We’ve reached the point of the season in London when sunny days seem to nearly equal dreary ones. The last few days have been a bit windy and dark, but the last week or so has been flecked with brighter and warmer weather. Yesterday, my dear friend Alex (who I went to Edinburgh with!) and I travelled to Oxford to have a little day trip out of the city. It was such a lovely experience, and thank goodness, it was one of those rare sunny days we’re beginning to see with a bit more regularity. 

For the journal prompt this week, I calculated my flight carbon footprint (from Boston to Heathrow in September, Heathrow to Boston in December, and back in January) to be 3.15 metric tons of CO2. Despite taking a few environmental studies classes at Wellesley, I’m ashamed to say I don’t have a very developed sense of scale for CO2 emissions, so I had to take to Google to investigate what this actually means.

I found that the average passenger vehicle emits 4.6 metric tons of CO2 in a year! This implies that through flying economy on three occasions across the Atlantic, I’ve already nearly met the emissions a car produces in a whole year. I didn’t think this was necessarily surprising, but it is still off-putting considering how much damage can be done to the environment in just a few supposedly ‘minor’ actions! I’m grateful that public transportation is readily available here, as well as back in the Boston area, so that I can otherwise minimize my travel related emissions. 

I’ve spent a lot of time while here reflecting on the differences between my London residential experience and my Wellesley residential experience. Here, I walk about 30 minutes every day to get to campus from my hall, and pass by countless shops and restaurants and centers of art and culture along the way. A lot of my friends cycle to campus from our hall, but I’ve always been nervous on the roads (I’m an anxious driver back home too, haha), so I usually choose to walk. Back at Wellesley, it might be a 5 minute walk from halls to class, but it’s a 30 minute walk to CVS or the grocery store, and at least an hour journey to Boston using public transportation. 

I certainly miss the convenience of living on a campus, but I’ve come to appreciate how easy it is to get around in London, and how nice it is to not rely on cars. I’ve only Ubered one time while being here – even when going to and from the airport I’ve used the tube – otherwise, I haven’t been in a car at all! I’d be curious to know more about where I’m emitting heavily, and where I’ve saved on emissions relative to being at Wellesley. I imagine my carbon footprint for food is higher here than it would be at Wellesley because I have to eat out more, due to my dining plan only covering dinner each day. But otherwise, I’m optimistic about how my lifestyle has shifted here.