It's not easy being green

My mail box is being flooded at the moment with messages from British Airways and Easyjet, promising to take me to Paris, Vienna or Madrid for 30 pounds or less. This barrage of emails has most likely been triggered by the fact that I have in the past few months been utilising their services on a regular basis. This coming week I’ll be crossing the Channel for the seventh time since last October and more trips are bound to follow.

I didn’t use to be a very frequent flyer. During my Ph.D. time I didn’t take that many vacations and even when I did go abroad, it didn’t always involve flying. Nowadays from this island I have very little choice in my means of transportation. Yes, of course there are trains from London to Amsterdam. There are, however, some compelling reasons for me not to use these. For starters, the train is a lot more expensive. The ticket I have booked for my flight this week cost me ₤59 inclusive of taxes. The train would have cost me about three times as much. Then there is the time consideration. Even if you add the travel to and from the airport, the check-in time and the time spent at security and customs to the total flight time, it should under normal circumstances not take longer than 4 to 5 hours for me to get door-to-door. The train journey from London to Amsterdam, on the other hand, takes on average about 7 hours. With flying being my fastest, easiest and cheapest option it seems the logical choice to make. It is, however, not a guilt-free choice.

In my daily life I try to make my small contribution to helping the environment. I don’t drive a car, I turn off the lights whenever I leave a room -sometimes even when there is still somebody in it; force of habit- and I try to recycle as much as possible. The flying, however, trivialises these well-intended efforts. To merely offset the carbon emissions from my seven Channel crossings I should be planting no fewer than 4 trees! I could of course choose not to fly so often but phone, email and chat just aren’t proper substitutes for the pleasure of personal interaction. I try to appease my conscience the same way everybody else does: 'hey, that plane would be flying anyway, be it with or without me, so I might as well be on it'. It doesn't take a genius to see the flaws in that logic.

Both the UK and Dutch governments have in recent months expressed their intent to raise airport taxes as part of their new green policies. On pure principle grounds I can not be against this. I do firmly believe it is time we start taking more serious action to protect our environment and discouraging flying is a sensible place to start. At the same time, as a consumer I am naturally not too happy about the fact that the price for my tickets will go up. But as long as I could feel confident that this extra money will indeed be spent for 'green' purposes, it is a sacrifice I would be willing to make. As always the devil is in the details and I am enough of a cynic to have my doubts on whether this really is what my money will end up funding. For once I really do hope I will be proven wrong and that each and every single penny of that money goes where it belongs.

Whatever will happen, there is still the damage that has already been done to atone for. Well, I guess I better start taking action then. It seems I have some trees to plant.