Everyone who knows me knows that I hate flying. It's loud, uncomfortable, confining and if things go wrong there's no way out. (I'm an advocate of parachutes under seat, not inflatable vests.)
But the real reason I hate flying these days is the environmental impact.
a) Apparently you're better off driving to your destination, alone, even if it's thousands of miles away, than being on a full plane. That's how bad the fuel consumption is.
b) Planes dump their emissions in the most delicate part of the stratosphere and there's nothing to help mitigate the damage. For all of the pollution cars create, we have our plant life down here to help soften the blow.
c) They are noisy, booming things and no matter where we go, we seem to be able to hear one or see one, even the far hills of Scotland.
d) The amount of packaging they use per passenger is amazing. When my husband recently flew on a short haul flight to Amsterdam, he asked the air steward if they recycled any of the cans, cups etc and the air steward dismissed his question by saying 'that would be far too expensive.'
So they are massive air polluters, noise polluters, they create masses of plastic rubbish, are fuel hungry and the actual airlines don't recycle their waste or seem to care to.
And how does the UK government respond? Subsidies of course. They prop them up with heaps of money to make it cheaper for consumers to perpetuate the cycle. The subsidies work out to something like £500 per person in the UK that go to the airline industry. I don't understand how this is possible.
This winter, my husband and I decided we were going to go green. We were already slightly eco-friendly but there was a lot of room for improvement. And when my mother-in-law gave us a book on ethical living we realised how ignorant we were on just about everything to do with sustainability. Which was a bit of a shock as I always considered myself a mother-earth-loving, modern gal with my cool, retro reusable shopping bags, my willingness to walk miles for a recyling bin, my loathing of everything SUV (they are just so ridiculous, clunky and ugly) and my preference for walking and cycling over anything with a combustible engine. But The Good Life by Leo Hickman was a real eye-opener. Everything we did seemed to need a review. Cleaning, travel, shopping, restaurant selections, getting from A to B...everything. No more leaving the water running when brushing the teeth, no more taking cabs, recycling everything possible, no more asparagus shipped from Chile, no more meat with every...
Comments
Am enjoying the blog - nice to find another Londoner who feels as guilty about wrecking the planet as me!
Thought you might be interested to know about the concept of Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/). A great way of keeping stuff out of landfill and not throwing away perfectly usable things. I'm presently shifting half my stuff on it before I move out of London!
Cheers!
Steve
Let us know how it works out for you. Might be worthy of a review.
Green Lady