And you don't have to be a saint: in a US survey, experts with fairly green lifestyles were at least as persuasive as the very greenest ones. In any case, a great trip and super productive work-wise as well. If you have the resources in time and money it's well worth it.

But I think that kind of signalling still matters, imperfect or not. People say they're less likely to follow a climate researcher's advice on cutting energy use if the researcher has a big carbon footprint.

I'm not perfect about this. I stopped flying in 2018, and I'm half considering flying at the ten-year mark, to see colleagues and family in Japan and China, give talks, and sight see. Although I'm not actually sure whether my psychology has changed so much I can actually do it.

It took days, and having that time is a privilege a lot of people don't have. One of the things I have missed is less contact with very different cultures.

I worked out the carbon with the UK government's 2026 factors: 80-124 kg CO2e per person for the round trip, against 797 kg for flying the same stops. The range is dependent on how you allocate the foot passenger on ferries. The range is probably larger in both directions... but it's a ballpark

Back from Greece, and no flights either way 🚆⛴️ We went to Chios by train, ferry, and coach, and I came home the long way round (Bari, Milan, over the Simplon to Basel, Frankfurt, The Hague, then the Eurostar). About 7,200 km across eight countries. 🧵

With so many colleagues and support with Ruth Westcott, Carina Millstone, Tim Lang, Sustain, The Food Foundation, and many others. The Guardian and the Mirror covered it this morning (links below).

8. Engage households and communities on food resilience, doing better than the top-down advice on government websites. 9. Decentralise. Policy and regulation to decentralise and regionalise food supply.

6. Rename Defra the Department for Environment and Food Security. 7. Storage beyond households: Put responsibility for food storage on national, regional, local, and community schemes, not only on the public.

5. A National Council of Food Security, Defence, and Resilience: It would be run by Defra and the MoD together, with Cabinet Office oversight and the three devolved governments taking part.

4. Food shortage as a risk in its own right: Assess it as one in the National Security Risk Assessment and publish it in the National Risk Register. At present the only food risk listed is contamination.

3. Production for nutrition: Realign national food production around nutritional needs, in line with the Eatwell Guide and the Climate Change Committee. That means more UK-grown legumes, vegetables, fruit, and nuts.

2. Local food resilience committees: Create them under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, using the current Cabinet Office review of the Act.

We call for: 1. An audit of concentration and dependence: audit to what extent the UK relies on a few very large food firms, and on imported farm inputs such as fertiliser and feed. It would assess exposure to ransomware, chokepoints, energy dependence, and crop failure.

With researchers, industry insiders, national security assessments, and farmers all sounding the alarm we need a political breakthrough to push for food system resilience.

The Civil Contingencies Act, the UK's emergency law, recognises disruption to the food supply as a possible emergency. But while water companies, energy networks, and the railways all have duties under it, no food business does.

This morning we handed our open letter on food resilience in at 10 Downing Street, signed by more than 150 experts, food organisations, and community groups. 🧵