It is possible to have a great holiday abroad without setting foot on a plane. The world shrinks but becomes much more exotic, writes Victoria White
It takes about 10 return flights to Australia to kill someone. George Marshall admits in his book Carbon Detox (published by Gaia Thinking) that it's a very rough calculation, but good enough for him to quote. It's not just the mixture of greenhouse gases the planes emit, it's worse. The effect of the cocktail at a plane's altitude makes the gases 2.7 times better at polluting the atmosphere. In the context of climate change, flying is, he writes, "the single most destructive thing you can do".
In Britain, there's a whole culture building up around being a "non-flyer". The Guardian has flight-free travel pages. The Flight Pledge Union run by Low Flight Zone has thousands of gold and silver pledgers: golds pledge not to fly for a year except in a family emergency and silvers get exemptions for work travel.
Pledges are nothing new to us, God knows, and we've had enough of them. We're good-time boys and girls. We've recently emerged from relative poverty and isolation, and the plane has been a big part of that. Moreover, we made Ryanair, and Michael O'Leary is one of our own.
Elsewhere, however, an awareness is growing that flying less is part of the solution to climate change. This awareness is probably partly responsible for the resurgence of train travel on certain routes. Virgin Trains between London in Glasgow reported a 55 per cent increase between 2006 and 2007, while the number of flights sold fell for the first time in years.
The airline industry knows that realisation of the damage caused by flying will dawn on people eventually, and they are in battle mode. They are fond of quoting the fact that air travel is responsible for only three per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. But that is leaving out the multiplier effect of 2.7 when gases are released at a plane's altitude. It needs to be put in context by the fact that only the richest 10 per cent of the world's population flies at all, leaving the poor to suffer first and worst from the effects of climate change. "Some 92 million Bangladeshis could be driven out of their homes this century, in order that we can still go shopping in New York," wrote George Monbiot in the Guardian.
The biggest problem is that massive growth in the airline industry is being predicted and provided for by governments, including our own. In Britain, the Tyndall Centre has predicted that by 2050 aircraft emissions would account for 101 per cent of all the carbon that Monbiot reckons the entire economy should release.
But can't you "offset" your emissions? You can't, because it is impossible to calculate how much carbon an action will save. Take planting trees, for instance. Are you sure those trees are not displacing other trees? Or killing other trees? Or displacing crops? Or aren't going to be felled or burned down? While the tree may not reach maturity for decades, carbon saved now will be far more valuable in preventing runaway climate change than carbon saved sometime in the future. We need to invest in "offset" schemes, certainly. It's just we need to stop flying, too.
You get the message: don't fly, fly less. But from Ireland, where can you go without flying? You lose Australia and America, for starters. Monbiot has long-term hopes of an "air-ship" but the best solution I've found is a place on a sailing boat in 2009.
Like most Irish people, I have friends and family in both places. My suggestion to my daughter's godfather in the US that he could fly to see me, because, being American, he could hardly be expected to know any better (!), didn't go down too well.
This change of life we're going to go through won't be quick or easy, and most of it will be forced by rising fuel costs.
But you can go a lot of places from Ireland without flying. The world shrinks but becomes much more exotic. It has to be said that super-fast trains and ferries are not carbon-efficient. There is hope of better boats in the future, but right now the carbon savings they offer lie mostly in the fact that you're not going to go as far or as often. To travel responsibly, you have to travel slowly and infrequently.
The more you look at this issue, the more you see it is our insistence on living at a frenetic pace that is the real killer. It's not just about taking the annual holiday in Ireland, it's about reconceptualising home as something we don't need to escape. And it's about finding the time for a few real adventures.
10 PLACES TO GO WITHOUT CAR OR PLANE
Prices fluctuate, as do exchange rates, so take as a very rough guide only.
1. THE SHELBOURNE, DUBLIN
If you cut out the flights, maybe you could finally afford the Shelbourne. Two nights in a "heritage" room overlooking St Stephen's Green, with "traditional Shelbourne breakfast" can be had for two for €790 at the time of writing. Get the train or bus or Luas or cycle right up to the man in the livery and ask him where you can park your bikes.
2. ISLANDS IN THE STREAM
We seem to feel we need permission now to get out of our cars, and going to an island gives us this. Sherkin and Cape Clear, Co Cork; Tory, Co Donegal; Clare Island, Co Mayo - so many islands, so little time. It seems churlish to pick one, but I will anyway: Inishbofin, Co Galway, for its spectacular scenery and wildlife but also for the vitality of its culture.
Michael Nee's bus neatly connects the train station in Galway and the ferry from Cleggan for €10 one way (www.citylink.ie).
3. LIVERPOOL
Liverpool is Cultural Capital of Europe this year and among the dozens of cultural attractions will be Monet to Hopper: the artist and the railway, including work by Pissaro and Van Gogh, which runs from April to July at the Walker Art Gallery. In June Benjamin Britten's War Requiem will be performed in Liverpool Cathedral, and in October there will be a major exhibition of the work of architect Le Corbusier (www.liverpool08.com). Norfolkline accepts passengers without accompanying cars and has sailings most days from Dublin and Belfast to Liverpool. A passage from Dublin for one adult costs €40 one-way, including lunch, and €20 for a four- to 16-year-old, with younger children going free. It's only €10 more to bring your bike along. www.norfolkline.com
4. SCOTLAND
Is Scotland the most beautiful country in Europe? It's a contender. If travelling from Dublin, go by train to Belfast and take the ferry to Stranraer (€35 one way, €8 for bikes). There are rail deals which will bring you from Dublin to the great Scottish cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow for €51 all-in, but I'd be bound for Inverness (€65) where the eagles start to circle and the Highlands begin.
5. NORWAY
Take a train on from Stranraer through wild countryside to Newcastle and from there you can take the Queen of Scandinavia ferry to Stavanger and Bergen in Norway. The crossing will cost between €140 and €211, including a berth in a four-berth cabin, if you fill the cabin. Under 16s travel half-price and under-fours are free. The journey from Bergen to Oslo is billed as one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world. Norwegian train tickets on www.nsb.no.
6. LONDON
London is obligatory. You've got to go there to go most other places. The Ulysses from Dublin to Holyhead is the slow boat but may be the best option if you want some kip. You can get a bed for €21. The trip costs between €29 and €35 one way, and it's €8 to bring a bike (www.irishferries.com). Once you're in London, you can go by train to almost anywhere in Europe or Asia with help from the "Man on Seat 61", Mark Smith. His hobby is now the amazing rail travel website, www.seat61.com.
7. PARIS
You realise the distance between climate change awareness in Britain and Ireland when you click on the Eurostar site (www.eurostar.com) and the service's emissions reduction goals jump up at you. High-speed trains have high emissions, but Eurostar claims to be 10 times less damaging to the environment than flying. It makes your jaw drop to think you can get from London to Paris in two and a half hours. You can also go straight to three alpine ski resorts or Eurodisney. Prices are as variable as airline ticket prices, depending on when you travel and how much flexibility you want: as high as €435 and as low as €83 return.
8 MADRID AND BARCELONA
You can go almost anywhere from Paris. I fancy the "trainhotels" which run from the Gare d'Austerlitz to Madrid and Barcelona for €72 one way with a berth in a sleeper, and even more the "Gran Classe" for €155 which gets you a two-berth sleeper with its own shower and toilet, dinner with wine and breakfast. You go to sleep in Paris and wake up in Spain.
9 MOSCOW AND BEIJING
You can't love trains and not want to take the Trans-Siberian. The main route runs from Moscow to Vladivostok, but you can take in China via the Trans-Manchurian or Trans-Mongolian. Mark Smith recommends the latter, which brings you through Siberia and the Gobi desert to China in six days (you would have a comfortable berth for between €178 and €285 one way). You could stop off in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar.
"Don't fly to Moscow!" begs Smith, suggesting the London-Moscow overland route, which he calls "the civilised way to reach Russia". You get Eurostar to Brussels at St Pancras, transfer to Cologne, from where you can take a direct sleeper to Moscow in only two nights. A saver return in a three-berth cabin is €275, and €397 in a two-berth (www.europeanrail.com).
It costs more, but you can do what Mark Smith describes as a "great train journey" from Paris to Moscow. You can imagine the Romanovs clanking along in their jewels. This costs €666 in a three-berth, €994 in a two-berth or €1,090 for a single.
10 INDIA
The Iranians are engaged in a massive railway building project. When this opens Istanbul will be officially linked with Delhi by train. Until then, the journey begins well, sags in the middle and takes off once you get to the subcontinent of railways. It's three days from London to Istanbul. I've done this part - in fact, I went further: my train ticket read "Connolly-Izmir". That was 25 years ago but I will never forget the gradual tipping of east into west.
The routes to Istanbul are all wonderful. You can go from Brussels or Paris through Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest, or from Paris through Belgrade and Sofia. The cheapest way to do the trip, according to Mark Smith, is to buy an InterRail Pass (www.interrailnet.com). For five days' travel within 10 days, it's €249 second class; €329 first class. For 10 days within 22 days, it's €359 (€489 first class); for 22 days continuous, it's €469 (€629); and for one month it's €599 (€809).
From Istanbul, you catch the Trans-Asia Express through Ankara to Tehran, another three extraordinary days. To get a sleeper, Mark Smith recommends booking in advance through erdemir@tur-ista.com or info@vikingturizm.com.tr, and mention his name (prices were not available). You'll need a visa for Iran, and these can be organised through www.iranianvisa.com. Then you get a train from Tehran to Kerma in southwest Iran (www.rajatrains.com) where you hit the missing link. Look for a local bus to Zahedan and then get a freight train through the desert to Quetta in Pakistan. You then catch a train to Lahore, and from there to Amritsar and on to Delhi.
The train is, of course, the best way to travel in India. You can get an Indrail Pass for two months' unlimited travel in the best classes available for about €570 (www.indiarail.co.uk).