After nearly three years of being in a relationship with a girl from the third-world (no, really, ask your nearest consulate), I have gained new and unlooked-for insights into the extent of restrictions on international travel for those not in possession of a Western passport. As a result, I think I have come up with an excellent system to reduce the collective carbon footprint of Europe by targeting that most modern of carbon-evils: The Budget Airline. I'd like to share it with you.
Cheap flights are, in many ways, good. Travel abroad is good, interesting and fun, and I challenge even the most obsessive eco-worrier to claim otherwise. Increased contacts between neighbouring countries are good, culturally, economically and politically. For those of us living in lovely England, sunshine is good. But the carbon output, less good. What I propose is that we try and stop people taking short flights for no particularly good reason, trips that would have never existed if the flight hadn’t existed for 1p (plus tax). After all, these people aren’t really missing out if, ten years ago, it would never have occurred to them to take this trip.
To regulate this, I suggest that everyone prove that they really, really want to take the flight in question, that they have a genuinely good reason (like, for example, not having seen the sun for six months) and are not just acting on a passing whim. Perhaps this means that travellers in future will have to plan a bit more in advance, fill in a few forms explaining why they want to travel, even pay a small surcharge to show they really, genuinely, actually do mean it. In extreme cases, they might have to travel to a nearby metropolis to speak with representatives of the country they want to visit. Of course, to prove that they’ve been through this process, I anticipate that a small stamp or sticker would have to be placed in the applicant’s passport. We could call it a visum, from the Latin for ‘a thing that has been seen’, reflecting the fact that it would need to be checked before the visitor would be allowed in the country in question. In this way, more people would be encouraged to holiday without using air travel or at least reduce the number of short flights they take to one a year, and the money paid for such visa* could go towards other ways of reducing carbon outputs, yet no-one with a valid reason for travel would be penalised.
Brilliant, eh?
*Yes, I do get a thrill from a correctly conjugated Latin plural.
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3 comments:
I recall reading something once about the widespread adoption of passports. Apparently as late as the 1890s they were only issued to citizens of special importance as a kind of written request to foreign powers not to make the bearer's life too difficult. A sort of "Please look after this bear" note. Anyway, the quote I recall was to the effect that up to the outbreak of WWI it would have shocked most (wealthy) English people had anyone suggested that if they wanted to spend a year abroad touring they need do anything other than send to their bank for appropriate coin and have the servants pack.
I don't know about Australian passports, but my UK passport still has a long preamble ostensibly on behalf of the Queen asking foreigners to be nice to me.
I suppose making servants a prerequisite for travel abroad would also reduce carbon emissions, but perhaps a touch less egalitarian.
But surely 'need' is objective? Who would decide what we need and what we don't? I'm afraid it all sounds a bit too 'nanny state-ish' for me.
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