mastodon - Link to source

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.

#ClimateDiary

#ClimateDiary
in reply to FrancescaJ

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Ciara

@FrancescaJ Shame on us all, yes, agreed. We're hard hit with heat here right now. From what I hear both online and in in-person conversations, it seems to have galvanised us into expressing even more excuses for not doing anything. Even people who don't usually express left-wingish views are suddenly pointing at the billionaires and their jets - until they stop flying, we can do nothing, apparently.
@FrancescaJ
in reply to TC Won't Give In To Lies

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

I don't think it is either/or. Yes, private jets should be banned. Yes, governments need to take radical action and impose inconvenient policies. But also yes, we have collective power. The 1% is a problem. So are those of us in the 10% or whatever the figure is, the minority who over-consume and frivolously fly. Imagine the signal and the impact if there was a mass boycott of holiday flights. Instead of just pointing at politicians and billionaires, we can show them we mean it.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 9:29 AM)

Ciara reshared this.

in reply to Ciara

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JakobT

@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.
@TC Won't Give In To Lies
in reply to JakobT

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@jakobtougaard @TCatInReality

"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.

@TC Won't Give In To Lies @JakobT

reshared this

in reply to JakobT

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Ciara

I think we need to be able to talk about the concept of a mass boycott of fossil fuels through a mass boycott of holiday flights without qualifying it at the same time with 'well, it won't really make a difference'. Collective actions and mass boycotts are political actions. They are made up of multiple individual actions. I think immediately pointing at the politicians and the billionaires every time the subject comes up prevents us even having the conversation.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 3:08 PM)
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

DoubleTreble 🥰🇵🇸🌍🇺🇦😺💚🧶🫖

@jakobtougaard @TCatInReality
I really thought after COVID, and grounded planes and quiet skies we had learned something, how wrong was I 😭
Our family stopped using plastic carriers in the '80's and were recycling before we had roadside collections in the UK, we have 11 waterbutts and an extra large tank plumbed to the loo so we don't flush drinking water every time we flush!!
I personally have never flown, I'm not saying any of this to seem like some hero cos I'm not we're a two car household, and both are diesel, I'm just saying there are things that we can do on an individual level.
And we have to keep pushing governments to put in the changes needed, we will get over it!
I can get anywhere I want on TV or online!!
Without passport queues, to moan about!!
@TC Won't Give In To Lies @JakobT
in reply to DoubleTreble 🥰🇵🇸🌍🇺🇦😺💚🧶🫖

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@DoubleTreble @jakobtougaard @TCatInReality Yes, we managed fine without airborne holidays, flying only when genuinely necessary, and people boasted about all the lovely new places and experiences they'd found in their own country. Then most people rushed back to the cheap charter holidays and cheap flights.
@TC Won't Give In To Lies @DoubleTreble 🥰🇵🇸🌍🇺🇦😺💚🧶🫖 @JakobT
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

RoBo

@TCatInReality I think there's 2 factors. One is that people who want to do the right thing feel overwhelmed and simply surviving with wars, cost of living, AI Trump etc. That it won't make a difference and making small changes might make you feel better doesn't move the needle so it's hard to keep going when doing the right thing is harder (eg public transport is worse, holidaying locally with poorer weather and more expensive).
@TC Won't Give In To Lies
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

RoBo

@TCatInReality The second is the role of gov is both making rules but also creating the right incentives. Eg making users pay 15c plastic bags changed behavior. They should do the same for things which make the highest impact. Eg a fixed cost per plane to land in Dublin airport of €10000 wouldn't mean a lot to a large plane but somewhat effective for small private planes.
Greater subsidizes on public transport, solar EV conversion paid via monthly change rather than upfront,etc
@TC Won't Give In To Lies
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

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!"
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

Marjon

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.

reshared this

in reply to Marjon

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Ciara

@marjon I’ve tried being passive, not performing the Oh Lovely! reaction when someone says they’ve booked a flight to their newest city break. Lately, like yourself, seeing how badly it's going, I’ve tried working into the conversation that I only fly when it's to family on islands, and then only on whatever leg of the trip requires a plane. I mention that I’d love to do #NoFly, but for family reasons, I can only do #NoFrivolousFly until I have time for long, multi-leg train trips across seas.
#nofly #nofrivolousfly @Marjon
in reply to Marjon

mastodon - Link to source

Jonathan Schofield

@marjon
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

@Marjon
in reply to Jonathan Schofield

mastodon - Link to source

Pieter Kuiper 🌍🇳🇱

@urlyman
I agree. My daughter not flying would not decrease the CO2 emissions. The fuel that she might have saved gets consumed by some other tourist, or by the military.

In the meantime, part of my pension is coming from Big Oil etc.

There is very little an individual can do. (But of course Trump, Putin, the generals in Sudan, etc could have chosen not to start their wars.)

@marjon @CiaraNi

@Jonathan Schofield @Ciara @Marjon
in reply to Pieter Kuiper 🌍🇳🇱

mastodon - Link to source

Jonathan Schofield

@pietkuip

I’m not giving young people a pass. I’m saying I understand how they get swept along in the activities we’ve told them are the markers of success, and I cut them slack because of it.

The very little that an individual can do is how we come to be where we are, through trillions of very little but destructive and destabilising things.

We *must* choose differently. But every person, young and old, has to reach their own epiphany on it

@marjon @CiaraNi

@Ciara @Pieter Kuiper 🌍🇳🇱 @Marjon
in reply to Ciara

gotosocial - Link to source

Sebastian Crane 🏳️‍⚧️

Then there's the tragedy of well-meaning efforts like the ban on short-haul flights in France, supposed to increase use of more environmentally-friendly options like taking the train - which would be great if the French state-owned railway didn't have abysmal planning and trains already at capacity!
in reply to Sebastian Crane 🏳️‍⚧️

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@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.
@Sebastian Crane 🏳️‍⚧️
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

@seabass

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..

@Sebastian Crane 🏳️‍⚧️
in reply to CaveDave

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

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.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 10:29 AM)
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

Jonathan Schofield

@tsturm

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

@Thomas Sturm
in reply to Jonathan Schofield

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@urlyman @tsturm

"What we most critically lack are contexts in which to talk about why our ‘reasons’ are dust and what to do about it"

Yes, this is it. We are refusing to even acknowledge this problem, let alone talk about this. The current heatwave has had the opposite effect, in my anecdotal experience - I have never heard so many people confidently state so many 'reasons' why it will make no real difference if individual people modify their individual behaviour.

@Jonathan Schofield @Thomas Sturm
in reply to Jonathan Schofield

mastodon - Link to source

Bond. James Bond.

@urlyman @tsturm

I don't think there's anything more overwhelming to think about than Climate Change and I think it's one of those things that feels so overwhelming to most people that it just causes them to short circuit their brains to the extent of, "there's nothing I can do bc I'm only one person so screw it I'm just going to carry on even though I'm terrified."

@Jonathan Schofield @Thomas Sturm
in reply to Bond. James Bond.

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@RVLara23 @tsturm @urlyman Lots of people who aren't part of the small privileged minority who can over-consume and fly on holidays are overwhelmed too. If people feel helpless to contribute, then a mass holiday-flight boycott (or similar) should help them feel less helpless. I do believe there are people who don't care, who just value their city break flights higher than they value younger generations' futures. But it's still not socially acceptable to say that.
@Jonathan Schofield @Bond. James Bond. @Thomas Sturm
in reply to Jonathan Schofield

mastodon - Link to source

notsoloud

@urlyman
With the simple and easily implemented scheme of "polluter pays" you would find people's minds wonderfully concentrated on this kind of conversation.

Apart from EU emissions trading and CBAM there has not been much of this. Moneyed interests axed it in Canada. Revenue should of course be paid out as UBI.
@CiaraNi @tsturm

@Jonathan Schofield @Ciara @Thomas Sturm
in reply to spdrnl

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@spdrnl "The gamification of our own demise." Yes. The word 'gamification' keeps popping into my mind the last few days since the temperatures where I am (Denmark) got as high as those already melting Germany, France etc. News reports and social conversations are mostly a breathless excited game of who can report the latest highest record temperature, like it's a prize we've won.
@spdrnl
in reply to Ciara

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GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺

Demoralised about climate and humans

Sensitive content

@ʀɛɖ 🌻
in reply to ʀɛɖ 🌻

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Ciara

Demoralised about climate and humans

Sensitive content

@ʀɛɖ 🌻
in reply to ʀɛɖ 🌻

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MiaK 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇵🇸

Demoralised about climate and humans

Sensitive content

@ʀɛɖ 🌻
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

MiaK 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇵🇸

Demoralised about climate and humans

Sensitive content

@ʀɛɖ 🌻
in reply to MiaK 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

Demoralised about climate and humans

Sensitive content

@ʀɛɖ 🌻 @MiaK 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇵🇸
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

MiaK 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇵🇸

Demoralised about climate and humans

Sensitive content

@ʀɛɖ 🌻
in reply to Ciara

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malte

I am definitely in your subgroup. And I regularly feel very alone about this issue. The more serious climate change becomes, I am frustrated with how little personal responsibility we are willing to take and how an idealized thought about fairness (those who are richer / worse / etc than me should change, before I will change) gets in the way and unintentionally makes us fuel global warming even more.
in reply to bismuth adventure 2

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

This resonates. I am longing for the day when the rail system gets integrated and improved enough to make train trips to family feasible. Long-distance trips right now require a lot of time and money, not do-able for (say) a funeral or a wedding with a few days off. Then I can 'upgrade' from No Frivolous Flying (as I call 'not flying on pure holidays') to No Flying at all.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 4:01 PM)
in reply to bismuth adventure 2

mastodon - Link to source

bismuth adventure 2

Also you're really on point on the language we've been using. It's been shocking to me how many people here in Denmark seem to downplay the situation, not saying much beyond "wow it's pretty hot today isn't it". And when I say how abnormal this all is, my emotional reaction gets attributed to my cultural background 🙄
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 12:32 PM)
in reply to bismuth adventure 2

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@bismuthcrow Yikes, that's doubly worse, dragging stereotypes about foreigners into the mix in order to ward off any mention of the need to change our behaviour because of climate collapse. I am entirely demoralised by the way almost everyone and every news media has managed to play it down, even as we literally sit in the middle of temperatures that leave no doubt about the climate crisis.
@bismuth adventure 2
in reply to caffetino

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

My experience in the past few days, when the heat has hit properly where I am (Denmark), is that people are noticing and talking about it, but what they're talking about is all the 'reasons' why none of us have to modify our individual behaviour and consumption because it's no use, 'what can one person do?' The possibility of change through collective action and mass boycotts is never mentioned.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 1:02 PM)
in reply to DCKIM [toronto tech blog]

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@dckim @harib_murshidi On the plus side, as long as those billionaires keep flying private jets and sailing private yachts and wearing expensive wristwatches and driving Lamborghinis, then the rest of us don't have to do anything. We don't have to give up holiday flights or fast fashion or regular mobile phone upgrades or make any changes whatsoever to our consumer behaviour. Thank heavens for billionaires!
@DCKIM [toronto tech blog] @Father Hardstone
in reply to DCKIM [toronto tech blog]

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

I think we need to bring the 10% (or whatever the figure is; it's somewhere around that) into the conversation as well as the 1%. Those of us who have the privilege to over-consume and take unnecessary flights are a small minority of all people on the planet. Collectively, we have actual consumer power to boycott and give clear signals to politicians.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 3:42 PM)
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

DCKIM [toronto tech blog]

@harib_murshidi

We should try to get the word out on this for people to press the money into shoe-boxes and sit idle during vacation.

The economist are always pressing towards a 'full-employment' which will guarantee a maximal consumption for their profit-books.

More and more, expend all you can at all times. That's the prevailing motto. If you can't spend it invest it to be spent some other way.

Insatiable

@Father Hardstone
in reply to Father Hardstone

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

Sorry if it was unclear - I meant it ironically. My point was exactly that - that over-consumption and flights are not regular things for the majority of people on the planet. And that the '10%' minority who have these privileges can modify their behaviour as a collective signal, instead of just pointing at the 1% and saying: I will not change my consumer behaviour until the billionaires all give up their jets'.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 4:19 PM)
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@nic Snap! I've stopped responding Oh Lovely! too. And lately have upgraded to mentioning that I don't fly for holidays. I'm not telling others they shouldn't frivolously fly, but just trying to normalise the fact that holidays are possible without flights. (Many people I know equate the two. They hear 'no fly' as 'no holidays')

"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."

Perfect illustration.

@Nic Dafis
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

BerlinFokus

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.

#stability #pathdependency
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 10:31 AM)
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

Hamish Buchanan

There is a pervasive sense of "what difference does it make?" when it's the 100 corporations and the 1% who do the biggest amount of damage. And there is a lot of truth in that, but waiting for that to be solved will not help prepare us for what is coming either. There is a lot of room between obsessing over "individual footprint" and doing at all nothing to change. Capitalism encourages FOMO; choosing to miss out is part of the resistance.

@CiaraNi

@Ciara
in reply to Hamish Buchanan

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

I think there is also a pervasive sense of "what difference does it make?" when 'it' means giving up a convenience or pleasure we don't want to give up. Like holiday flights. And it's only a small minority of us who have the privilege to over-consume and fly in the first place. The 10% (I don't have the figure but believe it's around that) has massive collective power if we put all our individual footprints together. We know 'every vote matters' but struggle with 'every flight matters'.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 1:48 PM)
in reply to clew

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

I've been thinking about that a lot lately too - the power we have collectively if we mass-boycotted, say, Amazon. Or those cheap fast-fashion companies that pay low wages and use so much of the planet's energy to make and deliver throwaway clothes. They wouldn't and couldn't do that if so many individual people didn't buy things from them. But as you say - there are rarely any takers when we say the word 'boycott'.
This entry was edited (Sunday, June 28, 2026, 4:34 PM)
in reply to Will

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@wannabemystiker True, unfortunately. I was thinking of this contrast earlier: about once a year, someone learns for the first time that Captain Boycott was a real English land agent who was ostracized in the 1880s by the entire local community in Mayo. That person posts about it online. It goes viral. Everyone cheers those already poverty-stricken people who took action at great risk and invented 'the boycott'. But proposals for inconvenient modern boycotts meet no cheering.

@clew @hamishb

@Hamish Buchanan @Will @clew
in reply to Jacob Urlich 🌍

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@experimentmapass This was my hope too, so I am now demoralised after the first few days of harsh heat where I am. It seems to be having the opposite effect - so many people are coming up with so many 'reasons' why it will make no real difference if individual people modify their individual behaviour. It's starting to feel very 'I'll give you my city-break flights when you pry them from my cold, dead hands on a warm, dead planet'.

@tompearce49 @annaf @marjon

@Jacob Urlich 🌍 @Just Tom... 🐁 @annaf @Marjon
in reply to Ciara

mastodon - Link to source

Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

I've worked on climate issues since the mid 1990s. And I have to tell you that personally consuming less or not flying make no difference. If you don't believe me, we had a big natural experiment with Covid, and there was a momentary bump that did nothing to stop the drivers of fossil fuel use.

People can do something and what's involved is political resistance, not the electoral kind.

in reply to Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

mastodon - Link to source

Ciara

@richpuchalsky Mass boycotts are political action, I think. Like the South Africa apartheid boycott. They make our demands for action clear to politicians. If holiday flights were boycotted, the statement wouldn't just be about consuming less fuel. It would reduce numbers travelling through airports, which are basically shopping malls. And have other knock-on economic effects. This time, there would be no Covid lockdown subsidies for businesses losing money. Anything seems worth a try right now.
@Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
in reply to Ciara

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jacob Urlich 🌍

I need to hear those words too. I'm not afraid to say: 'I understand there's a problem, so let's work on it together.
I want to see those words on every billboard, in every advertising break, in every supermarket, restaurant, and public space. I want to see those words instead of product prices. I want to see them on the front page of every newspaper and magazine, in every headline, every day, until the problem is fixed.
⇧