The rain in Spain

I just arrived, denia area, its hot and sunny down here.  Sea is c20 degrees so OK for paddling.  I know the affected valencia areas well and the hostility is the lack of warning when they knew it was coming, hence the fatality count.

To put the flood level in perspective the water rose to the level of overhead gantries on the motorway, drivers heading into valencia on motorway were driving towards the problem without knowing.

Climate change is real, its 40 degrees most summer now, it used to be just a few 40 degree days.  Winters used to be cool, warm in the sun, now it’s t shirt and shorts weather most winter.

Yeah it’s nice here right now, near Mojacar… But in July August it’s just unbearably hot.. No exaggeration, you’d have to be insane to sunbathe unless first thing in the morning or at sundown. I love a bit of sun but there is a limit!

I’ve been struggling with the holiday flights thing for a few years. Flew over to France earlier this year, my previous flights being a return to Barra 6 years ago. I have friends who’ve been out to Mallorca 3 times this year, a couple of others went to Calpe and now I’ve been invited to join a Mallorca group next April. In my head I just can’t disassociate the carbon impact of the flights from the devastation we’re seeing. I’m not exactly super-concious of my environmental impact otherwise, so already feel like a bit of a hypocrite. Without pointing fingers or trying to send anyone on a guilt trip, how are others squaring this circle? I’ll admit that part of me is just thinking ****.it nobody else cares so why should I?

@Scotroutes

My two hour each way, daily commute is via bus and subway. My wife has a car, but it’s barely out of the driveway nowadays unless it’s to go for groceries or taking her oldies to the doctor. If I need to go anywhere, it’s either bus or bike. We put out one landfill rubbish bag per month, everything else is recycled. That’s how I justify our once every year or two holiday flights.

C. 😉

Without pointing fingers or trying to send anyone on a guilt trip, how are others squaring this circle? I’ll admit that part of me is just thinking ****.it nobody else cares so why should I?

Flights is a really difficult one. Aviation is very definitely doing a whole load of greenwashing, especially with crap like “sustainable aviation fuels” – although equally, they do make efforts to be as fuel-efficient as possible cos ultimately, it costs them less money!

Successive Governments have incentivised flying, Spain itself is offering (or certainly has offered in the past) extremely low landing fees for their more out of the way airports in a bid to encourage tourism. They now seem to be reaping the whirlwind of that in the “Tourists Go Home” protests across parts of the Canaries and Balearics in particular.

On the one hand, I think “well the plane is flying there anyway, whether I’m on it or not”. That pollution is happening, regardless of my actions. Obviously if I do book onto it, that’s validating the airline’s decision to operate that flight in the first place and if no-one booked onto it (and if that pattern was repeated across Europe) then there might be fewer flights overall eventually.

Or alternatively, airlines will do some more aggressive marketing and cost-cutting and if they’re offering a return flight to Spain for £30….

Ultimately, it needs addressing at national and international policy level. France for example have done some good work in banning domestic flights where there is an equivalent train journey in <3hrs. France however has an excellent network of high-speed rail, reliable and cheap. The UK has none of that which brings us back to successive UK governments messing things up.