UKC

A while ago I saw a pro climber on social media promoting a carbon offseting scheme, saying that they couldn't be a role model for low carbon behaviour (so they try to compensate by donating to reforestation projects).

Is the implication here that pro climbers can't be role models for low carbon living, because their job is actually to be a role model for high carbon living (flying to climb in glamorous locales)?

In reply to KeithAlexander:

That's the implication, but doesn't it rather depend on what else they do? Someone who flies a lot but is a childless vegan who always cycles when at home, will be emitting hugely less than someone who never flies but has 4 kids, eats red meat every meal, and drives 2 hours to work each day.

In reply to KeithAlexander:

I think Dave MacLeod is a great example of someone who is able to climb a lot of newsworthy stuff without normally having to go more than a few hours drive away. I would imagine most pro climbers could move to somewhere in their own country that would give them more than a lifetimes worth of hard climbing within a few hours drive.

Perhaps they don't want to put the time into developing new routes that Dave does though and it would satisfy their sponsors more to be able to turn up to a Spanish crag and tick off a well established 9a/b in a few days.

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

I think if one flies 'a lot' it becomes impossible to avoid the fact that one is a greedy carbon guzzler, vegan or no vegan.

And isn't the family of six entitled to divide its carbon footprint by six anyway? 

In reply to Siward:

No, the point is that by simply creating an extra human being you have chosen to create their carbon footprint and those of any further descendants rather than having it terminate with your own death.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Well that works so long as the childless don't intend to rely on the young  for their security in old age. The UK birthrate has been well below replacement rate for some time. 

In reply to Robert Durran:

Does that imply i can offload my carbon footprint onto my parents?

In reply to Siward:

Strange post! Isn't the notion in RD's post a way of looking at things, rather than something which does or doesn't "work", in an objective sense? And in any case, even if it did definitely work or not work, why (and how) would that depend on the current intentions of the childless?

In reply to RX-78:

No, it is a burden they have bequeathed you.

In reply to bpmclimb:

I just think that refraining from having kids as a measure to reduce one's footprint (as opposed to simple choice) is misguided. It makes no difference to global population if one relies on (outsources) others' procreating to pay your pension, look after you when you can't, keep the wheels of the exonomy grinding on etc. This will always be so unless society moves to a model where the old keep on slaving away until close to death, as used to be the norm (actually, we're probably back there now!)

All altrusim is selfish anyway isn't it?

In reply to Siward:

So, in other words child raising is the ultimate ponzi scheme.

In reply to Robert Durran:

I think it’s always an interesting argument about the impact children have on the environment and carbon footprint. 
 

Personally I feel that without children to be our doctors, nurses, police or shop workers we’d all be rather stuck, particularly when we get older and need carers etc when spouses, partners or whatever are all old too. Maybe once someone gets to an age that they can’t cope without these people then they should throw the towel in?! 
 

On the original point of climbers/athletes being high carbon uses/emitters then yes, I think the op has very valid point and we only have to look at the threads here to see that even when we are in arguably dangerous territory regarding the climate there is still a sizeable number jetting off here, there and everywhere. 

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Hi
>doesn't it rather depend on what else they do?

I don't see that it does - the point is whether they need to model high emitting behaviours (flying,  driving long distances in big vans), as part of being a pro climber, isn't it?

In reply to Siward:

So if I decide now not to have children, whether that has an ecologically beneficial effect from this point on or no effect at all (compared to having a family) depends on what my current intentions are for some point in the future?

In reply to bpmclimb:

I guess I'd say, take the long view. It doesn't matter what you intend day to day. Rather, it's a matter of what impact you've had when you've shuffled off to another plane (don't get me started on flying).

In reply to KeithAlexander:

Flights are pretty bad. Have a fiddle with https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx and fiddle about with flights, car travel, how much meat you eat, etc.

12000 diesel miles is 2 tonnes of carbon. 4 trips to Spain is 1.7. £1500 of vegan food a year is 0.8. For a meat heavy diet its 2.

In reply to Robert Durran:

how dare you.....

In reply to steveriley:

Also, although imperfectly understood, the evidence seems to be that the non-CO2 emissions attributable to flying make it a far more harmful activity than the carbon foorprint alone might suggest.

Tha harsh truth is- don't fly, don't kid yourself that by offsetting you are doing any more than salving your conscience.

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

there is a difference; being vegan and childless is a temporary state. Once the C02 has been released in flight there is no going back. the damage is done. So laying off a temporary good behavior against flights isn't really acceptable. And, as I'm sure everyone knows now, planting trees does absolutely fck all in repairing damage done NOW.

In reply to mattdennies:

Nothing stopping European based climbers doing just that still, it might just take them 2 days of continental rail travel rather than a 2 hour flight. The problem is the whole instant gratification.. no one has the time anymore. 

Ticking Extreme Rock (for a controversial example) is a fine accomplishment, but wouldn't ticking it having say cycled/kayaked between them all sent a really strong message? Personally I'd love to do something like that just for the adventure of it, had I the time and flexibility of a professional climber. Maybe I'll do Classic Rock in that style, in one push when I've retired. 

In reply to mrphilipoldham:

Leaving things "Till you've retired" doesn't always pan out like you'd hoped. If a route is worth doing it's worth doing NOW!

In reply to Siward:

It’s just maths. One child = one extra person = additional environmental impact. I don’t think you can deny this. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have children, just pointing out that having children has a significant environmental impact.

In reply to mutt:

Being childless isn’t a temporary state. It’s a permanent reduction in world population and hence environmental impact.

In reply to gezebo:

The argument that we need a higher than replacement rate birth-rate no doubt worked when the population was relatively small and there was a high attrition rate.

But there are billions of us, each undertaking a massive level consumption.  No matter how many flights we forego, our environmental footprint is huge - which makes a mockery of those claiming some kind of moral high ground because they choose not to fly.  It's a fashionable form of activism.  But taking trains does little to address each individual's underlying environmental impact.  

Put simply, if the necessary per-person CO2 target is 2 tonnes to avoid "climate catastrophe", and each person's day-to-day activities already produce three to four times that much, then getting stroppy about people having a 3 tonne flight each year seems a little ridiculous.  And that's before we delve into actual "environmental" impact of day-to-day life (i.e. building trains, owning climbing shoes and ropes, etc)  as opposed to CO2 emissions.  Those who are serious about this should probably not even be climbing!

I get the impression that all this talk of role-models is rather like claiming virtue from having sold 2 of your 8 slave plantations.  Few people out there have actually undertaken anything close to the required changes in lifestyle to be sustainable and, if presented with what is actually required I doubt anyone here would actually contemplate doing so.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Isn’t it double counting if both you and your parents are responsible for your carbon footprint?

But hang on, their parents are responsible for theirs and so forth all the way back to the first human who it turns out has a hell of a lot to answer for!

In reply to Pan Ron:

We aren't _each_ undertaking a massive level of consumption - the level of consumption between different people is highly unequal.

Taking trains (instead of planes and cars) is a key part of addressing environmental impact. In the UK and across Europe, emissions in most sectors are in long term decline; transport emissions however are still rising, and aviation and private cars are (by far) the biggest components of that.

Very few people, even in the UK, take a 3tCO2 flight a year (half the population won't have flown at all in the last year, never mind long-haul). 3tCO2 would exceed the impact of heating and powering a "typical"† UK family home for a year.

† There is a great degree of variation here too.

In reply to gezebo:

While it is a problem not having plenty of children to eventually support us in old age I think that is separate and in conflict with the environmental problem. Surely it is likely that more humans = more pollution, CO2 etc. A decrease in population should help with the latter IMHO.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

The way this virus is going around I might have a month or two free from work thrust upon me anyhow! 

In reply to KeithAlexander:

More train transportation is excellent but also a properly organized  and attractive coach system. We have an existing road network which with far fewer vehicles with multiple passengers on one vehicle should rarely experience delays and presumably be much more fuel economic. There would have to be good distribution system for both coaches and trains at alighting points eg cheap smart cars/ frequent buses. 

In reply to Siward:

I think that logic would fly if we were a poor country, but we are near the top of the world in terms of GDP per capita... We can afford to support a declining population if we choose to modify our behaviour and consumption to save the planet.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004r...

In reply to Misha:

It does have an environmental impact but so does travelling the world climbing (or whatever else you fancy). 

Maybe choosing not to have children is a form of carbon off setting? The question of what you do when old is still valid as presumably you’ll be relaying on other people’s life choice to have a positive impact on you?

In reply to Siward:

Maybe better to replace with immigrants then. Oh wait a minute...…...

In reply to MeMeMe:

No, the responsibility is just something you inherit. 

In reply to gezebo:

Well I’d have to get to old age first... There are plenty of children in the world as a whole and more are being born every day. I don’t think there will be a shortage of working age people any time soon. There may be in some countries but the answer to that issue is partly automation and partly immigration (people will have to get used to it if they don’t like it!). It would be good for the environment is world population reduced gradually, as it is already doing in some countries. Yes, that would pose economic questions but with increasing automation and productivity that should become less of an issue.

In reply to Siward:

Yes, so do a lot other activities that cause emissions, which is actually why a lot of the calculators take this into account and give figures for equivalent CO2 metric ton.

That doesn't change the fact flying is bad...

But the offset by being vegan or not eating meat.

On return flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town for some summer bouldering is roughly 1400 kg of CO2 (from KLM, and by the looks of it only taken into account is CO2 from the fuel -> so equavalent value would be bigger).  In Finland on average a kilo of beef is around 20 to 30kg (mainly because the beef is a side product of milk production, other figures are ten fold higher for pure meat production). So the return flight for a Rocklands trip is around 46kg of meet (for Fin), so a 300g steak for roughly half a year (150 days). For a Yank, the figure is a lot less, only 15 days. 

In reply to Misha:

what I mean is that when the decision to fly is taken one cannot see into the future. all those round the world flights taken during a climbers prime years 25-35 come before the events of life, such as settling down, marrying and after  the biological urge kicks in a child or two appears, whereas when the flights we taken no such urges were apparent.

It seems to me that is a universal experience. who in their 20's envisions child rearing as a positive experience?

flying is the reserve of a tiny proportion of the population. Children are universal and necessary (if we are to perpetuate the species) so even if we were to suggest that parents are cause equal damage to the planet there is still a question of fairness. the tiny minority of the population who fly (frequently) impose their wanton damage on everyone, where as, parents childbearing in response to undeniable evolutionary demands are sharing out the damage done much more equally.

these averages of course aren't really. must children born are not a burden on the climate, simply because they are born into poverty. They will not ever fly, and many of them will not even drive, or aspire to disposable fashion. Is it fair then to impose on them the climatic damage caused by the instagram generation climbing pro influencer travel? I think it isn't fair.

In reply to mrphilipoldham:

I suppose the question is, can a professional climber maintain their status as a top climber solely by doing challenges with low carbon travel requirements?

Will the rest of us buy expensive jackets and carabiners because they are endorsed by athletes using sustainable transport modes (vs those racking up press jetting to the world's most exciting climbing locations)?

Is it OK for top climbers to fly and drive all the time while the rest of us should cut back?

Can we move towards a low carbon climbing culture, where low carbon travel is part of what climbing role models seek to model?
 

In reply to KeithAlexander:

The late Göran Kropp certainly did that some 10 years (or so) ago, when he biked from his home country of Sweden to Nepal and then climbed Everest... or tried, can't remember what the outcome was... I'm sure there is an article or five floating around the int3rweb about that... albeit more about his biner breakin' in a fall causing him to crater and perish.

In reply to KeithAlexander:

Probably not the right question. Caff, Dave MacLeod and Dan Varian have all been able to maintain their status as the very best climbers on limited carbon budgets.

The mistake is assuming that that translates to significant earnings through sponsorship. Sponsors are increasingly uninterested in ticklists and instead directing support to those with the biggest social media profiles. Which seem largely driven by aspirational imagery of faraway places.

In reply to Adam Long:

I would not agree... they all have traveled, and in fact I will say that even driving locally to the crag/boulder actually creates quite considerable emissions. Not in the scale of jet setting on a plane around the globe, but still.

In fact. In some cases flying is less emission than driving. E.g. from Helsinki to Albarracin, it's aroound 3800km, and in a van (say VW T5, roughly 200g/km) that means a round trip will be ~1500 kg CO2. On the other hand, flying (to Valencia, where BTW I also checked the driving distance), the calculated CO2 emission (for a single person) is 1000 kg of CO2... so less, for a round trip.

And to be honest, not many climbers are driving new, low emission cars... So unless you access the climbing purely by public transport, walk, and bike... well, the carbon footprint is actually quite big... the miles/km just add up quickly when you drive to Wales for some sea cliffs, next head to Lakes for mountain trad and a short hop to Grit and so on...

In reply to HeMa:

I didn't suggest they were carbon tee-total. Nobody is. But in contrast to some of their pro peers they are, as I said, on limited carbon budgets - concentrating on climbing locally with occasional trips rarely leaving the UK. In contrast many pros are doing several long-haul flights in a year and short haul every month.

Flying can only beat driving if the plane is full and the car/van is single occupancy.

In reply to KeithAlexander:

Do you mean jackets transported half way around the world from where they are manufactured - and carabiners made out of metal which has been mined? 

The entire supply chain (for any industry) is a minefield for any sponsored athlete - Athletes taking a stance and using sustainable transport modes (and using that to market themselves) will have a very reduced pool of potential sponsors as the vast majority of the large firms paying sponsorship have their products manufactured considerable distances from their point of sale.

In reply to Nempnett Thrubwell:

Moving products long distances is actually remarkably efficient compared to moving people.
Transporting a human's weight (say, 80kg) 1000km on a cargo ship has a carbon footprint of about 1kgCO2
Transporting a human 1000km in an average car (single occupancy) has a carbon footprint of 177 kgCO2, or 181kgCO2 in a plane.

I'm fairly sure my climbing gear will have accumulated a far greater transport footprint in my car than it ever did being shipped from the factory to the shop.

In reply to KeithAlexander:

But is the cargo ship IMO 2020 compliant - or is it belching out Sulphur dioxide?

I'm not suggesting gear shipped from around the world is the equivalent of long haul flights - But just it is a moral maze for someone being sponsored and suggesting they are travelling sustainably whilst actively promoting the purchasing of goods which have a carbon footprint.

In reply to mrphilipoldham:

We've been going to the Austrian alps in spring time the last few years and always flown. This year I'm trying a bit harder to cut down on emissions so looked into travelling by train instead and was amazed: Devon - Munich return was £310 which was only £100ish quid more than the flights and once you add on luggage and getting to the airport most of that £100 difference would be gone. As for travel time yes it takes all day but since I can work from my laptop I've agreed to work on the train both days which on net means I'll be using less holiday time than if I'd flown so a win in terms of time too. Most annoyingly it looks likely this trip will get corona'd but I'll definitely look into doing it for more holidays.

I realised that before I'd never actually bothered to look into the low carbon alternatives for continental climbing and just assumed that the time and expense would be to great, but in this case that wasn't anywhere near true.

In reply to MB42:

254g of CO2 per km flying shorthaul

vs

41g of C02 per km traveling by rail.

according to Defra.

In reply to HeMa:

It was 1996 (the disaster year) so 24 years ago, and yes he succeeded unsupported.