An Interview with Sami Grover, Sustainability Director for The Change Strategy, with Multilingual Living Magazine: (Reprinted with permission from the July/August issue.)

“Reports about global warming abound in today’s media. Yet, how often do we give thought to the detrimental impact we have on the environment by living our multicultural lives? Did you know that each time you fly in an airplane to visit family abroad you are exponentially increasing what experts term your “carbon footprint?”

To help us understand the impact that our lives as global citizens have on the environment, we turned to the bilingual journalist and environmentalist Sami Grover, editor of the Bilingual Family Newsletter (www.bilingualfamilynewsletter.com) correspondent for TreeHugger (www.treehugger.com) and Director of Sustainability for The Change (www.thechangestrategy.com). Having grown up bilingual and bicultural and with a lifelong dedication to helping protect our world’s environmental health, Sami
understands the dilemma we face, especially now that he lives in the U.S., an ocean (and airline flight) away from his family.

MLM: Sami, thank you for taking time from your busy schedule for an interview. To get started, what exactly is a “carbonfootprint” and how can we find out what ours is?

Sami: A carbon footprint is essentially a way of measuring the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), and sometimes including other greenhouse gases, that you emit in the course of living your life. It would include emissions from the food you buy, your daily travel patterns, your vacation travel, and heating and lighting your home. Other activities also contribute, but these are probably the most significant. There are plenty of carbon calculators out there that can help you calculate your footprint, and they often include advice on how to reduce your emissions through, for example, different travel choices, or reducing your energy use (Calculators can be found at www.carboncalculator.co.uk and www.carbonfootprint.com).

MLM: Why exactly do airplane flights have such an impact on our “carbon footprint?” Doesn’t driving a car each day havea far greater impact?

Sami: There are really two reasons why aviation has such a big impact. Firstly, since it enables people to travel over a huge distance, it encourages people to travel more and further than they would otherwise, burning up a huge amount of fuel in the process. Secondly, the effects of aviation on the climate are much more than just the carbon dioxide emitted. There are also other greenhouse gases, and the contrails that the plane leaves behind can also affect the climate. Some experts estimate that the effects of aviation emissions are as much as 3 times higher than carbon dioxide alone. To give you some idea of the overall impact, one journey from London, Heathrow to Adelaide, Australia is estimated to create as much as the equivalent of 5.3 tons of carbon dioxide per passenger, according to UK company Climate Care.

MLM: Are there ways in which we can minimize the daily contribution to our “carbonfootprint” to help offset the damage of our flights? And what about alternative modes oftransportation - do some cause less of an impact than others?

Sami: Certainly. Changing your light bulbs, eating less meat (meat and dairy are huge emitters of greenhouse gases), riding your bike, walking, carpooling, buying local, driving a smaller car. All of these things can reduce your impact, but, ultimately, international travel is still going to have a huge impact. Unfortunately, this is one of the downsides of multicultural living. Environmental writer George Monbiot coined the term ‘love miles’ to account for those journeys that we are obliged to make for family or loved ones, but which clock up such huge emissions.

Really, there are only a few things you can do to reduce the impact of your love miles. Firstly, try to avoid flying where possible. Trains are a viable alternative for many countries - the Man at Seat 61 is an excellent website for overland travel (www.seat61.com), and probably even driving is a preferable alternative to flying, especially if you have the car full with passengers. Overland journeys can be so much more fun too - it’s nice to see where you are going for a change!

Secondly, try to take fewer trips, but make them worth while. Why not visit once a year, but stay twice as long? In the end, quality, not quantity, is probably more important.

Finally, if you must make a journey, carbon offsets are one way to take responsibility for your emissions. You can pay a provider like Terrapass (www.terrapass.com), or Climate Care ( www.climatecare.org) to fund projects elsewhere that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a similar amount that your flight has created.

MLM: As global citizens raising multilingual and multicultural families, what are
your recommendations on how we can help to keep our world healthy for our children’schildren?

Sami: Talk to your kids. Read. Learn and understand the reasons why the crisis we are facing has come about, and then set about doing something about it. Personal lifestyle choices, like changing bulbs, riding a bike, or reducing your flying are all important but, ultimately, we need action at the government level. So I’d say kick up a fuss! Demand action from governments and companies to both reduce their emissions, and to bring about legislation that taxes unsustainable behavior, and rewards more responsible actions.

I’d also say that it’s important not to get too extreme - nobody likes a nag or a doommonger. The trick is to encourage the kind of radical, and ultimately positive, change that we need if our kids are going to have a future, without scaring (or boring!) people so much that it becomes a turn off. How we do that, I’m not quite sure, but we should have fun trying!

Thank you Sami for this interview! And thank you for your dedication to both multilingual families around the world as well as the world’s environmental health! As the Great Law of the Iroquois states: “In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation… even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine.” You are certainly doing your part!

Multilingual Living magazine is part of the Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network

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Tags: culture, travel

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