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?

It’s not all ‘pretty pointless’ if we’re still flying. I do care about the environment but my job requires me to take 50-60 flights a year on average. It has been halved this year with the pandemic, but it’s going back up now.

I don’t have any children, I don’t own a car or even drive, I haven’t eaten one gram of meat or fish in my entire life, I wear old clothes and barely use any heating in my flat.

I do my bit as much as I can. What actually enrages me is people driving 5/10 minute trips to the supermarket, school or to meet a friend, when the trip could be done by foot. I’m not going to begrudge people their annual holiday when the main impact has been done by them having children or using cars 7 days a week. Because shopping bags are heavy or whatever reason they give.

Or teens going on about climate change but insisting on buying new clothes regularly, new phones, new everything. I’ve yet to meet a 16yo who has a phone from 2015 because it wouldn’t be cool. Consumerism is just as bad as flying.

CatsArePeople, no it was Royal Caribbean and so much better than before. Only 20% full and we were treated like VIP’s. The weather was amazing, I couldn’t have wished for a better holiday.

What actually enrages me is people driving 5/10 minute trips to the supermarket, school or to meet a friend, when the trip could be done by foot

How would you do a supermarket trip on foot, shopping for a household of five, out of interest?

@EasterIssland

Is this a thread to criticise those that travel ? You can also pay for your carbon offset

Total green washing

Jerseygirl12 thanks. I will think about it now.

I got rid of my car during the first lockdown and use the bus and my DH has just ordered an electric car, hopefully this makes up a bit for our holiday habit.

@SoloISland You and I are already in the best place in the world - the west of Ireland - so we don't need to go anywhere else, do we? Don't let the rest of them know, though ;)

Stick to local holidays you can cycle to. No guilt that way🤷

HarrisMcCoo or a tent in your garden you can walk to.

Surely if everyone makes small changes in everyday life they can still have their one abroad holiday a year?

To be fair, I have one child, I drive a hybrid and walk when I can, I don't tumble dry, I try not to have the heating on much, I don't eat very much meat so I think one holiday a year is probably fine. Saying that I've not been since September 2019.

@Jerseygirl12

HarrisMcCoo or a tent in your garden you can walk to.

Even better 😂

I would dearly love to fly again . I have enjoyed seeing other countries and so many things that we never would have otherwise seen and done. It encouraged my dd to do her degree in Spanish and French and get a job in where she uses mainly the French.
When I do travel it is short haul and is beneficial for my mental and physical health.
By travelling I help employment.
As for CC I do a bit but am put off by the celebs involved using private jets as buses and jumping from one holiday to the next and wearing designer clothes and accessories which they disgard and never reuse or wear many times which is disturbing and wasteful. Much more so than a few short haul flights .
I have some clothes 40 years old and mend things and remove buttons and zips off clothes before reusing were possible. I am not perfect, but when you watch those involved with cc and the lives they lead it makes you wonder why bother.

@HarebrightCedarmoon

What actually enrages me is people driving 5/10 minute trips to the supermarket, school or to meet a friend, when the trip could be done by foot

How would you do a supermarket trip on foot, shopping for a household of five, out of interest?

I’ve clearly said ‘when the trip could be done by foot’. When meaning ‘if’ - I apologise if it’s not perfect grammatically but English isn’t my first language.

It’s probably impossible to do a whole weekly shop for 5 on your own, without a car. I’m talking about those who could avoid using the car in certain situations, but choose not to - for comfort only.

If someone has 3 able-bodied teenagers and lives a 15 minute walk from the shops, then get them to walk there and back with the groceries. Weren’t teenagers the most concerned about climate change? How many of them would volunteer to do something like that? You mostly hear them asking for lifts to XYZ, not saying ‘thanks mum, but I’ll cycle instead’.

@backoffice I'm amazed, too. Genuinely thought more people cared about the climate crisis, especially parents.

I find it really worrying that we've been told we have maybe 8 years to avoid catastrophic planet wide events that will kill thousands upon thousands of people but most people seem to be carrying on as normal because "they want to"

You could do Eurostar OP. Less stressful than flying anyway imo. I do fly occasionally (probably once every 2/3 yrs) but I reckon that's OK as I am car and child free. May stop for good in the future, I haven't fully decided yet and there's a couple more places I wanna go before I die which require flying. So we'll see.

[quote Bhappy12]@backoffice I'm amazed, too. Genuinely thought more people cared about the climate crisis, especially parents.

I find it really worrying that we've been told we have maybe 8 years to avoid catastrophic planet wide events that will kill thousands upon thousands of people but most people seem to be carrying on as normal because "they want to" [/quote]
But didn’t those parents choose to have children already knowing what a state our planet was in when they procreated?

I want to have children myself in the future, but I can’t stand people with double standards. So people are flying because they ‘want to’ - what about those who had children 5/10/15 years ago, also because they ‘wanted to’?

In our view if the trip is going to be a positive educational and fun experience for our kids it's worth getting on a plane, probably once a year max. We also have friends abroad that we want to visit so that is justifiable too.

But to go and just sit on a sun lounger in the company of lots of other brits, we don't think we can justify that anymore (and wouldn't enjoy it anyway don't think).

This seems like a Mumsnet parody! We've agonised about it and concluded that it's fine to fly little Fabian and Allegra to St Petersburg to learn about architecture, or to visit Rupert and Sophie at their villa in Tuscany. But we're simply appalled to discover that our builder Darren is flying to some ghastly hotel in Faliraki to drink beer and turn red. Won't somebody please think about the environment?

@MurielSpriggs

I always thought that the omissions from the Icelandic earthquake caused more damage to the atmosphere than any humans had ever done. Happy to be corrected. The climate has always changed - I am in Scotland and it used to be very hot, hence the hills and mountains (former volcanoes). No humans were about in the ice age. It's just part of a cycle if you ask me.

@EileenGC
That's missing the point, though.
A person can choose not to fly in the future. They can not (legally) choose to not have an already living child. They can, however, choose not to have any more children, which many people do/have done. Many people had children before they knew the state the planet was in.

The best way to ensure there alternative options to flying is to book those alternative options eg. ferry and train.
If you are vaccinated I wouldn't be worried about taking Eurostar and changing on to further European trains - they have more stringent mask wearing requirements.
Alternatively take Brittany Ferries and book a private cabin. They take foot passengers on some services. They have some new LNG ships on order.
I doubt you would be able to travel on a cargo ship at the moment due to covid.

@Annoyedanddissapointed

Save the planet, eat a cow.

On it😂

🤣🤣🤣

[quote Bhappy12]@EileenGC
That's missing the point, though.
A person can choose not to fly in the future. They can not (legally) choose to not have an already living child. They can, however, choose not to have any more children, which many people do/have done. Many people had children before they knew the state the planet was in.[/quote]
Unless these children are old enough to have children of their own then the parents have not really been paying attention.

[quote Bhappy12]@EileenGC
That's missing the point, though.
A person can choose not to fly in the future. They can not (legally) choose to not have an already living child. They can, however, choose not to have any more children, which many people do/have done. Many people had children before they knew the state the planet was in.[/quote]
I’m in my 20s, and I was taught at school about the state of our planet. You’d have to be blind not to have realised it before, unless your kids are grown adults maybe. It’s not something that has only surfaced at the same time as social media which is why there are so many passionate climate change defenders now

I’m not saying people can give back their living children, but they shouldn’t be so quick to judge others - when their own impact is greater than that of those they’re judging.

I’ve been told by someone with 5 kids I’m not doing enough to save the planet. It’s a bit ironic when she chose to have 5 kids, yet she sees no problem in that?

@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.

I'd love to see some scientific evidence supporting this suggestion...