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It's really saying something about our world that a 16-year-old can be so reviled. One might or mightn't like her ways, but shall we just bear in mind we're talking about a minor with Asperger?


On the actual topic of curtailing flights: there's no denying, at least in my view, that climate change is real and is happening. I have photos from the early 2000s of a glacier in the Alps, and last year I found that it'd retreated 300 meters (the tongue) and almost 100 meters in altitude. And there's loads of other examples. I don't know, and I don't think that anyone really can, claim with absolute certainty that human activities are causing 100% of climate change, but we can't discount the possibility that we're contributing to it either. The way I see it, it's (also) my responsibility to do some change in the little means at my disposal. Can I stop coal-powered stations in China from being built? Can I stop Trump from being the nonsensical oaf he is being vis-a-vis his energy policy? No. But I can do something with regards to my own lifestyle.

In this sense, my biggest CO2 emissions come from flying. I've taken up offsetting all my flights, not just by ticking the 'BA box' but on using offsetting companies, and I'm limiting my flights too. From a work point of view, I only fly if I've got to attend workshops or face-to-face meetings that really can't be done remotely (mainly because I've just come to the realisation that I'd much rather sleep in my bed than in Busan, or Houston... were we to do business in Bahia or Buenos Aires I'd find it a lot harder) and from a pleasure point of view I've stopped doing mileage runs. So a taxation, if really used to be reinvested in renewables or CO2 capture or things like this, on a £ to £ basis, would be fine with me.