Is This Why CO2 Emissions Are Sky High? You Bet

This hypnotic video released by aviation body North Atlantic Skies reveals the true extent of our dependence on CO2 burning planes. Every day, between two and three thousand aircraft cross the North Atlantic, each burning an average of 220 tonnes of CO2 per crossing.

The live Flight Radar is another way to see the excessive number of aeroplanes in our skies. In fact, so many flights are leaving Europe and the USA that the countries are no longer visible, shrouded behind a mass of yellow plane icons.

Worst of all, many of the planes will be carrying food not people, which is, as we all know, just bananas.

We rarely stop to consider the idea that there are other, more enjoyable, ways to travel – but we should! Even across the Atlantic there are other ways to go. Author Ed Gillespie recently gave us his seven rules of slow travel and we’d be well advised to follow them. You can’t celebrate transitions between landscapes, culture, people, language, and cuisine at 35,000 feet – whether travelling between Paris and Berlin or London and San Francisco.

Why not take the boat or train? As this Guardian article shows, long distance travel on a cargo trip can be more enjoyable than hopping on a plane – a way to see the gradual changes in nature and to get to know your fellow passengers. There is, the writer concludes, something “uniquely satisfying about a long voyage by sea.”