Love miles

Location Sofa at my house | Mood Pining | Date 13 May 2006
Filed in:
Author (full name): 
Franny Armstrong
Location: 
Sofa at my house
Mood: 
Pining
Soundtrack: 
"Sweet Avenue" sent from Israel
Ailments: 
"This day could some day be an anniversary, everything is light and sound"
Date: 
13 May 2006
Current crisis: 
Blister from walking to Oxford St and back

Just back from Morrissey gig with old pal Mark Lynas : author of climate change classic, "High Tide", daily pub companion when we were both stranded for six months in Oxfordshire outpost, occasional McLibel microphone holder, Alaskan snowmobile driver, Tuvaluan shoulder-to-cry-on - and only other person who would say "What time does worship start?" when enquiring when a Morrissey concert begins.

Apparently there is a new word for my current problem: love miles. As in food miles. As in how much carbon is dumped in the upper atmosphere because you visited your boyfriend in Israel/girlfriend in New Zealand/grandma's funeral in Canada/ cousin's wedding in Peru?

And, according to the conference I went to at the weekend, 56% of my carbon will still be there in a century's time, as trees etc can only take out 44%. It's like an early nutrition hero of mine used to say: you can convince your mind that you're not really eating the burger, but your body is going to know as soon as it hits your stomach. (Does that make carbon sequestration bulimia??)

Mark reckons that the only solution is not to fall for people in other countries, which seems a little unpractical - not to mention unromantic. (Feel a Richard Curtis movie coming on?) Specially as he then said how hard he's finding it to get round to working - on new climate change book - as he's so happy with his wife and new baby. If we hadn't had three G&Ts (it was a Morrissey gig) at this point, I'm sure I could've worked out an equation whereby the sum of me working 24/7 on cc minus the carbon he's not saved by not writing means I'm allowed to fly to Israel at least once.

He also said that he's not got much on after he hands in "Six Degrees" (his new book which predicts what will happen as the temp rises each of the six degrees outlined by the IPCC) in a couple of months. God, if we could sign him up for Crude, even peripherally, it'd be cracking. Specially, as Lizzie once said, seeing as the end is nigh, we may as well make it a rule to only work with people we like.