Photo: Lukas Riebling
Following the example of Greta Thunberg, who traveled to a UN climate conference by sail in August, 36 young climate change activists set sail from Amsterdam on October 2, bound for COP25 – the United Nations Climate Conference. Rather than boarding airplanes, the group chose to charter the Regina Maris, a 101 ft (31m) LOA, 1970 built steel Dutch topsail schooner for the 5,000 nautical mile trip.
Classic Sailor reports that the activists, from all across Europe, are hoping to use the seven-week voyage to brainstorm ideas for greener transport which they then intend to present to world governments meeting in Santiago from 2 – 13 December. But they will also be helping the six permanent crew to sail Regina Maris. Living in four-person cabins they plan to eat vegan meals. The voyage has scheduled stops at Casablanca, Tenerife, Cape Verde, and Recife to pick up fresh fruit and vegetables and get ashore for a few hours. When they arrive in Rio they will take a bus across the South American continent to Chile – a distance of some 3,000 kilometers.
Jeppe Bijker, one of four Dutch initiators of the Sail to the COP project, told reporters he did not expect people to give up flying altogether. “But we do ask that they think about why they are flying. You should ask yourself do you really need to go? Maybe it’s a business flight … and there could be an e-conference instead. And do you need to take so many short-haul trips?”
They are also asking governments to raise a fair tax on aviation and on fuel especially, and to promote more sustainable ways of travel: on trains, buses, and boats.
After the conference in Chile some of the group plan to stay in the Americas and sail home with Regina Maris next year. Others are booking passages home on cargo ships – seen as a much more sustainable way to travel if you can’t sail.
LOL, so much for a green commitment.
“Others are booking passages home on cargo ships – seen as a much more sustainable way to travel if you can’t sail.”
Laugh all you want. On a per ton basis, cargo ships have a far lower carbon footprint than airplanes.
Another reminder: There was an ad from the rail freight company CSX that they could move a ton of freight by train for a gallon of fuel. Of course you cannot cross the ocean on a train, but the train is far more economical too. This really sunk in once when I was on the train between Boston and Seattle. We passed numerous trains loaded with containers (double stacked west of Chicago). I was going to Seattle to join my son and others for a sailboat passage from Port Townsend, WA to San Diego, via San Francisco. We were in Alameda for a day or two and there I watched as the huge container unloading apparatus unloaded one container at a time onto am 19 wheeler. Moving a 40 foot shipping container one by one and then out onto the highway was NOT fuel efficient! It really brought that point home, in spades!
The modern 18 wheeler puts out a tablespoon of emmisions in comparison to trucks built pre2000. Mega fleets are doing everything they can to make todays Class 8 trucks more fuel efficient.
I am a railroad buff myself. Yet trains can no longer compete with the truck industry. That of which you get cheaply at your stores was delivered by a truck. If trucks were removed? That of which you enjoy to get to the stores or comes in the mail would take weeks to get to you as opposed to days. A single tractor trailer hauls 20 ton of freight in that 53′ box. Like a small freight train, to stop a truck that is going 55 mph will take a quarter mile.
At current an average Class 8 truck can average 8.5 miles per gallon. That is up from pre 2000 when trucks only got 5 mpg. Yet something to think about? Those monolithic campers you see on the road? They average about 6 mpg. Worse if they are pulling a trailer or car.
I would point out that the container ships would be going where they’re going anyway. The passenger is really just paying for a cabin that would be taking the trip empty otherwise. Seems to me that that’s about as close to carbon neutral as you can get–and it’s not cheap! You pay $100 a day and it takes a lot longer as you have to go as slowly as the container ship does.