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?

I have only flown 6 times (12 if you count outward and return) in my 42 years so I may fly again but it would maybe be once in 5 years anyway for me, we happily stay in uk as it has lots to offer Imo.

Has anyone seen a carbon cost calculator that includes ferry journeys?

I'm curious about how a sub 2 hour flight compares to a 12 hour ferry journey and a 9 hour drive.

corporations should be heavily penalised for airtravel

As should politicians, celebs, pop stars, sports personalities, etc.

Exactly hauk

On one of the mad showering threads, people were talking about using one standard bottle of shower gel per person per week. To me, that sounds like an enormous amount to use. All those bottles, chemicals, water and energy in the production.

There was a woman who used multiple rolls of kitchen rolls per day, others use loads of cling film, foil etc. We have a roll of foil that I know is 18 months old because I remember buying it on holiday and bringing it home with us, and there's still loads left and that the roll of cling film we have is even older than that. We do use reuseable tubs most of the time, hence only using one roll of cling film in X years.

People talk about using endless bottles of bleach, wipes, all the daily launderers of towels, running the washing machine several times a day, etc etc etc, a rate of usage many times what is necessary.

I could cut out my use of these items and a lot of other stuff completely and it would still be less of a saving than if the high users cut their usage by 10/20%.

I won't be reducing my flights. We enjoy holidays and we want to see more of the world. We fly around 3-5 times a year with at least one being long haul. I can only take 1-2 weeks at a time so flying is the only option to visit far away places.

So instead I take action in other areas. I drive an electric car. Dh will change to electric when he replaces his car next year. When flying we always pay to offset our flights. We have a green tariff for energy. We have swapped to solid toiletries and will change over more of these during this year. We've already reduced our single use plastics and also reduced our wastage. Small things but they add up. We also only have one child though that wasn't for environmental/eco reasons.

@MangoFeverDream
The 70 million was referring to the UK:
China releases 20 times emissions of the UK? Well, China has 20 times the population of the UK. And a massive amount of that is emissions "on behalf of the world": mobile devices, ipads, computers, clothes, toys etc etc. Your argument is a nonsense. What everybody does matters. Why do you 70 million people as irrelevant?

My point is that China does not pollute that much relative to its size and the nature of its economy (ie, the world manufacturer). Just pointing at China and saying, anything we do in the UK is irrelevant cos just look at China is illogical. Look at the net emissions of the EU. Look at those of the US. Let's ALL stop consuming so much.

We went to Germany by train this Christmas for environmental reasons. It only took maybe an extra 3h compared with the plane and was a lot more comfortable as well as cheaper. I have just booked another train trip to Europe, £120 all in for one person return, so very good value. My husband has to fly a lot for work though, and there is nothing he can do about it; he would lose his job if he refused. We also live in a village with no public transport or cycling path, so we need the car every time we go anywhere other than to the school, pub or church.

Not at all and not going to. My very modest once or twice a year holiday? I won't have some SUV driving knob or world-touring sleb lecturing me

No, I fly once every 6 or 7 years. Usually go by train because the train goes to the places I want to go!

That trip to Germany sounds lovely TooGood2BTrue. Where did you go?

@SisterAgata: We went to Leipzig. Next time I'll be going to Dusseldorf, which is a lot closer, and flying wouldn't save much time anyway. I appreciate that you can't reach certain places by train, but as a family we tend to holiday in the UK or in Europe.

I find this thread incredible...

It seems people will blindly continue to over consume despite the obvious climate emergency and justify it with utter nonsense such as

'we're a drop in the ocean compared to China...' (as if the Chinese economy has nothing to do with our consumption of the goods they produce!)

'It keeps our stress levels down and suits us and our DD...' (your poor DD is going to like your attitude when she's suffering mid-20th century.)

You people need to stop getting on airplanes and washing towels and thinking about pleasing yourself now and look at how your kids are going to survive in the future.

BTW I absolutely love the idea of halving. I've never heard of it before and I'm going to try it

SoEverybodyDance
I find this thread incredible...
It seems people will blindly continue to over consume despite the obvious climate emergency

What, exactly, is this obvious climate emergency?

You people need to stop getting on airplanes and washing towels
OK. If we all did as you are telling us to, what effect will that actually have?

I am the same as @MaryShelley1818 happy to sacrifice anything but my holidays. Husband works away a lot and our holidays together are the highlights of my year. This year I will be taking two short haul flights and a long haul flight possibly more and I'm not going to feel bad for it.

I also love the halving idea. Might give it a go.

happy to sacrifice anything but my holidays

Can I ask what people saying this^^ are sacrificing? Inspiration for my new halving project .

Our main changes are dietary since we've already focussed on the consumerism issue and we now only buy things after very careful consideration and then we are mindful of buying higher quality things that should last. Biggest change will be meat consumption in general and we are no longer buying red meat at all. I am also focussing more on where our food comes from and eating seasonally (but we already grow a lot of our own).

No, I won’t be reducing my flights. I haven’t flown since visiting my husband’s family in the States 3.5 years ago. We can’t afford holidays but will hopefully be able to go over to the US to visit every few years and I’m not doing that by bloody boat!

I've cut down a lot at work. My firm has a new policy about flying, and trips now work on a points system and have to be deemed absolutely necessary to be agreed. Everyone is encouraged to use Skype instead.

I haven't cut down on holidays yet and did five family trips last year. If I get time off I like to get as far away from London as possible. The choice will be taken out of our hands soon enough.

I'm really torn on this one. If it were just down to me and no-one else to consider, I'd honestly never fly again because I care about my carbon footprint.

However, that decision would mean no foreign family holidays for us ever (apart from Eurostar etc) and I'm not sure I want to put my fiancé - who has only ever been on 4 flights in his 31 years - in that position.

As previous posters have pointed out, until governments / world leaders start making some drastic changes e.g severely limiting the amount of flights allowed per person, looking into renewable aviation technology etc, what difference do our efforts really make? Bugger all. Especially as so many people are set in their ways and won't change. Sad but true.

Hi Devereux1

I looked at your post asking what the climate emergency was. I thought either you're on a desert island and you've just got online (nice for you) or you're a bit of a cantankerous mumsnetter and like a good argument (sad for you)

So I looked you up. I'm sorry to see you are not on a desert island. Enjoy your day.

The impact of stored emails/junk mail is massive for example and all you need to do is unsubscribe to the rubbish and delete things you don't need. The "cloud" servers use massive amounts of electricity and its one of the least known causes of massive environmental damage through carbon emissions

Yes, I had assumed that as they were out in the desert they used solar power. Anyway I went through my gmail a few weeks before Christmas and deleted over 5000 emails. I still have about 4500, but will review them again.

As previous posters have pointed out, until governments / world leaders start making some drastic changes e.g severely limiting the amount of flights allowed per person

They would need to do that for themselves first. Boris Johnson could holiday in the UK for example.

PS not sure I heard about global warming in the 1980s, I thought we were slowing returning to an Ice Age back then!

That is this halving people are talking about?