THE lower value of the Brexit distorted pound abroad should make it more expensive to travel overseas so it’s surprising that more British folk are doing so, though the record numbers of visitors coming to the cheaper UK is to be expected.

I suspect we’re just borrowing more and living further beyond our means, all without a thought of what we are doing to the future.

This June the number of UK residents travelling abroad was over seven million, up four percent on a year before, while half that number came visiting, up seven percent in the same period.

Apart from a minority who use cars, ferries or trains to travel to northern Europe over ninety percent of the journeys to and from this country are by air. Planes use a form of kerosene that produces as much CO2 per kilometre per passenger as a large car, except that they go as far in a day as most cars do in months.

So an individual visiting Australia will produce eight tonnes of CO2, the annual total for each UK resident, but all used up in a couple of days.

Return trips to Karachi and Nairobi are around 4 tonnes per passenger but it’s just possible to support the argument for flying to visit relatives in the country of family origin, but not so for sun bathing on a foreign beach.

Be aware that tree planting will not offset these emissions – you caused them in a day, but it’ll take trees twenty years to remove them.

We should also be aware of two other reasons for not flying. CO2 is more than twice as effective in causing warming at high altitudes, and there are no international regulations to curb the emissions from flying, allowing it to increase at six percent annually and still growing.

So stay grounded, please.