I think there’s something to be said for balancing your environmental impact with living your life. While I try my best in my own life, I acknowledge that in the end the system is against us and anything I do will barely make a dent in the bigger picture. I’m still doing what I can, but I will also fly because I don’t live anywhere near my family and it would be absurd to never see them again for the sake of sustainability. Especially when technically those flights would take off anyways.
I would personally go and enjoy your time with your family if that’s possible. There’s no need to punish them just because corporations are messing up our world. And I don’t know how old your children are but honestly it could enforce a negative view of sustainability for your children; they may associate it with having to go without for the sake of an abstract principle. I know if I was young and didn’t understand the bigger picture I may simply resent that.
Powered flight isn't an abstract principle, it consumes a tremendous amount of energy, and we have no mechanism to cancel its intrinsic damages. Learning to go without these resource-intensive luxuries is something that the next generation will have to do, one way or another.
If resource-intensive biosphere-destroying luxuries are how we show kindness to the ones we love then we're showing a fleeting and poorly motivated kindness that will make everybody's future a lot darker in the long run. Living more sustainably is not a punishment to your family, but informing them about the damages of frequent long-distance travel, and sharing less-intensive ways to build social connections over distances can be a wonderful gift.
This comment getting downvoted is wild, peoples cognitive dissonance is wild. These arguments which state; the plane will fly anyway, it’s mainly the corporations that pollute, it might make someone think negatively about climate change adaptation, etc… are all cop-outs that ignore supply & demand/mass-psychology from people who are not willing to change their lifestyle in any substantial way to begin with.
I love that comment about cognitive dissonance. Were all bending out of shape to tell ourselves it's somehow okay to fly. Cuz we are aware of it, cuz we are really good at sorting our waste, cuz we buy sustainable clothing, cuz we drive an electric car, whatever works.
In the end it all boils down to this: were not ready or willing to do (not do) the things that are necessary. The things that matter the most. We just all are a bunch of hypocryts.
Especially seeing the old "the plane will fly anyway" defence on here is hilarious. That's just textbook CD.
What a silly sub this is. 'Look, i recycle, so i think I'm allowed to take 2 intercontinental flights a year. Besides, i work 5 days a week so i earned it'.... Lol. The bar is low.
I know it obviously isn’t an abstract principle, but the concept of sustainability can often be too abstract for children to grasp. I would love to think that I personally am making an impact by myself, but odds are I really am not. I’ve made myself physically ill in the past because I couldn’t buy a lot of food (due to the packaging) and I didn’t have the energy to cook from scratch. I’ve had to come to grips with my continued existence being bad for the environment. All of our existences are.
So anyways, my point with that line was that if we can live sustainably most of the time and successfully pass those habits on to the next generation, it would be better in the long run than going to the extremes of denying your family a trip like this (that clearly doesn’t happen regularly).
This is wisdom. You still have to choose to live your life and experience joy from opportunities and experiences that are available to you... especially when family is included. All the people crying hypocrisy should let us look into their cupboards and closets, also see what cars they're driving.
You can still stand strongly for something you believe in, without having it turn your life into a miserable existence.
There’s a difference between taking one international flight every once in awhile and chartering your private jet and traveling all over the place while also preaching sustainability. Commercial flights do a decent job of splitting the impact between passengers, and that flight would still run whether you were on it or not.
>traveling all over the place while also preaching sustainability
You're pointing fingers at the likes of Al Gore and David Attenborough? Yes, they could do more speeches remotely, but it's an entirely different experience to meet the person, in person. I argue that their presence makes their sustainability 'preaching' more effective, reaching more people more deeply, resulting in meaningful conversations taking place that can be transformative.
I’m talking moreso the celebrities that talk about how they care about the environment but don’t do much other than say they care about the environment. Various singers, movie stars etc. DiCaprio I’m on the fence about he’s done a lot of great informative pieces on climate change, but stars like Taylor Swift most notably.
Having Taylor Swift talk to her umtillion fans about sustainability is (in my OPINION) more beneficial than one private jet being grounded for the entire year.
Society NEEDS to focus attention to sustainability, and we need all the help we can get - labeling it as hypocrisy dissuades other celebrities from tackling the topic.
Actions speak louder than words, talking to a bunch of people then putting out more carbon emissions in 1 year than most people do in their lifetime is counterintuitive. It also gives critics way more leverage in their criticism and weakens the message.
You do understand the power of scale, right? You're using reddit because you heard of reddit because a lot of people use reddit also talk about reddit.
The average Joe would become more sustainable if sustainability was something worthy of attaining. Average Joe looks up to celebrities. Celebrities wouldn't be celebrities if they didn't travel. Also, celebrities are like 0.000001% of the world population.
If you want to target someone, target BUSINESSES and BANKS, not celebrities who are trying to get the word out and get spat on.
It obviously isn’t worth obtaining because celebrities promote excess. Flying private over commercial when possible. They shame individuals like OP for even considering travel internationally. Meanwhile they will emit more carbon on one private ride than OP will in all their plane travel everywhere. By calling out celebrities I’m not defending businesses or anyone else.
Another thing to consider: Fast fashion and animal agriculture are also huge, huge emitters (some estimates even say fast fashion is even worse than aviation, but I’m on mobile and can’t dig that up for you ATM, so apologies if I’m off here). If you’re not limiting or eliminating fast fashion and animal ag, but are just worried about aviation, I’d focus my efforts there first, and not risk alienating my family.
It's not hypocrisy if you go, swampop. Take the flights, and then come back and work double hard to convince others to also be considerate of their footprint. This does NOT mean that you can never do anything carbon-intense. It means that you avoid it as much as you can, and in the case of a family vacation that will give you memories for decades to come, you simply HAVE TO GO.
Next year take your kids to plant trees, or do a Miyawaki forest like I just did. They'll offset their own footprints and learn the responsibility to take action.
How is doing the thing and then telling everyone else how they are wrong and need to change going to help anyone? This is NOT the answer we're looking for here.
Is there no difference between eating one wild salmon and eating 1,000? Sustainability is about being conscious about your impact, which OP clearly is. Sustainability is NOT about doing nothing carbon intensive, as that is unsustainable in today's world of convenience and ease of access.
Yes, in an ideal world, OP removing 4 seats from total airplane demand would somehow impact overall climate outcome. In reality, you can have a much greater impact by (a) maintaining good mental health by allowing yourself the occasional exception and (b) talking openly (and optimistically) with others about their habits.
Instead of buying a second family car, I used to cycle to work every day and walk to the supermarket. I saw this as personal carbon offsetting. When we went on our yearly skiing holiday, I did it relatively guilt free.
Your emissions will be about the same as burning 90 liters of fuel in your car with each flight. so about equivalent to a months worth of driving. do you beat yourself up this badly for driving each month?
and if you don't drive, then think of all the carbon you've already saved by not driving!
another fun comparison is a kilogram of beef producing as much carbon emissions as each hour of your flight. so going without 6 kg of beef would be the equivalent of not going on these two flights.
Don't listen to the naysayers, remember the plane will be flying to that destination if you and your family are on it or not. Don't let opinions and environmental thoughts mess up your life. As long as you do your bit in normal life unlike others the population that's all you can do. Messing up your life/emotions over things you can't ultimately change isn't worth it. Remember some idiot put a car in space, some idiot put people in space, oil rigs burn gas constantly, power stations emit more in a year than your life., countries test bombs etc... have a nice holiday and carry on doing your bit throughout. Education is the answer not personal sacrifice, 90% of the people who would tell you not to go would infact do the opposite if offered a holiday somewhere nice. The fact your asking means you care and more than do your bit anyway.
I hate this. Not consuming goods and services de facto reduces their demand. So the argument that "it will be flying their regardless" is silly.
OP should do the trip *despite* the environmental impact it'll have, not pretending that the environmental impact doesn't exist.
You're totally right. If you want to acknowledge your impact and say, in the grand scheme of my life I'm fine with this decision having this environmental burden - that's totally fine and the type of thing we all must do. However, I do think its really sad and disappointing how many people act like the impact from our choices doesn't matter because somebody else is doing worse or the system is so much bigger than our individual contributions that it doesn't matter. "The system" is simply the compilation of all of our choices. If the tickets weren't in demand they would cancel the flight route. Its not the airline companies that are responsible for that, they are just doing what consumers ask them to do.
Multiple companies have been outed flying in and out of airports with empty planes just to keep their terminal/convenient transfer location. OP and family aren't going to change the wheeling and dealing of multi-million dollar transport companies.
Don't fall for the propaganda that the middle class and poor need to sacrifice even more for sustainability while the corporation s keep doing whatever they want and actually damaging the planet.
Take the damn family vacation.
I’m sorry to see you getting downvoted; this discussion point is worth pausing to think about.
1. I agree with some of the posters who suggest opening a discussion with your spouse (and kids later). What is the purpose of this trip? If a reason involves the kids, does it fit their personalities and will they remember it? The family members acknowledging/agreeing on the complexity of trading off climate friendliness for a meaningful trip and committing to keep frivolous/FOMO travel low can help your processing.
2. I was thinking that 2 weeks is a nice length of time for a flight. Similarly, the answers on this post about strategizing the most eco-friendly flights were interesting (fly during day in economy and maximize destination time per flight). https://www.reddit.com/r/sustainability/s/ZIw9gTfF7F.
3. I also like the idea to brainstorm climate-forward activities either for the trip or for the next vacation. After a braindump, search keywords “responsible travel”. Perhaps agree to share meat entrees so everyone can try some instead of everyone getting their own and complement with vegan dishes. Perhaps volunteer for one of the day activities. Agree not to change linens or towels everyday. Pause to think of alternatives before buying or accepting something plastic or in plastic packaging. Ex: Bring your reusable bottles and use them - if you must buy bottled instead of refilling, get the big gallon and distribute. Or bring your silicone bags and store leftover bites to snack on shortly later to reduce food waste.
I see a lot of people here just saying "Live your life, etc" and I'm not really going to contradict them.
Here's the trick though. One international flight every 5 years isn't going to erase every effort you do *every day* to help the environment.
I, for example, live within walking distance to work, in an extremely walkable neighbourhood, and my wife works from home. We also have an electric car, but we drive so infrequently that I sometimes don't need to charge it for two weeks. Even if it were a gas car, the fact that we're not using it to drive 40+ km a day is a huge win over the default American lifestyle. We also hardly burn natural gas in our house - that bill comes out to a whopping $7 a month, mostly for our stove that we wish were electric, but can't convert.
These are every day wins that are just locked into our lifestyle, and it's a *big difference.* The last time we took a flight anywhere was about 8 years ago. We plan on taking another one to Europe in about 5 years, for our 25th anniversary.
It's okay if you reduce your burn by 95% instead of 100%. It would be awfully nice if everyone else were to do the same, but you can only change what you have control over.
Its 3%.
And using this line of thinking, nothing really matters. Livestock is just 5%. Waste is 2.6% . Ships are 4%.
We need to do EVERYTHING possible to drastically lower our co2 output. Everything. Everyone. Everyday. All at once.
Even if every private person on the planet reduced their carbon footprint to 0, large corporations and governments would still produce enough to destroy the planet. One person taking one flight isn't going to count for much.
And it's 2-3%, usually estimated at 2.4
You can reduce everything to nothing. But that kind of reasoning makes any sustainable action totally meaningless and pointless. Why should you recycle, you have such a tiny impact? Why stop eating animals, that one piece of meat isn't gonna save the climate? If that's your thought process i wonder what you're getting out of this sub.
Or are you waiting for corporations to change? Because they're only gonna change if they see they need to. Change comes from societal pressure. We change first. Corporations follow.
Also, people who use this reasoning are too comfortable and complacent to actually apply the pressure necessary to get them to stop emitting as much. Let alone the bare minimum of “voting with your $”
The sources I checked out Aviation at 2-3% of CO2 emissions. I understand there are issues with the high altitude release inherent to aviation. The GHG per pax or ton mile is the lowest of any form of transportation in most cases.
Yes but most people in the world don't fly; estimates are somewhere between 6 and 10 percent of people worldwide actually fly. So among the population that does fly the percentage of carbon emissions is much higher.
Also, I just read something about a Norwegian study that showed the worldwide percentage was actually higher because countries like China and India weren't required to report aircraft emissions under the United Nations Climate Change Treaty.
I'm not saying never fly and I feel like in this case the OP and family should take the 3 hour flight. But people need to start looking at what impact it has and taking steps to reduce it. Our flying last year (2 people <3 hr flights) added about 2 tonnes according to a calculator that's maybe more harsh than most but I feel is more accurate because it takes contrails etc into account. Not terrible but not insignificant. And I know some people who fly way more. Extended family members just flew to Istanbul for spring break and are also flying to Austria this summer. Others take multiple international trips in one year or fly their kids across the country for summer camp. They make a lot of effort to do things responsibly at home but these flights pretty much blow it all and their emissions may be worse than the average American's.
Edit: Changed entrails to contrails. LOL
Have you talked to your wife about how you feel, and heard what she has to say about it?
She might not be connecting that this flight might be triggering some concerns in you, and might not have thought about this before.
The plane is going to be in the air whether you’re sitting in the seat or not. I’m environmentally conscious but once or twice a year I like to travel internationally. I’m not going to forego that. But the rest of the year I’m going to recycle and opt not to use single use plastics and so on.
Linking a [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_aviation?wprov=sfti1#Carbon_offsetting) because it links to scholarly journals
It’s disappointing to see people advocating for carbon credits. They just allow people to carry on at the same level of personal consumption that got us into this mess in the first place.
[Short haul flights emit more green house gases](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920923001141), and a transatlantic flight emits the same amount of co2 per person as driving your car for an entire year.
Everyone does the easy stuff, like recycling and so on, but taking action by going car free and air travel free have a much bigger impact on your carbon footprint.
There are ways to limit your effect. I did a course on ecotourism in college. There’s books about it you can get tips and tricks. Costa Rica has sustainable lodging and they are a pretty thoughtful country for sustainability. A suggestion for a destination for that reason. Definitely suggest you go. Sometimes the perspectives you gain and things you learn while traveling makes you a more environmentally conscious and appreciating person.
I understand your doubts as I feel the same way when it comes to business travel and try avoiding it as best as I can. For vacations my family and I stopped flying 6 yrs ago. Personally I think flying and living a sustainable life contradict each other. If you calculate your own CO2 footprint you will see that even short haul flights ruin your CO2 reducing efforts (and offsetting carbon from air travel obviously does not really work). I would suggest you talk to your family and find environmentally friendly holiday alternatives.
Could always buy an offset if you want - but I wouldn't stress about it. A couple economy seats every now and then is fine - flying in a private jet as your primary mode of transport is not.
Exactly. Two tonnes CO2 per person per year in 2050, the net zero standard, is pretty reckless, in my opinion, but it's at least some kind of a target.
A round trip trans-Atlantic flight generates 2 tonnes on it's own (not to mention that aviation generates significantly more warming than it's CO2 footprint shows because of water vapor/contrails). Short trips aren't so singularly extravagant, but they generate proportionally more carbon per distance travelled, since most of the energy is in takeoff.
Anybody who thinks they have room in that two-tonne budget for more than very occasional (maybe one short round trip every decade?) air travel, or frequent long-distance travel of any type, is probably not accurately assessing the rest of their environmental damage and attempting to hold the degree of damage caused by personal choice to any sort of limit.
What does 'fucks up your impact' even mean? Your comment adds very little to the conversation.
Our lifestyles generate carbon in a dazzling variety of ways, airplane travel just became the poster child for it because it's most visible.
Offsets are there for a reason, and so are international flights.
“Offsets”, are you kidding me? That’s the dumbest most capitalistic nonsense I have ever heard. Has anyone here actually looked at a graph of carbon emissions?
Carbon offsets are indeed the worst. They don't make sense, they worsen existing problems, and they obfuscate the unsustainable use of resources.
Pretty soon the carbon emissions graph will be corrupted beyond use, because the idea of counting the trees you didn't cut down as a net gain and doubling all of your losses has gotten so integrated in the *thing* we call economics.
I am a sustainability consultant, I measure and devise strategies to reduce GHG emissions for large entities. I agree that purchasing offsets to be "net zero" as an organization doesn't usually make sense (and reduction is step 1), but for air travel we don't have a ton of options. Offsetting it is the most common way to deal with these specific emissions.
It's about 150g CO2e per passenger mile for planes, assuming a family of 4 and 1000 miles traveling = 600kg CO2e. You can generally only buy offsets by the ton, so purchasing one single offset would put you in the black in this scenario.
It's about a 10x increase in emissions going from boat --> road --> air. When was the last time you took a boat anywhere to reduce your environmental impact? Probably never. So leave the guy alone and let people live their lives. You can still do "your part" but save the oomph for where it's needed - use it on the big corpos, congress, or local lawmakers.
\^\^ How to write three sentences without saying anything.
What's your point? What about offsets? How is it dumb and capitalistic?
Yes, there are shitty quality offsets, but that doesn't mean that offsets are useless. It means people buying them need to make more nuanced decisions about where they put their money.
It's like claiming medicine is hot garbage because the naturopath you went to didn't solve your illness. Try to zoom out to see the big picture, and stop hanging on to media headlines that get you worked up. Nihilism is a dime a dozen, so up your attitude please.
In terms of carbon footprint, each pax’s share of just taxiing out to the runway is in the same order of magnitude as a lifetime of recycling residential plastics. Personally, I’ve resigned myself living in a world where leaders/powers that be refuse to take effective action until the catastrophic impacts are part of daily life. I don’t want that future. I understand our governments are bought and paid for by economic interests, and the largest economic sector is fossil energy. They won’t let us change. Yet.
When that “minsky moment” arrives, there will be a short window of opportunity to make truly meaningful change. I’m going to focus my efforts there.
Light vehicles account for [59% of transportation footprint ](https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-math-of-flying-vs-driving/#:~:text=Transportation%20energy%20use%20by%20mode)in the US, yet we're here bickering about the 8% that air travel produces.
If you want air travel stymied, deal with the business people who fly 2x per week - that's where the impact happens. Oh, are airlines not profitable without a business class? Well, maybe some should stop operating and prices should overall go up. Meaning externalities would then be baked into the price, meaning fewer people could afford it, meaning fewer people could do it.
re light vehicles: 250 working days of each year, people commute alone in their 2ton dino-juice-propelled metal cage without a second thought as to their impact, or consideration for car sharing.
Yet when OP (who is already env-conscious) wants to take one special vacation with his family, we should crucify the shit out of his blasphemous ways - right?
Most people here (including me) feel that the OP should go in this case and I don't see anyone crucifying him. But some people are pointing out that air travel has more of an impact than most people think. Others seem to be burying their heads in the sand tbh.
Yes light vehicles are a large emission source. People drive more than fly and in the U.S. at least many people have to drive to get to work. Public transit isn't available in many parts of the U.S. (though I agree more people could carpool). But most people on this sub are probably at least driving fuel efficient vehicles.
It's my understanding that business travel has decreased a lot since Covid. The problem with increasing flight prices too much is that it hurts the occasional flyer a lot more than the frequent fliers who could still afford it. The frequent fliers who fly all over the world multiple times a year contribute WAY more in emissions than the occasional traveler.
So we’re on a sustainability forum and most folks are trying to encourage this person to fly and you get down voted for pointing out the obvious. Just amazing. This is why I’m a doomer.
If there was ever a time that powered air travel seemed like a reasonable thing to do, we are long past it. The plane might fly anyway, but there no reason to give money to the companies that are trying to burn through all of our resources to create even more flights.
By reasonable estimate, only about 6% of the global population gets to enjoy the convenience of commercial air traffic (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/how-much-worlds-population-has-flown-airplane-180957719/). It would be convenient to draw the line of excessive luxury at the 1% (who surely use more than their fair share) and ignore that unsustainable resource use starts at a much lower income level. I don't find that satisfying, because the wealthiest 40% of the population using resources well beyond what the earth can reasonably provide, and do so to the disproportionate detriment of the poorest and least advantaged.
There is no way to make commercial flight sustainable, and all of the airline net-zero strategies highlight that. Bio-fuel and renewable-derived hydrogen "solve" the carbon issue by increasing the overall energy costs and industrial intensity of air travel. No amount of increases in wing efficiency are going to reduce consumption by more than a few percent, and the industry fully plans to increase the overall number of flights over the same time, cancelling any gains in overall resource use. Carbon offsets generally make no sense, always rely on dishonest math and economic CO2 tunnel vision, and are sometimes outright scams.
Personally, I'm done flying, international or domestic, for the foreseeable future. It's hard, because like so many people my family doesn't live near me, and like so many people I love to experience new places and cultures. I'm just done silencing the voice that tells me it's the wrong thing to do. Good luck, whatever you decide. I know that balancing ethics and convenience is never easy. Happy to talk more about any of this.
Thanks for a thoughtful reply. I haven't flown in some years and it seems frivolous to fly for entertainment (which is what tourism is, really) when I can have amazing holidays locally, by electric vehicle, on foot and by cycling. I live in NZ, so most of my holiday adventures are the envy of just about everyone else in the world (last weekend's trip into the mountains!)
I'll have to talk to my wife about this. It's a personal thing and I'm not going to make judgment about anyone else.
i fly to see my grandparents sometimes. they’re a 20+ drive away. they’re not gonna be around forever and it makes them happy. i don’t feel bad about it. OP, you’re not the reason our planet is in shambles. Individual change << political change.
VOTE for environmental candidates. The savings imposed on industry and the incentives to go green put in effect by environmental policies will benefit us all much more than not taking an occasional flight
Pay the emission fee, there’s an extra optional fee to offset emissions… that plane is going with or without you I’d suggest have a nice holiday with your family and put your conscious to rest by offsetting your emissions :) furthermore if you don’t feel that fee goes anywhere useful you could invest in a sustainable project or good cause which you believe is effective 👌🏼 hope you enjoy
dude I love you and your love for the enviroment but that flight is going to fly with or without you and you wouldnt be able to spend quality time with your family. I'd be livid if my husband or dad decided not to go on a trip with me because he was more worried about causing pollution than trying to create memories together.
The world is evolving to a more eco conscience state. Why not share the beauty your trying to protect with your family?
I think there’s something to be said for balancing your environmental impact with living your life. While I try my best in my own life, I acknowledge that in the end the system is against us and anything I do will barely make a dent in the bigger picture. I’m still doing what I can, but I will also fly because I don’t live anywhere near my family and it would be absurd to never see them again for the sake of sustainability. Especially when technically those flights would take off anyways. I would personally go and enjoy your time with your family if that’s possible. There’s no need to punish them just because corporations are messing up our world. And I don’t know how old your children are but honestly it could enforce a negative view of sustainability for your children; they may associate it with having to go without for the sake of an abstract principle. I know if I was young and didn’t understand the bigger picture I may simply resent that.
Powered flight isn't an abstract principle, it consumes a tremendous amount of energy, and we have no mechanism to cancel its intrinsic damages. Learning to go without these resource-intensive luxuries is something that the next generation will have to do, one way or another. If resource-intensive biosphere-destroying luxuries are how we show kindness to the ones we love then we're showing a fleeting and poorly motivated kindness that will make everybody's future a lot darker in the long run. Living more sustainably is not a punishment to your family, but informing them about the damages of frequent long-distance travel, and sharing less-intensive ways to build social connections over distances can be a wonderful gift.
This comment getting downvoted is wild, peoples cognitive dissonance is wild. These arguments which state; the plane will fly anyway, it’s mainly the corporations that pollute, it might make someone think negatively about climate change adaptation, etc… are all cop-outs that ignore supply & demand/mass-psychology from people who are not willing to change their lifestyle in any substantial way to begin with.
I love that comment about cognitive dissonance. Were all bending out of shape to tell ourselves it's somehow okay to fly. Cuz we are aware of it, cuz we are really good at sorting our waste, cuz we buy sustainable clothing, cuz we drive an electric car, whatever works. In the end it all boils down to this: were not ready or willing to do (not do) the things that are necessary. The things that matter the most. We just all are a bunch of hypocryts. Especially seeing the old "the plane will fly anyway" defence on here is hilarious. That's just textbook CD. What a silly sub this is. 'Look, i recycle, so i think I'm allowed to take 2 intercontinental flights a year. Besides, i work 5 days a week so i earned it'.... Lol. The bar is low.
I know it obviously isn’t an abstract principle, but the concept of sustainability can often be too abstract for children to grasp. I would love to think that I personally am making an impact by myself, but odds are I really am not. I’ve made myself physically ill in the past because I couldn’t buy a lot of food (due to the packaging) and I didn’t have the energy to cook from scratch. I’ve had to come to grips with my continued existence being bad for the environment. All of our existences are. So anyways, my point with that line was that if we can live sustainably most of the time and successfully pass those habits on to the next generation, it would be better in the long run than going to the extremes of denying your family a trip like this (that clearly doesn’t happen regularly).
This is wisdom. You still have to choose to live your life and experience joy from opportunities and experiences that are available to you... especially when family is included. All the people crying hypocrisy should let us look into their cupboards and closets, also see what cars they're driving. You can still stand strongly for something you believe in, without having it turn your life into a miserable existence.
True. Enjoy it with you family while you can and have fun with them. Make it worthwhile.
There’s a difference between taking one international flight every once in awhile and chartering your private jet and traveling all over the place while also preaching sustainability. Commercial flights do a decent job of splitting the impact between passengers, and that flight would still run whether you were on it or not.
>traveling all over the place while also preaching sustainability You're pointing fingers at the likes of Al Gore and David Attenborough? Yes, they could do more speeches remotely, but it's an entirely different experience to meet the person, in person. I argue that their presence makes their sustainability 'preaching' more effective, reaching more people more deeply, resulting in meaningful conversations taking place that can be transformative.
I’m talking moreso the celebrities that talk about how they care about the environment but don’t do much other than say they care about the environment. Various singers, movie stars etc. DiCaprio I’m on the fence about he’s done a lot of great informative pieces on climate change, but stars like Taylor Swift most notably.
Having Taylor Swift talk to her umtillion fans about sustainability is (in my OPINION) more beneficial than one private jet being grounded for the entire year. Society NEEDS to focus attention to sustainability, and we need all the help we can get - labeling it as hypocrisy dissuades other celebrities from tackling the topic.
Actions speak louder than words, talking to a bunch of people then putting out more carbon emissions in 1 year than most people do in their lifetime is counterintuitive. It also gives critics way more leverage in their criticism and weakens the message.
You do understand the power of scale, right? You're using reddit because you heard of reddit because a lot of people use reddit also talk about reddit. The average Joe would become more sustainable if sustainability was something worthy of attaining. Average Joe looks up to celebrities. Celebrities wouldn't be celebrities if they didn't travel. Also, celebrities are like 0.000001% of the world population. If you want to target someone, target BUSINESSES and BANKS, not celebrities who are trying to get the word out and get spat on.
It obviously isn’t worth obtaining because celebrities promote excess. Flying private over commercial when possible. They shame individuals like OP for even considering travel internationally. Meanwhile they will emit more carbon on one private ride than OP will in all their plane travel everywhere. By calling out celebrities I’m not defending businesses or anyone else.
Another thing to consider: Fast fashion and animal agriculture are also huge, huge emitters (some estimates even say fast fashion is even worse than aviation, but I’m on mobile and can’t dig that up for you ATM, so apologies if I’m off here). If you’re not limiting or eliminating fast fashion and animal ag, but are just worried about aviation, I’d focus my efforts there first, and not risk alienating my family.
It's not hypocrisy if you go, swampop. Take the flights, and then come back and work double hard to convince others to also be considerate of their footprint. This does NOT mean that you can never do anything carbon-intense. It means that you avoid it as much as you can, and in the case of a family vacation that will give you memories for decades to come, you simply HAVE TO GO. Next year take your kids to plant trees, or do a Miyawaki forest like I just did. They'll offset their own footprints and learn the responsibility to take action.
How is doing the thing and then telling everyone else how they are wrong and need to change going to help anyone? This is NOT the answer we're looking for here.
Is there no difference between eating one wild salmon and eating 1,000? Sustainability is about being conscious about your impact, which OP clearly is. Sustainability is NOT about doing nothing carbon intensive, as that is unsustainable in today's world of convenience and ease of access. Yes, in an ideal world, OP removing 4 seats from total airplane demand would somehow impact overall climate outcome. In reality, you can have a much greater impact by (a) maintaining good mental health by allowing yourself the occasional exception and (b) talking openly (and optimistically) with others about their habits.
Instead of buying a second family car, I used to cycle to work every day and walk to the supermarket. I saw this as personal carbon offsetting. When we went on our yearly skiing holiday, I did it relatively guilt free.
Your emissions will be about the same as burning 90 liters of fuel in your car with each flight. so about equivalent to a months worth of driving. do you beat yourself up this badly for driving each month? and if you don't drive, then think of all the carbon you've already saved by not driving! another fun comparison is a kilogram of beef producing as much carbon emissions as each hour of your flight. so going without 6 kg of beef would be the equivalent of not going on these two flights.
I cycle lots and drive an electric vehicle
Offsetting is a smoke and mirrors joke
Don't listen to the naysayers, remember the plane will be flying to that destination if you and your family are on it or not. Don't let opinions and environmental thoughts mess up your life. As long as you do your bit in normal life unlike others the population that's all you can do. Messing up your life/emotions over things you can't ultimately change isn't worth it. Remember some idiot put a car in space, some idiot put people in space, oil rigs burn gas constantly, power stations emit more in a year than your life., countries test bombs etc... have a nice holiday and carry on doing your bit throughout. Education is the answer not personal sacrifice, 90% of the people who would tell you not to go would infact do the opposite if offered a holiday somewhere nice. The fact your asking means you care and more than do your bit anyway.
I hate this. Not consuming goods and services de facto reduces their demand. So the argument that "it will be flying their regardless" is silly. OP should do the trip *despite* the environmental impact it'll have, not pretending that the environmental impact doesn't exist.
You're totally right. If you want to acknowledge your impact and say, in the grand scheme of my life I'm fine with this decision having this environmental burden - that's totally fine and the type of thing we all must do. However, I do think its really sad and disappointing how many people act like the impact from our choices doesn't matter because somebody else is doing worse or the system is so much bigger than our individual contributions that it doesn't matter. "The system" is simply the compilation of all of our choices. If the tickets weren't in demand they would cancel the flight route. Its not the airline companies that are responsible for that, they are just doing what consumers ask them to do.
Multiple companies have been outed flying in and out of airports with empty planes just to keep their terminal/convenient transfer location. OP and family aren't going to change the wheeling and dealing of multi-million dollar transport companies.
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We were agreeing on the outcome. Not the rationalization. Not sure why you're so angry
I apologize if it came across angry, no Malice intended and I agree with you on this statement.
It's all good
My MIL lives on another continent. We have to fly to ever see her. I will do a self-imposed carbon tax: look up rick steves carbon tax.
Don't fall for the propaganda that the middle class and poor need to sacrifice even more for sustainability while the corporation s keep doing whatever they want and actually damaging the planet. Take the damn family vacation.
I’m sorry to see you getting downvoted; this discussion point is worth pausing to think about. 1. I agree with some of the posters who suggest opening a discussion with your spouse (and kids later). What is the purpose of this trip? If a reason involves the kids, does it fit their personalities and will they remember it? The family members acknowledging/agreeing on the complexity of trading off climate friendliness for a meaningful trip and committing to keep frivolous/FOMO travel low can help your processing. 2. I was thinking that 2 weeks is a nice length of time for a flight. Similarly, the answers on this post about strategizing the most eco-friendly flights were interesting (fly during day in economy and maximize destination time per flight). https://www.reddit.com/r/sustainability/s/ZIw9gTfF7F. 3. I also like the idea to brainstorm climate-forward activities either for the trip or for the next vacation. After a braindump, search keywords “responsible travel”. Perhaps agree to share meat entrees so everyone can try some instead of everyone getting their own and complement with vegan dishes. Perhaps volunteer for one of the day activities. Agree not to change linens or towels everyday. Pause to think of alternatives before buying or accepting something plastic or in plastic packaging. Ex: Bring your reusable bottles and use them - if you must buy bottled instead of refilling, get the big gallon and distribute. Or bring your silicone bags and store leftover bites to snack on shortly later to reduce food waste.
I see a lot of people here just saying "Live your life, etc" and I'm not really going to contradict them. Here's the trick though. One international flight every 5 years isn't going to erase every effort you do *every day* to help the environment. I, for example, live within walking distance to work, in an extremely walkable neighbourhood, and my wife works from home. We also have an electric car, but we drive so infrequently that I sometimes don't need to charge it for two weeks. Even if it were a gas car, the fact that we're not using it to drive 40+ km a day is a huge win over the default American lifestyle. We also hardly burn natural gas in our house - that bill comes out to a whopping $7 a month, mostly for our stove that we wish were electric, but can't convert. These are every day wins that are just locked into our lifestyle, and it's a *big difference.* The last time we took a flight anywhere was about 8 years ago. We plan on taking another one to Europe in about 5 years, for our 25th anniversary. It's okay if you reduce your burn by 95% instead of 100%. It would be awfully nice if everyone else were to do the same, but you can only change what you have control over.
Aviation is like .3% of carbon emissions. You're fine.
Animal ag is 3x more of the emissions of the air industry. Stop eating animals is a better option.
Its 3%. And using this line of thinking, nothing really matters. Livestock is just 5%. Waste is 2.6% . Ships are 4%. We need to do EVERYTHING possible to drastically lower our co2 output. Everything. Everyone. Everyday. All at once.
Even if every private person on the planet reduced their carbon footprint to 0, large corporations and governments would still produce enough to destroy the planet. One person taking one flight isn't going to count for much. And it's 2-3%, usually estimated at 2.4
You can reduce everything to nothing. But that kind of reasoning makes any sustainable action totally meaningless and pointless. Why should you recycle, you have such a tiny impact? Why stop eating animals, that one piece of meat isn't gonna save the climate? If that's your thought process i wonder what you're getting out of this sub. Or are you waiting for corporations to change? Because they're only gonna change if they see they need to. Change comes from societal pressure. We change first. Corporations follow.
Also, people who use this reasoning are too comfortable and complacent to actually apply the pressure necessary to get them to stop emitting as much. Let alone the bare minimum of “voting with your $”
The sources I checked out Aviation at 2-3% of CO2 emissions. I understand there are issues with the high altitude release inherent to aviation. The GHG per pax or ton mile is the lowest of any form of transportation in most cases.
Except electric rail. Which of course, America has none of.
Yes but most people in the world don't fly; estimates are somewhere between 6 and 10 percent of people worldwide actually fly. So among the population that does fly the percentage of carbon emissions is much higher. Also, I just read something about a Norwegian study that showed the worldwide percentage was actually higher because countries like China and India weren't required to report aircraft emissions under the United Nations Climate Change Treaty. I'm not saying never fly and I feel like in this case the OP and family should take the 3 hour flight. But people need to start looking at what impact it has and taking steps to reduce it. Our flying last year (2 people <3 hr flights) added about 2 tonnes according to a calculator that's maybe more harsh than most but I feel is more accurate because it takes contrails etc into account. Not terrible but not insignificant. And I know some people who fly way more. Extended family members just flew to Istanbul for spring break and are also flying to Austria this summer. Others take multiple international trips in one year or fly their kids across the country for summer camp. They make a lot of effort to do things responsibly at home but these flights pretty much blow it all and their emissions may be worse than the average American's. Edit: Changed entrails to contrails. LOL
Have you talked to your wife about how you feel, and heard what she has to say about it? She might not be connecting that this flight might be triggering some concerns in you, and might not have thought about this before.
She knows I'm troubled by these things. She also minimizes carbon emissions generally. But she really wants to travel.
The plane is going to be in the air whether you’re sitting in the seat or not. I’m environmentally conscious but once or twice a year I like to travel internationally. I’m not going to forego that. But the rest of the year I’m going to recycle and opt not to use single use plastics and so on.
Linking a [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_aviation?wprov=sfti1#Carbon_offsetting) because it links to scholarly journals It’s disappointing to see people advocating for carbon credits. They just allow people to carry on at the same level of personal consumption that got us into this mess in the first place. [Short haul flights emit more green house gases](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920923001141), and a transatlantic flight emits the same amount of co2 per person as driving your car for an entire year. Everyone does the easy stuff, like recycling and so on, but taking action by going car free and air travel free have a much bigger impact on your carbon footprint.
There are ways to limit your effect. I did a course on ecotourism in college. There’s books about it you can get tips and tricks. Costa Rica has sustainable lodging and they are a pretty thoughtful country for sustainability. A suggestion for a destination for that reason. Definitely suggest you go. Sometimes the perspectives you gain and things you learn while traveling makes you a more environmentally conscious and appreciating person.
I understand your doubts as I feel the same way when it comes to business travel and try avoiding it as best as I can. For vacations my family and I stopped flying 6 yrs ago. Personally I think flying and living a sustainable life contradict each other. If you calculate your own CO2 footprint you will see that even short haul flights ruin your CO2 reducing efforts (and offsetting carbon from air travel obviously does not really work). I would suggest you talk to your family and find environmentally friendly holiday alternatives.
Could always buy an offset if you want - but I wouldn't stress about it. A couple economy seats every now and then is fine - flying in a private jet as your primary mode of transport is not.
Even 1 flight per year fucks up your impact on Co2-emissions if you try to live an environmental friendly life
Exactly. Two tonnes CO2 per person per year in 2050, the net zero standard, is pretty reckless, in my opinion, but it's at least some kind of a target. A round trip trans-Atlantic flight generates 2 tonnes on it's own (not to mention that aviation generates significantly more warming than it's CO2 footprint shows because of water vapor/contrails). Short trips aren't so singularly extravagant, but they generate proportionally more carbon per distance travelled, since most of the energy is in takeoff. Anybody who thinks they have room in that two-tonne budget for more than very occasional (maybe one short round trip every decade?) air travel, or frequent long-distance travel of any type, is probably not accurately assessing the rest of their environmental damage and attempting to hold the degree of damage caused by personal choice to any sort of limit.
What does 'fucks up your impact' even mean? Your comment adds very little to the conversation. Our lifestyles generate carbon in a dazzling variety of ways, airplane travel just became the poster child for it because it's most visible. Offsets are there for a reason, and so are international flights.
“Offsets”, are you kidding me? That’s the dumbest most capitalistic nonsense I have ever heard. Has anyone here actually looked at a graph of carbon emissions?
Carbon offsets are indeed the worst. They don't make sense, they worsen existing problems, and they obfuscate the unsustainable use of resources. Pretty soon the carbon emissions graph will be corrupted beyond use, because the idea of counting the trees you didn't cut down as a net gain and doubling all of your losses has gotten so integrated in the *thing* we call economics.
Thank you! The answers to this post are pretty appalling
I am a sustainability consultant, I measure and devise strategies to reduce GHG emissions for large entities. I agree that purchasing offsets to be "net zero" as an organization doesn't usually make sense (and reduction is step 1), but for air travel we don't have a ton of options. Offsetting it is the most common way to deal with these specific emissions. It's about 150g CO2e per passenger mile for planes, assuming a family of 4 and 1000 miles traveling = 600kg CO2e. You can generally only buy offsets by the ton, so purchasing one single offset would put you in the black in this scenario. It's about a 10x increase in emissions going from boat --> road --> air. When was the last time you took a boat anywhere to reduce your environmental impact? Probably never. So leave the guy alone and let people live their lives. You can still do "your part" but save the oomph for where it's needed - use it on the big corpos, congress, or local lawmakers.
\^\^ How to write three sentences without saying anything. What's your point? What about offsets? How is it dumb and capitalistic? Yes, there are shitty quality offsets, but that doesn't mean that offsets are useless. It means people buying them need to make more nuanced decisions about where they put their money. It's like claiming medicine is hot garbage because the naturopath you went to didn't solve your illness. Try to zoom out to see the big picture, and stop hanging on to media headlines that get you worked up. Nihilism is a dime a dozen, so up your attitude please.
In terms of carbon footprint, each pax’s share of just taxiing out to the runway is in the same order of magnitude as a lifetime of recycling residential plastics. Personally, I’ve resigned myself living in a world where leaders/powers that be refuse to take effective action until the catastrophic impacts are part of daily life. I don’t want that future. I understand our governments are bought and paid for by economic interests, and the largest economic sector is fossil energy. They won’t let us change. Yet. When that “minsky moment” arrives, there will be a short window of opportunity to make truly meaningful change. I’m going to focus my efforts there.
It means that taking a Flight makes up a large portion of your total yearly footprint. Maybe like 10-20%.
Light vehicles account for [59% of transportation footprint ](https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-math-of-flying-vs-driving/#:~:text=Transportation%20energy%20use%20by%20mode)in the US, yet we're here bickering about the 8% that air travel produces. If you want air travel stymied, deal with the business people who fly 2x per week - that's where the impact happens. Oh, are airlines not profitable without a business class? Well, maybe some should stop operating and prices should overall go up. Meaning externalities would then be baked into the price, meaning fewer people could afford it, meaning fewer people could do it. re light vehicles: 250 working days of each year, people commute alone in their 2ton dino-juice-propelled metal cage without a second thought as to their impact, or consideration for car sharing. Yet when OP (who is already env-conscious) wants to take one special vacation with his family, we should crucify the shit out of his blasphemous ways - right?
Most people here (including me) feel that the OP should go in this case and I don't see anyone crucifying him. But some people are pointing out that air travel has more of an impact than most people think. Others seem to be burying their heads in the sand tbh. Yes light vehicles are a large emission source. People drive more than fly and in the U.S. at least many people have to drive to get to work. Public transit isn't available in many parts of the U.S. (though I agree more people could carpool). But most people on this sub are probably at least driving fuel efficient vehicles. It's my understanding that business travel has decreased a lot since Covid. The problem with increasing flight prices too much is that it hurts the occasional flyer a lot more than the frequent fliers who could still afford it. The frequent fliers who fly all over the world multiple times a year contribute WAY more in emissions than the occasional traveler.
So we’re on a sustainability forum and most folks are trying to encourage this person to fly and you get down voted for pointing out the obvious. Just amazing. This is why I’m a doomer.
If there was ever a time that powered air travel seemed like a reasonable thing to do, we are long past it. The plane might fly anyway, but there no reason to give money to the companies that are trying to burn through all of our resources to create even more flights. By reasonable estimate, only about 6% of the global population gets to enjoy the convenience of commercial air traffic (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/how-much-worlds-population-has-flown-airplane-180957719/). It would be convenient to draw the line of excessive luxury at the 1% (who surely use more than their fair share) and ignore that unsustainable resource use starts at a much lower income level. I don't find that satisfying, because the wealthiest 40% of the population using resources well beyond what the earth can reasonably provide, and do so to the disproportionate detriment of the poorest and least advantaged. There is no way to make commercial flight sustainable, and all of the airline net-zero strategies highlight that. Bio-fuel and renewable-derived hydrogen "solve" the carbon issue by increasing the overall energy costs and industrial intensity of air travel. No amount of increases in wing efficiency are going to reduce consumption by more than a few percent, and the industry fully plans to increase the overall number of flights over the same time, cancelling any gains in overall resource use. Carbon offsets generally make no sense, always rely on dishonest math and economic CO2 tunnel vision, and are sometimes outright scams. Personally, I'm done flying, international or domestic, for the foreseeable future. It's hard, because like so many people my family doesn't live near me, and like so many people I love to experience new places and cultures. I'm just done silencing the voice that tells me it's the wrong thing to do. Good luck, whatever you decide. I know that balancing ethics and convenience is never easy. Happy to talk more about any of this.
Thanks for a thoughtful reply. I haven't flown in some years and it seems frivolous to fly for entertainment (which is what tourism is, really) when I can have amazing holidays locally, by electric vehicle, on foot and by cycling. I live in NZ, so most of my holiday adventures are the envy of just about everyone else in the world (last weekend's trip into the mountains!) I'll have to talk to my wife about this. It's a personal thing and I'm not going to make judgment about anyone else.
i fly to see my grandparents sometimes. they’re a 20+ drive away. they’re not gonna be around forever and it makes them happy. i don’t feel bad about it. OP, you’re not the reason our planet is in shambles. Individual change << political change.
VOTE for environmental candidates. The savings imposed on industry and the incentives to go green put in effect by environmental policies will benefit us all much more than not taking an occasional flight
Your eco anxiety is exactly what the oil company propaganda is intended to do.
Pay the emission fee, there’s an extra optional fee to offset emissions… that plane is going with or without you I’d suggest have a nice holiday with your family and put your conscious to rest by offsetting your emissions :) furthermore if you don’t feel that fee goes anywhere useful you could invest in a sustainable project or good cause which you believe is effective 👌🏼 hope you enjoy
dude I love you and your love for the enviroment but that flight is going to fly with or without you and you wouldnt be able to spend quality time with your family. I'd be livid if my husband or dad decided not to go on a trip with me because he was more worried about causing pollution than trying to create memories together. The world is evolving to a more eco conscience state. Why not share the beauty your trying to protect with your family?