Category: Travel

When I was small, a relative gave me a big red balloon filled with helium. With that balloon bobbing over my head and its string tied to my wrist, it seemed obvious to me that if the wind blew the right way and if I breathed in deep enough then that balloon could take me places. The right wind didn’t come along, but being lifted off the ground was still something I imagined very possible.

As an adult my head is again filled with imaginings of gaining altitude, but not in the usual way in the belly of a fossil fueled aeroplane. Instead with something lower carbon. An airship that could take me across oceans!

(I’ll wait a second now while you have your Disaster thoughts.)

OK.

According to a now decade old Monbiot article, the UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research calculated that travelling in an airship, even when it’s powered by fossil fuels, will produce 80% to 90% less CO2 emissions compared with a flight in an aeroplane. Yes it’s slower, even for new design airships, they are only able to travel at an average 130km/hour. But still, this means an airship could theoretically take people from Auckland to Sydney in 15 hours.

Perhaps the feasibility of long distance passenger airships will never stack up for reasons such as safety, comfort or cost. But what about other forms of low carbon oceanic travel such as wind assisted passenger ships where the challenges seem much more manageable?

With climate change bearing down, where are these low carbon mass passenger ships of all sorts? (And I’m not talking about high carbon emitting cruise ships!). Unfortunately in a world that often relies on the Market to make change happen at any scale, we are still waiting for this particular market to appear.

My proposal is that we give it a hand. I’m not a marketer, but it seems reasonable that if we can get 20% of the population excited about low carbon forms of oceanic travel, then maybe these technologies will get the chance to become a commercial reality. There is the Fly Less movement that is growing overseas and that is in its infancy but growing here too. I’d love more people to get in behind this so that we can support low carbon options for overseas travel in the near future.

I’m dreaming of low carbon and still flying high – or at least flowing far! It’s all in the range of the very possible.

“What do you think of the Lime scooters in Dunedin?” two people asked me during my recent foray to Banks Peninsula.

“Yeah they’re fun! They get people out of cars. But I’d like people to go slower on the footpaths when pedestrians are around,” I replied.

I’m a keen commuter cyclist and these conversations got me pondering on the parallels between pedestrians and Lime scooters and between cyclists and cars. People get upset, understandably, with the lime scooterist who whizzes past pedestrians at 20km/hr, yet more than a few cars drive by cyclists at greater speed and within an arms length. When it’s done in anger, we call it bikelash.

Most of us believe that pedestrians have the right to use footpaths that were their domain before Lime Scooters came along. But cyclists also used roads before cars rose to dominance.

Studies show that a pedestrian (or cyclist for that matter), will have a good 90% chance of survival if hit by a car travelling at 30km/hour but less than 50% chance of staying alive if struck at the speed of 45km/hour.

I’m thinking of the positives of a city of slower cars! More kids walking and cycling to school, getting fresh air and developing independence. More adults leaving the car a home to reduce CO2 emissions, pollution and noise.

The parallels between cyclists and cars, and between pedestrians and Lime Scooters – are essentially the same. They’re about respecting the rights of others to use and share a space.

Change takes time. It prompts some resistance! There are false starts, small steps and imperfect initiatives. Let’s keep having the conversations and grow the impetus to slow down!

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about flying. As Wellington Airport plans to put an extension to its runway, residents nearby are waiting and nervous. They’d rather have a view of the Cook Strait than a view of a noisy runway. I really sympathise.

But there is also a bigger issue.  The latest IPCC report is telling us firmly that we humans have less than 12 years now to turn things around and to get on a low carbon pathway – if we want to limit the worst of climate change. That’s not far away. So I think we need to ask – why are we even contemplating putting in more infrastructure that will lock us into a high carbon future?

Many of us take flying for granted. We live on a long thin country and far from the rest of the world. A really powerful statistic I think is that it’s estimated that  less than 20% of the people who are alive today have actually ever flown. For those of us in NZ who fly, and who are surrounded by people who fly, we understandably think that this is normal. But in fact for the majority of humanity, not flying is the norm!

Flying sits at around 3.5% of our global GHG emissions and it’s rising all the time in a rather exponential fashion. This includes other factors operating. CO2 released at high altitude has a more powerful warming effect.  And other emissions such as water vapour, sulphur and nitrogen oxides add to the greenhouse gas effect.

The empowering news (I think) is that at the personal level, if we reduce our flying it will probably be the most important thing we can do to reduce our CO2 emissions.

So what can we do?

• Get inspiration! Join the newish Fly-Less Kiwis Facebook page for support and for news and articles relevant to New Zealand.

• This year – why not do a baseline of your out-of-town travel. Check out Enviro Mark’s webpage. Here you can calculate your carbon emissions.

• Then set yourself a goal to reduce! There are many options to suit your personality and circumstances. For example,

  • You can go Cold Turkey and have a No Fly year or stop flying altogether OR

  • You can set a reduction goal – 20-30% is a doable figure

You’ll find unexpected benefits. For example, you are bound to feel happier because you’ll know you are doing your bit. Carpooling to Christchurch with a colleague might lead to some new collaborations. Bus trips can be cheaper and more relaxing than flying. Video conferencing means much less time away from home. Having a holiday in NZ instead of a big overseas trip will keep the money you spend in our New Zealand economy.

Whatever it is, find something that works for you and become a Fly-less Kiwi!