Do you know how many eco-dilemmas I’ve answered since Eco-Worrier began? 149. With that in mind, I think you’ll agree it’s time for some role reversal. Here’s my quandary.

It started with a trip to India a few months ago. For the first time, I felt queasy on the plane. Nothing to do with the airline’s food, it was my carbon trail that was the problem. Since flying is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases and likely to be the most significant of my personal emissions, I knew I shouldn’t be doing it. Especially as I’d recently raved about train travel in The Times travel section.

On my return I told myself it had to stop. Then came the call from the travel desk, asking if I would go to Gabon, West Africa, in the new year, to report on its fledgeling tourist industry. I’d be visiting conservation projects and community lodges — not that I’m pretending that any amount of worthy activity redresses the impact of my flights – another 1.59 tonnes of carbon dioxide, for my sins. And my trip would be carbon neutral; all trips undertaken by journalists for Times Travel are balanced by donations to Climate Care (www.climatecare.org), the carbon-offsetting company.

Still, my first instinct was to refuse; if someone who writes about the environment isn’t walking the walk, what hope is there? Also because flitting across the planet makes a mockery of cycling to work, composting my waste and all the other meagre ways I try to slim my carbon consumption.

But the devil in me asks what’s the point. If we want to reduce the number of flights significantly, it needs to be imposed from above. It is not going to be done by a few well-meaning individuals staying on the ground voluntarily. Research by noflytraveltravel.com suggests that one in six of us is unhappy about flying. But I wonder how many of these would forgo a shopping trip to New York or a few weeks on the slopes in Canada.

In George Monbiot’s new book on global warming, Heat (Penguin UK, £17.99), he argues that limiting the capacity of our airports is the most certain way of holding back flights. New runways are cropping up at several airports and 12 regional ones are planning expansion. He says that unless the Government intervenes, demand will rise to fill this provision of space.

But then there’s the prospect of holidays in Wales for ever more. I imagine myself in years to come, isolated from the rest of the world, my mind gradually narrowing until a Welsh cake is a slice of the exotic. It’s a serious point: trips abroad often open our minds, trigger our consciences and persuade us that the world needs attention.

It is when visiting developing countries that we register how precarious the climate is. So should I go to Gabon? Since others must be squirming in plane seats, I’d be grateful for advice.

You can write to www.ecoworrier@thetimes.co.uk

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