Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Professor Tom Baum of University of Strathclyde, our selfish desire to visit distant places has created a neo-colonial dependence, an implicit obligation to continue to take care of the economies of tourist hotspots after climate activists restrict global air travel.
Climate change and air travel: why we have a responsibility to countries dependent on tourism
July 23, 2019 2.23am AEST
Tom Baum Professor of Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde
Few would deny the threat to our planet posed by climate change, or the role that humans have played in the degradation of the natural environment. These arguments have been highlighted by Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish activist whose single-minded determination forced the powers of Europe to pay attention.…
Tourism and tradition
Research has not as yet addressed the implications of no fly for these developing countries, and such analysis will be a useful contribution to this debate. But if we no longer travel as much because of our commitment to the environment, what are the consequences for Phu Quoc and places like the Seychelles, St Lucia and Bali? Might they revert to their traditional way of life if tourism development disappeared?
All are destinations where the traditional economy and culture have been side-lined or destroyed on the promise of tourism’s riches. That promise depended on the transformation of a landscape dominated by agriculture and fishing to a concrete infrastructure that curtails or even obliterates traditional activities. And all depend on air access, investing in infrastructure to accommodate jet loads of tourists at high volume.
What happens, then, when the planes stop coming? Arguably, in time, nature would reclaim the runways and resorts that would be abandoned. But that will take time, if indeed it happens at all. In the meantime, it may be too late to revert to the economies and lifestyles of the past. Many would say this is a price worth paying to save our planet. In other words, without tourists, Phu Quoc and similar destinations could become wastelands with no way back to prosperity. Which might be seen as their problem.
But it’s not that simple. Communities in LDCs and SIDS – or, rather governments on their behalf – were seduced by the promise of prosperity through tourism. There was an implicit commitment from market countries through aid and loans that the planes would keep flying and the tourists keep arriving.
This form of neo-colonial dependence now places an obligation on countries and individual travellers whose demand created these destinations. However well-intentioned the no-fly campaign is, it is challenging from an ethical point of view to abandon these tourism destinations.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-air-travel-why-we-have-a-responsibility-to-countries-dependent-on-tourism-120462
There is an obvious solution. Hold more climate conferences. Nobody complains when greens fly to a climate conference, that kind of flying is good for the planet.
Climate scientists seem to require exotic holiday locations like Bangkok, Paris or Rio to properly disseminate their research, so if the number of climate conferences is increased to compensate for the fall in regular tourism, fly in tourist destinations can be assured of continued economic support from rich Westerners.
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And since these people are smarter than we, holier than thou and the “scientific experts” of fear-mongering climate change, the increase of the number of climate conferences and their wonton flights there will be totally justified.
Maybe an intermediate solution would for the climate hysterics to travel to those tourist destinations on the off season i.e., schedule their conferences to the tropical locations in the hottest of summer months; to the temperate regions in the dead of winter. That way they could still signal their virtue while supporting those localities when they need it the most.
There is no “implicit commitment” in tourist travel… unless the eco-tard is claiming that myself, as a tourist, owes that third-world country money for *not* traveling there.
These totalitarian fascists can’t understand capitalism and freedom… the tourist traps freely engaged in commerce understanding the risks, tourists freely travel to those tourist destinations, and the climate alarmists are free to feck right off with their humanity-hating, socialist, we-will-force-you-to-bend-to-our-will claptrap.
Freedom… ain’t it grand?
It won’t happen quickly They work in increments.
Watch for “Mandatory Travel Restrictions” for certain naughty naysayer groups.
They could always use 1970s technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacCready_Gossamer_Albatross
Or the very capable audio and visual coneferencing tools available. Greta would know.
VR is going to make travel obsolete over the next couple of decades. I’m sure it won’t stop the Global Warmers from flying to fancy conferences, though.
We were discussing this at work the other day. With a VR robot at customer sites, we could eliminate most of our business travel; for our company alone, that would cut millions of dollars from airline incomes.
“Climate scientists seem to require exotic holiday locations like Bangkok, Paris or Rio to properly disseminate their research”
Cherry picking. They go to not so exotic places too. Though I agree that their get-togethers are completely irrelevant as far as climate is concerned.
The UNFCCC calendar usually reads like a bucket list of places I’d like to visit…
https://unfccc.int/calendar/list
LOL…maybe I switch sides and get on that gravy train. All expenses paid, 5 star accommodation, lots of pretty girls, exotic locations or NYC will do. All paid for by stupid taxpayers. What isn’t there to like? I’ll say anything you like and vote however you like…
3rd on the list:-
36th meeting of the Least Developed Countries Expert Group
They need disbanding if they’ve had 35 meetings already. I’m sure another one isn’t going to do any more than the last 35 did.
How on God’s green Earth does one become an expert in Least Developed Countries?
Learn to say “Shithole” very fast.
“How on God’s green Earth does one become an expert in Least Developed Countries?”
Backpacking and poverty tourism, oh and you really have to care as you jet towards your 35th meeting. I wonder what they list as there main achivements in recent years??
Bonn and the Upper Conference room fail to stir my loins Im afraid
Yes, I think Eric blew his own argument with that link.
Have you ever been to Bonn ? FFS. Hardly a tourist haven. UN Headquarters , well if you’ve never had the chance to smell the air in NY, I suppose that a must for the bucket list.
Bonn, Abroad, TBC, Bonn, Abroad, TBC ….
Hardly a tourist brochure , is it ?
The Rhine valley is quite pleasant, and some of the surrounding hills and castles are rather picturesque. At least they’ll have a decent hotel with a wine list to match. Better than staying at home and watching tv.
The last thing these destinations need is a
“Professor of Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde”
Even the Soviet Union didnt have such a faculty. What must his lectures be like? What must a researcher do in such a department to get her PhD? Lord, think of the enormous opportunity costs of the world’s universities bloated with information free useless “studies”. The weak minded, foolish output from a faculty named this is a measure of the intractable mess that has been made of higher education. No wonder there are worrying statistics that smart students are dropping out of highschool.
Here’s the thing Tommy. The whole nutty business of which climate is the small part is going to collapse soon. The world’s biggest problem is really what are we going to do to clean up the infestation that has all but destroyed education from kindergarten to ersatz PhDs in nothingness and the zombielike legions of its products for which there is no use. Bali and the Seyshelles will be just fine.
“Climate Activists Face an Ethical Dilemma Abandoning” everything that a modern industrialized nation has to offer, and move to a modern version of medieval feudalism with strong paganism beliefs, or understand that humans do NOT control the weather or climate.
I’m old enough to remember when farmers got paid not not farm. Fast forward to present, and now they are paid to grow food in order to burn it.
I suppose we’ll soon be paying airlines to not fly and hotels to not rent rooms. But we’ll pay aircraft companies to build plains and construction companies to build hotels in order to protect those jobs. Then we’ll burn the airplanes and the hotels because climate change.
We do that already by paying rent-seekers to produce unneeded “renewable” power and forcing utilities to take unneeded power.
Climate Crusaders will burn the planes and the hotels.
Then the insurance will pay it out and, and workers (employment) will rebuilt them.
Then they’ll be burned to the ground again, then the insurance….
The “Broken Window Fallacy.”
And insurance companies aren’t stupid, unlike socialists.
TheTimes newspaper ran a piece yesterday about a carbon tax on each flight. It is to be ‘voluntary ‘. Thirty quid to LA. Ho ho.
This will put a dent in the plans of (mostly) left-wing students planning their gap year, visiting all the exotic countries on their bucket list. I guess they could all Brits have a walking trip around places like Accrington to see how the other half live.
And what will the glitterati do now without their trips to the posh exotic places?
Poor Emma
Sell only one way tickets, “you can check in any time but you can never leave.”
That will boost tourist economies.
Hotel California or the Roach Motel. [I actually stayed at the No Tell Motel in Eugene, OR.]
Just reverse the flow, send the exotic locals back to live the boring eco-loon lifestyle.
I’m sure they would love it.
In a near future, there will be only climate clowns in each and every plane, going around the World all the year long, explaining to us that we shall NEVER AGAIN travel by air … because climate change.
So, I wonder if apart the University of Strathclyde,
there is any other University that offers a clown’s license for those who may have to travel for their business ?
Solar powered dirigibles should be the answer to all the greens travel plans.
Just ride Unicorns to the rainbow, climb up and slide down the other side. Its as realistic as anything they are talking about.
‘Few would deny the threat to our planet posed by climate change’
Well, I’m one for a start.
(And there are many more!)
Every time I think I’ve read the most ridiculous claim about ‘climate change’, an article like this comes along!
What a load of deluded drivel. Remind me, how many angels did fit on a pinhead?
They are still counting, Ed. Results to be published real soon now.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to count angels? They keep fluttering about, up and down from Heaven to Earth and back again, messing up the count and causing a lot of restarts on the count.
The Angel counters will need a lot more grant money if we’re ever to find out how many angels fit on the head of a pin.
I can see the next step in this guilt driven drivel.
We must stop flying to save the planet. But we must compensate 3rd countries for not going there and acting like ass-holes each year. Therefore we must forfeit the money we would have paid for a holiday in an exotic location and give it to the UN, who will scim 20% for ‘administrative overheads’ and use the rest bribe kleptocrats in small 3rd world countries to support further “climate” initiatives at the UN.
So you’ll need to save all year and then pay to stay at home, feeling all warm and fuzzy in two separate places in your heart.
That is exactly where this kind of thinking leads.
Though I do think some places are degraded by overmuch tourism. Only the rich like me should be allowed – and checked for sexual exploitation before flying. But I’ve done nearly all the travelling I want anyway. Perhaps frequent short haul to France remains Not Ryanair .
I smell white saviourism. How did these backwoods locations become so dependent on White Ecotourism? I know the usual arguments – globalism, capitalism, colonialism, etc. But why were they not able to stand up for themselves with their supposedly superior way of life?
The world these nutters envision is so unpleasant and dull I cannot imagine people actually standing for it. No long haul travel, short trips only by train, water rationing (for us Brits), rolling blackouts, no cars, only local food…
And the consequences will be mass unemployment and a huge drop in our wealth. Hopefully we all get so hungry we will have to resort to cannabilism – with idiot professors the first on the menu.
Let’s hope the people would move off the islands before cannibalism.
Think of all the trillions of dollars and tons of CO2 wasted on tourism. Let’s snap our fingers and end it all in a day.
Come on man.
I do not know who are more child like”
1) The angry child like, cult of CAGW.
The public will not support the shutdown of tourism worldwide
2) Sleeping pubic, Fake news, Agenda Politicians
We and the fake news reporters are clueless that countries and states are passing laws that will shutdown there economies, including tourism.
here would also an end of trips from and to Europe. France has the highest number of tourist visits per year. .
France, Spain, and then the US are the number one tourism destinations in the world.
1 France
86.9 million
2 Spain
81.8 million
10.5
3 United States
76.9 million
4 China
60.7 million
5 Italy
58.3 million
6 Mexico
39.3 million
7 United Kingdom
37.7 million
8 Turkey
37.6 million
9 Germany
37.5 million
10 Thailand
35.4 million
And England would have no tourism without the monarchy.
It’s nice that activists acknowledge some of the economic havoc their policies will create, but they need to get a grip.
Air travel and tourism are not going away. Of the proportion of sheeple who have been taken in by the delusion of preventable CAGW, how many are actually going to substantially change their behaviors? They’re not even eating bugs yet.
From the article: “However well-intentioned the no-fly campaign is, it is challenging from an ethical point of view to abandon these tourism destinations.”
It’s not going to happen. This no-fly campaign is a creation of the Loony Leftists in the Western Democracies. In the first place, the Western Democracies are not going to implement a no-fly campaign, and second of all, if they did, the rest of the world would ignore it and go about business as usual including flying as much as they desired.
Lefties are SO delusional. They are disconnected from the Real World.
Those that believe that the burning of fossil fuels is bad should stop making use of all goods and services that involve the use of fossil fuels. Of course most of us would die if we tried to do that. For example, in the town where I live, the food we eat is brought in by trucks that burn fossil fuels. Without that food, most of the people in the town where I live would have to move away or die of starvation. The next best thing would be to minimise our use of goods and services that involve the use of fossil fuels. That would involve staying at home as much as possible and consume the bare minimum of goods and services that involve the use of fossil fuels. I am sure that if we all did that, the effects on our economy would be devastating and billions would starve to death. Otherwise it is a good plan. Mankind, 200 or more years ago made virtually no use of fossil fuels but our economy of 200 years ago could not support the current world human population to going back to older economies would mean that billions would have to die.