Flying stops. World does not.

We will discover this week not how many good reasons there are to fly, but how few, and we should use this lesson to help us fly smarter. I had the time and space yesterday to ponder what – if anything - volcano ash means for sustainability. A cloudless sky at my home in South London is normally criss-crossed with contrails, any sunbathing subject to the continual roar of jets lumbering directly overhead. I can normally see the oil stains and sometimes watch the wheels coming down as they join the Heathrow final approach. But yesterday, with UK flying shut down due to the dangers of the volcanic ash from Iceland, there was none of that. Instead the sky was clear, and I found myself picking out all the different bird songs in the gardens around us (and feeling slightly ashamed that I couldn’t identify any of them). So my first reflection was that, for the vast majority of us who are not flying, this is bliss – more please. But surely the new peace is bought at a price, with thousands stuck on the holidays they jetted off to so heedlessly last week, the airline industry losing millions every day, and food supplies rotting at airports? Well perhaps: we all know somebody who has been unable to travel. I’m only writing this now as an international meeting has been cancelled, and it is strange how a longed-for holiday can become a burden when it is involuntarily extended (I’m told…). But we should not overestimate the importance of flying. You will notice that life goes on. Business goes on. The supermarket shelves are full. Almost all business can be done by other means if necessary – indeed the crisis management around this event is being conducted by videoconference. Less than 1% of UK food is air freighted, and you will often be able to buy almost identical produce that has been much more efficiently imported using modern refrigerated container ships. There is no disaster, only the inconvenience caused by unexpected change. This is a good thing. Because whatever the amazing experiences flying can bring us, they come at enormous cost – gulping increasingly expensive fuel, for example, and vast CO2 emissions. These costs are increasing, and will become insupportable, if they aren’t already – who’s up for a banking style bailout of the airlines for example? I feel for anybody who has just missed out on the chance to visit an amazing, far-off part of the world. But missed business trips will be forgotten, even welcomed, and African farmers will export almost all of their produce by ship, as they always have. Finally, people will discover new and interesting ways to travel. Three of my Forum for the Future colleagues found themselves ‘stranded’ in Sweden on Friday night. They were all in the office in London on Monday morning, having used their expertise in sustainable travel to get themselves home via train and ferry through Denmark and Brussels – and guaranteeing far better pub tales than you will ever get from an airport check-in.