HLF has become the first major funder to require carbon footprinting in all large projects funding applications. HLF will work ... to provide applicants with a carbon footprinting tool, already piloted at the British Museum. ... [applicants] will be required to calculate the carbon footprint of the utilities consumption and visitor travel associated with their projects and encouraged to pursue reductions.
We wonder how the British Museum has been encouraging their visitors - the vast majority of whom come from overseas and will have flown to the UK - to reduce the carbon footprint of their travel. Perhaps with well-meaning messages such as: please walk or use a bicycle (!?) or use public transport such as buses and the underground.
Museums and attractions who do not have ample public transport going past their doors will presumably be asked to close their car parks as part of their encouragement measures. Or perhaps they expect us to offer reduced price admission to those that travel by bus, thus reducing our income and making us pay for their policies. Thanks a bundle, folks.
What this well-meaning policy reminds us is that an attraction has absolutely no control over how the visitor travels: they just turn up on one's doorstep and jolly grateful we are that they do. There are enough barriers to visiting without preaching to them about climate change and making it hard for them to get here without upsetting an eco-warrior.
And how does this fit with the argument that part of the reason for the British Museum receiving government funding is that they attract a large number of overseas visitors.
Oh polly-political correctness,
Half dead and half alive.
... as the poet did not say.
