Can you go a year without flying?

[watervole]

 We have a decade in which to halve our carbon emissions - or see our children's future destroyed. There are many things we can do towards this goal, but one of the simplest and most effective is to cut down on aviation.

Just one return flight from London to New York produces a greater carbon footprint than a whole year's personal allowance needed to keep the climate safe.

There are currently no green alternatives to aviation fuel. Biofuels come from palm oil, and are a big cause of tropical deforestation.

If you think you can go through 2020 without flying, sign the pledge here - https://www.flightfree.co.uk/pledge

Easy for me - I've already signed.  I realised the carbon cost of flying much earlier than most  (I did my degree in Environmental Sciences) and gave up flying back in 2002.

One international flight blows your carbon budget out of the water - it's as simple as that.
 

Comments

[espresso_addict]

Can't recall when I last flew; several years before we came up here, so at least ~7 years? Not planning on doing so in 2019 but we might conceivably need urgent medical care that required a helicopter flight.

[watervole]

I feel medical emergencies are a valid exemption.

Not planning any holidays or other trips by air is the intent.

[history_monk]

Signed up. Should not be difficult: I have not flown since 2006, originally because of the War on Moisture, and more recently on exactly these grounds.

[watervole]

Thanks. It's reassuring to know there are other people who feel the same way.

Could I ask you to mention it in your journal/blog/whatever, as well?

That ten-year deadline is awfully close, and most people don't even know what the high CO2 activities are.

[kotturinn]

Will sign. Don't think I've flown this century - never was the greatest traveller though. Also read Silent Spring at an impressionable age and segued into wider environmental concerns from that.

[watervole]

Thanks!

Please plug it on your journal as well. I think there's still very little awareness of the massive carbon footprint of long distance travel. People tend to think they can save the world by recycling plastic - it's a lack of knowledge.

(there's also the problem that airlines make a big thing of carbon-offsetting, in spite of the fact that most carbon offset schemes don't actually work)

[damerell]

Heathrow has some nice signs up about how 50% of pax arrive by train, which would be all very well if they didn't depart by aircraft.

[watervole]

Too true.

It's a bit like criuse ships. They have very bad CO2 footprints to start with, but most people fly to where the cruise starts, making it even worse.

[watervole]

I remember Silent Spring. I read it when I was at university.