Stop travelling to save the planet? We need your views

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Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 54 total)

  • VintageKrug
    Participant

    Oh dear God, now we see Communism being proposed as the solution!!


    Bucksnet
    Participant

    VK, that’s probably the long term plan – communism by stealth.

    All this talk about climate change deniers misses the point, maybe on purpose. Over 70% of the British population believe in climate change; it should be 100% as the climate is changing. The question is if it’s man made or not, and it is not man made.

    The major influence on the Earth’s climate is the sun, nothing else comes close. Mankind is not causing climate change and mankind cannot stop it either. The whole thing is a scam.

    However, peak oil will soon be upon us and we should conserve fuel and also recycle as much as possible.


    ScottWilson
    Participant

    Before answering the questions, the key point is that it is economically efficient to not be wasteful, and most businesses strive to reduce energy consumption and reduce costs. This continues and the energy consumption per seat/km on aircraft today is significantly less than it was 40 years ago. However, the biggest gains in aviation in the next 10-15 years would be a Single European Sky, the biggest barrier of which are the inefficient ANSPs operated by national governments acros Europe. These state owned dinosaurs need to be privatised, merge and operate commercially. It is a classic example of governments not addressing a problem that is their own making. It is also curious that whilst the UK government seeks to curb growth in emissions from aviation, it effectively means curbing growth of BA, VS and BD (as LHR based carriers), whilst the likes of EK, ET, QR (and UA/CO) can happily expand operations pretty much unhindered, and all come from countries that care next to nothing about emissions.

    >What are your priorities when it comes to booking hotels and flights?

    Price, location, quality of service

    > Are you interested to know what the aviation and hotel industry is doing to become greener?

    Only if it is affects any of the above, beyond that it is hopping onto a trendy bandwagon.

    >How much responsibility do you take to make your business trips greener?

    None

    > Does your company have a green travel booking policy?

    No

    > What do you think about carbon offsetting? Do you do it? Have you ever done it? Do you or your company monitor your carbon footprint?

    It is a transfer to businesses which make rather comfortable profits from selling it. I wont do it.

    > Who do you think is responsible for making travel less harmful to the environment?

    Those who travel.

    > What issues do you think are the most significant when it comes to making travel greener? For example, in-flight recycling, reducing carbon emissions, saving water/electricity, reducing food waste in hotels, investing in more fuel efficient planes, constructing LEED-certified buildings, carbon offsetting, choosing “greener” transport modes like train, reducing the amount of flying people do altogether, introducing effective “green” taxes.

    Eliminating regulatory barriers to new technologies and improved efficiency. Most of the other suggestions are more driven by quasi-religious faith that they are “good” rather than hard evidence. e.g. recycling is always done of commodities that are efficient to recycle. Railways almost always consume more resources than what those riding them contribute.

    > Do you associate saving money with saving the environment? Saving the environment is a secondary result from saving energy consumption


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    the common theme running through all the postings is:

    “that it is economically efficient to not be wasteful, and most businesses strive to reduce energy consumption and reduce costs”

    If being Green promotes this, then I am all for it, both corporately and personaly.


    RoadKing
    Participant

    I have never considered to change my travel strategies because of a “green” alternative.

    For one, I just don’t believe in most of this. Governments worldwide grasp the opportunity to get another source of income. If they had truly believed in this themselves, they would themselves make an effort.

    For two, one major player (if not the biggest) in the area of pollution is the military, world wide. For starters, they could shut down this.

    Obviously, that is not going to happen. But it is still a valid point.

    Until governments take on a true attitude to this, I am considering it just as it is, a scam.


    LuganoPirate
    Participant

    I’m convinced climate change is “nature made” and not man made. I’ve just come back from Cape Town, and my driver told me Table Mountain was once an island surrounded by sea. There is evidence confirming this in the form of fossils etc.

    That got me thinking. If anyone has been to Lucerne in Central Switzerland you’ll maybe know that Lucerne once had a tropical climate and was covered by sea water. As those waters receded it had tropical beaches. Now it has a typical cool central European climate.

    This happened over millions of years, but if I’m not mistaken, over that period, sea levels have been going down, despite the ice age and all that melting ice.

    Further, if governments were serious about climate change being man-made, and looking to us to cut back on air travel, then why do they allow runner beans to be grown in Kenya, and air freighted to the UK. The UK is more than capable of growing its own beans without depriving the Kenyans of precious resources.

    Consequently I see this as a way for governments to raise money from us and at the same time impose their will on us, and for climate change charities to jump on the bandwagon and provide their directors with nice cars and fat salaries.

    I think there are far more important things to deal with, such as the provision of fresh water. This is something that could be done by cutting waste and making delivery more efficient.


    Charles-P
    Participant

    OK here we go.

    I simply never think about my impact on the environment. I don’t offset my Carbon, I don’t recycle unless it saves me money, I don’t consider ‘green’ issues when booking travel or hotels.

    Am I selfish ? Maybe, probably.

    Am I that different to the rest of the developed world ? Frankly no, I think that many people talk a good PR friendly talk when it comes to this issue while in reality doing very little and I’m one of them.


    LuganoPirate
    Participant

    You’re right Charles. And I think we are all selfish. Another example is China. We all bleat about their human rights record, yet we continue to buy Chinese made products.

    So it is with climate change. We all (or at least many do) express their fears, yet take holidays by air, turn up the heating when its cold, and turn down the air conditioning when its hot. We leave TV’s and other electrical equipment on standby, constantly charge our mobiles even when at home and so on.

    Trouble is, if we all stopped buying from China, stopped overseas air travel and stayed at home etc. the world would go into recession and probably depression, China would have no money to lend to the West to fund our public debt, house prices would collapse to pre 1960’s levels and (a bit exaggerated maybe) we would all go back and live in caves!!!


    Charles-P
    Participant

    Well I’ll go further as LuganoPirate raises the issue of Human Rights which is also worth mentioning. I do business throughout the Middle East – dodgy absolute monarchs, repressive regimes denying women the vote or even driving licences in some places, wildly anti-semitic and in Africa where corrupt tyrants who want bribes are accepted as the norm.

    I know all this, I’m well educated and liberal minded, I marched in support of Solidarity in Poland at university, I give money to Oxfam but does it stop me, no of course not. The question is why. Greed, resigned acceptance, indifference, I can’t say but I know two things:

    I know it’s wrong

    I know I will not stop doing business


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    I we are actually all pretty much singing from the same hymn sheet here.

    The key motivation to exhibit “green” behaviours is to realise personal savings, or increase efficiency.

    There are very few of us who travel for work who would stop or significantly reduce that travel purely for “environmental” motivations.

    However, many of us are quite happy to make smaller changes – such as turning off the lights in a hotel room when we check out – if only we got into the habit of doing so.

    So I think it’s a case of let us as travellers start thinking about modestly altering (rather than a more dramatic “change”) our behaviours to make small variations in our habits which will have a demonstrable effect on the environment if enough people do the same, and let corporations themselves worry about how they can lower their costs (NOT increase their charges!!) by being more environmentally conscious.

    Everyone’s a winner!


    excessbaggage
    Participant

    Maybe we should all be staying in hotels made of recycled rubbish?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12236156


    Kaicat75
    Participant

    When you compare Hotels to other office blocks in any neighbourhood you have to think that hotels are amazingly green.

    You look at most office blocks with their lights on all night, on every floor, compared to a hotel where at least people sleeping turn their lights off!

    I think businesses need to look at themselves firstly rather than worring about carbon off-setting a flight.


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    Well said.

    Act Local, Think Global…?


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    If an airline, as being discussed in another thread, goes paperless in both the cabin and flight deck, what effect could this have on the airlines CARBON EMMISSIONS?

    1. Could this reduce an airline’s carbon footprint to enable cabon credits to be sold in the open market

    2. Could this reduce the amount of carbon offset an airline suggests a passenger may like to pay

    3. if taking lemon of a drinks trolley can save a Canadian Airline millions of dollars, how much would an airline save by becoming paperless.

    4. As a thought, we all still refer to “airline tickets”, but when was the last time anyone actually received a paper ticket?

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 54 total)
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