Anyone not holiday flying, because of climate change?

[kenny]

I'm so proud of people who don't have kids, or fly, to help do their part for climate change.

Is anyone here flying, but buying credits to help the environment elsewhere?

Choosing Not To Fly Home For The Holidays, For The Climate's Sake

Carbon emissions from global air travel are rising fast, and U.S. passengers make up the largest share. But some are vowing not to fly at all, motivated by guilt and concern for the environment.

www.npr.org

 

[Dancing Fire]

I'm so proud of people who don't have kids, or fly, to help do their part for climate change.

Is anyone here flying, but buying credits to help the environment elsewhere?

Choosing Not To Fly Home For The Holidays, For The Climate's Sake

Carbon emissions from global air travel are rising fast, and U.S. passengers make up the largest share. But some are vowing not to fly at all, motivated by guilt and concern for the environment.

www.npr.org

Wonder how long would it take for an 82 yr old to walk 500 miles to visit his family and relatives...

 

[kenny]

Wonder how long would it take for an 82 yr old to walk 500 miles to visit his family and relatives...

I think the point is, just because technology makes something possible doesn't mean it's without downsides.

 

[missy]

I'm so proud of people who don't have kids, or fly, to help do their part for climate change.

Is anyone here flying, but buying credits to help the environment elsewhere?

Choosing Not To Fly Home For The Holidays, For The Climate's Sake

Carbon emissions from global air travel are rising fast, and U.S. passengers make up the largest share. But some are vowing not to fly at all, motivated by guilt and concern for the environment.

www.npr.org

We don't have kids and I don't fly and my dh is in the environmental field so I will say we do what we can haha. Of course I won't lie. I hate flying and don't not do it because I want to help the environment but it is a positive side effect and still counts right?

And we walk (or cycle) when we can vs getting into the car and driving.

 

[Austina]

No, my son lives 5000 miles away, and although we won’t be seeing them for TG, we will for Christmas. Do I feel guilty about it, no. I drive a car with a 1600 engine, I recycle as much as I can, changed all the lights in my house to energy saving bulbs, don’t use the washing machine unless I have a full load, and whenever possible, hang my laundry out to dry so I’m not using the dryer.

 

[Elizabeth35]

I have read a lot about flygskam in the last year or so. I get it (and support it), but being in the US, we don't have the greatest rail options. When we are in Europe we do use rail systems as opposed to flying when we have a choice.
We do have 6 kids between us. Do we get credit for 2 being adopted?!?!?

I am not willing to go to the extreme of not seeing family and choose to do other environmentally friendly things (as Austina does). We are now doing 2-3 longer air trips per year instead of 8 shorter air trips. We plan our driving carefully to drive our cars as little as possible.

I am aware of the waste of packaging so I try to reduce that. I don't buy fast food/Starbucks due to the amount of packaging and waste. We eat 98% of our meals at home using food that we buy in bulk and make our own dressings, sauces, etc.
We grow our own herbs to avoid buying packaged herbs in shrink wrap and styrofoam.
I'm also buying more cosmetics/personal care products based on environmentally friendly packaging.

Try this site:

Package Free Shop: Zero Waste Lifestyle Store

At Package Free Shop we sell sustainable, green, eco friendly, plastic free products to help you live a zero waste, minimalist, and low impact lifestyle.

packagefreeshop.com

What I find funny is that pretty much anything that is environmentally friendly is also economically frugal. I find I am mimicking my Depression Era parents. Reduce, re-use, recycle. We are very anti-waste. We throw virtually no food away. We buy lots of used clothing and other items on eBay or Craigslist whenever possible. We sell/donate unused items the same way as opposed to putting in a landfill.

So--we all can find ways to be more eco-friendly and to avoid wasting resources. And we all make different choices.

 

[lyra]

If there was no flying, my husband would be out of a job. OTOH, if I could, I'd live in a cottage in the woods and be as self-sustained as possible. Solar panels, composting, gardens, maybe a couple of alpacas to eat the grass, plus you can sell their manure. It's such a dream.

 

[whitewave]

I don’t fly that much so I can’t get into this idea that now we can’t fly, and I also don’t fly enough to think about carbon offsets. However, I am all for planting a bunch of trees at any opportunity.

Right now my money goes to local animal rescues.

 

[Dancing Fire]

..How long would it take for me to swim to Hawaii?

 

[Snowdrop13]

I don’t fly but living in Europe, and with no desire to travel long haul I’m happy on the train. There’s a great website: www.seat61.com which has details of rail travel all over the world. Apparently I can get to Australia from the UK! Might be my retirement goal

 

[MakingTheGrade]

I have no kids and my family is in China (too far to go just for thanksgiving, which they don't celebrate) so I volunteer to work Thanksgiving every year. So nope, no flying for me.

 

[telephone89]

I'm flying for new years, and unfortunately it's one thing I don't feel guilty about. I am super environmentally conscious at home but I won't be giving up my travels anytime soon. I also don't have kids, but that's more because I didn't want them but we can say it was for mother earth

 

[kenny]

I also don't have kids, but that's more because I didn't want them but we can say it was for mother earth

+1

 

[mrs-b]

I'm an Australian living in Boston, so I either fly all the time, or people are flying to visit us all the time. My husband also flies a lot for work - and he works in the insurance industry - so that's the triple whammy of evil, right? Oh - and should I add - until his parents retired - his family owned a very large beef exporting company? His mother, by the way, was also an attorney - so we're pretty much in the seventh circle of hell here!

But looks can be deceiving. His parents pioneered the organic (grass fed), chemical-free beef industry in Australia in the 80's, which then spread to the US in the 90's and, after retirement, traveled the world (yep - via plane!) teaching cattle growers how to manage tree preservation on their properties to conserve their waterways in their original pathways and prevent soil erosion - a HUGE issue associated with commercial land usage, largely unfamiliar to Joe Public. Their eldest son - DH's brother - is a chemist and has bought the family property, and has used it to develop fully organic farming practices for large scale producers.

Personally, I'm passionate about trees and we plant them wherever we go. And we never - EVER - cut them down. We donate, donate, donate to planting projects, and own one, small-ish car - specifically to cut our emissions. We get rid of coal usage in all our homes (and that ain't cheap, let me tell you!) and heavily insulate any home we ever own, to conserve heat usage. We have our heat set to 58 in winter (and in Boston, that's like 8 months of the year), but due to our insulation efforts, the house normally sits between 62 and 64. And we just don't throw out wood. We just don't. If it's broken, we fix it. If it's scratched, we restore it, and if it's beyond saving, we'll burn it for fuel. Surprisingly, given the family business, we eat almost no red meat (I was vegetarian when I met DH, which sure made for an interesting first visit to his family!!), in large part to do our part to keep cattle raising to a minimum and trees to a maximum. We also try to think laterally on this issue, and donate money to projects like contraception education in third world countries.

And yes. We donate through cooleffect.org.

ETA I do, however, use hairspray and always will. So despite my efforts, the ozone layer above my house is probably non-existent. Sigh. Swings and roundabouts. Swings and roundabouts....