6 ms·
Carbon emissions from tourism are rising at an alarming rate
- dmfdmf 8y ago"You. The world. It's only a matter of discovering the lever. If you learn how to rule one single man's soul, you can get the rest of mankind. It's the soul, Peter, the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That's why the Caesars, the Attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul, Peter, is that which can't be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get your fingers on it — and the man is yours. You won't need a whip — he'll bring it to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse — and his own mechanism will do your work for you. Use him against himself. Want to know how it's done? See if I ever lied to you. See if you haven't heard all this for years, but didn't want to hear, and the fault is yours, not mine. There are many ways. Here's one. Make man feel small. Make him feel guilty." [Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead]
- Nomentatus 8y agoI'm sure being a psychopath feels good, but if we all behave that way (Kant, categorical imperative) the result is lousy.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dmfdmf 8y agoYes, but do you feel guilty going on vacation? If so then how do you rationalize it? If not then doesn't that make you a psychopath? Serious questions all.
- lixtra 8y agoAt some point you have to accept that your presence shapes (the future of) your environment.
- jogjayr 8y ago> If so then how do you rationalize it? Live a lighter lifestyle otherwise - don't buy new stuff, prefer biking over driving, eat less meat, keep electric and gas bills down, live in a smaller dwelling. And buy carbon offsets.
- eecc 8y agoWell, refuse “mass tourism” per se. Carefully choose a destination, make it the beginning of a thought journey more than a physical one. Spend months, if not years planning and learning about where I’m planning to visit. That’s what travel used to be anyway before it became massified. If I need to just chill off a beach I’ll choose a destination that’s much closer and at least in the same continent (eg Greece instead of Mexico.) I can’t stop breathing (well, not without dire consequences) but I can surely take every breath conscientiously.
- smsm42 8y agoWhich would not change the carbon emissions even by a bit, but sure, if you feel better this way, why not.
- rdiddly 8y agoA big reason I can't take climate conferences seriously: everybody flies to them.
- tomtimtall 8y agoAnecdotal, and also not true.
- vixen99 8y agoThere are seemingly endless links to 'climate hypocrisy' but I suppose that's all fake news. Is it anecdotal that 50,000 people attended the Paris Climate Conference? Wouldn't video conferencing have sent a resounding message that these attendees really did believe that doom is at hand?
- jacobolus 8y agoThere are something like 100,000 flights per day. Billions of passenger trips per year. 50,000 people attending a single conference or not is not going to have a significant effect on global climate, except as a symbolic gesture. What is needed are large-scale systemic changes, not canceling one or another particular meeting.
- smsm42 8y agoMe not flying to my once-a-year vacation is going to make effect 50,000 less of that, and yet that's what Nature implies I should do if I believe them. But if people that can produce 50000x effect with only minor inconvenience to them don't do it, why should I do it for the price of very major inconvenience (forgoing long awaited vacation and never seeing other countries again ever)?
- jacobolus 8y agoNature did not state that you personally should do any particular thing. They only pointed out that travel accounts for 8% of global emissions and growing (and at current carbon emissions levels the world will be altered dramatically and irrevocably). Individual people’s personal sacrifices are barely going to dent global carbon emissions. We need to tackle these enormous global problems systematically. For example, we might be able to substitute less carbon-intensive means of long-distance transportation, impose significant taxes on jet fuel, figure out ways of discouraging business travel by plane, or raise public awareness of closer-to-home vacation destinations.
- quickthrower2 8y agoMaybe the answer is to travel more? Travel for a year, and you don't need to use planes at all. You have the time to slowly make you way around a long distance. Hell you could walk. Inbetween gap years, travel to closer destinations without a plane. Travel forever, take a tent, and then you don't need a house.
- mirimir 8y agoBeen there, done that. It became less fun as I got older.
- mirimir 8y agoThat is quite the clickbaity headline for Nature. I mean, global climate change may destroy human civilization, but it's ridiculous to say that it "spell[s] trouble for the future of life on Earth". Archaea occur km below the surface. I can't imagine that the atmosphere affects them much.
- thedevilslawyer 8y agoYour imagination should not be a good rubric for what's possible.
- mirimir 8y agoFor the Archaea, the Great Oxygenation Event was already the holocaust. Some are OK at over 100C. How would a few degrees increase in surface temperature affect them?
- jacobolus 8y agoHumanity is causing a mass extinction, of the type that will take the planet’s ecosystems hundreds of thousands of years (or much longer?) to recover some kind of equilibrium after. For example, most of our coral reefs will die and never return in the same form. The question now is how complete that destruction will be. I agree it’s a bit silly to lay that entirely at the feet of airplane travel, but even if we could magically halt all other carbon emissions tomorrow, we would still probably need to deal with carbon emissions airplane travel in the near future if we want to avoid catastrophe. As for the rest, I guess the question is whether you consider “trouble for life on earth” to necessarily mean complete annihilation of all life vs. just killing off most of the species and fundamentally altering most of the ecosystems.
- mirimir 8y agoProbably more like millions of years. Maybe 10-100 times that. But still, that headline is ridiculous.
- baxtr 8y agoI don’t like that many of the climate articles are just alarming and not actionable. So now what? Naming alternatives would be good. Don’t travel ever again? Travel locally? Hitchhike?
- thedevilslawyer 8y agoIt's fine if the article does not have any actionable items. It's fine for an article to just be informative. Reduce international tourism? Sounds completely fine as a potential solution. We survived for 99.99% of our species' and civilization's lifetime without it.
- jacobolus 8y agoYou can’t do anything about problems you don’t know exist, and you can’t prioritize systematically without some understanding of where the bottlenecks are. There’s no problem if some researchers exclusively focus their time on discovering and describing problems. Someone else can explore possible solutions. Someone else can try to plan/develop an implementation of each of those. Someone else can work on political advocacy to build support for one or another solution. Etc. It seems you have already brainstormed a few personal steps you could take to combat this problem at an individual level. But that isn’t going to cut it at a societal level. For that we probably need some combination of (a) less carbon-intensive but still convenient modes of transportation, (b) globally implemented carbon taxes [or the like] which force consumers to confront the true costs of their consumption, including plane flights, (c) large-scale public education campaigning, possibly including discouraging the public from traveling halfway around the world multiple times per year, etc.
- hamilyon2 8y ago1) Traveling is one of biggest value for money you could buy. 2) Sibling comment mentions traveling more, but not on plane. Some careers could afford that, I guess. Business owner can have a vacation, return after a year and continue where he left. But simple math and reason says we cannot all be in this priveleged position
- gpvos 8y agoIt's important to change the pricing structure. Flying is way too cheap, you can cross Europe for €25 booking only a few weeks in advance.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> 1) Traveling is one of biggest value for money you could buy. Wait, how? Going to the same place millions of people are going to every year, taking the exact same photos you can find on Flickr, of exact same things, from exactly the same spots? Experiencing the completely fake "local culture" created for tourists? All to get some memories that will quickly fade away into the general feeling of "I've been there, it was great"? Maybe it's a personality thing. I've never been into tourism, and find it weird, to say the least.
- monort 8y agoHave you ever tried? You shouldn't be forced to travel like everybody else. Like go only to a second largest city, go for the nature, visit only places that have an eclipse, go to cities with conferences you'd like to attend, go to places where your friends live.
- rpmcmurphy 8y agoMaybe this is all not such a bad thing. The worst case scenario is a mass extinction that kills off large animals, clearing the way for whatever is next, not unlike the Cambrian explosion. We elected Donald J Trump. We (large animals at the top of the food chain) kind of deserve what's coming to us.
- baxtr 8y agoNot our children though
- King-Aaron 8y agoNo, Americans voted in Trump. Please don't pass your folly on to the rest of the world.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoI wonder how overlanding compares to flying for carbon emissions. Next year, I plan on overlanding from Bali to London, possibly kicking on to New York and then the West Coast of the USA or Canada, depending on how much money I have and spend on the way. It would be interesting to see how that compares to flying for carbon emissions. Now I'm interested, so lets crunch some numbers: The drive from Bali to London is roughly 18,000 km (Bali -> Bangkok -> Hanoi -> Beijing -> Ulan Bator -> Moscow -> London). Using numbers from a spreadsheet I found [1], a bus emits roughly 27 grams of CO2 per passenger km. So the bus trip is 490 kg of CO2. Flying emits 280 grams of CO2 per passenger km (from the same spreadsheet), the flight is about 13,000 km (DPS-KUL-LHR). That's 3600 kg of CO2 emitted. Clearly I'm saving the planet by taking the bus. However, it takes time to drive from Bali to London, and just existing causes CO2 emissions. According to Rome2Rio [2] it's almost 7 days (168 hours) of non-stop travel. Let's assume 12 hours of travel a day, because we aren't complete masochists, that's 14 days of traveling. The Rome2Rio route does include trains, but let's imagine that it's busses all the way and they're magically as fast as a train (which they are certainly not). Apparently as a New Zealander I emit somewhere around 10 tonnes of CO2 per year [3], let's imagine that I continue emitting that much while travelling through the developing world. That's 27 kg per day. For 14 days that's 380 kg. So the total emissions from overlanding from Bali to London is roughly 870 kg of CO2, or around a quarter that of flying. So, in summary: If you have too much time on your hands and want to save the world, don't fly, take a bus. Of course, it will probably take me closer to 3 months than 14 days to get from Bali to London, which would clearly tip the balance in favour of flying, but the trip isn't about getting from A to B, but getting from A to Z and visiting the 24 letters in between, to terribly paraphrase Grace Slick. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emissions-per-transport-type https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02... [2] https://www.rome2rio.com/trip/sbcgbmie https://www.rome2rio.com/trip/sbcgbmie [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emissions-per-person-capita https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02...
- skybrian 8y agoI don't think you should count CO2 used from existing because it's the same either way. Maybe a better way to think about it is to compare CO2 per day from different ways of spending your time? And this isn't something to minimize, but rather to make sure it's worth the cost. It seems like we should start by reducing business travel, since most people don't enjoy it much? Also: combine trips when possible.
- jblow 8y agoSo is carbon offsetting really a thing, or not? If it is, well, these sites that tell you how much to give based on flight length say it is really cheap. So just make offsetting mandatory. The end.
- hannob 8y agoTheir calculations are... optimistic to say it carefully. I once researched this a bit and stumbled upon "we don't calculate the emissions for building and operating the airport, because it's already there" (of course not the exact words, but you get the idea). Also they are usually using the calculations from the emission trading system, which by itself is riddled with fraud and loopholes. But even more: This has diminishing returns. These schemes rely on getting relatively cheap ways to reduce carbon emissions. If you scale this up you end up not being able to do this any more.
- Regardsyjc 8y agoWhat truly spells trouble for human life on earth are unsustainable business practices. Recycling is a bandaid. Fast fashion is a nightmare. Agriculture is one of the biggest causes of carbon emissions. It is unfortunate that travel is creating such an impact but I personally get annoyed whenever I see an article try to make an individual feel guilty for their contribution to climate change. Nothing one person could ever do could hold a light to the amount of carbon released by industries. Not that you shouldn't recycle but I find it weak reporting to guilt individuals rather than actually talk about the real problem. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...
- Aaargh20318 8y ago> Nothing one person could ever do could hold a light to the amount of carbon released by industries. By far the best thing you can do for the environment is to not procreate.
- slavik81 8y agoThat's a losing strategy. The entire next generation would be raised by those who disagreed with you.
- kawsper 8y agoIf you want any say in that, maybe you could adopt.
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoA lot of us disagree with our parents on environmental issues so I'm not sure about that.
- candiodari 8y ago
- kasperni 8y agoThis is one thing that worries me about a potential "nobody-is-going-to-work" or just a future where a large group of the worlds population moves into the middle class. What are people going do with all their free time. Big cities and tourist destinations are already cramped to the point where there are demonstrations and you have to shut them down because of the toll it takes on the environment. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/aug/10/anti-tourism-marches-spread-across-europe-venice-barcelona https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/aug/10/anti-tourism-... https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2018/04/06/philippines-not-only-country-shut-popular-tourist-destination/494902002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2018/04/0... I cannot imagine how bad this will be in 10-20 years.
- adrianN 8y agoAs it is right now, it's impossible for a large part of humanity to consume at western middle class levels. Arguably it's impossible for the current western middle class to consume at its current levels.
- sparrish 8y agoVR - They'll all spend their time in energy efficient virtual reality; visiting those places without moving. Sure, it won't be the same but it'll be 'good enough' for us unwashed masses.
- skybrian 8y agoThis is why we need carbon taxes. Not all travel is equally worthwhile, but people need to make their own decisions about what to cut back on.
- binarnosp 8y agoPfff, it's so annoying that the peasants started flying and visiting places like the Royals do./s We peasant, unlike the Royals, cycle to work, recycle, don't spend million on candles on our yacht (yachts pollute much more per passenger), but must feel guilty for our once-a-year plane trip. I feel the pain of climate change, but this must be a shared and planned action, not just a one-off "tells the peasant to don't fly" action: - industries must change (and the aviation industry is creating cleaner engines [1][2]) - industries MUST be regulated (don't expect a corporation to act in the public interest) - better public transport should allow us to leave our cars at home - cities must be planned so we can walk to the store, park, etc [1] http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/airbus-rolls-ultrafan-demonstrator-fly-747-testbed http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/airbus-rolls-ult... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geared_turbofan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geared_turbofan
- candiodari 8y agoBut how else would royalty ever discuss the need for peasants to forego that one plane trip ? I mean, they had to queue ! With only one person per plane. I kid you not ! You know what that's called ? Sacrifice ! http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/03/paris-un-global-warming-summit-at-private-airport/ http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/03/paris-un-global-warming-su...
- melling 8y agoThe article has few details. Considering China’s rise in CO2 emissions to 30%, I’d say industry and the use of coal to generate electricity is a much larger problem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...