Flygskam (“flying shame” in Swedish) is the new trend, popularized by Greta Thunberg but a long time coming, of feeling guilt or shaming others for taking airplanes to get to where one needs to go. Aviation accounted for an estimated 2% of carbon dioxide emissions in 2014.
It is a real issue, it is cresting into a movement, and it deserves serious discussion.
The superficial issue is whether an individual has any right to exercise the privilege of air travel when to do so contributes to the climate crisis (and it is a crisis, not just a “change”). The deeper issue, to me, is how we are going to use the remaining 10% of our reserve and how actions of the individual can make a difference when the atmosphere and the planetary carbon budget is the ultimate “commons” (as in tragedy of the…”).
This broke through as an issue in one of the organizations I belong to, the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, when a former President declared that he would avoid flying in the future and other members told stories about how they refused to fly or would not be flying anymore.
The argument is very familiar.
For years now (I have been seriously engaged in these issues since the 1960’s) there has been tension over whether individual action or advocacy for system change needs to take the lead in the activist agenda. For myself, I am most concerned with system change because I think that individual lifestyle change and decisions that are not supported by system change gives the illusion of a solution but serve mostly to keep activists from having the impact they need to have, by restricting their movement and collectively sending contradictory signals to the economy.
If the technology and economy don’t change to provide the choices to the individual the impact of personal decisions is negligible and muffles the voice of people who are committed to change, because those who are not will continue as they are. Also, the emerging solutions that are increasingly obvious (although partial) are clearly coming from changing the system, not from reducing individual demand. Reduce demand for a good or service, such as air travel, too low and there is less market incentive to transition to innovate and to build a sustainable economy that people will want to live in. It is important to keep a market for flying because it is more efficient for long-haul travel.
Airlines and aerospace have now and in future will need a financial incentive to drastically reduce their carbon footprint. (Disclosure: I’m going to India at the end of the month.) Airlines are already motivated to push for fuel economy and just starting a transition to biofuels and electricity (the problems here are obvious but the first very short haul all-electric flight just took place in Vancouver). The energy regime that powers aviation in the relatively near future will (hopefully) be different than the kerosene-based burner fuels of today.
My own professional impact (both in medicine/public health and in sustainability issues) depends on individual and group contact, teaching, advising, and, basically, showing up. Until such time as we have viable alternatives to face-to-face interaction (and teleconferences as we do them now are pitiful, after >30 years of development) I think, for myself, that some long-haul travel is indispensable to doing our job. I strongly agree with taking alternative lower-impact transportation whenever possible, of course, as this puts market pressure on aviation while reducing carbon footprint in the short term (not to mention providing a superior travel experience to air travel these days).
I think the answer lies in choosing the least impactful transportation modality that will get you there and thereby supporting competition and system transition while still getting the job done. And that job, once you get there, should be to work for a sustainable future by whatever means you can. Disclosure: I am going to India at the end of this month and my transportation choices are strictly limited, and I am painfully aware of it.
(c) T. L. Guidotti, 2020.