Fracking Hell!

Sunday was the busiest day ever for air travel in the U.S. Almost 3 million people were screened at airports across the country. 

Meanwhile, Gianluca Grimalda lost his job doing climate-change fieldwork because he refused to take a plane back to the office, choosing a much longer journey home that took weeks instead of hours. Time is money, Gianluca: tick tock. 

He wrote, 

"Aviation is the biggest contributor to climate change of all forms of transport. . . . A trip by plane from Papua New Guinea to Germany produces 5.3 tonnes of CO2 per passenger. Slow travel produces approximately 12 times less (420kg). In the current state of climate emergency, wasting 4.9 tonnes of CO2 - about how much the average person in teh world emits in one year - to expedite my return to Europe is not morally acceptable to me. . . . I hope my case might put a little crack into the wall of 'selfishness, greed, and apathy', which, in the words of climate lawyer Gus Speth, is the main hindrance to stopping runaway climate change. . . . It is, in my opinion, insane to continue with 'business as usual', when science tells us that we are either dangerously close to or past the point of collapse for major ecosystems. . . . I would like to invite people to shift the boundaries of what is considered normal within their own sphere of action. . . . Individual action, even if obviously ineffective in dramatically reducing carbon emissions, has been shown to have significant amplifying effects, as the individual's 'good example' is replicated and further propagated by peopel on their social networks."

There are still lots of things individuals can do to make a difference: fly less, drive less, eat less meat, shop way less, and de-fossilize your investments. It's hard to do the right thing when everyone else appears to be doing the wrong thing, but that's how movements start! 

Check out this great one-minute ad about pension funds investing in fossil fuel from the UK organization, Make My Money Matter: