I’m an Eco-Hypocrite Who Can’t Stop Flying

“Marrakech” the magnet reads, amidst minarets, mountains and a madrasa. I stick it to my fridge, where it joins a Bavarian bust with some beers, a plaster Parthenon, a Californian flip flop, a South African flag, a miniature Mauritius, the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela in Spain and Prague’s astronomical clock.

You’d be sensible to assume this was a decade in the making, but honestly — I must confess — I’ve travelled to all these places in the past two years. And they don’t even include the jaunt to Venice, or the festival in Barcelona.

When I open the fridge, there’s zero meat, only tofu, tempeh, a load of vegetables and assorted condiments. The only milk is oat, and I’ve plenty of tupperware storing leftovers from dinners made during one-pan low-energy cooking sessions. Even outside of the kitchen and its religiously-maintained recycling bin, my lifestyle suggests I’m a knit-your-own muesli kind of tree-hugger.

My wardrobe’s stocked with clothes I’ve owned since the first time they were cool, so that I don’t have to re-buy when they’re in fashion again. Sure, some of the trousers I wear have holes worn in the seat, but I patch them up using scraps of old T-shirts. Any light clothes get too faded? I dye them another colour, giving them new life. I cycle rather than drive, and use a car-hire service when I need to move big things. I’m done with avocados, turn my nose up at cocaine and avoid single-use plastic. In the winter, I wrap up in three-piece pyjamas at bedtime, use a hot water bottle rather than central heating and … well, sometimes I’m just out of the country.

Because despite routinely making my own life that much harder in order to build my self-professed eco credentials, I take a lot of flights. Yes, I’m that dweeb at the airport queuing to fill my water bottle after security, because even when partaking in a carbon-spewing flight, I want to be as eco as possible.

Of course, the more I save on food, clothes and travel at home, the more I can spend on holidays abroad. But honestly, it’s not just about cost — I genuinely do all these things in the belief that they could, in some way, help off-set my travel choices.

Is this true, though? One study found that 1% of all travellers account for half of all CO2 emissions in the aviation industry. These super-emitters each travel about 56,000km every year. In the last year, I’ve fallen 20,000km shy of that lofty number.

The world’s burning, and the impact of climate change is clear to anyone with more than a passing interest in the weather. But aviation accounts for just 1.9% of global carbon emissions. Far bigger emitters, industry-wise, are things like road transport (11.9%), iron and steel (7.2%) and livestock and manure (5.8%). Of course, I benefit from some of these things in ways I can’t always tell, and I know that, if everyone flew as much as me, we’d be in a far worse state. But I’m pretty sure that if everyone ate as much meat as the most prolific flesh-guzzlers, and drove as much as the biggest petrol-head, we’d be in a far worse state. As one frequent flyer eco-pal told me: “The plane’s going with or without me.”

Another, perhaps kinder saying, is that travel is the only thing you spend money on that makes you richer. The great paradox for so many self-appointed progressives like me is that to be curious about the world in this way, to contribute to local economies along the journey, requires hideous air travel. So I’m not kidding myself into thinking that my travel plans render me morally superior, but I do learn so much about different cultures and histories. How they have bread letterboxes in Galicia, that Germans will do everything early, how Hearst built a castle in the sky, the way Table Mountain mellows out Capetonians — always reminded of their humanity in the face of this god-like totem — how beer is that much fizzier thanks to Czechia’s spring waters, the respectful ceremony of mint tea in Morocco. And isn’t learning what we’re on this planet to do?

I’m also the daughter of an immigrant, who herself is a daughter of refugees. What’s left of our family is scattered and we’d like to see not just each other but other places that can teach us about all the different permutations of humanity. We’re not the only ones, and whenever I hear certain people talk about how awful air travel is, on an ethical level, I wonder if they’ve ever known what it’s like to, perhaps not by choice, live far from the people they love.

I know this doesn’t excuse my plane travel, or improve its outcomes. And I admit I sometimes I travel not just to learn about a culture, or contribute to an economy, but simply to get away from the miserable weather here. So ultimately, as a mid-way emitter, the best I can do is try to do more alleviate my choices; flying direct, on more modern aircraft, packing light and, increasingly, as the links improve, go by rail where possible. Brussels, Paris and Provence are all accessible by train, and it’s on my list to go back to Germany via high-speed rail. The ultimate solution to the problem of air travel isn’t just me, though, it’s in companies listening to so many other people, like me, who care about the planet and want to see it in its glory, and acting. The moment sustainable air travel arrives, I’ll be there, window seat, looking out towards a brilliant future.

Sophie Wilkinson is a freelance journalist and broadcaster who enjoys writing about women, LGBT issues, politics and policy, stopping violence against women, culture and much more.