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?

We didn't fly anywhere for years, but the last few have done at least a couple of trips a year. Last summer we went interrailing. This summer we will drive to various places in the UK. I do have a couple of shorthaul flights booked. But then I rarely use the car and go everywhere on public transport, so swings and roundabouts...

Definitely, it suddenly feels embarrassing to be flying. The thought of hen dos abroad etc just seem so pathetic. I won't begrudge any family their holiday when I've travelled so widely myself in the past but I'm done for now.

There's plenty in the UK and accesible by boat and train to occupy me for a bit. Not saying I'll never fly again but it'll be a while.

Your work travel counts as your employers carbon footprint not your own btw, so no need to say you can't stop flying because of work

No for me, we can all do different things, I cycle everywhere or get public transport, recycle and I'm vegetarian.

We're quite conscious of our carbon footprint and have minimised it over the last ten years eg holidaying in the UK, taking trains if possible for business, etc. However, our roles have changed so we will probably have some flights in the year ahead.

Dh flies with work - his company carbon offset...however personally we have decided to fly every other year now (we used to fly for pleasure 2-3 times a year) We've cut down on our meat consumption too.

Also it's only been in the last few years I've had money and opportunity to do it.

I would actually love to know the % of people on this thread who gave churned our children.

This bullshit faux crap about caring about the environment because you stop flying so much. I mean honestly.

Haven't flown in 4 years, we holiday in UK.. Very very content with the decision. Seen enough, burned enough fuel getting there. Totally love having given it up, its a total arse of a thing to do. You only realise what a massive pain it is when you stop..

Have churned out children. Ffs

@aroundtheworldyet

Well, the two don't really compare do they, my dear? Having children is a basic human right. My right to jet set around the world does not trump that of someone else to have a child, even if it is for my vair, vair important work.

Also, seeing as one western person, like you my dear, (one. A single, childless person in the west), does more damage than a very large family in parts of Africa, don't you think that maybe lifestyle plays a part? Sorry if you've bought the line that you can do whatever the fuck you like because you have decided not to breed, but it isn't actually true. Nice try though, my dearest dear.

The choice is fly or not see family. That said I probably manage under 20 short haul flights a year. The other half has been known to hit that in a week for work.

We have decided to take our Easter city break holiday by train this year, rather than the default option of picking a flight from the EasyJet website. For climate change reasons. We're still flying long haul in the summer though. Every little helps I guess. But I'm not going to give up flying altogether any time soon I'm afraid.

We haven't flown for I think about 7 years now - switched to driving to Europe or staying in the UK for holidays. I do miss it (both in terms of the convenience/avoiding long drives for the places we go in Europe, and having the option to go further than we currently do), but it seemed like one of, or maybe the biggest single thing(s) we could change to reduce our environmental impact, and it would feel wrong to me to continue flying now as we used to. I don't guarantee we'll never fly again, and in fact one DC is due to fly this year for a school-related trip (so no choice about transport method, only go or don't go), but would definitely see it as an exceptional thing now and usually avoid it.

The UK specifically assumes flights will increase quite a bit in the next ten years, I'd love it if this prediction is wrong

I started rationing myself to one flight a year in 2005, and since having DC in 2013 I've only flown once. I'll stick to not more than once a year for the foreseeable, I agree that I need to be able to look my children and myself in the eye and say I tried

Nope. We are low carbon in other ways (small petrol car not used during the week at all, small amounts of driving at weekends, but less than an hour a week, little heating on etc), but I don't want to give up travel.

To be honest, whilst Oz is partly about climate change, it is also sadly what happens when some of the measures that traditionally were used to stop fire spread (eg creating fire breaks by felling trees through responsible forestry) are stopped due to pressure from green groups who cannot distinguish between sensible forestry management and destruction of habitat. Forest fires (including those started by arson) have been a feature for years - climate change does not help of course (and climate change is happening - worth cutting emissions for other reasons) but the reason for the level of spread that has led to the destruction is heavily about poor stewardship.

@BeatriceTheBeast
We all make choices in life. I chose a job which I would have to fly with.
I also grow all my own. Don’t have kids. Don’t eat meat much. Give a large amount to charity. Volunteer with a homeless charity teaching growing food.

But yes. My dear. I didn’t have children for a reason. Our world is fucked and no children isn’t a basic human right. It’s just not.

We don’t fly. At all.

@MelroseHigginbottom are you really so thick that you don't understand supply and demand? Goodness knows I am no eco warrior but your ignorance is terrifying

No plans to have kids though for context so we can do more or less whatever and still work out comparatively low impact.

This argument that "the plane will still fly" is daft. At best it is very short-term. If demand for flights falls, then pretty quickly the number of flights will fall roughly in proportion.

My family lives in Canada and I travel to them 1-2 times per year. Otherwise, my flights are infrequent and short haul (if I could reasonably drive or train, I would). I cannot give up seeing my family.

I’ve stopped flying. Decided to holiday in the uk and environmental reasons are the main factor. I dunno whether I’ll stick to it or not but uk holidays only this year for sure. I’ve only flown twice in about the last 8 or 9 years anyway.

I would love to cut back more, but DH isn't convinced yet. We drove to France last year, but we're flying to Spain this year and considering a fly drive to California next year. I am planning to offset our flights this year.

We are trying to live more sustainably now. I will never persuade the rest of the family to cut out meat or dairy, but I'm trying to cut down. We're running our old car for another couple of years and then planning to go electric. We drive about 7500 miles a year max so we are trying to reduce our mileage, I walk when possible and try to combine journeys rather than making lots of little trips.

I've turned the heating down and nobody noticed, so that will reduce our gas use, and I try to reduce water and electricity where possible.

I don't buy very many clothes, and buy quite a few bits second hand. We wear our clothes a few times so less washing.

We can't just do nothing because lots of other people aren't. If lots of people do a little to improve it all adds up.

Cant drive and walk everywhere. But I fly a lot for work. Would stop in a heartbeat if they reintroduced ferries to Germany and made the train network a bit cheaper.