News: Bishop of London calls cheap flights 'a sin'
Flights > News > # 869 (24/07/2006)
The Bishop of London has declared it sinful for people to contribute to climate change by flying on holiday. Speaking to The Sunday Times, Richard Chartres, who chairs the bishops’ panel on the environment, said: “There is now an overriding imperative to walk more lightly upon the earth and we need to make our lifestyle decisions in that light.
“Making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large car are a symptom of sin. Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where people ignore the consequences of their actions.”
Chartres, the third most senior bishop in the Church of England, declared his views as it prepares to publish a booklet on environmental matters called Treasures on Earth.
The Sunday Times reports that the booklet will say that scientific research supporting predictions that the earth faces serious climate change is “overwhelming”. It will also detail practical ways for Christians to cut their carbon emissions, at church and at home, including trying to walk or cycle to communion. The church’s advisers on the environment say that offsetting your carbon dioxide emissions against “green” actions such as planting trees is a first step towards becoming sustainable but is not a long-term answer.
The Church of England is taking steps to improve its own environmental record and has asked vicars to carry out an energy audit so they can reduce their “carbon footprint”. It owns some of the largest and draughtiest buildings in Britain, including vast cathedrals and ancient churches.
“We have no right to appeal to our contemporaries on this issue if we have failed to put our own house in order,” said Chartres.
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Another week, another weak environmental soundbite to distract us from taking this extremely important debate seriously.
Perhaps we should go back and look at some of the historical roots which have inspired so much desire to travel in the first place. Migration and the need to explore new surroundings are part of human nature. One of the biggest motivations to move to pastures new has been the desire to spread one's particular brand of religious thought, or to escape from someone else's lack of tolerance of it. Whether we look at the Pilgrim Fathers escaping to the Americas, or the spread of Islam, religion has played a major part in encouraging a desire to seek out new places, or to return to visit friends and family who have stayed behind. It is just that since the advent of the jet engine, the whole process has become so much easier - we can visit relatives in New York on a long weekend, making a trip which would have previously taken weeks by sea.
Presumably, the Bishop has also forgotten that as well as all other travel which takes place due to the historical result of migration, pilgrimage itself still requires a significant amount of travel. Is he suggesting that those who wish to embark on the long trek to Santiago de Compostella should now walk back home again, instead of taking the plane, or that no one should ever visit Rome to view the spectacular religious heritage the city offers? Presumably, the bishop would not go so far as to suggest that the millions of Muslims who take part in the annual Haj pilgrimage are being "selfish" in doing so, because it is only the self-indulgent sun worshippers of the Costa Del Sol he wishes to target? So what if a trip to Barcelona to view Gaudi's Sagrada Familia would result in almost identical carbon emissions, the latter is purifying the soul, whereas the former is merely inviting opportunity for the multiple sins of greed, sloth and lust. Yet in this multicultural, pluralistic society (apologies for sounding like Tony Blair), is one person's desire for educational and spiritual fulfillment really any more or less valid than someone else's desire for a week away to seek more hedonistic enlightenment? How different is this latest attempt at religious pointscoring to saving up air miles to go on holiday? Both activities revolve around achieving a certain amount of "stored value" before claiming one's reward.
So why should we bother responding to such lowbrow self-righteousness? Well, quite simply because this debate is worthy of a more reasoned contribution. Why should anyone object to the church making legitimate points about responsible ways of living in today's complex society, and why shouldn't such messages include points about respect for the environment? Our objection, as usual, results from the way that aviation is so often singled out as a scapegoat, with the implication that everything would be just so much better if all planes were grounded tomorrow. Unfortunately, nothing is that simple. Our frequently asked questions section lists some of the dilemmas which must be faced with regard to the environmental impacts of all forms of transportation, showing that this issue is nothing like as clear-cut as some lazy journalists and headline seeking clergy would have us believe. On the other hand, it would be just as easy for us to point out that aviation only contributes to around 4% of man-made CO2 emissions, and to then pass the buck on to all the other polluters which cause the other 96%.
So is the solution here to encourage more so-called "sin taxes" along the lines of those which are already imposed on tobacco and alcohol? This month, we have seen European politicians take steps towards imposing a raft of taxes on flights. Flightmapping has never objected in principle to the idea of aviation paying more towards the environmental damage it causes. However, this just looks like another way of swelling EU coffers in much the same way that the Exchequer currently benefits from our exorbitant petrol taxes (not to mention all those additional taxes on oil company profits, which will keep going up as long as our foreign policy blunders in the Middle East continue - but that's another story). It could be reasonably argued that taxes on cigarettes and alcohol provide a substantial amount of funding towards the National Health Service, but the same cannot be said for motoring taxes, virtually none of which end up being spent on any kind of environmental schemes.
Headline grabbing pleas for people to fly less will always fall on deaf ears, just as the temperance movement and the American attempts at prohibition failed to curb people's demand for alcohol. Unfortunately, there is just no mileage in a bishop asking for authorities to clean up the complex chessboard that governs European air traffic control, or for an end to the disgraceful subsidies which continue to prop up ailing national airlines like Alitalia. Far more sensible would be to ask for any taxes which are levied on aviation to be spent on genuinely useful environmental schemes, although many of these proposals would also be covered by the emission trading programmes, even if carbon credits will never get the environmental lobby salivating the way they do for taxes. It might sound a bit rich for those of us in the West to continue to tell the Brazilians that they should stop cutting down their rainforest (after all, how many of our own trees did we cut down to turn into bibles and church pews?), but any efforts here will be far more effective than trying to encourage more people to take their holidays in the UK.
We don't want to knock the Bishop for indulging in self glorification, but if we at least apply the logic which says that those resources which are available should be shared around, then there must certainly be a trick or two which the no-frills airlines could teach the church about filling seats. If it is a sin to fly, then at least the devil knows how to swell his flock. Perhaps a solution here might be for troubled bosses at British Airways to offer Bishop Chartres a job as promotions manager, because we're sure that any airline which achieved seat occupancy levels as low as the Church of England would be out of business very quickly. Then again, that might be one way for him to achieve his objective and put a halt to all this sin.
