Campaign to leave a lighter carbon footprint boosts “no-fly” travel agencies
The UK tabloids had themselves a righteous old time during last month’s Extinction Rebellion protests in London, accusing climate crusading celebrities of hypocrisy by flying to the event. Flying generates 100g of CO² per kilometre, compared with just 15g for travelling by train. There’s just one catch to that argument. Many of the accused celebrities chose to be carbon conscious. Emma Thompson, for example, used carbon offsets to compensate for the emissions caused by her overnight flight to London from Los Angeles, where she was working.
The 16-year-old climate campaigner Greta Thunberg did that one better, completing her European tour by rail (Stockholm Central station to Strasbourg to Rome to London, before heading back to Sweden). Thunberg and her climate conscious father used the tiny, family-run Swedish travel agency Centralens Resebutik agency, which specializes in rail-only holidays. The success of Sweden’s “flygskam,” or “flight-shame,” campaign has caused bookings to jump eightfold this past year over two years ago. Increasingly, it seems, “no-fly” is the way to go.