From scummy busses to champagne extravaganza: Green travel

By Naomi Conrad

A 12 hour wait brought a wet and very windy family Christmas holiday to a somewhat long-drawn out and painful close: gale-force winds and driving rain prevented any airplane from landing in Maderia’s shiny new EU-funded airport. And so, with our supply of novels and crumpled out-of-date newspapers running dangerously low, family bonding time became increasingly strained and muted. Even the overpriced bottles of Maderia wine and dusty cellophane-wrapped honey cakes on the shelves of the dingy duty-free shop quickly lost their appeal. When we finally made it to Lisbon the connecting flight had left long ago. Finding ourselves in the midst of an angry mob of stranded travellers impatiently waiting for new flights and hotel vouchers outside the airlines’ understaffed costumer service desk, a unanimous if unspoken resolve was taken never again to go on a holiday around Christmas that involves flying.

Flying is bad for the environment anyway. - According to a recent Stern Report, aviation produces about 600-700 mega tons of CO2 emissions a year, the equivalent of about 2-3% of total global CO2 emissions. The ‘Guardian’ predicts aviation to become one of the largest single sources of carbon dioxide, accounting for up to 25 per cent of the UK’s emissions by 2050. And although airlines, faced with consumer pressure and a growing awareness of green issues, have tried to cut down on CO2 by taking more direct routes, limiting baggage allowances and using newer fleets – although their production implies more CO2 – flying remains a big source of CO2.

Which is why the Eurostar connecting the UK with mainland Europe has begun to market itself as the ‘green’ alternative to flying: Eurostar commissioned research claimed that in 2006 a journey in one of its trains under the Channel to Paris and Brussels emits only a tenth of the carbon dioxide of flying.  As of November 2007, again according to Eurostar itself, travelling to mainland Europe has become carbon neutral. Of course, if you make it to the other side that is and don’t get stuck in the tunnel.

Many other European train companies have yet to get the hang of marketing themselves as a green alternative to flying and driving, well that is a green, fairly on-time, reliable and cheap alternative: cheap still seems to be the difficult part, as wide-spread privatization efforts have had little effect on prices throughout Europe and so far political will to subsidize train travel is lacking in many capitals. 

For those who have reached the European mainland where train connections prove too expensive or nonexistent, as in many of the Balkan countries for example, the intrepid traveller could always hop on a bus. An eight-hour bus drive from Macedonia to Albania this summer was most definitely an unforgettable experience: a freezing cold, grimy bus that rattled dangerously whenever it zoomed round a bend, while the Christmas edition of Macedonia’s pop idol blared full blast from tiny, greenish tv-screens. 8 hours of pop idol might have well turned into an unbearable form of torture, had I not been befriended by the bus driver and his son, who fed me with fig biscuits and sweet tea.

For shorter trips in Albania people squash into rusty mini buses, a lucky few squeezed against the open windows, grimy orange curtains flapping in their faces, allowing for some air to enter the stiflingly hot mini buses. The model would undoubtedly cut down on carbon emitting cars on Western Europe’s overcrowded roads, but it is unlikely the European Union would allow passengers to precariously perch on plastic chairs next to an open door desperately hanging onto the handrails.

Cross the ocean to Latin America and busses come in all different sizes, colours and prices, from scummy third class, to champagne-extravaganza, reclining seat first class. (Of course, how you actually get to Latin America without flying poses somewhat of a problem, one possible option being to stow away on an ocean liner.)  In Latin America the middle classes, or rather what remains of the middle classes following neo-liberal restructuring, privatization sprees and economic crises, tend to take the bus to cover the endless expanses of the continent: Latin American airlines have the unfortunate reputation of crashing every now and again and driving a car across the Andes or deserts is quite an undertaking. 

First class overnight busses in Argentina are a unique experience: seats that recline all the way to form proper beds, and, albeit cheap, champagne in served scratched plastic flutes. Not to forget the flat-screen TV showing Hollywood movies, invariably of the gory and action-packed type. The reclining champagne-sipping traveller is rudely woken to the Latin American reality when the bus attendant cheerfully tells everyone to draw the silver curtains as some of the young people living in the slum the bus is about to traverse have the annoying habit of throwing stones at first-class busses, but not to worry.

Luxury busses have yet to make their way onto European roads; as yet there is little demand for them in European countries where many middle-class families own at least one car, sometimes more. Yet, give it another year or two of economic downturn, unemployment and volatile oil prices and some enterprising individual may give it a thought.

There are of course also hitch-hiking, car-sharing, cycling or just walking. I can’t quite envisage my family putting on backpacks and stomping off through the snow, pulling a Christmas tree and some minced pies on a sledge behind us. Maybe we will just stay at home for Christmas next year, with a guaranteed supply of hot drinks, biscuits, newspapers and books. Although my sister and I will of course have to make our respective ways home first.