Grappling with flying as a driver to climate change: Strategies for critical scholars seeking to contribute to a socio‐ecological revolution

Abstract

Airplane flights are one of the fastest, perhaps even the fastest, growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, even though there is much discussion of mitigating emissions to stave off a global climate change disaster. While business people, politicians, celebrities, and highly affluent people appear to be the most frequent flyers, the demands of an increasingly corporatised university sector have placed much pressure on academics, including anthropologists, to fly to attend conferences and meetings and conduct research. I seek to grapple with the dilemmas involved in the academic use of aircraft, particularly on the part of those academics who accept the gravity of anthropogenic climate change spurred on by the demands of global capitalism, and propose some strategies for mitigating climate change on the part of anthropologists in particular as part of the larger project of creating a socio‐ecological revolution that will contribute to a safe climate.