Walking on the
Amtrak platform with my rolling luggage, I can’t keep myself from smiling. I
love trains, for ecological and recreational reasons, and the fact that my
partner and I are currently replacing round-trip cross-country flights with
train trips makes me love them even more. And seeing a large majority of seats
full gives me hope that one day train travel will become a viable travel option
again for the American population.
However, back in
January, after two gift cards and a coupon, my sister and her family finally
justified the high expense of taking the train for a visit from Eugene to
Portland, a stretch that sees a high amount of automobile travelers on a daily
basis. One would think the train would regularly see a decent number of riders,
as well. But while I was happy for my sister and her family on a personal level
for their opportunity of an entire car to themselves (with two kids and a
toddler, you couldn’t ask for better accommodations), this lack of consistent ridership
was somewhat disheartening. It’s no surprise though, since the round-trip price
of train tickets for a family of five between Eugene and Portland is likely to
be more expensive than driving. So the big question is, “How do we encourage
more ecological long-distance travel within the United States?” Through federal
taxation measures that affect pricing, the travel options with less environmental
impact can become more affordable, feasible and attractive.
With any new
travel program or innovation, there are three things to consider: time (speed
and flexibility), price, convenience, and quality (of both travel experience
and energy sourcing). Do we build high speed rail systems as both a convenience
and quality marketing tactic to increase ridership? It doesn’t make sense to
dive into large construction projects without high demand levels because there
is a very good possibility that the environmental benefits will not outweigh
the costs. Do we focus on travel systems that can appeal to travelers’ time
constraints? Well, we’ve done that already. They’re called “automobiles” and
“planes” and look where they’ve gotten us—the ecological impacts of both are
devastating.
There are several
things (employment, disabilities, family size, etc.) that disrupt our ability
to make concessions to sustainable travel, even when we are given a highly competitive
price. But we don’t need 90% of the population to immediately make the switch
to more efficient travel. We just need a significant (not necessarily majority)
portion in order to jump start demand for more efficient long-distance travel.
And this significant portion can be swayed through price. By federally taxing
less sustainable travel industries and tax incentivizing more sustainable
travel industries, we can reflect the ecological costs of certain types of
travel in their monetary costs (e.g. the higher the impact, the higher the
price). The environmental costs of travel are often externalized, so they
currently make the more destructive travel options more affordable than those
with less environmental impact.
In Two Billion Cars, while the authors note
the importance of changing consumer behavior, they argue that the first step is
always technological energy-sourcing research and advancement (a quality
improvement). I disagree. From a conservationist perspective, it’s imperative
to try to use the resources and infrastructure already in place through pricing
incentives to build demand. Our rates of energy consumption are unsustainable
no matter the source. I’ll admit that it is important to develop alternative
energies with a smaller carbon footprint, but the ultimate goal should be to
consume less energy instead of just
consuming the same amount but from a different resource. While research and
development in alternative fuels leads to greater efficiency, it is extremely
time-consuming, resulting in decades of immense energy and resource
consumption, waste, pollution, tax dollar allocation, etc.; it contributes to
the very issues which it is trying to solve (Wiki, 2013; Wikipedia-Hydrogen,
2013; Wikipedia-Solar, 2013). Mining for precious metals is required for solar
and wind energy, immense tracts of land are needed for placement of panels and
turbines, and currently, one of the biggest obstacles facing hydrogen
power-sourcing is that it requires huge amounts of energy to produce (irony
anyone?) (Zyga, 2006). Again, this is not to say that we shouldn’t pursue
solar, wind, or hydrogen research, but the popular (and false) idea that they
are carbon-neutral is possibly keeping many of us from changing our destructive
habits because we feel that we don’t need to.
Many of our
environmental movements and projects are trying to attract consumers or users by
focusing on quality, convenience or time. This is often done by making public
transit more attractive through rail, using alternative packaging instead of less packaging, and marketing speedy,
sustainable goods and services, even when speed is sometimes part of the
problem. Consuming less is a close cousin to moving slower, working fewer hours,
eating and buying locally, growing locally, and not being so attached to
instantaneous fulfillment. Many people cannot work towards these habitual
changes unless the price is right, and through taxation and public-private
collaboration, that can be achieved.
Let’s take a look
at “price” with the following scenario: You’re a college student and you plan
to go home across the country for one-three weeks during winter break. You have
some flexibility in when you leave and come back. If you save $50 (round-trip)
and it took two extra days of travel to take the train instead of flying, would
you do it? What if you saved $200-$300? What if the whole trip cost $50, you
could only leave on certain days of the week but you received a voucher that
was good towards discounts on textbooks for class or small subsidies for
housing on or near campus? At what point do we (or you) bend our time,
convenience, and/or quality expectations for a highly desirable price?
References:
Sperling,
Daniel, Deborah Gordon, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Two Billion Cars: Driving
Toward Sustainability. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Print.
Wiki Answers. “How is solar power bad for the environment?” Answers Corporation. 2013. Web.
Wikipedia.
“Timeline of Hydrogen Technologies.” Wikipedia.
May 24, 2013. Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_hydrogen_technologies
Wikipedia.
“Timeline of Solar Cells.” Wikipedia.
May 21, 2013. Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_solar_energy
Zyga,
Lisa. “Why a hydrogen economy doesn’t make sense.” Phys.Org. Dec. 11, 2006. Web. http://phys.org/news85074285.html
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