I believe it is sailboats though how big can they get? I would love to visit Ireland from St. John’s then bicycle and ride the train around the emerald island.

  • altasshet@lemmy.caEnglish
    71·
    30 days ago

    I’ll be traveling to Europe soon, and my approach is to do a few things:

    • find the most direct flights I can
    • I’ll actually stay over for a few weeks to visit with friends and family, planning not to travel again for multiple years after this
    • while over there, travel by train only
    • offset the emissions from traveling (using https://www.goldstandard.org/)

    It’s not perfect, but it’s the best I could come up with.

    • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      3·
      30 days ago

      There are occasionally flights from the northeastern end of Canada to Scotland. That’s a surprisingly short trip! Checking different airports’ destinations on Wikipedia was a useful way to find out about this!

      • altasshet@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        29 days ago

        Now I just have to make it from Alberta to St. John ;) But I’m all seriousness, if you live in Eastern Canada, that may be something to consider.

        • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          29 days ago

          Seriously: there is a train. Yes, it takes probably in the ballpark of five or six days, but since it exists, I really think that’s what should be used. Because the friction between steel wheel and the rail is so low, even a diesel train causes about 70 % less climate-warming emissions per kilometre than flying does.

          I’m about to go from Helsinki to Ragusa and back with my child who is under 10-year-old, and that’s going to be more rail kilometres than your trip through Canada would be. It should be the standard to always travel in normal ways and only fly when no other options exist. (I’d say countries’ leaders meeting up or a close relative being about to die any minute are examples of when it’s okay to travel in a way that kills people)

          I wish some kind of “this many person-kilometres of flying kills one person” numbers would be published. The number exists, we just need to figure out what it is.

          • altasshet@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            29 days ago

            It’s an option if money is no object, and you have lots of time. Train travel in Canada is not like on Europe, sadly. There’s like three trains a week going from Edmonton to Toronto, from where you can get what looks like one train a day to Halifax. That costs the same as the full flight, and if I flew to Scotland and took the train from there, I’d be traveling for a week to get to where I’m going. I realize it’s still a marvel to be able to do this at all, but it’s just not going to be practical in the near future.

            (Edit: changed “never” to “in the near future”. Never is a long time :)

            That being said, I overall agree with the sentiment of traveling as little as possible and by the last impactful mode possible.