Heat and Drought in Europe: "Get used to it."

Maybe its time we begin looking at sailing ships to Europe.

James, I wholeheartedly agree. We need to do more to reduce CO2 emissions. There is something quite romantic about sailing.

And this is one way we can all do our part: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/jan/07/cargo-ship-train-rail-to-vancouver-canada-low-carbon-travel-europe

Every time I refuse a plastic bag at a shop or recycle a scrap of paper, I try very hard not to think about all the flying I do.

There was a story on CNN a few months ago about a US couple who are completely off the grid, using only renewables, living somewhere in the boonies. Once a year he flies to Europe to visit an aging relative (mother?) and that "expenditure" is more than all his "savings" for a whole year.

It's all very depressing. I will now go plan another trip to cheer myself up.

signed: one guilt-ridden selfish b!tch.

Chani, you could go on an epic cycling trip to Spain utilizing a ferry to the Strait of Gibralter, and then onto the rest of Europe!

I'm surprised Gibralter is still a British territory. It seems the Spanish could easily take it. That's another story, but an interesting one.

Yeah, if you fly, eat meat and/or make first world humans you are a climate net-negative regardless of whatever else you do - solar panels, no car at home etc.

This summer I'm flying first world children to Europe where we will eat schnitzels like it's a contest. And then complain about the heat. We will be dropped off at the airport in an electric van. Sigh.

What I can do to limit , decrease or how ever one chooses to describe it, regarding the carbon footprint while traveling in Europe, is not using two options, both of which don't appeal to me anyway so it's easy to forego these two travel choices.

No rental car and no flying within Europe. That last time I flew within Europe was in the summer of 1989, Hannover to Berlin, ie a few months prior to the fall of the Wall.

I am with you Fred. Everyone should book their transatlantic flight to the closest airport in Europe (London or Lisbon I think?) and train from there to their final destination. But no more flights within Europe. West Coast Americans should use AmTrack to reach JFK before boarding a flight.

And I like the idea of riding on the cargo ship, but I would want to know if the cargo was environmentally "friendly" before I associated with it.

That's what we now do, Fred. No rental cars or flying within Europe. We walk as much as possible and use those electric rental scooters and bikes, or take public transportation. Heck, even at home I ride my bike to work. During the winter I find the cold invigorating! It sort of gets my brain going.

James E., the cargo ship is going anyway, so no CO2 issues with you tagging along like a happy-go-lucky kid.

A quartet of women recently rowed across the Pacific Ocean for goodness sake. We can all do more.

edit: As a bit of a thought experiment, I figure I burn about 1,000 calories while walking 10 miles. How do I calculate the carbon offset since I have to eat quite a bit more? Paris is my favorite place to walk. Someday I'll get back there, I hope. Maybe after Notre Dame is fixed.

A half century ago in the early 1970s, I knew of guys my age then who did exactly just that , going from SF to New York by Greyhound, not Amtrak, took them three days. I wasn't as adventurous, only took Greyhound from SF to Orange County not far from Disneyland, r/t.

The longest train rides I have experienced (so far) were done in Europe. The first in 1971 going from Malmo, Sweden up north for the next 24 hours, it was delayed en route as the scheduled ride was 22 hours, did that twice going up and returning after 2 weeks back to Malmo. Most likely the longest continuous day ride I did was close to 10 hours in 2003 from Gdansk to Berlin.

As the carbon footprint is much worse now than was the case 40-50 years ago, my travel options in Europe are now limited to public transport, buses, ferries, EuroStar, day and night trains, RER, subways, and the rare occasion the taxi, so no rental cars, ride-sharing, flying within Europe.

Once I engage in the core, most major carbon producing behavior - flying transatlantic for a non-necessary vacation - I find it hard to not feel like I'm shuffling deck chairs in the consequent decisions. I think that I would need to stay home to feel like I was actually doing something. And even at home, though I live in the city, ride a bicycle almost everywhere, and use a car very little, I'm sure my carbon footprint is grotesque if I added up my total impact.

It's a tricky question. I've read reliable holistic analysis that pegs the Danish as among the top carbon emitting and polluting people on the planet per capita, and selective analysis that lauds them as the climate saviors they tend to think of themselves as. 🤔 If the former is actually the case, hard for me not to feel like heat and drought are indeed here to stay regardless of my personal actions ....

I've read reliable holistic analysis that pegs the Danish as among the top carbon emitting and polluting people on the planet per capita ...

These two sources report U.S. CO₂ emissions (per capita) are about three times higher than Denmark -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=table

Good Old Canada, near the top again.

Tongue-in-cheek, some of the responses, almost as funny as some of the proposed solutions.

Germany may have to restart some of the shut down nuclear plants in order to get themselves off coal, although I'm not sure whether it's possible to reactivate them. Although nuclear isn't a perfect solution to the problem, at least it's preferable to coal. It's unfortunate that they don't have more hydroelectric resources as those will provide more power than solar or wind turbines.

"Denmark’s ecological footprint per capita is the fourth largest in the world, according to the latest Living Planet Report published by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

The Danes are only surpassed by the oil-rich states Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the report found."

https://cphpost.dk/?p=3039

The Copenhagen Post story cites cropland being the problem, but the WWF report is broader than that: Pig farmers to the world, high proportion flies overseas every year, massive reliance on imported consumer goods that create much carbon in production and transport. Top 25 in oil production per capita. Fully deforested nearly their entire nation and as such not recapturing carbon. Etc.

My point isn't to run down the Danes, who for the most part are making conscientious efforts individually, and who are regularly held up as an example to be emulated. It's admirable, and yet despite their efforts they are per capita among the most polluting people on the planet and can be argued to be responsible for far more CO2 than shows in narrower measures of what is emitted inside of their national borders.

As such I'm not particularly hopeful, and pretty strongly in the OP's get used to it camp.

I should have tried to steer the discussion more toward how we as individuals and a society can lower CO2 output as opposed to geopolitics. For example, what are you doing to lower your carbon footprint?

For example, avoiding meat is a big one, especially red meat.

BigMikeWest is absolutely right. It is hard to understand how intelligent, educated people continue to eat meat knowing the harm it does to the environment.

Wow. Hard to feel welcome on this forum when you live in an oil and ranching based economy like Alberta's. I have to wonder if the knives and pitchforks are out for the Texans as well.

Nick: I didn’t want to get into other reasons not to eat meat as I was trying to stick to the subject which was environmental concerns.

We are going to Milan, Torino, & Alba in October and with their severe water shortages we are beginning to think about ways to have less impact as a tourist. We will walk and transit for the most part. Because of Covid we already plan to have no hotel housekeeping so will keep our towels and sheets for several days for less laundry. Shorter showers are easy. We do want to be mindful of what is going on around us while hopefully bringing some economic benefit with our tourist dollars.

Claire, apparently the best you can do is fly to Lisbon and take the train to Italy.

James, thank you for the suggestion:)

It’s actually less time in the air for us to do the Vancouver Munich flight we are scheduled on as we can only get to Lisbon via Toronto…..oh well.

'Claire, apparently the best you can do is fly to Lisbon and take the train to Italy." - Not Nececelery, as Benny Hill would say. You can fly to Barcelona, row to Genoa and then hike to Alba.