To ask you to swerve vacations abroad on airplanes

[Happyone99]

Inspired by https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5433252-to-ask-you-to-swerve-shein-temu?page=24

As mentioned above, I personally don’t use Shein or Temu because they ARE terrible. However, why only change bad things lower income people happen to be involved with, rather than starting with things higher income people are involved with

Slave labour and poor working conditions are indeed terrible. So is the climate crisis, exacerbated by rich people flying on airplanes for vacations, and poor people in low-lying countries like Bangladesh suffer worst environmental consequences

Who are responsible for the most emissions and who are suffering the most?

The differences between various European countries are small. And all of them eat far too much meat, including the UK.

I fly to Italy and back at least twice a month as my partner is Italian and lives there. I'd have been quite happy to move and get a job there, which would have cut down on flights, but thanks to Brexit that's now out of the question. I could get married to him, for the Italian passport, but I think I prefer the flights for now! So no, I won't be cutting down on my flights as I have no other option, if I want to maintain my relationship, which I do.

Which is why people need to be more conscious of their use of it. At least I don’t do a google
search to compose a 3 line email
for me.

You're not just "genuinely curious" or you wouldn't have responded to PP with the laughable sanctimony you've used so far

No.

You're shoe-horning two different things together, not sure why?! There is a moral dilemma here; yes the workers have poor conditions, is that better or worse than no job at all? With regards to climate and pollution, just the top 5 polluting nations create as much CO2 etc as every other nation on earth so blame China/Russia/USA/India etc over someone taking occasional flights.

I think you'd have had a different response if you'd gone with this initially as it's more clear to everyone.

I'm in Australia, flying is pretty much the only way we will travel anywhere.
But, we have solar panels, DH is a recycling freak (so dedicated to recycling everything), we do look for ways to have less of an impact on the planet. We can't change what others do or solve global warming alone, we just quietly do what we can.

YANBU, I avoid flights as much as humanly possible - but it's a structural problem. Europe & the UK need to invest in a really good high speed/overnight rail network, and the EU needs to throw fuel subsidies at that rather than at the aviation industry. Train travel is ludicrously expensive whilst flights are cheap, and that's why it's so hard to persuade people to travel over land rather than fly.
The aforementioned rail networks are being slowly built, but IMHO they should be a priority.

OP you should have asked

AIBU to ask people to not get dogs anymore in order to save the planet.

THEN you'd have seem the drama....

well isn't it just lovely that different people like different things

😆

In one situation, a person buying from Shein/Temu unnecessarily is contributing to slave labor and poor working conditions, however little. In the other, a person flying unnecessarily is contributing to climate change, however little. Countries like China create so much emissions because countries like UK do business with them and their factories. Both situations here are terrible. People can and should do their best to consume responsibly by avoiding fast-fashion and flights etc, but also realize no one is perfect - it’s not fair for more privileged people to judge the choices of less privileged ones while making poor choices themselves

We have family abroad and I won’t stop having a relationship with them to save on carbon emissions. We work on reducing our impact in many ways but not that one. We both also fly long haul for business a dozen times a year. There’s not much we can do about that!

Why don't you ask the people with the power to make trains cheaper than flights to do so? Really, I take a couple of cheap Ryanair flights to Europe a year because that's what I can afford. I prefer to travel by train (or cross the oceans on a ship, and take weeks off work to do so). Please, leave the working people alone and use your energy to change the regulations!

YANBU. I haye flying and find it mad that people will go to such extreme lengths to escape their lives for a week or two!!!

Deal with the billionaires first. This article specifies the ‘average Scot’ (because it’s via Oxfam Scotland) but I imagine that’s pretty similar to the average Welsh woman. What I do literally has no effect against this backdrop.
Billionaires’ private jets emit more carbon pollution in just over a day than the average Scot does in a year.
https://scotland.oxfam.org.uk/latest-news/billionaires-private-jets-emit-more-carbon-pollution-in-just-over-one-day-than-average-scot-does-in-a-year/

Ban private jets, I fly abroad about twice a decade - I’m not the problem.

Not everyone hates flying, so it’s not an ‘extreme length’.
I don’t go abroad to ‘escape my life’. I like my life. Holidays and travel are part of it. What an odd way yo look at things.

Fast fashion is a bigger polluter than air travel, so the fast fashion purchaser contributes more to climate change on top of causing societal damage.

aIBu To ask you to swerve dogs?

All dogs.

They destroy the planet with greenhouse emissions cos they eat lots of cows and stuff.
They destroy perfectly clean footpaths
Their poo bag surprises destroy trees when their owners gleefully sling them up there for fun for no apparent reason
They destroy perfectly good pubs with woofing and disturbing everyone else with the pneumatic wagging tail on your leg.
They destroy parks as you can no longer walk into one without risking being flattened by passing pouches on a drive by mission
They destroy families because people think they are pseudo babies and if they didn't have them they'd be forced to have an actual child instead this reducing the need for immigration.
And cos Lassie was just shit.

This way without dogs we can all still go on holiday on planes guilt free

It’s not about the quantity of damage. It’s about people realizing that as human beings it can be hard to give up things that bring us joy, even if it contributes to the suffering of others. As easy as it is for a rich person to switch from Shein/Temu to alternatives, the same behavioral response is not that easy for someone with more financial constraints

I get that. But you are suggesting flying is worse for the environment. To quote a person buying from Shein/Temu unnecessarily is contributing to slave labor and poor working conditions, however little. In the other, a person flying unnecessarily is contributing to climate change
What about the billionaire emissions that I mentioned earlier? Any response to that?

Exactly - I'll stop flying when the "climate change - save the planet" meetings are held on Zoom instead of being massive consumption junkets in various cities around the world !

I won’t be stopping anytime soon and I consider other steps I take like having 52 solar panels on my roof along with other things I put into practice help balance up my eco credentials

Did I misread your post then, I thought you were saying dont eat meat every day like the vast majority of Europeans (meaning they dont eat meat everyday)

Or were you saying, dont be like the vast majority of Europeans who eat meat every day?