Season 2, Episode 25: Flight Guilt and other Emotions about Travel

Climate Change and Happiness

image credit | Stefan Fluck

Season 2, Episode 25: Flight Guilt and other Emotions about Travel

In this episode, Thomas and Panu focused on the emotional aspects of travel, particularly air travel, and all the competing thoughts and feelings we have about this. Our journeys to see the world and our far flung loved ones are a central part of our lives. But, in this age of climate crisis, air travel—whether through privilege or as a sacrifice and necessity–opens us up to troubling ethical issues about our own contributions to climate problems and being trapped in an earth-damaging system of inequality and destructive tourism. Panu brought his usual wise perspective on climate emotions. Thomas shared the “UR3OK” model he uses to help people make environmentally-responsible decisions (Understand, Reduce-Reuse-Resist…, Offset, and be Kind to ourselves and others in the process).

Links

Approaches to Flight Shame

• Piskorz (2019) European countries have created new words to describe the feeling of 'flight shame'

• Reynolds (2023) Should we feel guilty about flying? [Puts individual flights in perspective. For example, only about 2% to 4% of the global population fly internationally and 1% of the world population emits 50% of CO2 from commercial aviation.]

• Wormbs and Söderberg (2021). Knowledge, Fear, and Conscience: Reasons to Stop Flying Because of Climate Change [Research on reasons people chose to stop flying.]

• Thomas’ “UR3OK” model

Transcript

[The Climate Change and Happiness Transcript is on holiday.]