To think soon it won’t be socially acceptable to fly

[Pigletspal]

I’m sad because I’ve been saving up for 6 years to go on holiday. I want to go to South America and Southeast Asia next year. I’ve also just got a job with a decent wage and I have been looking forward to much to making holidays a regular thing.

But they’re about to get more expensive aren’t they?

And suddenly I feel guilty about wanting to fly. One of my friends has already said that she will be going on “one last” foreign holiday and then stopping due to climate change.

And I really want to save the planet too. I’m just sad that it’s all going this way.
Am I overreacting or shall I get used to the idea my travelling days are numbered?

@adellaranger And I would like to know where I have 'had a go' at anyone or made assumptions.

I agree we already were already having flight shame. Our summer trip (was) by rail. Think over next few years flying, more than 2 kids and eating excessive meat will be seen as unreasonable. The Covid situation has shown how quickly mindsets and lifestyle can change if it has to. We have no “right” to how we were living before - our grandparents didn’t need 3 holidays with flights per year.

Ok, not all of that 1.5kg will be beef and lamb (the worst offenders), but it’s still easy to see from the maths just how significant an impact meat consumption has on the environment.

So was this true for the centuries that we have had pasture animals in many cultures all over the world.

My whole family live in America, as I’m the one who immigrated to the UK. I keep telling myself that this was my choice and I’ve got to accept the distance, and that I’m fortunate to live today as opposed to a hundred years ago when getting to Florida would have taken a week, but it’s been hard to think about how I may not see my family as often (last time was 2018 and I don’t know when we’re going back).

Yes I think flights (especially longhaul) will be alot more expensive. Im from NZ but living in UK and this makes me really sad as no idea when I will next get to see my parents who are now in their late 80s. We were going to go for Christmas but no idea if I will ever be able to take my kids over again to see them

I think one or two holidays a year is fine, it's business flying which is the problem, I read that sometimes they fly just for one appointment then fly straight back, its madness,

So was this true for the centuries that we have had pasture animals in many cultures all over the world.

No, it wasn’t.

We currently farm animals on a scale that completely dwarfs that of previous generations.

In the U.K. we kill over a billion animals for food each year. This include over 10 million pigs, over 15 million sheep, 14 million turkeys, 15 million ducks and geese, 982 million broiler chickens, 50 million boiling fowl and over 2.6 million cattle. That’s an average of 15 animals per person, per year.

The world now produces 4 times as much meat per year that it did 50 years ago.

The vast majority of that consumption occurs in the west - the average European eats 80kg of meat per year, the average Indian eats only 5kg per year.

We are now producing meat on a scale which is completely unsustainable and is absolutely destroying the planet. And it doesn’t matter how local your meat is, or how high welfare it is, or that it’s organic. The fact of it being meat means that the impact on the environment is devastating.

I think that business travel (which is not the majority of flights, I believe it's about 30 %) will definitely decrease, why spend money you don't have to? That will probably push the prices of leisure flights up a bit which will lead to a decrease in people flying, particularly if there is a long lasting recession. But for those of us who have not suffered financially I suspect people will rush to travel as soon as they can. I'm certainly going to continue to have holidays abroad (although we were planning to travel by train this year, Eurotunnel is much nicer than flying).

As for the meat argument? I have yet to see a decent alternative use for the hill land that is used to farm beef and lamb in this country. Can't grow avocados (or even potatoes or cabbages) on a Welsh or Scottish hillside and make money. So if you don't want meat you have to become even more reliant on imports.

@zscaler

I'd caution taking too much from that airline emission analysis site.

FWIW both the aircraft types used (747-400 and the 737-400) as examples in that site date from the mid 80s and use, for want of a better term, old school engine technology with by modern standards poor emissions.

For a proper analysis of the current situation you'd need to run the numbers using the modern equivalents (long haul types -A350, B787, short haul A320 neo, B737 NG)..the modern aircraft run of fumes compared with their predecessors

As for the meat argument? I have yet to see a decent alternative use for the hill land that is used to farm beef and lamb in this country. Can't grow avocados (or even potatoes or cabbages) on a Welsh or Scottish hillside and make money. So if you don't want meat you have to become even more reliant on imports. Exactly. And as I always say on these threads. Would you rather I sell my land for 'executive housing' or keep my flock of sheep?

I read that sometimes they fly just for one appointment then fly straight back, its madness,

Depends on the full context..like holidays one size doesn't fit all.

One return flight for an appointment to discuss the latest colour scheme on a car - madness perhaps.

One return flight for an appointment to examine/discuss quality control in a factory producing equipment critical for healthcare in the UK - perhaps not madness.

Other examples are available.

I think you are probably over reacting a little bit!

YANBU and actually, unless you fly a dozen times a year or even twice that your carbon footprint via flying is negligible.

I fly 3 x per year and I go somewhere different each time:

City break in March
2 week family holiday in August

Then depending on funds either a week of winter sun in October or a Christmas market in December.

I offset my carbon footprint in other ways and until the last 4 years I've never had any money (and I work lots of extra shifts) so the one thing I refuse to give up is travelling: live your dream, do not be guilted into not living your best life by others!

You do you.

I don’t think flying per se will become unacceptable. I think a family doing one return flight to eg Spain Each summer, or a couple doing a ‘once in a decade’ trip to eg Thailand will be seen as acceptable.

What (I hope) will soon be seen as unacceptable is hen/stag weekends in the likes of Dubai or New York, business trips lasting a couple of days that could have been achieved online etc.

As for the meat argument? I have yet to see a decent alternative use for the hill land that is used to farm beef and lamb in this country. Can't grow avocados (or even potatoes or cabbages) on a Welsh or Scottish hillside and make money. So if you don't want meat you have to become even more reliant on imports. Exactly. And as I always say on these threads. Would you rather I sell my land for 'executive housing' or keep my flock of sheep?

Imported avocados are still orders of magnitude more environmentally friendly than lamb. Even if my diet consisted entirely of imported foods (which it very obviously doesn’t) it would still be significantly less harmful to the environment than a diet including currently ‘normal’ levels of meat consumption for this country.

So for me, even a worst-case vegan scenario is vastly better than a best-case omnivore scenario.

I feel for sheep and cattle farmers on an individual basis because whenever an industry is under threat it’s horrible for the people involved. But the reality is if we don’t drastically reduce our meat and dairy consumption on a really wide scale, there is simply no way we can protect the planet from climate change. And I personally will pick polar bears, snow leopards, sea turtles, monarch butterflies, elephants and gorillas over flocks of domestic sheep every time.

@notimagain that’s totally fair - it was a quick calculation rather than a full study! If you have numbers that show a yearly flight has a greater impact than not consuming meat or dairy I’ll happily have a look. It might make me reconsider the Eurostar next time!

Also I think people will need to think really really hard before they emigrate to Australia, NZ etc. I think it’s almost acceptable for those who emigrated in say 1980 to Oz before climate change was known widely to be an emergency to travel back and forth occasionally. But anyone choosing to emigrate now in the full knowledge of the climate emergency.... I don’t know

This isn’t about what to do with a Scottish hillside but the fact that worldwide the food grown to feed animals in winter or when they are penned up and never get chance to graze is destroying the Rainforest.

The more people eat meat the more food for these animals needs to be grown

What is it you do zscaler ? I'd love to know about your wonderful contribution to society.

I think it will be just the same as before. Possibly even more long haul flights as people begin to realise their long held travel dreams. Life is short. We all want to make the most of it.

What does the word acceptable actually mean.

Does it mean you won’t do something because even though there are no laws against it you think Doris from down the road will frown at you and you want to keep her happy.

Whilst some might put neighbours and friends high on the reasons for not doing something ultimately like clapping for the NHS. It is a choice not a law

Are we facing a future where people are more frightened at being frowned upon than actually doing what makes them happy.

This isn’t about what to do with a Scottish hillside but the fact that worldwide the food grown to feed animals in winter or when they are penned up and never get chance to graze is destroying the Rainforest.
Well we give our animals silage in the winter and they spend most of the year outside. And it's been this way for at least a century. Nothing to do with rainforests.

I guess what I mean by ‘acceptable’ is the reaction of the general public as a whole. So when a work colleague asks what you did at the weekend and you reply that you popped over to Dubai for a couple of days, the reaction would likely be similar to if you said you’d been fox hunting...

www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/19/lockdowns-trigger-dramatic-fall-global-carbon-emissions

"The experience of the crisis so far has shown that changes in behaviour by individuals – such as not flying, working from home and driving less – can only go part of the way needed to cut emissions, as even the lockdown measures left the bulk of emission sources intact, "the author said)", adding that bigger shifts are needed to the way people produce and use energy.

Aircrafts are getting greener all the time. They already have reduced emissions by up to 20% in the last 5 years alone. I personally won’t be stuck in the U.K. for the rest of my life if I can afford to travel the world. I usually do one big trip a year as a family and don’t feel guilty x