All of us travel to some extent – whether we walk, run, skip, hop, bike, skate, drive, fly, glide or sail… and we’re constantly made aware of the environmental implications of travel choices.
There is certainly a big issue of pollution caused by air travel, and cars are a serious consumer of oil based products, as well as producer of polluting fumes.
But how can we practically make an impact when most of us live lives which are dependant on transport in one way or another?
First steps.
Let’s begin with the obvious – we should all walk, run and bike more than we do currently. According to the department of transport, 25% of the UK’s CO2 emmissions are caused by transport.
Most of the time this is down to leaving ourselves enough time to get to places. From my house the centre of town is perhaps a mile away. A mile is an easy walk or cycle, but if I dont leave myself enough time… then I want to drive!
If we can just try and think in terms of walking rather than driving, then we can significantly cut down our car use. The other problem that stops people walking seems to be the fear of getting cold or wet… come on… how bad can it be?
Driving.
Practical things you can do with your car to lessen your emissions – firstly you can drive more slowly, or more importantly drive more sensibly. It’s estimated that you use about 25% more fuel driving over 70mph than you do by driving at 50mph. That’s a considerable amount! But that isn’t all. The most polluting speed to do is anything under 15mph… yeah that’s right, crawler speed. The slow crawl through the city in rush hour is the worst thing we can do in terms of emissions. Another problem is erratic driving – the kind of thing we do when we’re stressed. Zooming from traffic lights – only to get held up at the next one, that kind of thing involves lots of acceleration, lots of braking… much better in terms of pollution to drive at a constant sensible speed.
Obvious other things you can do – keep your windows up, and dont use air con – it really drains the fuel! If you think you’re going to be in one place for more than a couple of minutes, then turn your engine off – dont leave it idling.
One of the most important things we can do is keep the vehicle in good condition, having your car regularly serviced and keeping on top of repairs really does impact the amount of pollution that the car produces. So it’s best to keep on top of that side of things.
Other things worth pointing out – 4X4’s are bigger polluters than your standard hatchback family car… it’s often possible to operate some kind of informal care sharing, or lift sharing scheme with friends and colleagues. The less we have one person in a car by themselves, the better!
Various websites have advice on ways to minimise your impact when driving – this is an example, but you’ll find lots of others.
Car pooling and public transport.
There are a number of places you can sign up to car share or lift share – they include liftshare.org and national car share which both exist to help people use car pooling networks. Plenty others too if you care to look.
Trains and buses are much better options in regards to emissions, because they transport people en masse – and dont go from door to door (usually). Where we can choose to travel by bus or train that is definitely preferable than by car!
Flying.
I get a lot of people asking me about flying, this is partly because I fly a reasonable amount, as do many of the people I work with. The question is whether flying is an ok thing to do… well basically it isnt.
The best article I have read about flying is this one by George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian. Monbiot points out the irony that many of us who are so keen to save the environment are those who have travelled extensively! Include both him and me in that equasion.
Before I go on to add any caveats to the equasion, read what he has to say about why flying is a bad thing…
“There are two reasons why flying dwarfs any other environmental impact a single person can exert. The first is the distance it permits us to cover. According to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, the carbon emissions per passenger mile “for a fully loaded cruising airliner are comparable to a passenger car carrying three or four people”. In other words, they are about half those, per person, of a car containing the average loading of 1.56 people. But while the mean distance travelled by car in the UK is 9,200 miles per year, in a plane we can beat that in one day. On a return flight from London to New York, every passenger produces roughly 1.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide: the very quantity we will each be entitled to emit in a year once the necessary cut in emissions has been made.
The second reason is that the climate impact of aeroplanes is not confined to the carbon they produce. They release several different kinds of gases and particles. Some of them cool the planet, others warm it. In the upper tropo-sphere, where most large planes fly, hot, wet air from the jet engine exhaust mixes with cold air. As the moisture condenses, it can form “contrails”, which in turn appear to give rise to cirrus clouds – those high wispy formations of ice crystals sometimes known as “horsetails”. While they reflect some of the sun’s heat back into the space, they also trap heat in the atmosphere, especially at night; the heat trapping seems to be the stronger effect. The overall impact, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is a warming effect 2.7 times that of the carbon dioxide alone.”
Wow! That’s pretty hardcore – we need to take some serious care when considering flying to places. There are cases though when flying is necessary – in particular when it is part of a relationship – two people or groups of people separated by a huge distance, we need to acknowledge the rightness of using air travel to keep that relationship(s) alive.
Secondly, people who have to fly in order to help others. My dad works for a Leprosy charity, he spends a huge amount of time flying to other countries, where he is able to imapct the lives of many thousands of people through teaching and advice which he couldnt give from a distance. Sometimes we simply have to travel by plane.
The key is moderation – lets not fly unecessarily… taking that cheap flight over to America for a short break, hopping down to the south of spain for a crafty week in the sun…
The bio fuels debate.
Going on to another area of debate – bio fuels. A lot of people get very excited about bio fuels, some see them as the answer which will solve our impending oil crisis, others see bio fuels as the worst thing ever. Why this discrepancy?
The main problem is that bio fuels are grown where food crops could have been grown, so if a grain cropis used to make bio fuel, then that means less grain for others who need to eat it. Result – higher prices for those who still want grain to eat, this is the situation in Mexico at the moment, where the blame for the so called ‘Tortilla crisis’ is being laid at the feet of the bio fuels lobby.
The argument goes that because maize is in high demand for ethanol production, prices for maize have shot up. There is some dispute about this – with some parties pointing to a poor maize harvest being a significant factor in the soaring prices, but let’s be clear, if all the maize that has been grown for bio fuel was available for consumption, then there would not be this problem.
In march of this year, George Monbiot (him again!) suggested a five year freeze in the production of bio fuel, while the impact on the poor is properly assessed, perhaps one of the most sensible suggestions made thus far.
This kind of bio fuel should not be confused with the kind of bio diesel one can make in the back yard. There is great mileage in collecting old cooking oil and turning it into bio diesel, just ensure you know what you’re doing, and that your car is suitably adapted!
Attitude is key.
The key – in my opinion is attitude. If we can approach all of this with the attitude of – how can I least negatively impact the planet/other people and work on that basis, we will do well enough. Everything we do has some negative impact, even walking can be damaging… (if you wear shoes or walk on tarmac for instance) but taking the approach of conciously working to minimise our impact is the best thing.
Of course attitude is only worth something if we take the steps that go along with it – there’s no point in being ‘pro green’ if we arent ready to make lifestyle changes. But if we do that, we’ll find ourselves walking and riding more, flying and driving less.
