ou may be unfamiliar with another source of greenhouse gas emissions that comes pretty close to air travel: trendy trainers.
Those grotesquely overpriced shoes that prove the First Law of Successful Marketing.
That is: think of a trendy product. Develop a glitzy version that is phenomenally expensive.
Make relatively few available at first and then double the price.
And hordes of gullible teenagers — and plenty of older people who should know better — will break down your doors to get at them no matter what it does to their overdraft.
But it’s the cost to the environment that really matters.
There are reckoned to be 25 billion pairs made every year, mostly from several forms of plastic made with fossil fuels that can’t be recycled.
They create more than half the carbon emissions of the entire aviation industry. And yet few self-respecting young people would dare be seen without the very latest version.
Nor without the latest fast-fashion tops or dresses or jeans that come at the opposite end of the price scale. They might be made by workers on starvation wages in the sweatshops of the Far East, but no matter.
They are Hoovered up — often to be worn once, then cast aside. The cheaper they are, the better. And again, the cost to the environment is monumental.
These might well be the same young people who regard it as their God-given right to take gap years and fly to exotic places so they can post selfies to impress their friends.
The same young people who order takeaways whenever they’re peckish. Who howl with anguish if they can’t go clubbing. Who adore avocados — possibly the most polluting food on the planet.
And the same generation who can’t be bothered to get vaccinated against Covid. The latest figures show a third still haven’t been. So what if we get infected and spread the virus, they say. We’re young. We’ll survive.
(In simple terms: don’t do as I do, do as I say.
Unless, of course, you’re Boris Johnson, in which case different rules apply.)
John Humphrys
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