It’s our planet that needs a break
SEPTEMBER is hoving into view, the Christmas chocolates are already on sale in Tesco and the long summer holiday season is (almost) at an end. Time to shake the sand out of the suitcase, put the passports away somewhere safe, riffle through those holiday snaps (or cast them from your phone to the telly which is less time consuming than sending them to Max Spielmann but also less fun) and reflect on where you’ve been – and what sort of damage you’ve inflicted on the planet while you’ve done it.
I’m not talking about the plastic straws with your sundowner cocktail here. I mean your carbon footprint.
Now, this kind of introspection never used to bother me.
Let someone else save the planet – I worked hard and I’d damn well have a foreign holiday once a year.
But that was before climate change, melting ice-caps and burning Amazon rainforests.
And kids who can now manage their own affairs, including booking and paying for holidays.
To date, our two have taken more than a dozen flights between them this
year alone. Short hops to Paris and Berlin, a girls’ week in Greece, a trip to see a girlfriend’s mum in Sweden – they’ve criss-crossed the globe on their travels without a care in the world. Their carbon footprints must be enormous.
They’re not alone. I speak to friends and many of their kids too think nothing of hopping on board an aircraft and escaping to foreign climes.
Now, none of these young jet-setters are the offspring of millionaires.
They don’t travel first class on Cathay Pacific to the Caribbean – it’s usually a budget airline flight to a European destination or a fun-in-the-sun week by the pool with mates funded by a student loan, a bit of savings and the bank of mum and dad.
Nevertheless they are merrily adding to the 900 million tonnes of gases emitted every year as a result of the 4.4 billion passengers who take to the air, damaging the planet and contributing to climate change.
And there’s the rub. Air travel is now relatively cheap and unquestioningly more convenient and that’s why we do it. Because we can.
Years ago, buying a flight was a pricey business. People only took a couple a year – that was all they could afford. Now we’re in different territory, taking to the air is affordable and even ordinary folk think nothing of two holidays a year.
Meanwhile, recent analysis has found that almost two thirds of long-distance journeys in the UK are cheaper by air than rail.
A quick Google search reveals a train ticket to London will come in pricier than a hop to Warsaw or Hamburg. Little wonder air travel is regarded by many as a bit like getting on a bus.
But how do we square the circle that sees the planet under immense man-made strain yet populated by people who can afford and love and need to travel?
Is there a way to improve the efficiency of every flight rather than expecting people to take fewer trips? Some think better airspace management would be a start – more direct flights, for instance – as well as more efficient aircraft.
Or should we impose a carbon-offset levy on flights?
There are no easy answers but we sure as hell need to find solutions – and soon.