You can't change what you can't measure, so, inspired by Roo, and facilitated by the Great Circle Mapper, I had a stab at working how much I flew in 2007.
It adds up to 67,231 miles, which must be substantially less than 2006 and 2005, but is still much too far (from both family-life and carbon points of view). At least one of those European trips was of no benefit to me, my audience, my bank-balance or my carbon-footprint. So I need to be more thoughtful about where I go.
I'm going to try and do Europe by train next year, which will mean more time away but less carbon-burned, less Heathrow-visited and more new things seen. Anyone want to join me in a trip to the lift conference by train? (Assuming I can get my ticket booked.)
I also looked into Atlantic crossings via cargo ship (and scroll down a bit) but I don't think I fancy being away from home that long. (It'd be a great time to start a book though, no distractions, just miles of ocean.)
I suspect the first step in doing something about the energy we use is paying attention to it, and finding useful ways to mark it and understand it. That's part of the genius of dopplr and part of the appeal of these brilliant airport luggage patches on etsy (via Make).
i can't get over how expensive the cargo ship fares are. was that a serious consideration?
Posted by: steve cater | January 04, 2008 at 12:19 PM
Thats one of my NY's resolutions as well. It does somehow feel a bit more like an adventure when you take the decision to go by train, and pretty much everywhere is doable. The problem is time. For personal trips it is fine if you accept that the travel is part of the trip, but most of my wasteful air travel is work (Amsterdam and Nuremburg.) I am thinking about asking to meet in Brussels for the Amsterdam meetings. Nuremburg by train takes about 9 hours so will need a bit more thought.
Have you been using this site. Its run by a train enthusiast and is a quick way to work out how to get pretty much anywhere without flying in Europe or further.
http://www.seat61.com/
Posted by: David Hawksworth | January 04, 2008 at 01:38 PM
Indeed, looks surprisingly doable: http://www.seat61.com/Switzerland.htm#London%20to%20Geneva
Getting a price of about 180 quid in 2nd class at the moment.
Posted by: | January 04, 2008 at 11:20 PM
The conference looks good, would love to try and go but 3 or 4 days out the office at a busy time is wishful thinking. I’ll be interested to read about the journey though. Everything in culture is geared up towards air-travel as a success indicator. It's going to take a hell of a lot of positive stories, experiences and examples of the alternatives to change that. A pretty tough nut to crack.
Posted by: David Hawksworth | January 05, 2008 at 12:30 AM
If that book had some thinking towards this whole fossil fuel saving issue then it would open up a whole new audience to some ideas that are kicking around on the net but which still escape a fair chunk of influential people. I always thought the cruise line assignment was a good indication of a growing market. Good luck anyway. :)
Posted by: Charles | January 06, 2008 at 09:12 AM
Hi Russell,
We are taking 6 people to LIFT by train. Tom is speaking about something broadly related to green thing, so we thought it would be a bad show to go by Easyjet... To offest the eye-watering cost of this harebrain scheme, we are going to build something on the way, so look out for our SSID if on our train.
Love yr blog - peak advertising cracked me up today in meeting.
Posted by: Lee Bryant | January 15, 2008 at 10:35 PM