As the Guardian notes this morning:
It would seem that just as St Augustine once prayed that he might be celibate, but not just yet, so too do people wish to save the planet, but not this summer.
That leads to the inevitable question of whether we will ever see the change in consumer behaviour that climate change demands? I am not optimistic unless there is considerable government intervention, and no one (apart from the Greens) is talking about that.
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What we really need is more research into how we can get around on the planet quickly (compared to using wind or pedal power) without destroying it. We need a completely different mode of transport.
Maybe we need to explore what is on our doorstep
Will we ‘ever see the change in consumer behaviour that climate change demands?’
‘Consumer’ behaviour? We have been so indoctrinated that, even though faced with the obliteration of our children’s future, we describe ourselves as ‘consumers’. We ‘consumers’ are bombarded, distracted – and often deceived – by advertisers of every kind most of whom fail to display our common humanity.
After Japanese planes had attacked the American fleet in Pearl Harbour in 1941, motor industry bosses were summoned to the White House. They offered one production line each for the manufacture of military vehicles. President Roosevelt simply said ‘I am having *all* your production’. ‘Net zero 2050’ does not compare.
To conserve fuel, a 35 mph maximum speed limit was enforced on all US roads until the end of the war. In 1942 the UK petrol ration for private motoring (which would have included journeys to and from work) was reduced to *zero*.
Rationing was introduced in the UK at the onset of war in 1939. The dangers of Nazi tanks and dive-bombers were obvious. Eventually, it became clear that Britain was losing the war. Until then no doubt the advertisers were keen to take advantage of ‘consumers’.
In April 1940, survival was at stake. UK Government policies changed dramatically when Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. In an early speech to Parliament he made plain ‘*I promise nothing* but blood, toil tears and sweat’. He asserted that the Britain would *fight alone* if necessary.
As well as rationing and coalition government; the press was restrained from making unfounded claims; military officers attended Cabinet meetings (scientists are needed now); there was a single-minded commitment to do everything necessary to win the war.
All of those are needed now, when so much more is at stake: the survival of civilised societies and billions of lives.
All inessential fossil-fuel use must be rapidly reduced and then cease. The sooner the better. Because of floods, motor racing was cancelled in Italy last week. All forms of racing using petrol or electricity should be discouraged (no tax relief on expenditure should be the least of it). The 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled. Can the world afford so much (any) flying and driving for sport? There could be more *local* sport between communities within bicycle range of one another perhaps. The UK speed limit during an OPEC crisis was 50 mph. It could be 50 now (and soon lower?) Motor mowers … or scythes?
My father was 9 before the car was invented by Benz; 25 before the Wrights took off and landed safely. So, in my personal family history, life was possible before both cars and planes. (In case you wonder, he was 63 before I appeared.)
When the next catastrophe hits the UK (Parliament and Downing Street flooded perhaps), a parliamentarian who has consistently argued for climate and ecological action might be asked to form a coalition Government with wide powers. The name of Caroline Lucas comes to mind.
Our country could and should take decisive action – if necessary – alone. Every nation has motivation to join us. There is no other planet to go to.
That is some personal story
Moving faster consumes disprortionately more energy. No way round that; whatever the technology, there’s a tradeoff between speed and economy. Cheap oil without counting the [external] costs meant we could temporarily push that balance towards faster. Air travel in particular is only practicable with a fully autonomous low weight prime mover and high energy density power source. That’s why express trains and rapid transit were everyday long before the lightweight petrol engine made powered flight a practicable proposition. Of course a light weight, energy dense and energy efficient, environmentally sustainable power source would be a very nice thing to have; but even if such a thing is possible it’s a very long way off, and high speed transit wouldn’t necessarily be the highest priority application.
Joe Burlington
Your story sums up what is missing from Stymied and Laboured.
A declaration of domestic war on the poverty and chaos that has been created by the Tories. The same declaration that was made after WWII and nearly achieved after WW1.
If the people I know are anything to go by, there is not much chance of this anytime soon – if left to themselves. There is currently no peer pressure at all in the direction of reining in air travel. Quite the opposite – everyone seems to think it their right to travel by air wherever and whenever they want, regardless of the impact. Holidays are a major topic of conversation, and a major focus of consumer craving.
Last year a member of a parish council I know celebrated having got the council to pass a motion acknowledging the climate emergency. The next day she and her husband got on a plane and flew on holiday to Greece, which was at that time widely stricken with wildfires greatly exacerbated by climate change. They didn’t seem to grok the irony.
I don’t think change is impossible though – just look at attitudes to wearing car seat belts. People will knuckle down and adapt if they are constrained with legal or financial measures, and then the new behaviour becomes the new normal.
I’m pretty sure that seat belt use was compulsory in Paris in August 1997.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44468080
Yes it was.
It’s too cheap. Like energy was a couple of years ago.
I knew not particularly wealthy folk who sat about their fully centrally heated house in the middle of winter with t-shirts on. That’s all changed now. They wear jumpers. They turn down radiators in rooms that are not being used. So maybe some good came of Vlad’s big gas turn off.
But it’s the same as with £30 flights to Europe. If it’s cheap, folk will abuse it. So how do we make flights more expensive without upsetting those that will claim discrimination against the working classes?
Progressive taxes on air tickets
I worked on such a scheme a whole ago that was never used by the sponsor – it was never really clear why
I might pull it out and publish it here
People rarely see their own actions and choices as being in any way to blame as they imagine themselves as largely insignificant in the big picture – one person in amongst the billions. And as long as airlines continue to operate, people will believe that it must therefore be OK for them to operate, because surely, if we were truly facing an existential threat, the governments would take all action necessary to save us from the impending apocalypse? And because government’s haven’t done so, then that must mean that it’s ok to fly and to drive, and to take foreign holidays, and to eat strawberries in January, and to buy clothes on-line and throw them away after one wear. Because until someone makes it impossible/illegal for them to do those things, and as long as every media outlet they come into contact with is actively encouraging them to consume/fly/drive/wear-and-dispose in even greater numbers, then that’s exactly what people are going to do.
And when they do hear noises from the government and the media that “stuff is being done” and “targets are being set” and “wind generated more electricity than gas today”, then they think that things must therefore be in hand and that we are already well on our way down the road to salvation Oh yes, forces greater than them are taking those difficult steps so that they don’t have to. In fact, those self-same forces are actively encouraging them to produce more and consume more because that way salvation from our current woes lies.
Reflecting on this, we have become addicted to speed – compressing the time it takes to travel in order to create more time.
The problem with that is, is that it consumes energy and it is also dirty.
My view is that we need to get used to things taking longer – which also means taking longer holidays and organising ourselves differently. We need to chill out a bit more and slow down, instead of insisting on ‘packing things in’.
Maybe we should go back to the days when the journey was part of the holiday.
Perhaps have slower moving trains like they have in the US with proper dining cars and cabins.
Similarly, I think airships would be great (using hydrogen, not helium). I can imagine bimbling across the continent at a relaxing having lunch, watching a movie and perhaps haivng a drink at the bar. And of course the airship can land in much tigher spaces than a jet airliner.
I often go less than 100 miles on holiday
It’s not a lack of ambition. It’s just there are great places to go as far as I am concerned.
Hydrogen airships used to be a thing, until the Hindenburg disaster!
Two vignettes.
1. SUVs: high on fuel consumption, unstable (compared to oridnary cars) and do kill more people than “ordinary” cars. They are more profitable than “ordinary cars & politicos have failed to legislate. People have been groomed to buy them – over decades. The car companies are master groomers – making the likes of Saville et al look like amateurs.
2. Fly vs train. Bx to Malaga, flight circa Euro250 vs (high-speed zero carbon) train circa Euro450 (and basically two days). There is no joined-up policy – the politicos have thrown money at high speed and failed to follow through with a policy on flying (in Europe).
It is worth keeping in mind that in 1970 60% of journeys Paris – Lyon were by plane (20% by train) . Once the TGV was operational, 60% by train (zero-carbon) and 20% by plane.
In the case of products, nothing is built to last (or for service on site) everything is built on the basis of chuck-it & buy-it – with all the waste that this implies. This will not change because politicos lack the courage to implement, the ability to articulate (why) and the imgination.
The last so true
Thanks
One longstanding absurdity is that “You don’t have to pay Fuel Duty on aviation turbine fuel you use for aircraft fuel” (HM gov website). That relative subsidy distorts the travel market in the short term and pushes rail (and road) investment toward high energy consumption choices.
It does
I have an old friend who is very concerned about climate change and has taken great trouble to try and reduce the Carbon footprint of his home and family, while also believing that cheap air travel has done more than anything else to improve the quality of life in the last 40 years.
Apart from his being a regular reader of the Times I have no idea how he can hold two such contrary views simultaneously, but I do not doubt that he is worryingly representative.
Motorised transport will never be carbon neutral it is scientifically impossible.. why are we not calling for a complete ban??
We need to be carbon neutral
What do you think?
Worth pointing out that
Only about 10% of air travellers are travelling on business.
In any year half the UK Population dont fly
Of those that do, the vast bulk make no more than 3 flights.
BUT there is a small minority of flyers – less than 10% who make about 50% of the flights.
The ‘High Flyers’ are the wealthy with holiday homes abroad
We put up with the noise, pollution, etc caused by flying so a small minority of the population can head off to their holiday homes abroad.
I think it is less than 10%
The frequent flyers are second home owners
It’s not just travel, though, is it?
The same was said about food, and still lots of people won’t give up meat and fish, let alone dairy. They make excuses for it even though they know that the footprint of animal husbandry is far greater than that for plants.
I had a discussion with someone on Facebook about it a couple of weeks ago, and said my sons and grandchildren were vegetarian and vegan, and was told I should report my sons to social services for cruelty. I should make sure my grandchildren were fed properly and not malnourished. Still not sure if he was joking or not, but my sons in their 50s and grown up grandchildren had a laugh about it.
However, there are more and more people giving up meat and fish these days, although not as quickly as hoped.
I still eat some chicken, but that is it
My diet has changed enormously over the last few years and very much for the better
It’s more than changed though. I would not want to go back now
I am shortly going for a holiday in the Lake District. I am doing the bulk of the journey by train (Lynn – Ely, Ely-Manchester, Manchester-Preston, Preston-Oxenholme Lake District) and the railway experience is very much part of the fun as far as I am concerned. The last time I used an aeroplane was in 2020, when going to Italy for my parents golden wedding anniversary – possible covid related problems made travelling by rail which would have involved France in the equation too risky.