This train ride ticks a lot of boxes. Its almost as far as you can travel in China. It takes you on a 45 hours journey that totals 3768 km. It takes you to the place in the world that is furthest from any coast line. It takes you pretty close to the second lowest depression in the world after the dead sea. It takes you through desert and snow capped peaks to the fabled Silk Road. And most importantly for me, it takes you to the region of China in which I had the most fun.
This is the same journey, albeit in the opposite direction, that has been written about in this article. My experience was a little more tame as I had the fortune to travel by soft sleeper.
He has already done a great job writing about this journey. I will share with you some pictures:
BeinjingXi (west) Train station is massive. It is certainly the biggest train station building I have ever seen!
I was surprised how in a 45 hour trip along the breadth of China, it was almost impossible not to see evidence of Man's hand for every single part of the journey.
Although quite difficult to do when you are traveling at 140 km/h, I think I did a reasonable job of capturing these wild camels.
There are plenty of new railway lines being installed along this route. There is also a new gas/oil pipeline which straddles the train tracks for much of the 3rd day of this journey.
As someone that is quite environmentally aware, I decided to do a few calculations. Having in the past calculated my own personal carbon footprint, I am aware that of all my behaviours, my penchant for travel alone accounts for most of my personal footprint. I am interested to see how much of a difference making this journey by train makes. The price of this ticket was just less than RMB 1000, which is not so different from the USD 152 flight I saw advertised on the same day for a flight. I have calculated and valued the difference between these two forms of transport based on the information at www.carbonfootprint.com
Firstly I have dismissed the argument that both the train and the plane were flying anyway and therefore my decision, ultimately has no impact on the amount of carbon emissions. Although I recognise its verity in the short term, I instead believe that, although my individual decision making is at this time is immaterial, similar collective decision making over time would result in emptier flights, fuller trains and ultimately less of the former and more of the later hence bringing about a reduction in carbon emissions. In order to get to that point, something has to be done now and can't be dismissed with such reasoning.
According to carbonfootprint.com, based on the length of this journey, I would be responsible for 0.343 tonnes of CO2 if I travel by air and 0.000 if I make the same journey of 3768 kms traveling by train. The is same website gives me the option to offset this amount by contributing towards the Clean Energy Fund, towards Reforestation in Kenya or towards UK Tree Planting. If I were to responsibly offset the emissions that I am responsible for, this might cost me as much as $24.
If you are interested in doing the same, go to www.carbonfootprint.com or this offline calculator might also prove useful: http://timeforchange.org/offline-carbon-footprint-calculator
No comments:
Post a Comment