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?

It's not about 'who'll look after you when you're older' on the individual level. But at the societal level, ageing populations bring their own challenges. If the change is graudal, societies can and do adapt (people work longer, more tech, immigration etc). But rapid population decline is extremely difficult for societies and has some quite significant negative consequences. If you're part of a large cohort of elderly people with very few people of working age - who's going ot keep things going? Run the hospitals, police, utilities, transport etc? Pay the pensions? We need younger generations.

People are listening now as they are more aware that there is a chance it might affect them in the future. Of course many people don't care enough to make any big changes.

Having more children to look after an ageing population seems so counter-intuitive. I want to live well, for as long as I can, without intervention. Then I would much prefer the intervention of a dignified death.

Completely agree.

People are listening more because the message is becoming more urgent and a statement with clarity will carry across the media more effectively.

Still it won’t get to everyone. See some pp, not everyone believes it.

thecatsthecats
You twin comment makes no sense

I think flying affects pollution levels a lot less than people realise.
It’s cars and the big energy companies that are the biggest contributors.
If you wanted to be more environmentally aware, you would be better off getting rid of your car, installing solar panels, and going vegetarian, or better still vegan.

Surely it doesn’t matter why people are listening, just that they are🤷🏻‍♀️

Also there’s a strong and numerous amount of human behaviours and attitudes working against the message so people will generally choose to ignore - consumption, ease, leisure, status and so on.

Having more children to look after an ageing population seems so counter-intuitive. I want to live well, for as long as I can, without intervention. Then I would much prefer the intervention of a dignified death

Looking after doesn’t necessarily mean care for. I assume you still want everything to run as normal in your old age? Food, energy supply, someone to empty your bins etc etc

Agree Chocolatedaim.

As long as the British Airports Authority, Heathrow and the politicians keep telling us how much we need more runways and more planes for the good of our country, I'll keep taking my odd flight here and there each year.

As long as we send billions of overseas aid to countries, including China, each year, I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

I'm not. I fly rarely. Maybe one return flight a year, of which one every ten years or so is long haul.
I don't run a car.
I walk everywhere.
I rarely go far from home for trips to visit friends. I live and socialise locally.
I don't buy disposable fashion.
I recycle everything.
I use things until they wear out or break.
I'm not one of those people who need to change their kitchen or bathroom every few years to 'update' it. If it works, it's fine.
We eat veggie 4-5 times per week.
I only have two children.

I haven't worked out my carbon footprint but I imagine it's lower than lots of people's who shout about flying but zip up and down the country every weekend and have a carload of kids. I've waited a long time to be able to afford to travel and explore the world and I refuse to feel guilty about it.

You twin comment makes no sense

It made sense to me. I interpreted it to mean that she only wants to have one child. But there is a high incidence of twins in her family so she accepts that if she tries to have one child there is a possibility it might be two, which is more than she plans but out of her control once they've actually been conceived.

I don't think anyone would advocate for having MORE children than we already do, to look after an ageing population. Or, ok, some people might, but from the perspective of someone concerned about climate change, then obviously not.

But there is a balance to be struck between not having too many children and having none at all.

Also, of course everyone would choose a dignified death before they need care. My gran died aged 95 absolutely miserable that she was still alive and in a care home. She would absolutely have chosen to die sooner and not suffer what she saw as an indignity.

But, we don't usually get to choose. Even people wanting to use dignitas for this reason might struggle to get there and will be forced into care, even if that isn't what they would have chosen.

Also, it isn't just physical care which older people will need, but also financial, housing, heating, food production. In a world with nobody but the very old, we would all die a slow, uncomfortable death with no food, services, hospitals, water, heating etc etc. And for all the people saying they would rather die younger, yes, me too, but don't children born today also have to right to say that? That they'd like to live until they don't want to live anymore? Or do their lives not count because we were here first and because their life expectancies might be shorter due to CC? Based on the posts on here, a shorter life expectancy might be welcome!

Sorry if this is a little abstract btw. It's something I think about quite a lot - the morality of having children in a damaged world. Politics grad with a philosophical leaning.

X post with fochit.

Having more children to look after an ageing population seems so counter-intuitive

It's also a pyramid scheme in the making. What happens when all those children get old and need even more people to pay for their retirement, care for them, etc etc?

The population is still growing, there doesn't seem to be any danger of a population decline any time soon. Maybe we should think about controlling the population size, but obviously that's very unpopular.

But the environmental impact of flying is a drop in the ocean compared with people having even one DC. I'm childfree. If I never flew again but had a child, my carbon footprint would increase by about 10-20 times.

It won’t be easy to have population decline, due to increasing older age proportion, but the answer can’t be forever increasing population.

The population doesnt need to be growing - rapid population growth is also a problem.

Stability or slow.decline is probably optimal to balance societal needs and environmental impact.

World population is still growing but nearly all the growth is due to population momentum, it WILL stabilise in about a generation or so. But this growth is not evenly distributed and it doesnt help European societies deal with ageing populations that there is growth in sub saharan Africa unless we support mass migration.

I do kind of despair when people mention pensions where childbearing is concerned.

Where does it end? It doesn't.

The ecological crisis is really kicking in because of the modernisation of China and India. What happens when this happens to Africa? How will we cope?

Having children is a human right, I suppose but I fear that a planet of 11B people can be logically managed by only something verging on totalitarian governments. Several hundred years ago, humans could roam frontier lands and stake their claim and start an unfettered life. Today, you can't start a stand selling ice cream without a license and fees and so on and your car can be towed if you're parked illegally and the council can deny you the right to extend your house and you're paying for the police but you can't speak to them and so on. What's it going to be like in 20 years when we have another 3 billion people on the planet?

I think it's great that individuals are looking at the impact of their lifestyle on the environment, but as many others have pointed out it's not as binary as cutting out the one return flight you take each year. If you're a major polluter - someone who travels weekly for business say, or someone who uses private jets - then yes you are a big part of the problem - but people who fly to Europe once a year really aren't majorly contributing to climate change.

If everyone in the western world stopped flying, grew all their own veg, stopped eating meat, made their own clothes, got rid of their cars and put solar panels on their roof then that would make a huge difference to our national carbon emissions, but you driving to France rather than flying to Spain really isn't significant. IMO it's all about moderation - eating less meat, walking, cycling or taking the train where feasible, buying fewer clothes, having your heating on 18 rather than 21, and just consuming less.

What's it going to be like in 20 years when we have another 3 billion people on the planet?

And those people will be shairng an increasingly small chunk of the world because climate migration iwll be a huge issue - people will be moving away from uninhabitably scorching environments, drought, flood and towards temperate areas with fresh water.

My MIL identifies as a Corbyn-supporting environmentalist, but she has an enormous footprint by way of modern affluence. A lot of people just can't connect the dots.

but you driving to France rather than flying to Spain really isn't significant.

I suppose it depends on what you consider significant but if that car has several passengers then, per mile travelled, flying Vs driving has about a third of the carbon impact.

I've never taken a flight in my life, and I don't plan on starting any time soon. I've still visited several European countries so it hasn't limited me travelling.

But the environmental impact of flying is a drop in the ocean compared with people having even one DC. I'm childfree. If I never flew again but had a child, my carbon footprint would increase by about 10-20 times

I don't equate having a child with flying abroad on holiday. They are not the same at all to me.

There are groups of young people who are afraid to have children and they campaign for action on climate change as they see this fear of being able to have children as an infringement of their rights.

People not being able to go off on an AI beach holiday several times a year, as some people do, is not a tenth or twentieth of the pain that being unable to have the children who you otherwise would love to have.

Different if you were pretty ambivalent about the whole idea of having a baby as I know a lot of people are. This is another area which I think needs more discussion. In times gone by, if you said you didn't want children, people would say "ah wait till you're older" etc. It wasn't seen as a valid choice. If all the people who didn't really want children, didn't have them and if nobody pressured them into changing their minds, I think we would see fewer births in this country.

I definitely don't think the pyramid scheme you mention (and yes, that's the perfect term for it) should continue. Ideally, imo, we need people not to live on into very old age, when they are miserable anyway (not that every old person is, but the ones who are), being kept alive against their will by a drugs cocktail and interventions, having fewer babies in general.

I really think that when people say no babies should be born at all anymore in the UK, that is incredibly short sighted in terms of international relations, the economy and the survival of as many public services as we can reasonably sustain.

Great if we all just pootled along till we were 70, having a lovely time and then died, but that isn't how it works sadly.