In 2014 Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, announced to the world he was giving up beef. At the time he said meat consumption “contributes to global warming and environmental degradation”.

This week Branson flew to the edge of space for a spin on the Virgin Galactic aircraft, floated around for a while in zero gravity, looked down at the Earth and then flew home. What was the carbon footprint of that I hear you ask?

The Financial Times reports that Virgin Galactic likens the carbon footprint for passengers to a business class return ticket on a transatlantic flight, around 1,238kg of CO2 per passenger. You don’t need to be a genius to know that Branson’s space odyssey was much, much longer.

I’m no emissions expert, but I know what I’d be cutting out if I had to choose space travel or cutting out meat in order to cut emissions.