The impact on personal carbon dioxide emissions of a small number of flights
Three return flights within Europe	Average 3000km each (slightly less than the distance to Rome)	4.5 tonnes
One return flight to the US	10,000 km	3.6 tonnes
Total	8.1 tonnes

Source: How to live a Low-carbon life by Chris Goodall, p219

 

“However much an individual does to minimize his or her impact on the environment, any measures are dwarfed by the impact of taking a few air flights a year.” Source: How to live a low-carbon life by Chris Goodall, p219

The amount of air travel in which a person engages in is the primary determinant of how much carbon emissions he or she is responsible for. Someone who flies will have carbon emissions on average 25% higher than someone who doesn't. Flying is a major contributor to global dimming. In 2001, when all the flights over American soil were cancelled out due to the terrorist attacks, average temperatures for the next 3 days increased by ONE DEGREE. All we need for runaway global warming is just 2 degrees of warming, so one degree may not seem like much but it's huge. Chosing not to fly is the only difficult lifestyle choice we face when trying to reduce our carbon footprint but in many cases, it is actually quite easy to replace a holiday abroad with a holiday in the UK. All it takes is enough mindfulness.

“Travelling by air, in contrast to the train, is an almost unmitigated disaster for the environment.” Chris Goodall

Alternative arrangements:
There are ways that you can travel almost anywhere in Europe without using the plane but most people think this is cumbersome and time consuming. The fact is that train travel is infinitely less polluting than airline travel. View CC’s how does air travel compare to other means of travel fact sheet to understand how. Let’s first look at the difficulty of getting from A to B by train or by bus. One website has made all of this very easy:

WWW.SEAT61.COM

Seat61.com gets 500,000 visitors a month and won the Guardian ’s best travel website in 2008. It is a one stop-source of information to travel anywhere by train or by sea from here all the way down to Russia if that’s where you want to go.
Travelling by train has a lot more benefits than most imagine:

• It can be as cheap as flying: London to Paris Eurostar tickets start at £59 return and from Paris to Rome, as little as £30 each way.
• More often on time: high speed trains are 92% on time whilst domestic flights are 65% on time.
• It’s more adventurous and interesting
• You get to meet local people and absorb different cultures
• It’s more romantic and more scenic than flying
• Train time can be much more relaxing and productive: you can get a lot of work done and relax a lot more.
• You can sleep on trains and save yourself hotel fees so you might get to your destination in the same length of time you would if you were travelling by plane and sleeping in a hotel overnight.

“The lack of interest from governments, both in the UK and elsewhere, in holding down the rate of growth of aviation is deeply frightening and provides the clearest example of the need for individuals to exercise self-restraint.” Source: How to live a Low-carbon life by Chris Goodall, p224

Facts and figures:

• The share of airline pollution in the average individual’s carbon footprint is 1.8 tonnes (15% of the total). Since only 50% of the UK population fly, the true carbon footprint of flying is 3.6 tonnes for those who do fly.
• One return flight to the US will probably exceed the per-person emissions of a year’s car use. (Source: Chris Goodall, How To Live a low carbon life p218)
• As a result of condensation trails and oxides of nitrogen emissions, most experts now think that air travel emissions are about three times as bad as the simple carbon dioxide output might suggest. This would put airline’s emissions responsible for about 10% of global warming. (Source: Chris Goodall, How To Live a low carbon life p218)
• In the UK, the airline industry’s contribution to the country’s emissions is 13%. (Campaign for better transport)
• The industry grew at an annual rate of 7% from 1993 to 2004. It is expected that by 2030, the amount of airline passengers in the UK will be double that of 2003.
• A third runway at Heathrow is predicted to raise CO2 pollution by the equivalent of the national output of Kenya. (BBC Bloom)

More info & links:

www.responsibletravel.com
If you are seeking to offset your carbon emissions due to a flight, we recommend that when you use a carbon calculator, you multiply the result by three to get the true amount of pollution then offset it, following the Energy Saving Trust’s recommendation by purchasing carbon offsets from a project investing in large scale renewable energy.

www.uk-tourist-attractions.co.uk
A wealth of information on attractions across the UK

www.campingandcampsites.co.uk
The most comprehensive database of UK Campsites

www.planestupid.com
An activist group involved in opposing the expansion of the airline industry