I caused a meteorite to crash into the Earth.
Ok, not literally. But kind of.
Its name is Mbozi and it lives in Southern Tanzania. Made out of nickel and iron, it crashed to Earth over a thousand years ago, pummelled to its remaining bits by the Earth’s atmosphere after travelling for a million years or so. It was only discovered, officially and by a guy called W.H. Nott, in 1930. And, if you find yourself near the southwestern slope of Marengi Hill, off the road to Tunduma, you can go see it for 1,000 Tanzanian shillings, or 50p.
While there, have a go at me. Please.
That rock is my wanderlust. It personifies my emotional and physical attachments to flying, my personal and professional commitments and desires. It represents me – and, to some degree, my family’s gypsy DNA, as I explained last week. But its impact on the world is notable.
I flew enough times last year to create 12 tonnes of CO2. And you know what? That’s exactly the same weight as Mbozi, the world’s eighth-largest meteorite.
It’s mind-boggling that the sixteen flights I took in seven months last year weigh that much (or look like that), but without Mbozi, this ethereal notion of ‘CO2’ seeping into the atmosphere doesn’t mean much to me. Mbozi is what happens when I get in a plane, recline my seat its full 3cm, breathe in some fumes, strap on my seatbelt and sit back for the salty pretzels, diet Coke and in-flight entertainment.
I fly so much that I’m an expert at which airports require shoes off and laptops out. I’ve survived a near plane crash in Chile (the businessman next to me, who was reading (yes, actually reading) a porn magazine, didn’t even blink an eye), second-degree burns from an over-microwaved ham-and-cheese sandwich, and the torture of a child who played foot drums against my seat for the entirety of a 15-hour flight to Fiji.
But never did I actually ‘see’ the impact all my flying has done. And while Mbozi isn’t, actually, my flights’ CO2 curdled into one big rock, I only have myself to blame for the world’s weirder weather, rising sea levels, and all that bad post-pretzel indigestion.
Using Climate Care’s carbon calculator [www.climatecare.org], I looked at where I’d been, how many stopovers I made to get there, and how much carbon it all produced, all within the twelve months of 2007. (You’ll note that the spring was my ‘Quiet Period’, but don’t be fooled. I travelled enough past April to turn a pebble into a meteorite).
A lot of those flights were for work, but a lot of them were also for pleasure. And some of them mingled both work and pleasure – like my voyage out to the deliciously lunar landscape of Iceland, where I covered an indie and electro music festival called Icelandic Airwaves and ended up gracing NME's coverage on the wicked after-party in the Blue Lagoon (where you can see me, in my pink-and-blue shades, pictured above).
I definitely could have avoided some of those flights (Cancun and Tel Aviv were pretty superfluous, although I'm glad I went to both those places), and I surely should have avoided the layovers (like when my luggage was stolen in Mexico and I had to wait in Minneapolis in a miniskirt for three hours in minus 18C weather).
But surely there must be a way that we can zip through the air without killing everything underneath it? I’ll leave the organically-stocked, sustainably-fuelled planes (made out of recycled materials and soundless as birds) to the engineers and dream enthusiasts.
In the interim, I’m taking a look at my carbon offsetting options - investments in hydro-electric dams in China, putting money into portfolios to get Ethiopians better stoves or planting some trees. Mbozi – now black and burly – shall soon be green. Ok, not green. But a little bit greener.
Ok, not literally. But kind of.
Its name is Mbozi and it lives in Southern Tanzania. Made out of nickel and iron, it crashed to Earth over a thousand years ago, pummelled to its remaining bits by the Earth’s atmosphere after travelling for a million years or so. It was only discovered, officially and by a guy called W.H. Nott, in 1930. And, if you find yourself near the southwestern slope of Marengi Hill, off the road to Tunduma, you can go see it for 1,000 Tanzanian shillings, or 50p.
While there, have a go at me. Please.
That rock is my wanderlust. It personifies my emotional and physical attachments to flying, my personal and professional commitments and desires. It represents me – and, to some degree, my family’s gypsy DNA, as I explained last week. But its impact on the world is notable.
I flew enough times last year to create 12 tonnes of CO2. And you know what? That’s exactly the same weight as Mbozi, the world’s eighth-largest meteorite.
It’s mind-boggling that the sixteen flights I took in seven months last year weigh that much (or look like that), but without Mbozi, this ethereal notion of ‘CO2’ seeping into the atmosphere doesn’t mean much to me. Mbozi is what happens when I get in a plane, recline my seat its full 3cm, breathe in some fumes, strap on my seatbelt and sit back for the salty pretzels, diet Coke and in-flight entertainment.
I fly so much that I’m an expert at which airports require shoes off and laptops out. I’ve survived a near plane crash in Chile (the businessman next to me, who was reading (yes, actually reading) a porn magazine, didn’t even blink an eye), second-degree burns from an over-microwaved ham-and-cheese sandwich, and the torture of a child who played foot drums against my seat for the entirety of a 15-hour flight to Fiji.
But never did I actually ‘see’ the impact all my flying has done. And while Mbozi isn’t, actually, my flights’ CO2 curdled into one big rock, I only have myself to blame for the world’s weirder weather, rising sea levels, and all that bad post-pretzel indigestion.
Using Climate Care’s carbon calculator [www.climatecare.org], I looked at where I’d been, how many stopovers I made to get there, and how much carbon it all produced, all within the twelve months of 2007. (You’ll note that the spring was my ‘Quiet Period’, but don’t be fooled. I travelled enough past April to turn a pebble into a meteorite).
A lot of those flights were for work, but a lot of them were also for pleasure. And some of them mingled both work and pleasure – like my voyage out to the deliciously lunar landscape of Iceland, where I covered an indie and electro music festival called Icelandic Airwaves and ended up gracing NME's coverage on the wicked after-party in the Blue Lagoon (where you can see me, in my pink-and-blue shades, pictured above).
I definitely could have avoided some of those flights (Cancun and Tel Aviv were pretty superfluous, although I'm glad I went to both those places), and I surely should have avoided the layovers (like when my luggage was stolen in Mexico and I had to wait in Minneapolis in a miniskirt for three hours in minus 18C weather).
But surely there must be a way that we can zip through the air without killing everything underneath it? I’ll leave the organically-stocked, sustainably-fuelled planes (made out of recycled materials and soundless as birds) to the engineers and dream enthusiasts.
In the interim, I’m taking a look at my carbon offsetting options - investments in hydro-electric dams in China, putting money into portfolios to get Ethiopians better stoves or planting some trees. Mbozi – now black and burly – shall soon be green. Ok, not green. But a little bit greener.
Posted 14th January in:
3 comments
Oh dear. Another 'oh my God my life is so fabulous how can I possibly deal with the reality of climate change' story!! Kate, there is a way to travel without shagging the climate...lose the plane and go overland. It's not difficult and I can vouch for this having gone all the way round our rather marvellous planet without flying last year (http://www.lowcarbontravel.com). No businessmen reading porn mags on the cargo ships we used to cross the oceans, no little twats kicking the back of our seats on the Trans-Siberian Express...it just requires more patience and more time - which are admittedly scarce commodities in our frenetic times, but...are they that impossible to get hold of when the stakes are so high? Your desperate tone and attempts to inject some levity make you sound flippant. It's possible to be funny without being flouncy you know. Try mixing with gravitas with a bit of sarcasm. Works for me ; )
edgillespie over 3 years ago.
I have to say I agree with that. Where's this all going? Are you going to work out how to do what you do and enjoy it and fly LESS? Surely that's the point.
kellis over 3 years ago.
The first installment hardly justified the description of "soul searching", more stating the obvious and talking about yourself, but at least it was human background, and those are problems we can all identify with. By the second however... This is an environmental journalist talking for pity's sake! Evidence that flying produces horrific amounts of emissions is hardly new, yet we hear about a huge number of flights LAST YEAR, some "superfluous"! How hard did you fight, with your bosses or your conscience, before you ended up flying to "Icelandic Airwaves and ended up gracing NME's coverage on the wicked after-party in the Blue Lagoon"? And that's the picture that heads up the article. The overall impression is not one of facing hard truths and making hard choices. You're clearly intelligent, you care enough to make the environment the subject of your professional life and of this article, so use all that for something more than indulging yourself in a little bit of guilt and a pretty redundant question for an environmentally aware person, let alone journalist, to be asking: "surely there must be a way that we can zip through the air without killing everything underneath it?" You know well enough, as you demonstrate in the next sentence, that the current answer is a straightforward no. Shouldn't an eco journalist have realised by now that offsetting, and planting trees in particular, is little more than greenwash? See http://www.cheatneutral.com/ for a sharp, funny bit of logic on that. So how about putting serious thought into ways to do your job, and have a good time, without flying? Others have already posted good suggestions after the first article, but it's worth saying that you can travel just as much, in more comfortable, sociable and enjoyable ways, without going near a plane. And don't tell me you needed to see all those places you mentioned in the previous post first-hand to write articles about them; if you needed information, interviews, pictures, or pretty much anything, take advantage of the incredibly sophisticated state of communications technology. Someone in your position should be setting an example and helping the rest of us to make this transition, which is not quite as hard as it is crucial.
hazzabamboo over 3 years ago.
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