110 years of Airship joy!

I spotted in the Guardian yesterday that 5th July 1900 saw the maiden flight of the very first Zeppelin. As readers of this blog will know I was fortunate enought o take a flight over London a couple of summers ago in the modern day descendent of these amazing aircraft (which was also built by the Zeppelin company!). You can see pictures of that flight here, and I wrote a Guardian column about the flight too here. And here we are 110 years on, with hopefully a new age of airship travel soon to be born. Bring it on I say!

Contextualising Carbon...

Whilst I am obviously not massively over-keen to directly promote the website www.fly.co.uk (obsessed as they are with flogging cheap flights to people) they did send me a rather good infographic below today. It's impressive in it's objective comparison of different sources of carbon emissions, and seems to be 'agenda-free' (i.e. I don't detect any 'Actually aviation is a blameless component of global carbon emissions so fly a much as you fricking want people!' type subtext).

For me the key issues around carbon emissions and aviation have always boiled down to a few difficult truths:

1. Global aviation is only 2-3% of world carbon emissions - Yes, but the VAST majority of the world has never and probably will never fly!

2. It is per capita emissions which are the issue - Yes, and this is why flying is so problematic, as the graphic itself points out: One return flight between LA & NYC emits over 1.5 tonnes of carbon per passenger - which if we're all aiming for an equitable 2 tonnes of carbon per person per year target means you have to more or less live the rest of your life carbon neutrally!

3. The frequent flyers are the problem. No-one's saying STOP entirely, but we could make huge inroads into aviation carbon emissions by all flying less

Anyway, here's the graphic. Enjoy. It's most definitely food for thought (especially if you're a big milk drinker/burger eater!)

Wall St Journal Easy Rider...

There's a great article in the Wall St Journal this week about slow travel for which I was interviewed. It's a lively piece that really captures some of the magic of overland and considered travel that readers of this blog will know and love...you can read the full article here.

Icelandic volcano traincation 2...

Here's my latest Guardian piece, unsuprisingly focusing on the volcano and it's impact on flying versus overland travel...you can read the full article on their site here, or I've copied the full text below.


Icelandic volcano: is this the start of the 'traincation'?

Iceland's erupting volcano is forcing many to travel overland across Europe for the first time, but regular slow traveller Ed Gillespie argues that rail travel needn't be flying's poor relation

Another private jet whined overhead as I crossed the frozen lake into St Moritz. This was only a few weeks back, "pre-volcano", but as a second plume of silicate dust from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull crater keeps many European planes grounded, it already seems a long time ago.

I was in St Moritz after riding the famous Glacier Express railway across the top of the Alps from Zermatt, an eight-hour journey through scandalously spectacular scenery. During the trip I'd passed the valley in which Europe's biggest glacier, the monstrous Aletsch, edges it's way downhill. This 27bn-tonne river of ice is, like most glaciers, shrinking as a result of global warming.

I once went to the, perhaps excessive, length of circumnavigating the world without flying as part of my own personal exploration of the relationship between travel, carbon emissions and climate change. The retreat of Aletsch was a stark reminder of that journey and the motivations behind it.

It's almost two years to the day since I returned from that trip and during the intervening period I've become a passionate advocate of overland travel – even in the absence of belching volcanoes. Its not just for eco-geek reasons of carbon-emission efficiency, although if you need a justification for taking the train then I'd argue that's a pretty good one. I love the simple pleasures that overland forms of travel like rail can bring; the rhythmic rumble of the wheels beneath you and the rolling vista of ever-changing views outside your window to name but two. It's intriguing that many of the stranded British passengers returning to the UK have mentioned the "adventure", "challenge" and surprising joys of their return trips. "There was so much to see!" exclaimed one 81-year-old woman whose son had just driven her back from Switzerland.

In recent years it has seemed that the unfettered growth of aviation would likely continue unchecked, despite high-profile politicking and protests around Heathrow's proposed third runway. Campaign groups, like Plane Stupid with their polar bears plunging from the sky, and Greenpeace's ingenious Airplot sit in stark contrast to the slightly disingenuous findings of the Government's own Committee on Climate Change. Their report at the tail-end of 2009 loudly trumpeted a vibrant future of aviation growth. Provided we decarbonise the rest of the economy by 90%.

Lured by ludicrously low prices we Brits rapidly developed a dependency on cheap flights. Then the banks imploded, recession bit and the pound plummeted against the euro. These circumstances gave birth last year to "staycation", when many of us swapped a continental twang for a UK holiday. Seventeen million fewer people took a flight last year, a drop of 7% on 2008 and the lowest level of aviation in six years. In the context of an annual 218,126,313 flying passengers, this isn't exactly the end of the jet-age of travel, but it's a definite shift and we're perhaps seeing the birth of a new trend – the "traincation".

Blended words like staycation and traincation can be rather clunky and inelegant. I can vouch for this personally after my own ill-fated attempts to launch "frucool" (frugal + cool) on a largely uninterested world. One online wit suggested it was something only a "twunt" would come up with. But with or without the recent intervention from Eyjafjallajökull, there's real substance behind the emerging traincation trend, which is enough to warm the cockles of slow-travelling hearts everywhere.

A survey by green lifestyle charity Global Cool recently found that just over half of Britons are now considering swapping planes for trains – a real milestone given our apparent addiction to flying. And it's not difficult to identify some of the factors driving this change. Like the increasing amount of time we're expected to loiter in airport terminals, or the latest airport security scanners that leave little to the furtive imagination, and for many are an invasion of privacy too far.

Perhaps it's the cramped seat, poor food and mercenary tactics of the budget carriers with their convoluted rafts of hidden costs, luggage restrictions and uncanny ability to fly you only vaguely near your ultimate destination? It might not be the end of the affair, but the honeymoon period may well be coming to an end for us and budget airlines.

There are sticking points, of course, namely cost and convenience. If the emerging traincation trend is to have any momentum and longevity then these will have to improve. At present it is usually more expensive and more challenging to book continental train travel than bagging a seat on a short-haul flight. But change is afoot. The travelling public are waking up to the fact that city centre to city centre travel by rail can be broadly comparable in cost to a superficially cheap flight that then has city to airport travel at either end, taxes, luggage fees and a miscellany of other incremental fees bolted on.

Plus, the opening of new high-speed rail links, like the Brussels-Amsterdam line, means that the difference in journey time between train and plane for many popular destinations is narrowing. Booking is still a struggle, but websites like seat61.com and loco2.co.uk are demystifying these arcane processes, and simple "one-click" continental train booking can't be too far away.

Perhaps cost, convenience and craters aren't the only drivers for this shift. Desire for comfort, and concern about climate change, might also be influencing travel behaviour. Global Cool's survey also revealed that 83% of travellers want their journeys to be greener, and there's no argument that the extra legroom and ability to move around freely on trains is a key selling point.

It works for me. As I whizzed my way smoothly to Switzerland and back and crossed the Alps courtesy of Eurostar, SNCF and the Glacier Express to St Moritz I was convinced the traincation is the way forward. Nibbling on a smoked salmon blini and sipping champagne as the magnificent mountain panoramas unfurled around me, I wondered if the denizens of St Moritz with their private jets and bejewelled canines knew what they were missing. Who needs a volcano to experience the joys of slow?

Silver Lining...

...beautiful poem by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy about the disruption caused by the volcano. Lyrics below or you can listen live here.

SILVER LINING
Five miles up the hush and shush of ash.
Yet the sky is as clean as a white slate
I could write my childhood there.
Selfish to sit in this garden, listening to the past.
A gentleman bee wooing its flower, a lawnmower.
When the grounded planes mean ruined plans, holidays on hold,
saw absences at weddings, funerals.
Windless commerce.
But Britain’s birds sing in this spring from Inverness to Liverpool,
From Crieff to Cardiff, Oxford, London Town, Land’s End to John O’Groats.
The music, silence summoned, that Shakespeare heard,
and Edward Thomas.
Briefly, us.

By Carol Ann Duffy

Clear blue skies over London...

I took these pictures from the roof of my block at the top of Brixton Hill yesterday to capture the brilliant clear blue skies unbroken by con-trails during these rare plane-free days. You can spot Battersea Power Station, the Gherkin, Wembley and Crystal Palace radio mast at the bottom of the shots...

With still no definite date for the resumption of flying (the last time the volcano erupted it carried on for two years!) it's timely to remember that airships wouldn't be affected by the ash and what a way to travel...

Planes vs Volcano...

From the very clever people at Information Is Beautiful this graphic says it all...enjoy the clear blue skies while they last...

Can I claim my pay-rise?

Now this is an interesting story. Rag-traders Abercrombie & Fitch have persuaded (it must have been tough) their CEO Michael Jeffries to limit his use of the corporate jet to $200,000 a year (he was previously spurting up to $800,000 per annum on this 'essential' executive perk). In order to compensate the altruistic Mr Jeffries for this selflessness the company is paying him a $4M 'one-off' (so that's allright then?!) sweetner...

As the dry commentary puts it “There will likely be a negative reaction to it from institutional shareholders”. Damn right!

Volcano grounds UK aviation...

Somedays you just can't make this stuff up! It's fascinating at a time when there has been lots of scientific debate about how volcanoes contribute to climate change that the eruption of one in Iceland has actually grounded the entire UK aircraft fleet...thereby dramatically cutting carbon emissions for the day (or maybe longer if the plume persists).

Brilliant Guardian coverage and a blow by blow (sorry) account of the volcanic billowings here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/apr/15/volcano-airport-disruption-iceland

Jamie Does...it so very wrong...

I am a big fan of Jamie Oliver. I think the work he has done to engage fat schoolkids on healthy eating (despite pisspoor parents poking pies at their podgy offspring through the school railings), and his campaigns on improving the welfare of put-upon porky pigs in the UK are all well-intentioned and thought-through. I also loved it when in his recent US series he (accidentally?!) nibbled on a hunk of Mescaline cactus and started, allegedly, tripping his way round a Mexican grocery store, a little more, ahem, 'fascinated' by the brightly coloured and entertainingly shaped fruit and veg than he might otherwise have been normally...

So, in the context of this admiration it's even more infuriating that Jamie has decided to build his latest TV series and book 'Jamie does...' around short-haul flights. As the promo-PR-bunny-blurb puts it:

"Jamie Does... is Jamie's personal celebration of amazing food from six very different countries. Cheap, short-haul flights and long weekend getaways have become increasingly popular and within a few short hours of the UK there are new and exciting worlds of food waiting to be discovered as Jamie finds out. Each chapter focusses on a different city or region - Marrakesh, Athens, Venice, Andalucia, Stockholm and the Midi Pyrenees region of France. Classic recipes sit alongside new dishes that Jamie learns along the way".

He may 'get' obese kids and poorly kept piggies, but our Jamie obviously doesn't 'get' climate change and it's a bit tragic that this whole endeavour should be based on encouraging short-haul aviation. Not least because there are easy, practical, overland travel alternatives to twanging around on a Sleazyjet to the destinations he focuses on...as a quick squizz on websites like Loco2 soon demonstrates! Jamie went to Venice...a bloody simple trip by train and just last month I went to Stockholm by rail and it was an amazing journey to boot! His approach shows a lack of creative imagination I fear and the production company have really missed a trick...where they could have elegantly combined the 'slow food' of Jamie's cooking with 'slow travel', focusing on all that's good about quality ingredients and combining that with the magic of slow travel journey to get there. Otherwise Jamie's considered cuisine is somehow undermined by the 'wham bam thank you maam' of his chosen travel mode.

If the series is all about the wonderful dishes to be found across Europe and Northern Africa then a complementary element might have been to explore the transition of cuisine as you travel across and through the continent overland - not buzzing over it courtesy of Michael O'Leary!

As Jamies himself apparently puts it the trip is about: 'the recipes that I’ve been inspired to make after walking through the markets and soaking up the vibes of each place. What you'll find in this book is fun, optimistic, escapist food you can actually cook and enjoy in your own home.'

What a crying shame he had to twang himself around on an aluminiun sausage in order to do it. Jamie - I love your cooking, but when it comes to transport, to paraphrase your good self, you're a fricking muppet!