Opinion | Travel the world virtually

Of course, I wasn’t actually at Oxford St, rather I travelled there virtually, courtesy of the library and the friendly staff.

The actual travel for me was about six kilometres from my Shepparton home to the library, where I sat in a chair, both feet firmly on the floor, with the world, in my case Oxford St, London, all about me via a virtual reality headset.

The “trip” was stress-free. London’s Oxford St had never really crossed my mind before, and after the “trip” I was back home in the comforting confines of my home within minutes and, best of all, not a dollar left my wallet.

But there is another bonus, one that becomes increasingly important as the climate crisis worsens and travel, either by plane or ship, is problematic.

Air and sea travel are both significant contributors to the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and unless some yet-to-be-understood solution awaits, then traditional international, and along with that national air travel, will be limited and restricted to emergencies.

And that is where the virtual travel I experienced last week comes in, although what was available at the Mooroopna library was entry-level.

Technological developments will soon make such travel an all-of-body experience and even though you won’t leave the room, every sense you have — hearing, olfactory, feelings, emotional, physical and psychological — will be engaged.

Personal experience during recent COVID times conclusively illustrated that actually being in the room is vastly different (read: better) than joining a meeting virtually, and that, instinctively makes me question the value of virtual travel.

Humans communicate and connect in many ways beyond what is afforded us in a virtual meeting and so virtual travel, regardless of its sophistication, will be missing that vital human “something”.

However, what I sampled in Mooroopna will soon be the only way most of us will get to embrace and imbibe what life is like in other parts of the world as international travel is already socially irresponsible.

And just last week the Australian Hollywood actor, Yael Stone, appeared on the ABC’s Australian Story telling viewers about the anxiety she experienced during Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires and how that led to her not accepting the long-sought-after “Green Card” (it allows people to work freely in the US) and committing to doing what she could to combat climate change.

Stone said maintaining homes in both the US and Australia, and flying between the two countries, was not something her conscience allowed.

Flying, according to the Scottish data scientist, senior researcher at the University of Oxford in the Oxford Martin School, and deputy editor at Our World in Data, Hannah Ritchie, is one of the most carbon-intensive activities.

But, confusingly, it contributes less than three per cent to the world’s carbon emissions.

Ritchie asks, “How does this add up? Well, almost everyone in the world does not fly. Studies estimate that just 10 per cent of the world flies in most years. But as incomes rise, this will change.”

And so as is broadly the case with climate change a minority of people are risking it all for the majority. And while we contemplate virtual travel compared to the ‘wheels up and away we go’, consider this story from an October 28 edition of The Washington Post.

It began: “Concentrations of carbon dioxide — the most important driver of global warming — are now growing faster than at any time since our species evolved, according to the World Meteorological Organisation’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

So, yes, take that trip, but do it virtually. It’ll save you untold stress, save you huge sums of money, and it’ll help save the environmental conditions that have allowed humans to thrive for some 10,000 years.

Robert McLean is a former editor of The News.