Was the shut down of air travel a right pain for you and your organisation? Now that the ash has settled, there's a great opportunity for you to use the recent disruption to discuss sustainable development with your colleagues. [And as if to prove the point that it's a good idea to be prepared, it's back - as of 08.52 @BST 4th May 2010.]
Whichever way you look at it, a low-carbon economy (whether forced on us by peak oil or chosen as a planned way of mitigating climate change) will mean a drastic reduction in cheap air travel. Your colleagues may feel this is too far off, or too fanciful, to plan for. But the shut down actually happened. So it's a great way in to discussions you might not have been able to have before April 2010.
Here are 11 questions to structure a discussion about your organisation's dependence on air transport - and how you can reduce it over the long term.
- What was disrupted?
- What was enhanced?
- What did we do differently, that worked really well?
- What did we do differently, that was a right pain?
- What contingencies did we have in place, or put in place, in case the shut-down had lasted for twice as long?
- Or ten times as long?
- What would we have done if we'd had a week's notice?
- What would we have done if we'd had a month's notice?
- What would we have done if we'd had five year's notice?
- What will we keep doing differently anyway, because it worked better?
- What will we build into our medium and long term planning, to help us be ahead of the game when air travel again becomes more expensive and less available?