Enjoy the simple life

You can’t help hearing about climate change these days… It’s everywhere. Live Earth, documentaries, politics. In fashion speech, climate change is the new black.

But what to do about it? We’ve been told we can become more environmentally friendly by making changes to our lifestyle by recycling, walking instead of taking the car, and holidaying locally instead of abroad. In a turn towards conscious consumerism, people are now also buying ‘green’: ‘green’ food with a low carbon footprint, ‘green’ cars with lower carbon emissions, ‘green’ clothing and bags which are made from sustainable materials. All commendable actions. However, I fear that the whole conversation about climate changes misses one fundamental and crucial point. That is, that the exponential change in the environment over recent years is due to increasing human consumption. We eat more, buy more, own more, travel more and do everything on an exponentially larger scale these days. Quite frankly, the solution is not to buy ‘green’, but simply not to buy unless necessary. Don’t buy a green car – get rid of the car. Don’t buy a green handbag – do not buy the handbag at all.

The real solution to climate change is in going back to basics and focussing on our needs instead of our wants. Does anyone really need a brand new, 5 litre engine BMW? Do anyone really need to fly all the way around the world on holiday in order to spend quality with their kids? Nice as these things are, unfortunately they are luxuries which put an extra burden on the earth’s resources. Modern-day Western society is a consumerist one. We are encouraged to buy as much as we possibly can. On a daily basis, we are fed messages through advertising and media that we are only as good as our latest possession or purchase.

As other parts of the world – China for example – become more developed, and inevitably latch on to the ‘all you can own’ mentality of the West, consuming will continue to increase and the effects of climate change will become even more destructive. In order to combat climate change, there needs to be an about-turn in our cultural and societal values. This will mean a turn towards simplicity, contentment with what we have, with getting the most out of the many things that we do currently own. However, this is the anthithesis of consumerism, which is at the heart of Western society, and is a powerful economic driving force. I personally do not see consumerism and a healthy environment as being compatible. Even ‘conscious’ consumerism is still consumerism and results in environmental damage. At present, schemes like ‘offsetting’ – which allow you to ‘compensate’ for your carbon emissions by doing things such as planting trees – are nothing more than ways in which people can continue to live the way that have always done and alleviate their guilt by buying their way out of it.

There has been much talk about simplying lifestyles. That is precisely what needs to be done. But it involves a significant and profound change in our mindsets, which has to be led by those who actually want our money in the first place, since they also spend so much of their resources on convincing us that we are natural born shoppers . The question is – would they be willing to do this since they may experience a direct loss in business/trade over time? I’m not so sure. I’m no saint believe me. I clocked up over 100,000 airmiles last year and am pretty sure I have a huge carbon footprint. But I have been thinking about this more and more, and living from an ‘attitude of gratitude’ to me seems to be the way forward in doing my part towards saving the earth…

I’d love to see our society adopt an attitude of gratitude anyway, because I don’t think a consumerist mindset is a healthy one simply because it encourages you to feel dissatisfied with what you have, and to continually seek to fill internal needs with external wants. But until this cultural/societal mind-shift occurs, I doubt any significant progress in reducing the way the climate is changing will be made.

Route planning around South Island, NZ

It’s been over two months now since I left the UK with my backpack, bound for New Zealand. Last time I took a trip of this length my camera would only take 24 photos before it needed a new film, everyone travelled on round-the-world tickets, internet cafes used dial-up connections and carbon offsetting didn’t exist. How things have changed. Now I can take a virtually limitless amount of photos, book one-way tickets on low-cost airlines whenever I decide on a date, wireless internet connections are everywhere, and the environment is everyone’s concern.

This trip was always going to be made on a tight budget, but I had the best of intentions to minimise my carbon footprint as I travel. It turns out that the best intentions just aren’t enough when faced with cheap air travel with proliferant low-cost operators. The UK has Easyjet and Ryan Air. Australia and New Zealand have Virgin Blue, Tiger Airways and Jetstar. Malaysia has Air Asia. My next flight will be from Jakarta, Indonesia to Kota Kinabalau, Malaysia and will cost less than US$30.

Along with reducing the number of flights I take, Carbon Offsetting was also high on my priority list when I left the UK, but as my funds have dwindled it seems less and less likely that I will voluntarily pay money to do this. When I booked my flight from Sydney to Bali with Jetstar last week I even opted not to pay the extra $7 to offset my emissions. That’s 2 hrs of internet time in my new cost-conscious world. I’ve found it remarkably easy over the last year or so to write about our need to offset carbon emissions, travel slowly and shun short-haul air travel, but in reality budget travel decisons are much more driven by cost than environmental concerns. It takes a very hard headed individual to reject travel opportunities in favour of ‘doing their bit’ for the environment. It is on this basis that environmental concerns must be addressed by corporate and government bodies and not left open to consumer choice.

Carbon offsetting fees should not be optional, they should be included in the cost of a ticket.

The environmental cost of travel

Travelling internationally means long distance journeys, and if we’re honest, journeys by air.

For ease of use and minimum travelling time this form of transport wins hands down. Increasing attention is being given to ‘slow travel’, celebrating the romance and rewards of a low-carbon journey by land or sea, and this option seems to be the obvious choice for cleansing our eco-conscience where time is of low regard, and distances are relatively small. For many of us though who crave the exotic far flung corners of the globe air travel is the reality that we are faced with. How can we balance this international curiosity with our concern for the environment?

Offsetting carbon costs through organisations such as Climate Care that run and develop carbon saving projects to compensate for your extravagance is one option. Although the credibility and consistency of companies offering this service has recently been proved inconsistent. ( read more at Times Online» )

Hopefully by the autumn The Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will have a quality mark established to standardize the calculations used by these initiatives.

Carbon rationing is another suggestion that enables individual carbon allowances to be traded, so that over-producers can distribute their footprints across the ‘carbon accounts’ of those not exhausting their allowance.

What about Hot Air baloons?

It is the ditching of short-haul trips where an alternative means of transport is available to us that could probably eleviate the environmental effects of air travel.

Flying London to Glasgow, a distance of some 500 miles will produce up to 6 times more CO2 per kilometre travelled than making the same trip by train.

Aviation Passenger Duty incorporated into ticket prices raises £800 million/yr, yet climate change costs are around £1.4 billion/yr, which means that the UK aviation industry only covers around 50% of the climate change costs it generates. Airlines are responsible for far more pollution than they are held accountable for.
Climate Care offer a service where you can pay to offset the carbon emissions for your travels. They will then use this money to help fund sustainable energy projects.