To feel I can’t holiday abroad again?

[backoffice]

I feel really guilty using air travel (although it’s so easy!) and used to travel by train through Europe wherever I could. Had a lovely trip planned in 2020 taking in several countries - but all went to pot!

Inter-Europe travel feels very dodgy now with Covid and lack of fresh air etc in carriages. Planes feel safer (shorter trips and good air circulation) but I’m too guilt-ridden because of the environmental impact. Cruises seem just as bad!

I can’t see a way of planning a safe and ethical holiday abroad now. AIBU? How are people justifying it?

@Blueink

Hi Rozziie, I don’t think it’s helpful to justify one harmful choice because of other choices, and agree you are right to challenge anything else that impacts climate change. As you saw I have been on planes for similar reasons, about 1 every 3 years.

I don't need to justify anything to anyone. If you have kids, drive a car, eat meat, etc. you simply have absolutely no business lecturing others on what they should be doing.

It really is that simple.

@MyrtlethePurpleTurtle

Hopdathelf

Why the biscuit?

Something to do with Gordon Brown that no one understands.

OP, when you said "How are people justifying it?", did you mean how they were justifying it to themselves, or how would they justify it to you/anyone else?

This post has provided a lot for us all to think about, some very useful opinions and intriguing oppositions. Let’s face it we all need to do better!

Well latex is apparently biodegradable so condoms are a good way to start.

To use the final idea from the opening post (with a minor adjustment)
I can’t see a way of planning a safe and ethical way to bring multiple children into the world now. AIBU? How are people justifying it?
😁

Tbh, I don’t think it would be unreasonable if you just stayed at home forever. Seems safest.

@Annoyedanddissapointed

Well latex is apparently biodegradable so condoms are a good way to start.

To use the final idea from the opening post (with a minor adjustment)
I can’t see a way of planning a safe and ethical way to bring multiple children into the world now. AIBU? How are people justifying it?
😁

Twenty-four years ago I justified it to myself by thinking that we were only having two, so were only "replacing" ourselves rather than increasing the burden on the planet. But I knew it was a bit of a bogus argument and that I was being selfish by having children.

Does your smiley mean that the thought didn't occur to you?

Here's what I do.

Step 1: decide where to go.
Step 2: research the quickest and most cost effective way to get there
Step 3: buy tickets
Step 4: off I go!

Mate take a flight or don't. It's a tiny, tiny drop in the ocean. Until huge corporations and governments start taking climate change seriously, the pitiful minor attempts by individuals are worthless. You're just ruining your own life and it really won't help in the grand scheme of things. But whatever helps you sleep at night 🤷

@backoffice. You can offset your flight. I know it’s imperfect but it’s at least something. You’re already deeply considering your flight(s) (google will turn up many offset providers). I used to work with masses of overseas travel on alternative energy of all things. I always felt that my travel completely trashed anything I was achieving at work. Though impossible to achieve anything without it. Weirdly reading a carbon balance book years ago nearly empty trains aren’t all that great either.

@Cazzovuoi

Also adopting a plant based diet is probably the worst thing you can do for the planet. Monocrops are killing our soil. When cows eat grass (just like in the wild, not megafarms where they're fed grains exclusively), they cause the grass to dump carbon into the soil (because the grass has a symbiotic relationship with the soil fungus, providing it with sugar - a 6-carbon molecule - in exchange for micronutrients) sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and creating up to a foot of topsoil/year. If the earth's grasslands were covered in cattle, it would completely reverse climate change in our lifetime.

During lockdown cows still farted yet the carbon level tanked. Ask yourself why.

Save the planet, eat a cow.

So pleased to finally see someone recognising this! Grass/pasture fed meat is not the problem, it's cheap grain fed meat. Im all for eating plants but dislike the obsession with becoming vegan for the environment.

The op flew off () in a huff when we all laughed at her saying she won’t bother anymore because posters were saying they still intended to fly for holidays

A profound and deep commitment to the environment there

Yeah yeah sure, saintly meat eaters are all eating organically fed cattle from down the road and nasty vegans are all eating soya grown on a chopped down rainforest in Brazil.

Sounds like guilt talking, to me.

I get that OP's transgressions are much lighter fare to discuss than the topic itself, but tbh I don't care how much the OP is committed to combating climate change. The topical comments on farting cows etc. are more interesting.

@Balonzette

Here's what I do.

Step 1: decide where to go.
Step 2: research the quickest and most cost effective way to get there
Step 3: buy tickets
Step 4: off I go!

@Balonzette don’t forget your pre departure forms and tests back to uk ;).

@SweetBabyCheeses99

Tbh, I don’t think it would be unreasonable if you just stayed at home forever. Seems safest.

Makes more space on planes for the rest of us, and keeps hotels free of po-faced finger-waggers

I’ve not disappeared from the thread, I’ve been reading the responses.

FWIW I did not give birth to all my children, I own a car but largely to ferry elderly dependents around and yes I do eat meat (don’t buy milk but due to allergies not ethics) but I honestly don’t believe a vegetarian diet would be greener for our family - as I say, we live in a position where buying direct from producers is very easy. Our meat doesn’t travel for more than 20 miles and is often (at this time of year) game. When one of my dc was vegetarian almost all their meals/ingredients were grown abroad which seemed much worse to me.

Anyway, I think that’s all irrelevant tbh. Air travel is a far more conscious and avoidable decision. I do think it’s not justifiable (and posters here have said that this has been known for years and anyone who takes climate change seriously would have been avoiding it for years) and I had thought that argument was far more widely accepted than it appears from this thread. But this thread has made me wonder if there’s any point maintaining that position personally when almost no one agrees.

I honestly don’t think I’ve been sanctimonious / lecturing - it seemed self-evident to me. But apologies if I came across that way.

I do think it’s not justifiable (and posters here have said that this has been known for years and anyone who takes climate change seriously would have been avoiding it for years) and I had thought that argument was far more widely accepted than it appears from this thread. But this thread has made me wonder if there’s any point maintaining that position personally when almost no one agrees.

This makes no sense.

You start by saying air travel 'is not justifiable' but then say that maybe you could justify it simply because a few random anonymous strangers on MN disagree?

Not much strength to your convictions then, is there?

Fly abroad on holiday or not. Nobody cares. If you choose to do so, that is your personal decision and yours alone, not that of random folks on MN. Your whole line of reasoning is rather bizarre.

But @backoffice, why do you get to justify having a car to ferry elderly parents around when others don't get to justify flying to see family overseas? Your position seems quite self absorbed.

Everyone's circumstances are different. Not flying would probably be a far bigger sacrifice for me than it would for you, because most of my friends and a lot of family are abroad, whereas I don't need a car as much as you probably do, so public transport is generally fine for me.

I really don't understand why you're so invested in what other people think. If you think flying is terrible, then don't do it. Just don't expect everyone else to do exactly what you do.

My not having a car wouldn’t help, because it would just mean that Carers would be driving to the parents’ instead. It wouldn’t change the driving needed. There’s no public transport where we live that the parents could use.

Fair enough if people need planes to visit family/dependents. My question was exactly how do people justify it. That is one reason.

@backoffice

My not having a car wouldn’t help, because it would just mean that Carers would be driving to the parents’ instead. It wouldn’t change the driving needed. There’s no public transport where we live that the parents could use.

Fair enough if people need planes to visit family/dependents. My question was exactly how do people justify it. That is one reason.

People don't need to 'justify' it. Certainly not to standards acceptable to you.

And do you really never drive for reasons other than those stated above? I somehow doubt it. How do you justify it?

I’d happily get rid of the car. We don’t use it for anything else now. But as I say, we use it for elderly parents who live very close to us. No, we don’t use it for anything else. We largely wfh now and don’t go anywhere very far (when we do we take the train). Again, not really environmental reasons, just where we live.

@backoffice

I’d happily get rid of the car. We don’t use it for anything else now. But as I say, we use it for elderly parents who live very close to us. No, we don’t use it for anything else. We largely wfh now and don’t go anywhere very far (when we do we take the train). Again, not really environmental reasons, just where we live.

You've never used your car for any other reason?

Really?

But if you want to stay within a train ride of your home, that's fine. I enjoy travelling aboad and will be do so again as soon as I can. No need for me or anyone else to 'justify' that to you.

I accept your apology op

Had a lovely trip planned in 2020 taking in several countries - but all went to pot!

This is all a very very recent change to air travel isn’t it OP?!