To be pissed off at people who constantly say we need to fly less?

[lockdowncockdown]

I'm probably going to get flamed for this but here goes. Am I being unreasonable to be annoyed by the people who constantly say 'well, we need to fly less anyway'. Well, yes that's ok for you to say at 40/50 years old after you've spent the last 20 years flying all over the world and brandishing yourself as ' well travelled' and cultured. What about those of us in our early twenties like me who has been abroad four times in my whole life, not even to anywhere particularly exciting and I'm just about to finish university and was hoping to finally be able to travel a bit? It's ok to spout nonsense about flying less when you've been lucky and already had your experiences but I find it very hypocritical to want to deny others the same experiences that you were lucky enough to have.

Get a grip - it's bloody obvious that to address the environmental issues that we are facing, there will have to be changes made. One of those should be less flying for business and pleasure. No-one needs to have weekends abroad regularly and constant meetings overseas.

"I'm just about to finish university and was hoping to finally be able to travel a bit?"
You don't need to fly to travel. The age-group you're berating, if they travelled after uni it was most likely by Interrailing, a cheap way to get around Europe by train. My DH did that. And my first holiday abroad involved train-ferry-train to the south of France, I think we were travelling for about 24 hours.

If you are the age you say you are, you need to take climate change seriously, because it's going to affect you for a lot longer than me. And yes we do need to rein the air travel back in, and a lot of other things - basically anything that burns fossil fuels.

While I agree with the reasons why people say it esp regarding climate change, it does irritate me too. I absolutely love travelling and have done all my life. I've two holidays abroad (flying to get there) booked for this year which we have worked hard for and were looking forward to - I accept these probably won't happen now but I can still be pissed off and sad.

In my experience it's often people who aren't interested in holidaying out of the UK who say it to me. Whilst doing the grand total of fuck all to reduce the carbon footprint of their own family.

In real life I've found it be younger people saying it. And yes, we do need to fly less. Is there an actual need for someone to fly for one night to Berlin for a business meeting which could be done fully over video conference? No. No one is going to stop you flying anyway, so if you want to just do it.

Or alternatively, yeah, fly where you want, chuck plastic everywhere, consume, consume, consume, drive everywhere and choke on your own fucking fumes in 30 years time.

What needs to stop is people flying several hours to go to a 2hr meeting. Business travellers make up the majority of flights, and new technology is making that possible. Obviously not everything can be done by video call, but lots can.

Cruising is another industry that needs looking at.

I can see both ways. I am early 40s.i didnt ho abroad t I could pay for it myself and have probably flown 12 times in the last 20 years so not going abroad every year.
My teenage DD was meant to be going away with her friend at half term and was really looking forward to it (she was 6 last time we went on a plane) and I feel sad for her she wont be going.

While I accept there are other ways to travel (and air travel is likely to be limited for the near future) it does very much limit where you can go if you cant fly.
And I did wonder at the climate change protesters at XR how many were of a demographic who had had plenty of foreign holidays and a gap year already ...?

I don't think anyone should tell others how they should live their lives.

Oh well, that's rape and murder back on the menu then. Of course people have to tell other people what to do. That's why we have government, laws, moral codes, rules, regulations and conversations like this.

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz The flip side of your argument is that if you don't fly and also make a lot of other effort to reducing your carbon footprint, people dismiss you as an extremist. My family don't fly, have never owned a car, don't eat meat or dairy (or quinoa/almonds/the other foods people like to use to accuse vegans of environmental destruction), grow a lot of our own food, don't buy fast fashion etc etc but as soon as you say any of that people start thinking that your position is invalidated as you're acting too far away from the normal to be relevant in any debate.

The “fly less” slogan isn’t really aimed at people wanting to see the world or taking a holiday. Even if you have 4 or 5 foreign trips a year - that’s still an incredibly small amount of flying.

Flying for pleasure is a very small percentage of flights. The airlines bread and butter is and will always be business flights - it’s where the real money is.

Fly less is aimed at the Fortune 500 CEO’s who are taking 50 flights a year, the global tech firms who fly 3000 people from all over the world for sales kick off etc.

Not the average joe who has a summer holiday and couple of city breaks either side of it.

We need to do lots of things less, not just flying.

Yes, it might be unfair if someone has been able to travel around the world and you haven't, however no-one has the right to travel abroad. It's a wonderful experience but it is a privilege, not a right.

It doesn't matter if you've worked hard. It doesn't matter if you've scrimped and saved. It doesn't matter if you're "desperate" for a bit of sun. You still don't have the right to travel abroad.

Mass affordable overseas travel is a very recent phenomenon and I think we all now know it cannot last forever.

Well, you only have to look at the impact less flights during the CV pandemic has had on the environment to see that of course we do need to fly less. And I speak as someone who has flown regularly in the past although not for the past six years.

And it’s not just about holidays, it’s about people flying away on business trips several times a year when we now have the technology to be able to conduct most business remotely and by telephone/zoom/platform of choice. There is very little need to jet off abroad for business on a regular basis, and hopefully the current pandemic will have proved that.

It’s only really been in the past twenty/thirty years or so that flying has become a regular thing, or even that holidaying abroad has become a regular thing.

Yeah, that ancient Greta Thunberg really needs to STFU.

I'm 64 and have only left Europe twice in all that time (and probably wouldn't have done that if my then boyfriend hadn't gone to work in NY for 18 months).

I doubt if I've flown more than 20 times in my life, but I concede that travelling to Europe without flying is a bit easier for those who, like me, live within easy reach of a channel port.

I agree that business travel is the worst though. A friend has a colleague who lives in Cornwall and has a job in London. He WFH 2 days a week and flies in from Newquay for the other two days, and stays overnight with his mum in Croydon.

It’s the younger people who are keenest and more vocal on flying less, those in their 20s and 30s, in my experience.

How am I being entitled to want to have the same opportunities that the older generation have had?

War? Having an infection before antibiotics? Rationing? Only 10% going to university? A bank holiday trip to Southend being your annual holiday? No paid maternity leave? Having to save up for things? Washing your clothes by hand?

An annual foreign holiday was out of reach for most families until the 1990s and is still unaffordable for many.

But the real question is whether you want to look after the planet you and your future children will live in?

We need to fly less if we care about the damage we are doing to our environment. You can still travel by train and by boat/ship. We have had some amazing holidays taking the train across Europe and using local transport. We did this when the children were tiny too. I think you experience countries far more than if you simply get a plane from Point A to Point B.

I've been abroad once in my life.

We need to fly less.

The climate crisis doesn't care about your 20s.

Take a train OP.

Work it out - you've been to university.

@TheSandman but there's no law on how often you can fly, is there? Stupid comparison.

Travelling by land is amazing and can take you all across Europe and Asia.

If you really really want to see America and Australia then fly there once and stay for a year Working holiday.

How am I being entitled to want to have the same opportunities that the older generation have had?

All generations have different opportunities to those that came before and after them. It's entitled to think we can just carry on as always with no consequence because "it's not fair".

The choice is quite simple. People get to carry on having holidays or they get to have a future in a world not beset by increasing environmental devastation.

I get that it is frustrating. There is a lot of travel that I had hoped to do and probably won't get to now. I certainly don't blame that on the people who care about the planet though. It's not their fault it's all going to shit.

Hopefully, it won't be too long before the technology exists to allow travel in a less damaging way.

Where is your evidence that people 40/50 are saying this. I hate posts that generalise in this way. Based on your post I could say I hate the entitled generation that assume everything and everyone should make sure your generation is ok.

But I won’t, because that is generalising.

Also, when I was young we didn’t all go off travelling for a gap yah like so many younger people do these days. Many people my age never had holidays abroad until they were in their thirties or older. My children and their friends have been to Australia, NZ, Thailand, Tanzania, China.

Places like that were somewhere on a map when I was your age.

You are being a dick.

I agree with you OP. The amount of people who bang on about the environment then go on to have children is just sheer hypocrisy at it's finest.

These threads make me laugh a bit. People think they are going to change everything by not going on holiday but it goes a lot further than that. Most people are buying food, fresh flowers and products that have travelled half way round the world every day. Plenty of planes needed to fly that in..