So I’m Flying

I’m going to the UK in August. 24 hours in a flying tin can for me (each way). And yet. I worry about climate change. I esteem George Monbiot, who says not flying is the single most significant thing one can do to help avert climate change. My moral heuristic is Kant’s categorical imperative: do as you would have everyone do. I even co-ordinate a teaching programme about the gap between attitudes and behaviour in the environmental context.
All this, and I fly to the UK.
I’m going over for the wedding of one of my oldest and closest friends. If there is ever a reason to travel the world, surely this would be it? But on the other hand, I know my friend would understand if I didn’t go. If our friendship means anything, it is respect for one anothers’ principles. Besides, I have a lot of very close friends all around the world. There will always be events of significance out there.
But there are flights going all the time. What’s one seat on one flight going to do? It’s not like they’d cancel the flight if I wasn’t on it, right? But any decision anyone makes has social consequences. If I didn’t go, then that would contribute to social perception of air travel. Me not going might nudge a few other people closer to thinking, yeah, if I’m serious about climate change I’m not going to make that sort of trip. And if they made similar decisions, so it would spread further. Me going has the opposite effect – someone whose conscience is nagging them, like mine did me, can think “well morgue always talks about climate change but he flew around the world just the same”. And maybe that will hold them back.
The big problem in climate change is corporate and government activity, individual carbon output is just a sideshow and worrying about it is useless. But corporate and government activity happens in the social matrix. All the stuff about social influence above applies here as well. The big powers will only change when there’s a mass of public sentiment demanding it, and if I believe that then isn’t it incumbent on me to be part of the demanding public?
Well, just buy come carbon offset and consider yourself in balance. Maybe. I’m suspicious of carbon offset schemes because of the time lag – they promise to pay back your carbon output in the future, but the problem is worsening now and timescales for change are short.
So am I a hypocrite? Yeah, I think I am. And there’s not much I can do about that except acknowledge it. So bear it in mind whenever I talk about this stuff – I’m just an ordinary hypocrite like everyone else. And I’m sure looking forward to the UK.

12 thoughts on “So I’m Flying”

  1. It’s the tragedy of the commons again: the “rational” thing to do is to assume that you can’t preserve the resource, so you may as well exploit it while you can. There’s a part of me that thinks I should go on a world tour now, before the era of cheap air travel ends..

  2. Yeah. There are lots of ways to circumvent the tragedy of the commons but the one that works best is when a moral social norm is derived from a shared perception of risk – i.e. it becomes morally wrong to exploit the common resource. But this only works if there’s a functioning community identity that roughly matches those who use the resource. Further complicated by the fact we outsource the damage to those who don’t have access to the resource in the first place.
    It’s thorny stuff, but you’re right – if you’re ever going to do a world tour, now is the time…

  3. How about this for a deal. If you don’t go to Leon’s this year, I won’t go to yours next year. You have no idea how timely your blog is. I’ve been agonising for the last couple of weeks over whether I should go to Welly in Jan. Not just for your wedding but also because I’m going to be a new uncle by then to twins. So even more reason. But I’m a hypocrite of the worst degree….I’m a frequent frequent flyer. And being market driven, airlines will drop flights if there is no market for them. I’m contributing to the market in the worst way.-

  4. KiZ – can’t take up that deal, I’m afraid – have already bought my non-refundable tickets. The damage is already done 🙂
    You are entirely absolved from attending ours though. I’m thinking carefully about webcasting the whole thing for the international crew…

  5. You could always get on a boat?
    Oh, and as you know carbon offsetting is all the rage (and I work for a corp who have renewed their carbon neutral status) but it’s not the same carbon their off-setting, right? I mean, we’re not really putting back what we’ve disturned. Planting a couple of trees is not really making up for what we’re taking out of the equation. But I guess it’s a gesture. An empty one? A well-meant but not-all-there one? A purely superficial one to make us feel better but not actually doing much at all? A genuine first step? Who knows?
    Difficult questions for sure.

  6. What if you were to put your non-refunndable tickets in a paper-recycling bin? I suspect you have eco friendly electornic tickets, so your not going would actually be a positive step towards protecting the environment as less fuel would be used (ok, only marginally i admit) as neither you nor your luggage would be transported around the globe.
    And thanks for the absolution. Still stuck though. Worse, Singers has a pretty good offer on at the moment.

  10. Yay! Morgue’s coming to the UK!!! Can you make it that little further to Edinburgh? We’d love to see you. T

  12. “I’m suspicious of carbon offset schemes because of the time lag – they promise to pay back your carbon output in the future, but the problem is worsening now and timescales for change are short.”
    So choose well.
    If you want to offset by preventing emissions _right_now_, then the best way of doing it is to buy credits (or buy an offset from someone who buys credits) from an existing emissions trading scheme. These are a “right to emit”, and by buying it, you’re making sure someone else doesn’t, and to the extent the scheme is robust and enforceable etc, reducing emissions.
    In NZ, the easiest source would be deforestation credit. Buy some of that, and some arsehole doesn’t get to cut down some trees (which is incidentally the best thing you can do to reduce emissions in NZ ATM – stop people from cutting down trees). But that option probably won’t be available until next year.
    Alternatively, CarbonZero’s offsets are Kyoto AAU, devolved from NZ’s allocation under the Projects to Reduce Emissions scheme, or the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative. Which is pretty much the gold standard as far as offsets are concerned. Yes, they got it because someone built a windfarm or planted some trees, but the important thing is that it comes straight off NZ’s allocation, and hence the global pool of allowable emissions. This has bigger enforceability issues than domestic schemes, but it has the bonus of conforming to international standards, so at least it’s robust.

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