Ok, so blogs are meant for keeping you updated on what’s happening with Mag Rev. But as you may have noticed our blog has been static for the last 5 weeks. Shame on us. Greece was simply to welcoming to us! There was no chance that we were going to sacrifice any of our time relishing Greek hospitality, experiencing a new culture and learning about Greek social and environmental situation for sitting behind a computer screen. We’re back in England and eager to share!
The tale to tell is of a journey made by 3 people and three large suitcases full of pedal power gear from England to Greece. Journey across 11 countries, lasting 7 days and 6 nights, propelled with trains, buses, feet, ferries and the occasional taxi (No bikes, which was really heartbreaking). Magnificent Revolution decided to ditch the plane and stay grounded on the trip to take part in the 49th Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
For us, flying really wasn’t an option. As we told the festival if we had to fly, we couldn’t come and take part. Our reasons for not flying are the usual ones. Emissions from flying have over two times greater total warming effect than carbon dioxide alone. The aeroplane produces water vapour that turns into ice crystals that effectively traps the earth’s heat (1). Many factors play a role, in the train versus plane argument (E.g. distance) but it’s clear that in many cases both short (500gCO2/km) and long haul (360gCO2/km) flights release more carbon dioxide per passenger than the train (49gCO2/km) does (2). Importantly though, flying represents the world’s fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions (3). If we keep doing our usual, we won’t do much good to the plan of significantly reducing UK’s emissions by 2050.
We could go for the argument that the government should really be doing something here. However, we at Magnificent Revolution believe that we each have responsibility for our own lives and can definitely take situations into our own hands. As there are 25000000000000000000000 atoms in graphite, all of our minuscule actions, such as train rides, add up to create positive change.
We’re not saying that we don’t ever fly, that would be a lie. What we are saying however is that if we just take it a little bit easier on earth’s resources, we could give the damn planet and its ecosystems a chance to breathe.
Our next year’s trip to Greece…on bikes! Watch out for our next Greece blog to hear more about what we did, taught, showed and learned, whom we met and what we miss.
Sources for our facts and figures:
2. BBC
3. Plane Stupid
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