37° heat is depressing.
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37° heat is depressing. So is the way we’re dealing with climate collapse. The language we’re using, the excuses we’re making. Making heat records a game, excitedly watching to see if Number Goes Up. The news said the latest temperature had ‘ruined the chance of another new record’. And we all seem to agree that, conveniently, there’s no use in inconveniencing ourselves personally by consuming less or not flying until the day after every billionaire has given up their private jet.
@CiaraNi this last week has been quite shocking. The second heatwave of the year in the UK. I hope folks are beginning to take notice. Many are too self-centred to care, other than by making sure they buy the right brand of air con...
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We tone-policed flight shame away so quickly. We made smoking socially unacceptable. Smokers still smoke and are free to smoke, but give you a slightly apologetic embarrassed grin as they sneak out to the smoking area. When someone says they've bought a holiday home in Spain and someone else says they're bringing the whole family to Thailand to celebrate their birthday, there are no apologetic grins and the social expectation is still that everyone else exclaims "Oh how lovely! Lucky you!"
@CiaraNi I wish I didn't have to fly again. To do that, trains across continental Europe need to be better
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37° heat is depressing. So is the way we’re dealing with climate collapse. The language we’re using, the excuses we’re making. Making heat records a game, excitedly watching to see if Number Goes Up. The news said the latest temperature had ‘ruined the chance of another new record’. And we all seem to agree that, conveniently, there’s no use in inconveniencing ourselves personally by consuming less or not flying until the day after every billionaire has given up their private jet.
@CiaraNi Just watched the news and an older woman was delighted because "you can take your coffee outside are 7 and it is so nice. That is something we can usually not do."
I just... can't.
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@CiaraNi @TCatInReality every kilometer not flown and every plastic bag not used is a step in the right direction, but as long as it costs more to take a train from Aarhus to Copenhagen (300 km) as taking a flight to London, people are not going to change behaviour at a scale that really matters. And as long as it takes 13 hours and 4 train changes to go from Copenhagen to Bruxelles, people are going to fly. NOT the same as saying it doesn't matter to lead by example- it does! But not enough.
"People are not going to change behaviour at a scale that really matters"
They certainly won't as long as frivolous flying is something we congratulate people on instead of it being frowned-upon. If that flight to London is for a holiday, not work or family, then an Aarhus-KBH train price comparison is irrelevant. We were proud to be part of the mass South African apartheid boycott in the '80s. Now we tell each other it's no real use boycotting holiday flights.
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We tone-policed flight shame away so quickly. We made smoking socially unacceptable. Smokers still smoke and are free to smoke, but give you a slightly apologetic embarrassed grin as they sneak out to the smoking area. When someone says they've bought a holiday home in Spain and someone else says they're bringing the whole family to Thailand to celebrate their birthday, there are no apologetic grins and the social expectation is still that everyone else exclaims "Oh how lovely! Lucky you!"
@CiaraNi I have students, and family members, who go abroad on holiday twice, three times a year, and I've stopped pretending to be interested and pleased for them.
I try not to be a total arse about it, but I just had to cancel a citybreak in bloody *Birmingham* because I rely on public transit and the trainlines in Wales were buckling in the heat.
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@CiaraNi The press is still pretending these are once-in-a-lifetime events and not the beginning of a very bad trend.
Climate disasters are reported without any institutional memory. At this point, this has to be intentional. And criminal.
@tsturm The press coverage is driving me bananas. The lack of context. The lack of emergency. The photo choices and language choices that treat fatal heat as entertainingly remarkable - as you say, it seems intentional at this point.
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@CiaraNi I wish I didn't have to fly again. To do that, trains across continental Europe need to be better
The lack of a reliable, integrated train system through Europe is a big problem for people who must travel for work or family matters. Sometimes it is not possible in the time and budget available to avoid a flight for at least one leg of the trip. That does not stop a mass boycott of holiday flights, though. A holiday does not require us to have an alternative means of transport to the same destination. We can choose holidays in places that do not require a flight.
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"People are not going to change behaviour at a scale that really matters"
They certainly won't as long as frivolous flying is something we congratulate people on instead of it being frowned-upon. If that flight to London is for a holiday, not work or family, then an Aarhus-KBH train price comparison is irrelevant. We were proud to be part of the mass South African apartheid boycott in the '80s. Now we tell each other it's no real use boycotting holiday flights.
@CiaraNi Yes! Plus we have to stop subsidising air-transport fuel. I got the train from London to Malmö last year, and it was way more expensive than flying. But I haven’t flown for 12 years, and can’t see myself doing it again, certainly not short-haul.
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37° heat is depressing. So is the way we’re dealing with climate collapse. The language we’re using, the excuses we’re making. Making heat records a game, excitedly watching to see if Number Goes Up. The news said the latest temperature had ‘ruined the chance of another new record’. And we all seem to agree that, conveniently, there’s no use in inconveniencing ourselves personally by consuming less or not flying until the day after every billionaire has given up their private jet.
What you are describing is " #PathDependency ".
And billionaires are just part of the path. As are people cheering for combustion engines or the newest electric car.
This is the way inequal human societies just function - Persistence & Tradition is valued over everything else.
And when the powerful AND a great part of the powerless want the same thing - #stability - then survival becomes an afterthought.
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@seabass The lack of a functional, reliable, integrated train system in and around through Europe is a huge issue. It's also a different issue. A mass boycott of holiday flights does not require us to have an alternative means of transport to the same destination first. We just choose not to go on holidays to a destination that requires a flight. We have our holiday somewhere else that we can get to by train or bus or bike, or we have a holiday at home.
my extended family is from Malaysia, my older relatives who migrated to UK in late 1960s are now accepting they may not be able to go "back home" in their remaining lifetimes (two crashed aircrafts of the national airline with multiple casualties are also a factor, but the environment is also one (as well as flying and airports increasingly becoming hostile environments, and security risks with crossing the Middle East)
My older aunts now only go on holiday in mainland Europe or within Britain.
I have not been on an aircraft myself since 2001 and that was for a work trip, and have no intention of doing so..
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@tsturm The press coverage is driving me bananas. The lack of context. The lack of emergency. The photo choices and language choices that treat fatal heat as entertainingly remarkable - as you say, it seems intentional at this point.
I dunno. Some of it is conscious, by the most lost people. But I think it’s mostly the aggregated property of what most of us do at the individual scale.
A billion “yeah I could do the low carbon thing but there are ‘reasons’ why this journey, this meeting, this purchase can’t do that”.
What we most critically lack are contexts in which to talk about why our ‘reasons’ are dust and what to do about it
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@CiaraNi Yes. I've been thinking it really is time to stop that.
Sometimes, when people are discussing holiday plans, I'll mutter "I don't fly anymore, except for family visits, because my conscience won't let me. But you do you". But I'll be the only one at the lunch table.
During this June heatwave (11-12 days here, with a maximum of 37 degrees), I've been thinking I should really start speaking up more. Someone should start changing the social expectation, right?
Young people flying to holiday destinations multiple times a year. I don't get it. It's not like they haven't been aware of climate change since middle school. And they'll be suffering the consequences for their whole - hopefully long - lives.
My generation and the one before it have made prospects for young people relentlessly shit. They know it. And we’ve trained them to think that voting is the only real agency they have. Which is bullshit.
For the most part, I don’t begrudge them making their lives momentarily less shit
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@seabass The lack of a functional, reliable, integrated train system in and around through Europe is a huge issue. It's also a different issue. A mass boycott of holiday flights does not require us to have an alternative means of transport to the same destination first. We just choose not to go on holidays to a destination that requires a flight. We have our holiday somewhere else that we can get to by train or bus or bike, or we have a holiday at home.
@CiaraNi I agree with you entirely!
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37° heat is depressing. So is the way we’re dealing with climate collapse. The language we’re using, the excuses we’re making. Making heat records a game, excitedly watching to see if Number Goes Up. The news said the latest temperature had ‘ruined the chance of another new record’. And we all seem to agree that, conveniently, there’s no use in inconveniencing ourselves personally by consuming less or not flying until the day after every billionaire has given up their private jet.
@CiaraNi You're speaking what's on my mind, thank you!
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@CiaraNi You're speaking what's on my mind, thank you!
@malte Thank you for saying this - I've been demoralised by the general reaction I see around me, both in 'real life' and online. People are putting so much effort into explaining away any need to modify our behaviour in any way. So I am encouraged to hear that it's not just me!
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@malte Thank you for saying this - I've been demoralised by the general reaction I see around me, both in 'real life' and online. People are putting so much effort into explaining away any need to modify our behaviour in any way. So I am encouraged to hear that it's not just me!
