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As so often before, I've left a long time between posts. But being greenish has been looming large in my awareness lately, and a good deal of the reason has been this year's Swarthmore Lecture.
The Swarthmore is an annual lecture given at the time of the Quaker Yearly Meeting, the annual nationwide get-together for decision making and inspiration, and 'to see each other's faces'. This year it was residential at the University of Kent at Canterbury, with some 1500 Quakers and their families, including the Junior Yearly Meeting for 16-18 year olds: my lovely granddaughter was one of the Clerks (chair people). The Swarthmore was given by Pam Lunn, with the title at the head of this entry - it comes from T S Eliot's well known 'Four Quartets'.
The lecture was both information and a challenge: it showed that for the human race to survive we need to act now in radical ways, and set out a path for saving the planet with us still on it. My response, as the lecture called for, was both personal - what I will do myself - and corporate, thinking of what Quakers collectively might do.
One thing I've been aware of for some time is how fortunate I am to have the immense luxury of a whole house to myself. Yes, it's only a little two bed mid terrace house in the North East of England, not everyone's idea of a des res, but in global terms it's unashamed luxury, not that far removed from the Queen living in Buckingham Palace (which she doesn't have to herself anyway). So I've suggested that several single people might live communally, having their own living space within a largish house but sharing things you don't need to have exclusive use of, like a washing machine and a lawnmower, and even a car. My own little yellow treasure, Buttercup, stays in my back yard more days than not: someone else could be using her if they needed a car rather than buying one themselves. She's very low emissions (and hence costs only £30 a year to tax) and economical to run. I put this suggestion in our local Quaker newsletter, and so far have had one positive response.
Corporately, it occurred to me that the world-wide Quaker body is running a gathering next year in Kenya, and inviting a thousand Quakers to it from all over the world. Most will fly, and for most it will mean a long haul flight, if not two. The carbon footprint will be huge. So I've written to 'The Friend', the national Quaker weekly periodical, calling for it to be cancelled as a way of matching our actions to our words. If they publish it, it will undoubtedly stir up some controversy. But I'm serious: 'Quakers cancel international conference to avoid carbon footprint' would make a good headline, and show that we are serious in calling for radical action to halt global warming and help sustain the planet. The conferences, normally every three years, do bring Quakers together on a global level, and are (I'm told, I've never been to one) enjoyable and inspiring occasions. But I don't think any major outcome has resulted from any of the previous ones, and to make a very public act of reducing our contribution to greenhouse gases might well have a bigger and more beneficial result for the planet as a whole. So my call is a serious one. I'll try to keep up on here with the consequences, if indeed the letter is published in the first place.
I'm uncomfortably aware, of course, that last year I flew some thirty thousand miles to Australia and Aetearoa New Zealand and back, travelling amongst Quakers in the former and holidaying with my sister in the latter. I've wanted to go back to Australia ever since: but I'm beginning to sense that my own contribution to this movement will be not to do so. I can't even really justify the one long haul flight I'm likely to make before I settle to being an old lady, to India to see the Taj Mahal: it will be simply self indulgence, and maybe when the time comes I'll eschew that one too. And going back to Los Gigantes in Tenerife: that may take some soul-searching. But you don't have to be perfect to suggest good deeds to others: if you did then none of us would make any such suggestions, and the world would be a poorer place. It does remind me of an old prayer, 'Lord, make me chaste, but not yet....'. Apart from the Australia trip, I'd done only six long haul return flights in my life, plus twice to Tenerife and back: more than some, less than others. But maybe nobody is 'entitled' to a share of air travel: on a planetary level, we should all be campaigning for its abolition, however unlikely that may seem.
Maybe I'll go by boat.....
I've been reminded, this week, of the 'Ten-Ten' challenge. This was to reduce one's personal carbon footprint by 10% during a twelve month period starting at a date of one's own choosing some time during 2010 from the previous 12 months.
I really don't think much to this kind of attempt to jolly people into turning off the lights more: hasn't the rise after rise in electricity prices been incentive enough? And whenever we pick the arbitrary start date, why on earth didn't we start reducing our footprint before that date anyway? For myself, the task was easy: having flown around 30,000 miles between February and mid April 2010, all I had to do was to choose to start on May 1st and I was bound to have more than exceeded the 10% target reduction, because I was going to fly very much less during the year from May 2010 to May of this year. I've flown from Newcastle to Newquay and back, in a greenish little aeroplane - well, back was a tiny little thing as far as Bristol where I broke the journey, and then dear old EasyJet Airbus back, but with payment conscientiously made for the carbon offsetting. I doubt me if I'll be flying anywhere again before May, though the idea of a week in Tenerife is still a desirable one.
We saw so much, with the previous government, how targets don't improve what you do but distort it so as to achieve some almost random measure of 'performance'. Tony Blair was amazed to find that his targets for people seeing doctors resulted in worse appointment systems, not better ones, but it was inevitable given the way the target was set up. If you want everyone to be seen within two days of making an appointment, clearly you can't let people make appointments for a week ahead, however much they might want to. So in setting green targets, there's little point in asking people to make some particular reduction in their carbon output: they'll have done all the reasonable things already, and this will only antagonise them because there are lengths to which most folk simply won't go that would be required to do any more, at least of any significance.
And in fact I'm not convinced that personal micromanagement is of much use anyway. When Apartheid ruled in South Africa, I boycotted South African goods, but I had no illusions that this would in any way affect the South African economy: it affected me, and that was why I did it. I happened to read, a couple of months ago, that the airline Emirates has ordered no fewer than 90 Airbus 380 aircraft, the double decker super-jumbo that seats up to 700 passengers, and most of these are yet to be delivered. Bearing in mind that these aircraft will be flying more hours than not, in order to earn their keep, the amount of carbon emissions involved dwarfs any savings any individual might make: and that's just one airline. So what is needed is not individuals making tiny changes but groups and mass movements calling for a change in corporate and governmental attitudes. I've said before that the kids may feel they're doing their bit by turning the tap off when cleaning their teeth, but they'd do better to wave posters saying 'Tax flying now' or even 'limit flying now'. A global personal limit of so many miles per person per year, transferable at a set price, would do a lot more to limit air traffic and cut down the huge growth in emissions in this area which goes against the promised Governmental trend of reducing overall the national emissions. After all, less and less do business personnel have to physically travel nowadays: the meeting can be held by virtual conference in several parts of the globe simultaneously, and it works perfectly well - I've done it. I've sat in Newcastle and joined in a meeting in Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol - and it could just as well have been Birmingham, Alabama as Birmingham, England. So why fly across the atlantic when you can internet! It's this kind of attitude we need to cultivate.
When I went to Australia, I squandered some of my inheritance and went business class. Oh, believe me, it makes a huge, huge difference. It makes the journey a delight rather than a trial, and it really does deliver the businessman ready to do business. I arrived in Adelaide at 7.30 am, normally a disastrous time for me, after about 30 hours continuous travelling with two changes of plane, and felt rested, refreshed, well fed and watered and ready to go. I'd slept a good deal, eaten and drunk as I pleased, been entertained and pampered and really enjoyed the whole thing. I can now understand why someone I'd heard of, whose father was a BA employee and so who got a ration of free air travel, went business class to Sydney for the weekend: the fun was in the journey, never mind breathing the fresh air of Sydney Harbour. If nations agreed to abolish business class, I'd predict that flying would hugely decrease. You'd probably have to abolish First as well, except for Royalty perhaps, and there would be howls of protest: but you'd have a diminishing rather than a growing air transport industry.
Maybe these suggestions are nonsense, maybe they wouldn't work for a variety of reasons, maybe the vested interests are too deeply entrenched for anything like that to happen. Bristolians who assemble the airbus wings certainly wouldn't be happy at the prospect of losing their jobs. But my point is that global warming is on a global scale, and needs global scale measures to tackle it: little domestic improvements, even if done by millions, will hardly scratch the surface.
So until then, pardon me if I fly to Cornwall rather than suffer Arriva Cross Country, with the first four hours of the run home having not so much as a cup of tea available on board. Alongside the ninety super jumbos of Emirates, it really won't make too much difference.
