The Problem With Telling Us Not To Fly

Anna Hughes is the Director of Flight Free UK, a charity that encourages people to travel without flying and runs the Flight Free Challenge to take a year off flying. Katie Thompson flew as a commercial pilot for about 20 years and ran the flight safety department for a large private jet operator, before returning to university for a master’s in sustainable air transport management and founding Bumprints, a nonprofit that raises awareness among airline passengers.

In this conversation, I ask Anna and Katie what may be the hardest topic in climate: why flying is so difficult to talk about, why it has no like-for-like substitute the way a vegan burger does for meat, and why almost nobody thinks of themselves as a frequent flyer. We get into why international jet fuel goes untaxed, how contrails add a second warming effect on top of CO2, and why they doubt sustainable aviation fuel can solve the problem. We also ask whether it’s hypocritical to fly to climate conferences, what the climate justice side of flying looks like, and what taking a year off flying can actually give you.

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Find Anna’s work: https://flightfree.co.uk/
Find Katie’s work: https://bumprints.org/

Subscribe to the Climate Unf*cked podcast at https://climateunfucked.substack.com/

And connect with me on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-coop/

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Chapters

0:00 Why flying is the hardest climate conversation
2:54 Even climate nerds struggle
4:16 There’s no like-for-like swap for a trip to Iceland
8:14 Take it off the menu and your tastes change
10:00 A year off flying, not never again
15:27 Honeymoon to Thailand by rail, and a pilot’s Mayday
18:22 Who is the problem?
21:50 Why nobody thinks they’re a frequent flyer
24:20 Yet fuel is 0% tax, but car fuel is 50%
26:17 How contrails and 9/11 exposed flying’s second warming effect
30:12 Adding flights took a 0.8 tonne footprint to 16 tonnes
34:34 The first generation to take flying for granted
37:55 Why the UK has a special responsibility on flying
44:11 Why the climate justice message rarely lands
46:26 Lockdown, mystery flights and private jets for dogs
49:38 Electric planes and the 0.6% problem
54:33 How sustainable is ‘sustainable aviation fuel’ really?
58:29 How to pick the lowest carbon flight if you must fly
1:00:06 Is it hypocritical to fly to climate conferences?
1:03:59 Leading by example
1:09:47 When your friends keep asking you to fly
1:11:42 Slovenia by train for £332