AIBU to ask how many of you are seriously revising whether (or how often) you fly again?

[Thelowquietsea]

We don't fly often (one flight a year tops, mostly to Europe) but reducing my air travel is one of the few differences I can make towards climate change.

And yet, I'm celebrating a big birthday this year. I had an idea to take myself to a retreat quite far away, and now it's 'booking' time, I can't quite bring myself to do it. Especially in light of Australia's tragedy. I'm really torn.

How many of you are making serious sacrifices in this area?

“ Surely once we realise that it’s damaging to fly, the responsible thing to do is to at least think about whether flying is necessary and how to cut the number of flights?”

But it’s not only flights what we should reduce ... those bananas in the supermarket that are from SA and are cheaper than some other bananas from nearby but are more expensive ... are also bad for our environment as they’ve been imported. Same with the phones we are using to write on this thread or the clothes we are wearing.

Same thing with going to work by car or taking children to school by cars yet it’s a 10 mins walk.

I like travelling , local or long - haul so will not change it. My footprint though might be smaller than some others because I’ve done other things to compensate it.

Yes we are actively trying to cut down. Dh flies a lot for work and has started to feel really bad about it, so we are planning to donate a large chunk of company money to the Scottish Highlands reforesting effort to offset this massive carbon footprint.

We have been extravagant with foreign holidays in recent years, and that is going to stop. We have bought a fully electric car and will be using that to drive to Europe instead.

I'm going abroad for the 1st time in 7 years later this year . I've been on a plan 6 times in my life the 1st when I was 25 I'm now 45 . Due to my mum being scared of flying . I'll continue to fly when need as i don't fly excessively and I do loads of other things to be as environmentally friendly as I can be

No. I'll fly when I need to. That hasn't been for a couple of years, but if circumstances were different, it wouldn't stop me.

I'm not justifying it to anyone. My child and parents live abroad. I fly to see them. I don't feel guilty about it or the need to apologise for it. People have travelled for thousands of years. Remains of 'the beaker people' from around Germany were found in Western Scotland. Thousands of years old. If they had had planes, I'm sure they' d have forgone the dodgy sea travel.

@aroundtheworldyet

Some pps have answered your weird post in my absence, so I don't really need to add to that.

You are over simplifying and have bought the line that so many people put about on here and elsewhere that if we all stopped having babies, it would fix the planet. Even if you believe the gaia principle and want the human race to die out, it would make for an incredibly painful end if there were no children being born whatsoever.

You sound very angry and afraid. I feel a bit sorry for you tbh, but at least you won't be around forever and most likely you will enjoy a comfortable end to your life, at the expense of our children who will be looking after you financially and physically as you age.

Another point on overpopulation is that the 'problem' is not that we are having too many babies, but that we are living too long.

I've chatted to many people on here who choose not to have children for environmental reasons and mostly they are amazing people who have been very selfless imo and appreciate that they will one day rely on babies born today to clean up the mess you and I have made of the planet. You, on the other hand, sound like a sad, angry, poorly educated individual and incredibly hard of thinking.

So, with that, I'll leave you to it. I wont engage with you again.

All the best to you and I hope you find some help with your rage towards some of the most vulnerable groups in society .

Whether you are willing to admit it or not, our society rests on the younger generations and if they didnt exist- you'd be screwed when old.

So what's the alternative, exponential growth? The whole economic model will need to shift if we are to make any meaningful changes to save the planet, that's the main issue here.

Having a child is one of the worst things to do for the planet. But people don't want to face up to that. No amount of recycling will make up for that. And I disagree that having kids is a human right.

It never fails to surprise me that no one seems to think of what lives their future children may have. Water shortages, food shortages, suffering. Does any parent really want that life for their children?

But anyone who dares say it here just gets scorned at as it's an inconvenient truth.

I've cut work travel already

The attitudes displayed on this thread really makes me think we are screwed! I fly long haul once every two years to visit family but am trying to cut down a bit on other general holidays etc. I also try to cut down my footprint in other ways (don't own a car, vegetarian diet etc). I'm only average in terms of my footprint (cos of my long haul) flight , but its the attitudes that worry me!
To take on a few of the points raised here in defence of the status quo:

the plane will still fly anyway
Er, no. If customer demand for flights goes down, the number of planes in the air will decrease. Some companies will merge or disband. It won't happen overnight "just because of me" but it will happen. This is pretty basic supply and demand stuff.

China is polluting more than us, there's no point us doing anything
the average Chinese person has something like only a third or a quarter of the footprint as the average Brit. And China is currently manufacturing on behalf of half the entire world. People in the US, Canada, Australia, and wealthy countries in Europe (and Asia) need to take responsibility for their lifestyles. Be a good role model in terms of responsible consumption.

We might be screwed, but life on Earth will carry on
Well, yes ok. But you're basically saying you're willing to sacrifice the existence of, for all we know, the only highly intelligent and self aware species in the entire galaxy (or, who knows, even the universe) because you don't want to cut back a bit.

For those interested in the China thing, the BBC does a very good summary here:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-48025650

Basically, if you don't include flying and imports, we've reduced by 43% from 1990. If you do, it's more like 10%.

That's the standard method of recording carbon, for obvious reasons - if ten countries are all trying to include a factory in China in their calculations, it's going to be very difficult to get an accurate emissions picture. And it's not fair to penalize us for China's failure to modernise. Similarly, how many of the passengers leaving Heathrow are British people, and how many are international? It's complicated and expensive to get an accurate picture. But because that, saying "We're doing great, it's China who need to change" is ... Not that accurate.

The planes still flying thing is bonkers. Airlines would adjust number of flights to lower demand.

Having a child is one of the worst things to do for the planet. But people don't want to face up to that. No amount of recycling will make up for that. And I disagree that having kids is a human right.

But having children cannot be compared to anything else on the planet. Aside from staying alive, we are programmed to have children.

Of course continued population growth is unsustainable, but a complete stop to reproduction is undesirable too.

It never fails to surprise me that no one seems to think of what lives their future children may have. Water shortages, food shortages, suffering. Does any parent really want that life for their children?

Of course people think about this! More so now than ever. Greta Thunberg's dad said recently that he only does what he does for his daughters' future.

But, people continue to have children in the darkest of times and always have and humans have an incredible ability to survive and find joy in the darkest of times. Equally, you could have a child in peaceful, easy times and they could have a terrible life. It's always a risk.

That was to @OliviaBenson btw.

No scorn here. Just reasonable conversation...well except when someone's first post on a thread is "you fucking selfish bastards". It's been deleted now, but I'll give you a clue who it was.

Your posts are calm and sensible and I would never pour scorn on you for making your totally reasonable points. I just don't happen to 100% agree.

I’m ok with more consideration re number of dc, rather than not having any. So the number of extra large families decrease.

What about airfreight?
All the focus appears to be on people flying.

I’d like to see companies look into business travel and what they can do.

Loosing how many jobs ?
Only 1/3 of those who lost their jobs from Thomas cook are employed and mostly outside the travel industry

We haven't flown for 3 years (and don't plan to any time soon) because we can't justify it, especially when we drive regularly and would have to make some big/unaffordable life changes to be able to get rid of our cars. So not flying is our way of ensuring we don't worsen our carbon footprint - we do as much as we can to be waste free, we've mostly cut out meat and buy local if we do eat it (Christmas dinner for example), we really try otherwise.

Woke up to a lot of replies! An interesting thread, thanks to you all for replying.

I get that it's a complicated issue for people - especially those with families elsewhere - and that many of us love travel - but I think for me, the idea that when the environment shit hits the fan - and it will, there is no turning back - I can tell my DD that I did my bit.

I do want to stress that whilst I get everyone comes onto mumsnet for the interesting threads, the diversity of thought etc - it's a bit galling to be told off by people who have no children. This is a website, first and foremost, for parents. Why visit Mumsnet if you feel so affronted by those who've had kids?

I appreciate the reasonable conversation. I was talking about other threads where I've been piled on and called a child hater among other things.

I'm always up for listening to a reasonable debate on these things. 😊

What about airfreight?
All the focus appears to be on people flying.

Very good point, especially when you add that to emissions from producing goods overseas.

If I could afford it I would travel to Germany, Austria, Japan... but it'd be a one off every few years.

I wouldn't fly 2-3 times a year.

Holidaying in Scarborough his year IF we can afford it.

The US is terrible (like Australia) but China has a higher percentage of renewable energy than several European countries and is in the same ballpark as Germany (25% vs 29%) so we can't keep using them as an excuse

You know that those renewables are hydro, which has been hugely damaging to the environment and could kill tens
of thousands of people if they break? (Look at Three Gorges projections if you don’t believe me, that’s actually a conservative estimate).

They are actually building coal plants at a blistering pace. They have more than 100 currently under construction to complement their fleet of 1000 plants (to compare, I think the EU has less than 200 in total)

But yeah, they are more than happen to mine for toxic metals and sell you the resultant solar panels.

more than happy

No, not when we have parents who live thousands of miles away, and other close family in various parts of the works. I do care about climate change, but I'm selfish enough to care more about wanting to see family.