SubscribeAlternatives to air travel
If you pledge not to fly remember, any way to travel is better than air travel when it comes to enjoying the journey and preventing climate change. The obvious choices are by coach, rail and bicycle. Business meetings are now routinely being held virtually – but this is becoming an increasingly viable way of keeping in touch socially, too, with free internet videoconferencing programmes like Skype. Finally, read about the future of social video-conferencing with an account of a virtual baby-shower.
Train
In the UK, Eurostar has woken up to the rapidly growing marketing advantages of highlighting the environmental benefits of travelling to the Continent from the UK by train. They have commissioned research that shows that passengers who fly between London, Paris and Brussels generate ten times more emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) than travellers who go by rail.
Unsurpassed for helping to plan an international rail trip in Europe is The Man in Seat 61, which provides detailed timetables and travel information for the whole of the European rail network, and far beyond. He makes a pledge not to fly seems so easy.
Road
Coaches are by far the best, and cheapest, way to get around by road. National Express in the UK do very cheap deals if you book early, and provide services for many destinations in Europe
If there is really no alternative, it is still better to drive somewhere than to take the plane. It is true that travelling somewhere by car – if there is only one person in a large an inefficient vehicle – can generate more carbon-dioxide, per person, than travelling to the same destination by plane. But because the carbon-dioxide produced by a plane is pumped out higher up in the atmosphere, it has a far more damaging effect. UN estimates suggest that the climate impact of a tonne of carbon-dioxide produced by a plane may be 2.7 times more damaging than the same amount of carbon-dioxide produced at ground-level, by a car.
But, of course, the real carbon savings in holidaying by car come in when you drive to a destination nearer to home, rather than taking the plane somewhere further away.
Cycling
Cycling is of course free of any emissions, keeps you fit and healthy and on those quiet country lanes gives you the best view over the hedgrows. There is an incredible diversity of places to discover by cycling and it combines brilliantly with the train. In the UK Sustrans is doing amazing work to make it easy for people of all ages and fitness to enjoy cycling. Get in touch or write comments if you have more useful information and experience about cycling any where in the world!
Virtually
It’s now free to talk to anyone by video link anywhere in the world via various providers of internet telephone services. Because it’s free, and hands-free), it’s possible to work for long periods of time, with several meeting attendees there ‘in the background’, perhaps looking at and working on the same document. And of course, with a video camera, you can see the people you’re meeting with, too.
It is disappointing that Skype doesn’t seem to have woken up to the environmental marketing potential of their product. But there are alternative services, like Webex, which are selling their product as offering an alternative to flying around the world to meetings. Here you’ll find a testimony from a company which decided to slash its international air travel budget by using internet videoconferencing. The Managing Director expects that their small agency of 16 people will save £10,000 a year on travel and subsistence, and “win back 600 hours previously spent charging around in planes, trains and automobiliesâ€. He concludes: “So go on, if we can do it, anyone can. You’ll find it not only has a pleasant impact on your bottom line but it makes for a far more relaxed, as well as greener, working environment.â€
Increasingly, video conferencing facilities in towns around the world can be hired for one-off meetings. And as the quality of the service improves, the need to ‘look someone in the eye’ when doing business does not have to mean days spent travelling. Flying to business meetings is now looking like a very old fashioned waste of time, money, and nervous energy.
With the Halo Room, DreamWorks Animation and HP are challenging the perception that video-conferencing is just for business-meetings. Here is a Businessweek report on their state-of-the-art video-conferencing facility:
“Teams at HP’s campuses in Corvallis and Rehovat, Israel, held a joint baby shower. And before Halo R&D manager Bill Wickes’ daughter, a grad student at University of Southern California, was married, the family minister performed her mandatory premarital counseling between the Halo rooms in Corvallis and at DreamWorks’ Glendale studio.
“In one part of my brain I knew they weren’t sitting in the room with me, but after the first couple of minutes your brain just adjusts, and you behave as if you’re in the same room,” recalls Reverend Elizabeth Oettinger, senior minister of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Corvallis. “I was able to watch them interact with each other, and all of those kinds of visual and emotional and body-language cues that are so important when you’re conducting a personal conversation were there, and real.”
October 12th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
I can’t believe that “alternatives to air travel” doesn’t include cycling! I have just moved to Sweden and my friend has just moved to Denmark and we both cycled the whole way (from the UK)! We’re both not particularly fit and we don’t wear lycra. What I mean is anyone can do it. There’s no more fun or rewarding way of travelling, especially if you throw couchsurfing into the mix.
October 12th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Thank’s James,
I can’t believe it either! What were we thinking missing something so obvious. I love cycling and in the UK the work of Sustrans in developing the national cycle network has made it so much more practical and accessible for thousands of people of all ages and at all levels of fitness.
Check out http://www.sustrans.org.uk/
One of my first holidays in France when I was 17, I fell in love with a girl who was cycling and catching the train all over Europe. She described the amazing time she had and I have loved cycling ever since.
October 20th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
I would be interested in opinions, factual information on the carbon impact of ferries. I’ve read that this form of travel is pretty much as bad as flying (other than that fact it is not noise polluting).
June 15th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I’m guilty of travelling a great deal by on my own car, but my work requires it.
As for holidays, there are two further answers to the accusations that cars are more polluting than aeroplanes. 1) When we travel as a family, four of us share the car. 2) The nature of the car limits the distance you can feasibly travel. We have never travelled further than the Dordogne, 800km from Calais. More frequently we stay in the UK: Cornwall, Cumbria, this year Brixham. And it’s great!