These days, the skies don't seem so inviting: Airfares are climbing. Passengers are fighting. Computer systems, and entire airlines, are melting down. Any of those might be reason enough for some to stay off a plane. But for a small, yet growing, number of travelers, the problem with air travel goes way further. They are giving up
flying because of its effect on the climate.
"I choose to stay grounded because it aligns (一致) with what is true," said Dan Castrigano, 36, a former teacher who in 2020 signed a promise not to travel by air. "The climate is breaking down."
One Boeing 747 carrying 416 passengers from Heathrow Airport in London to Edinburgh produces the same carbon dioxide as 336 cars traveling the same distance, according to BBC Science Focus, a peer-reviewed magazine. That huge carbon footprint is leading many activists and scientists to issue cries to fly less, or not at all.
There is perhaps no country with more anti-flight activists than Sweden, where by 2020, 15, 000 people had signed a nationwide promise to travel without flying for at least one year. The nonprofit behind that movement, We Stay on the Ground, is now raising funds and hopes to get 100, 000 signatories in the next few years.
Swedes have coined a word, flygskam, to describe the shame associated with flying. We Stay on the Ground inspired the Flight Free movements in Britain and Australia, as well as Flight Free USA. There are other grass-roots movements, too: Stay Grounded, a global network of over 150 organizations promoting other means to travel, was founded in 2016 and has its headquarters in Austria; Byway, a British travel planning company founded during the Covid-19 lockdown, allows customers to plan flight-free routes across Europe.
Airlines are taking efforts to make flying greener, with promises to achieve "net zero" carbon emissions (排放) in the next three decades. Activists say that progress isn't coming fast enough and are pushing for frequent fliers to at least consider small changes, which they say could add up to big differences.
