Low carbon travel experiences

[::: :::]

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[TBS]

The problem isn't fat cats skiers in Chicago, it is babies that haven't been born yet in China, India, Brazil, etc. Tell them they can't have a slice of the apple pie.

This. We (USA) can cut our carbon emissions 20% (unlikely to happen) and it won't make a shit bit of difference in another 20 years. China has been firing up one coal plant per week for the last 3+ years and will keep doing it for another 2+. India's fossil fuel consumption has tripled in the last 25 years. Those trends will continue.

But I don't want to be all negative. Here's how I try to make a difference
I live 40 miles from one resort, 25 from another. I carpool with a buddy in our 20+ YO SUVs. We pick up hitchikers. We vape and we don't fart.

[FatChance]

Amonthei - what is your technical background? In a past life, I was a geologist who worked domestically and internationally for a couple multinational companies, specializing in the study of the effects of paleoclimate changes on gold and uranium deposits in ancient fluvial systems. I also stayed in a Holiday Inn Express once.

Not everyone who has been around the block necessarily accepts your smug opinions about how we should all live within the life-altering limits of your unsubstantiated view of the world without question...

Have you just read a lot of websites to prepare this article for TGR? Why should anyone accept your holier-than-thou preaching?

Just askin'...

Edit: I live 34 miles from the area where I ski most of the time.

[Aus George]

SO much hopelessness and excuses. Well can't say i blame you guys, it is hard some days. But what do you do? Just lay down and watch our winters disappear cause you feel you cant do anything about it? Or the task at hand seems too large to take on?

OR fight till the very last snow flake falls?

Its hard but sometimes even a tiny bit of hope is better than giving up. Much more rewarding and in the end a difference will be made, it will just be the size of the change that we affect.

To the deniers, i say just keep your opinions to yourself. People being passionate about the environment, even if they are wrong is still a good thing. Only good things can happen, so why try to stop people from caring about something? If we are right, later you will thank us, if we are wrong only good things can come out of it so later you will still thank us. Arguing now, when there is so much evidence out there for our case, is just a huge waste of energy.

[SB]

That morning I felt those gritty scrapers under my eyelids and a foul taste in my mouth like I slept face down in a catbox. Deleriously dragging up the onramp, nothing was real, everything was ugly. The view was carpeted in rolling stubble of shredded, hibernating fields with a ceiling of vague gray cold.

A bass flatulence coming up the ramp made me spin around. There, lugubriously lumbering up the ramp was a huge beige-pink motorhome, a true gargantua of the freeways. I dropped my duffle and skis and stuck out ye old thumb in the vain hope of a ride. The driver and passenger scowled, the passenger singularly so in frosted curls and a bitter pruneface. But futility has never been a reason or excuse for not trying.

Morning metallic toothpaste taste smeared thickly on exhaust eyebrows, corpulent roadhogs wallowing on pebbled planar sections. Glurknesses. A melange of belching diesel and whining, windswept grinding gears drowning out the pastiche of recent past, the petulant pink mumu still glowing in the receding back rooms.

Small towns singular brick edifaces, fences, stockyards, singlewides, halebales, and barbed wire. More kinds of barbed wire than I had thought imaginable, all variants of braided tendrils and prongs.Storefronts, feed lots, chicken shacks, twisted barns succumbing to the torquings of time and gravity. Lean faces, wrinkled, creased, greased, cussed and spit. With grasses flattened by the gales, the denizens grit their teeth against being laid similarly low until time takes them and then away. Long jaundiced eyes, lost intent, crippled by the incessant wind and weather, anima non carborundum. The high plains of the American west drown in the timeless, thieving winds.

this should make those fence sitters jump off when the suicide bus gets thar

[DBdude]

Hey all,
I'm working on a story for TGR about low carbon travel options in the snowsports industry, particularly because I find it strange that many of us are advocating to 'save our winters' and yet aren't willing to sacrifice carbon-intensive travel — which it seems would be the only reasonable contribution to reducing our carbon emissions. Motives aside, I'm curious about everyone's experiences with traveling as sustainably as possible, whether by self-propelled means, public transit or an old truck converted to veggie oil.
So, what are your best/wierdest/most epic biking/hitchiking/touring/public transit experiences? Do you have a resort nearby that provides shuttles? Do you live in a city that provides bussing to the mountain? Have you hitched a trailer with all your ski gear to the back of your bike and quad-ed it out up some volcanoes, a-la Brody Leven? If so, you should probably tell me about it.
Thanks in advance for the help!
Amanda

this has argued about for years. usually in life style threads

next time you "get out there" look at what you are wearing. I'm sure mobile/exxon is popping a boner. Then think about how you got there and the life style you lead.

low carbon travel - the title is an oxy moron

further more, bus systems are often not lower in carbon emissions than single occupancy vehicles when you take usage rates into consideration. How often have you seen a total empty bus running it's route. city favor public transportation because of parking problems

[muted]

This. We (USA) can cut our carbon emissions 20% (unlikely to happen) and it won't make a shit bit of difference in another 20 years. China has been firing up one coal plant per week for the last 3+ years and will keep doing it for another 2+. India's fossil fuel consumption has tripled in the last 25 years. Those trends will continue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/bu...2020.html?_r=0
http://www.theguardian.com/environme...lysis-suggests

We may still be fucked, but China and other countries are trying to change. It may make a big difference.

[skiballs]

To the deniers, i say just keep your opinions to yourself. People being passionate about the environment, even if they are wrong is still a good thing. Only good things can happen, so why try to stop people from caring about something? If we are right, later you will thank us, if we are wrong only good things can come out of it so later you will still thank us. Arguing now, when there is so much evidence out there for our case, is just a huge waste of energy.

I believe, I believe, don't tase me bro.

[pureantigravity]

And anyways, someone educate me ...

If the earth even heats up a little bit, won't the organic CO2 eating mass of vegetation and sea-stuff be even more motivated. I mean, doesn't a small change in temp result in a large change in the amount of CO2 that is converted to Oxygen by plant life?

[BCMtnHound]

And anyways, someone educate me ...

If the earth even heats up a little bit, won't the organic CO2 eating mass of vegetation and sea-stuff be even more motivated. I mean, doesn't a small change in temp result in a large change in the amount of CO2 that is converted to Oxygen by plant life?

Photosynthesis increases with both temp and CO2, with optimum CO2 levels much higher than they are currently. Higher temps also increase the rate until about 30C, at which time the rate drops precipitously. But average global climate is hard to relate to photosynthesis by individuals because plants rely more on growing degree days in a specific local. In the tropics, optimum growing degree days already exist, and warming might even pass the peak threshold. Towards the mid latitudes, on most land masses there are deserts, where growing degree days significant, but daytime temps far exceed the peak photosynthesis threshold, and even reach temps where respiration actually hits critical levels where cells can start dying. Once you reach the sub polar latitudes, increase temps do contribute to greater photosynthesis, but actual growing degree days do not increase at the same rate of average global climate, so the benefit of increased temps is somewhat muted.

As far as the ocean goes, that is something that is even less understood with respect to optimum photosynthesis levels, especially as the vast majority of the ocean's mass receives little to no sunlight at all. And of course ocean currents are moving much of the floating little critters around. Water, and water vapour (especially in the upper atmosphere) are the wild cards in the climate models, with massive changes occurring with little understanding of why or when the water vapour concentrations with change. It is speculated that the low level of high altitude water vapour over the last decade is the reason the rate of increase in global temps was not as strong as forecast.

[Buster Highmen]

What would be interesting is to compare the carbon footprints of the following trips:
0) Fly NYC to Zurich, take train to ski area, stay local for a week (factor in lift carbon print), train back, fly back
1) Fly NYC to SLC, take Canyons Transport to Park City, stay local, Canyons back to SLC, fly home
2) Fly NYC to Denver, rent SUV, drive to Breckenridge, dive to Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone every da for a week. Drive back to Denver, fly back.
3) Drive Seattle to Albuquerque, skiing along the way, drive back 20 mpg, 4 people. Stay either slopeside or 6 miles from lift.

[flatNshallow]

A.) You're really asking to see my tits? Has that literally ever worked for you on the TGR forums?
.

You're not from around here, are you?

[klar]

OP: you may be interested in this film if you haven't seen it.

[goldengatestinx]

Back off, man. I'm a scientist.

"Hottest year on record" is about 150 years long, maybe. Less than two normal human lifespans. The earth has existed for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time, y'know? Learn about time.

The problem isn't fat cats skiers in Chicago, it is babies that haven't been born yet in China, India, Brazil, etc. Tell them they can't have a slice of the apple pie.

Your liberal guilt is clouding your perspective.

The call for carbon taxes always makes me laugh. Who's going to get the tax $$ once they're collected? Another Solyndra executive getting million dollar bonuses from some politician who took it up the ass during the election cycle based on false promises.

No carbon taxes going to be collected from my paycheck.

[eskido]

I'm still waiting for titties... and I find hitchin to be terribly inefficient

[goldengatestinx]

[QUOTE=axebiker;4406981]If the guys driving the "OMG

True true. Funny that plant life depends on CO2...and fossil records show that when there was no snow/ice on earth the plant life thrived and CO2 levels were through the roof...and then 'climate changed' and we're back to sustaining human life.

And then you get the spandex wearing crowd driving miles and miles to unload their bicycles and clog a mountain canyon road with their holier than thou 'petroleum free' exercise for the weekend. I just wish I had wider mirrors on the F-250 so I could tweek them on the hairpin turns.

[goldengatestinx]

[QUOTE=DBdude;4407727]this has argued about for years. usually in life style threads

next time you "get out there" look at what you are wearing. I'm sure mobile/exxon is popping a boner. Then think about how you got there and the life style you lead.

low carbon travel

Can't wait till they try to pass a bill for a billion dollar train boondoggle up I-70 from Denver. As if people will hump their gear to a bus stop. Then from the bus to a train station...onto the train...then onto another bus to a ski area...and then to a condo or motel. Yeah...right...talk about underutilization. That train will be more empty than a Denver light rail train after 6 pm.

And that's just in winter...just think of a family going to the mountains camping...sa if they'll have a shuttle from the train station in Frisco to a campground or into some backcountry forest service road.

Population control is where it's at.

[goldengatestinx]

What would be interesting is to compare the carbon footprints of the following trips:
0) Fly NYC to Zurich, take train to ski area, stay local for a week (factor in lift carbon print), train back, fly back
1) Fly NYC to SLC, take Canyons Transport to Park City, stay local, Canyons back to SLC, fly home
2) Fly NYC to Denver, rent SUV, drive to Breckenridge, dive to Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone every da for a week. Drive back to Denver, fly back.
3) Drive Seattle to Albuquerque, skiing along the way, drive back 20 mpg, 4 people. Stay either slopeside or 6 miles from lift.

Also add in the air miles for the sushi dinners, imported boozes and 1000 thread count Egyptian sheets in the hotels...

[panchosdad]

[QUOTE=goldengatestinx;4407941]

As if people will hump their gear to a bus stop. Then from the bus to a train station...onto the train...then onto another bus to a ski area...and then to a condo or motel. Yeah...right...talk about underutilization. That train will be more empty than a Denver light rail train after 6 pm.

Never skied in Europe?

[mmmm...pow!]

A.) You're really asking to see my tits? Has that literally ever worked for you on the TGR forums?
B.) You entirely misunderstood my perspective/point/question. As WMD so helpfully points out below, your stock impression of hippies doesn't apply here. This isn't about being smug. Why can't we get over these ridiculous political platitudes and just start working towards a cleaner future that isn't reliant on a commodity that has been directly responsible for countless wars, not to mention the dirty air you seem to hate breathing? While it is admittedly idealistic of me, the only way we can even begin to work towards that future is to begin making sacrifices, however small. The story I'm working on isn't going to argue for or against climate change (because there's nothing to argue...). What I do hope to assert is that we can be working towards a less oil-intensive future — not merely because it's warming our planet, but because our addiction to oil is an unhealthy one, and one that can be replaced by alternatives, if those alternatives are given precedence over our current, less-sustainable options. Yeah, that means carpooling when you can. It means taking the bike in lieu of the car. It means getting creative and taking the hard way because we all know it's more fun that way.
C. By saying "I believe we should decrease our emissions because I hate breathing that shit," you're further validating my entire point in writing this piece.

A. Yes, as per TGR regulations and bylaws, I am, and if I didn't, someone else would have. And no, it hasn't ever worked for me, don't know if it has worked for anyone here, but we're all a bunch of dreamers around here, so if it ever happens it would be kinda like the whole community sharing a winning lotto ticket.
B. I entirely understood your point. My point is that all these little individual efforts aren't going to do anything to help climate change. I do much of my commuting and recreational pursuits via hippy-approved methods. I recycle and eat mostly organic. I even have some Grateful Dead and Phish in my music collection (illegally downloaded, of course). But I don't advertise it or feel I am some sort of everyday hero for doing my part to save the earth. Really, I'm just kinda cheap and want to be healthy and once in a while enjoy some Jerry or Tre jams even if it's not my usual cup of matte.
C. No, I'm not really validating your point as I don't fully buy into blaming carbon emissions for rising temperatures, even if I can see other benefits to collectively getting our shit together and cleaning up the planet, which would include shifting away from obsolete fuel sources. But at some point Mother Nature is going to fart and take us all out, and the roaches and some other creatures will still be here and adapt to whatever mess we've left behind.

[DBdude]

[QUOTE=panchosdad;4407952]

Never skied in Europe?

ever been to europe?

back in the day, nobody had cars in europe, they where a luxury. and if your family did, you had one

second, this country will never invest in full fledged rail as it is found in europe, the population densities here don't make sense for rail on the scale found their

[californiagrown]

A.) You're really asking to see my tits? Has that literally ever worked for you on the TGR forums?
B.) You entirely misunderstood my perspective/point/question. As WMD so helpfully points out below, your stock impression of hippies doesn't apply here. This isn't about being smug. Why can't we get over these ridiculous political platitudes and just start working towards a cleaner future that isn't reliant on a commodity that has been directly responsible for countless wars, not to mention the dirty air you seem to hate breathing? While it is admittedly idealistic of me, the only way we can even begin to work towards that future is to begin making sacrifices, however small. The story I'm working on isn't going to argue for or against climate change (because there's nothing to argue...). What I do hope to assert is that we can be working towards a less oil-intensive future — not merely because it's warming our planet, but because our addiction to oil is an unhealthy one, and one that can be replaced by alternatives, if those alternatives are given precedence over our current, less-sustainable options. Yeah, that means carpooling when you can. It means taking the bike in lieu of the car. It means getting creative and taking the hard way because we all know it's more fun that way.
C. By saying "I believe we should decrease our emissions because I hate breathing that shit," you're further validating my entire point in writing this piece.

A) I think Wayne Gretzky said it best...

B) People who are passionate about something appear overzealous to those that are not. Get used to the reality that those who sit idly by are usually the crazy ones.

C) Bus exhaust smells worse than that of a passenger car...just sayin.

[Aus George]

You're not from around here, are you?

I was thinking the same thing