Sunday 13 June 2010

Travel by ship : The Theory of Anyway : Vote on Jarrod's dilemma

Over on Facebook, Jarrod McKenna has posed a question.  Jarrod asks:

Q. What do u think of flying in light of climate change? 
Yep, I want 2 hear ur thoughts be u 
an activist, nurse, teacher, theologian, student or garbo [wo]man... 
What do u think/do?

I have made a couple of responses which probably look and sound like a prude giving Jarrod a hard time.  So I thought I would make my views properly.  

Now, I remembered that Arthur Boyd hated air travel.  He would travel between the UK and Australia by ship and, I think, he used cargo ships - the sort that take about 12 passengers.  So I googled to confirm this memory but discovered something far better.

The Wood family are out of a long ago past of mine.  Stephanie is a wonderful foodie and journalist and runs one Australia's best blogs which certainly lives up to its name elegant sufficiency.  On occasion, her father - Peter Wood who with his twin brother Bill used to be an ALP member of Parliament in Queensland in the dreadful Bjelke Petersen years - strays into the blog and I discovered one of Peter's perambulations right here.

Networkers you must read this travelogue of a shipboard journey from Australia to the UK.  It is a classic.  In fact, Peter, I think Stephanie ought to take to scriptwriting and do the movie with you as technical adviser  It is life on another planet in a manner beyond comprehension in this day and age.  I wonder what the P&O carbon footprint was back in the 1950's.  What did they do with the waste?  And then there was all the cigarette smoke!

Related Reading:
Sites

MissEagle racism-free Photobucket

3 comments:

  1. ha ha I love the fact that you can only vote yes, yes and yes. I gave up flying a couple of years ago mainly due to the climate change issue but also because of peak oil and the shame I feel in steeling the next generations access to cheap fuel which should be used for the necessities of life (producing food and clean drinking water!). I got a bit obsessed and travelled back from Singapore to Scotland without flying in 2008! I've got a website if you want to know more about my trip and my flightless campaign! http://www.flightlesstravel.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, Tom. Good on you. I will pop over and have a look at your site. I am in the position of being too poor to travel; too old to want to; no career to further or foster; no relatives to have to visit. I think we have to face facts. I think off-sets are a cop out.

    I once saw a documentary (I think BBC) which I think was about religion and environment. A 30+ Islamic woman living in England, clearly prosperous, middle-class and high-flying, was talking about dong the Hajj. She had done it three times and was saddling up for her fourth. Now while the Hajj is one of the seven pillars of Islam, The Prophet demands it only be done once in a lifetime. If you are poor or unable, then there are off-sets allowed.

    This woman had fulfilled her religious obligation. The interviewer was gently trying to lead her to say that she would forgo the Hajj since it involved plane travel and a great carbon footprint. He tried and he tried. She was reluctant, reluctant. Eventually, she very reluctantly said she would investigate off-sets.

    For me, environmental off-sets are an off-putting of responsibility. Do the best/right thing up front and there is no need for dubious off-sets. Let's stop kidding ourselves!

    ReplyDelete

This blog does not take Anonymous comments. Experience shows that comments cluttered with "Anonymous" are boring and people don't know whether "Anonymous" is one person or many. This is not a decision about freedom of speech. It is a decision about boring or unwillingness to be known by even a pseudonym.

Total Pageviews