(no subject)
So I commented on a post in one of my friend's journals about travel and it was too juicy and good to not let all of my friends see it and discuss it.
Credit to turquoiseflea for provoking me to think about this.
Please discuss.
Uhmm, so I have this big thing about "volunteering to save XYZ abroad."
Its eco-tourism, nothing more. You do not in any meaningful way achieve any efficient change.
If you want to do good, find somewhere that you live where you can volunteer 2-4 or 8 hours a week, and do that for year. 200 hours over a year > 1 month spent somewhere doing 8 hours a day.
Solid, lasting change is a organically slow process; think how long it takes a Rosemary plant to grow 12 inches, and that's how long any lasting change is going to take.
HOWEVER, if the desire is to travel and enrich your travel experience, I dont see anything wrong with it. But this widespread delusion amongst our culture - especially our age group in the 20s - that its possible to travel the world and Do Good is absolutely fucking nuts. Travel of the "2-6 weeks in this country, 2-6 weeks in that country" type... Nay, ANY travel that is by airplane, is luxury and indulgently wasteful.
I would like to take this time to point out that I fly on airplanes once or twice a year. I am indulgently wasteful.
Would those times when I fly be much better if I took ground transportation? Absolutely! I would stay longer where I traveled and be more intentional about how far I travel and how many places I try to visit.
Aside from this, I know a lot of you travel pretty frequently. I term "frequently" in this context as going internationally at least once a year. For me I have lived here in Western Massachusetts for 2 1/2 years now. I have traveled more than 200 miles from here three times, all to go back to MN to see family. I've gone more than 50 miles from here probably only 5-8 times in the past 30 months. For me, it's a real challenge to be somewhere and say "this is where I am. If I want community, I find it here. What is there someplace else that I can't find or create here?"
For me, this is an entirely different way of living. From age 11 months to 14 years, if I measured yearly distance traveled from home, it would be between 8-20,000 miles PER YEAR that my family traveled. Comparatively, for the past 2 1/2 years my distance traveled beyond a 25 mile radius of my home is about....3-4,000 miles. We took a annual summer vacation of 6-8 weeks and just during those 2 months would drive 5-8,000 miles. Then there were the spring vacation trips to Mexico, Florida, Georgia. The special summer trips to Alaska, Europe, South America..
The fact that my family has more memories and stories about a specific campground in Wyoming (I grew up in Minneapolis) than our next door neighbors - whom are 50 feet away for the 10 months of the year we were in Minneapolis - I find simply outrageous and disheartening, to think how disconnected they/we were from the real people that lived next to us, and who we really had the ability to form growthful, real community with.
I challenge all of you to consider what it would be like to not have the option of traveling and "escaping for a while" the beauty and, yes, challenges of where you live right now. If you consider yourself a Environmentalist or Sustainability advocate, how do those values interplay with our cultural views on travel, re-location of primary residence, and volunteering in places we will never return to?
Also, how much thought do you give to what forms of transportation you use when you travel? I see airplanes as threefold negative: sound pollution of communities as they fly, the large amounts of space and infrastructure they require (runways, airports, huge expanses of asphalt and concrete) and thirdly the industrial system required to manufacture, maintain and develop them. Wheeled un-tracked ground transport I see as twofold negative: air and noise pollution (unpredictable time of travel),and to much lesser degrees, the required road infrastructure and the industrial system to support them. Tracked ground transport (trains, commuter, long distance passenger, and freight) I see as the least intrusive in that they are more mechanically efficient, have schedules and therefor predictable noise disturbances, and are more adaptable with having the power-source (locomotive/engine) and cargo modules (boxcars) separate from each other. You can build up long trains, de-couple them to shorten them... Also discuss this. Discuss, discuss!
Comments, diatribes, applause from the peanut gallery and scathing attacks welcomed so long as they are gramatically sound and have punctuation.
Credit to turquoiseflea for provoking me to think about this.
Please discuss.
Uhmm, so I have this big thing about "volunteering to save XYZ abroad."
Its eco-tourism, nothing more. You do not in any meaningful way achieve any efficient change.
If you want to do good, find somewhere that you live where you can volunteer 2-4 or 8 hours a week, and do that for year. 200 hours over a year > 1 month spent somewhere doing 8 hours a day.
Solid, lasting change is a organically slow process; think how long it takes a Rosemary plant to grow 12 inches, and that's how long any lasting change is going to take.
HOWEVER, if the desire is to travel and enrich your travel experience, I dont see anything wrong with it. But this widespread delusion amongst our culture - especially our age group in the 20s - that its possible to travel the world and Do Good is absolutely fucking nuts. Travel of the "2-6 weeks in this country, 2-6 weeks in that country" type... Nay, ANY travel that is by airplane, is luxury and indulgently wasteful.
I would like to take this time to point out that I fly on airplanes once or twice a year. I am indulgently wasteful.
Would those times when I fly be much better if I took ground transportation? Absolutely! I would stay longer where I traveled and be more intentional about how far I travel and how many places I try to visit.
Aside from this, I know a lot of you travel pretty frequently. I term "frequently" in this context as going internationally at least once a year. For me I have lived here in Western Massachusetts for 2 1/2 years now. I have traveled more than 200 miles from here three times, all to go back to MN to see family. I've gone more than 50 miles from here probably only 5-8 times in the past 30 months. For me, it's a real challenge to be somewhere and say "this is where I am. If I want community, I find it here. What is there someplace else that I can't find or create here?"
For me, this is an entirely different way of living. From age 11 months to 14 years, if I measured yearly distance traveled from home, it would be between 8-20,000 miles PER YEAR that my family traveled. Comparatively, for the past 2 1/2 years my distance traveled beyond a 25 mile radius of my home is about....3-4,000 miles. We took a annual summer vacation of 6-8 weeks and just during those 2 months would drive 5-8,000 miles. Then there were the spring vacation trips to Mexico, Florida, Georgia. The special summer trips to Alaska, Europe, South America..
The fact that my family has more memories and stories about a specific campground in Wyoming (I grew up in Minneapolis) than our next door neighbors - whom are 50 feet away for the 10 months of the year we were in Minneapolis - I find simply outrageous and disheartening, to think how disconnected they/we were from the real people that lived next to us, and who we really had the ability to form growthful, real community with.
I challenge all of you to consider what it would be like to not have the option of traveling and "escaping for a while" the beauty and, yes, challenges of where you live right now. If you consider yourself a Environmentalist or Sustainability advocate, how do those values interplay with our cultural views on travel, re-location of primary residence, and volunteering in places we will never return to?
Also, how much thought do you give to what forms of transportation you use when you travel? I see airplanes as threefold negative: sound pollution of communities as they fly, the large amounts of space and infrastructure they require (runways, airports, huge expanses of asphalt and concrete) and thirdly the industrial system required to manufacture, maintain and develop them. Wheeled un-tracked ground transport I see as twofold negative: air and noise pollution (unpredictable time of travel),and to much lesser degrees, the required road infrastructure and the industrial system to support them. Tracked ground transport (trains, commuter, long distance passenger, and freight) I see as the least intrusive in that they are more mechanically efficient, have schedules and therefor predictable noise disturbances, and are more adaptable with having the power-source (locomotive/engine) and cargo modules (boxcars) separate from each other. You can build up long trains, de-couple them to shorten them... Also discuss this. Discuss, discuss!
Comments, diatribes, applause from the peanut gallery and scathing attacks welcomed so long as they are gramatically sound and have punctuation.