My 3 year old has visited 32 countries AMA

[Dinoswearunderpants]

No doubt I'd get a load of shade about 'bragging' but that's not the intention. If anyone is interested in asking any questions about travelling regularly with a little own, feel free to ask.

I often travel just the two of us as his Dad can't get as much time off work as I do.

Thats nice.

One of the issues for the UK is its an island. And trains are far more expensive than flying. Add in the time it takes to get anywhere. Its perhaps doable if you live in the south of the UK. But if you live in the North? Na forget it. Try getting to spain by train. When you have a week holiday. And back. Good luck with that. We looked at the cost of the ferry and driving to Spain too. Again it was nuts. Its something we'd LIKE to do but its just not viable. We looked into it.

Personally I'd LOVE to do a few weeks around Europe by train. But DH can't get the time in a block and the summer holidays are really a shit time to do it anyway. Genuinely we've struggled to get a full week holiday for various reasons, never mind two weeks. My old boss refused to give me two weeks on principle.

We stayed in France not so long ago and the host commented that the Brits were always in a rush whereas other Europeans did holidays at a slower pace. I honestly think thats down to working practices and holiday entitlement and when school holidays are. We simply don't have the option of 'slow travel' in the same way.

Culturally other countries have a totally different set up and that makes it much easier to travel by train or to drive.

I don't believe airtravel is that frowned on in Scandinavia either. Certainly not as much as you make out. There was a joke by one of the hosts for Eurovision this year about the Swedes who had flown from Stockholm to Copenhagen and got the bridge to Malmo fgs. Its something like a 7hr road trip. And the number of internal flights within Norway and Sweden generally are hardly suggestive of it being 'frowned on'...

Oh any number I imagine, critical food and fuel shortages, mass migration due to half the planet being either on fire or under water, doesn't take too much imagination to see where things are leading if we carry on like this surely?

I could talk about the current predictions that world experts are making, what that will lead to and what that means for human beings in the not so distant future. But it’s bleak. I’m really sorry. But it is. I think we have lived with stability and relative wealth for so long that it’s hard to imagine. Sorry.

Ha ha. I wasn’t wanting to depress people but yup. That’s it. I think morality is a higher order human need and once we are hungry and scared our morality wanes.

We are already seeing food shortages due to the climate breakdown. And mass migration in some areas as places previously inhabitable become uninhabitable. There will be much more instability and conflict. More extreme weather events like we are already seeing - fires and floods. Heatwaves. In the U.K. we are already seeing climate related mortality and disease rates rising. More pandemics.

It’s all only going to get worse unless we act. Wish that wasn’t the case.

I do think time off is a massive barrier. We did two and a half weeks and saw the journey as part of the holiday. So we are really privileged to be able to do that. It’s not possible for some which isn’t fair. That’s why I’d never tell someone they shouldn’t ever fly. There are options to cut down though - abroad every other year for example, or two out of three. Whatever feels doable is my view. For ages I just couldn’t face ditching my washing up sponges for the natural ones. I still sometimes go back to them because nothing is quite as good and it pisses me off! 😂

It is frowned upon in at least one Scandinavian country. There is a specific word for ‘flight shame’ in their vocabulary. Sweden I think?

We’re humans not animals, we’re perfectly capable of resisting biological urges. And yes most people want children, but also most people (in the western world) want to get on a plane to another country occasionally. Your desire to have a child does not trump my desire to get on a plane.

I didn’t say anything about my desire to have a child. I have one. I’m just saying that, no matter what you say, for me, I think giving up having children versus giving up holidays by plane are too different to be comparable. We will have to agree to disagree on this one I think.

This is why conversations about what actions we need to take to stop climate change are so pointless and people don’t take people like you seriously when you go on about it. Everyone has things that are so important to them they won’t sacrifice them, no matter how passionate about climate change they appear to be on the surface. For you it was having a child, for me it’s flying, for other people it will be eating meat or reducing driving a petrol car etc.

This is why conversations about what actions we need to take to stop climate change are so pointless and people don’t take people like you seriously when you go on about it. Everyone has things that are so important to them they won’t sacrifice them, no matter how passionate about climate change they appear to be on the surface. For you it was having a child, for me it’s flying, for other people it will be eating meat or reducing driving a petrol car etc.

Thank you for looking this up and having the decency to post it.

Your response although very decent shows the difficulty here. You are right that giving up flying is not equivalent to giving up children. Giving up children or committing to having one or adopting a child already here are MUCH more impactful to reducing carbon footprint. There is no equivalence at all. You view it as a harder sacrifice which is exactly my point, currently very few individuals will make these sacrifices.

it’s all about flying less, driving an electric car. These are really tinkering round the edges. You may well think, well it’s better than nothing. You may be right, I don’t know. But no one who has kids should be in any way commenting negatively on someone’s decision to fly on holiday.

I don’t fly myself but I appreciate the hypocrisy in judging others.

I disagree. I think it’s good to debate. It’s good to discuss. It’s an issue that effects is all and is being caused, largely, by wealthier nations. I think as a member of the wealthier nations we should talk about it.

As I’ve said before, I’m not telling anyone what to do. Just talking about my feelings, thoughts and actions.

I did sacrifice having more children but because it is very important to me that I do my best. I just think asking people not to have children, or limiting them, is curbing basic biological instincts. I do think having fewer children would be hugely impactful. You are right. I just don’t think it’s the same as asking to cut down on unnecessary flights or other luxuries. It’s not a biological instinct to go on holiday. I think we will have to agree to disagree on that. I get it’s more impactful but I don’t think it’s the same.

I actually think that that when any of us are behaving in ways we know are wrong or bad for us in some way, but we really don’t want to change, we find ways of convincing ourselves it’s ok. ‘I am going to buy the plastic washing up sponge because the other ones just don’t work well enough’ is my spurious argument for why I periodically go back to plastic. We all do it. It’s human nature.

Yes I agree with you on that. Your posts where you say you’re sad about people flying but keep justifying having a child by stating it’s a biological urge and therefore different proves that point very well.

I certainly won’t vote for any politician that asks or tells me to cut down on flights unless they brought in similar measures for other actions that have a high carbon footprint and that includes limiting number of children.

Campaigning to make sure women have access to birth control and abortion would seem to be much more effective than telling someone not to fly.

Campaigning to stop surrogacy would seem to be a more effective use of your time.

Campaigning to improve holiday allowance and improve rail travel would seem more sensible.

Absolutely. Especially in countries where it is not readily available. E.g. USA where it’s incredibly hard to get an abortion in some states.

All admirable in their own right but it is simpler to tax transport modes according to the environmental damage they cause. If flying was really expensive, most of us would fly less often. A frequent flier tax is a fair way to tax flights because it doesn’t price out families on average incomes from the occasional overseas trip.

Many of us would love to use the trains more for holidays, but when I priced up a recent trip to the Czech Republic, flying was 3x cheaper. Taking the train would have made the trip unaffordable. Make trains more affordable and more of us will use them.

Yes making trains more affordable would get people out of their cars too. It is always cheaper to drive than to get a train in this country even if there is only one person in the car!

And when is this expected? None of the things I’ve seen are good but they don’t make me wish I didn’t exist or future humans shouldn’t exist.

Haven’t kept up with the thread but see that it’s taken a Malthusian turn.

The latest thinking is that we’re not having enough children and the world is facing a demographic time bomb. Far from there being too many children, there are too few. Google it.

Absoluetely.

You aren't going to change behaviour by shaming or trying to guilt is a lot of the point.

Behaviour change comes from making lifestyle changes attractive and easier. Understand this and enable it and it will have a far bigger impact.

This is what campaigners should focus on and really really think about.

There is no easy solution here.

As a household our energy consumption, water useage and wastage is much lower than anyone I know to the point that I find now find it incredible how much people throw out - we are not exactly green monks. There are huge margins that everyone can do easily without much change to lifestyles at even these things people aren't doing.

I do think we should be starting with the easy wins because that also helps change mindsets about what people CAN do, rather than putting up obstacles which make people think that the whole thing is a lost cause so they might as well just enjoy life now.

Work on alternatives.

Thats not the latest thinking. We have an aging western population but a growing global population which will be able to inhabit less of the world and will be more vulnerable to disaster.

You are referring to a growing racism and opposition to concerns about cultural change and the effect of migration.

Thats not a problem with the actual population numbers on a global scale. We have more than enough people being born. Its just that they are 'the wrong type of person from the wrong place'.

@RedToothBrush Falling birth rates are a global phenomenon, affecting countries such as China and India as well as European ones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
Perhaps instead of imputing racism to others, you should reflect on whether your assumptions are racist.

I have looked at this and know this. It's still not an issue in terms of overall population.