The anti-flying movement also known as “flight shame” (or flygskam in Swedish) is all about taking accountability for our carbon footprint and promoting a rather eco-friendly travel trend. This movement speaks to the guilt of taking flights in the era of climate change and being “woke” about the environment.
Like the financial startup Klarna Bank AB, whose employees chose to the take the 15-hour schlep by train and bus than a 90-minute flight to the German capital, most of Sweden is now choosing other modes of transport over the aviation industry. France and other parts of Europe now to seem to be joining the trend of flight shaming under #avihonte (aviation shame) creating a surge in the European aviation market. SAS AB a Scandinavian airline company has reported due to the #flygskam movement, airline traffic has fallen by 2% in the last nine months, causing operations in the domestic travel sector to fall by 9%.
But What Is Flight Shaming?
Well, the main idea of “Flight Shame” is as clear as day – feeling embarrassed of, or shaming one for, choosing to fly, over other transportation options due to the impact it has on the environment.
According to BBC, the flight shame movement emerged in 2017, when a group of Swedish celebrities and a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg committed to travel by train overflights to promote environmentally friendly travel trends and educate others of the impact it has on the greenhouse gas emissions.
Usually followed by the hashtag #jagstannarpåmarken, translated as #stayontheground, the movement has gained quite a bit traction not just affecting the travel industry in and around Europe but also certain parts of the US.
Also Read: Plane Travel Is Bad For The Environment, But Here’s What You Can Do
Here is why flight shaming is perceived as important:
- The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) recorded that 4.1 billion passengers were carried in 2017. They estimate that this number would increase by double to 8.2 billion by the end of 2030, further increasing air travel and the aviation industry.
- Thus, every time a flight takes off, it defies nature exacerbating the climate impact by trapping thermal radiation and other emissions causing substantial damage, at least double the amount of CO2 emission alone.
- Or in simple terms- Average CO2 emission per air kilometre is 285 grams while by car is 158 and 14 grams by train.
Thus, concluding that even though decades of cycling to work, eating with wooden cutlery or even carrying copper water bottles won’t matter because the minute you choose to get seated on the plane and take off you are undoing a lot of your conscious environmental efforts.
Here’s How Flight Shaming Is Affecting The European Travel Market
UK based activists, Anna Hughes (who is also the founder of Flight Free 2020) suggested that most countries offer faster and also very enjoyable transportation options that as subsequently overlooked. In most countries in Europe, the train typically connects one city centre to another prompted with high-speed lines that not only reduce the need for aviation transport to same routes but also “create the opportunity for fascinating and slow journeys”.
Even though Hughes sentiments are right and purposed, she tends to lack to take into consideration the projection of huge rise in flights and the urban culture of “binge flyers”. It is, of course, easy to change one’s individual action but to expect collective action against air travel is short from crazy, especially when “there is no easy substitute for flying to faraway places” as expressed by Mathilde Szuba, a French political scientist.
Also Read: The Global Climate Strike: Protesters Worldwide Take To The Street
However, with flygskam gaining momentum, parts of US, Canada, Belgium and France, are all reconsidering air travel and beginning their own initiatives to encourage other means of travel adding new meaning to the saying- it’s not about the destination but rather the journey.
What do you think about flight shaming? Let us know below.
