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My neighbor said one flight a year is 'no big deal' and I honestly don't know how to feel about it
Last week I was standing in my driveway in Sacramento talking to my neighbor Dave, who just got back from a trip to Iceland, and he told me he feels zero guilt about flying because it's 'just once a year' and he drives a Prius the rest of the time. I wanted to argue but then I thought about my own habits and honestly I fly to see my parents in Ohio twice a year, so who am I to judge? On one hand, one round trip flight can put out more carbon than some people's whole year of driving, so 'just once' adds up fast when millions of us say it. On the other hand, telling people to never fly again feels like a losing pitch, and shaming folks for visiting family seems like a good way to get them to stop listening altogether. I keep going back and forth on whether the answer is carbon offsets, flying less, or just being honest that some things matter more than the math. Has anyone here actually cut their flying and felt like it made a real difference, or is this one of those things where personal choices barely move the needle compared to bigger stuff?
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sage_perry21d ago
Building on the point about shaming people for visiting family, that part really sticks with me. My cousin moved to Seattle and now she flies home for every holiday, and if someone told her she was a bad person for that, she would just dig in and stop listening. But here is where I would take it further: the folks who fly once a year and feel fine about it are often the same ones who could push hardest for better trains and cleaner planes, because they still care. If we write them off as hypocrites, we lose them. So maybe the move is not guilt at all. It is asking Dave to vote and speak up for stuff that makes his one flight less harmful, then letting him off the hook enough that he actually does it. That feels way more useful than a fight in the driveway.
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