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.

I wonder if that means medical advances, disaster aid etc havent really helped us long term. Only sped up the end for us?

If you remove religion from the equation (which is trivially easy) then you are left with Darwins ultimate realisation. That all we see around us - every single living thing only exists with one aim. One single aim. With no other. And that is to get their genes into the future. By whatever means necessary. To that end we have seen the wonder of nature, red in tooth and claw. We've also seen how one species can quietly use another to it's own end. Look at how the malaria protozoa has piggybacked onto the mosquito.

Maybe humankinds entire existence has really been to help adapt the planet so that microbes that need more atmospheric CO₂ can thrive and take over ? After all; 10,000 years of human progress isn't even detectable at the evolutionary level. Imagine all of human history - every single achievement - a mere stepping stone for a lowly microscopic organism ? Does it humble, or infuriate ?

That being the case, as a species we'll carry on pretty much as we are now (and all the signs are that we will). Which is exactly what the plan is.

Essentially, we've been too successful for far too long. Too many people surviving. The next big disaster is coming, though...

Maybe, maybe not. Makes no odds to evolution whether you have 8 billion miserable humans in terrible suffering, or 1 billion in perfect health. as long as those genes make it into the future.

Maybe we'll evolve to eat plastic ?

Please may I fly home first? Currently at a foreign airport

Sorry, no can do.

However I'm not one of those people driving a diesel car or a huge 4x4. I don't do mountains of washing every day or use a tumble dryer. I find I manage with a wash instead of a daily shower without people backing away. I don't eat meat and I don't use pesticides, or have a cat which hunts wild birds and leaves its faeces in other people's gardens. We all do our bit.

Flying represents quite a small part of our global carbon footprint, it hardly seems worth taking such drastic measures for a limited overall impact. Industry is by far the biggest single contributor to CO2 output, so we'd have to accept that we just can't have all the products we currently enjoy if we want to make a big difference. I can't see that happening, though - no one wants to go back to living in the middle ages, or even the 1950s. There's some hope from renewable energy, and we might get better at efficient energy storage, but unless someone hurries up and finds out how to do fusion, we are most likely going to keep on burning those hydrocarbons. All of them. It's what we do.

I've yet to see any suggestions which don't automatically put a far greater burden on the poorer and less powerful, tbh. Think harder - and move in a direction away from 'how can we ensure people suffer and sacrifice and obey?'

What amazes me is how many people are willing to watch their kids suffer in it.

That's a terrible accusation. And untrue.

However if you had said "What amazes me is how many people are willing to see other peoples kids suffer in it" you'd have been closer to the mark.

Must be a busy day. I've run out of Cynic chunks.

Haven't RTFT (far too long) but if you want to save the planet, stop having kids!

I've yet to see any suggestions which don't automatically put a far greater burden on the poorer and less powerful, tbh.

Of course not. What's the point of being rich otherwise ?

Bravo, SGB! So true!

NOPE

Haven't RTFT (far too long) but if you want to save the planet, stop having kids!
out of all places MUMSnet is a bit late for this idea

If I stop flying, I'll never see my children again.

Not wanting to be holier than thou re my last post I drive everywhere because public transport is unmitigated shit. When I was young I motorbiked but I'm past that now. If I didn't drive I'd not get to work at all.
I wet to the isle of wight recently and tourEd the whole island by bus. It was so easy I thought why can't we do that on the mainland?

That’s a no from me

ReanimatedSGB couldnt agree more.

Think harder - and move in a direction away from 'how can we ensure people suffer and sacrifice and obey

Not being funny, but people know full well we are fucking the planet up beyond repair. If that doesn't stop them, can you suggest what will?

It's not practical. We need more eco fuels

It's not practical. We need more eco fuels

What's an eco fuel, when it's at home ?

Easter Island was that caused by humans ? No one knows for sure, but it appears the fact the inhabitants used all the trees for cooking, making new boats and rolling the statue heads up, led to the loss of topsoil and fertitlity for crops.

There is a difference between mega natural events - like the huge volcanic explosions that obscured the sun and caused starvation in Europe in the 15C because crops didn't grow - and man-made events where ie we chop down the Amazon for meat, crop (including soya) and lose the CO2 eating trees by the million. Or the Dust Bowl disaster in the US in the 1930s where farmers deep ploughed for years knocking out the grasses that kept the soil rooted and trapped moisture. Or the constant desire for meat meaning more crops are grown to feed animals so we can have burgers 7 times a day or farming fish so we can eat salmon whenever we want while the wild fish are poisoned by the chemicals that keep the farmed fish lice free and the seas round them are poisoned by mass defecation.

Where's the OP?
Hmmmmm...........

Where's the OP?

Cycling home ?

Carbon fee and dividend. Google it. Tax carbon at source, give the dividend to everyone equally to help the transition to an clean energy economy. Economically very viable and is a solution that doesn’t shit on the poor, if anything, it’s an equaliser.
Whatever we do, it better be bloody quick. Go by sea, wear last year’s clothes, eat more vegetables. Doesn’t sound too bad.

Economically very viable and is a solution that doesn’t shit on the poor, if anything, it’s an equaliser.

and therefore a non-starter. Or have I missed all the massive efforts that major countries around the world (starting with the US and UK) have put into ensuring economic equality ?

Didn't think so.

The trick is not only to get the poor to pay - it's to get them queuing up to do so. As long as the rich can evade the consequences of there actions (there's a proposition for defining the word "rich") then why should they give a monkeys (or an orang outangs ?) about anyone else.

Currently it seems the rich are quite able to carry on as is.