Great holiday experiences are currently missing. However, the travel is often not only a reward for the Routine of everyday life – at the expense of the climate? As a sustainability expert sees the.
Leipzig (dpa/tmn) – for The whole year to work diligently and to compensate for a holiday trip in the distance indulge: Sounds nice and pretty straightforward, right? Not for the sustainability expert Prof. Felix Ekardt.
He sees long – Distance and air travel is critical. In an Interview with the dpa-themed service of the lawyer, philosopher and sociologist, explains who exactly are us experiences in distant lands – and what that has to do with the climate problem.
it Is pain for us to be able to in the summer because of the Corona pandemic is only a very limited travel abroad?
Prof. Felix Ekardt: Me personally, not at all, I holiday, but many people do it all the time Regional certainly. Long-distance travel are considered to be the event par excellence. At the same time, air travel is environmentally pretty much the biggest Disaster that the Individual can wreak.
impact on the climate, including the devastating effects of climate change on Ecosystems and biodiversity. Aircraft noise and air pollutants come on top of it, with deadly consequences for other people.
What it says about our lives, when we have this rather short-term waiver of foreign travel so hurt?
Ekardt: amazingly, are just tree-huggers often large frequent flyer, because anyone who is politically interested and educated, is often cosmopolitan and comparatively wealthy. If you want to limit climate change, but according to the Paris agreement of 1.5 degrees, we need to reduce emissions in all sectors – transport, electricity, heat, plastics, agriculture – in a maximum of two decades to Zero. In addition to technical change, the new life styles.
you once said that many people in Western countries hold experiences for the most Important thing in life – to be able to now not travel, so it is a big Problem?
Ekardt: We all float on a small ball through the huge space, and you can ask, of course: What am I really in the morning? And why I put myself through the Stress on the job, when all the exciting projects to which we devote ourselves to so devotedly, considered to serve in the light, but no larger sense?
The old answer – for God, for the Fatherland, for the leader – are recognizable to consume. What could legitimize the whole Toil and, in General, our strange to Do better than an exciting long-distance trip?
it’s because when you actually travel, especially to new experiences and exciting experiences?
Ekardt: this is the Only way to understand why you do not engage in travel, the lens are not particularly pleasant, with oppressively hot climate, bad food, and uncomfortable Hotels. In 1994, I worked for three months in Israel. But I’ve become by this supposed experience of someone else? Now I know really the country? I have to say no. For shorter trips and holidays this is even more true.
What would be from your point of view is a healthy approach to travel?
Ekardt: once or twice in the life of a Sabbatical, would like to see on the ground, really a bit of the world, can be a little more impressive than all the travel stress, we do to us today Experiences are everything, and you wave not only travels. The sense of vacuum in the post-religious age, I can’t get rid of, I walk through fire country or in Bangkok.
And with the international understanding we can start in Europe. Of Europe’s diversity of good food aside, the cultural Hotspots and pluralistic lifestyles worldwide, almost unrivalled – and it is accessible without flights. to travel
Regional, would be better for the climate. But many tourists don’t seem to care the practical. Why not?
Ekardt: The behavioral science already knows for a long time: facts, knowledge and even values and attitudes influence our behavior only to a limited, in spite of all the beautiful environmental education.
Add to that sober self-benefit calculi and emotions: comfort, custom, displacement, or simply the difficulty for me climate-related deaths present, when just about to get on the plane to my dream Destination. In addition, all of us are stuck in the ideas of Normality of a fossil-fueled world, also air travel.
Person: Prof. Felix Ekardt is a lawyer, philosopher, sociologist, head of the research unit sustainability and climate policy in Leipzig and Professor at the University of Rostock.
