Should the government be more proactive?

Varian I think there seems to be an over reaction, combined with a mistrust of the information being released from the Chinese authorities.

As an army brat who was trailed around the world as a child, I am not saying stay put. Far from it. We have just booked a 4 day cruise to Hambourg and back on the QM and go to France regularly.

But I do think that long distance air flights should be kept as something special, not something you do several times a year. And, as I say, I feel uncomfortable about some holiday destinations being human zoos.

Varian, I don’t think anyone needs to be worrying about you or your partner just because you’ve just taken a flight. I think the only place we needed to have worried about was China. I think your neighbours are over reacting to be honest.
Monica, I agree with you, our last cruise was to Australia and New Zealand and I loved it. We’ve not been to places where it would be demeaning to the residents, but as I said up thread, I was told in Greece, Kefalonia to be exact, that they need our money, or our tourism.

As my son is married to an American woman, it matters not whether they live in the US or the UK because one or the other side of the family would still have to travel to see the grandchildren. In fact, even though my GC live in the same country as their other GP’s, travel is still in involved because they live on opposite sides as that very large country. My son and his wife live where they do because that’s where the work is.

That still doesnt mean that regular air travel is right or sustainable. There are lots of other ways to connect these days

* think the only place we needed to have worried about was China.*

Bit outdated.
The list of alert countries and areas has grown

Ruining the world your GCs will inherit just so you get to see them in the flesh as regularly as you want with no concession is just a bit counter productive...

How do you suggest I hug my grandchildren, take them to school, brush their hair, play chase, take them to the playpark, let them snuggle up on my lap without travelling to them or them travelling to me?

Whenever I do visit them the plane is always filled mainly with businessmen, not families. It’s not family life that’s killing the world.

Ha, as regularly as I want?? I want to see them every week! I can’t, though. Not enough money. Once a year max for us and in fact it’s been 18mth intervals in the past five years.

Unless you are lily-white in your lifestyle, I really think you need to stop preaching.

Notanan, here I must disagree with you. I think SueDonim is right, family travel will always have priority. But I do not think it is neccessary to wear a hairshirt and disrupt family life. It is discretionary air travel that needs to be thought through.

In the 1950s I didn't see a much beloved grandmother for years at a time when my father was stationed in Hong Kong because international travel was prohibitavely expensive. She lived with us until I was 5 and I missed her and not seeing her so much.

Carry on then. Make no changes to your travel plans or expectations, expect everyone else to curb their lifestle for you!

Your GC live abroad. At some point your son or DIL flew the next and that means accepting what distance brings. Pros and cons

Notanan, here I must disagree with you. I think SueDonim is right, family travel will always have priority.

Yes well everyone thinks their individual travel usage is justified and its others who should fly less.. so nothing will improve

Oh Notanan2 I absolutely agree with you on nearly every point and I certainly won’t be visiting my BiL in Australia any time soon. A friend had 4 foreign holidays last year and doesn’t believe in “saving the planet”. I’m having my first foreign holiday for nearly twenty years this year. But if my DGC lived abroad I would have to think long and hard about spending time with them in the flesh and my carbon footprint ... I’m honestly very glad I don’t have to make that decision.

You have no clue about my lifestyle, Notanan. It may be that my occasional visits to my GC are the only times I go anywhere. The rest of the time I might be busy producing my own food and energy and otherwise living a self-sufficient life.

By the way the internet, on which we are discussing this, is believed to contribute between 2-3% of greenhouses gases. Are you prepared to give up the internet or do you expect everyone else to curb their lifestyle for you?

It's not mutually exclusive.
Recycling etc doesnt buy you guilt free air miles.
Yes I definitely have curbed my tv streaming habits since I have learnt about the impact particularly if streaming (the worst kind of internet use for the planet apparently) and have gone back to using dvds more.
We can all change and adjust its an ongoing process. As we learn more we can do better.

Just because we're in a habit that was right up to now doesnt mean its right going forward

And offsetting is a con.

All the talk on this thread about restricting travel to try to prevent the spread of COVID-19 made me wonder just how Spanish flu travelled around the world, affected half a billion people (around 27% of the world population), killing millions (numbers vary but in the tens of millions).

This was in the days before air travel and there were few cruises.

Werent ports worst hit then too?

It was covered up a lot so as not to restrict trade. Thats why its called spanish flu. A lot of trading outposts denied they had it and carried on

notanan do you have an answer please?

Travel was slow in 1918 but that virus (the first H1N1 virus) spread around the world.
If slow travel is the answer to the problems then how did that happen?

Likewise the plague pandemics over the centuries which killed so many people - travel was even more slow then.

Sorry, that sounded like a demand! but it was meant to be a request just in case you do know.

X posts

Spanish flu was played down/denied when it was just poor/migrant port workers affected so that the lives of upper classes werent curtailed. It was onlu really acknowledged when it started affecting the rich too. By then it had spread.

Its not believed to have originated in spain but spain were the only ones accurately reporting it

Also wasnt there in fact a lot of relatively fast movement around that time due to war? More than usual

Its absurd to argue that the prevelance of fast travel isnt making the spread of flues etc less predictable and containable/managable!