But Swedes - who have coined a word, flygskam, to describe the shame associated with flying - point to earlier figures, including the opera singer Malena Ernman, who is Ms. ![]() Many Americans are aware of Sweden’s young climate activist Greta Thunberg, who in 2019 chose to sail across the Atlantic on an emissions-free yacht to speak to the United Nations. The nonprofit behind that movement, We Stay on the Ground, is currently raising funds and hopes to get 100,000 signatories in the next few years. There is perhaps no country on earth with more anti-flight activists than Sweden, where by 2020, 15,000 people had signed a nationwide pledge to travel without flying for at least one year. ![]() Granett was inspired to start Flight Free USA, she said, after reading a 2019 article in Vox about a group in Sweden that was committed to breaking the air-travel habit. “I actually think it would be better for people to fly without offsets but be aware of the pollution they’re making, rather than just thinking, ‘Oh, I solved that problem,’” Ms. Many point to intensifying wildfires in the American West, which have burned down forests planted with carbon offset funds, as a metaphor for the inefficiency of offsets. Like most travelers committed to reducing or eliminating their air travel, she shuns the idea of carbon offsets, in which carbon credits can be purchased, often through actions like planting trees, in exchange for greenhouse gases emitted.Īs climate change intensifies, critics say that rather than erasing carbon in the atmosphere, the practice preys on travelers’ guilt and offers an excuse to pollute without producing viable results. “I don’t think I’ll ever be on a plane again.” “Living through that brought the climate urgency deep into my gut,” Ms. She has been a climate activist for decades, she said, but felt the need for more critical action during California’s increasingly ferocious and destructive recent wildfire seasons. Granett, 46, works as an architect and an interior designer in Berkeley, Calif. Flight Free has a larger presence in Australia and Britain, and across Europe, a number of similar organizations are rallying travelers to abandon air travel. His community of fellow signatories is small - Ariella Granett, a co-founder of the site, says 365 people signed on in 2022, and in past years the number has climbed to nearly 450. Castrigano signed a pledge at Flight Free USA to not travel on airplanes that year, and he has renewed the pledge annually. “But my mental health would be poor if I were to fly.” “I would love to visit every place on earth,” he said. Department of Energy Data Book, is 34 percent more energy-efficient per passenger than traveling by air. Next month, when a good friend gets married in California, he and his family will take several weeks to make their way across the country by train, a choice that, according to the 2021 U.S. When he travels shorter distances, he drives an all-electric Nissan Leaf. He takes frequent bicycle trips around Vermont. Staying on the ground doesn’t mean he stays put. Castrigano left his classroom job to take on a new role as chief content officer at SubjecttoClimate, a nonprofit organization that provides climate-related teaching resources. ![]() Neither he nor his wife, Laura, has taken a flight since 2019. He traveled extensively during that time, but has become increasingly concerned about the pace of climate change over the past five years. Castrigano, who lives in Burlington, Vt., spent more than a decade as a middle school teacher. “When you get on a plane, not only are you responsible for emissions, but you’re also casting a vote to continue expanding that system.” Trading wings for wheels “This is a climate emergency,” said Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory who founded No Fly Climate Sci, an online forum on the link between aviation and climate change. That jumbo carbon footprint is leading many activists and scientists to issue rallying cries to fly less, or not at all. ![]() One Boeing 747 carrying 416 passengers from Heathrow Airport in London to Edinburgh produces the same carbon dioxide as 336 cars traveling the same distance, according to BBC Science Focus, a peer-reviewed magazine, though such comparisons depend on a wide range of factors like fuel efficiency and even the time of day. Planes are becoming more efficient, but our appetite for air travel is outpacing the industry’s environmental gains. Air travel accounts for about 4 percent of human-induced global warming, and the United Nations warns that airplane emissions are set to triple by 2050.
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