Is it ethical to travel by air?
How do you feel about air travel? Below are some Druidic thoughts on the matter. If you have an opinion and would like to share it with us, please send your views into the Ethical Pages coordinator.
Cathi Yarrow : This is hard one. Not for leisure purposes, I would say I travel by air once a year for business, and that's enough. We pay for our "carbon offset" though I think that's a bit of a token effort.
Hrafn : Apart from military flights I have never travelled by air because of its effects on the environment. Nice that these Johnny-come-lately folk have finally started to catch up... Whether it is ethical or not I don't know, but it is something that I have chosen not to do.
Phil Ryder : Much easier but we need to define boundaries. The question must be do we need to fly or is it greed? My personal stance is that for me to travel for leisure reasons by air is unethical - I don't need to do it, so I don't. On the other hand is it ethical for those protecting the rain forests or other threatened habitats to survey by air? (PS Tomorrow I may well have changed my mind - as we continue to learn our values change and therefore our ethics.)
Joanne T : I am a Brit living in the US - but all my family is living in the UK. Do I feel guilty about flying to the UK once a year to spend time with my family - yes - for sure - but I also try to make up for it by doing things to offset (I know thats really hard to quantify) such as planting trees, using less electricity, water, not buying lots of crap from Walmart etc. I also try to combine family visits with work, conferences etc so that I am making the most of the air travel. But should we not live far apart from our families and experience different cultures because of the energy needed for air travel.? If we didn't travel then we would not understand other cultures and maybe have even more war and strife than we do now. I don't have an answer but it's a complex issue.
