Recently we were eating pizza with a family member who was telling us all about his future travel plans. Pete mentioned the environmental impact of flying, and was bluntly told that our guest didn’t give a damn. We were a little bit taken aback.
Call me egocentric, but every so often I am surprised when an intelligent adult doesn’t consider it important at least to attempt to live an ecologically sustainable lifestyle, in whatever little ways are possible for them. I’m not on a crusade to make everyone recycle their own bathwater, but there are so many small things that really don’t hurt – like only boiling the water you need – that I find it astonishing, and get all confused. How can you not care about climate change, landfill, pollution, resources? How can you argue that there’s no point in one person trying to make a difference, because no-one else will? In the developed world, and the 21st Century, we all want a little bit of luxury and convenience (unless you live in a forest), and so we prioritise and compromise where necessary. We wouldn’t dream of not using washable nappies, for example; but have got a stock of [eco]-disposables to get us through the first difficult days of parenthood. Likewise, since we already have one relatively under-utilised car, I don’t consider it to make financial or environmental sense to buy another one just to drive to the station a few times a week. This isn’t ecological martyrdom, just the way I want to live.
The New Big Thing is carbon offsetting, whereby you pay a small fee to a charity-type organisation, in order to balance CO2 emissions from travel or other use of resources. According to a little light research I have done this morning, a return transatlantic flight produces about two tonnes of CO2 per passenger. For a small amount, which seems to vary from about £2.50 for a european flight, to about £25 for a return to Sydney, you can buy a clean conscience and apparently a cleaner world as well.
The credits you buy or the donations you make can be used for various sustainability projects such as forestry, renewable energy, etc in disadvantaged areas of popular tourist destinations. The idea of planting trees is to do something that will physically affect the balance of CO2 [biological sciency part should go here, but I was never very good at that sort of thing].
This seems like an efficient and easy way to solve the entire problem, doesn’t it? The fee could be added as a tax to the cost of air travel, or incorporated into your travel insurance. At present it’s a voluntary thing, however, and is not exactly taking off. People won’t voluntarily pay a green fee, for a start; the NO THANKS button is only a click away, and soon forgotten about. Of course it’s possible that travellers have also considered the matter in great depth, and realised that it isn’t actually that simple.
Fly less, buy less, regulate polluters and support communities affected by pollution and climate change. The real solution to climate change is social change.
There are a number of problems with offsetting, not least the distraction from the fact that the CO2 will be emitted anyway, whether you pay a tax or not; instead we should be considering whether or not it is necessary to make that journey, or look at actual things we can do to balance the impact we are having on the environment. The risk in paying a fee to someone is the lack of accountability; how much of your money actually goes to the sustainability project, and how much of it is lost in admin and backhanders? Wouldn’t it be better to encourage tourists to behave in a more environmentally acceptable manner once they reach their destination? Eat locally produced food, and make sure some of your tourist dollars reach the local economy rather than just being returned to the travel company. Switch off the lights when you leave your hotel room. Don’t get your bath towels changed daily. Take the bus or even better hire a bicycle instead of a car.
Another difficulty that I see is that paying a premium to travel greener will just create another Fairtrade-style brand, aimed at the middle class conscience. It’s a choice that will only be made by people who can afford it, and a potential profit-maker for travel and insurance companies and airlines; not necessarily because they will charge a little extra just for themselves, but because they may attract the more ecologically discerning traveller. You know the sort: broadsheet reader, likes a little comfort with their local colour, has a little bit extra in their pocket for the slightly better seat and the slightly nicer hotel. Don’t get mad, I’m potentially one of them.
And don’t forget that there is more to reducing your carbon footprint than forgoing your annual trip to Marbella; there are benefits to travel in terms of experience and relaxation that don’t have to be compromised out of the system. The average emissions per person in the UK is currently just under 11,000kg per year; and environmentalists say that we need to reduce this to 2,500kg per year to stop global warming. We need a much wider focus than the quick fix offered by carbon offsetting: here are some ways to get started.
My brother and sister-in-law have decided that they owe it to the planet to stay at home having done NZ and back – and caused other people to do NZ and back. The trouble is, I know that they are utterly car-dependent – admittedly Brother gets off an technicality for being a semi-rural GP. And one of their cars could hardly be described as small.
I know my logic doesn’t stack up in the medium or long term (supply v demand) , but I tend to think that if I’m getting on a plane it’s going anyway, so my marginal carbon contribution is non-existent. Whereas, we only use the car for the supermarket run, all other journeys done by public transport, and the occasional taxi (bad).
Probably because it suits me, I’m more likely to lecture people about needless car use and barbecues than I am about an occasional flight.
How well prepared are businesses for climate change? How well prepared are insurers? It’s going have a massive impact on the bottom line of insurers warns Lloyds of London in a new report. Read more at :
http://www.soxfirst.com/50226711/business_and_climate_change.php
The whole car use thing is very difficult. In my part of the world, having a house near a railway station adds tens of thousands to the purchase price, so having a second car and using it becomes the only realistic alternative (bus? what bus? once a day in each direction is not a useful bus service – besides which, our local routes are all push-chair prohibited, believe it or not). Running two small cars which are reasonably fuel-efficient is a useful step, but in this instance carbon-offsetting could be a good idea (although we struggle already with the costs of getting about). And we can’t afford a Prius (a modern diesel is more efficient than the best combination fuel car anyway).
To reduce my driving, I use technology (email and the good old phone) to talk to my clients without actually going and seeing them. But sometimes I have to go and visit them (plants can’t be sent down a wire – not yet, anyway), and then it is the car, plane and ferry that see me. I travel to the Netherlands a lot, but the ferry from Harwich is not always practical so I sometimes take the plane from Gatwick – I guess it’s a 50-50 split between the two modes. My point is that for business use, carbon reduction by reducing consumption is not always practical, so again offsetting might be useful.
I share your worries about the usefulness and real benefit of offsetting and I want to look into it more before I choose a scheme for my business to sign up to. I want to know what the money will be spent on (sorry, but planting a few trees doesn’t swing it for me – in my industry, we see lots of admirable tree-planting efforts that are dead within two years because there is no management to follow the initial fanfare) and how much of the money is lost in admin (and taxation – Gordon Brown will want his slice). If I find any useful information or articles, I’ll send a link to you/post it here.
Perhaps an increase in fuel levies would help – particularly if the money was ring-fenced for use in environmental programmes and for funding research in cleaner technologies (which is a much better idea than tree planting as it actually reduces emissions – but the Universities don’t seem to get the cash, so the research doesn’t happen). But you have to look at the wider picture – if the UK were to increase fuel and air travel taxes, the airlines would switch to Schiphol or Charles de Gaulle or some other hub which didn’t impose those duties. City and national governments are desperate to get airlines to come to them (witness French provincial airports falling over themselves to get easyJet or Ryanair flights) because of the tourism and business monies that that brings with it. So to raise taxes for one nation alone would not change things very much, just provide a regional distortion (sorry Ming – your plan is flawed).
In short, I reckon this is a really complex issue. But I think you are right that if we all do a little bit, we will make a difference – but the little bits that we can do are likely to vary from family to family according to circumstances and means.
Absolutely – I’m not demanding that people don’t go on holiday, and I do understand that lots of business travel is necessary. I think if I had my own company I would look for my own way of offsetting, rather than entrusting money to some random, unaccountable party to do one-off good deeds with, and not know that they were followed up. You could use one of the offsetting calculators to work out how much you would pay, and then plant your own trees, or whatever makes sense to you.
Yes, everyone’s little bit would be different. But if everyone did a little bit, that would be such a lot. While offsetting is a bandwagon, people will jump on it, but what happens when the next bandwagon comes along?
Whilst I agree with your sentiment, I would probably fall into the category as your friend. I know you’re right, but change takes effort and I’m lazy.
I don’t mind paying so much through taxes and surcharges and other things to fix things, but that is mainly because I’m fortunate enough to be able to afford it, but I also pay for these things because by the same respect I’m to lazy to not pay for them, if that makes sense.
The problem is I just don’t feel the emotional response you do. I know I’m not in the right, but if I go on holiday the plane flies and I just don’t feel any emotional impact to the carbon impact. I’ll pretty much always take the option that suits me, and that’s my value criteria.
At the end of the day give me a choice between a Ferrari and Prirus or the choice between a holiday in Sydney and one in Brighton I’ll take the Ferrari and the 28 hour flight to Sydney and feel no guilt. Because the Ferrari and Sydney are nicer (for me), than the consequences which I just don’t have an emotional reaction to.
I have issue’s I am passionate about and I care about and I do change my behaviour over. The difference is that I have an emotional response to them. No matter how much you intellectually explain to me why I’m wrong, I know I’m wrong. It doesn’t change my emotional response and that’s the problem.
How you create or change that emotional response I don’t know. My parents and brother are all environmentally friendly and have a far great social concince than me, so it’s not my upbringing.
2 aside. I debated posting this, since all it does is make me look bad, which is fair enough I am in the wrong. But I thought I would post it anyway. Two sides and all that.
Secondly after my brother did his masters in recycling (and is now an environmental engineer (brothers probably less like to go to hell than I am)), I’m far more aware of the social selling point of something’s (like recycling) and the reality where it is often not better for the environment, just your guilt. Is someone who recycles religiously and feels good about themselves, any better than someone who doesn’t give a crap, knows it’s bad, but has the same or marginally different environmental impact. Appeasing your guilt is not a solution, if it doesn’t improve anything.
Aside 3 (I know I said two but), in the above point where I say “you” and “your” I don’t actually mean you and Pete who actually do a lot of research and know what you are talking about and know the true and practicle value.I have the utmost respect for how you conduct your lives, twice as much because you give a damn I can’t be bothered. If I was like you, the world would be a better place (because more people are like me than you). The world is fucked while their are more me’s than you’s.
Is someone who recycles religiously and feels good about themselves, any better than someone who doesn’t give a crap, knows it’s bad, but has the same or marginally different environmental impact
No, they’re not. But if the person who doesn’t recycle has no worse environmental impact than the person who does, why are they beating themselves up about it?
But come on, Adrian, you can do the kettle thing, can’t you? For me?
Adrian and the "you" thing – I need to say that too, sometimes. Perhaps we should write "one" instead, even if we end up sound like The Queen.
One declares that one should start using one hereinafter, and with immediate effect.
I’m not saying recycling has no impact on the environment, I’m saying that a lot of recycling has a low or marginal impact on the environment, and primary purpose seems to make people feel good about themselves.
I don’t really drink tea, and when I boil the kettle (mainly for pasta) I use about as much water as is needed. I also don’t prewash dishes before using the dishwasher and full the dishwasher up through the week. It’s hardly doing all that much though.
On the plus side as a family the Sevitz’s balance out, and I’d like to think that counts for something.
My dad builds water and sewage treatment plants. My bother is an environmental engineer. I don’t dispose of nuclear waste in an unsafe manner.
If everybody in this country recycled all their glass, metal, plastic and paper, don’t you think that it would have a pretty fucking huge impact on the environment?
Not necessary.
Take shopping bags for example. Above a certain weight (actually thickness) they are worth recycling. Below a certain weight they are not. The amount of energy and chemicals you put into the recycling has a higher environmental cost than the value of the recycling. I don’t have all the numbers on this, but my brother wrote a big whopping thesis on it, and has explained it to me so that I might understand it, but not so much that I can explain it. The same applies to metals and glass and paper, their are points where recycling has value and points where it doesn’t. But it’s complex to sort out the stuff that has less value form the stuff that has more. And it’s not something that makes good political appearces, good news sound bytes. And people like to feel they are doing good and not that their shopping bags aren’t worth recycling.
Also that the cost of recycling doesn’t take into account the effects of putting all the garbage to be recycling into trucks and moving it around the place, and a ton of other costs including things like the costs to produce the chemicals needed in recycling and the cost of getting those chemicals to the plants etc etc. And by cost I mean environmental cost non necessarily monetary cost.
All I am saying is that recycling is not necessarily as good as the sound byte makes it sound, and there are more things to look at, not that all of recycling is bad.
I think if people forced the government and produces to change the way goods are packaged (a biscuit in a wrapper in a box with two plastic trays in a big box with 5 small boxes in a carton with 5 boxes in a crate with 100 cartons etc etc) we could reduce a lot more waste and have a huge impact on the environment. If you look at environmental engineering, if you have hit the point of needing to recycle your mostly fucked anyway. There are four stages (if I recall correctly) before recycling to improve things. Recycling is the last stage you hit after you’ve messed up all the others.
I’m not having a go at anyone for recycling, just saying it’s more complex that’s all.
Here’s just a point of interest not a counter point. Equating Prius hybrids and Fluorescent light bulbs
In amongst all this violent agreeing there is the small point that education is still the key. If we still have idiots who don’t “care” about these things then ANY scheme will fail.
Ohh and for the record I think the carbon offsetting thing is ace and we’ve been trying various ways to improve our ‘rating’.
Oi! Shut up, Gordon! We don’t want your sort here! "Agreeing", indeed. Huh!
Seriously, I agree in part with Adrian about recycling and reduction – I’ve read a couple of very thorough analyses of recycling that suggest that the energy used and transportation impact really make it just about as damaging as using new product every time. And, to answer Pete, if everyone recycled all their recyclables, there’d be an even bigger pile of unused recycled material than there is now – we need everyone to buy recycled too.
I think that education will go part way – most kids seem much more environmentally savvy than we were when we were at school – but ultimately it will be market forces that will change things. I think that we are seeing the first changes in the market, but it will be a little while yet before massive change occurs. Legislation sounds a nice idea, but this government meddles too much already and I wonder if such legislation is really practicable. Does packaging legislation exist in other countries?
Forgot to add – the thing which is usually excluded from the analyses of recycling is the fact that recycling drastically reduces landfill – which is why our family recycles as much as we can. Our local council is now achieving 55% recycling (45% landfill/incinerated) – this according to a notice at our local recycling point – not good enough, but not a bad start.
Of course, if people could manage to take some canvas bags when they went shopping nobody would need those anooyingly thin apparently unworthy of recycling plastic bags at all…though I entirely agree about unnecessary packaging; there is nothing that gets me ranting around my kitchen faster than a packet of biscuits wrapped 4 times.
I’m glad we’re having this interesting discussion about recycling, although I don’t think I did suggest it as the best alternative in my original post. Without a doubt, the reduce/re-use option comes first, although minimising landfill is also a compelling argument (hence washable nappies, plus we re-use supermarket plastic bags when we go back to the shop, which is fun because we’re not supermarket-loyal at all and sometimes they look at you a bit funny when you get your Morrisons bags out in Waitrose).
As Graybo said in an earlier comment, people will choose the areas that they want to make a difference in, and some will choose more than others. I suppose I am saying that those who choose to do more are better people, but Adrian is right, that’s because I feel very strongly about it. However, it’s not all about my conscience or feeling smug, and I think that goes for a lot of people – I simply want the world to be a better, tidier, greener place – because it’s nicer for me and it will be nicer for my child to grow up in. I don’t drop litter: not because it would make me feel guilty (although it might), but because it will look a mess, and there’s no need, and it costs me no particular effort to take my litter to the nearest bin (or recycling point, haha).
Adrian, you’re suggesting that responsible behaviour is only motivated by guilt. I’m going to have to disagree with you there. (Sorry Gordon, Graybo’s right. There’s been far too much agreement around here!)
I was going to say something really profound about recycling, but I was running late for work and now I can’t remember what it was.
However…another thing to bare in mind. Recycling isn’t just about reducing energy consumption and reducing landfill. It’s also about ensuring continual supply of resources. Materials only exist in finite quantities.
That’s another good point, and the fact that you all agree with each other so passionately is just lovely. I do want to draw your attention, though, to the fact that the only recycling I mentioned in the original post was the recycling of bathwater, which is quite a different matter altogether. And I did say I wasn’t going to force you all to do it…!
As someone now recycling about 60% (which will become 70-80% in 6 weeks time when the builders have done) of our greywater rather than let it run away into the septic tank, may I thoroughly recommend it? I’ll get round to describing how soon… (and we’re not doing fancy filtration and storage either).
And, not recycling is not an option. There are EU taxes/fines coming on councils who fail to cut their disposal to landfill to defined levels. Many resources are, as Clair says, finite.
To people who can’t be arsed to recycle I say one thing. The next landill site should be built near YOUR house. Would that change your mind?
Councils will be undoubtedly start charging for the removal of waste to landill in the next 10 years, just as they already do in eg many counties in California. Your refuse is weighed as it goes into the rubbish truck, and you are billed accordingly. This is the only fair way forward.
In the area where I live, the people worst at recycling are frequnetly those with young children (just see what is outside people’s homes on rubbish day!). To them I say, why do I bother recycling so your children can still enjoy the planet when you can’t even be bothered to sort your paper, plastics, tins and cardboard from the rest of your rubbish?
The WI are having an anti-packaging day on June 20th. Major supermarkets will be picketed – well… leaflets will be handed out. It’s not the Government’s responsibility to stop over-packaging, it’s the supermarkets. After all, manufacturers only supply produce as supermarket buyers tell them to.
Lisa, I keep all (most, not the ones smelling of fish) my shopping bags and reuse them for other things. Although this is less altruistic than it sounds as empty shopping bags are really useful for things like putting shoes in when going on holiday (on planes)
Karen, I in know what was implying you are socially conscious to feel smug or appeased guilt. I know you do the research and actually understand all or most of the other impacts, and don’t just do something that makes you feel better. However a lot of other people do. I fully admit that you are a better person than me. I’m not trying to say that my attitude is good, but just that it is what it is. I’m selfish, you’re not. I didn’t mean to imply that responsible behavior is only motivated by guilt, just that it’s often more done so that someone feels better rather than any genuine altruistic notion. Not always and not even by majority. Just that it’s not always not motivated by guilt either.
Clair, energy also exists in finite quantities, and recycling consumers a lot of it. As do other things that may be needed for recycling. Sometimes landfills are a better option, and ultimately degradable substances are better than recycling.
I was just using recycling as an example because I know a little more about it. If you find me a girlfriend I’ll try be more economical on water by insisting we shower together. Although the showers may take longer …
Adrian, for goodness sake, I’m not demanding that you admit I’m a better person than you. I already know I am
And I don’t really think it’s altruism, either – in fact I don’t think it’s remotely selfless of me to want a better planet at the cost of your next mobile phone upgrade/ski holiday/fast car.
Re-using your plastic bags is a really good example of doing the right thing because it makes sense – that’s exactly what I’m getting at.
Do you know, at the end of the day I don’t give a monkeys whether somebody recycles for one-upmanship over their neighbours, or because they are informed and have a social conscience, or because they are worried about fines otherwise: I just care that it’s done.
You know you are a better person, but do you know that I know that?
See it’s ok for you to want a better planet at the cost of my next ski holiday, but I would rather have the ski holiday. Part of this is selfishness, and part of this is utmost faith in our ability to solve problems via science. It’s a cop out I know. Although I do have a lot of faith in humans ingenuity when pushed.
As for re-using plastic bags. I don’t do this because it’s the right thing or because it makes sense, but because I need plastic bags for things. I do it because it’s useful.
Ultimately I think economics will cause change far more than anything else. In SA you have to pay 5p or what not for every plastic bag at the shops. The more you do this the more people reuse plastic bags. Double the price of water and people will use less in a kettle and shower more. Make food flown in from Brazil 5 times the price and people will buy less. Economics affects peoples behaviour more than anything else.
The question is, can you get enough governments to be smart enough to manipulate the economics for long term growth and sustainability (i.e. not the current US administration) as opposed to letting things get so bad that market conditions determine change anyway.
Alternatively we could just try teach our kids to be better than we are. Or in my case, I could try teach your kids.
“…part of this is utmost faith in our ability to solve problems via science.”
Ah, the old “someone should do something about it” mentality.
Maybe you are science. Maybe recycling is the scientific solution.
It sounds like your idea of science involves breaking the laws of physics.
“And then we press this button here, see, and energy is created out of nowhere! We’re all saved!”
As for re-using plastic bags. I don’t do this because it’s the right thing or because it makes sense, but because I need plastic bags for things. I do it because it’s useful.
What exactly is the difference? This is precisely what I mean by making sense – you are re-using the resource, which is better than recycling it. You claim to be far too selfish to protect the environment, but in your comments you’ve given countless examples of the things you do, which backs up Graybo’s point, that everyone does their bit in different ways. Sorry, Adrian, but you’re greener than you want to be.