Think green
Travel writing will be affected by the changing climate, says Patrick Forsyth
Whatever your feelings about COP 26, global warming issues are going to overshadow travel for a while, perhaps for the foreseeable future. This prompts questions. For example ,is it better to have a very long holiday rather than two shorter ones if it means two flights instead of four? Many say yes. Certainly green issues linked to travel provide a worthy topic and can give certain features a topical feel.
The question of staycations, defined varyingly as taking time out and about literally from home to travelling only in your home country, offers many writing opportunities, and perhaps simpler travel for the writer too. If a focus on this also reduces your own travel then it’s a double opportunity. Favouring rail travel rather than flights may reduce a traveller’s range but definitely involves the production of less carbon. Visitors can reduce their impact while away and, to use the supermarket term, every little helps. For instance I saw recently a villa being advertised making a point of being equipped with bicycles – though the fact that local taxis and the like would not favour this makes the point about how difficult it is to balance matters of this sort. I have also seen it suggested that instead of bringing people presents back from holiday, people should give a voucher saying that money has been given towards such green initiatives as tree planting.
When people do travel in a way that’s heavy on carbon production, there are many schemes that enable them to offset the effect; that too is a rich seam of possible content.
Introducing a green element to writing about a variety of destinations may make them both more saleable and also mark them out as different to a piece simply about a particular destination. For example, some especially desirable destinations, places like the Seychelles, the Maldives and many Pacific islands, are in line to be devastated ahead of others as sea levels rise. I have seen it said the Tuvalu archipelago will be the first island nation to become submerged. Maybe I should write about it soon.
I would suggest two strands to all this. First, writing about the effect of the climate changes on those wanting to travel and second, on those in areas affected by both climate change and the attendant changes to travel habits. It is a complex, changing and unpredictable situation. If you get involved in saying anything about the science of it, take care, you do not want to contribute to misinformation. Climate change is a very real threat and something that will affect the way travel needs to be written about as a result of how it changes the way international travel happens.