To fly or not to fly?

October 21, 2019

Hiking with friends is a dangerous pastime. No, I’m not talking about breaking bones, or sunstroke, or rattlesnakes. I’m talking about conversations that cause one to face one’s own hypocrisy.

Recently about a dozen fellow hikers and I were enjoying a lunch break during a nine mile hike near Austin Creek State Park in Sonoma County. Warren, a climate scientist, mentioned that he had just purchased two round trip tickets from San Francisco to London for $350 each. Impressed, I said that I was tempted to see if I could get the same deal, with the thought of taking a short trip to the British capital to catch a few plays.

But then I thought of Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old Swedish girl and climate activist who recently took a boat from Europe to New York to underscore the importance of avoiding air travel and its significant contribution to global warming. And I remembered reading about a new concept called flygskam (Swedish: flight shame), where well-meaning people forego air travel in favor of taking trains to their destinations.

When I mentioned to my hiking friends that I was torn between my love of travel and my concern about the well being of the planet, Cynthia smiled and said, “You know what to do. But will you do it?”

She’s right. I do know what to do. I’ll take a train from San Francisco to London.

I don’t believe in guilt or shame, but I do believe in being guided by my conscience in order to live wisely and compassionately. So what does my conscience say about whether or not I should continue to fly? Apparently my conscience is as conflicted as the rest of me. Part of me (my conscience?) feels like I should sacrifice my love of travel on the altar of climate correctness. When I mentioned that possibility to my friends, Warren commented, “If you give up your airline seat, someone else will take that seat.” In other words, my sacrifice would be symbolic only, and make no difference in the warming of the planet.

We talked about the larger causes of global warming: too many people on the planet, deforestation in the Amazon and Indonesia and elsewhere, the internal combustion engines in cars buses and trucks, etc. Maybe we were really just looking for a rationale to keep traveling by plane.

Shortly after our hike and lunchtime conversation I was somewhat relieved to read an opinion piece in Time Magazine by Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science. Here are a couple of brief exerpts:

There is a lot of talk these days about the need to lead lower-carbon lifestyles. There is also a lot of finger-pointing going on and, some argue, virtue signaling. But who is truly walking the climate walk? The carnivore who doesn’t fly? The vegan who travels to see family abroad? If nobody is without carbon sin, who gets to cast the first lump of coal?

…the true solution, pricing carbon, requires policy change. There is a long history of industry-funded “deflection campaigns” aimed to divert attention from big polluters and place the burden on individuals. Individual action is important and something we should all champion…The bigger issue is that focusing on individual choices around air travel and beef consumption heightens the risk of losing sight of the gorilla in the room: civilization’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy and transport overall, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of global carbon emissions. We need systemic changes that will reduce everyone’s carbon footprint, whether or not they care.

After much soul searching, I’ve finally concluded that Cynthia is right – I do know what to do. And so I’ve made a difficult and painful decision: I’m going to stop flying.

One of these years.