Flight shame
Do you feel ashamed when you fly?
Flight shame, is Sweden’s latest buzz word. It refers to the guilt we feel about the environmental effects of one of our most damaging habits. Swedes have traditionally been huge lovers of sunny, foreign holidays with many fleeing the Swedish weather for Thailand every January but it seems that this might be changing. For the first time in ten years, the number of flights leaving Swedish airports has dropped. 378,000 less people flew in the first quarter of 2019 as compared with the same period in 2018. Experts suggest that one of the reasons is increased environmental awareness.
So, just how bad is air travel for the environment?
Um, pretty awful, by all accounts. Flying releases 285 grams of carbon dioxide in to the atmosphere for every air-kilometre you travel. Compare that with travelling by train, which releases a measly 14 grams! Even going by car is better than flying (158 grams of CO2 per air-kilometre), especially if you car share.
A recent report from the IPCC, suggests that we are already seeing the consequences of 1°C of global warming: extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice. If and when we get beyond two degrees of warming, we can expect consequences that will seriously affect our ability to continue living on this planet in the way that we do now. We should expect food shortages and mass migration. Some countries may disappear underwater altogether. If we want to avoid a massive global disaster, scientists suggest that we have about 10 years in which to make DRASTIC changes in the way we live. To limit global warming to two degrees, we need to be releasing no more than 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year. At the moment, the average Swede is responsible for 10 tonnes and a HUGE 1 tonne of that is generated purely by flying!
Many people don’t seem to be aware of the urgency of the situation, or are simply unable or unwilling to change their flying habits. In Germany, people who vote for the green party actually fly 72% more than other voters! Even people who are aware of and want to do something about the imminent global warming crisis are still flying waaayyy too much!
How can we explain this apparent addiction to air travel?
Reflecting on my own flying habits has helped me to understand that this is a complex problem. I live in Sweden with my husband and son. The rest of my family lives in the UK, where I grew up. My husband and I have friends all over the world from our many years of travelling and studying internationally. And this seems to be a fairly common situation for many people. We have built our lives on a model in which air travel is affordable and unproblematic. If I had understood that moving to Sweden would mean never seeing my family or my international friends again, I might have thought differently about it. Trying to quit my addiction now involves totally rethinking how I live. And I presume many people find themselves in a similar situation.
What makes quitting air travel even harder is that we are currently lacking structural incentives to do so. In many countries airline fuel is not taxed and airport infrastructure is often publicly subsidised so flying is cheaper than more environmentally-friendly alternatives. Boats, trains or buses are often slower than flying and they are also considerably more difficult to organise. I looked into taking a train from Sweden to France and gave up when I realised that I would need to book tickets with at least three different train operators. Some connections only ran on certain days of the week. These problems are certainly surmountable but they sure make it more appealing to fly.
Is shaming people the answer?
There is some evidence that shaming people can encourage them to change unreflexive, or habitual behaviours. In Sweden, the Aningslosainfluencers (Clueless Influencers) instagram account is used to call out influencers who promote unsustainable flying habits on social media. I don’t disagree with this approach but, in my opinion, this raises the question of whether flying is an individual issue or a public one. While air travel is subsidised and is cheaper than it should be and while alternatives are so difficult, it is harder than it should be for individuals to make good choices. Governments: please make it hard for us to make bad choices!
That’s exactly what governments have done with other social ills, such as smoking. Once it was agreed that smoking was dangerous not just for individual smokers but for society at large, taxes were levied on tobacco products, making smoking less and less appealing. The problem with this approach to curing our air-travel addiction is that it can contribute to environmental inequality, where rich people continue to fly and poorer people all over the world (who are no longer contributing to the problem) still have to deal with the devastating environmental impact of air travel. However, to mitigate the inequality problems, flight taxes could be earmarked for spending on less polluting forms of public transport, such as better, faster railways which make it more feasible for everyone to travel while polluting less.
This is not something that individuals can do alone. We must use our voices and our votes to make it happen.
What can you do?
For lasting, structural change:
Vote green in your local, national and European elections (European elections are coming soon so make sure you check what you need to do to vote.)
Write to your political representatives and explain that this is an important issue for you. Global warming can’t wait and they need to make drastic changes.
Join a protest movement such as Fridays for Future, started by Greta Thunberg, or Extinction Rebellion.
In the mean time:
Holiday closer to home so you don’t need to fly.
Join (or start you own) networks that support people to make sustainable travel choices. In Sweden, the Tågsemester facebook group is full of people who are super knowledgable about how you can get from A to B without flying.
Cut back on the number of flights you take. Can that meeting be done via video? Can you combine several events into one trip?
Cut back on the distance you fly. Shorter haul flights tend to be more harmful to the climate per mile travelled than long-haul flights (because they have more empty seats, and because taking off and landing burns more fuel than cruising) but this doesn't change the fact that the further you travel, the greater the emissions.
Choose your airline carefully. People often assume that budget flights are less environmentally-friendly than expensive ones. In fact, the opposite might be true. Budget airlines pack more passengers on each flight and typically have younger, more fuel-efficient fleets than longer-established airlines.
Sources
The facts and figures citied in this post are from:
The Guardian’s articles on The impact of flying on the environment and Business class fliers.
The Advancing Sustainable Solutions podcast.
The cover photo is by @timtrad.
