Living sustainably in a digital society is indeed possible

Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 21:29

In response to a Twitter conversation with Ben Werdmuller, he's written a blogpost about living sustainably in a digital society, and this is my response to that. Go and read his post first, and then come here.  

Ben, I completely feel your pain. I see in the decisions you're making and the issues you're covering some of the uncomfortable choices I've had to make in the past couple of years.

I'm especially aware from your tweets that you've had family illnesses that necessitated a lot of travel, and I think that everyone's situation is different when it comes to that.

So I don't want to directly disagree with anything you've said, because it's drawn from your own experiences, but I do want to elucidate the following points. They started off as a comment, and now they're basically a long, bullet-pointed comment, so do excuse the mental sprawl:

  1. I honestly believe that we can have a sustainable society. Sustainability is not about zero carbon emissions: it's about ultimately emitting at less than or equal to the rate that the biomass can clean up, so that we progress within that bound. Futurists have been going on about this idea of a progressive steady state for years and people have lapped it up; so why not in the context of carbon emissions? I agree that we do need efforts from government, but I also think that people who appreciate the problem have an absolute and individual moral duty to make their lives more sustainable: for the sake of the future of the projects they themselves would like to begin, of the children they've begotten, and of the wonderful, glorious culture that we'd love to still be growing and developing in a thousand years' time.
  2. You're here now, and it's a powerful place to be. You now have knowledge which can make your life sustainable. But a personal move to sustainability is not accomplished in a step change (indeed, if you change too much, too soon, you're liable to react against it.) It begins with an acknowledgement of an unsustainable lifestyle, moves through an investigation of that lifestyle, and results in a re-evaluation of it in sustainable, thousand-year terms. And maybe your values will change along the way: outside of the moral duty we have to our fellow man, there's nothing more or less worthy about a sustainable life; but what you attach worth to can change.
  3. If you're not sure what to do, and especially if the problem seems far too big - which is how I see you reacting to an understandably difficult situation - then remember that we've advanced in leaps and bounds in the past five or ten years, in terms of the tools people can get to fix this. Lots of people are where you are; some of them have been gnawing at this problem for decades; and others are just coming to it with no real understanding at all. There are tons of resources on these ideas nowadays (I help run a local blog and community action group called Sustainable Witney on this very subject), and I can especially recommend the Carbon Conversations, which I'm only just completing. All these things give you tools to change your life for the more sustainable; which I think we both agree means for the better.
  4. Measuring is the first and arguably the most important step. When you measure something, and it's something you have bad feelings towards, you'll find it miraculously reduces. As a starting point, the ratio of UK "non-essential" GDDP to UK carbon emissions is around 0.5kg of CO2 for every pound sterling spent. So start tracking your non-essential purchases. Aim to reduce them by 10% per year. Put them in a Google doc; do basic analysis if you like; weight electronics purchases by an extra 20%, and lighten sustainable purchases by a similar amount. To give you an idea of what you can achieve through measurement (almost) alone, I started a Google doc of my commutes to work three years ago, and I've just passed the 90% cycling barrier this year. Also, if you're interested in measuring other aspects of your carbon emissions, sign up to the Carbon Account or iMeasure. Go for it.
  5. The "cheapness" of high-carbon living you talk about is partly true - aviation is massively over-subsidised - but it's also partly smoke and mirrors on the part of the vested interests. I can't ever demolish the myth completely, but here's an important point. When my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, and we were running around like lunatics trying to find flights to go to Barcelona (like you, I'd conscience flying in a medical emergency) we worked out that before supplementary charges it would cost over £600 for Kate and I to fly to Barcelona and back at such short notice; factor in trains or coaches either end, taxes and the rest, and we were looking at close to £800. When we booked the train instead, we got first class sleeper carriages there, two-bed sleepers on the way back, for around £1000 door to door. So while airlines might favour people who book early, they afford it by stinging people who book late. Overall, I doubt if people end up paying as low a price as you might think.

I think we can indeed live sustainably. Ultimately, if one person can live sustainably in a digital society, then two can; if two can, then four can; if four can... then apart from anything else, then if the issue is indeed overconsumption and not overpopulation, then eventually we'll surely hit some economy of scale! 

The political will to do it is a different question, but a lot of changes that can be made do not have to wait for the political will, and I think while we'll ultimately need the government to change a lot of it, we don't have to sit around waiting for them to do that.

I would also say that we recently managed to stop a potentially detrimental road scheme in Witney, even though people kept telling us to give it up: there wasn't the political will to stop it, they said. It's made me think quite differently about whether or not you need to get the political will before you start trying.

None of these are killer arguments to convince you, or ideal solutions to fix our world: I do realise that. Like I said in reply to your tweet about technological improvements: we are too late for a silver bullet. I think that's true in rhetoric as much as it's true in technology. But we can change our lives; we will have to change our lives; and the sooner we start, the easier it will be.

Comments

Ben Werdmuller (not verified)

Thu, 23/08/2012 - 22:49

Fantastic post. Thanks for the really thoughtful reply!

What's interesting is, I don't think our posts are contradictory at all. In fact, I think we're coming from very similar perspectives (our post titles aside). Your focus is more on personal changes; mine on infrastructure changes.

Regarding flights vs trains, the last-minute price discrepancy is certainly true. But there's no reason in the world why that couldn't and shouldn't apply to trains too - the fact is (and I've just checked this, via Skyscanner and Thetrainline), an off-peak return between London and Edinburgh is £121 by rail if I want to travel tomorrow, and exactly the same price if I travel in November. Flying from London is £55 in November - and £125 if I travel tomorrow. If anything should be £55, it should be a trip on public transport.

jp.stacey

Sun, 26/08/2012 - 21:06

I agree that at face value your example does seem to show a marked favouritism towards aviation, and some of that is definitely because the plane companies don't pay their fair share of tax, and also misrepresent their prices. I'm generally of the opinion that short-haul flights should be environment-taxed into oblivion, if only to finance reparations of the comparatively enormous environmentaly damage that future generations would otherwise have to clear up with no assistance.

I don't want to get too hung up on transport, though. It's definitely important, not least because it contains some problems that are intractable under an approach of gradual personal reduction; but there are two or maybe reasons why there's a limit to the usefulness of tracking down your specific example.  

But firstly, travel is only the fourth biggest of the five main contributions to the average UK carbon footprint. In terms of tonnes of CO2, these are as follows:

  1. Purchases (3t) As you mention in your post, the purchase of nonessentials, especially electronics, causes a huge amount of hidden environmental damage. But this can be tackled: by the state, compelling industry - free markets fail on environment issues, as the Stern report said - to act more responsibly through legislation like WEEE; and by the individual, who can accept the moral necessity of reducing their expenditure and then think of ways to do so. The heuristic of 0.5kg CO2/£ expenditure is imprecise, and might cause environmentally conscious shoppers to feel that their more sustainable purchases are punished by a flat rate; but in the absence of , the mere tracking of it yourself does help reduce nonessential consumption. There will need to be a cultural change away from consumption-as-aspiration, and soon; but maybe some of that is rumbling towards us with the "sudden" revelation of moral and economic shakiness at the heart of shareholder/consumer capitalism.
  2. Food and Drink (2.9t) Qualitatively this breaks down into four main areas: production, which is most wasteful for non-organic meat and dairy, least for allotment-grown food; processing, which is most wasteful for frozen-bought or multi-ingredient food, least for unprocessed grains etc; packaging, worst for aluminium cans and steel tins, best for unpackaged food; and transport, which is self explanatory. Again, the truly quantitative calculations are hard to come by; but a qualitative assessment of the food and drink you purchase is possible. Legislation can probably never lead completely on this, although waste legislation, higher fuel taxation and better allotment provision would definitely help shift people back towards growing their own. Individuals will still need to be the vanguard of a gradual cultural change on this (that's partially true for all of these items, of course: government can rarely lead a cultural shift.) 
  3. Home (2.5t) Most straightforward to define: this is the sum total of all the meters connected to your house; plus, arguably, your water consumption. Peak oil will help compel home owners to make their houses more sustainable, but too slowly. Government initiatives like the Green deal could end up funnelling money to the middle classes, although this middle-class homeowner recently stumped up to refit an ancient boiler himself, because of the money it would save us / value it would add to the house. Arguably there are value propositions here, although legislation could help (and there's probably a culture to support it, were the government not in hock to the lobbying of property and construction firms.)
  4. Travel (1.9t) This is the one we're arguing about, and I think we understand what it encompasses. Food transport is part of the second quintile of our footprint mentioned above; unmotorized transport is generally considered to be zero-carbon, because exercise brought about by a trip to the shops is as much a health-benefit necessity as it is a food-transport mechanism.
  5. Infrastructure (1.7t) Expenditure on our behalf: road repair, government offices, the NHS etc. This, the least likely to fall in any noticeable manner until culture has well and truly changed, is also fortunately the lowest.

So travel is important - they're all within around 1.5-3 tonnes, after all - but it's by no means the most important. And secondly, your specific case hides a more complex issue, so while I'm would be the last to cry "apples and oranges!.html" there's clearly more at work than just comparing one journey with another (are all your costs return journeys? I think so, but it's not clear.)

We could talk about it in a lot of depth even so, although I only have so many hours in the day! Suffice it to start by saying that, as I'm sure you're aware, the UK's rail system is more confusing and complicated than most others in developed countries. Off-peak returns are a specific sort of semi-flexible ticket; if you book tickets for specific trains - which is a closer analogue to the specific plane journey - then you will almost always get cheaper.

Furthermore, if you split your journey at the boundaries formed by rail franchises - so-called "split ticketing" - then you can reduce the cost even further. This is because when you purchase multiple franchises' services through an agent, they add often exhorbitant fees to the result. Without reference to up-to-date prices (some of them are a few years old) then Edinburgh to Oxford's £33.50 advanced single - which is considerably cheaper than half of your £121 off-peak return from London - can be reduced to £27.50 by buying three tickets, splitting at BNS and Banbury. Oxford to Cardiff is nearly 50% cheaper simply by purchasing different tickets; and many other fares can be similarly reduced.

So it's complicated; the problem remains, of course, that all this depends on knowing what you're doing, and stressing over split journeys; it's not common knowledge and [edit for sense: that definitely means that culture favours aviation.] So I broadly agree with your primary thesis - on transport - that there needs to be some kind of government intervention. But tricks like split ticketing show that the intervention need only be fairly slight, if correctly targeted: although I've yet to find anyone outside of rail company shareholders who wouldn't be happy with renationalization tomorrow. If anyone wants evidence of political will for transportation change in the direction of sustainabilty, there it is.

Ben Werdmuller (not verified)

Thu, 23/08/2012 - 22:52

(Not to mention that I couldn't get a train between New York and London if I tried - some trips need to be flown, and I don't think it's practical to say that people should never travel abroad.)

jp.stacey

Sun, 26/08/2012 - 21:32

Well I would say as always that the best and first step is to start measuring these trips, and see how much they contribute to your own personal carbon footprint. There's a zero-order approximation - the simplest one to make - that does indeed say that long-haul trips are bad; not that "people should never travel abroad", but that if they do so then it should be by rail.

But that's all it is: the precursor to your first quantitative approximation. If you want to make cases for this or that journey, then the truth is in the details, and they will at least help you both make more considered judgments on when to fly, and also make a moral case for the flights you do take. And then, unless you're sticking to that zero-order approximation - which, incidentally, I've found perfectly practical to do - "never" is an odd and (possibly intentionally) emotive word to use: how often can one's own biomass budget of 5 tonnes take a 1-tonne flight? A 2-tonne flight? A 3-tonne one? Every year; every two years; every five years? Only with good data can you make hard decisions.

As an aside, really... when it comes to thinking about what journeys we do and don't "need" to do, I'm always reminded of the fact that it's only been the last thirty or so years that we've felt that aeroplane journeys are something that a middle- or greater-class person can or should (or need to) make with any frequency.

Qualitatively, you can look at the way that Victorians, or even early 20th-century people, who in theory had the technology at their disposal - felt about transport outside their own country. The practicalness of arranging their lives around frequent, long-distance travel would not strike them at all! Quantitatively, if you take a conservatively short measure of civilization as a whole (beginning 4000BC?) then that means that only for the most recent 0.5% of the timeline of civilized humanity has this been in any way sensical. So this notion, of plane flights for all (although the rich still fly the most) is in both qualitative and quantitative terms a culturotemporal blip.

In terms of making people change their habits more generally, there's a lot that can be done in terms of personal forms of carbon allowances and trading, but there's always criticism towards them, and not necessarily from the expected sources: such schemes can end up putting a price on the priceless, and give licence to the rich to buy carbon allowances from the poor. They would also eventually - almost by definition - raise the price of your transatlantic trips to the point where you might eventually feel you don't need to make so many after all. 

And ultimately, we might find that the only trips that actually need to be flown - in the true sense of that word - constitute actual medical emergencies, involving oneself or one's family. The rest become - or maybe they always were, but we were borrowing against our own futures - only occasionally affordable luxuries.