Dear readers, this blog was never intended to be a travel journal, replete with insider guidance and dazzling photography tempting you to whip out your wallet. However, you may have noticed a theme wherein transportation and its environmental impact are connected through the words on these pages. The reason for all this is simple – I like going places, and maybe you do too. So I thought you might enjoy reading about it.
On the other hand, I appreciate a livable planet here at home – one on which we’re not suffering through hellish wildfire smoke, smothering heat or raging floods. We all know by now the terrible damage that burning fossil fuels is inflicting on our beautiful home and our health. Tourism contributes about 8% of global emissions, half of which is airplane travel. At a personal level, the sexy graph that headlines this essay shows the yellow bar of flying on airplanes is a major factor of our family’s role in this mess.
IN PRINCIPLE…
Trying to enjoy traveling has become increasingly challenging as my awareness of the climate impact of what I call “fast travel” has grown. Like its cousin in the fashion world, fast travel is the result of rampant consumerism that’s easily accessible and relatively cheap. In this case I’m slamming the long distance mobility that can whisk us away for a frivolous fling on a carbon-spewing jet plane for a few hundred bucks.
Rejecting this approach, I’ve offered a few alternatives on these pages:
Finding wonder in the everyday – the “OG” Incredibly ordinary
Exchanging speed for lower impact – Slow goin’ and Travel rewards
Being intentional about high impact travel – An undisclosed location
This idea is even more counter-cultural: The Case Against Travel, put forth in the vaunted pages of the New Yorker Magazine. Maybe everyone’s actually better off staying home. Many would disagree, but who are we to judge how travel changes us when we set out expecting it to?
Again, I admit that I enjoy the act of moving my body through space. Walking in nature, cycling pretty much anywhere, driving on a curvy road through the mountains, or slicing through waves on our sailboat all make me very happy. Call it “transportainment” if you like. I’m easy to please doing these simple activities. So allow me to spend the next few paragraphs offering another way to continue to move about the country with a little less collateral damage.
THE PLAN
October is a special month for me for several reasons. Despite having been transplanted to the Midwest 30 years ago, I still consider New England my “homeland”. As summer concludes, Amy and the kids recognize Dad’s homing instincts kick in, with my annual pining for pine trees. So a few months ago I booked a plane ticket (non-stop, coach) to Boston for some family and outdoor time out East.
Since I’d already committed to deposit 1/4 MT CO2 into the atmosphere in exchange for my round trip ticket, I wanted to reduce the damage while on the ground. My plan was to rent an EV for my local transport. For many people, EVs are not new tech. But despite having a deep curiosity with this mode of mobility, I’ve not driven one for more than a couple miles, let alone a road trip. So let’s give this a test.
Fortunately, my corporate discount with Hertz made choosing a vehicle easy. They currently offer several EVs at comparable prices to their ICE counterparts. Unfortunately, given my moral outrage at the leader of a certain EV maker, I had to eliminate the brand with the most extensive charging network. This would be a REAL test, in other words.
The Chevy Bolt EUV seemed to check the right boxes – reasonable range (250 miles) and (hopefully!) enough room for my two sons and their cousin to squeeze our camping gear in for a 2 hour drive to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Knowing I’d need to find non-“T” chargers, I downloaded the PlugShare app and started looking for spots to juice up on the route. The app makes it easy to enter your start & end locations, your vehicle & range, and filter on the charging type & speed you’re looking for, including crowd-sourced reviews. You’re quickly introduced to a bowl of alphabet soup, but allow me to simplify what matters:
Plug type – Non-T drivers will generally need CCS/SAE. The J-1772 chargers are very slow and not recommended if you’re in a hurry. CHAdeMO is for Nissan Leaf drivers, basically.
Charging speed – Again, if you’re on a road trip, you probably don’t want to spend all day watching the battery indicator crawl towards full. Look for higher kW values. While a few EVs can guzzle electrons at nearly 800kW, you’re much more likely to find chargers that pump their watts around 100kW. At that speed, filling a large EV “tank” to 80% would take about half an hour.
Charging network – This part feels like finding a gas station on your road trip that carries your favorite brand of decomposed dino-fluid that might have working pumps, or not. In other words, your (non-T) options are limited. Look for Electrify America, EVgo, Volta and others, ranked here. I saved a few favorites that were within the estimated range of the Bolt to avoid the panic of range anxiety on our drive into the mountains. Some require downloading an app to pay, which seems like a nuisance compared to swiping a credit card at a traditional gas pump.
THE RESULTS
Cliffhanger alert! Check back here in a few weeks for the full report. I promise to share the full truth and nothing but the truth on these pages. So help me, Thor.
Cover [IMAGE] annual Boyle family impact, MT CO2 equivalent