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?

This makes me think of my bosses.

Obsessed with @Teacherbee85 lecturing us about environment (even have a sustainability team to badger you even more) yet themselves fly about 10 times a year each to various exotic destinations.

I can’t afford to fly because of the cost of living but I would if I could!

Almost everyone in my circle has a no fly policy, not a no holiday policy.

We're well educated and work in coinage adjacent fields. It's much more common in wealthier and better educated circles, for obvious reasons

I fly every few years. Last time was last year to the US to visit friends, time before was three years prior to Canada to see same friends.

While I don't fly loads I did feel trapped during the travel restrictions through Covid and I wouldn't ever impose such restrictions on myself.

I have no current plans to fly.

I think its harder to be carbon friendly when poor, except through things like travel. I can't afford solar panels or electric cars, for example. I can't afford to buy local produce at higher prices. I work long hours so can't grow my own.

No. Only on mn. I'm lucky if I fly once a year anyway. That makes no difference to a flight that's already booked. Having children in the first place is a major contributor. I'm aware, don't do lots of things.

But I find some of the food rules confusing. Some need to be taken into perspective: eg because buying fruit from local shops helps. But some vegan products are produced far away so that can't be good airmiles wise. You need to be aware and conscious, but fur some decisions you'd have ti work out the maths (joke) using a complicated equation, and most people aren't prepared to do that.

We haven't flown for 16 years

Where did I say I was flying anywhere? I don't even live in the UK and even if I did I wouldn't be flying to Benidorm or Costa Del Sol - not my thing.

I was simply replying to your rather simplistic view of how tourism works - and for your information some countries actually have less tourists visiting than before the pandemic - lol

Lol.

They really need to look at making train travel more affordable.

I recently priced up a trip to London (I'm in Scotland).

Flying - £45 return
Coach - £68 return
Train - £110 return

If people didn't choose to fly, the airlines would cut their flight offerings. If other people fly that's their choice, but I've taken a personal decision not to contribute to that.

Agree wirh this. Flying used to be an expensive luxury. And probably should have remained so

I still fly on holiday 2 - 3 x per year. I don't feel too bad about that when business execs are still flying everywhere weekly. My carbon footprint is way lower than theirs

We fly once per year and train for any other holidays - we've gone to France, Italy and Croatia via train.

DH has quite a big conscience about the environment and feels guilty about every impact he has. I do care about the environment and I’ll do things to ease my footprint (like cycle my commute, think hard before consuming new goods, buy sustainably, and get my electricity from wind farms), but I’m a bit more of the mindset that whilst everyone else is destroying the planet by flying everywhere, I might as well get to do some of the fun things I want to do too.

We rarely fly long haul, but I do make him fly to Europe once a year. The rest of the time, we have UK holidays. We like outdoorsy holidays and Europe has more to offer in terms of infrastructure and reliable weather. This year, I convinced him to fly to Europe twice because we were just so sick of the weather.

Having said that, the weather this year has really made me think about how messed up global warming now is and what the future climate is going to be like. We don’t have children, but I do wonder how people with kids aren’t more stressed about the planet they’re leaving behind.

No I don’t know anyone either

If you have kids are you not worried about them blaming you for your choices now?

It’s not impossible that due to a combination of storm surge and failure of the Thames Barrier, London could be flooded well within their lifetimes. With obvious huge losses of life and a huge number of refugees into the rest of the country. I very much hope it won’t happen but it is not impossible. Let alone any of the other possible effects kids are likely to see in their lifetimes.

I want to be able to look my child in the eye and say we tried is probably a lot of why I limit flights.

I know people who refuse to fly unless necessary for environmental reasons.

I very cynically have observed that they are all from very comfortable families for whom it was de rigeur to “summer” in Tuscany or Provence as children and ski in winter so they had their fill of foreign trips when young and can now afford (both financially and emotionally) to be smug about the fact they no longer “feel the need” to fly.

Not quite the same if you are from a family which has never travelled outside the UK.

I do think we need to reduce casual air travel as a society but there is a very self satisfied brand of upper middle class Puritanism around this which I find to be a bit “I’m alright Jack.”

I work in supply chain planning, and sustainability is very much on the agenda for many organisations. It's pretty eye-opening to realise how interconnected and interdependent the world is in creating and selling products of any description. It makes me think of The Good Place, where buying a tomato in 2020 results in minus 1,000 points for someone - we really aren't in control of a lot of the choices we make as an end-user. So I do what I can, where I can - I don't actively choose holidays abroad, we have rich and varied options here in the UK. We grow our own food, and have solar panels (in situ when we moved to this house, but one of the big deciding factors in making an offer), we drive as little as possible and use public transport, etc.

I just used a carbon footprint calculator, but I think it has some flawed logic in it, with assigning fewer points if I had an electric car vs fossil fuel. Electric cars are terrible for the environment during their production phase of existence, and they take something like 6 or 7 years of use before they become 'neutral' - and the batteries only last about 10 years! I really don't feel it's a good enough trade-off for the environment's sake, and would rather own 1 car as long as possible and use it as little as possible.

I try and minimise, so short haul ,maximum once a year and only flown a handful of times in my life. I wouldn't tend to be too vocal about it as it will look pretentious and hollier than thou, invites others to say what about this and that, I have more than 2 children which means my track record isn't great environmentally, I know it's a drop in in the ocean etc, I don't want to imply criticism of other people's choices when they might reduce their footprint in other ways, like having no children.

I've stopped flying abroad for holidays because oh the environment - not saying I'll never do it again, but so far, only once in the last ten years.
A lot of people I know haven't stopped, but have cut back on multiple weekend minibreaks.

We can't afford holidays abroad. It's camping every other year or staying with relatives for us.

I sometimes pretend it's for the environment though. If someone is being really boring about their multiple holidays, particular if they are a proper sk bore. I might crack and say something like ' oh we don't ski so that future generations get snow" then I feel a bit of an idiot.

Thepeopleversuswork
Agree with this sentiment too

You must get stacks of AL …..we just been to Croatia…2 hrs 15 min flight….not sure how many trains I would have taken starting from NW England….would have taken ages…..the flights cost me 75 quid return …..the train would have far more expensive

Likely cut back on short breaks due to flight increases ….we used to go Liverpool to Dublin for a tenner pre covid..….those days are gone

I know a few people like this. I always feel guilty about my holidays (see username). But, I try to go short haul rather than long haul, I try to use public transport if possible when there, I am vegetarian and take the train to work. What I do notice is that often those who don’t fly also don’t really care about international travel and so it isn’t really a hardship for them. I also only have one child, whereas the people I know who choose not to fly have more than one.

I didn't fly for 30 years- was skint. I've flown once this year, and am planning another trip soon.

If our sitting MPs and former prime ministers can fly between here and America for a couple of days at a time on a whim, then I'm assuming it's not that big of an emergency and I'm going with that.

I hate the do as I say, not as I do attitude of the wealthy.

Just because other people are stupid and destroying the planet doesn't mean you should follow their example

( although since you haven't flown most of your life another flight , another flight is fine )