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?

Places I can get to in a day, by train: Paris. Amsterdam. Brussels (Ghent, Bruges). Marseille. Cologne. Berlin (at a stretch).

You can only do that if you can guarantee every part of your journey will run to time. And you can only book that trip if you can be confident that your trains and buses to get to London will run at all.

Logistically it can be a nightmare, especially for a family with baggage for a week. Going to the local airport in their own car is the only practicable way many families could get abroad on holiday.

Please try to be a little less judgemental.

I’ll stop flying when people stop having more than 2 kids and stop eating meat and other animal products, when people stop buying into fashion and keep wearing the same clothes for 10 years.

I grew up in poverty and I can finally afford holidays. Once a year. Little ones on little EasyJet planes :)

I don't buy from Shein and Temu. I work in renewable energy and I delete old messages, emails and my spam folder. I don't use AI (since hoarding emails and using AI is a big carbon footprint issue!)

Even on the carbon footprint calculator I'm doing pretty well ☺️ everything in moderation!

You know, I never considered the email/spam folder thing, thank you - I’m going to do a clean up, absolutely excellent information

The bottom line is, people are not prepared to give up things they enjoy.

And I guess that's fair enough as there is no concerted effort going on. Why make pointless sacrifices?

If we are serious about this, I like the idea of individual carbon allowances. That way, people can prioritise what's important to them. However, I have no idea how this could be administered in a way that rich people can't buy extra for themselves.

Were you desperate to wave the racism card ?

We are going to Annecy from the NW of England this summer. Plane to Geneva only cuts 90 mins off the journey and involves a 5 am start and Manchester Airport. No contest for us.
But I do fly to Dubrovnik when I go for work - as there are no trains!

As others have said:

you are probably just targeting the slightly „less poor“ people. Those that can afford their one week, easyJet holiday.

Frequent flyers, (non essential) business flyers and especially private airplanes are much more of an issue tbh.

oh, and if you really want to get down into the nitty gritty:

I can’t stand the people going on about the environmental impact of flying. But still going on 4-month road trips by car!! It’s lovely that the journey is part of the holiday for you. But the environmental impact clearly can’t be why you look down on people that choose to fly instead!

We are a family of 4 and we manage our luggage just fine. The DCs are old enough to wheel a case each but they are too old to share a case because DS is nearly adult size.

no clue how. Also when we come down to work: If somebody flies for work, is that part of the individual allowance?

and if yes: what about a farmer‘s tractor?

what about people in areas with bad public transport options? Or those that need frequent hospital visits (or home visits)?

I really like the idea in theory but I fear it would be insanely difficult to actually put into practice. And it would create a whole new set of issues and inequalities.

Not according to the source I linked. Here's another very interesting in depth investigation into the carbon footprint of ferries vs flying:

https://strategic-innovation.co.uk/ferry-or-fly-a-sustainable-travel-dilemma/

which basically concludes that there is little difference and ferries may well be worse and often are depending on measuring methodology.

Getting the ferry to Europe certainly isn't any less damaging in terms of emissions than a short haul flight.

So as the environmental consultant linked says, we should concentrate efforts into producing less damaging aviation/marine fuel, not pointless virtue signalling about using one problematic transport mode over another.

Oh well. As long as you get to see it- that’s the main thing. 😂

no, as long as lots of people see it, not just the super rich, that's the main thing.

Well no, I won't.

Because we, too, are a family (on a low income). We, too, have luggage. We pack light (ironically, as of course there is a near unlimited luggage allowance on trains). Even at 7 DS2 carried his own rucksack.

This year we got from Truro to Cologne in one day (could have got to Berlin, but it would have been a pretty late arrival with DC- something that happens all the time with cheap flights, mind you 🙄).

Had a train been delayed? From Cornwall- well, on our very first Interrail trip, our very first train was cancelled! Luckily I'd built in enough of a margin of error that we still managed to catch our Eurostar. If not, we would have had to catch the evening Eurostar to Brussels- they will rebook you without a fuss if you've had a genuine connecting train delay. This year, if our Eurostar to Brussels had been running late, we'd have missed our connection to Cologne- but we would have been able to get the next train an hour later. You see, trains between major destinations go very very regularly. Unlike planes- especially from regional airports- where you often only have one flight a day or less, so if you miss it you're absolutely fucked.

In addition, if a train is delayed you get Delay Repay. Starting at 15 minutes late in the UK, 60 minutes in the EU/ Interrailing. What do you get if your flight is delayed for 60 minutes ? 😆😆😆 I'll have to ask my friends who spent ALL NIGHT at Gatwick with their DC on the way to America last year. I think it was a small bottle of water and a pastry each! Deutsche Bahn would have put them up in a hotel!

I've had 3 easyjet holiday flights delayed oberthe past few years and in both cases the standard flight delay compensation for one leg of the journey, which was paid automatically within a few days, almost equalled the whole family's entire return flight costs and made our holiday cost significantly more reasonable! I actively want my Easyjet flights to be delayed by a few hours now 😄

Hmmm....that's an interesting piece, but the data doesn't seem to differentiate between foot passengers and car passengers there.

Based on something I read somewhere that broke it down (and I can't remember where, aaaargh!)- a foot passenger would create less emissions. A single person in a car would create more emissions than if they'd just flown. However a car with 3 or four people in would obviously create less emissions than 3 or 4 people flying.

(and now I'm going to have to track down where I read that aren't I! )

The other aspect of this is that shipping has more potential to clean its act up than aviation. Low carbon aviation fuel and electric passenger planes are still a way away. Meanwhile, Brittany Ferries has already got a couple of gas powered ships in operation- yes, still a fossil fuel, but considerably more efficient, and of course much cleaner. There are some exciting developments in battery power atm as well- apparently they've already got some electric barges on the Kiel Canal.

He does talk about that difference thoug and also contacted one of the big ferry companies who said they had to include the effect if all the cargo that is on board at the same time which wipes out the single foot passenger effect, according to them.

There is considerable research into cleaner aviation fuel going on and the aviation industry is of course much bigger so I dont see why it would necessarily be easier/quicker to clean up marine transport. Here is a very recent government backed initiative to clean up aviation for example:

"£43 million boost for green aviation to drive growth, jobs and cleaner flights
The funding will go towards UK research and development projects that help deliver net zero aviation by 2050."

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/43-million-boost-for-green-aviation-to-drive-growth-jobs-and-cleaner-flights

Its certainly not as simple as " planes bad, ferries good" is it?

why would i be?

@crackofdoom

Low carbon aviation fuel and electric passenger planes are still a way away.

Indeed, this is one of those issues where there have been lots of promises over the years but to steal a quote from Feynman, "nature cannot be fooled" - for example ask Dale Vince how ecojet is doing.

TBF the industry has done wonders reducing aircraft 😉fuel burn/emission output over the last few decades.

You get up to £520 compensation and if you are stuck overnight like your friends you get food and accommodation paid for on top. Airlines are not above the law and have to operate within certain guidelines, pretty much the same as any transport providers, your friends should have done a quick google search to find out their legal rights when delayed overnight.

Has anyone so far on this thread pointed out that no amount of hair shirting on this thread by people patting themself on the back that they don't fly is going to make any measurable impact on world levels of greenhouse gases or on climate change?

Not until you can stop all three of China, India and the US producing more and more greenhouse gases each year.

So if it makes you feel good to give up air travel for holidays, knock yourself out, go do that. But you aren't even saving an ant, never mind the planet, so please can we stop the preaching?

He used to live around the corner to me but he's moved away now

Yes. Just as we are learning that the wealthy elite can literally traffic children and get away with it, and that almost every powerful figure globally is connected to abetting/covering these crimes, I certainly feel that my democratic voice on the environment is heard and more vital to these people than their own bank balance profiting from corporate pollution.

This.

We got £520 per person, a refund of expenses (dinner of around £130) and new flights paid for. We were offered an accommodation voucher, but flew a few hours later so it wasn’t needed. This was in 2024.