Guilty Pleasure

This trip to Europe is thoroughly enjoyable, but I feel an uneasy guilt as the mountainous terrain near Florence flashes by the windows of the train.

We arrived in Europe by plane, of course, a form of transportation that is bad for the environment, particularly in its production of greenhouse gases. Now we’re getting around by train, which is less harmful but still not great.

The source of my unease is the papers I have with me, The Guardian and The International Herald Tribune, both with stories emphasizing my personal contribution to the planetary problem of global warming.

The Herald Tribune carries a story about environmental criticism of airlines (as it turns out, I can’t find the paper, I must have thrown it out). Air travel is by far the worst form of transportation because of its massive fuel consumption, and now an environmental group has started a campaign on the issue.

In The Guardian, Madeline Bunting writes a wistful piece set on November 6, 2046, looking back 40 years and attempting an explanation to an imaginary grandson for the folly of our times:

The problem was that we were intoxicated with an idea of individual freedom. With hindsight, that understanding of freedom was so impoverished that it amounted to nothing more than a greedy egotism of doing whatever you wanted whenever. We understood freedom largely in terms of shopping and mobility (we were restless, and liked travel of all kinds).

Harsh words, and like many of the people who’ve read them, I’m sure, I sit here trying to think of why they don’t apply to me.

Truthfully, I don’t understand freedom as shopping or mobility, nor do I agree with Bunting when she goes on to say that the “most precious freedom of all” is “freedom from fear”. The most precious freedom is freedom to be as one is, and to grow; it’s true fear is a potent inhibitor of this freedom, but one can be lulled or seduced into its loss too, unafraid.

Travel, for me, is not this seduction of thoughtless pleasure, it’s an unfolding of new experience that I hope will change my perceptions in some way. If it weren’t for the environmental issues I am only now becoming aware of, I would recommend that everyone travel abroad to experience other ways of life.

Paradoxically, these ways of life often teach environmentalism by example. I’m thinking of the superb waste management of The Netherlands (they have no landfills), the dense, functional and vibrant city centres all across Europe, and the excellent transportation systems in cities like Paris.

The water conservation techniques of arid countries in the Middle East also come to mind, although I’ve never seen these first-hand. This is a good lesson, because none of the things other countries do better than Canada require travel to understand. For the average person who doesn’t read about urban planning or recycling facilities in their spare time, however, travel powerfully illustrates the possible.

In the end, for me these are nothing more than rationalizations. I enjoy non-fiction. For now, I’m left committing myself to buying fluorescent light bulbs and maybe some more insulation. And I wonder how many trees it would take to absorb the carbon I’ve burned this trip.

Maybe I’ll switch to one-ply?