A life with a small CO2 footprint was for Giulia Fontana and Lorenz Keyßer always easy – until you were invited to Australia. Guilias best friend wanted to marry and Giulia should be the maid of honor.
How long of a trip from Switzerland to Australia? Lorenz Keyßer and Giulia Fontana have needed six months for planning, then 200 hours on the train, and two weeks on a cargo ship, spent. From the visit to the Red square in Moscow on the hike through the Lao-Shan mountains in China, to the rumpeligen travel through the Central Asian steppes – the journey felt like a privilege and sometimes an endurance test for your principles.
The Couple drives a car and eats no meat. Three years ago, and you have determined that you can no longer agree on the exhaust gases, which are blown in to your flights in the atmosphere, with your Conscience.
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Both are 23 years old and studying environmental Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of technology (ETH) in Zurich. Lorenz was surprised when he found out that 60% of the greenhouse gas emissions of the University were attributed to business travel by plane.
Giulia, his visiting her family in Italy, Lorenz in Germany. Both took the train. As Lorenz studied a Semester in the British city of Leeds, he drove with the train to get there. As it was, Giulia, if you visited him. In the holidays they drove to places that were without flights easily accessible. “We were just traveling in Europe, have made walks, and so it was no Problem at all,” says Giulia.
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But as Julia’s best friend, who lives in Sydney, she asked to be in your wedding maid of honor, and was in a strong moral conflict.
A highlight of their trip was to go Hiking in China, Lao-Shan mountains
Cooking recipes share, and star, “shoot”
The Couple thought about the trip and decided that she should remain in view of the long journey is better for a whole year in Australia. Giulia would look for a Job, Lorenz in his studies so long from there on.
As you have searched for rail connections, they discovered that they could also with the cargo ship travel. Giulia would make it really, to this very special day with your girlfriend. Lorenz says that, for him, only because of the size of your project was clear: “It was the slow realization that everything that we had planned in the last few months, a reality.”
They launched last June, after Giulia from Zurich to Berlin had travelled to meet Lorenz. The two left Germany by train and travelled through Europe from the German capital via Poland and Belarus to Moscow – through Russia, Mongolia and China via Beijing to Qingdao. There she took a cargo boat to Brisbane, and arrived six weeks later.
In Qingdao, the Couple took his sea Voyage to Brisbane – on a cargo ship
“The most extraordinary moments we experienced on the cargo ship,” recalls Lorenz. “We got to know the Crew and the engineer showed us the engine room. Of him, and an officer, we learned how to shoot with a sextant star”. We celebrated birthdays with the Crew, helped in the kitchen and often sang Karaoke.”
Giulia was the ship’s cook, how to prepare Tiramisu, and for a Party on Board, Lorenz made potato salad according to the recipe of his grandmother. Members of the Crew visited the Couple also later in Sydney.
Another highlight was a hike on the shores of lake Baikal, for which they broke their journey through Russia in the Siberian town of Irkutsk below. “The forest was so dense and lush, full of insects and butterflies,” says Lorenz.
Like any adventure to far away places, brought the trip to the exchange with people from very different lives really. Once they met a group of about 20 recruits of the Russian army, which had to einquetscht in a crowded railway carriage travel.
“They were very interested to know our opinion on many sensitive political issues that have to do with Russia,” says Lorenz. The soldiers gave the Couple even coffee and chocolate – and in spite of protests, even canned meat.
It was not the only Time that your vegetarian the Locals brought life-style shake of the head. The chef in a Restaurant in China has had a lot of trouble to understand the principle. He eventually led her into the kitchen and left them in the fridge for each ingredient then checking whether they could eat them.
The train journey between Irkutsk (Russia) and Ulan Bator (Mongolia) led steppes through a monotonous landscape with lots of grass
A growing movement
Overall, the trip cost the Couple the equivalent of about 4000 euros, most of it spent for the tickets and visa fees. Lorenz has calculated that they have produced on the outward journey a little more than 370 kilograms of CO2 per Person. By a flight in tourist class from Zurich to Sydney to 1.23 tonnes of carbon dioxide are formed.
But the control of the CO2 Budget requires discipline.
“When we arrived in Brisbane, came on the cargo ship right next to the airport,” says Lorenz. “We saw the planes every few minutes to land – it was a bit of a slap in the face, wants to tell us: ‘You have the can create everything in less than 24 hours.”
Now the Couple is preparing to take on the Whole project on itself. Soon the journey home begins, you will ride on a freighter from Melbourne to Japan. On a different Route than on the outward journey, it then goes through China and Russia back home.
Lorenz and Giulia not, or at least less among the 360 people who joined in the last two years of the so-called No-Fly-Climate-Sci movement and have made a commitment to fly at all. And more and more people make the same decision, completely independent of each other.
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Since Greta Thunberg travelled last year by train 32 hours to Davos, has extended the Swedish state railway of your offer on the route Stockholm-Copenhagen-Hamburg, three trains per day. Also, Deutsche Bahn stated that it expected this year for the first time on their Intercity and international routes to more than 150 million travelers.
The ride on a cargo ship from China to Australia allows for a whole different kind of travel pace. The claustrophobic Close on the plane is exchanged for the wide view to the horizon bearing
The privilege to make difficult decisions
Nevertheless, it is not for Giulia and Lorenz clear that this is about to change quickly enough. They highlight that the urgency of the climate crisis requires a much more profound rethink about how we run our economies.
“Although the Actions of each Individual is important, will not suffice. We really need a systemic change,” says Lorenz.
They also emphasize that it is a great privilege to be able to travel.
Only a small minority of people can afford the luxury to pollute the planet with aircraft exhaust – less than 20% of the world’s population have ever flown. Giulia and Lorenz have identified through your journey, and how happy you can appreciate. Because many people can not travel freely and safely in the whole world, including across borders, simply because they happen to be the “wrong” skin color, nationality, sexual orientation or the wrong layer belong to.
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To travel your way, may not be the normal state. But you have talked a lot with other travelers, at Least the small group of people, who have the opportunity to explore the world, the consequences are becoming increasingly aware.
“Of course we are in the minority, but there are many people who are thinking of traveling on our way,” says Giulia.