Future Posts

I came across two good questions recently in one of my exams.

In the issue of sustainable development is the notion of inter and intra generational equity. Discuss some of the challenges that small island developing states in the Caribbean face with regards to achieving this.

The second was more of an idea rather than a question. It is to assess tourism in relation to the Millennium Development Goals from the United Nations.

Over the next two weeks I would be writing some posts on these matters. However I would be splitting them up so as to not have posts that are too long.

Sustainable Mobility

What comes to mind when one thinks of sustainable mobility? Is it electric and hydrogen cars, light rail systems and bicycles? If you thought of these things essentially you would be right, but is that everything? Does the whole issue of transportation on the journey of sustainable development boil down to just our dependency on oil and its impacts?

I have always said that though I am a strong environmentalist I have come to the realization that if we are to achieve sustainability then the environment and the issue of climate change are just pieces of the puzzle. I will attempt to look a little bit on the social and economic aspects of this issue of mobility. As with most of my entries, I would look at this entry from a tourism point of view. Taking the issue of the environmental damage out of the picture I will examine two aspects of sustainable mobility often overlooked.

First I would look at mobility within destinations and then between destinations. The way people move through a city is an important factor to the economic development of the city. Encourage economic development, is an important aspect when it comes to sustainable mobility. In tourism there is a term called 'multiply effect', which is in essence this refers to how money is circulated through the local economy without being lost due to leakages (e.g. purchase of foreign goods). Having a high multiply effect is imperative for true economic development and for the multiply effect of a city to be high, locals and tourists need to purchase from local shops and vendors along the streets. This helps with the development of the local economy through promoting linkages throughout the local economy as well as encouraging entrepreneurship. Because of this, the action of going into and patronizing these shops should not be an inconvenience to people if they are to be encouraged. This is where the issue of cars and walk-able cities come into play. In cities that are not conducive to walking and cycling there is always traffic congestion and parking is always at a premium. This has a direct impact on the willingness of people to randomly go into a store and purchase an item due to the stress caused by traffic and parking. For this reason, cities in the Caribbean should try to become as walkable as possible so tourists are able to explore the city without much difficulty, and so and contribute to the development of the local economy. Someone who is walking along the street is more likely to stop and support local business than someone who is stuck in traffic or searching for a park.

Another hindrance to sustainable mobility is that of vertical integration. Vertical integration in tourism refers to large international tour companies have links with international airlines and hotel chains. These tour companies then promote their linkages and sometimes have agreements where they only recommend their partners to their customers. Now, how does this affect the sustainability of island states? The answer is that these island states are then not in control of their own destiny and do not get all of the economic benefits of the vacations they facilitate. In other words, a tourist attraction or hotel in the Caribbean may be at the pinnacle of sustainability charts, yet how its customers arrive at the site may not be sustainable. Research done by the United Nations Economic Council of Latin America shows that the host nation only gets 40-45% of the retail cost of the organized holiday tours that use local hotels and have local aspects, but utilize foreign airlines. This percentage drops even further when the tourist utilizes foreign owned hotels and other foreign owned attractions.

However the mere fact that the airlines can take that much of money away from the host destination, in our case, Caribbean island states, forces us to look as sustainable mobility beyond just the environment. If using foreign airlines to get to vacation destinations can deny the country of approximately half of the money they help generate, then no matter how clean air fuel gets can it really be considered sustainable? The answer is no. Large multinational airlines control air travel and in some cases can ruin a country’s tourism product by deeming that air route “unprofitable”. However it is impossible for all island states to have their own national carrier as they are a huge drain on national funds as we have seen with Air Jamaica in Jamaica.

I’m not quite sure how we are going to deal with this issue but I do know that the current system is not doing small island developing states any justice. Hopefully though, we can begin to look at this issue from a wider perspective and put us on the true path of sustainable development.

So what do you think? Is the current idea of sustainable mobility too narrow?

John Kerry On Climate Change

As end of semester exams are coming closer and stress levels begin to rise, I tend to look for things to help take my mind off of the school work every now and then. With that said, I came across this video of Sen. John Kerry speaking to a climate change denier and making him seem rather stupid to say the least. The sad part about it though is that the gentleman apparently has his doctorate is in Environmental Science and Engineering.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/john-kerry-climate-change-denying-scholar.php

Preservation versus Conservation

There are two different views of environmental protection, they are preservation and conservation. Preservation is where the environment is protected at all costs and no development is allowed. The attempt is to keep the environment in its uncontaminated state. Conservation on the other hand is when development is guarded carefully and the environment is carefully utilized while protecting it. This is more anthropocentric view where the environment is there to be used for the betterment of humans.

This brings a number of different groups into conflict as some environmentalist believe that the environment has an intrinsic value and is should be barred from all types of development. Some people challenge this though and state that the environment although needs to be protected, exists to provide for human development. There is where responsible development comes into the picture( conservation). This anthropocentric view puts a value on the environment. A major environmentalist once said that ‘in a world where money talks the environment needs a value to give it a voice’. This challenges the view that the environment is priceless and cannot be given a monetary value. Another aspect is that the environment is only protected by the government due to pressure from the public. Although scientists can successfully lobby to get the government to set aside lands to bar development it is the public perception that has the most power. This brings to mind an article I read by Patricia Zaradic from the Red Rock Institute. She stated that environmentalists would prefer to leave parks to themselves and protect them from the wear and tear of the public which would affect the ecosystem there. She however states that the popularity of public parks is essential if we are to maintain adequate funding for environmentally based initiatives. As by going to the parks and experiencing the environment (responsibly), people feel a stronger vested interest in it. This concept leans to a more conservation type model.

However ecosystems are very complicated and connected. Some may argue, and I agree, that certain areas are too important to biodiversity and the wider ecosystems to be corrupted by any sort of development, however responsible it may be. A perfect example of this is mangroves. Mangrove wetlands are very unstable and any sort of the development would be difficult unless they fully remove the mangrove trees and fill the land. The mangrove and swamp wet lands are an integral part of the marine ecosystem. They provide a nursery for small and baby fishes and allow them to grow without the threat of being hunted by bigger fish. This allows the fish stock to be kept at a sustainable level. Also mangroves help prevent sedimentation. The increase in sedimentation can kill the coral reefs which would also harm the fish stocks in the reefs. This is why some argue that mangroves need to be preserved from development.

A possible answer to the issue may be the zoning of sensitive ecosystems. This is where places are segmented into different zones with some places being preserved and others are conserved. Some of the more sensitive areas, such as mangroves, are preserved and other areas which may be able to recover easier are utilized in a sustainable manner, such as forests. A perfect example of this is in some of the major national parks in Canada. In the national parks places are barred off as wildlife sanctuaries straight through to parts that are open for tourism development. The idea is that some areas are more vulnerable and thus need to be protected and other areas can assimilate the impacts.

The Fun Theory

I recently was surfing the internet and I came across a peculiar website. It is about the “fun theory”, which is basically about finding fun and interesting ways to change people’s behaviour for the better. This is the major way in which people should tackle the issue of high impact living, since in my mind the presence of regulations only forces people to comply rather than deal with the real issue which is the attitudes of the public. Interestingly enough though the idea was not born from a non-profit organization such as Green Peace or wwf but rather from a most unlikely source....a car company, Volkswagen to be exact. This also plays directly into my lap as it about changing people’s attitudes and helping the environment without going through the path of lengthy legislation and policies. There is only so much that rules can achieve, people need to want to do the right thing. With regards to the website, I think the idea with the stairs is ingenious. www.thefuntheory.com

Planned Obsolence

In watching the "story of stuff" the issue of planned obsolence really caught my attention. This is where company's manufacture products that are designed to become obsolete after a certain amount of time. Taking the ethical issue of this out of the question one needs to now look at the real sustainability and environmental impacts of their products. Lets take a look at cars for example. There are new hybrids coming out as well as hydrogen and fully electric vehicles coming out. All of these are said to have a smaller impact on the environment and what not. The issue with this however is, yes when u drive it it does less damage to the environment, but how long will it last before u need to get a new one. We have to look at this while considering the fact that the most environmentally damaging as well as resource intensive part of a car is the production of it. So it begs the question, 'is it better to drive a "eco-chic' prius or electric car, for 5 years and replace it or rather a big dependable hilux or one of those old Land Rovers that seem to last forever? Because even though environmental people would say the hilux is too much excess and drinks too much gas, the fact is they seem pretty dependable and durable. Top Gear even did a number of tests on it, which included even drowning the engine and it still started. I'm not saying for everyone to go out and buy a hilux because it is the best option, what i'm saying is that if we really are to be environmentally conscious and sustainable then the durability of the product is something that is just as or even more important than its little "green" features. This goes with what an environmentalist once said, that if you're going green and you find it is expensive, then your doing it wrong. This constant production of products and throwing away of old ones is just as big a sustainable issue as the other more popular one. This however may be the hardest one to deal with because it requires people to change their lifestyle and mindset rather than just make the 'green' choice when shopping. This issue of planned obsolence is something that really interests me. Because it shows that a number of these big companies are really green washing more than anything else. I'll be doing some more research and would be writing some more posts on this issue, so keep tune. 

Back In Action

The school semester has finished and I'm setting up for long productive summer. I'll be doing an internship this summer at either Tourism Development Company (TDC) or the Hyatt Regency Trinidad. I would have loved to have had the opportunity to work with a company called Travel Foundations. It is a UK based non-profit company which has a branch in Tobago. They are involved in the sustainable development and tourism two things which really interest me. There are some issues with the feasibility of working with them considered I live in Trinidad and they are in Tobago. In terms of my plans for this blog it is going to be a little bit different in that it won't be just random rants about stuff but rather I would try to back up all my opinions with facts.

Story of Stuff

This is an excellent film and website which gives an overview of the destructive nature of American style consumerism. Her main point is that the system that America and more or less the rest of the world is using is a linear system of production based on a finite resource. There have been some issues about the one sided nature of the short film which to some paints a negative picture of capitalism, as someone who is not a big supporter of capitalism I looked pass that. She also, on the website, backs up all of her facts with a reference type section. All in all I think it is a excellent film and website that everyone should check up. Even if there are some disputes about some of the facts as cited by Fox News, (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520207,00.html) I believe the site really gets you thinking so check it out,(http://www.storyofstuff.com/).

Update on lack of updates lol

Hi due to school work and a lack of quality time I have not been able to get much work done on the blog. Come mid May I would be putting a lot of effort into it and plan on having it fully operational by bout 20 of May. I am also thinkin about changing the name of the blog. I'm not sure what i'm going to change it too yet though and this would not have an impact of the contents of the blog.