To ask you to stop flying

[Walkingthere]

We are facing a climate disaster. Our children will have to live through it. And yet I overheard two women today discussing how many holidays abroad they had been on this year. Both over 60 years of age. Obviously it will not directly impact on them.
This is also very common in my social group, people jetting off 4-5 times a year. Mini-breaks, weekends away, European trips, long haul, hen do's, weddings, birthdays. It's unbelievable how much people are burying their heads in the sand.

We need to stop flying. Urgently. Now. My family have not flown in over 5 years. We used to travel a lot, before we realised the consequences. I am putting this here, to make people think, we all need to urgently reduce (ideally stop) flying now.

Also, be very wary of the sort of idiots who insist that everyone should just stay where they were born: this is either witless-hippy humanity-is-cancer posturing, or heading in the direction of even greater authoritarianism and inequality: cage the poor forever in the slums For The Good Of The Planet. The rich and powerful, of course, would still be free to do whatever they liked...

I struggle to summon up the required enthusiasm when a third pregnancy gleefully announced

Also this.

Also, I work in international trade and the amount of businesses still airfreighting cargo is unbelievable. Sort your supply chain out and stop relying on airfreight!

Lifeover there is some conflict around the photos of the staving polar bears.

Nat geo ended up apologising for theirs as they said that bear was dying due to climate change, when in fact they dont know that.

The picture you have posted, also comes from an artixlenpointimg out that whole climate change is reducing the number of polar bears it's not directly responsible for starving polar bears. That as they dont ha e natural predators, they often starve to death when they get old.

I am not saying climate change doesnt exist or have an impact. Bit you are using emotive photos, to prove a point. But have the wrong point.

We all need to do a lot more. That doesn't mean never flying. It does mean being mindful of the impact and remembering that we will have to live with the consequences. Paying for a treat to be planted might make someone feel less guilty, but it doesn't actually offset the carbon emissions. Choosing to walk or cycle instead of getting in the car for short journeys does. Buying as little plastic as possible does. There are so many things we could all do every day.

tree not treat.

Bloody hell. My typing is awful this morning!

Following the move towards buying locally produced food and reducing food miles it seems that we should move towards locally produced love! However, reading this thread, it seems to me that travel is something we need to protect, partly for people who have moved away from family and birth home to see family and for humans to see other ways of life and appreciate difference. I'm sure it can be improved but I think it's actually more important for us to travel (within reason) than to do many other things. I'll get me tin hat ......

We need to make having more than 2 kids (and ideally more than one) socially unacceptable. Round us having 3 seems to be some sort of middle class badge of honour (often linked to a Sahm extending the time before they go back to work).

It seems social acceptable to make quite vile (and untrue) comments about only children. But if someone isn’t doing backflips in excitement about the birth of a third child, they are nasty, selfish etc. We need to turn this on it’s head.

Apart from, the usual I wanted one, why do people have 3 kids these days?

alexa of course I have a negative impact on the planet - I'm living on it.

If you want a full list of things to lambast me about then please see the following:

We went vegetarian last year and are working towards vegan - but we aren't there yet! (yes that's right, you can totally justify flying all over the globe because I eat cheese).

We have an electric car (its a car - ha ha wrecking the environment so everyone else can carry on flying as usual).

We also don't have solar panels yet, we are hoping to get them this year. We have stopped having children, but only after having one ten years ago.

I have stopped taking flights for work having slowly wound down from 4/5 10 years ago, on the basis of flying less and less until I hit the point they actually attempt to fire me (hasn't happened yet!) Stopped flying short haul for holidays around 8 years ago, but previously did it one a year.

This years work is also to continue plastic use reduction. We have managed to get the buying fruit and veg with no plastic going, but haven't found a local shop that will do carbs with no plastic yet.

If you think any or all of anyone else's failings on environmental protection justify or excuse your own then you are simply wrong.

For me onioncrumble personifies this issue.

onion your flights don't offset anyone else's child. Offset would mean undoing the damage they have done...your flights DOUBLE the damage done by someone with a child, they don't cancel it out.

This needs to be a race to the top if we are going to survive, not a competition to use as much carbon as everyone else, and get your moneys worth before you choke/drown!!

What types of clothing have less of an eco footprint than others? I seem to remember reading that cotton is very heavy in its impact. Anyone know about such things?

You can ask, does not mean that people have to listen. I agree that we all need to make changes in our lives - some of us have started making changes years ago and did not need to join the bandwagon, but we live in a free society and I absolutely do not believe in coercive control.

I do hope that you are not purchasing any goods which have been flown in, particularly fruits and veg from halfway across the globe. I also hope that you will discourage your children from having children and are telling all of your friends that they should not have children. I also hope you are not buying cheap clothing and are having your children only wear charity shop gear. If you are going to lecture other people, the life you lead had better be exemplary.

I think there should be a "green tax". So the bigger your carbon footprint the more you get taxed - a family with three children, two cars and two holidays (flying) per year would pay more tax than a family with one child, no car and a UK holiday.

If people had to cough up more they would think twice and that's all there is to it.

And frankly if people lived near their families and raised their children within the extended family like they used to rather than flitting round all across the planet, they wouldn't have the issue of not seeing family.

Or in shorter form, if someone else is fucking the environment that doesn't mean its okay for you to do so too.

In reality if others are fucking the environment it is EVEN MORE IMPORTANT that YOU DONT.

M3lon brilliant post. The trouble is people feel so entitled to fulfil their wants they don’t realise that it will make future generations and indeed other species currently unable to fulfil their needs.

Well, anything other than a GP appointment requires people to fly from here. Or should we just let natural selection sort out an entire community?

I'm over 60 (so stop with the ageism OP) and I have not been on a flight for more than 6 years, and very infrequently before that. Ok with you?

Can't really help that one. Living just off the mainland and going back and forth for uni means that flights are a fairly regular necessity. The boats are unreliable, hardly run even when they're supposedly working fine, and take several hours longer. Not to mention all the business trips that go back and forth every day; if they didn't fly, our major industries would be screwed. I'm afraid sometimes flying is a necessity.

Mid nite - I don’t think anyone is suggesting those sorts of flights for medical reasons aren’t undertaken

I think we should do what we can to help our environment. I'm not sure asking everyone to stop flying is a realistic request but asking people to cut down may be a good thing.

On MN so many posters call others out for their sense of entitlement and I wouldn't be surprised if those who call others out will be those who will insist they can't give up multiple flights per year.

I think the whole island and rural community thing will indeed by sorted by the climate destruction.

Don't need to fly from islands if they are under water!

dottyboxes but then you are making kids the reserve of the rich.

That's always the argument on mn when people mention taxing for kids, or anything else to reduce how many kids people have then. Or that it would be forcing women to abort babies, through poverty.

Then there will always be the minority who know you can have more kids, but if you are on benefits they cant tax you if you dint have it.

What would be the consquences. Put people in prison cause they had 3 kids and cant afford the tax?

I agree everyone should be thinking about the impact on the planet of multiple cars, multiple children etc. I am just not sure how it would work.

Also in out village they have put up 500 new houses in the last 5 years. Ds didnt get into the village schoolmaster public transport is poor and would take me an hour and 2 buses to get to his school. Then to work. I would love not to have a car. If ds was in the school in the village, I could use public transport for work. I dont use the car at weekends. If ds is with his dad I use the bike or public transport. Unfortunately, the school was over subscribed.

There are lots if reasons people have cars or multiple cars that are taken out of their hands.

I've flown twice in 12 years. I'm not going to feel bad about flying again in a couple of years.

but then you are making kids the reserve of the rich

The tax would be higher the richer you were.

I don't like it, policing children etc doesn't sit easy with me but frankly morals and ethics mean nothing next to the extinction of the human population.

Well, anything other than a GP appointment requires people to fly from here. Or should we just let natural selection sort out an entire community?

Well, playing devils advocate, this is where 'need' becomes a blurred line and goes down a very dark route.

The person 'needs' medical attention. But, on a society level, does society 'need' that person? The community, on an island will feel the loss keenly. Bit what about the wider planet. Is natural selection better? Reduce population numbers, that way?

If we dont treat sick people from rural communities, should we treat sick people in cities? Is that another way to sort out the huge population problem?

I obviously do not think we should do this at all. But When we start talking about need and dictating what others need. We head down a dark path. What's a need to individuals, may not always be what's best for the planet or society. Society and the planet may need different decisions to be made.

It makes me very uncomfortable.

Not really. It's about the OP, she has made changes that suit her family and wanting everyone to follow suit. Because she thinks it's a good idea. She, however is causing a load of problems herself. But those changes dont suit her.

This is very nicely put. Thank you.