There’s no shortage of ideas for how to make air travel greener. But it has to start within the industry – and with workers
George Hibberd appears alongside fellow pilot Todd Smith in the Guardian documentary Guilt Trip
I love flying. I’ve wanted to be a pilot since I was young. I grew up in Chichester, West Sussex, under a flight path used by Gatwick airport planes, and used to watch as they traversed the sky. In 2019, once I had qualified as an airline pilot, I began working for easyJet. Aviation connected me to my extended family in Canada, exposed me to different cultures and gave me an unforgettable career. But in November 2022, I handed over my airport ID card for the last time. I had grown increasingly anxious about the effect that our industry was having on the planet and, deep down, I knew that my concern for the climate crisis meant being an airline pilot was damaging my mental health.
Despite no longer working in the industry, my love of aviation has driven me to protect our ability to fly for future generations. It inspires me to address the uncomfortable realities and decisions our industry now faces. Everyone knows that aviation has a gigantic emissions problem. In 2022, the UK’s domestic and international flights produced 29.6m tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions, accounting for about 7% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions. This is projected to increase to 11% by 2030, because while other sectors are decarbonising, aviation emissions will remain stable or even increase.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/10/2025 - 04:30
07/10/2025 - 04:28
Commercial pilots George Hibberd and Todd Smith grapple with the reality of their dream jobs, torn between childhood ambitions of flying and the impact of their industry on the world beneath them. From the cockpit, they witness first-hand the climate crisis unfolding below and decide to take drastic measures. As part of Safe Landing, a community of aviation workers who want the industry to do better for the climate, they begin to transform their eco-anxiety and guilt into action. With an estimated 1.2 million passengers in the sky at any time, they ask when will society confront the urgent need to reimagine aviation - before it's too late
To read more on how former Easyjet pilot George Hibberd thinks the aviation industry can be transformed, click here.
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07/10/2025 - 04:00
Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island gives 300th climate speech on the US Senate floor
The Democratic party and the climate movement have been “too cautious and polite” and should instead be denouncing the fossil fuel industry’s “huge denial operation”, the US senator Sheldon Whitehouse said.
“The fossil fuel industry has run the biggest and most malevolent propaganda operation the country has ever seen,” the Rhode Island Democrat said in an interview Monday with the global media collaboration Covering Climate Now. “It is defending a $700-plus billion [annual] subsidy” of not being charged for the health and environmental damages caused by burning fossil fuels. “I think the more people understand that, the more they’ll be irate [that] they’ve been lied to.” But, he added, “Democrats have not done a good job of calling that out.”
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07/10/2025 - 03:04
Proposal to vary electricity charges in England, Wales and Scotland based on location dropped in favour of ‘fair and affordable’ single price
Business live – latest updates
The government has abandoned plans for “zonal pricing” that would have charged electricity users in the south-east of England more than those in Scotland, saying that a single national price would help ensure the system was “fair, affordable, secure and efficient”.
The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, had been considering proposals for zonal pricing that would mean different parts of England, Wales and Scotland being charged different rates for their electricity, based on local supply and demand.
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07/10/2025 - 01:00
With forests under pressure from drought, heat, disease and deer, a study has found fewer trees across a range of species surviving to maturity. But scientists say there is still hope
To the untrained eye, Monks Wood looks healthy and lush in the summer sun. Hundreds of butterflies dance on the edge of footpaths in the ancient Cambridgeshire woodland, which is rich with ash, maple and oak trees. Birds flit through the hedgerows as they feed. A fox ambles through a forest clearing, before disappearing into long grass.
But for a number of years, it has been clear to Bruno Ladvocat and Rachel Mailes that something is missing. In 2022, Ladvocat, Mailes and their research team from Birmingham University were out sampling when they noticed that the small trees that typically cover the woodland floor were increasingly hard to find.
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07/09/2025 - 23:09
People can intuitively sense how biodiverse a forest is just by looking at photos or listening to sounds, and their gut feelings surprisingly line up with what scientists measure.
07/09/2025 - 09:06
Record temperatures and seasonal downpours raise fears of a repeat of the devastating flooding in 2022
Glaciers across northern Pakistan have been melting at an accelerated pace as a result of record-breaking summer temperatures, leading to deadly flash flooding and landslides.
The floods and heavy monsoon rains have caused devastation across the country this summer, killing at least 72 people and injuring more than 130 since the rains began in late June.
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07/09/2025 - 07:07
Mayor urges people to exercise utmost caution as weather service says situation around Mediterranean is critical
More than 15,000 residents of Marseille confined to their homes have been allowed out after a wildfire on the outskirts of France’s second city was brought under control, but officials have warned the country faces an exceptionally high-risk summer.
Fanned by gale-force winds and kindled by parched vegetation, several fires have burned swathes of southern France in recent days, including Tuesday’s just north of the port city. The weather service has said the weeks ahead could be critical.
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07/09/2025 - 07:00
Greenery, shade and swimming spots won’t solve the climate crisis, but they’re becoming ever more critical
Three years ago, in Zurich for the first time, I crossed a bridge over the Limmat River and saw people floating down it in rubber rings on their way home from work, some casually holding beers. The Limmat is so clear that it almost begs you not only to jump in, but to drink it.
Paris’s Canal Saint-Martin has never produced either desire in me – but sweltering in last week’s 38C heat, I wanted to close my eyes, pretend it was the Limmat, and leap. Others weren’t so hesitant; there was a line of people going up one of the footbridges over the canal waiting for their turn to jump, dive, backflip or just belly-flop into the water.
Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist
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07/09/2025 - 05:13
Regulator and government accused of colluding with water industry to dump potentially toxic waste without oversight
Millions of tonnes of toxic sewage sludge spread on UK farmland every year
‘A Trojan horse’: how toxic sewage sludge became a threat to the future of British farming
An Environment Agency (EA) insider has broken ranks to expose what they describe as a “deliberate and ongoing cover-up” of the public health and environmental dangers of spreading sewage sludge on farmland.
They accuse the regulator and government of colluding with water companies for years to facilitate the dumping of waste under the guise of soil enrichment – without oversight, transparency or testing.
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