"Then it is dark; a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains." - John Cheever

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Why we must give up flying

Interesting article by Nicholas Crane in today's Torygraph. It should be a no brainer but at the same time I can't think of anyone I know personally who has made a decision not to fly on environmental/moral grounds. We're probably going down to Cornwall later this year and google maps puts the drive time from Edinburgh at around 12 and a half hours - got a feeling we'll be Easyjetting to Bristol or Exeter...

Btw is there a good word to use that means "environmental/moral" in the context of the above para? Can't think of one at the moment (maybe not had enough coffee yet).

5 comments:

Col said...

I don't do domestic flights anymore, and have convinced a few others to do the same. But then, I don't often travel from Edinburgh to Cornwall with family in tow. Evan's been persuading his Royal Bank of Scotland colleagues to get the sleeper to London instead of the plane when they have to go down for meetings.

Tom said...

Yes, good piece - though pop-up adverts for cheap flights appeared on each of its four pages. I just can't see how we're going to get out of this mess.

I've followed Colin in boycotting domestic flights. Not a great hardship (I've only done it once before anyway). Counts for nothing, of course, but does make me feel a little better.

Tom said...

I like his point that it's incredible how many people in the UK have gone all the way to New Zealand to see the natural scenery, but have never bothered to visit the Highlands. I wonder if more British people have now been to the Antipodes than the Hebrides?

John said...

Yeah - but I suppose one of the draws about New Zealand is precisely that it is dead far away and exotic and they invented bungie jumping and stuff. Whereas *fanastic* though the Hebredies are, it is still just Scotland (with added Presbytrian Taleban in some areas).

Tom said...

I guess the obvious answer to your search for an adjective denoting environmental/moral is "green" (rather than Green, which has political connotations). Although, it's far from ideal.