Flying to Football Games: Climate Change?

[GordonS]

This might go down like a lead ballon, but here goes anyway. Bear with me, it is about football.

An IPCC report a couple of weeks ago set out what would be required to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees, and what the differences would be between warming at that level and 2 degrees. It’s pretty stark reading. What’s worse, we’re nowhere near on course for holding at even 2 degrees - we’re heading for 4 degrees or worse by the end of the century.

That may seem a long way away, but it’s within the expected lifetimes of kids being born in Scotland today. They’re looking at living in a world in which the current homes of 150 million people are under water. Goodbye southern Florida, farewell Mekong delta, adios Bangladesh. Wide swathes of Africa and the Middle East will be uninhabitable, dislocating hundreds of millions of people. Famine will be regular, threatening the lives of billions. Conditions at home will be much less severe, though we’re still looking at regular floods and droughts, and more damaging storms.

One of the most harmful activities we do that produces CO2 is fly. You can go vegan, instal solar panels, get cavity wall insulation, cycle to work, recycle all your waste, stop buying shit from China, all that stuff, but if you fly regularly or far you’re still contributing significantly to the growth in atmospheric CO2 that is causing climate change.

So should we still be flying to the other side of the continent for a game of football?

Scotland took about 3,000 fans to the game in Slovenia last year. Based on return flights from Edinburgh to Ljubljana via London, that’s over 1,100 tons of CO2. In a car that gets 50 mpg it’s the equivalent of driving 5.7 million miles.

There were 80,000 Celtic fans in Seville for the UEFA Cup final in 2003 - there really were, I was one of them and there were easily as many without tickets as with. Assuming direct flights from Glasgow that’s 52,800 tons of CO2. According to the UK government calculation of the social cost of carbon - an estimate of the cost of the damage - that caused about £1 million of harm.

There were 125 Champions League matches last season, 205 Europa League matches and there are about 150 competitive internationals on average each year in Europe. That’s 480 matches. Assuming a very, very conservative average of 500 travelling fans that’s 240,000 return trips. What would be the average flight distance, 2,000 kilometres? That would be 960 million flight kilometres. That’s a looooot of carbon, it doesn't include other internationals like the Nations League and I think I’m pitching on the low side

More than half of the flights I’ve taken as an adult have been for sport. Dublin three times, Bologna twice, Cardiff, Barcelona, Malaga, Frankfurt, Geneva and Rome. I think I need to chuck it.

You might not be willing to make any changes to prevent catastrophic climate change, and if so, thanks for reading this far. But if we think climate change is our responsibility, isn’t flying for football games one of the first things we stop doing? Climate change is being caused by people in rich countries, like us. If the wealthiest 10% in the world - which includes a lot of the people reading this - reduced their emissions to that of the average European, greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by a third overnight.

People don’t like to hear this stuff, but facts are facts whether they’re welcome or not and the facts are unarguable. What are we willing to sacrifice to prevent destroying the lives of hundreds of millions of people and doing untold damage to the natural environment?

[Miguel Sanchez]

I'd assume when the world government decides to crack down on unnecessary travel, motorsport would be first for the chop. 

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

Football.

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, GordonS said:

This might go down like a lead ballon, but here goes anyway. Bear with me, it is about football.

An IPCC report a couple of weeks ago set out what would be required to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees, and what the differences would be between warming at that level and 2 degrees. It’s pretty stark reading. What’s worse, we’re nowhere near on course for holding at even 2 degrees - we’re heading for 4 degrees or worse by the end of the century.

That may seem a long way away, but it’s within the expected lifetimes of kids being born in Scotland today. They’re looking at living in a world in which the current homes of 150 million people are under water. Goodbye southern Florida, farewell Mekong delta, adios Bangladesh. Wide swathes of Africa and the Middle East will be uninhabitable, dislocating hundreds of millions of people. Famine will be regular, threatening the lives of billions. Conditions at home will be much less severe, though we’re still looking at regular floods and droughts, and more damaging storms.

One of the most harmful activities we do that produces CO2 is fly. You can go vegan, instal solar panels, get cavity wall insulation, cycle to work, recycle all your waste, stop buying shit from China, all that stuff, but if you fly regularly or far you’re still contributing significantly to the growth in atmospheric CO2 that is causing climate change.

So should we still be flying to the other side of the continent for a game of football?

Scotland took about 3,000 fans to the game in Slovenia last year. Based on return flights from Edinburgh to Ljubljana via London, that’s over 1,100 tons of CO2. In a car that gets 50 mpg it’s the equivalent of driving 5.7 million miles.

There were 80,000 Celtic fans in Seville for the UEFA Cup final in 2003 - there really were, I was one of them and there were easily as many without tickets as with. Assuming direct flights from Glasgow that’s 52,800 tons of CO2. According to the UK government calculation of the social cost of carbon - an estimate of the cost of the damage - that caused about £1 million of harm.

There were 125 Champions League matches last season, 205 Europa League matches and there are about 150 competitive internationals on average each year in Europe. That’s 480 matches. Assuming a very, very conservative average of 500 travelling fans that’s 240,000 return trips. What would be the average flight distance, 2,000 kilometres? That would be 960 million flight kilometres. That’s a looooot of carbon, it doesn't include other internationals like the Nations League and I think I’m pitching on the low side

More than half of the flights I’ve taken as an adult have been for sport. Dublin three times, Bologna twice, Cardiff, Barcelona, Malaga, Frankfurt, Geneva and Rome. I think I need to chuck it.

You might not be willing to make any changes to prevent catastrophic climate change, and if so, thanks for reading this far. But if we think climate change is our responsibility, isn’t flying for football games one of the first things we stop doing? Climate change is being caused by people in rich countries, like us. If the wealthiest 10% in the world - which includes a lot of the people reading this - reduced their emissions to that of the average European, greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by a third overnight.

People don’t like to hear this stuff, but facts are facts whether they’re welcome or not and the facts are unarguable. What are we willing to sacrifice to prevent destroying the lives of hundreds of millions of people and doing untold damage to the natural environment?

Blah blah blah. Never mind all that...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/15/climate-change-to-cause-dramatic-beer-shortages-extreme-weather-price

 

[vikingTON]

2 hours ago, GordonS said:

This might go down like a lead ballon, but here goes anyway. Bear with me, it is about football.

An IPCC report a couple of weeks ago set out what would be required to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees, and what the differences would be between warming at that level and 2 degrees. It’s pretty stark reading. What’s worse, we’re nowhere near on course for holding at even 2 degrees - we’re heading for 4 degrees or worse by the end of the century.

That may seem a long way away, but it’s within the expected lifetimes of kids being born in Scotland today. They’re looking at living in a world in which the current homes of 150 million people are under water. Goodbye southern Florida, farewell Mekong delta, adios Bangladesh. Wide swathes of Africa and the Middle East will be uninhabitable, dislocating hundreds of millions of people. Famine will be regular, threatening the lives of billions. Conditions at home will be much less severe, though we’re still looking at regular floods and droughts, and more damaging storms.

One of the most harmful activities we do that produces CO2 is fly. You can go vegan, instal solar panels, get cavity wall insulation, cycle to work, recycle all your waste, stop buying shit from China, all that stuff, but if you fly regularly or far you’re still contributing significantly to the growth in atmospheric CO2 that is causing climate change.

So should we still be flying to the other side of the continent for a game of football?

Scotland took about 3,000 fans to the game in Slovenia last year. Based on return flights from Edinburgh to Ljubljana via London, that’s over 1,100 tons of CO2. In a car that gets 50 mpg it’s the equivalent of driving 5.7 million miles.

There were 80,000 Celtic fans in Seville for the UEFA Cup final in 2003 - there really were, I was one of them and there were easily as many without tickets as with. Assuming direct flights from Glasgow that’s 52,800 tons of CO2. According to the UK government calculation of the social cost of carbon - an estimate of the cost of the damage - that caused about £1 million of harm.

There were 125 Champions League matches last season, 205 Europa League matches and there are about 150 competitive internationals on average each year in Europe. That’s 480 matches. Assuming a very, very conservative average of 500 travelling fans that’s 240,000 return trips. What would be the average flight distance, 2,000 kilometres? That would be 960 million flight kilometres. That’s a looooot of carbon, it doesn't include other internationals like the Nations League and I think I’m pitching on the low side

More than half of the flights I’ve taken as an adult have been for sport. Dublin three times, Bologna twice, Cardiff, Barcelona, Malaga, Frankfurt, Geneva and Rome. I think I need to chuck it.

You might not be willing to make any changes to prevent catastrophic climate change, and if so, thanks for reading this far. But if we think climate change is our responsibility, isn’t flying for football games one of the first things we stop doing? Climate change is being caused by people in rich countries, like us. If the wealthiest 10% in the world - which includes a lot of the people reading this - reduced their emissions to that of the average European, greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by a third overnight.

People don’t like to hear this stuff, but facts are facts whether they’re welcome or not and the facts are unarguable. What are we willing to sacrifice to prevent destroying the lives of hundreds of millions of people and doing untold damage to the natural environment?

Quote

Bear with me, it is about football.

Stopped reading right there tbh. 

[RandomGuy.]

I'm going to actively try and fly to as many games as I can now tbh.

[Rab B Nesbit]

If they stop making the train prices twice the price of cheap flights down South I’ll do it. 

[The OP]

Fair play to @bennett for not even taking a bus to Ibrox. He might not have saved his club but he is saving the planet.

[craigkillie]

Cancelling everything that currently exists seems like the best solution to me. Not worth taking any risks.

[GordonS]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

I'm going to actively try and fly to as many games as I can now tbh.

That's the kind of mature response that's become the hallmark of our time.

[RandomGuy.]

55 minutes ago, GordonS said:

That's the kind of mature response that's become the hallmark of our time.

I'd rather die laughing than live worrying, you carry on though.

[GordonS]

26 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

I'd rather die laughing than live worrying, you carry on though.

Please never breed.

[Honest_Man#1]

13 hours ago, GordonS said:

There were 80,000 Celtic fans in Seville for the UEFA Cup final in 2003 - there really were, I was one of them and there were easily as many without tickets as with. 

A long, thought out post, ruined by one bollocks sentence.

Also now all of your Scotland-hating posts from the past in the TA forum make sense... you’re a Celtic fan.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 minute ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

A long, thought out post, ruined by one bollocks sentence.

Also now all of your Scotland-hating posts from the past in the TA forum make sense... you’re a Celtic fan.

At least his webbed toes will come in handy.

[Jason King]

9 hours ago, GordonS said:

Please never breed.

You were all over the Junior forums last season before your team went Senior complaining that you didnt want them to move as you didnt want to pay £18 to get into a game especially if it was the mythical "Tuesday night in Elgin" and here you are 5 months later complaining about people flying to games.

You come across as a complete fud to be honest.

[GordonS]

1 hour ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

A long, thought out post, ruined by one bollocks sentence.

Also now all of your Scotland-hating posts from the past in the TA forum make sense... you’re a Celtic fan.

No I fucking well am not. I was in my youth because I was brought up like that but I grew out of it, thank God.

As for Scotland-hating posts, you're out of your mind. I went to most Scotland games at Hampden between the late 80s and  2015, and every game bar two from 2002 to about 2010. I've been to two World Cups and a European Championship. Until 2015 I'd have said Scotland were my 'first' team. The two reasons I haven't been going since is 1) ticket prices and 2) that I didn't feel safe in the ground with my daughter at the Poland game, the stewards lost control of the ground, I know other parents who felt the same and the SFA couldn't give a flying f**k.

Hope that sets the record straight... 

[GordonS]

44 minutes ago, Jason King said:

You were all over the Junior forums last season before your team went Senior complaining that you didnt want them to move as you didnt want to pay £18 to get into a game especially if it was the mythical "Tuesday night in Elgin" and here you are 5 months later complaining about people flying to games.

You come across as a complete fud to be honest.

Though I agreed with you on the subject of the pyramid, I muted you early on when the whole debate kicked off for being utterly obnoxious to everyone who had any different opinion from yours. I viewed this post as I was curious to see if you would take this seriously, which obviously you haven't. I've viewed a few of your posts since in the Juniors forum and you are still ridiculously insulting to anyone who says anything negative about the pyramid.

FWIW I wasn't against Rose moving senior and strongly supported them going once everyone else was, I was ambivalent and I had some concerns. I know you'll not understand that as you don't do nuance.

So right back atcha.

Edited October 17, 2018 by GordonS

[GordonS]

My overwhelming conclusion from the responses on this thread is that we're fucked. So long and thanks for all the fish.

[atfccfc]

I'm sure I read somewhere that many English Premier league teams fly to games. I'm sure the most ridiculous I heard was Arsenal flew to and from Norwich once which can't be more than 100 miles.

[Rab B Nesbit]

32 minutes ago, atfccfc said:

I'm sure I read somewhere that many English Premier league teams fly to games. I'm sure the most ridiculous I heard was Arsenal flew to and from Norwich once which can't be more than 100 miles.

Yes they do. I’ve seen various different ones at airports on my travels even from the Championship. 

There was a bit on the radio last week about how buses can get into Euston Station and clubs will book out a couple of 1st class carriages as it’s easier than the hassle of flying. 

Edited October 17, 2018 by Rab B Nesbit