Summertime ... and the livin’ is easy. Sort of. But how would we know? We’re too busy running hither and yon, stocking up memories (and, by the way, building our carbon footprints). I lay the whole global warming thing at the feet of Rick Steves, that affable travel guru who’s having a great time and making a good living with his fossil-fuel inspired books and TV shows. Yeah, he’d be a super fun neighbor and anyone can imagine sitting down with him to drink a beer or help trim a hedge, borrow a ladder to clean the gutters or barbecue a steak. But he’s never home.
And that’s the point. Many of our affable and interesting neighbors are unavailable when we’d really like to hang out. They lose track of what’s going on in the neighborhood, and by the time they’re back the important events have almost been forgotten and actually seem like gossip rather than things that demand action. Those folks, often our most prosperous and able to help, get into the habit of dismissing community problems, preoccupied with their photos and travel logs.
It’s surprising that none of the serial travelers think about their carbon footprints, the total sum of greenhouse gases that we create in our everyday lives. “The average carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 16 tons, one of the highest rates in the world. Globally, the average carbon footprint is closer to 4 tons,” says Nature Conservancy. There are many carbon footprint calculators on the internet, and you might want to figure yours. I will confess that if everyone on the planet lived exactly the way I live, it would take three planets worth of resources.
With family dispersed all over the United States, I’d never see them if we didn’t travel—us to them or them to us. So my work-around is to give up travel that’s optional. No yoga retreats or Broadway openings or far-away fiddle contests. No cruises, no resorts. My personal bookkeeping, carbon-wise, tells me that one trip to town a week is enough and if we run out of something, well, figure out a substitute. We can never make up for what we’ve expended, fossil-fuel-wise.
Greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide have already created a heat-trapping shield around the globe, acting like a blanket to keep the planet warm. As the temperature rises inside that blanket, icebergs melt and oceans get hotter. We have broken global heat records every day in July. Scientists have set one “do not pass” limit after another, but as more people become prosperous enough to buy conveniences that run on fossil fuels — cars, motorcycles, refrigerators, air conditioners — it seems impossible to fix the damage.
News flash: None of the media are going to tell you to avoid excessive travel. They (the media) are dependent on travel advertising, after all. My favorite travel ads are for the cruise lines, with words delivered by tony-sounding women with over-the-top British accents. Promising luxury and contact with the dress-for-dinner crowd, their industry has ruined communities in far-off places. Yes, the whole travel industry is a subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry.
While air travel racks up almost half of tourism’s carbon footprint, we also spend for food, lodging, clothes, communications, entertainment and other resources when we travel. This supports people in the places we visit, of course, so some travelers get the idea that travel is a benign practice that supports poor people. Well, yes, but at the same time we’re tearing up the planet that they depend on. This year has been the hottest year on record and it’s the poorest folks from the southern hemisphere who are paying the most for our sins, but we love posting the pictures on facebook or one of the other social media spots and getting the likes.
This summer, explore your community, your state, your region first. I’m willing to bet there are museums and parks you’ve never spent time in. And, let’s be honest here — travel is often unsatisfying. Air travel (which carries the highest carbon footprint rating, compared to trains, cars, busses, motorcycles, bicycles or walking, by the way) dooms us to stress at its best and overnights on airport benches at its worst. And when we get to our destinations, the beaches are too crowded and noisy, the restaurants too expensive, the traffic ungodly.
We can argue that nobody makes money when people stay home to build their communities. But that’s only a partial truth compared to the benefits provided by the stay-at-homes. The t-ball coach, the soup kitchen volunteer, the home gardener, the piano teacher, the farmers at the farmers’ market. They’re all dull folks when compared to a neighbor that just got back from Costa Rica or Australia, birdwatching or butterfly-chasing. But the stay-at-homes are the ones keeping their communities going.
Stay home and see what you’ve missed!
Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2023
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