On 1st January 2020, I and some tens of thousands of others pledged not to make use of air travel for the year for all the obvious reasons (and with all the obvious caveats about privilege etc; not everyone even has a choice).
Not only did I succeed in this personal commitment, global air traffic declined during the year by around 60%, to levels last seen at the turn of the century.
This - one item of good news this year, perhaps - also represents perhaps the most successful small political campaign since Bolshevism. (“Little did Vladimir Ulyanov know, on that bright May morning in 1908, as he bickered with his English landlady about towels, that less than a decade later…”).
I’m not personally pledging for 2021, for reasons...; if you feel able to, great, please do! (I last flew in 2018, to Bulgaria; previous to
this, Spain to 2015 and, previous to that, Spain in 2010). Some suggest that
no more than one short-haul flight about every three years and no more than one long-haul flight approximately
every eight years would be long-term sustainable if everyone did it; inevitably, some won't – this might be something to mention when
holidays come up in conversation with friends and colleagues, as they tend to
in January.
(“Wow, you’re off to America again. That’s great. Oh, you remember that David Attenborough thing you mentioned the other week..?”).
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