Empty hotel

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

2 thoughts on “Empty hotel”

  1. A sign of the times

    I expect that the COVID experience may lead to a re-evaluation of our priorities. Hotels are primarily meant to serve the business and recreational traveller. They will quite often travel by air. This contributes to increased greenhouse emissions. The COVID w Perrin even may reduce such travel.

    So what is to be done with the resulting excess in hotels. One possibility is conversion to housing which could contribute to lessening the issue of high housing costs in our cities such as Vancouver and Toronto .

  2. I’m increasingly dubious about behavioural change as a means of addressing climate change. We may just need to replace the energy sources which sustain high-energy lifestyles, though that’s especially hard in the case of air travel. It’s also at odds with most of the environmental movement, which continues to believe that efficiency and self-restraint are major parts of the answer.

    Three reasons “just be more efficient and use less” doesn’t work as a climate change solution:

    1) Much of the world’s population still lives in extreme poverty and denying them access to the technologies that enrich our lives is inhuman and politically impossible

    2) Energy efficiency improvements don’t necessarily decrease total energy use. Making it possible to do more of anything (lighting, moving things, etc) with less energy often makes people use more energy because they get more benefit from it

    3) Decarbonizing our society requires replacing fossil fuels in applications like transport and building heating with climate-safe options like electricity from renewables and nuclear. Solving climate change requires far more energy production, not less

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