Place

In another essay written by Wendell Berry, he talks about returning from New York to the small community in Kentucky where he grew up - and previous generations of his family had lived. One of his New York colleagues at the University where he was teaching, tried to dissuade him by quoting, “You can’t go home again”. Berry disagreed. In the sense that the metaphor stands for change, there is some truth - but indeed you can stay in the same community and have a sense of place. I’ve now lived continuously in the same city since 1978 - with only a brief period of months away from it.

Living in the same community makes us aware of both change and stability within it. It allows one to interact with it and take some responsibility for the changes. Flying off to other countries as I have done, allows me to have a taste of them - but not to have any sense of their continuity. Visiting New York City after a span of about 35 years was revealing. The avenue and street numbers were the same as the Chelsea I lived in earlier in the 60s, with its Puerto Ricans who had escaped from Spanish Harlem for a new life, side-by-side the affluent young who were mortgaging their lives to buy and renovate crumbling brownstones. Even then the blocks below West 20th street were being razed for new development. More recently the old brownstone where we lived in a fifth floor walk up had stone facing added- and a doorman.

Stability was one of the monastic virtues - dashing around the world wasn’t in a time when travel was by foot or cart. Our ease of travel and relocation can take away our sense of place. Living in the same place makes us aware of land, soil, water, air. If we think of these things only as an environment to be glanced at on our travels, we lose all sense that we are part of them. Even city living - in contrast to Wendel Berry’s farm community allows for some of that.

Eating Fish

Netflix has recently issued a documentary outlining how we are exploiting the fish supply. Many who watch it are becoming like vegans and giving up fish altogether. I’m trying to each less meat and more vegetables and fish often seems the right choice. Thus I am encouraged by Guardian and New York Times writer Paul Greenberg who allows for four types.

• Farmed oysters, mussels and clams. - because those that farm them, have to abide by clean water rules

• Alaskan Sockeye salmon. - because preserving their habitat meant that an Alaskan copper mine never happened.

• Peruvian anchoveta - because if you can find it, it isn’t being reduced to pellets, as so many industrial fish are.

• Fish I or a family member catches -n a fresh water lake. I loved fishing from a rowboat accompanied by my father when I was a child. It was a time of calm and companionship - but moreover it was a sustainable kind of fishing. We kept only the perch, bass or trout that met size requirements. We went home or to the cottage, cooked it and ate it. We were mimicking the Georgian Bay patterns of the first nations people who lived there before we settlers came.. To pretend that anything we eat - even vegetables - doesn’t depend on the resources of our planet home is foolishness.

Climate and Weather

Beautifull spring days here in Toronto mean that people like me are bringing up cushions from the storage locker and enlisting younger family members to wash balcony windows to enjoy the coming season. It’s easy to confuse weather and climate.

But the study of norms is sobering. It examines patterns over time. I don’t know whether there are similar Canadian statistics, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the US Department of Commerce publishes norms each decade and a new one was recently released. Comparisons between previous temperate climates and current warming ones are scary

This is what industrialization and other human action is creating. Look what we are doing to ourselves.

Past and present

I went back to piano study three years ago. In some contexts I don’t mind being called the longest continuing participant rather than the oldest - but the second is clearly the honest description here as the oldest student. After yesterday’s practice, I was moved to reflect on what I saw in front of me from the piano bench - pictured above. Today I grabbed my phone, took a picture after pulling down the blinds to block the sun - not totally succeeding - sent the photo to my laptop and here it is.

Above, there are pages from a mediaeval psalter. These came as a wedding present in 1960 from family friends who found the pages in an English antique shop and had them framed. Many such books were hand lettered and illustrated in the middle ages by monks - and it’s possible to find the English texts of the Latin inscription. It seems amazing that such books were simply cut up and its pages treated as a commodity. But here they are - treasured artifacts.

Moving down it is obvious that this instrument is not a concert grand. Instead, it is a Roland electronic of reasonable quality. The headphones make it possible to practise at any hour without disturbing neighbors in my apartment complex. On the sides are standards for practice of any pianist at any level - Bach easy preludes and Hanon exercises.

What is perhaps most interesting are the printouts in the centre. This is a work by Joseph-Hector Fiocco, a composer I had never heard of until I looked him up. A Belgian composer who lived from 1703-1741, he was a composer and harpichordist of the late Baroque period who also knew enough Latin and Greek to be a school teacher as well as becoming choirmaster at Antwerp Cathedral. Obviously a versatile and talented guy -as the little gem of a piano suite proves.

What would he think of the way I received this score? I printed it out on an inkjet. In the middle of a lesson, my teacher had asked if I knew the work - and on receiving a negative reply, on the spot she sent the score from her Iphone. The composer’s free scores are available from the International Music Score Library Project.

There are so many awful uses of technology, with people spewing vitriol into the universe and illustrating the worst of human character. It will take incredible effort to curtail the power of transmittal of ugliness and lack of caring. I’m as liable to the quick flippant comment as anyone. But it is good to remember the capability of transmitting beauty and quality with ease. That is where we have to go.

Business travel and climate change

The Pandemic has brought changes that we could never have anticipated. Many are devastating - but some are good for the planet. Fast Company has some interesting things to say about business travel this morning:

• In 2019, employees of the company, Salesforce traveled so much for work that they generated a combined 146,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions. In comparison, 17,500 homes emittted that much over the course of an entire year;

• it would take more than 178,000 acres of forest 12 months to sequester that amount of carbon dioxide - and of course, we are also depleting forests at an alarming rate.

• In its most recent fiscal year, business travel was down 86% - that’s a highly significant reduction

• Salesforce was already prepared to pay for offsets - but recognized that these are not enough.

• Business travel causes huge amounts of air pollution. and business’s carbon footprint is huge. Here is another comparison: one round trip ticket from London to NYC generates more emissions than the average person in 56 countries generates in a full year. Short haul trips are also worse proportionally than longer ones.

• Business travel plays a large role in climate change. But any kind of air travel demands that we consider the impact on the planet.

• Returning to business as usual will immediately create an increase, whether it is for business or holiday travel. It was growing before the pandemic - a 32% increase from 2013 to 2018 - much faster than UN projections.

• 1% of the world’s population accounts for 50% of global aviation emissions, according to a recent study.

• The good news is that companies are waking up to the impact of business travel as they see the difference. It will come back more slowly

Companies have to remember this reality. We live on a planet. We are subjects to its systems. If we destroy the air, we don’t breathe.

That slow pace isn’t because of sustainability concerns, Terry says. Companies may reconsider sending someone abroad for a half day meeting in London because they can save money by doing it virtually. But Evan Konwiser, executive vice president of product and strategy for American Express Global Business Travel (GBT), which oversees corporate travel booking for companies of all sizes, doesn’t see conferences, internal meetings, and even customer meetings staying completely virtual. There have always been costs associated with business travel, not just financial but also in terms of productivity (hello, jet lag). If your company was willing to greenlight travel for conferences, meetings, and so on in 2019, the “vast majority” of those actions, he says, will still be worth a business trip in 2022. In this scenario, companies looking to lower their carbon footprints won’t simply reduce or stop business travel. They’ll focus on lowering travel-related emissions—a distinction that deserves the same scrutiny as broad ‘net zero’ goals.

To Rutherford, the quickest and easiest thing a corporation can do to cut its business-travel emissions (besides keeping employees at home) is to opt for economy over business class. There’s been a lot of resistance to that idea over the years, he acknowledges. People who travel for work like the status that accompanies the front of the plane, and being asked to squeeze into coach for a transatlantic flight just to attend one meeting is unlikely to make someone look fondly on their employer. 

There are other ways to bring down emissions. Rather than purchasing the most economical flight, companies may be more willing to pay a “green premium,” buying a ticket for a more efficient, direct flight over a cheaper, indirect one, or intentionally choosing operators that fly newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft. In June 2020, American Express GBT debuted a feature in its travel management software that lets users filter potential trips by their total emissions. There’s not yet much data on how many companies will opt for the most sustainable trip over the most affordable one, but Nora Lovell Marchant, American Express GBT’s VP of sustainability, thinks it will happen. After all, companies have already shown that they’re willing to pay for carbon offsets, another kind of green premium.   

Changing the mode of travel could also curb emissions. Switching from air to rail could mean a 90% reduction in emissions for that trip, Lovell Marchant says—though she acknowledges that’s easier to do in the European Union than the U.S. (France is one of multiple European countries to recently ban short flights that can be replaced by a train trip, though Rutherford points out there’s a caveat for connecting flights associated with long-haul trips.) 

And finally, there’s Sustainable Aviation Fuels, or SAFs, new fuel innovations that also come with a huge premium. Right now, SAFs aren’t a solution to curbing emissions because usage is so low; less than 0.5% of jet fuels used today are SAFs, Rutherford says, and they can cost as much as four times a typical fuel. But corporations and airlines are beginning to work together to bring down the cost and ramp up use. In October 2020, Microsoft and Alaska Airlines partnered on a SAF deal that involved the tech giant buying SAF credits from a third-party company, which would then supply sustainable fuels to Alaska. Just last month, Microsoft joined with Boeing, Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group, JPMorgan Chase, Netflix, and Salesforce to launch the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance to spur SAF production and technology innovations so these fuels can scale.

THE PANDEMIC PULLED BACK THE CURTAIN ON HOW MUCH OF BUSINESS TRAVEL IS REALLY NECESSARY.

With SAFs comes one big concern: Companies and airlines could “double count” emissions savings. “When you see United or American make an announcement saying ‘we’re going to have a partnership with this corporation and use it to introduce SAFs,’ that’s great,” Rutherford says. “But according to the laws of accounting emissions, that actually means the airline’s greenhouse gas emissions are unchanged. They’ve sold the reduction to a third-party.” The trouble comes if both parties try to claim the reduction. Konwiser recognizes that’s a concern and says American Express GBT is working on solutions.

SAFs could represent a breakthrough solution for future emissions. But the fact remains: We need to make drastic changes right now. “You’re never going to resolve the emissions issue without changes in the system. Technology is not going to cut it,” says Gössling, the sustainable tourism researcher. “We have to really cut down on individual travel and we have to start at the top,” with that 1% of fliers who cause half of all aviation emissions. “It has to start with the very frequent flyers, it has to start with the premium classes, and only then will we stand a chance to manage this through technology.”

To Gössling, the pandemic pulled back the curtain on how much of business travel is really necessary. In the before-times, “People would tell their bosses, ‘Oh I’ve got to fly again because otherwise I’m not really sure we’ll get the deal.’ At the end of the day, maybe that was not really true,” he says.

The world is opening up again and the appeal of business travel is coming back—but the rational arguments against it still exist. It’s just not our own health that’s at risk with every work trip, but our planet’s. 

Innovation in your inboxSign up for the daily newsletter

SIGN UPSee All Newsletters

ADVERTISEMENT