After Covid, would you give up flying to combat climate change?

[Aprilrainbow]

After a horrid year we all want a holiday but would you be prepared to give up flying to combat climate change or is that a pre covid thing now? No axe to grind, just interested in peoples views.

Lots of discussion regarding cars whose impact is far less than air travel.

No, it’s far more. Passenger vehicles (cars and family vans) are more than triple the pollution of air travel, accounting for 15% of total EU CO2 emissions compared to aviation which accounts for 3.8% of total EU CO2 emissions.
ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport_en

No, that would be soul destroying. It would genuinely devastate me.

Having spent the past 10 years flying back and forth from the UK to Ireland, whilst caring for my Dad (RIP), I am planning to never fly again, just settle at home and love every minute of it. I wish I could say it's because I'm being considerate of climate change, but it's not - I just don't want to go anywhere, ever again.

To prevent catastrophic climate changes most people in the west will need to see changes across most aspects of their lives.
So flights, home heating, local transport, food, consumerism

Sadly, I think this is correct. But even on a parenting website, most people don’t care. I worry about the sort of future my daughter will have to face after I’ve gone.

No. I think it's the aviation industry's responsibility to develop air travel that is more environmentally friendly, not mine to miss out on travel to see friends and family around the world.

The auto industry is managing to move to electric. I'm more than happy to buy an electric car when the infrastructure is in place.

I will equally happily move to what the aviation industry creates when the time comes.

To me it's the same as 'smokeless fuel' - it got bad, smokeless fuel was created, we all moved on.

@midgebabe

To prevent catastrophic climate changes most people in the west will need to see changes across most aspects of their lives. So flights, home heating, local transport, food, consumerism You can decide there is no point in doing anything if you don't do everything all at once, but that will make things worse.

This isn’t going to happen. Sorry.

Actually, we need more development, more fossil fuels to raise living standards in the developing world.

If you claim to care about the ‘third world’ than this is what you’d advocate.

But I suspect the posters here don’t really care about the lives of those in the ‘third’ world.

Actually, we need more development, more fossil fuels to raise living standards in the developing world.

I agree wholeheartedly

If we care about developing and especially the least developed countries, rich countries should seriously invest in their development in a way that helps us to leapfrog the catastrophically expensive - in its lingering impacts - fossil fuel phase and the costs of transitioning away from it.

Not just from a climate perspective - because drought, food shortages and other climate impacts are likely to hit poorer countries harder - but also because we know that air pollution is a killer, and we should give a shit about poor kids not dying of pollution as well as of hunger and disease.

Saying ‘more fossil fuels’ is just investing in future problems.

There is something very sad about a thread with more than half stating they live in countries away from their families. Why? What's so dreadful about the places your family live in, surely you all want to maintain real relationships with your families?*

What a strange thing to say! My family live in different counties - and I have too - due to great career opportunities. It's not sad! It's brilliant that we've had the chance to live in other places and experience different things. I've travelled to see family in other countries and they've travelled to see me.

Some of my family decided to stay in the country they initially went to for a short stay, others have moved back home. It's just life! Nothing 'dreadful' with any of the countries they do/ don't choose to live in.

And it's perfectly possible to have a close relationship with your family even if you don't live in the same country.

Managed not to finish my first sentence! Agree wholeheartedly with the first sentiment, but disagree absolutely with the second.

Absolutely never op

MangoFeverDream, have a look at the effects of rising sea levels, especially in Bangladesh and the Maldives. You might also like to look at this www.theafricareport.com/53604/africa-climate-change-and-sustainable-development-must-be-a-two-way-street/

@shallbe

No, that would be soul destroying. It would genuinely devastate me.

I used to think this. But I'm now of the opinion that leaving the planet in the state it's in - with climate change close to having catastrophic consequences - for my children and grandchildren to grow up in, is far more devastating.

I'm not stupid enough to believe that my own actions will save the world - of course they won't. But if we don't all start behaving more responsibly, the fault will be 100 % ours.

@Frazzled2207 I'm not ignorant enough to think we can do nothing, there is a lot we can and must do, but to not be able to travel any more? Honestly that is a life not worth living as far as I'm concerned and I hope there's a lot more we can try to do before we get to that point.

Im not against potential restrictions, perhaps limiting people to miles etc, but my biggest frustration at calling an end to air travel or taxing it higher etc etc is that it won't be implemented fairly, it'll stop people like me from being able to travel, but for those with money and access to loopholes it won't apply and that simply isn't fair.

@shallbe
Yes you make a good point. As I said upthread the starting point needs to be stopping certain individuals from taking the complete piss, not just with flying but with their carbon emissions generally (house next to me has THREE range rovers, who on Earth needs THREE range rovers?).
Stopping/discouraging people from taking their annual foreign holiday will be politically impossible but I think we all need to accept that we’ll need to pay more and/or make sacrifices in order to do so

@Frazzled2207 yes absolutely, I hope there's a way we can make travel a bit more sustainable before trying to outright ban it. I would reduce flights, but I'd be loathed to stop entirely! I guess once you start reducing though that causes the price to go up, so either way it'll never be those "at the top" who are affected in the same way.

@Cattenberg

To prevent catastrophic climate changes most people in the west will need to see changes across most aspects of their lives. So flights, home heating, local transport, food, consumerism

Sadly, I think this is correct. But even on a parenting website, most people don’t care. I worry about the sort of future my daughter will have to face after I’ve gone.

Do you want your daughter to live in a world where she’s told where she can go and how often, what to eat, how many children she should have, if any? To be made to feel guilt and shame if she doesn’t fully comply? Sounds like a shit future to me.

Poor infrastructure is what really kills people in the developing world. Solve that and you’ll save far more people than any climate change initiative. That’s the truth.

In fact, deaths caused by the climate have actually had huge drops (although costs go
up as good infrastructure is more expensive)

[quote Cattenberg]MangoFeverDream, have a look at the effects of rising sea levels, especially in Bangladesh and the Maldives. You might also like to look at this www.theafricareport.com/53604/africa-climate-change-and-sustainable-development-must-be-a-two-way-street/[/quote]
I gave it a look but as usual, it says nothing about the wonderful work that has been done to reduce climate-related deaths in the past decades. Enabling these countries to actually build solid infrastructure to withstand climate-related disasters seems a better way to go.

This is from the WHO:

However, during the past 20 years, Bangladesh has managed to reduce deaths and injuries from cyclones. For example, the most recent severe cyclone of 2007 caused 4234 deaths, a 100-fold reduction compared with the devastating 1970 cyclone

The 1970 cyclone, btw, caused half a million deaths — numbers like that have not been seen in decades, despite the huge explosion in population, I might add.

You can read more here: www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/2/11-088302/en/

@Marchitectmummy

Yes we will, and have before this. The impact on the environment choosing to fly for business, to go for a weekend away is a selfish choice. Lots of discussion regarding cars whose impact is far less than air travel.

There is something very sad about a thread with more than half stating they live in countries away from their families. Why? What's so dreadful about the places your family live in, surely you all want to maintain real relationships with your families?

So if a member of youe family moved abroad you would also move to the same country?

Some of us live in different countries from our family due to attending Uni in a different country, working in a different country and marrying someone from a different country. It’s not unusual. Both DC’s have been lucky enough to obtain great post grad jobs - one in Belgium and the other in Singapore. We will travel regularly to see DC’s and both sets of parents.

Thanks for all the replies to my OP, you may be interested in another thread that I started. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4103374-After-Covid-will-we-still-be-so-worried-about-climate-change

No I wouldn't.

Not give it up entirely. I am rationing myself and my family. I do not want my dc to reach adulthood without ever visiting another country (as I did) and we live a full days journey from the south coast of the uk so Eurostar isn’t much of an option.

I used to enjoy flying and driving everyday but now I can’t see myself flying again. I loved the clear skies during lockdown. I think if you need to you need to but personally I don’t so won’t. We need beautiful sleeper trains instead.

Are you a journalist? Why are you creating threads you won’t e have with and directing people to other threads you’ve started? What’s going on?