A new generation stands giving up flying to save the planet. If the planes they will continue to produce such a large amount of Co2, an increasing number of people will choose to move by land.
Skies just don't look like the most attractive options these days: the airfares increased (+42%), i airport services are in difficulty due to inefficiencies, strikes and lack of personnel, i Informatic Systems they often break down and airlines cancel thousands of flights.
Airplane? No thank you
That state of affairs alone might be reason enough not to fly. But for a still limited, albeit growing, number of travelers the decision of give up on a trip plane goes far beyond contingencies. The reason is the impact on the climate.
The last decade has been among the warmest on record on Earth. Sea level rise is accelerating, as can be clearly seen in the Maldives. Extreme weather events are happening more and more frequently. Not to mention the drought.
It is estimated that thecivil aviation is responsible of the 4% of global warming induced by humans and the United Nations predicts that the aircraft emissions will triple by 2050. Airplanes are becoming more efficient, but the growing use of this mode of travel risks negating the environmental gains that technologies are bringing to the aviation sector.
Scary numbers
Let's consider this data elaborated by BBC ScienceFocus, a British science and technology magazine. A Boeing 747 (no longer in service, replaced by the 787) which carries 416 passengers from London Heathrow Airport to Edinburgh (just over the air distance between Milan and Rome) produces the same amount of carbon dioxide as 336 cars that travel the same distance. If these cars carried an average of two and a half passengers, we would have almost half the CO2 emissions. A return flight in economy class from London to New York emits 0,67 tonnes of CO2 per passenger, according to the calculation of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the UN agency for the aeronautical sector. This figure is equivalent to 11% of the average annual emissions of a person in the UK or the total emissions of a person living in Ghana over a year. As can be seen from this data, the different lifestyles and the different economic conditions make a huge difference in terms of CO2 emitted.
The fact is that traveling by plane is a “climate luxury”. To state it clearly is Peter Kalmus, scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the NASA and founder of No Fly Climate Ski, an online forum on the link between aviation and climate change. To reporter Debra Kamin of the New York Times, Kalmus he said: “There is a climate emergency. When you get on a plane, not only are you responsible for emissions, you're also voting to continue to propagate this state of affairs."
Renunciation of air travel
Many people on all continents are thinking of do without the plane for their movements and falling back on other means.
Flight Free, which has a presence in America, Australia and Great Britain, is an organization that commits its members, up to now still small, to do not travel by plane. Many of them will never fly again in their life. There are similar organizations in Europe as well.
The majority of travelers who commit to reducing or completely eliminating their air travel, they reject also the idea of resorting to the tool of carbon offsets, i.e. buying credits, often through shares, which will finance green projects such as tree planting and similar initiatives.
I carbon credits for these environmental organizations are a alibi which leverages on traveler guilt and offers a sort of license to pollute without, however, bringing obvious benefits. Therefore, people who decide to fly should not be offered the possibility of offsetting the pollution caused by their choice, thus relieving them of their responsibility towards the environment and leading them to think they have found a solution to the flight-climate dilemma.
The shame of flying becomes global
Perhaps there is no country in the world with greatest number of "no-fly" activists of Sweden. As early as 2020, 15.000 people had signed pledges to refrain from flying for at least a year. The non-profit organization behind this movement, We stay on the ground, has launched a funding campaign and hopes to reach 100.000 signatories in the coming years.
That Sweden is at the forefront is not surprising. In 2019 the young Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg, chose to cross the Atlantic on an emission-free yacht to reach New York and speak at the United Nations.
It is precisely the Swedes who coined the word, flygskam, to define the shame associated with flying.
Maja Rosen, the forty year old president di We stay on the ground who gave up flying in 2008 and traveling mainly on the train, is very frank about the global significance of her choice. You told the aforementioned New York Times reporter: “Many people think that individual choices don't matter much. Instead the fact is that what we do as individuals affects everyone around us and changes social behavior.
Alternative solutions
We stay on the ground, which has a global network of over 150 organizations that they promote alternatives to air travel, was founded in 2016 and is based in Austria. There is as well Byway, a British travel organization company founded in 2020, which allows customers to plan itineraries without flying throughout Europe.
The thirty year old Anne Kretzschmar, who lives in Cologne, Germany and runs the Reframing Project di Stay grounded, travel by train, bicycle and on foot. On a recent trip from Italy to Morocco, she took a ferry. She would like to visit many other places, but she says she does not want to contribute to the environmental disaster: “We see a lot of absurd things, like people flying to see coral reefs when we know that climate change is one of the main culprits of the death of these ecosystems. It's true, there are so many beautiful places all over the world, do we want to visit them and destroy them at the same time?” concludes Kretzschmar.
To the many American customers who fly to Europe for tourism, Byway offers the opportunity to travel for two weeks in the various countries of the continent using trains with sleeping cars. A shift that allows you to "travel slowly and have more experiences".
More there is no alternative solid to the plane for cross the Atlantic. According to some research, crossing by cruise ship leads to higher carbon emissions per passenger than by plane.
Leaving aside transoceanic journeys, a viable and possible alternative to the plane could be the train or a land vehicle. Rosen of We Stay on the Ground puts it this way: “We need to think about what we really want from our vacations and ask ourselves why we have to go so far to get it. Many people who have made a commitment not to fly say they wouldn't change even if they could, because when you travel by train, the journey itself becomes part of the adventure."
Il train is truly the future.
Can we still fly?
Un sustainability parameter for air travel it could be this: a long-haul flight once every 8 years and a domestic or medium-haul flight once every 3 years.
This indication comes from “Take the Jump” community which proposes to implement at least one of the six changes in individual behaviors which he identified as essential for the environment. These:
Clockwise from left:1) Just bulking up. Keep the products for at least seven years. 2) Travel cool. If you can, no personal vehicles. 3) Eat green. Vegetarian diet, no waste, good quality. 4) Dress vintage. Three new items of clothing a year. 5) Local holidays. One flight every three years. 6) Change the system. At least one of these changes every 1, 3, 6 months to give the system a little boost.
Sources:
Debra Kamin, The No-Jet Set: They've Given Up Flying to Save the Planet, The New York Times, February 6, 2023
Alison Fox, Airline Flight Prices Are Up 42% From Last Year, Data Shows, Travel+leisure, 14 October 2022
Hiroko Tabuchi, 'Worse Than Anyone Expected': Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions, The New York Times, September 20, 2019
Umair Irfan, Air travel is a huge contributor to climate change. A new global movement wants you to be ashamed to fly, Vox, November 30, 2019
Paige McClanahanCould Air Someday Power Your Flight? Airlines Are Betting on It, The New York Times, January 19, 2023
