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Fighting the right battle against global warming
By | November 14, 2007
LowFlyZone response to Tom Robbins Observer article where he questions the need to halt in the rapid growth in aviation.
His reasoning does not add up. Rather than suggest we back off or somehow water down our efforts at tackling our unsustainable lifestyles, cutting out flying is an important signal in accepting and embracing necessary change. If this years climate camp at heathrow helps some people engage in this process, then surely that is a good thing? Taking a pledge not to fly is something to be supported as a valuable personal contribution.
What Tom Robbins and others promote in their mixed reasoning, unintentionally or otherwise, is a cherry pick approach to reducing our personal CO2 emissions. It does well to remember the difficulty in maintaining the case for change, as made clear in a recent BBC report of the Ipsos Mori poll in which 56% of 2,032 adults interviewed (between 14 and 20 June 2007) believed scientists were still questioning climate change:
There was a feeling the problem was exaggerated to make money, it found.
The Royal Society said most climate scientists believed humans were having an “unprecedented” effect on climate.
The survey suggested that terrorism, graffiti, crime and dog mess were all of more concern than climate change.
The threat of climate change, like Nazism or Nuclear Armageddon before it, is correctly portrayed on a biblical scale. To trivialise the debate on flying by saying it is about ’stopping people going on holiday’ is a gross distortion of what many of us are trying to do. No-one campaigning to reduce CO2 emissions from aviation is suggesting people should stop going on holiday, just not by plane. The rapid growth we are seeing in use of aircraft will, on its own, undoubtedly make a major contribution to further climate change. In the face of such a serious issue it seems that we should all do what we reasonably can to minimise our personal contribution to CO2 emissions and if we have the resources, help others do the same.
Some may argue that because massive growth in aviation seems inevitable and deforestation or emissions from China, India and other rapidly developing nations are ‘bigger’ problems, campaigning on this issue is pointless posturing. Surely the point is however that we take responsibility for our own actions. In the UK, as in much of the developed world, we still have a much greater impact per head than people in China, India or Africa. As a component of this, one long haul return flight would typically represent c. 25% of the average UK citizen’s climate change impact.
There are many initiatives promoting the reduced use of energy through a range of ’small’ behaviour changes such as improved loft insulation, efficent boilers and flourescent light bulbs. If it makes sense for government to exhort us to reduce our use of domestic energy, and impose fiscal incentives for using technology such as hybrid cars, then why should the rapidly growing emissions from aviation be ignored? After all one plane trip from London to Bangkok has more impact on global warming than driving an average car for a whole year and is much easier to avoid.
If we want to tackle climate change then we will need to do many things and learn to live in a different way. Mixing up the debate between the many different issues should not weaken our resolve to change any one aspect. We must for example take urgent steps to prevent deforestation in the tropics, and to assist China to develop ‘clean’ power. But here in the UK, how do we answer the question, what can I do? Deciding to avoid flying is probably the single biggest step most of us can take.
No doubt there are many who have become dependent on tourism, but the point is that development must be sustainable. As long as we continue to justify our polluting activities on the grounds of increased GDP being a good thing we can never tackle climate change. To argue that without tourism there would be no other form of economic activity in its place is surely not correct. We must re-distribute much wealth from the rich nations to the poor, we must pay to conserve the forests of the world and work to protect the environment for future generations, but the impact of climate change is greatest on the poor through factors such as increased drought and flooding, issues that affect hundreds of millions of people now and ever more each year. We must learn to live in a carbon constrained world with explicit targets for how much CO2 we can safely emit. This would inevitably mean far less flying. If one day we find a way of flying that does not emit CO2 on a profligate scale then this would not be the case, but we are nowhere near achieving this and climate change is a problem that we must address now, not in thirty or fifty years time.
Currently we are looking at a rapidly growing contribution to CO2 emissions from aviation. As with other aspects of our lives, this needs to change if we are to do our bit in tackling climate change. How can we criticise a movement which asks us to spend our leisure time in a different way? In truth we may find that spending more time in our local environment, near our family and friends and getting in touch with the world around us improves the quality of our lives, giving a sense of enjoyment which is heightened by the knowledge that we are minimising our impact on other people and the natural world.
Topics: Alternatives to Air Travel, Stop Flying Stories, Topical |