No holidays - carbon footprint

[Teacherbee85]

I've noticed recently whenever anyone posts about flying to go on holiday they tend to get jumped on by people saying it's bad for the environment.

I don't think I know any of these people in real life - everyone I know goes on holiday at least twice a year.

But on mumsnet a lot of people seem to have stopped due to environmental reasons.

If this is you, when did you make the decision? How do you deal with family and friends who so still choose to fly regularly?

DD's work has done this. Mind you she is a climate change researcher! But yes, if you can reach a place from London in 12 hours then you take the train, and her employer sucks up the time.

But her job and research is one of the reasons I've cut right back on flights and seek other ways to holiday. We have also stopped eating meat and cut right down on dairy.

Small changes by everyone does/would make a difference. If you don't believe this then you may as well accept we're doomed. And I won't accept that!

@Kitkat1523 we live 10 mins from Kings Cross so that does help, we can get a really early Eurostar (tbh up everyday at 6 with the kids) so can be most places by the evening the following day. With Croatia we stopped in bavaria for a few nights on the way and France in the way back so didn't feel too painful. We don't get loads of leave but we can work from the train so that makes it easier

I don't believe that contradicts what I said? The 7-8% from the UK is accounted in the UKs 1% global figure.

As for you giving up beef. Great! I wasn't talking to you specifically though...
I wonder why you haven't given up dairy yet? Despite it being a large contributor to CO2? Is it perhaps because your quality of life is improved with dairy? If so, I don't judge you for that! That's the thing, people need to make personal informed choices to reduce emissions. You removing beef from your life is a great choice.
To my original point which seems to be getting skewed by some people; I don't believe reducing travel is necessarily the best thing a person can do to help. Not just because of the raw numbers but because as I said previously, I truly believe travel is beneficial in all sorts of ways. Mentally, for local economies, for worldwide diplomacy.

I highly doubt the people in this thread trying to guilt others to stop flying have all decided to 1 - not have children, 2- become vegan, 3- only buy local, 4- don't drive, 5- dont buy fast fashion...I could go on....

I don’t think I’m a better person than you, I think I just have knowledge that you perhaps don’t. That’s not a dig or an insult, I just think unless you actively seek out information about climate change you won’t know the full situation. If you just take in what pops up in mainstream media then you get a bit of an idea but not full account. Once you know, you can’t ‘unknow’. And then the choice becomes clearer. I can’t unknow what I know so I now wouldn’t enjoy a carbon heavy holiday.

Have you ever totted up the carbon to see? I think you’d be surprised.

“Doing a little bit is better than doing nothing.”

You are absolutely right. Small steps and small changes soon add up. One less flight a year for a frequent flyer is still better than carrying on the same. I think it’s unhelpful to get into absolutes or say ‘well I don’t do this so I can do that’. I think it’s more about direction of travel. If we all keep working on reducing our carbon footprint every little bit helps. We are heading for disaster but how much of a disaster is still in our hands.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/24/record-hottest-day-earth-temperature-july

Yet another piece of bad news about our very shaky situation. We know this is happening, we know it will be utterly catastrophic, yet, we all carry on doing what we know contributes to it being worse. I include myself. I don’t fly, but I do consume in other ways. I could do better.

No it doesn't contradict what you said. But the way I initially used your figures in my own head was to combine them to give that UK flights account for 1% of 1% of global emissions (which would be correct if the UK composition of emissions was the same as the global average). But in fact that would be wrong. UK flights account for 8% of 1% of global emissions. Which is almost an order of magnitude bigger!

As I said, I'm cutting down on dairy. I'm making incremental changes and have stopped eating it in circumstances where there isn't too much personal cost to me and I'm still exploring more ways to change my habits. I've not 100% cut out beef either (I'd eat it if a friend cooked it, but I don't cook it myself or choose it when eating out). To me it's logical to look for easy changes: if it's better for the environment and isn't a big deal for me, then I may as well do it. I think it is different from being vegetarian because you believe it is fundamentally wrong to eat animals. That feels like an all or nothing moral decision, in a way that cutting down on relatively harmful activities isn't.

We drive very little, have recently switched to an electric car and I buy most of my clothes second hand (despite being in the 100k+ income bracket, so it is not a money thing).

I think it's a really unhelpful response to someone raising a valid point about the environmental impact of an activity to say "Ah, but I bet you still do XYZ". Even if we make small changes on environmental grounds it is better than nothing and it makes absolute sense for everyone to choose the changes that are easiest for them personally. A change isn't any less useful because you find it relatively easy!