The fkipside of less travel (and air isn't significantly worse than the other options, for a lot of people other options arent really valid unless they only want to go to france) would be a more insular, inward facing society which is less cosmopolitan. That in itself would lead to significant issues, more likely for wars to occur and I imagine they aren't great for the environment either..
People who drive SUVs (which are often basically standard cars with taller bodies) get a lot of flak when people driving round in old campers and transit convertions or T4s seem to be ignored.
Heh. I always think of that when I see people chugging around (increasingly infrequently these days, tbf) in a VW T2.
Someone round our way owns a T3. But in fairness to their carbon footprint, it only seems to move once a fortnight...
I'll stop flying when China stops building coal fired power stations.
I’ll stop flying when China stops building coal fired power stations.
China will stop building coal fired power stations when it's co2 emissions per capita come anywhere close to rich western nations where people think nothing of taking flights merely for pleasure.
Everyone everywhere is finding a reason why they should not be the first to reduce emissions, and I don't see how this impasse will ever be broken.
No. 8 flights in 50 years, I don't think I'm part of that particular problem.
especially ones that are more than 5 years old.
The production of any vehicle produces more CO2 than the fuel it burns during its lifetime.
The best thing to do is stop producing new motors and repair and upgrade old ones.
(says new who just bought a new Ducato for the euro 6 badge....)
Wonder how many of the no I dont fly team, I take the ferry or holiday in the UK do so in a ‘lifestyle’ van, especially ones that are more than 5 years old. Seems to be a growing trend in the UK and not great for your carbon footprint
Does a 12 year old zafira count for family camping holidays or the odd holiday rental in the UK? I did have a big old LWB HT LDV Convoy converted to a camper maybe ago, but that was also a works van' for gigs and workshops.
I've got to say visiting new places abroad in person does give you a totally different perspective that you cannot get via TV/films. My one very big personal extravagance has been a 2 week backpacking trip to Tassilak in East Greenland (flight to Iceland, then kulusuk island, then helicopter, helicopter was boat on the way back as the ice had opened up then)). Spending time around the village and seeing their quality of life, living conditions and some of the poverty was quite an eye opener and left me feeling very embarrassed and obvious as a relatively wealthy white tourist.
I'll not be repeating that though as it was a once in a life time extravagance for me that took ages to pay off.
Whenever I read these threads the more it reinforces my view that individual action cannot solve the problem. It requires governments to regulate, tax and invest to move whole economies to a carbon sustainable position. And it needs to be done with some degree of global consensus - or at least the major global economies enforcing green policies on the world through trade regulations
This will not be easy - it's long term benefit for short term pain in terms of impacting on normal peoples' lifestyles. Even medium to long term, the lives people live in the affluent west will be constrained compared with now.
It's a very hard thing to sell during a cost of living crisis within in political system that moves in 4/5 year cycles and in a world overwhelmed by information and disinformation.
Ultimately the biggest thing we can do is agitate for government action and vote for parties that will take that action.
Doesn't mean that I don't do all the usual stuff and more, but without massive structural change that is just tweaking at the edges
Whenever I read these threads the more it reinforces my view that individual action cannot solve the problem. It requires governments to regulate, tax and invest to move whole economies to a carbon sustainable position. And it needs to be done with some degree of global consensus – or at least the major global economies enforcing green policies on the world through trade regulations
Agree. I think one main thing must be to start taxing airline fuel, and force businesses to reconsider their methods. Engineers flying to look at a factory machine for the afternoon, my mate Pete who flew to Shanghai to do some user testing on an app, DJ's flying to Berlin for a £300 gig, and all these other things that only really happen because they're marginally cost effective. Bump up the cost of flights and all these businesses would suddenly take another look at how much that really needed to happen.
It would be fantastically unpopular though, so I can't see it happening.
I hate flying scare the shit out of me so don't fly much.
China will stop building coal fired power stations when it’s co2 emissions per capita come anywhere close to rich western nations
They are already higher than the UK.
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
I guess they will be shutting a few coal power stations now.
The production of any vehicle produces more CO2 than the fuel it burns during its lifetime.
The best thing to do is stop producing new motors and repair and upgrade old ones.
Not true. The worst case estimate I've found for EVs is 70k miles before they have lower lifetime emissions than an ICE car. The consensus seems to be more like 5-20k miles. So it's definitely better to move to EV as soon as you can rather than running a smokey banger into the ground. Sorry for going off topic...
I agree with others suggesting higher flight taxes across the board. I battle between my conscience and a desire not to miss out on the experiences older generations could have guilt free. This extends to having children too. Currently flying is cheap enough that it's a no brainer if you don't have a conscience. Same with driving Vs trains in the UK.
I think one main thing must be to start taxing airline fuel
Would have a negative effect on climate change. If the UK taxed fuel duty by a meaningful amount, all short haul planes would just fly in with enough fuel to fly back out again (to a destination they can fill up tax free), burning a whole load additional fuel in the process.
That would be true if it was done unilaterally, but olddog did say it would "need to be done with some sort of global consensus".
Which is true, although probably makes it less likely to happen.
The production of any vehicle produces more CO2 than the fuel it burns during its lifetime.
This isn't true.
The best thing to do is stop producing new motors and repair and upgrade old ones.
This is, though. Now that galvanised chassis are common, there's no real reason to throw cars away the way we do. We just do it because we fancy a new one, or because we just don't want to bother fixing it and we can afford a new one. And really, new cars are lovely things. And let's face it if we weren't buying new ones we wouldn't be able to decarbonise the fleet because we'd still be on old cars.
Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people who make cars that would become unemployed.
STW is a very high-consumption culture: N+1, trips to Morzine, second cars for the wife and ‘what £200 jacket for walking the dog?’
This place does does give that impression but I think this is this a common social media theme due to the large pool of people you will see more consumption than you would do in normal life and people asking about what X to buy is a subject to talk about. Its like people looking on Facebook and Instagram seeing everyone on holiday and feeling hard done by but they are following 59789 people so of course someone will be on holiday!
Whenever I read these threads the more it reinforces my view that individual action cannot solve the problem.
This. Although in terms of what individuals can do which has an impact, stopping or cutting down flying is one of the only things you can do along with eating a plant based diet. The reason we need govts to act is because they're the only organisations which can make everyone change at the same time.
And it needs to be done with some degree of global consensus
There already is global consensus. The COP meetings to agree cuts in carbon emissions may be imperfect and insufficient, but they still represent a remarkable level of agreement between the vast majority of countries. Where it's falling short is that the western developed countries are not leading the way in going far enough and fast enough. We're still investing in fossil fuel extraction, we still give oil producers tax breaks, we're still not doing enough on renewables (even though that's one area where lots has been done), and most important of all we're still have economic policies based on perpetual growth. If we want the rest of the world to take action, we have to do it ourselves first.
We'll be cutting back on flying.
Going from two or three holidays that involve flights to just one per year.
I've also massively cut down on driving going from around 1200 miles a week to around 60.
Mrsstu has also cut down on driving to the point that she almost never drives.
This. Although in terms of what individuals can do which has an impact, stopping or cutting down flying is one of the only things you can do along with eating a plant based diet. The reason we need govts to act is because they’re the only organisations which can make everyone change at the same time.
That's what I mean really - shifting behavior at the scale required can only be driven by Govts
I’ve also massively cut down on driving going from around 1200 miles a week to around 60.
Mrsstu has also cut down on driving to the point that she almost never drives
This must be due to a change in job / role or similar?
This is, though. Now that galvanised chassis are common, there’s no real reason to throw cars away the way we do. We just do it because we fancy a new one, or because we just don’t want to bother fixing it and we can afford a new one
As someone who has only ever owned two cars and run them both in the ground, beyond a certain point they're just not economic to repair. My local backstreet told me to stop bring my 200,000 mile Corsa to them as I was 'flogging a dead horse'. They were right of course, I just quite liked it. Traded it in for £50 on a Mark IV Golf, which 10 years later was in the same state. In those 10 years, the sum of all the servicing / repairs matched the price I paid for it!
What is the right amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? Parts per million? What is the minimum? based on what? What level will cause earth's climate to "stop changing"?
What is the right amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? Parts per million? What is the minimum? based on what? What level will cause earth’s climate to “stop changing”?
As someone who has only ever owned two cars and run them both in the ground, beyond a certain point they’re just not economic to repair.
That's an illusion. If the cost of the repairs is less than the market value, then it's "beyond economic repair". But it's not beyond repair. If new cars were £250k then you'd repair it. The market value is arbitrary, it's based on what people are prepared to pay which is based on what else is available. It's not intrinsic to the car.
The problem is that people don't want old cars, so they aren't prepared to pay much. So only people without much money buy cheaper cars. But the repair bills are the same, so the people who own the cheap cars cannot afford the repair bills.
However, cars are actually very repairable. If, instead of buying a £20k car, you bought a £5k car and kept the rest to spend on repairs and refurbishment of old parts; then ten years later you put aside another £20k to spend on it you could keep it going indefinitely. So it's never beyond economic repair, it's beyond repair compared to its perceived value. And that perceived value is the issue in this context.
You could have a refurbishment service where they replaced the upholstery and worn bits, fixed all the trim, did all the niggling little electrical faults, gave it a really good clean etc. That would still be cheaper than a new car. You could do it as a subscription service so it goes in once a year. The government only lets you buy a new one if yours is crashed.
What is the right amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? Parts per million? What is the minimum? based on what? What level will cause earth’s climate to “stop changing”?
What they are going for is a level that will limit temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. That's the level that won't cause too much disruption to crops and living conditions.
From the Met Office:
The 5-95% confidence ranges are 425-785 ppm for 1.5 °C and 489-1106 ppm for 2 °C.
And here's how it's going:
See how it's still going up...
Will infrequently fly to see family and for experiences that are way better when travel is involved. And yes, I will feel much guilt over it and change other habits.
Seem to be a lot of people on here that never had any intention of flying much but now have a holier than thou attitude to go with their fear of flying. And a lot of people who are driving halfway across Europe in a van 🧐
Reminds me of the heating thread where there’s a bunch of people who “haven’t put the heating on”, as long as lighting a fire doesn’t count!
It would be more interesting to hear from people that have a long haul winter sun holiday, a skiing holiday and a few European breaks through the year but suspect they are carrying on regardless and ignoring threads like this.
However, cars are actually very repairable
They might be very repairable, but they also start becoming unreliable with bits endlessly failing. My Corsa's bodywork was rust free, but I'd already rusted through two sumps, one alternator and the final straw was the fuel injection system was losing pressure. If I'd fixed that, something else would have failed in a few months and so on etc....
This must be due to a change in job / role or similar?
Complete change of everything TBH.
But yes I'd always felt a bit guilty about the amount of driving my job involved so I left.
Now live in a location that we used to drive 250 miles to get to and can ride to a large portion of the trails from the door.
Mrsstu can now also get the train in to work on the odd occasion she has to go to the office.
I feel very lucky to be able to live the way we do now and realise it's no that easy for everyone to make such a large change as we did.
If I’d fixed that, something else would have failed in a few months and so on etc….
And so on until everything's been repaired and is all new...
How long before we have a carbon credit/carbon debt system for individuals. Not far off China's social credit system.
Everyone everywhere is finding a reason why they should not be the first to reduce emissions, and I don’t see how this impasse will ever be broken.
Two things:
1 : do what you can to change your own behaviour now, and flying less is easy really.
2 : vote for parties willing to act once in government to change all our behaviours and our energy sources.
The problem with "keep repairing old cars forever" is twofold:
(1) safety systems improvements - most people (particularly those with kids) will be reluctant to ride around in cars without modern active and passive safety systems
(2) availability of spare parts for old cars with complex electronics
I imagine governments could enforce "right to repair" type legislation on car manufacturers to ensure a greater variety of complex parts are made available but I doubt that would have a positive benefit to the perception of safety standards of older cars...
vote for parties willing to act once in government to change all our behaviours and our energy sources.
For this to work we need electoral reform, really. Hopefully we get it. Then the green share of the vote could end up rising dramatically as a second choice.
The 5-95% confidence ranges are 425-785 ppm for 1.5 °C and 489-1106 ppm for 2 °C.
The geologist in me has problems with forecasts like that. I start checking out CO2 levels during climatic optimums. For example the Miocene climatic optimum was 3-4°C warmer than the present with CO2 around 500ppm. We're nearly there and once the buffer effect of the ice sheets has gone we will be there. The scientific community continues to be "cautious" "not alarmist" "prudent". Whci is a pity because they are minimising the rise/risks when what we need is pragmatic realism.
I think food miles are more significant than individual/ holiday flights. On another thread someone said the average flight is once PA per person in the UK, but how much of our food is flown in / driven across continents?
1) safety systems improvements – most people (particularly those with kids) will be reluctant to ride around in cars without modern active and passive safety systems
They’ve slowed down development in recent years for high speed driving at least. Adding a 217th airbag or changing the cabin ambient lighting if it thinks you’re a bit tired and such like. Most of the useful stuff for the occupant is on most if not all cars in the last 20 years.
Low speed manoeuvring has improved with auto braking and 360 cameras etc, which mainly improves safety for pedestrians and prevents damage to property.
On another thread someone said the average flight is once PA per person in the UK,
Yes, it's about 1.25 flights per person on average but 70% of flights are taken by just 15% of residents and around half don't fly at all.
What I find really frustrating is that flying is so cheap, mainly because there's no tax on the fuel and very little infrastructure cost. Junior lives in Berlin. He visits us, we visit him, usually by train of all things: it costs a small forture and takes a day if DB is running to time and more than a day when the train arrives late for the last connection.
We must be mad, pain in the arse SNCF/DB/trainline websites to book tickets, three or four changes, crossing Paris between stations and several hundred Euros for the privilege.
We've done it by electric car which was cheap and made a sort of road trip of it. Three days though.
Exceptionally junior had to get to Berlin in a hurry (lock down was starting in a few hours in France). Madame found him a plane ticket on the Internet in a few minutes, I drove him to Toulouse airport, he caught the plane and was back home in Berlin in about five hours for a 50e plane ticket and 7e of leccy for the car.
That's why people fly, it's cheap and easy compared to anything less polluting. It shouln't be, the fuel should be taxed like any other fuel and airport subsidies banned.
If you think trains in the eu are poor value…
Yes it bothers me, I'm avoiding it and not flying for pleasure now, on top of that I always disliked airports anyway.
Very few flights to ride in last 10 years, lucky to be able to mainly tag onto work trips in Europe + Asia. But wasn't avoiding them 100%. Now would avoid 98% and would be hard to justify.
Work used to see me in Asia 3-6 times a year but that stopped. It's caused problems in some areas but my work also changed so less need for that at the moment. And tbh I don't think much needs to be done face to face these days - it's better for some technical/process QC type work but for most things video calls and good information presentation replace it. Flights even seem like the easy / lazy option in some cases, the 'wing-it' approach where video calls can force focus through efficiency.
I also run a bike event that attracts riders from US, Canada, NZ and all over Europe, that's a lot of flights. I don't feel good about that, I know those riders fly to 'destination' routes anyway but it's got me thinking about how destinations are marketed and how we see the appeal in riding destinations. I'm looking at transport alternatives within Europe that the event can manage/offer. Trains aren't easy from the UK but it's such a nicer way to travel than flying.
Covid meant I went touring in Wales when I might have gone to France (generally pedal to the ferry then ride but sometimes inc a one-way return flight). I always like d Wales but something clicked and I've been back 3 times since and just love the hassle-free freedom of touring -sorry, bikepacking!- from the front door to Wales. Makes not flying a no big deal change of lifestyle. We didn't do beach holidays each year anyway and camping in Wales has also been good.
It shouln’t be, the fuel should be taxed like any other fuel and airport subsidies banned.
+1. Tax flying and driving more (with car use fair rebates for people who live in remote places or some kind of allowance/threshold), subsidise trains - though we'd need a better public-owned train infrastructure in the UK to make it viable and that's decades away.
Everybody seems to enjoy cheap imported stuff? You all viewing on Chinese made products I'm sure.
I find the debate about individual choices more a case of someone telling someone else what they think they should do.
We have SUVs, flights, logburners, houses, campers, bikes made abroad. Etc.
I think your overall impact is what matters. Otherwise it just basically turns into a debate about personal dislikes.
Also, as much as I hate it we do live in a modern society that has to find its feet with an economy to grow.
Unless you all want to be unemployed - what is the solution - how many are willing to give up their already scant job opportunities? Maybe your job isn't so great for the environment either.
This needs to be driven from a serious government downwards with massive investment to correct these problems.
You're not making a dent without government direction.
How do you measure your overall impact? Including jobs and recreation.
What do you do about industries that fail because of all this?
Mainly just questions from me.
I think food miles are more significant than individual holiday flights. On another thread someone said the average flight is once PA per person in the UK, but how much of our food is flown in driven across continents?
they aren't. As a family of 4 I recon we get through around 20kg of packaged food a week (2 light loads on the cargo bike), so say 1 tonne per year. Lets suggest the average distance that travelled is 1000 miles in an articulated lorry (the first mile might be in a small van, but economies of scale pick up pretty quickly, and those "van miles" will exist if you source locally or remotely).
a big lorry does 10mpg, and carries 40 tonnes of stuff. Some of our food might not be dense enough to fill a lorry to max weight, so lets say its carrying 30 tonnes. So total fuel our food does is
1000x2 (lorry has to go home, lets say its empty)
divided by 10mpg
multiplied by 4.5gallons in a litre
divided by 30 (proportion of the truck is ours).
a total of 30 litres of diesel is used to get our stuff, for a family of 4, to us. half a tank - it can be reduced, for sure, but its tiny.
sure, a small proportion of fruit might be flown in, but flying goods around is surprisingly efficient as you can get a lot of them into a plane. think of it this way : if your banana costs 20p, there's not much margin to pay for fuel which is converted into co2.
One of the most depressing things about climate change discussions is the nit picking glee some seem to take from pulling apart other people's carbon reduction efforts. And then using that glee/smugness as a justification as to why they might as well not bother. You see it in threads like this about air travel, diet based threads, car based threads and consumer purchase threads.
I'm not sure what the motivation is. Maybe they see people doing 'something' as a personal attack on them and their choices. There are often claims of people being pious or virtue signalling - imo this is mostly the heads of the critics. Yes, no vegan or non-flyer is sin free - far from it. And yes mistakes are made and there is ignorance about the effectiveness of their reduction choices they make. But they are trying to make positive change - so why the need to try and pull it down? It's like the fat lad in the football stands hurling abuse at a player for not being as awesums as the fat lad knows he could be if he could be bothered to play not stand and jeer. But given a choice, if I had to be on the side of the snide cynics or those making arguably futile changes I'm sure as hell I know which is the healthier. For your own mental health if nothing else.
The problem with old cars, as has been suggested, is not the the fact it’s more expensive to repair than buy a new one, but the fact they get to a point where they become horrifically unreliable
Best car I ever had was an old Saab estate, it wasn’t the fact it cost me money to repair that was the issue, it was the fact it was constantly in the garage getting fixed, therefore not available to be used when required
Weve not flow in a few years, and even then we only went cause OH had a work thing to attend so we made a holiday of it.
I think we would consider other options, should it ever come up again.
Be galling when there are plenty of "top percent" bods who fly several times a week, without a second consideration.
For plenty of people, its just a part of their job, so its not their consideration
and for others theyre just to rich to have to care about stuff like that
And then theres the rest of us, who while we fly once in a while, a guilty pleasure treat to go on on holiday to the med, there are thousands and thousands of us, doing it. "once every few years"
I want to take my kids snowrkling in Greece one day. We wont be taking more than 10 days off. Not really a journey we can drive over a week or so.
I think as part of the "big picture" for the future, we (Europe, and hopefully Little Britain too) should be focusing heavily on fast, efficient, cheap, trans-Europe trains.
