Page 19 | To feel I can’t holiday abroad again?

Marni83 · 16/09/2021 06:08

That one trip you had planned for… last year was going to involve more flying than most people do in a year when they take an annual holiday.

Op you’ve not come across as sanctimonious

You have come across as plain daft. Someone who had planned extensive air travel for a holiday last year. And now is wringing her hands with despair that others plan to fly for a holiday still.

It’s farcical

traumatisednoodle · 16/09/2021 06:12

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

I have never heard this or seen it reported anywhere else. Please link a source that eating beef is good for the enviroment.

SoloISland · 16/09/2021 06:54

Is this debate what they mean by first world problems?

Mine is much simpler; how to manage to walk as far as my gate... ah well...

Original poster

backoffice · 16/09/2021 08:05

@Marni83 last years trip was via train through several countries - not plane.

OP posts:

ravenmum · 16/09/2021 08:07

That one trip you had planned for… last year grin was going to involve more flying than most people do in a year when they take an annual holiday
It says in the opening post that the trip was by train.

ravenmum · 16/09/2021 08:08

Crossposted. And in any case I think someone's just posting for reactions. Going to save carbon and unwatch the thread

Marni83 · 16/09/2021 08:09

Apologies

Plumtree391 · 16/09/2021 15:25

@SoloISland

Is this debate what they mean by first world problems?

Mine is much simpler; how to manage to walk as far as my gate... ah well...

I suppose it is, however it is natural for people to talk about holidays if they are used to going on them.

SoloISland, I don't go out further than my front drive so you have my sympathy but I don't object to others doing more exciting things, further afield. I'd be more concerned if they didn't!

Being unable to go out at all is not a first world problem, it could happen to anyone anywhere. At least here in the UK we can have groceries and other things delivered.

Marni83 · 16/09/2021 16:10

@SoloISland

Is this debate what they mean by first world problems?

Mine is much simpler; how to manage to walk as far as my gate... ah well...

This kind of comment always gets me

Because there’s always someone worse off than you

Someone could say to you

“You can walk to your gate? I can’t walk at all”

Someone could say

“You have your own gate?” I am homeless

Polkadots2021 · 16/09/2021 16:19

@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?

Ferry over to France then interrail. We have a far more terrible Covid rate than anywhere in Europe and loads of Euro countries have trains far cleaner and cheaper than ours so I wouldn't freak out about the Covid risks!

Plumtree391 · 16/09/2021 16:26

Marni83

This kind of comment always gets me

Because there’s always someone worse off than you

Someone could say to you

“You can walk to your gate? I can’t walk at all”

Someone could say

“You have your own gate?” I am homeless
...........
Exactly.

It also makes people feel bad about being excited over something they do or intend to do.

Why we cannot just accept that everybody's circumstances are different, I don't know.

There is not one person alive who won't experience some sort of health problem at some stage. Good for anyone who grabs opportunities to enjoy themselves.

Marni83 · 16/09/2021 16:28

I’m a little confused with your first comment about this being a first world problem then?

Marni83 · 16/09/2021 16:28

Generally that means… trivial!

DdraigGoch · 16/09/2021 17:15

@SylvanasWindrunner

This graphic from The Guardian is interesting.

That answers another poster's question. One child is equivalent to 36 return flights. So yes, a return flight per year for 36 years is as damaging as having a child. One certainly can't justify two/three flights a year on the basis of being childfree.

MurielSpriggs · 16/09/2021 19:15

That answers another poster's question. One child is equivalent to 36 return flights. So yes, a return flight per year for 36 years is as damaging as having a child. One certainly can't justify two/three flights a year on the basis of being childfree.

Ah, but you don't know how many children I haven't had

Rozziie · 16/09/2021 19:59

@DdraigGoch you're doing so well with the maths....keep going....

Someone who has three children, like OP, is then doing the equivalent damage of someone taking three flights a year.

Annoyedanddissapointed · 16/09/2021 23:29

Is it 36 return flights per a plane or per a person's proportion?
Ifykwim

Pikamoo · 17/09/2021 03:24

From your latest posts OP it sounds like you're looking at the life you live and making out to yourself and others that you're very virtuous because you've got good rail links/local amenities so don't need to use your car much and you're fortunate enough to have the money and access to obtain locally produced meat.

Do you have solar panels to cover your energy needs? If not, do I get to look down my nose at you for not having them when I do? Even though you probably live in the UK where it's much harder to produce your own power and I live in the tropics where solar panels are a no brainer?

My concessions to flying in a more econconcious way are no business class
(ha ha, what a saint I am for sacrificing something I couldn't afford anyway 😂) and paying extra for carbon offset. It's not realistic to not fly at all though (just like I'd imagine solar panels are not realistic for you...).

Scottishskifun · 17/09/2021 09:48

@backoffice

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.

😂 Your still doing it whilst in the same post saying that you don't think your being lecturery..... Seriously read your post again! For YOU it's not justifiable that's fine that's YOUR decision. Your trying to be on a high and mighty soap box based on your life despite many posters pointing out there are other things which can be done which they choose to do that also have a reduction level often greater than simply stopping flying.

Your also showing your lack of knowledge or effort made into actually researching climate change issues if you think that a vegetarian diet contributes more than meat.....
Just a heads up a simplistic breakdown for you, it's the energy required to produce something, the emissions this produces and the yield level (input tonnage versus output).

For crops this is based around energy requirements, water consumption and transportation but its done once and some crops are worse than others (almonds being a good example of high levels of water required).
But for meat you have the energy required to produce feed, high tonnage of food input required per kg of output and for cows especially methane production as a consequence then transport. Buying your meat from 20 miles away doesn't mean that it hasn't travelled any ideas where your nearest abattoir is?????
The energy requirements for meat are always going to be higher than a single crop!

chocolatesaltyballs22 · 18/09/2021 08:04

Testing rules have been scrapped people - GET BOOKING!!

Hoppinggreen · 18/09/2021 08:15

I booked just before the changes were announced and prices shot up!

EasterIssland · 18/09/2021 08:25

@Hoppinggreen

I booked just before the changes were announced and prices shot up!

Im traveling to bcn to meet some friends and booked them on Monday because I thought that they’d go up in price as soon as this was announced. I already paid a fortune on Monday and since then it’s gone up by £200

Lweji · 18/09/2021 09:14

@chocolatesaltyballs22

Testing rules have been scrapped people - GET BOOKING!!

There may be test rules to go abroad, though.

Marni83 · 18/09/2021 09:24

@chocolatesaltyballs22

Testing rules have been scrapped people - GET BOOKING!!

You do realise the UK government doesn’t speak on behalf of world and their approach to testing and visitors don’t you?

Annoyedanddissapointed · 18/09/2021 09:26

@chocolatesaltyballs22

Testing rules have been scrapped people - GET BOOKING!!

Watch. Out. It's like when they announced happily that Bulgaria goes on algelreen and Bulgaria swiftly put UK on red😂 Means barely anything if UK does something.

HOWEVER, the profiteering on tests compared to many other places was disgusting and it's good it's going