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?

Nope. One of my children lives abroad.

*I live in Perth. If I didn’t fly I would literally never leave the state. It’s just not feasible to go anywhere outside of WA by car, especially with kids. The thought of spending a week driving makes me envy (not envy)

There were a fair few people in Perth over Christmas that had driven from over East. Some with kids of all ages.

I can't say that I would do it out of choice though. Not more than once anyway.

No, I didn't fly for years so I don't feel guilty flying 1-2 times a year now my kids are grown. Dp flies 1-2 times a month for work

I live in Melbourne and most of my family is in Perth, a 3.5-4 hour flight away. I do a return trip about twice a year as do my parents. Other family members might visit every 2 or 3 years. Australia is so big that I can not feasibly reduce my air travel and still see family and friends semi regularly. It would take 3 days on the train. I do feel increasingly conscious of my environmental footprint though, and am continuing to take steps to improve my behaviour in other areas such as not making unnecessary purchases, minimising plastic use, recycling properly, growing as much fruit and herbs as I have space for and shortening my showers. I've stopped having take takeaway coffee and have switched from shower gel to bar soap for example. I figure we can't all do everything but we can all do something.

We live overseas and our family holidays are now all by car. We each take one flight per year outside of this.

We also only have one child, so I'd like to feel we're helping in some way.

I won’t be changing my flying habits tbh

nakedavengeragain
No. The whole point is to preserve the planet. NOT humans. There are far far too many of us

Totally. The planet will also do what needs to be done to protect itself.

The arguments people are using to justify why they aren't making changes are the same arguments that businesses and governments are using to justify why they aren't making changes.

We all need to make as many changes as we personally feasibly can. Even if that means some inconvenience to us. We don't need to make life impossible for ourselves, we do need to do our honest best. We need to require our own governments to do the same.

So rather than trying to think of all the reasons you can't do something, instead think about what you personally can do.

As for the justification that flights go anyway. Each passengers weight requires more fuel. Fuel is precisely calculated for each flight. Fuel = carbon.
Eventually fewer passengers = fewer flights too.

We had a long-haul holiday last year and decided it would be our last. So yes, thinking about it and changing our ways.

Nothing's perfect, no form of public transport is perfect, but we have been talking about where in Europe we can get to by train not plane.

We have travelled a lot over the decades and tbh I would be sad not to visit some of the bucket list places I think about often but my god, look at the Africa fires, look at Australia.

Also looking into solar cells and a small wind turbine this year to see if we can future-proof our home a little.

I fly less than twice a year, haven't been on holiday in years and though I regularly travel from Liverpool to Ireland I get the ferry rather than fly as I'm usually visiting family so my df comes too and brings his car.

I don't drive, don't eat much meat, switch everything none essential like fridge and freezer off at the wall, don't have the heating cranked up high, recycle, take bags with me when I'm shopping, buy food with as little packaging as possible, use eco light bulbs, don't buy and throw away lots of clothes /shoes every year, don't eat out loads etc.

There is really not much more I can do. I'm not giving up two short-haul flights to a holiday destination every few years.

It's the businesses flying people half way across the world for one day for a meeting that could be done over Skype that are the problem not us plebs who want an occasional week in Spain.

No, If I want to or need to go somewhere, I'm going to go.

I've been reducing my flying for years now. I do fly, but I don't fly automatically - I look at other options.
If I'm traveling in Europe I go by train. I enjoy it, and it's definitely more enjoyable than flying with small kids. We do most of our holidays in Britain - with these hot summers, it's plenty hot enough, and little kids just want to be by the sea anyway.
I don't buy the 'China needs to change so we don't have to bother' argument. Everyone needs to change. The only reason our emissions figures look so good is because we've moved most of our manufacturing to China. If you add in imports and flying, our reductions shrink drastically. China's emissions are our emissions. And there's no way we're going to be able to force those big nations to change if the rest of the world doesn't change too.

I hate flying to the point of a quasi fear of flying, so this is a convenient way for me to avoid it.

We tend to drive to Europe for our summer holidays, I'm not sure that's any better than flying though.

I find these threads very depressing.

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?

“I’m not changing because x or y isn’t doing enough” is just whataboutery.

Of course some people have perfectly good reasons to fly, but it would make a huge difference if everyone gave it some real thought before booking a flight or making a life choice such as buying a property abroad that can only be accessed by using huge amounts of fossil fuel.

I avoid flying. We holiday in UK or we get ferry to France

I don't buy the 'China needs to change so we don't have to bother' argument. Everyone needs to change. The only reason our emissions figures look so good is because we've moved most of our manufacturing to China.

Our emissions figures look good mainly because we're dropped coal in favour of gas and renewables. I don't know about moving production to China, if importing stuff rather than making it here can conceal emission figures then it's completely bogus accounting .

aroundtheworldyet
Your parents obviously had you.
Many posters on this thread will have had their children some years ago.
How ironic to come on a board aimed at parents to complain about people having children. I assume you will be relying on our children to care and provide for you in your old age.

It's very difficult for my family not to fly when we have close family in another country in Europe AND in another continent (10 hour flight away - but we'll only see them once every 5 years). I've married in to a culture where family is more important than anything else so NOT seeing them isn't an option! However we're pretty militant about living an eco friendly life in other ways. My DH is a pretty well known climate change scientist so he knows his stuff. Carbon emissions from flights accounts for less than 10% of total emissions so there are plenty of other ways you can help - limiting family size is a major one, reduce meat and dairy consumption, limit car use, switch to a green energy provider etc etc.

Our lives are now inextricably bound up with China to the extent that their emissions are our emissions.

As a thought experiment, can you imagine what your life would be like if everything made in China disappeared? Most of your clothes would disappear, half your house would be gone, the high street would collapse.

No, If I want to or need to go somewhere, I'm going to go

Yup- this.

I think there are times when you can't really avoid it (unless you only holiday on the UK mainland). Ferries can be very unreliable. We holiday on the Channel Islands a lot and always used to use the fast ferry from Poole. But it became too unreliable with delays and cancellations (and we got sea sick) so we started flying from Southampton instead.

It's not something I am particularly comfortable with, but if we are to use the alternatives they need to be reliable. For example, I'd happily use the Caledonian sleeper to go to Scotland (even more so if they reintroduced a motorail service and you could take your car with you) but it is not very reliable and when you are meant to be in Aviemore you find you are still in Preston, or they kick you off onto a coach instead.

Likewise, I went to Germany recently and wanted to use Eurostar but couldn't because there were engineering works at this end and I couldn't have got home from London easily.

I have used alternatives (or one way, I've flown to or from Germany or Scotland and got the train the other way) and want to, but it has to work.

We tend to do one long haul every 12-18 months. I am happy with this.

You need kids. Sure, we don't need a growing population but if everyone in the UK stopped having kids or had super low fertility, this would have a huge - and most negative- impact. You need younger generations in a society

Exactly and the people bragging about how great they are for not having kids- lets see how smug you feel when you get to pension age and there is no pension because there is no younger generation to pay for it. Or, no doctors to diagnose and treat you, and no care workers to nurse you when you are immobile, elderly and ill.
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.

We only ever did two flights And then down to 1 a year but last year decided none.

The justifications of “I don’t drive much” and “trains are bad too” aren’t factually correct. Emissions from planes dwarf these activities.