A friend first made me aware of the scale and severity of aviation-related pollution in 2003. After that I took one last leisure flight in 2004 and an unavoidable short-haul journey for work in 2005.
Not flying has come at considerable cost personally and professionally, particularly in terms of lost opportunities and social media. The latter, in particular, has made the last decade more difficult than the first few years – pleading with friends and former colleagues to stop flying, then having to watch the amount of aviation on my timeline increase exponentially thanks to plummeting flight costs and a growing expectation of perpetual adventure.
Adrift in all this I’ve had to watch my career & social life comparatively stagnate, but what can you do? I can’t turn my selective blindness away from the people and animals poisoned, killed, or rendered homeless by this selfish, reckless culture so many of us have been told we’re entitled to. Nobody’s pleasure or ambition has been worth the heinous damage we’ve inflicted on other people, animals, and future generations. I only wish I’d known sooner and been more successful in communicating the urgency of going no-fly fifteen years ago.
Twenty-five years in television as a producer and occasional director of well-known entertainment, arts, and factual programming.