I'm studying abroad at the moment - i view trips home as an "ordinary" necessity and resent the implication that i'm being really wasteful in taking the only practicable means of transport available to me, as travelling at short notice via eurostar is difficult on a student budget.

Jennifer, Paris,

It would seem the Tories have gone mad again . It would be quite absurd to put a tax on flying when travel to Britain , the gateway to Europe for most of us on the other side of the world is so heavily promoted . It smacks of cutting off the hand that feeds you ,in the travel business . It just shows they dont think Global .

Karen Orsler, Auckland, New Zealand

Bill Ward, LLANYMYNECH, perhaps you should write to Al Gore, Greenpeace, all the major political parties, the BBC et al and and suggest that we “discuss things rationallly”. At present there is no evidence for and certainly no informed debate about the flaky theory of anthropogenic climate change. However the reasons for the earth’s periodic cycles of cooling and warming need to be debated and explored. Where climate change is concerned we need to hasten slowly.

CO2 Sceptic, Sydney, Australia

If human CO2 emissions can lead to ice melt then that is good news for the Cinque Ports and Prince Charles.
He should be planning ahead.

CO2 Sceptic, Sydney, Australia

How did Dave get to the Arctic Circle, or Iraq?

I don't think it was by train.

Richard Edwards, COVENTRY, England

I find it incredible that very reasonable arguments raised during the Channel 4 program last week are simply ignored by mainstream politicians who follow the IPCC report without question, completely shutting down any form of debate. The fact that the Conservatives now want to actually impose new taxes and, by inference, restrict personal freedom and choice beggars belief. I thought this was the party of personal responsibility! What a mess, this Labour government would have been voted out last time with any sort of effective opposition and will probably get back in again as long as Cameron continues to make himself look a complete fool trying to make the party appeal to people who will never ever vote for them!

David, Basingstoke, UK

Im disappointed in this article from a newspaper I read and respect. As pointed out above, comments such as 'loony' and 'requires extrapolation that Thomas Malthus on speed could not come up with' do not seem to me to be a part of reasoned debate.

As for the concept that a growing industry's environmental effect 'pales into insignificance' when compared with other industries, well thats the kind of attitude that would see nothing done ever about green issues. It might be a smaller number, but its mere presence means that it has an effect and that effect cannot be ignored. The policies/ideas themselves may not be the best, but at least there is an acceptance of the problem, rather than burying their heads in the sand as some ppl seem to be doing. Global warming is real, and we have to deal with it in all its forms.

Andrew Rolfe, Sheffield,

Well done Dave! I thought the Tory Party was trying to woo voters in the North of England and Scotland? As most holidaymakers jet off to Southern Europe for their beach side holidays, and the north of the UK is further away from Southern Europe than Dave and his chums in Notting Hill, it is us Northerners who are going to clobbered with his "Air Poll Tax".
Unless of course Global Warming means that we can get a decent tan in Norway!

Michael Dales, MIDDLESBROUGH, England

Poor Messrs Cameron and Osbourne. Their Big Idea (paint the Tory party as warm and caring by concentrating on the carbon emissions theory) is hitting the rocks. I wonder how many of their potential supporters watched the excellent Channel 4 "Great Global Waming Swindle" referred to by N Simmons, and cringed? This was a programme which ought to be required viewing for any politician who thinks that there's scope to impose more taxes and regulation on the unfortunate British public. As Ed Corbett and others point out, Mr Cameron's ideas (along with those articulated by the Government) are in any event fundamentally flawed, even if the C4 conclusions are wrong, and there is a critical element of "global warming" which can be controlled by regulatory mechanisms. Before these restrictions, with their likely economic consequences, are advanced, Cameron, Osbourne et al must answer both the C4 points and the practical issues outlined by many of the readers who have contributed here

G Campbell, london,

I think we can all agree that air travel is a contributor to climate change. However, I am hugely against the government mandating how often private individuals can travel by air. I live in the US and the only practical way for me to return home and see my family and friends is to fly. The taxes that have been added to trips by plane in recent years for additional security and fuel surcharges have already added nearly $200 to each trip I make, and I make a contribution to 'Carbon Neutral' to offset the harmful effects my flying has on the environment. So back off Cameron! Educating people and giving them alternatives, as well as practical measures to help develop more fuel-efficient planes and fuels will mean that all of us can enjoy the lifestyle we want without ruining the planet.

Melissa Kane, Hoboken, NJ,

After reading this sort of drivel week after week, and being bored rigid by "the environment" every time I watch TV, I am convinced that we are being told how we must live by a collection of over enthrusiastic smiling lunatics living in a building called "The House". It would do the British people a great service if they were all herded into this house, all the doors and windows were locked, and the keys thrown over the balcony into the Thames.

Phil, Newport, England

Is this the same David Cameron who chartered a personal plane to view the melting ice caps? What tax band would that trip be in?

Jane , Derby, UK

I would never have expected, in a month of Sundays, this level of bandwagon jumping control freak, eco-nonsence from the Tories. They used to be the party of sound and logical policies.....those were the days.

Paul Johnson, London, UK

Legislation is worthless without enforcement. And yet the greatest folly is in the policing of such legislation. Will I be filling in an end of year "Travel Log Tax Return" for all my journeys?- The sort of thing that I will send for a faceless admin assistant to review, to audit, and spot check to make sure the overseas funeral I attended was really a funeral and not a (hushed voice) - holiday with my children. I trust the newly appointed "Holiday Police" will be enforcing this with the relish of tax inspectors.

Marco Di Franco, Enfield, England

Mad and bad and that’s not just Dave Cameron. Pandering to the environmental loonies with ill thought out policies and eco taxes will surely condemn the Tories to at
least another 10 years in opposition.
well done Dave

Ken Johnson, Washington, England

What a silly article!

If Mr Hames wants to be taken seriously why doesn't he makes some constructive suggestions instead of self-indulgently writing nonsense. The Conservative suggestions regarding air travel may or may not be sensible, I don't know enough about them, but we won't get anywhere if people can't be bothered to discuss things rationally and instead just try to get a few cheap laughs.

Bill Ward, LLANYMYNECH,

I find it unbelievable that Cameron thinks the way to the British public is to introduce more taxation.
We are under the highest burdon of taxation ever.
Promise to reduce taxation = win election , no brainer in my eyes

Philip the great, Stockport, UK

For readers who are denying the existence of global warming please read the page below, which I think sets out some of the problems with the recent channel 4 documentary

http://www.badscience.net/?p=383

Robert McGuiness, London,

Just a pathetic and ignorant excuse to raise yet more taxes.

I look forward to seeing publication of the Beck report which shows from direct measurements of the atmosphere's composition that CO2 levels were HIGHER in 1940 than today. These were by reputable chemists (including some Nobel prizewinners) and comprise some 90,000 accurate measurements made since 1829, without reference to dubious ice-core proxy measurements.

A draft of the Beck report is at:

http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com

Hopefully, this will put the whole "global warming" scam to bed but, no doubt, the politicians will think up some other excuse to tax us and control our movements. What a shower of scoundrels!

Ian, Exeter, UK

Cameron And Osborne are BONKERS!! and hat is from a tory!

When are they going to consider that which really matters like gross over taxation?

Davenot Cameron, Ebourne, Sussex

Tim Hames compares the "green" ideas of the "Two Davids." To me, Cameron's is far more practical than Miliband's. I'm not aware of many complaints about the one tax-free ISA we're allowed to take out each year. Why not one tax-free flight? I agree, though, with those who point out that trips are often made for family visiting purposes, so the tax-free allowance shouldn't be restricted to European flights. Incidentally, I resent it when adjectives like "loony" are applied to those of us who occasionally think beyond our own personal convenience, to our environment - local as well as global. I will be long gone before crisis point is reached, but I have two young grandchildren, and it's their future that concerns me. (They're already talking about green issues at their primary school, by the way.)

Barry, Wallington, UK

For years governments have been using economic sledgehammers and nonsense policies to crack peanuts and please voters. Just use simple and fair fiscal policy to achieve desired outcomes and reduce income tax.

Increase and introduce fuel tax for all users - road, rail, sea and air (and thereby possibly increasing the efficiency and usage of public transport), save a rapidly diminishing resource and, you never know, make a couple of greenies ecstatic. The economic arguments against doing this are rubbish: money not spent on ten quid flights from London to Prague so as people can go to an Irish or english Pub will be spent on local economies. The social arguments are also equally specious: if you want to live, visit or work somewhere else then look at the real costs - that applies to business as well as to families.

On overall economics, ultra-cheap fuel is distorting the market for short-term benefits for airlines and a few millionaires as well as destroying a one-off resource.

John, Canberra, Australia.

"money not spent on ten quid flights from London to Prague so as people can go to an Irish or english Pub will be spent on local economies."

Oh, I'm sure Gordon Brown can find not only a use for that money but also a way to get it off people.

Lets face it, this is just a way to increase the tax burden on the economy without actually putting up the basic rate (which people might notice).

They can talk green all they like. But when it comes to it, they'll spend the money on useless pet projects and golden pensions. If global warming is happening we're going to all be taxed all over again in another couple of decades when it turns out that a) the taxes didn't miraculously fix the problem and b) we didn't spend them on anything useful like flood defences.

If we're REALLY unlucky, we'll get to try to pay for the flood defences in the middle of the recession caused by the extra taxes...

Katie, Cambridge, UK

"But has there been any comment (sorry I haven't scrutinized every last column inch) on 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' from Channel 4? "

You mean the one that's been disproved already?

First of all, the two guys who came up with this aren't scientists.

Secondly, one of the scientists featured on the program is putting in an official complaint to the effect that the swindle was perpetrated on him by the editorial twisting of his views (as TiberiusGracchus puts it so nicely on BBC's HYS).

And lastly CO2 and H2O are tri-atomic molecules and have a MUCH greater radiative effect than O2, H2 and other di-atomic gases. Something the C4 swindle forgot to mention.

Starling, Lancaster,

I fear that DC is losing the plot. Silly ideas about more air travel tax and the unreasoned dismissal of Col Mercer do himself and the party great harm RGW

R G WIILLISON, OXFORD, ENGLAND

Climate change IS happening and, although some warming is natural, the majority of the problem is caused my mankind. Soloutions are needed but they need to be rational and effective. Surely it makes more sense to have an efficient public transport system than slapping tax on aircraft. The Chinese Maglev railway travels at 430km/h and has reached 500km/h in tests.. The UK's hardly moves. Getting rid of polluting cars and building an efficient rail network would have a much greater benefit. Incidentally, I am 32 and never had a driving licence. My work as a Tropical Environmental Manager requires me to fly longhaul frequently.

Will Dove, Darwin, Australia

Global warming can not be soclved by only one method. Both parties are crass enough to think they can attack 'the wealthy who can fly' but this solves nothing since travel by bus produces more polution per head per mile than travel by air. A widely scoped package of solutions is needed, tailored to location. For example, a tidal barrage on the Severn, windfarms on windswept and otherwise unatractive locations (Denmark will soon have f14% wind energy), all factories to have CO2 scrubbers added to all furnaces, power stations to have similar added CO2 removers. Coal is cheap and coal fired stations with modern CO2 scrubbers shall built rather than costly nuclear; best of all forestry commission land to be turned into mixed deciduous broad leaved forest, additional forests to be planted in every possible location. and wildlife introduced, including deer and wolves, this having been proven to enable reforestation, Cut a tree, plant another three. . All this to be paid for by grant.

Findlay Niederle, Lanark, UK

Conservative Central Office should make Mr. George Osbourne write this article out 100 times.
And why are these 'green' taxes going to pay for nannies for the middle class? Are married couples with babies more environmentally friendly?

hugh harte, london, uk

I am a white collar immigrant, and I have been staying and working here for 5 years. If all these green taxes go through (road pricing, long-haul flight tax, raised fuel duty), I will no longer find it economically sustainable for me to work in this country, and fly home to see my family once a year. As a result, I would move back home to work.

So, instead of reaping the £5000 from road pricing and £200 from flight surcharges from me, Gordon Brown will lose the £25,000+ income tax that I have been contributing yearly.

His loss.

Chee, Coventry,

We're told by them as know about these things that the UK accounts for no more than 2% of the world's CO2 emissions.

So, even if we were to halve our CO2 emissions, it would still only bring it down to 1%. How many days would it take India, China etc. to cancel out the 1% reduction we had struggled to achieve?

No, the whole global warming thing, and our culpability in causing it, is based on misunderstanding and misinformation. I firmly believe that it is nothing more than a cynical way to tax us even more heavily.

Surely, ther warmer the Earth gets, the less heating fuel people will use. That in itself will hugely reduce CO2 emissions!

Maurice, Maidstone, UK

The whole thing is a nonsense - what is needed is a fully costed model for say flying or driving the car taking account of all costs associated including environmental costs.

Then decide whether the consumer is to pick this up or the government through other revenues.

M Patel, Port St Mary, Isle of Man

Following the article in the Sunday Times 11th March regarding climate change and it's consequences, I can't be the only reader of these comments shocked by the refusal to change ones' lifestyle to prevent this disaster from getting out of control.

If you can be bothered, calculate your carbon footprint and then tell me that air travel doesn't polute.

colin, colchester, uk

Superb article.

Lee the Libertarian , London, Great Britain

Not really a problem - just take Eurostar to Paris or Brussels and fly from there instead. I'm sure the French and Belgians won't object to taking business from the UK. However, even Al Gore's figures show that it is global warming that increases carbon in the atmosphere, NOT the other way round. He just didn't understand the connection correctly. This is just another bandwagon for the politicians to jump on and plague us with yet more taxes and restrictions on our freedom. It is obviously good practice to not waste, either energy or products, but the so-called "green" environment movement has got it's facts muddled and wrong. Thoughts of "Chicken Little" spring to mind.

Brian, Farnham, UK

Finally some acknowledgement from the 'media' that perhaps the global warming debate has been a little one sided. Dave put's on his bicycle clips - front page news; Tony jets off on another well deserved break - commission a documentary; Al gives off some more hot air - put him up for a Nobel prize.... But has there been any comment (sorry I haven't scrutinized every last column inch) on 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' from Channel 4?

Please can the politicians (and the media hanging to their coat-tails) please get off the band wagon and have a more rationale debate. Perhaps the cause and effect of CO2 and global warming need to be re-examined?! I would encourage all reader who didn't see the C4 documentary (and particularly Dave, Toney and Al) to consider the facts presented again.

N. Simmons, London,

I am afraid Tim Hames has it right. This green bandwagon nonsense will alienate grass roots tories who want to hear & believe what they hear: Less Government, Less Tax-simple and easy to understand and any policy that contradicts this mantra should be quietly binned before Obourne & Little (sorry, Cameron) are found out as true policy painters & decorators.

Harry Stevenson, Winchester, UK

It might surprise a lot of your readers, but there is a huge proportion of the UK population who do take an annual holiday. We don't all spend every other weekend jetting off to some eastern European capital for cheap booze-ups on an air fare slightly above three pence plus airport taxes.

Perhaps the Conservatives are sincere in addressing global warming. Maybe I'm confused but I seem to remember that only a few short years ago the now green Labour party's leader Tony Blair wanted his own personal Boeing 747. And it is him driving out of Downing Street in a Jaguar followed by a fleet of Range Rovers isn't it?

Richard, Northumberland,

So to encourage the public to fly less, 1 man and his entourage will fly across the atlantic for a short meeting with a handful of Tories and then fly back again. How green is that? I don't suppose that Dave Cameron has heard of video-conderencing? In the mean time I am taxed for every mile I drive because I choose to spend all of my holidays in the UK, where I spend my hard earned cash locally, not on foreign firms like Ryanair.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

There are a lot of people that are going to be remembered in history as fools (if remembered at all) if the documentary on Channel 4 last week is correct. Its a good thing doctors don't open are skulls to lets the evil spirits out anymore.

Pat, Toronto, Canada

For years governments have been using economic sledgehammers and nonsense policies to crack peanuts and please voters. Just use simple and fair fiscal policy to achieve desired outcomes and reduce income tax.

Increase and introduce fuel tax for all users, road, rail, sea and air (and thereby possibly increasing the efficiency and usage of public transport), save a rapidly diminishing resource and, you never know, make a couple of greenies ecstatic. The economic arguments against doing this are rubbish: money not spent on ten quid flights from London to Prague so as people can go to an Irish or english Pub will be spent on local economies. The social arguments are also equally specious: if you want to live, visit or work somewhere else then look at the real costs - that applies to business as well as to families.

On overall economics, ultra-cheap fuel is distorting the market for short-term benefits for airlines and a few millionaires as well as destroying a one-off resource.

John, Canberra, Australia.

Has anyone actually challenged Cameron on how this "one flight scheme" could possibly work in practice? How will it be tracked? It makes ID cards look like a sensible balanced idea.

However can we also kill the idea that by filling thier planes, low cost airlines are somehow "greener". The low cost airlines fill thier planes by selling off spare seats at near zero cost i.e. they encourage extra travel that just would not happen with a static price model. This may be smart business practice, but it is not "green".

Taxing domestic travel makes some sense - it is crazy that a journey from London to Manchester can be more economic by plane, but only if the ground based alternatives are improved to match. In France, with much longer distances the train (effectively powered by zero carbon Nuclear Energy) is stealing the market from air travel, in Britain it is the other way round.

Nick, France,

the tories are doing their best to turn away their traditional core vote.
Who do we turn to? either the BNP or UKIP, neither of which is really appealing. but are sounding better than Dave's bunch of leftist !

Paul Greenwood, Worcester,

David Cameron is beginning to reveal himself as a somewhat deranged supposedly Conservative politicion.His ideas on "Green taxes" are the most idiotic to date.He should realise that we are not significant polluters compared with the US,China India,Russia and no doubt a few other places.He should at the very least temper his statements with the preface that we would be willing to impose some form of tax if other significant polluters around the World were willing to tax their inhabitants accordingly.He is beginning to sound like a clone of Tony Blair crossed with David Milliband to the extent that the Conservative Party is in danger of being subsumed by the Labour Party because we cannot tell where Cameron rhetoric ends and Labour Party nonsense begins.David cameron is the first Conservative Party Leader in more than 60 years I cannot vote for and that is for the Conservative Party "CRIMINAL"

ed corbett, bridgend, wales

I believe there should be a Band-Wagon tax which would hit all politicians ,who lack the insight to develop ideas apart from those proposed by the Green Lobby, pretty hard.

James, London,

The statistic that air travel is responsible for 1.6 per cent of global emissions is misleading when discussing the environmental impact of air travel. Most human caused emissions are released into the troposphere where weather occurs and "washes out" most of the pollution. Aircraft fly at the very bottom of the stratosphere therefore the emissions they produce are in the same weather free layer that the ozone layer occurs. Therefore although as a relative percentage of total emissions the contribution aircraft make is small, the harm this contribution makes is orders of magnitude higher.

Niall Rowantree, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Quite right Arnold. Geographers should speak up more, climate change probably isn't happening and a warmer planet is good for my holidays. As you say, the people dying from climate change are mainly in Africa and they don't even go on holiday.

Montogomery Cecil, Guildford, Surrey

I agree with A J Laycock. My mother lives in Finland and my father in Hong Kong - am I supposed to choose to see them once a year only, and only one parent a year? It's ridiculous. I'm not the only one who is going to get priced out of seeing their family - it already takes months to save up for one visit. Can the government not think of any other answer except more tax?

Jo, Nottingham,

IF climate change is caused by human activity, then we should concentrate our efforts on the major causes of pollution. Air travel, particularly from the UK, is not high on the list.
IF climate change is caused by human activity, then we should use our ingenuity to develop non poluting technologies to replace those that polute. We cannot go backwards to the middle ages.
IF climate change is caused by natural effects, then again we would be better served in adjusting how we deal with the change, as humans have always done.
Cameron could could loose his appeal to the vast majority in this country by become part of the follow me, loony enviromentalists.

Martin Owen, Farnham Common, UK

I have read the views of political pundits Portillo et al about the necessity of Cameron to remain vague about policy this far out from the next election. How iconic image (Dave on his bike), spats with the Tory old guard reinforce the perception that the Tories under Cameron have changed. We see the polls reflect a good degree of success in this strategy.

And now this. About the first concrete policy proposals - and its to increase taxation! It won't make a jot of difference to emissions. Time the Cameron cabal took a reality check outside their own circle This is the kind of New labouresque headline generating gesture politics of which we are tired of, and do not expect of a Conservative administration.

Geoffrey Adlam, Brighton, Sussex

I go to university in London but I am from Ireland, where my parents and family still live. The only way I can economically (both time and financially wise) go home, is to fly. Generally with Ryanair. Long live LCCs.

M, London,

The issue here is that all parties are jumping on a 'green bandwagon' - whilst there are good arguments for intelligent, well thought out green policies (not necessarily taxation) - that could ensure that pollution is cut where it is most efficient to cut it, Cameron and Brown seem obsessed with high-profile, ineffective taxation.

Even if air travel was a main cause of CO2 emissions, the majority of flights around the world tend to be 'supply' - food, goods etc - but to attempt to restrict global supply chains would be terrible for business (not to mention developing countries).

Doug, Edinburgh, uk

Has it occurred to politicians thinking of penalising air travel that air travel is used by many people living in the UK to visit their families who live elsewhere in the world? Many people have come her to find better employment/education opportunities and have left their families behind. Its easy to think of air travel as a luxury for taking a holiday when most of your family lives a car journey away. Lets think harder about solutions as we need a wholistic view on the way we consume energy - incentivising employers to encourage working from home for example - 1 day working from home is a 20% cut in fuel emissions for most car commuters.

David, Southampton, UK

As an analyst of Chinese companies, I am amazed at the speed with which Beijing is closing down polluting (oh and incidentally therefore unprofitable) stell mills, power plants, coal mines etc, as well as reforesting the fringes of the Gobi which has contributed immensely to global pollution.

Lets talk a leaf out of the communists book and start doing stuff about the problems. Down with democracy

James Cameron, Barcelona, Spain

Yes right on with the carbon tax and personal allowances. Thinly disguised neo-cons moan and groan and pretend its the ordinary man they feel sorry for when really its their own pollution, and facing up to the environmental degradation that their own livesyles create.
Multi trippers begone!

Elwin parsley, london , UK

As Adam Smith said, the shifting nature of peoples buying and selling, including prices, motives, outcomes and inputs is so complex that no one person can understand them nor any government control them. Indeed, to attempt it means that in a short time the cost and complexity of the bureaucracy would rapidly destroy the business concerned. This is what the Communists discovered. Why on earth do polititicans need to relearn this time after time?

R Mason, London, UK

While England is pleasant enough, my family emmigrated in 1964 for a better climate. I returned 20 years ago, and it is only the fact that I can get out of the UK by air on a regular basis that makes living here worthwhile. England is after all very centrally located for travel by air. Should this daft scheme go ahead I'll be off again. Moreover, I venture to suggest, as a geographer, that when natural climatic variation is taken into the equation the contribution of air travel to global warming will be less than 1%. There will be winners and losers with global warming, suffice to say that I have seen the English climate improve to the point where it is now just about acceptable.

Arnold Ward, Weybridge,

What do you lot not understand - domestic, means inside the UK. This means that a trip on the p*ss to dublin is still ok and its just those that insist of flying to manchester when the train takes less than 3 hours that will be hit. It should also aim to decrease unnecessary business trips that could achieve the same with a video link or simple domestic (same time zone) phone call. I'd probably exempt highlands and islands for economic reasons.

Al, Newcastle, UK

The cheap flights are not all packed with holiday makers and weekend jaunters. With the increasing spread of families across Europe a large proportion of these flights, particularly within northern Europe, are filled with people visiting children and grandchildren or parents and grandparents. If the point of the tax is to stop people flying, what then? A bankrupt aviation industry would take thousands of other businesses down with it. Or is it another cynical revenue raiser?

A J Laycock, Brighton, UK

When Al Gore agrees to take only one short-haul flight a year I will vote for this.

Actually it's typical of the trivial, vote-catching approach of all the political parties to a serious, if uncertain, scientific issue.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

I agree with this scheme. Hopefully it would cut down on the number of flights taken for business purposes - many individuals who are made to travel across time zones several times a year suffer not only from jet lag but extremely poor health, particularly if they are overweight, smoke or have heart problems. The idea has developed that it is normal to be able to travel to exotic locations several times a year, indeed it is seen as abnormal and a sign of failure not to. This has encouraged many of those on lower incomes to borrow money and fall into debt in order to have what everyone else is having.

anna davies, london,

I want a tax on buses. They are more polluting than planes and their exhaust emissions make me choke. They travel in packs and are never there when you want them. Also they block up roads and bring traffic to a stand-still every time they stop at a bus-stop. Let's tax them out of existence and bring back the sensible option: the private motor car!

Adrian Gilbert, Tonbridge, Kent

Don't know what planet this man's on. I last took a flight over five year's ago and haven't missed for one moment being herded like cattle, crammed into minuscule seats from which the chances of escape in the event of an emergency are minimal and forced to breathe recycled air for hours on end. No thanks. Surely I'm not the only person who feels this way?

Angela Maureen Bayley, Bettws y Crwyn, England

Travelling abroad for recreational purposes more than once per year is a luxury. It should be taxed on these grounds.

Bill Bird, Wallasey, United Kingdom of Great Britain

A fully-loades Ryanair 737 is on a per person basis a less serious polluter than an ageing version of the same owned by the likes of BA and barely half full. On a longer flight it is less polluting on a per person basis than a SUV in an urban cycle over a year.

The flights I make are either to attend trade fares or infrequently to obscure rural parts of Italy to travel on obscure railways. I see very few of the rabble heading for the sun - most of my fellow travellers also appear to be moving around on business.

But yes, I support a one return flight a year - I suggested it in these pages some months ago! And I would happily realise the remainder of my travels by rail or sea.

MIKE BENT, UVIEU, SPAIN

Is not this whole issue more about Energy security than CO2 emmissions. The west is concerned that energy supply is controlled by the Russians and the Middle East - not known for their stability and want us to reduce our dependence on them. The CO2 issue is a way of pushing the markets to come up with technology for new sources of energyan transport. No one has yet proved man is creating climate change, it`s just currently a trendy political issue - certainly the Channel 4 programme the other night left us with a few interesting thoughts.

R, Blackbourn, UK

A more effective option would be to remove all tax breaks for travel, perhaps the removal of MP's travel allowances would encourage a greener sense of responsibility from our betters.

The government wants the electorate to behave like finger puppets and we all know how finger puppets get their instructions..............

David, Johannesburg, South Africa

I would suggest that if this plan is put into practice, you make your flight a one-way one. Canada and Australia are looking for good solid middle-class citizens who work and pay taxes.

Jonathan, NYC, USA

Ha! Hoist by your own liberal-green peytard. That's what you wanted wasn't it? Oh no, hang a minute. Metro-liberals love their flying. It's people running around in cars that are causing the problem. Or people leaving the lights on. Anyway, planes have hardly any impact at all, really. See you in the olive groves, Timbo.

J H Holloway, London,

I, too, have loved every minute of Ryanair and Easyjet's existence. Before them, my generation never had the chance of flying around Europe cheaply!
But beware of attacking this Government!
Since Blair came into power, everyone of us, without exception, has had a FREE HOLIDAY every year!
We have had a FREE trip around the Sun every year!

Is Cameron going to interfere with this remarkable FREEBIE?

John, Florianopolis, Brazil