People who know me know me as a bit of a climate fiend — online, but IRL as well. I’m a big fan, and sufferer, of flygskam (Swedish: “flight shame“), and haven’t been on an airplane since maybe 2018, for a Montreal wedding. (I returned to the West Coast by train, a far superior trip.)
Still, I must admit to a touch of envy at friends who are still, still, jetting off to exotic locales in the name of curiosity and distraction, all apparently guilt-free and oblivious to the obscene amount of carbon their little hobby spews into a suffering atmosphere. (The aforementioned Vancouver-Montreal flight cost the world 0.48 tonnes of carbon, per this carbon calculator. For reference, a sustainable annual carbon budget is estimated at under 2 tonnes per person, per year.)
So last July, Leah and I decided to go on a lowish-carbon little adventure. We packed up our bike panniers, cycled to the BC Ferries terminal in Departure Bay, crossed to Horseshoe Bay, and cycled into Vancouver. From there we loaded our bikes onto the Amtrak train and, over eight delightful hours, rolled south to Portland, Oregon.
Portland is a legendary biking town, and we took full advantage of its many bike lanes and extensive riverfront paths. It’s also a great walking, coffee, RT, food truck, architecture and culture town, with which we filled five days before reversing our travels back home.
Of course we visited the legendary Powell’s Books. Which leads to the point of this post. Here are the full 12 shelves of Powell’s “climate” section, presented for future reference as a rough literature review of the subject up till July 2024. Click to enlarge so you can (I hope) read the titles on the spine.
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Greg Blee 