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Saturday 30 August 2008

Club class

Julia Hollander leaves her hair shirt at the departure gate

I want to tell you about my vow of celibacy. For three years I have abstained from that most compulsive of desires — air travel. I have turned down luxury writing gigs abroad, a visit to a long-lost friend in Australia, a holiday in the US. At four times the price, I have spent two whole days on a train to Vienna rather than join my family for two hours on a filthy plane.

People find it hard to comprehend. I say — carbon footprint; I say — conscience; they say — convenience. At the outset, I thought I could persuade them to join me — if we all stop flying, I urged, we can radically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Forget changing the light-bulbs or shopping at the farmers’ market — this is the most positive thing we can do to try to avert terrifying climate change.

Passions flew. Friends accused me of invading moral realms that were strictly personal and private. Even the most conscientious and well-informed started ranting about Rights and Freedoms. I became tearful. When one long-haul addict scoffed that volcanoes rather than aeroplanes were to blame for global warming, I lost my rag — ‘I hope your children will be the first to starve to death!’

I realised I had to be patient — it would take time to persuade people that temperance was good for them. I had to accept that my conviction was by no means the norm. I needed to be calm and rational, stop preaching and start reading up on the facts. Soon enough, people would appreciate my carbon-conscious company.

One example of this new approach was when I informed a neighbour that the new draught-proofing would do little to reduce her carbon footprint: no more than one tonne of CO2 a year, whereas if she stopped taking her family on meditation courses to India, they could save nearly 40. A year later she is still not speaking to me.

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