this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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Solarpunk Travel

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I like travelling by bike, but i am not the biggest fan of doing roundtrips, i much prefer moving further and further away. So on longer trips i will end up way far from home, and since travelling by train across Europe, can be a real ordeal (especially with a bike), i sometimes take a plane back home. I guess busses would be an option too from some locations, i personally absolutely hate travelling by bus though. Weak excuse i know.

I am able to rationalize to myself that it is ok to take that flight, i spent now weeks doing low impact travel and can end it with a boom and still probably had less impact then with my regular life at home (i have not really done the calculation tbh). Of course, if it is reasonably easy to get home by train i will definitely prefer that, and i absolutely don't always end up taking a plane.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you ever take a flight?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The flight will happen with or without you.....

If enough people buys a ticket, they will schedule more flights, so this is not true.

they won't be gassing the plane up just to take you to and from

Yes, they will. There are (somewhat rare) cases where person was only passenger on the flight.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Yes, they will. There are (somewhat rare) cases where person was only passenger on the flight.

Here is probably fair to admit that the flight would fly even totally empty, because it needs to get to the destination for some follow-up flight.

It might get worse - during covid, airlines in Europe were flying empty planes there and back just in order not to lose their contracted gate slots - the amount of fuel burned just for the fucking bureaucracy is mindblowing.