To combat climate change, easy access to data about our emissions are necessary. One of the largest sources of emissions for many individuals is the emissions from flying.
The GoClimate Flight Emissions API calculates an approximation of the amount of CO₂-equivalents a flight emits per person.
We wanted to build the GoClimate.org Flight Emissions API to educate people searching for flights what the environmental impact is per person, and thereby enabling people to choose less environmentally damaging flights or ways of travel.
A lot of what I will write here on this blog will hit home and will hit you hard. It will bring up things that you probably do, either with or without knowledge of its environmental effect. And I want you to know that this is not to judge anyone, but simply to share facts, ideas and tips. I understand that you can’t do it all.
I understand that some changes are either very hard to make or in some cases basically impossible.
Whether it’s for health, economical or in other ways hard for you to change I just want you to be more aware of your actions and make your choices from a place of deeper understanding of the backgrounds and the consequences, rather than blindingly do what we’ve “always” done.
Because the harsh truth is that our house, the earth, is metaphorically on fire. We can’t keep acting like we have and still are. We need to make drastic changes. And it will be hard. It will mean sacrifices. But we don’t have any other choices. People have already and are currently – dying from the effects of climate change. And it will only get worse.
I also want to point out that most of these posts, if not all, are directed towards the privileged who are living way above a sustainable lifestyle above 2 tons/year.
And while it’s largely because of the society in which we live, we still need to strive to lower our impact as much as possible.
My hope is that you will read this with an open mind and not take it hard or as direct criticism. We all make mistakes and things we can’t fully endorse. Be open to the fact that you’ve made mistakes and don’t beat yourself up about it and instead try to do better from now on. We can’t change what we’ve done in the past, but how we act from the knowledge and insightfulness.
Cause what is life if we don’t evolve and learn from our mistakes and move forward more enlightened?!
So prepare for the ride.
It will be bumpy, it will be uncomfortable and you might want to jump off and just stand still – but we need to get there. We need to arrive to where we can slow down climate change and stay below 2 degrees, or as low as we possibly can.
Buckle up.
Evelina Utterdahl during one of her talks at Bournemouth University about Quitting Flying. Photographer: Roxanne Furman
Here are our best summer beach reads if you want to change the world or at least understand it a bit better! What is your best tip?
Henrik ⇒ Factfulness – Hans Rosling. 2018. “…Factfulness is a new thinking habit that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to challenges and opportunities of the future.” ⇒ No one is too small to make a difference – Greta Thunberg. 2019. “Everything needs to change. And it has to start today.”
Kalle ⇒ Drawdown, the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming – Paul Hawken. 2017. New York Times bestseller. This book describes the 100 solutions that makes the biggest difference for climate change.
Cissi ⇒ The history of bees – Maja Lunde. 2015. A novel that deals with the high-level topic of species extinction in a captivating and easy-to-read format.
As I write this I’m sitting on a train headed back to Sweden, pondering the result of a year’s experimentation with travelling by train instead of flying. Is this an effective way to reduce my carbon footprint? The jury is in! Read on.
One common rallying cry among climate advocates is to fly less (or ideally not at all). I consider myself a climate advocate (here’s my entry ticket), but I’m also a pragmatist. I’ve worked enough with behavioural change to know that it’s unrealistic to expect many people to change their habits unless there is a convenient and compelling alternative. For example, Spotify killed music pirating, not by attacking pirate sites, but by providing a better and more convenient alternative.
So what are the alternatives to flying, if you want to get from A to B?
Option A:Don’t go. Stay at A. This option won’t fly (pun intended) with most people. There’s a reason why they want to go from A to B, and only a small number of people will be willing to sacrifice that (kudos to those people though!).
Option B:Walk or bicycle. Not feasible. A distance that is long enough to take a flight is usually waaay too long for a walk or bicycle ride, unless you are an enthusiast with LOTS of time on your hands.
Option C:Car. This makes sense only if you travel in a group, or if you drive an electric car. If you drive alone in a fuel car, the climate impact is about the same as flying, just takes longer and is more dangerous and clogs up the road.
Option D: Bus. I haven’t found any long-distance bus options to the places I go. Might be more feasible in other countries than mine.
Option E:Train. Is train a feasible alternative? Definitely climate friendly, but what about price, convenience, reliability, and time? Read on!
The Guardian has made a very illustrative and scary carbon countdown clock that I recommend visiting, just to get a grasp of in how much of a hurry we are to slow down climate change. We need to act now.
Trump withdraws U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement and thereby the U.S. role as a leading country towards a sustainable future. America First seems to mean America Alone, and make America Great Again seems not to include solving global problems and making Our Planet Great Again.
But we still have our hopes up; it just means that the rest of us needs to do quite a bit more – if we are to try to slow down climate change at all. So what can we do? It’s awkwardly easy (on a personal level at least): fly less, eat less meat, invest green, commute green and go climate neutral now.
I found an old newspaper clip from 1912 talking about the possibly dangerous link between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and climate change. But we continued and accelerated the digging up of extreme amounts of coal from the ground and let it out into the atmosphere. The next generation won’t be very happy with us I’m afraid.
A 6 minute video from Kevin Anderson at Uppsala University about our carbon budget and the radical things we need to do to even have the slightest chance of not passing a 2C warming.
Prof. Kevin Anderson from Uppsala University explains the concept of carbon budget really well in the video “Living within our carbon budget: the role of politics, technology and personal action” on YouTube. It’s a glimpse into the free online course Climate Change Leadership, that I truly can recommend.
