I'd also like to point out that while we get all uptight about some things (flying), probably because it's more visible, a report that came out a few years back showed that the global IT industry had an equivalent C02 impact to the aviation industry. Are we all also willing to switch off, shut down, disconnect? I'm betting no -- I'm not :) There are many other things we could stop doing that are wasteful first before giving up travel for pleasure and connecting with family and friends. Here are five examples of massively wasteful uses of fossil fuels that we could/should be abandoning if we want to adopt a carbon reductionist* approach: 5. Flying prawns from Scotland to Thailand to be shelled and shipping them back again because the labour is cheaper 3. Allowing boomerang trade - examples: 5,000 tonnes of toilet paper exported from the UK to Germany, but then the UK imports over 4,000 tonnes back again from Germany; 22,000 tonnes of potatoes imported from Egypt to UK and then the UK exports 27,000 tonnes back to Egypt * by that I don't mean reducing carbon -- I mean ranking activities according to carbon impact. Travel has benefits for the carbon cost, wasteful consumption and trade do not. I say travel - but travel mindfully/not too often, and fly only when there is no other way. But eschew carbon reductionism and guilt, because unless we cut the abhorrent waste our society produces (everything from food to boomerang