Also:

[hmpf]

WTF, people? - Yes, 'stop flying' means *you*, too! (No doubt that makes me an EVUL ECO-NAZI who wants to deprive people of the well-deserved, meagre joys of their stressful lives, and probably all just because I'm jealous I can't afford expensive holidays myself. Or, as my mother puts it: "We just can't *live* the kind of limited life that *you* live!" - Though, to be fair, my parents' preferred mode of holiday is the bike tour, so they're pretty near ecological paragons in that respect. Our points of conflict are more along the lines of food, i.e. the need, or, in their view, the unimaginable deprivation, of reducing meat and, even more importantly, fish consumption.)

Comments

My rant...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

really mostly meant people who go on relatively frequent intra-European holidays by plane etc., as well as companies/individuals who schedule lots of not always very necessary business trips by plane.

I do realise that there are people for whom - in the current system - flying really is the only reasonable option, and if I were World Eco Dictator ;-) I'd prohibit flying very much depending on the individual situation. E.g. I wouldn't dream of telling you or my friends Anne or Becka and her husband, who life in NZ, Australia, and Korea, respectively, but are originally from Europe and still have family there (and, in the case of Becka, also in America), that you should stop seeing your family unless you travel by ship.

That said... taking all day by bus or train is actually within the realm of the acceptable, I think. Yeah, it's not *comfortable* - but as long as we're not talking *several* days with frequent changes and tons of luggage and whatnot, I think people (not looking explicitly at you; obviously you are already thinking very much about your impact, and doing something to remedy it, so I really don't mean you particularly) should at least think about that option. I have travelled from Frankfurt to Barcelona and back by bus (22 hours) and from Frankfurt to Cardiff by train and bus (19 hours - but that included several crazy emergencies while still in Germany; usually it's more like 7-8 hours), and from Cardiff to Frankfurt by bus (13 hours) - and, while decidedly exhausting, it worked just fine and was not entirely without advantages: I enjoyed actually getting a sense of the journey, and seeing the country I was passing through.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with serious back, knee or hip difficulties, though (those are the parts of my body that hurt for a while afterwards *g*). But for healthy people, it's really not *that* much of an inconvenience.

(As I kept telling myself during the crazy emergency situation that delayed me on my way to Britain a few months back: just remember how long this kind of trip would have taken in the 18th century - and how uncomfortable it would have been! *g*)

Re: My rant...

[torn-eledhwen.livejournal.com]

Time's the main reason I don't take the train or bus up to Auckland. I don't have spare days to sit around travelling, as a rule! I'd like to take the train as it's supposed to be a pretty ride.