Loco

One of the things that really gets on my nerves when reading about climate change is the sombre tone of most people who write on the subject. Worse than that, climate change activists often just sound like whining children perfectly willing to complain about what’s going wrong, but without focusing sufficiently on alternatives.

What this does psychologically to the reader of such writing is very important. It sucks the colour and cultural richness from any vision of the future: if we’re not going to be burning in a globally-warmed hell then we’re going to be wandering around shell-shocked at the pace at which we finally made the necessary changes. The people who took the longest to persuade will be covering their heads in shame and submitting to the ones who had been saying all along that we needed to act radically (who after years of bitterness will have finally become smug).

As someone who has been thinking about climate change and carbon for most of my teenage years and all of my adult life so far, it is very easy to fall into this category and start criticising people left, right and centre for not doing this or that.

“Politicians are all bastards, why can’t they just do the very simple things needed to make things right? Creating a fully sustainable and equitable global economy is simple – damn their cynical power-hungry ways”.

The problem is that it’s not simple. The notion that the people in power are laughing to themselves behind the scenes at how closely they have followed their financial backers’ interests is ludicrous. There are huge challenges and huge opportunities as we face up to reducing carbon, but things would get a hell of a lot easier if we all talked about the things we could be doing, rather than bitching about the things we’re currently doing wrong. Apart from anything else, it will give us something to get excited about rather than simply depress us.

When we acknowledge the benefits of taking a humanist approach that allows us to pick out the positives and run with them like a relay team passing a baton then suddenly addressing our responsibilities gets a lot more interesting. We can see visions of change that supersede the insecurities of celebrity culture and quick-fix, debt-financed consumerism. Celebrating the local and sharing that celebration with others via the internet; an international perspective that freshens our senses and empowers us within our own communities.

“What the hell has this got to do with travel?” I hear you scoff.

The answer is that travel is all about that cultural exchange, and it’s by letting ideas evolve organically through a fun, and even relaxing process, that we’ll get somewhere else that isn’t the grey future painted (actually, sketched with charcoal) by some environmentalists. On that note, let us build a future of travel that safeguards the positives and does away with the negatives in the blink of an eye.

Someone sent me an IPCC report recently with the caveat “Not hugely exciting but outlines the technological advances that might bring down rail’s climate change impacts”. Not hugely exciting? Read this:

“Although rail transport is one of the most energy efficient modes today, substantial opportunities for further efficiency improvements remain. Reduced aerodynamic drag, lower train weight, regenerative breaking and higher efficiency propulsion systems can make significant reductions in rail energy use”.

Now, I concede that I am a massive geek, but that definitely gets me excited…

Photo & post thumbnail: h.koppdelaney

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