Climate change and all the attendant hysteria might be wearing some of us down but luckily there are some moments of light relief. A Somerset family of eco-heroes who selflessly gave up flying in 2002 have made it by land and sea and, it transpires, by air to attend a family wedding, according to the BBC:
The family decided to stop flying in 2002 “because of its effect on the climate”.
Mr. Simon, from East Pennard, said: “We stopped flying a long time ago because of our own carbon footprint, which we looked at and we thought we can’t justify it anymore.”
But when Ms. Coggins’ sister, who lives in Sydney, revealed she was getting married, the family started planning how they would get there without using a plane.
They travelled through Kazakhstan, China, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia using multiple modes of transport, before taking a flight from Dili in East Timor’s capital to cross the Timor Sea to Darwin, Australia.
Apparently:
The family thinks they have used five times less carbon travelling than if they had flown all the way.
Note ‘thinks’. No actual figures are provided to prove this claim. The journey took four months and involved the couple giving up their jobs. Oh! That’s how it’s done! Just give up work. This must be the most extreme example of climate activism being a middle-class leisure pursuit.
The trip required “a monumental amount of planning”. Sadly, the planning didn’t extend to working out how to get from SE Asia to Australia:
Their travel options ran out and they were forced to take a short flight.
Writing on the family’s blog, Rosa [the couple’s daughter] said: “It really was tough, having to get on a plane after all we had achieved without one.”
Probably a lot less tough than trying to swim across the Timor Sea.
Ms. Coggins made the invaluable observation that “unfortunately the world isn’t currently set up to make low-carbon travel easier than flying”.
No method of travelling long distance is easier than flying and nor will it ever be, except possibly short hop space travel, because it’s a great deal faster and safer. It’s never going to be easier to go by land and sea to Australia because most of us have to earn a living and don’t have time, however wonderful a trip of a lifetime might be. That’s why the Cutty Sark is now a museum ship. In 1883 it broke the record at 73 days from Sydney to London. Impressive but not quite as impressive as less than 24 hours in a 787.
But the great thing about this story is that perhaps Net Zero won’t be so bad after all. If your travel options run out it seems you can just hop on a plane and still be an eco hero. I’m off to Australia myself in a couple of weeks. My travel options have run out too, so I’ll be on the non-stop flight to Perth with all the other passengers whose travel options have run out.
Stop Press: Some people in the comments have been asking how the family got back from Australia. According to the BBC: “The family will continue soaking up the sun for the next few months before going back home the same way they came.”. So, a whole year off then.
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