Given the thread title, I thought this was going to be about national flatulence rates. All that beer and egg-and-chips...
Seriously, your title is misleading. Britons are the biggest per capita source of emissions
from air travel.
The biggest per capita source of emissions
in total remains the USA.
Still, it's an interesting point. With the huge distances in travelling within the USA, I'd have thought they would fly much more. I guess the sucky weather in Britain makes them all want to escape to Spain whenever possible, and who can blame them?
I'm all for high speed trains, MUCH lower emissions. Planes are still faster while in motion, but all the sodding about you have to do to get on a plane adds a lot to the total travel time, so for short and mid-length journeys, trains can be quicker door-to-door.