Tourism Titles

It was the ProPoor Tourism conundrum that got me thinking about energy, sustainable tourism, what it’s all about and the meaning of life generally.

Like the irresistible force v the immovable object, the ProPoor tourism problem seems to be irreconcilable with real life. It goes like this – beautiful third world countries have frequently got wrecked economies and lots of poor, starving, sick, jobless people.

Solution 1 (operated up until quite recently, and in specific situations even now) “Give ‘em a string of beads and they’ll be happy. We’ll fly in thousands of high paying tourists to enjoy their paradise for a couple of weeks. And we’ll make a lot of dosh. (The tour operator in my genes recognises that one!)

Solution 2 (from the now reconstructed goody-goody politicians/global tourism industry) “Let’s fly in a team of consultants to help the locals draw up and operate a TMP (Tourism Master Plan). Then they can get the benefits of tourism directly. This will provide equal opportunities for women and minorities, democracy and institution building, stronger and more honest government and poverty eradication. Plus we get to zap some of those pesky Millennium Development Goals in time for world opinion.

Here’s where the force/object situation comes in:

Immovable object = destination (a long way away from the 1st world)
Irresistible force = airplane taking the tourists there (spewing out all kinds of noxious Green House Gases all the way).

So, what to do? Stop air tourism? Carry on and mess up the environment? Stick our heads in the sand and deny its happening? Or toss the paradigm away and start on another one?

There is another way of looking at it all - the energy way. The fact is, it all boils down to ENERGY, our stewardship of it, that is, and its misuse.

Currently, our primary concern is the burning of fossil fuels to create energy. This is a double whammy, we use up our limited resources, and we spew Green House Gases (CO2, Methane, Hydrocarbons, Flourocarbons etc) into the atmosphere, making the Earth a nice chemical overcoat so as to create global warming. We really don’t want to change our lifestyles, so we carry on doing it – we like being warm and comfortable eh?. We burn petrol to drive ourselves around, oil/gas/coal to heat ourselves up/cool ourselves down and kerosene to fly ourselves around. And we eat so much meat to energise our bodies that vast amounts of methane are farted into the atmosphere by our food-animals. By these standards, the 3% or so of total emissions delivered by the airlines fade a little into insignificance.

The truth is that we’re just profligate (those few of us who have enough to be profligate with). We are simply feckless in our use of energy. We have respect for very few forms of the energy we over consume.

We over indulge. We consume energy like it’s going out of fashion. We over eat. We over use our electrical appliances, we over use our cars, we over heat and over cool ourselves, we over travel. Why? Because it’s all (relatively) cheap. Cheap food, cheap travel, cheap heat, light and entertainment. Cheap, that is, if you live in the first world. Expensive if you live on a dollar a day. And, partly because energy is cheap and plentiful, we have little respect for it. We waste it.

All that process of waste, of course, applies to money too. “Thought we were talking about energy!” What is money, after all, but energy-tokens? Think about it! And look at the global financial disaster we’re now facing due to our over expenditure of energy tokens.

So the real problem is everywhere - it isn’t the individual activity – it’s our overall attitude. A holistic problem.

It always seems simple to address individual activities so we can find scapegoats to attack. The energy industry is littered with them. Coal mines, nuclear fission, oil magnates – they’re all holding us to ransom. Now, it’s the energy users, in particular the airline industry, that are being targeted.

But our overweaning desire to consume is the real culprit. And the problem that’s facing us is the effect that the over consumption of energy (in all its forms) is imminently creating.

Given that the fairest method of curtailing our energy use (personal carbon rationing) is politically unacceptable. To avoid disaster (or to put it off till we forget that it’s around) we are going to have to change our attitudes to consumption – not, necessarily what we consume.

In the very same way that an organisation needs efficiency, so do we. Simply, we need to consume less, waste less and respect more – in every department of our lives. We need to take a holistic approach.

So, think about it. The next time you’re sitting in your hothouse house tucking in to the usual daily meat feast, with the telly, the fan, and the audio centre on full blast, the computer and the rest of the TV’s on standby – think about it. By becoming more efficient, you could be saving up your carbon for a really worthwhile experience. Which, because you’ve had to think about it and save for it, you’ll treat with a little respect.

How does this effect all the different types of tourism that are generally going in this direction - ProPoor Tourism? Sustainable Tourism? Responsible Tourism? EcoTourism? Etc etc.

A holistic problem needs to be dealt with holistically to provide a holistic opportunity.

Holistic tourism? Don’t think so.