Should we be ashamed of flying?

Business Daily

The aviation industry is one of the world's biggest contributors to climate change - but does a social movement begun in Sweden now threaten to stigmatise air travel?

It's called "flygskam", and Manuela Saragosa speaks to one of its originators, Susanna Elfors, whose tagsemester Facebook page helped convert her fellow Swedes to the environmental virtues of train travel. Meanwhile John Broderick, professor of energy and climate change at Manchester University explains just how big a carbon footprint an individual long-haul flight can have.

The movement is already having an impact on Scandinavian travel habits, and threatens to go worldwide. So what does the industry make of it? We ask Michael Gill of the International Air Transport Association, as well as Boet Kreiken of Dutch airline KLM, which is already calling on its customers to "fly responsibly".

Plus Manuela asks Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet guidebooks that first popularised travel to exotic corners of the globe, whether he feels guilty about having enabled the casual flying culture.

Producer: Laurence Knight

(Picture: Aeroplane vapour trails; Credit: yellowpaul/Getty Images)