Hypermobile travelers are "highly mobile individuals" who take "frequent trips, often over great distances." They "account for a large share of the overall kilometres travelled, especially by air."[1] These people contribute significantly to the overall amount of airmiles flown within a given society.[2] Although concerns over hypermobility apply to several modes of transport, the environmental impact of aviation and especially its greenhouse gas emissions have brought particular focus on flying.[3][4] Among the reasons for this focus is that these emissions, because they are made at high altitude, have a climate impact that is commonly estimated to be 2.7 higher, than the same emissions if made at ground-level.[5]

Although the amount of time people have spent in motion has remained constant since 1950, the shift from feet and bicycles to cars and planes has increased the speed of travel fivefold.[6] This results in the twin effects of wider, and shallower regions of social activity around each person (further exacerbated by electronic communication which can be seen as a form of virtual mobility), and a degradation of the social and physical environment brought about by the high speed traffic (as theorised by urban designer Donald Appleyard).

The changes are brought about locally due to the use of cars and motorways, and internationally by aeroplanes. Some of the social threats of hypermobility include:[7]

Compulsive travel has been proposed as a model of addiction in one paper.[8]

Widespread Internet use is seen as a contributory factor towards hypermobility due to the increased ease which it enables travel to be desired and organized.[9] On the other hand, the proliferation of online communication tools as an alternative to in-person meetings has been linked to a 25% decrease in business travel by UK residents from 2000 to 2010.[10]

The term hypermobility arose around 1980 concerning the flow of capital,[11] and since the early 1990s has also referred to excessive travel. [See: Hepworth and Ducatel (1992);[12] Whitelegg (1993);[13] Lowe (1994);[14] van der Stoep (1995);[15] Shields (1996);[16] Cox (1997);[17] Adams (1999);[18] Khisty and Zeitler (2001);[19] Gössling et al. (2009);[1] Mander & Randles (2009);[20] and (Higham 2014).[8]] The term is widely credited as having been coined by Adams (1999), but apart from the title of the work it says nothing explicit about it except that "[t]he term hypermobility is used in this essay to suggest that it may be possible to have too much of a good thing."[1][18]

See also

  • Dromomania – Historical diagnosis and non-clinical description of a desire for frequent traveling or walking
  • Environmental impact of aviation – Effect of emissions from aircraft engines
  • Pareto principle – Statistical principle about ratio of effects to causes

References

  1. 1 2 3 Gössling S, Ceron JP, Dubois G, Hall CM, Gössling S, Upham P, Earthscan L (2009). Hypermobile travellers. and Implications for Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reduction. In: Climate Change and Aviation: Issues, Challenges and Solutions, London. The chapter: "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on June 19, 2010. Retrieved May 24, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link). The book:
  2. ↑ Høyer, K. G. and Næss, P. (2001). Sustainable Tourismர or Sustainable Mobility? The Norwegian Case. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 8, 147-160.
  3. ↑ Anderson K, Bows A (2008). Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences (366:1882, p.3863-3882).
  4. ↑ Anderson K (2008). (Presentation slides): Reframing climate change: from long-term targets to emission pathways.
  5. ↑ Peeters, P. & Williams, V. 2009. Calculating emissions and radiative forcing. P.76 in: Gössling, S. & Upham, P (Eds.), 2009. Climate change and aviation: Issues, challenges and solutions.
  6. ↑ John Adams (19 January 2000). "Proceedings from the Ottawa Workshop - OECD" (PDF). p. 118.
  7. ↑ "Hypermobility: The road to ruin". BBC. 11 December 1999.
  8. 1 2 Cohen S., Higham J., Cavaliere C. (2011). Binge flying: Behavioural addiction and climate change. Annals of Tourism Research.
  9. ↑ "Gridlock? Blame the net". BBC. 21 November 2001.
  10. ↑ Monbiot, George (2012-09-28). "The case for expanding UK airports is based on fallacy". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2012-09-28. Business travel, by contrast to popular perceptions, is not rising, but falling – and falling dramatically. (...) companies have begun, at last, to use the excellent technological alternatives to face-to-face international meetings.
  11. ↑ Damette F (1980). The regional framework of monopoly exploitation: new problems and trends. Regions in Crisis: New Perspectives in European Regional Theory (p.76-92).
  12. ↑ Hepworth ME, Ducatel K (1992). Transport in the information age: Wheels and wires. ISBN 1-85293-220-1.
  13. ↑ Whitelegg J, Holzafel H, Whitelegg J (1993). Transport for a sustainable future: the case for Europe. ISBN 1-85293-145-0.
  14. ↑ Lowe MD (1994). The global rail revival. Society (31:5, p.51-56).
  15. ↑ van der Stoep J (1995). Hypermobility as a Challenge for Systems Thinking and Government Policy. Proceedings 39th Annual Meeting International Society for the Systems Sciences, Louisville (p.402-411).
  16. ↑ Shields R (1996). Flow as a new paradigm. Space and Culture (1:1, p.1-7). Archived 2013-07-23 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ↑ Cox KR (1997). Spaces of globalization: reasserting the power of the local. The Guilford Press, New York.
  18. 1 2 Adams J (1999). The social implications of hypermobility. OECD Env. Directorate, Unclassified ENV/EPOC/PPC/T (99) 3/FINAL/REV1 (; p.95).
  19. ↑ Khisty CJ, Zeitler U (2001). Is Hypermobility a Challenge for Transport Ethics and Systemicity? Systemic Practice and Action Research (14:5, p.597-613).
  20. ↑ Mander S, Randles S (2009). Aviation Coalitions: Drivers of Growth and Implications for Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reduction. In: Climate Change and Aviation: Issues, Challenges and Solutions (ISBN 9781844076208), Earthscan, London.
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