Since we’ve all been in lockdown, many of us have been wondering how our efforts to continue living within a sustainable world would fair once things started to open up. What would our challenges be due to the new requirements to keep everyone safe? The world has kept turning, but where have we landed in our efforts to reverse the effects of climate change?
In the short turn, the first month of the lockdown for many cities was positive, with pollution dropping by up to 60%. Rather than celebrate, though, this should be a harsh warning of what drastic measures we will need to take if sustainability is not on the immediate agenda.
So, to discover the challenges for sustainable travel during the pandemic, we headed to Cape Cod for a relaxing few days. We drove a total of 724 miles over the journey, with the bulk coming from our drive from New York to the Cape. Taking a train wasn’t feasible due to schedules and multiple stops. We also were not comfortable with the lack of safety requirements during transit. There is no direct ferry from New York. Our leftover option was to drive ourselves. Selection of vehicles is key to a sustainable trip, as the difference between traditional fuel vehicles and an EV are quite significant over this distance:
Gasoline vehicle emits 588lbs of CO2e
Electric vehicle emits 135lbs of CO2e
We stayed at The Captain Freeman Inn in Brewster, where our wonderful hosts Laurie & Jason more than accommodated my vegan diet. Everything they delivered was not only extremely delicious, but also locally sourced — they even grew some of their produce in the backyard. Optional towel washing and local AC controls helped to keep the carbon footprint of major appliance use in our own hands. There was also a Tesla Charging station.
It was refreshing to see a beach (within a national park) that had priority parking for “Low emission, fuel efficient vehicles only.” Adding a charging station here would really make it a win, but this type of initiative is a great highlighted benefit. There are a few charging stations scattered throughout the Cape, but most seem set up only for personal use.
Finding the perfect dining options at times was a bit of a struggle as most places took advantage of the fresh seafood, but it certainly wasn’t impossible. A lot of the restaurants were offering sustainably sourced ingredients and had ample vegetable options. Pro tip: do your research early and connect with the restaurants ahead of time. Many feature vegan options or menus but don’t advertise or promote them (there is a fantastic vegan tasting menu at Apt in Brewster that you don’t want to miss out on). A great feature of the Beach House Grill was the QR code to access the menu on your smartphone. This meant daily changes would not rack up an enormous waste of paper.
Although there was a lot of single-use plastic being offered, all of the places we visited had no issue with my reusables. We had been hearing mixed reports from the sustainable community, so this had been one of my main concerns. Not once did we receive the frown / eyebrow raise combo we can sometimes receive.
Understandably, for the most part people did seem to be a lot more worried about getting their businesses back on track after some trying months. And we really hope this continues to ensure that sooner rather than later, we can reengage the focus to our climate crisis. Such a pristine stretch of land so close to large cities will be devastated by rising temperatures, rising sea levels, and pollution. It is a great reminder to visit nature every so often to renew our drive towards a sustainable future.
All up, the estimated CO2 emissions for my 5 day trip were 345lbs of CO2. Ideally, outside of the pandemic we would have better options for shared travel to reduce this. There are ample bike baths along the Cape so it certainly could be possible to make the trip carbon negative. Sustainability is a journey, and we learnt a lot from this experience to use on our next trip.
On a totally unrelated topic – I searched and searched for some sort of memorabilia that contained a cod wearing a superhero cape. And you know what? They are completely missing an opportunity here… Hopefully we can see this sometime in the future!
