We have recently seen harrowing media accounts of yet more climate change driven floods in the North of England, so bad that people isolating from Covid had to be rescued by boat. But there was also a large increase in bookings for flying holidays from people understandably desperate to get away from lockdown.

Unfortunately, however much you may want to escape, flying will make the floods worse. Your share of the carbon dioxide produced by a return flight to Barcelona is about half a tonne per person, rising to two tonnes if you go as far as the Americas. And you will also be helping to cause crop shrivelling droughts, like last May in Watford, when not a single drop of rain fell on the town.

Covid will eventually be behind us, but climate change is a far more serious threat, for which there is no vaccination.

Our only hope is to control our carbon emissions, so: “Please stop flying, the planet’s dying.”

Donald Reid,

Cassiobury estate, Watford

Former Director of the Association for Public Health