Patricia: ‘Shit, I thought. So this is what they call ‘fly shame’

“So you’re going to Houston for six days! Six days!?’
All eyes at the lunch table were suddenly on me. Where I normally get my words out fine, I now only heard crickets in the depths of my brain.
‘Um, yes?’, was my uncertain answer. “I’m going to see a friend I haven’t seen in years”…
Real? For only six days?’, the weather echoed in my direction.
Shit, I thought. So this is what they call “fly shame.” And I felt a heavy blanket fall over me.

Fly Shame

Those who know me a little know that I am at the forefront of change. And if it rubs and crackles, I don’t mind at all. I am often the first on the barricade and certainly do not hide my feminist ideas. A lot of direct debits also take place every month towards foundations such as Awake animal and Pigs in Distress. But I hadn’t really felt flight shame until now.

“Do I actually have to fly less? Or should I just not shout so loudly that I’m going to fly?”

Until that one afternoon in the cafeteria. One colleague was clearly my counterpart in the activist field, only on the climatological playing field. A thousand questions tumbled over each other in my head. Do I really have to fly less? Or should I just not shout it so loudly in some compositions that I’m going to fly? And perhaps from now on no longer post cozy snapshots on Instagram at an airplane staircase?

Game rules

Once I had caught my breath, I asked my colleague if she herself would no longer fly at all. Her answer surprised me, because she flew within Europe once a year.
‘But’, I asked her, somewhat fortified, ‘who determines the rules here?’
It was difficult, she admitted honestly. And then she suggested some sort of points system. A nice thought experiment that the rest of the colleagues followed.

We came to the conclusion that everyone would get an x ​​number of points that you could use as needed. And I, as a vegetarian, could get some extra points and use them for an extra flight (though I think one trip to Houston is equivalent to 100,000 burgers, but that aside. It was a thought experiment).

For the rich

We continued to philosophize at the lunch table and I felt my fear of flying fade away. Unfortunately, we came to the conclusion that the points system would probably favor the wealthy. Like basically everything on earth. And so it died before we walked out of the cafeteria again.

“Hey, Patrice, what are you going to do this summer?” she asked when we were back at our desks. Then I left my planned trip to Thailand behind for a while and mumbled something about a campsite in France…

Would you rather listen to Patricia’s column? Which can. Every Sunday between 4 and 6 pm she reads it on Wild FM.