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Racing Green Endurance hits the road to Paris

The Racing Green Endurance team comprises 11 students and staff from the Energy Futures Lab, Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Engineering departments of Imperial College London.

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My year without flying (thanks to the outstanding Argentinian buses)

Argentinian long-distance bus / Flickr photo by Sheep 'R' Us

When I took my trip home to England for Christmas, I realised it was the first time I boarded a plane in over a year.

I shouldn’t have been that surprised. One of the reasons I decided to base myself in South America was so I could do more overland travel and fly less. This turned out to be even easier than I thought. Last year I mangaged to travel extensively across Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. Once even I hopped to Patagonia for the weekend.

It’s all down to the good, old long-distance bus. Admittedly those in Bolivia and Peru were a little lacking, but Argentina’s system is – as countless travellers in South America have discovered – outstanding.

Continue reading this article @ Going local travel

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What happened to that hole in the ozone layer?

Carbon emissions have taken over our environmental consciousness with such effect that other more local environmental toxins have become largely ignored. So much moral posturing goes on these days, surely any company worth its salt and operating with true environmental concerns will be focusing on more than just reducing carbon emissions

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Conservelopment

Balancing conservation and development

Conservation and development have long been seen as arch rivals, neither accommodating the other in a bid for the upper hand. In order to conserve, barriers must be erected and access to the resources that are to be preserved must be controlled. In order to develop, space must be cleared for the erection of infrastructures to accommodate a growing population. It seems that you can’t have one with the other, or can you?

Is there a way to enhance the social situation whilst conserving the natural environment? Can people find a way to co-exist with nature and still increase standards of living? Since the Industrial Revolution it has been accepted that where there is development there is environmental degradation. Take China’s massive growth phase – it is already the second most energy consuming nation on earth and looks set to increase its draw on resources by 5% each year (http://www.eia.doe.gov/).

We cannot feasibly ask these developing mega-nations to forsake the short-term benefits of rapid growth in order to prevent environmental damage. A report published from the IPCC shows that those forecast to be worst effected by the effects of climate change will be developing nations anyway, so it is a little unfair perhaps to start blaming them for the damage being caused. Developed nations were not called to account during their era of major industrial expansion so cannot reasonably impose sanctions on other nations as they begin their development. It does mean, however, that we can lead by example.

It is true to say that money makes the world go round and to ensure that the environment has a chance of fighting back against the onslaught of industrial development we need to show that environmental protection itself enhances economic benefits. It takes a lot of lateral thinking to work out how this can be done effectively, and as soon as consumers start seriously demanding more environmental responsibility from their producers, multi-national corporations will start to listen.

Tourism is the largest industry in the world and does not look to be subsiding any time soon. Even with the recent publication of the IPCC’s report about climate change, human behaviour will not be immediately influenced and people will continue to fly for business and leisure, simply laden with more guilt.

So what is ‘responsible travel’ (RT) and what does the term even mean? RT is basically a way of travelling that is both socially and environmentally respectful, and until recently the travel industry has been held to relatively little account for the impacts it has on destinations. The concept of RT revolves around ensuring that you maximise social benefits when you travel whilst minimising environmental damage. One way of doing this is to ensure that any money spent by travellers goes direct to the local people providing the services, anything from accommodation and meals to excursions and treks. Money spent locally, brings social benefits that lead to development opportunities, but what about the conservation aspect?

The term ‘ecotourism’ has lost much of its meaning as it is now used to communicate a host of different travel-related ideas. But consider it as meaning travel that involves an appreciation of nature, perhaps in visiting reserves, ecolodges, conservation projects, working sustainable farms and similar ‘ and it begins to offer the conservation element of RT. Suddenly the natural environment becomes a valuable commodity as travellers pay big money to have the ecotourism experience. Whether it’s silverback gorillas or a rare orchid species, someone will pay money to see what that destination has to offer. It is in the interests of the community to preserve their most treasured natural possessions and to ensure that they are available for the next group of travellers to experience.

If you can plant the seeds of environmental responsibility in the thoughts of the traveller you can open their minds to the challenges faced by the countries they visit, even encourage them to get involved in community projects. An ancient Chinese proverb gets this point across much better than I can

“Tell me, I will forget;
Show me, I may remember;
Involve me, I will learn.”

Until you experience first hand the catalytic effect of introducing a traveller to a local person who wants to share their knowledge and thoughts can you appreciate how much there is to gain from cross-cultural interaction. Travel is all about seeing new places and cultures, and how better to do that than through local eyes. When you stand in someone else’s shoes you can’t help but gain apathy for their situation. This is why when travellers meet and interact with local people they gain such a different experience and always a more rewarding one if that person is reliable and hospitable. This is the foundation of responsible travel – equality and involvement between different people. Involving travellers in local efforts to encourage social and environmental awareness, and involving local communities in the benefits of global tourism. You remove the middleman and suddenly many more benefits – social, environmental and even economic – are exposed.

Exciting? It is, and the fact that it actually makes good economic sense to support these efforts makes it even more interesting. The smart money for those in travel is to join these efforts now and be pioneers. It offers a way to differentiate within the biggest industry in the world and gain access to a larger, more sustainable customer base. But this is not something huge industry leaders can do easily, It’s an opportunity for those at the grass roots level to implement projects and initiatives that offer travellers new experiences, communities, sustainable futures, and protection for the environment. It also stimulates equality across cultures.in an industry controlled by global corporations.

So yes, there are ways to stimulate development with conservation and there are practical solutions being put in place all over the world in small settings. 2007 sees the first World Responsible Tourism Day on November 14th and promises to be a revolutionary year for travel and RT in particular. The pioneers in this sector are already aware of these issues and leading conservelopment to new heights.

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To Fly Or Not To Fly?

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.