Minimising #Flygskam

The Swedish word for 'flight-shame', flygskam, has become trendy. Or indeed #Flygskam is trending. Flying contributes massively to the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that's changing our climate. (Late January, no snow!?!?!?). Much as I like rail travel, considering it superior to car, bus or plane, it's not optimal for journeys such as Warsaw-London, a journey to which I am condemned by accident of birth. Once there was the Hook-Moscow Express - board a train at Liverpool Street Station in the morning, on to Harwich, by ferry to Hoek van Holland ('Hook of Holland'), then a wonderful train that would pass through Berlin in the wee small hours and be in Warsaw in the early afternoon. Around 26 hours all told.

The flight takes two and half hours and costs a fraction of that of a train ticket; in any case, the train journey has four legs and requires three changes. Warsaw-Berlin, Berlin-Bonn, Bonn-Brussels, Brussels-London. An alternative is Warsaw-Berlin-Cologne-Brussels-London. All in all, expenses and hassle. [Some tips for London-Warsaw by train here.]

So what can I do - what can we all do - to limit CO₂ emissions as we travel around?

This is a handy guide from the BBC website:


I tick most of the boxes here. I can't remember the last time I flew with a suitcase in the baggage hold. I fly with a rucksack, taking the bare minimum - laptop, chargers, camera/lens. I have clothes in London, which makes it easier. I fly directly from nearest airport to nearest airport; I can walk to the station at both ends for a short electric-train journey to and from the airports. I never fly business or first (for a two-hour flight it makes no sense). The front of the plane has two-plus-two row-seating, the rest is three-plus-three. The fewer people sit up front, the further forward the curtain separating the two classes is positioned; the more people on board to divide that CO₂ by.

One more tip from me - don't buy food on the plane - there's an inordinate amount of packaging waste involved. Yesterday I indulged in the tapas box on BA. Two little aluminium containers (one with cheese, one with a meat paste) with foil lids; two plastic bags, one with olives, a second with mini bread-sticks and crackers; two strips of plastic foil containing jamon de Serrano; another plastic bag with napkin and toothpick (for the olives); the whole thing in a cardboard box sealed with a disc of sticky plastic. Given the demands in airline galleys for speed and efficiency, I doubt there's any segregation of waste into metal, plastic and cardboard; it's all too fiddly to separate by hand.

OK - so doing all these things, how many kilo of  CO₂ am I saving? According to the ICAO carbon calculator, a one-way flight from Warsaw to London generates 237kg of CO₂. How much less for flying light? I don't know. But every little helps.

Now that my blessed father has passed away, I feel less need to fly to London frequently, there's business, someone from the firm has to be in London for this event or that meeting, and given that I don't rack up hotel bills, it makes sense for that person to be me. But if we can move this meeting back a month, and double it up with another event - well, that makes sense too.

In the mean time, I shall keep on walking, eating less meat, buying less stuff and staying conscious about my effects on Planet Earth.

[Update January 2023: this was to be my penultimate flight to the UK - from March 2020 I have not flown anywhere.]

This time two years ago:
Notes from the Arena of the Unwell II

This time four years ago:
Ice - pond - night

This time six years ago:
Sorry, taki mamy klimat - Polish rail in winter

This time eight years ago:
Music of the Trees

This time nine years ago:
Studniówka - a hundred days before the exams

This time ten years ago:
It's all in the mind - but where's that?

This time 11 years ago:
Roztopy - the big melt-down

This time 12 years ago:
The year's most depressing day