Green Space is a column dedicated to sustainability-related writing, initially written from 2012-2014 and revived in 2023.
Olin has been home to plenty of brilliant engineers working on novel green technologies, but I believe we can’t just engineer ourselves a sustainable future without significant changes to how we live our lives. Many luxuries we have become accustomed to are only possible because of exploitative, extractionist, environmentally unfriendly practices, from cheap industrial meat to 2-day shipping to fast fashion. To build a truly sustainable future, we need to be willing to adapt our consumption habits.
One significant aspect of our lives where overconsumption has become the norm is air travel. Cheap fares incentivize us to jet off to Europe for a conference or the Caribbean for spring break. If we are to live a sustainable future, we must consider traveling with intention. Embracing slow travel by utilizing green transportation, practicing mindful consumption, and engaging with local businesses, peoples, and cultures will allow us to create a future of travel that is environmentally and socially sustainable.
I spent the Spring 2024 semester in Copenhagen, Denmark, taking courses in sustainable cities and transportation. My classmates hopped on flights to a different European capital each weekend, but I wanted an alternate way to experience the continent. My reputation as a train-lover precedes me at Olin, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that dedicated my breaks to exploring Europe by train. Throughout the semester, I covered about 7000 miles by train, from the far northern reaches of Norway, Sweden, and Finland to the Mediterranean in both Barcelona and Venice. The allure of these trips was largely in the trains themselves and in the pure joy of watching beautiful landscapes pass by the window. On my trip to Norway, I took 11 trains, 6 buses, and a boat. I followed my curiosity wherever it wandered. I saw and experienced so much along the way that I never would have if I had just flown north and booked a hotel. By taking the train, I emitted just 3% of the carbon dioxide I would have otherwise, spent about the same amount of money, and was able to engage with and gain an appreciation for the countries through which I traveled.
My travel abroad was pretty extreme because I wanted to experience as many trains as possible, but the true strength of slow travel comes when you design your travel around destinations that are a more reasonable distance away. My core course while abroad, Sustainable Development in Northern Europe, traveled by train to Stockholm for our study tour week, which took about 6 hours. I am confident that my class learned just as much on our trip as the other section of this course that flew to Spain. We had an amazing week, without so much as stepping foot on a plane.
How can you put this into practice in your life? Olin students and faculty engage in all kinds of exciting research work, so it is common for members of our community to travel to conferences. This kind of travel is incredibly valuable to the academic experience, an opinion likely shared by families who donate to send students to networking conferences and Olin administrators who sign off on grants to send delegations to present research. However, directly-financed air travel accounted for 7.18% of Olin’s total emissions in 2021.
Not all conferences are created equal, and sometimes there are few options for relevant conferences. However, we must consider location if the goal is to reduce the carbon emissions caused by academic travel. Choosing a conference with a medium-distance flight rather than a long-haul flight significantly reduces the impact of attending. My Olin research group attended the 2023 OCEANS conference, two of which are hosted each year. In 2023, the conferences were hosted in Biloxi, Mississippi and Limerick, Ireland. Our group of 3 student researchers attended the Limerick conference. If we had flown to Mississippi from Boston, we would have generated almost exactly half of the emissions that we generated by flying to Ireland. Looking back, I realize that I could have had effectively the same conference experience with half the same carbon impact. Even better, we could have sought out a closer conference that we could attend without flying.
Now, you’ve chosen a conference closer to home, great! The easiest way to further reduce the impact is to substitute ground transport instead of a flight. For conferences in cities with rail service, the barrier becomes the cost or convenience of booking a train. Let’s take the 2024 Society of Women Engineers conference, to be hosted in Chicago, as an example. One option is to attend the local conferences, but let’s focus on the national conference for the sake of this article. Most Oliners wouldn’t consider anything besides air travel to attend this conference, but please entertain me for a moment. Amtrak runs a once-daily service between Boston and Chicago, known as the Lake Shore Limited. The train stops at Framingham Station and terminates at Chicago Union Station, making it a convenient end-to-end journey. I will admit that the train isn’t particularly quick, departing Framingham at 1:30pm and arriving in Chicago at 10:15am the next day (a travel time of 21:45). However, Amtrak offers both seats and sleeper cabins for this journey, albeit at a premium compared to airfare. Choosing to fly this route instead of taking the Lake Shore Limited emits at least 6 times as much carbon dioxide.
What is the role of Olin administration and others who fund this conference travel? What if we were willing to subsidize students and faculty who prioritize sustainable transportation when traveling to conferences? Incentivizing rail travel by making up the cost gap is an opportunity for the college to make good on our sustainability ambitions.
By choosing conferences closer to home and choosing to minimize the flights necessary to reach them, we can become more mindful consumers and reduce the carbon emissions associated with our academic and professional careers. This is not a call to never attend distant conferences, but merely an encouragement to consider the impacts of your travel as you make these decisions.
You can apply these same principles to your leisure travel. I fell in love with long-distance train travel during my semester abroad, but there are many other ways to embrace slow travel as you explore our amazing world. Instead of jetting across the world for spring break, consider hopping on a train to Montreal, the Adirondacks of upstate New York, picturesque coastal Maine, historical Philadelphia, or any number of other destinations. I guarantee that a train journey to any of these places, especially with a group of Oliners, will forge lasting memories. You may even fall in love with train travel as I have.
Next time you are planning to travel for leisure, academics, or work, I hope you consider slow travel and experience for yourself why to choose the rails.
