I’ve a funny image of Michael O’Leary doing a nocturnal rain dance and Lynne Embleton praying diligently for Low Pressure systems. Of course airline CEOs’ delight with meteorological misery is understandable since the cold, wind & rain pushes us ever closer to that annual tipping point… googling foreign holiday destinations.
While we all love to escape these shores from time to time, the problem is that each flight zaps our annual carbon budget. A Dublin-New York return flight generates almost 2 tonnes of CO2 per passenger, and going business-class more than doubles that damage. With about 200,000 flights a day worldwide, figures like these physically assault a livable future.
So how can we edge closer to a sustainable annual 4 tonne footprint?
✅ Well if you must fly, choose a greener airline that flies efficient planes with few empty seats, (see atmosfair.de/en/air_travel_and_climat); buy carbon offsets to lower some of your impact; bring minimal luggage & rent bulky items (like skis or surfboards) at your destination; opt for economy rather than business-class; and fly direct.
✅ But better yet, try to avoid. Video-conference instead of flying for work; take 1 flight every 3 years instead of 3 flights every year, take the train instead of an internal flight; holiday in Ireland instead of abroad; or climb to that dizzying altitude of amazingness & just quit flying!