The majority of us would like cleaner fuel but demolishing an industry to achieve this within the next 15 years would be an extreme act of vandalism, says David Speakman
After reading Daniel Kaul’s controversial Travel Weekly article I was waiting for some kind of rebuttal or critical comment from the higher-ups in the industry, but no one offered an alternative view.
Daniel’s mantra is left to fester as another untouched building block in the erosion of the aviation and travel industry — a kind of Just Stop Oil statement without the glue, soup, or orange paint.
Daniel writes that much of our travel desires comes from a nomadic gene in many of us! Over my 46 years in travel most of my customers have never travelled from one watering hole to another or one fertile plain to another, let alone herded goats or camels. They have craved stability, settled in one place, worked hard, raised families, built relationships in the community and treasured two weeks in the sun.
The pleasure and thrill of travel would be passed on to the next generation to educate, to relax, to enjoy, but not everyone can travel to the wilderness; otherwise, it would no longer be the wilderness.
I understand Daniel’s wish to restrict travel, but that’s his belief. He obviously believes travel should be restricted to travel only for virtuous reasons, in other words to save wildlife and the planet, and any other travel is circumspect. Restricting one’s travel as it is the wrong type of travel while retaining your own is somewhat sanctimonious —“for me, but not for thee”. Again, another trait of the Just Stop Oil lobby.
Apart from his debatable beliefs that much less travel is good for the planet, it would clearly not be good for the livelihoods of millions. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, travel and tourism (including its direct, indirect, and induced impacts) accounted for 10.5% of all jobs (334 million) and 10.4% of global GDP (US$10.3 trillion), according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.
The majority of us would like cleaner fuel but demolishing an industry and so many livelihoods to achieve this aim within the next 15 years is an extreme act of vandalism.
Daniel obviously disapproves of mass travel yet he is joining 70,000 — yes, seventy thousand — delegates in Baku, Azerbaijan, for this year’s COP 29 to discuss tourism sustainability. Ironically, it’s a country that exports 23.8 billion cubic metres of gas.
If you truly believe that the planet is doomed due to anthropogenic climate change and address an alleged world food shortage then surely, in this era of Zoom and working from home, you can follow your conscience and not add to his carbon footprint (fact: last November, the UN World Food Programme announced there was an abundance of food; in fact, it stated 1.3 billion tonnes per year were wasted). Let’s be less hypocritical and not fly all those delegates to discuss how the masses are killing the planet by flying.
Everyone should understand and debate if there is a doomsday threat to the planet, but the underlying message by the doomsayers that we are responsible for climate change and that CO2 should be eradicated is plain nonsense. We all want to live a good and prosperous life, even those less fortunate than ourselves deserve to aspire and prosper. Many who’ve never had to struggle or understand the aspirations of others should be careful not to impose their distorted values on others.
The travel industry cannot afford to be passive yet again, like it was in its response to the pandemic. Instead it must investigate and scrutinise the science of climate change, beware of the claims of vested interests and on that hill it must fight or die.