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'Flight shame' could halve growth in air traffic
- dawg- 7y agoI first heard about this while in Europe, and I was really confused by it. As an American it seems like a trivial thing to worry about. But it's really just because of different infrastructures and space issues. In the US if you want to travel across the country, your options are flying, or driving like 35 hours each way. So flying is a no brainer, no matter how much you care about the environment. Europe has those super cheap Ryanair flights and I can definitely see how one could look on those as wasteful when you could easily substitute your 30 minute flight for a 90 minute train ride, or just reasonably drive to a different country without having to stay overnight in a hotel halfway there. I think that's part of why Greta Thunberg's message doesn't resonate as strongly over here as it should. Many Americans see her commitment to not flying on airplanes and think of it as kind of a silly and trivial hill to die on - but in Europe it makes a lot more sense as a practical matter.