Lordsburg Logistics And Carbon
Objectives
1) Spend as little money as possible
2) Emit as little carbon as possible
3) Get there as fast as possible
Option 1*
· Fly from San Diego to El Paso
· Take a Greyhound from El Paso to Lordsburg
· Camp 2 nights in Lordsburg
· Take shuttle to Southern Terminus
Option 2**
· Drive from San Diego to Salt Lake City
· Fly from Salt Lake to El Paso
· Take a Greyhound from El Paso to Lordsburg
· Camp 2 nights in Lordsburg
· Take shuttle to Southern Terminus
Option 3**
· Drive from San Diego to Salt Lake City
· Take a Greyhound from Salt Lake to Lordsburg
· Camp 1 night in Lordsburg
· Take shuttle to Southern Terminus
*Requires finding a place in San Diego to park my car for 6 months
**Assumes my car is stored for free at my parents’ house
The Decision
After much deliberation, I’m going with Option 3. Despite Option1 being the obvious best choice, finding a safe, convenient, and free place to park my car for six months turned out to be a tall order. Other people have fluid lives that can change unexpectedly. My parents offered the only option that was both stable and highly resilient to the unexpected.
Flying is obviously much faster, but it’s also the worst for carbon emissions of any other mode of transportation. Since the point of hiking is to experience the wild before climate change and habitat destruction cause further damage, I felt it important to minimize my impact. Part of the conundrum of getting to Lordsburg from Salt Lake City is that there is literally no direct route. Flights all go through LA, San Diego, or Phoenix. Greyhounds go through Las Vegas and San Bernadino. And there are no train routes from Salt Lake City to New Mexico.
Being forced to take an indirect route exacerbates the carbon emissions, and adds exorbitantly to my travel time. But in the shadow of a six-month hike, 25 hours on a bus is a small sacrifice to keep an additional 300 lbs of carbon out of the atmosphere.
References
Emission calculations came from: https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
There is some ambiguity about carbon emission estimates (e.g. is maintenance considered? vehicle life-span?). But a basic rule that might help guide not only travel decisions, but lifestyle choices, is to consider the general impact of your actions. National parks encourage a “leave-no-trace” philosophy. While applying that mantra to every aspect of human existence isn’t currently feasible, leaving as little trace as possible should be our goal.
Until electric vehicles get better range, come down in price, recharge faster, and have more recharge stations, we’re going to burn fossil fuels for transportation. But if there’s time to take a bus or a train, then do it. If it’s not too crazy to ride a bike, then do it. Or walk.
Once electric vehicles become ubiquitous, demand for carbon-neutral electricity will skyrocket. Wind farms will pop up all over the world, which will constitute further habitat destruction for species that might have hitherto been spared. Studies have already found devastating effects of wind farms on local wildlife populations.
Since half the habitable land mass on Earth has already been converted to grazing pasture for livestock, maybe there’s some opportunity to convert this land to a dual-purpose zone where wind farms could be built.
The point is: Leave No Trace. Leave A Place Better Than You Found It. Take Only Pictures, Leave Only Footprints. Say it however you want. But be gentle to the delicate planet where we live.