Burning carbon to save the Arctic – climate change tourism
As part of their portfolio of scientific ecotourism holidays Earthwatch have recently started offering a range of climate change research trips. It is not clear whether they have really thought through the logic of this venture.
For the last thirty years or so, Earthwatch have been pioneering a particular model of scientific research. Scientists working in the field in exotic far flung places or concentrating on charismatic species approach (or are approached) by the organisation offering opportunities for fee-paying ‘volunteers’ to fly out and join their programmes. Their clients get involved in the research process, they get to witness science in action, get close to wild places and animals and have a novel travel experience. This model of scientific ecotourism has been very successful. Earthwatch now sponsor nearly 150 projects, some of which have been running for several decades and they have provided useful data on threatened species. Many volunteers come back and make these trips their annual holidays.
With the recent ‘climate turn’ in the ethical preoccupations of wealthy Western liberals, Earthwatch have sought to develop a range of climate change research holidays. If ‘biodiversity’ was the ethical watchword of the greens in the nineties, climate change and carbon are fast becoming the must-know, must-care-abouts of the ethically conscious. These projects have proved very successful and many are booked out until the end of next year.
In one example volunteers fly to the edge of the Arctic for 11 days to help scientists gather data on changes in vegetation in one of ecosystems most threatened by global warming. This will set you back nearly £2500, but would surely be an epic and worthwhile adventure? Undoubtedly it would bring you close to the sublime – walking out at dawn across the ice sheets – but how much will it really help understand and tackle climate change?
During a long-haul return flight to Anchorage, the jumping off point for Alaska, the well meaning volunteer would emit 2.1 tonnes of CO2 equivalent at high altitude – that is a lot of carbon; in fact it is almost exactly the total amount we should be emitting in a year, according to research into the personal carbon quotas we would all need to avoid global warming. A keen conservationist would have to use up their allowance for just over a week’s science. While the research is no doubt important, and might not take place without the ‘volunteer contribution’, there are surely greener ways of doing it?
Earthwatch make it mandatory to offset this carbon – through their Oxford-based partner Climate Care. This fast growing company charge just over fifteen pounds to dispose of this amount of hot air. On the surface this process of exchange might appeal – we can have our carbon and burn it – but the CO2 is still up there in the atmosphere, perpetuating and exacerbating the problem they set out to save. This is difficult issue for overseas research and tourism more generally, but it is one most starkly expressed when cause and effect clash so clearly.
Note: The ethics of offsets are fascinating and murky – see this excellent spoof site, which maps the logic of carbon onto offsetting relationship infidelities.
Thanks for your interesting piece about ‘climate change tourism’. I would just like to respond to a couple of points, namely:
Earthwatch as a charitable organisation was set up over 35 years ago, responding to dwindling government funding combined with an increased urgency in the need for scientific information and action, We have researched a wide range of environmental and cultural issues from insects in South Africa to the acid-rain damaged headwaters of the Czech Republic. We certainly do not concentrate our efforts on exotic far flung places or charasmatic species as you suggest, but instead focus our activities in four key areas: climate change, oceans, sustainable resource management and threatened traditional cultures – and all new projects are subject to a strict evaluation and peer review process before being accepted. Many research issues require sustained data collection over a number of years in order to enable the scientists to engage local communities in developing sustainable solutions. Our model of volunteer-based field research provides not only much needed and hard to come by long-term funds (some of our projects have been funded for several decades), but also an enthusiastic and committed workforce. Some of the scientists we fund would not be able to carry on their work without this support:
“Earthwatch’s contribution to this project is invaluable and its services have sustained our research for over thirty years. Work accomplished by EW participants has directly added to the body of knowledge about the prehistory of the Balearic Islands and the Western Mediterranean as a whole.” Jackie Waldren, Mallorca’s Copper Age
“I am so grateful to all of the Earthwatch volunteers who have worked with me. I would urge everyone to get addicted to it. It really does support long term research that is urgently needed to protect our planet.” Dr. Dusti Becker (Ecuador’s Forest Birds)
“The information we’ve collected with Earthwatch volunteers on each individual nesting leatherbacks in Costa Rica, is critical to understanding how leatherback populations respond to oceanographic changes in the short-term (year to year) and the long-term (generations), so that we can really understand what the potential impacts of global climate change on marine animals. I think the Earthwatch model is so powerful because real people get the chance to see first hand what these harbingers of global change have to say, and then they get to go back to their communities, around the world, and voice that message.” Bryan Wallace, Costa Rican Sea Turtles
“Vital long-term support provided by Earthwatch has allowed us to maintain continuity of data collection within a rapidly changing ice-marginal environment.” Andy Russell, Icelandic Glaciers
Some of our 120 volunteer projects are very popular, many of whom return year after year. However we are always keen to recruit further volunteers, both to support the scientists and as part of our educational mission to inform and motivate individuals to change their attitudes and behaviours. Other projects are supported by our corporate partners or by funding from trusts and foundations. We recognize the detrimental effects of air travel, and we are working to reduce our impacts – for example we provide advice to volunteers on overland travel to any of our European expeditions, as well as expeditions further afield where practical. As you correctly state, we also include the carbon offsetting cost of international flights for all volunteers booked through our European office, and for all staff travel. We believe that many of our volunteers would be travelling abroad for holidays anyway, and that therefore we are not adding to carbon emissions, but replacing tourism with a more responsible and useful form of travel.
We acknowledge that carbon offsetting is not the solution to climate change, and we are currently developing an international carbon management strategy to stipulate how our offices, expeditions and programmes will reduce our overall carbon footprint. You can find out more about our climate change position on our website http://www.earthwatch.org/europe/climatechangeposition.html
Julie Meikle
Head of Communications
Earthwatch Institute (Europe)