Cheap Flights Impact Climate Change

I’m fascinated by the fact that progressive papers such as the Guardian and Independent  continue to promote cheap flights and foreign holidays, and that when asked about this they weasel around the issue of the impact on climate change, citing the need for revenue. One assumes that there are industries they do refuse to promote, or industries they will only promote in particular ways, but the tourist industry gets carte blanche.

Longhaul and frequent cheap flights to Europe

In the history of humanity it is only since the 1960′s that we have developed the expectation of the ‘right’ to be able to fly to Sydney, Los Angeles, Bangkok etc on holiday once a year on a fraction of our salaries, and the further ‘right’ to be able to book cheap flights and hop over to Prague, Barcelona and Rimini every 3 or 4 months.

It seems to me that this is an absurd expectation, when these ‘rights’ affect fundamentally other peoples’ rights to life. Try explaining to somebody in the Maldives whose house is being flooded regularly because of rising seas that you have the right to these trips! Let’s not pretend that we don’t now know the effects of what we do!

It’s the toxic combination of the lack of viable alternatives presented to us with the promotion of cheap flights and foreign holidays as a basic right rather than privilege that’s to blame. Of the two ingredients, I’m inclined to believe that promoting the idea of the cheap flight for foreign holidays as absolutely basic to our way of life that’s the more worrying.