Our climate therapist Caroline Hickman responds to a reader whose guilt about flying is getting in the way of love, and another feeling trapped by catastrophic thinking
Great advice for both writers. Re the writer who is asking should they fly. I think that we do our best for the climate emergency. But we have to be realistic about our life. Yes she should fly. See if she could buy some offsets. But stay with her love and they do some climate advocacy together. At least she is doing something to help the planet. She cannot give up the possibility of happiness now. This work is too hard.
I love the concept of "love miles" vs "air miles" in the therapist's response. Beautiful things can happen when we meet up with loved ones! I have similar struggles flying out to Boston twice a year to see my best friend, but he's also a climate activist, and I always come back with some fresh inspiration and new ideas for my own climate work. Flying for work, on the other hand, could be an opportunity to push your company to do less flying. Next year? I'm gonna try driving my EV out to Boston! (Not as possible for our Canadian friend writing the first letter, but hopefully airlines will eventually take their SAF commitments seriously!)
Both letter writers could try to view their individual climate dilemmas from the viewpoint of empiricism rather than rationalism. Just try this as a thought experiment - conservatives generally incline toward empiricism, believing that at least as a rebuttal presumption that historical knowledge teaches us more than bare reasoning does, and that prudence counsels reliance on EXPERIENCE, rather than abstractions. Experience has taught us that flight lockdowns can happen overnight, so it's not unreasonable for the Canadian living in Europe to think that flight lockdowns will happen again - perhaps for years - and that she will be unable to return to Canada. Worse things have happened.
Great advice for both writers. Re the writer who is asking should they fly. I think that we do our best for the climate emergency. But we have to be realistic about our life. Yes she should fly. See if she could buy some offsets. But stay with her love and they do some climate advocacy together. At least she is doing something to help the planet. She cannot give up the possibility of happiness now. This work is too hard.
I love the concept of "love miles" vs "air miles" in the therapist's response. Beautiful things can happen when we meet up with loved ones! I have similar struggles flying out to Boston twice a year to see my best friend, but he's also a climate activist, and I always come back with some fresh inspiration and new ideas for my own climate work. Flying for work, on the other hand, could be an opportunity to push your company to do less flying. Next year? I'm gonna try driving my EV out to Boston! (Not as possible for our Canadian friend writing the first letter, but hopefully airlines will eventually take their SAF commitments seriously!)
Both letter writers could try to view their individual climate dilemmas from the viewpoint of empiricism rather than rationalism. Just try this as a thought experiment - conservatives generally incline toward empiricism, believing that at least as a rebuttal presumption that historical knowledge teaches us more than bare reasoning does, and that prudence counsels reliance on EXPERIENCE, rather than abstractions. Experience has taught us that flight lockdowns can happen overnight, so it's not unreasonable for the Canadian living in Europe to think that flight lockdowns will happen again - perhaps for years - and that she will be unable to return to Canada. Worse things have happened.