battering travel trailers for sale in minnesota the UK at the moment.
As we try to avoid flying we ve travelled here by train: Manchester to London and then onto Paris, overnight Paris to Rome, a day strolling between the Pantheon and the Colosseum, before another overnight train to Palermo in the North West corner of Sicily.
The journey took longer than flying, but we get a day each way to explore Rome and overnight travel to and from Sicily, so in terms of price and time it isn t that different to flying. But when it comes to emissions I stand by the arguments I made following my train trip to Shanghai in 2011 (for work on that occasion). At a system level, trains have an order of magnitude lower emissions than the metal bird alternative the saving is that significant.
If my arguments are valid, surely those of us intimately engaged in climate travel trailers for sale in minnesota change should, at the very least, curtail our use of the most carbon-profligate activity (per hour) humankind has thus far developed.
For those interested, the arguments I previously posted on the Tyndall Centre website are repeated below. In addition, I ve included a few thoughts in response to the comeback often made those of us with children can t afford the longer journey times as we have overriding parental commitments .
On the face of it, these and many similar queries are completely reasonable questions to ask. But, in my view, they miss the point, and without trying travel trailers for sale in minnesota to be overly provocative (that s for later), I don t think they are so reasonable particularly from the array of informed travel trailers for sale in minnesota experts who asked them. So why do I think the questions are unreasonable and what would I suggest travel trailers for sale in minnesota as an alternative framing for assessing emissions from travel?
The following blog-style analysis is a mix of provocation, parody and some different ways of thinking about emissions from our travel. I ve tried to make a coherent case on the basis of argument, but some of the language may not be what you would typically find in an academic travel trailers for sale in minnesota paper. Nonetheless, I stand by the well-intentioned travel trailers for sale in minnesota thrust travel trailers for sale in minnesota of the case and if anyone has any substantive disagreements I d be pleased to hear them. It is intended to hold a mirror up to the climate change community and as with all mirrors, it can make for grim viewing. travel trailers for sale in minnesota I know: it s a fit 36-year-old who looks in the mirror but a less fit grey-haired and 49-year-old bloke who stares back at me!
My concerns about the questions I ve been asked fall into three broad and related categories. They were asked by folk who work intimately on climate change as a system . But not one person asked a systems-level question, How are you going to compare the plane and train emissions? travel trailers for sale in minnesota - or - Have you thought about rebound, where time saved via faster travel trailers for sale in minnesota travel is spent on additional carbon-emitting activities?
The opportunity costs, rebound effect, carbon intensity of time, technical and financial lock-in/lock-out, early adoption, role models, diffusion and so on, are all concepts the climate change travel trailers for sale in minnesota community are familiar with. Asking emissions questions without direct or indirect recourse to any of these is, in my view, neither responsible nor reasonable.
For the last decade the language travel trailers for sale in minnesota of climate change used in proposals for funding, research council calls, travel trailers for sale in minnesota brochures, government documents and so on, has been awash with terms such as whole systems , systems thinking , interdisciplinary , and the like. Put us in a room and we ll espouse eloquently the virtues of such approaches, travel trailers for sale in minnesota noting if we re to tackle big issues like climate change we have to think on a systems level. But as soon as there s something that can be readily quantified we re like moths to a flame: here s something familiar travel trailers for sale in minnesota to our 2000 years of reductionism, some knowledge but without understanding. The virtues of systems thinking that we were waxing lyrical about moments before are quickly forgotten in the mad scrabble to get to the numbers. We know what to do with numbers and, as Lord Kelvin so persuasively put it, When you measure what you are speaking of and express it in numbers, you know that on which you are discoursing, but when you cannot measure it and express it in numbers your knowledge is of a very meagre and unsatisfactory kind . Well I m not sure this always holds, and when we do use numbers they have to be meaningful. Isolated numbers tell us little about the system, and worse, they can lead to decisions based only on the bit we can measure. This may be worse than doing nothing or taking random action; travel trailers for sale in minnesota at the very least numbers have to be contextual.
So having made the argument travel trailers for sale in minnesota that systems thinking travel trailers for sale in minnesota requires some systems thinking itself, the following sections outline more precisely defined travel trailers for sale in minnesota and technical matters that underpin my concern that the climate change community continues to take overly narrow views of systems-level issues. travel trailers for sale in minnesota In 2011, we ought to know better.
If we accept temperature as an adequate proxy for our various concerns about climate change, then there is broad acceptance travel trailers for sale in minnesota we must stay below a two degrees Celsus increase in global temperature. Thus the climate is only really concerned with our cumulative emissions over a relatively short period of time a period longer than the Broadbottom to Shanghai train journey, but stretching only about as far as 2020 for two degrees Celsus (and for four degrees Celsus sometime around 2030). There is some mathematics behind these dates linked to how high we are already on the emissions curves, the real emission growth trend, realistic peaks and the proportion of our carbon budget we ve squandered already. See Beyond Dangerous Climate Change {1}.
Coming back to the train and its emissions relative to other transport travel trailers for sale in minnesota modes: from a systems perspective, it s a good enough approximation to consider the carbon dioxide per passenger kilometre for planes, trains and automobiles to be similar. Okay, alone in a Ferrari with your foot to the floor will be many times worse than being sardined into one of EasyJet s relatively new aircraft. Similarly, four people cosying up in a small Fiat Panda will knock the socks off any scheduled airline (that is, have much lower carbon dioxide emissions). But put a couple of academics in a diesel family saloon and any disparity in emissions between the modes over the same distance will be lost in the system noise. The difference, travel trailers for sale in minnesota of course, arises from the distance we deem reasonable to travel and really this is less about the distance and more about the time.
Attending an essential conference to save the world from climate change in Venice, Cancun or some other holiday resort, is perfectly do-able by plane. However, the rising emission trends don t seem to have registered the sterling work we have achieved at such events. Perhaps if we flew to more of them, emissions would really start to come down we may even spot some flying pigs en route . Instead, junk the plane and get together with a few other UK speakers heading to the same event, cram yourself in a trusty Fiat Panda and set off for Venice. Somewhere around Dartford, what was previously essential begins to take on a different hue, and by Dover a whole new meaning has evolved. Essential has become a relative term, dependent on: Can we get there by plane? Are our friends also attending? Is it somewhere nice to visit (or name-drop)? Will we be taxied around? Are we staying in a plush hotel?
This is where the first major saving resides: slow forms of travel fundamentally change our perception travel trailers for sale in minnesota of the essential. We consequently travel less (at least in distance), and given that air travel is the most emission-profligate activity per hour (short of Formula 1 and possibly space tourism) the emission-related opportunity costs are knocked into a cocked hat. Of course, as climate change specialists we are exempt from such analysis travel trailers for sale in minnesota our message truly is essential so we re the exception that should be able to carry on emitting as before.
Ah, yes, and business folk we need them to drive the economy. Tourists are yet another really important economic driver (not to mention the great cultural gains from staying in western-style hotels with like-minded folk and observing other cultures pass by the windscreens of our air conditioned taxis). Next there are the pop stars and celebrities the world would be such a dull place if they weren t able to prance about at international festivals. The football and tennis players must test their mettle in the international arena and of course travel trailers for sale in minnesota they need their fans to cheer them on.
We can then turn to whole industrial sectors that put forward an equally bewildering array of reasons why they should be the exceptions and exempt from major emission reductions. This extends to government departments, climate change think tanks and some NGOs with the remaining less deserving sectors and individuals taking up the slack. It really is a puzzler as to why emissions keep on rising all the more so since fuel prices have rocketed to levels way in excess of any carbon price economists previously travel trailers for sale in minnesota told us would collapse the economy! Still, a few more international conferences and guidance from the carbon-market gurus will have us turn the corner on this one, I m sure.
Obviously these caricatures are so far from reality that we don t recognise ourselves in any of them but nevertheless the message is clear. Travelling slowly forces us to travel much less, to be much more selective in what events we attend, and to endeavour to get more out of those trips we do