Elenor Matthews defends the rights of those who want to travel for less
If Ryanair was a night-club it would almost certainly be Filth: only after the inevitable mix of binge drinking, Justin Timberlake, kebabs and casual sex do we remember that it’s trashy and vulgar, and will inevitably leave us feeling somewhat grubby. So why do we still do it?
Cheap-flights certainly aren’t good for the environment and there’s no point in kidding ourselves that we’re not contributing to the speed up of global warming when we use them. However there is nothing which makes a flight on Easyjet more inherently polluting than on Silverjet, and business-men commuting back-wards and forwards from New-York twice a week are as much to blame for the climate crisis as groups of chavs or, for that matter, students going to Ianapa for the weekend. In fact, I sense a rather unhealthy air of snobbery under all the cheap flight hysteria which seems to suggest that you have to pass some kind of financial litmus test to leave the country. Basically a kind of horror that now almost anyone can get to that Villa in Tuscany.
We may groan at stag groups in Prague; however, in the modern world a society that travels is far healthier than one that doesn’t- just look at the number of citizens of the US who don’t have passports. Travel is one of life’s greatest levellers and without cheap flights those who need it the most – the young and the terminally bored – will struggle to get further than Calais. Although travelling on a big bright orange plane is admittedly less romantic than on the Marrakech Express, surely it’s better that now the vast majority of people can go and see Eastern Europe or the Arab world before they start whining about ‘all of them over here’.
If we are really dedicated to cutting CO2 than perhaps we should ban aviation all-together, but getting rid of cheap flights is as half-arsed as David Cameron’s stupid bicycle helmet and private jet combo. It will not stop people who can afford to fly. In fact it will probably just lead to stagnation in the fuel-saving technology that airlines must develop to stay competitive and which are constantly making flying greener. More people are flying, but more people are also driving, and just as cars have become less gas-guzzling so have flights become 70% more efficient than forty years ago. Much like Filth, this is a case of something sordid being so wrong it’s almost right. So by all means offset your carbon footprint, but don’t knock Ryanair until you’ve stopped eating apples from New Zealand.
Rhion Harris attacks plane users who are destroying the environment.
Fifty pound flights to Dublin, seventy pound flights to Paris and just ninety to Prague… Cheap flights have become so commonplace that for five years we have been able to jet across the world at rock-bottom prices. And directly as the price of flights has diminished the cost to the environment has increased. UK airports recorded an 120% increase in the number of passengers between 1990 and 2004. How, then, are we going to reach the Kyoto Protocol’s target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010?
Everyone knows about the carbon dioxide emissions from aeroplanes which, after their release in the upper troposphere, trap long-wave solar radiation and lead to global warming. Fewer people are aware of the extent of the damage caused by contrails. Contrails are formed when humid air expelled by aeroplanes meets cold air in the upper atmosphere and condenses to form thin cirrus clouds. These trap heat in the atmosphere, just like carbon dioxide but with three times the strength. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forecast a temperature increase of between 1.4- 5.8 degrees Celsius by the next century.
It’s understandable that people would want to take advantage of going on a nice holiday for less money. The problem is that people see the prices and then find a reason to travel; it ought to be the other way around. There are also less environmentally damaging modes of transport – cars, ferries and coaches. What’s so wrong with holidaying in the UK? Some people have begun to try to reduce the negative environmental impact of their flights using ‘carbon offsetting’ schemes, where they pay to have trees planted on their behalf, but there are doubts about its efficacy, and these schemes do not provide the change to the underlying behaviour that is so badly needed.
Another psychological problem is that the rapid expansion of airports at the moment. The plan to expand 30 airports in 30 years is sending completely the wrong signals to the public about the morality and impact of flying. As an aside, airport expansion also causes loss of green land, noise and air pollution.
It is now time for us to start taking the threat (or, in fact, the reality) of climate change seriously. Soon everyone will be forced to take action, whether it be flying just once a year, offsetting our carbon emissions, or even opting for a holiday in Britain instead of abroad. Forget SAD – guilt will soon make you feel worse.
