Climate Change “We Should Shame Frequent Fliers” [Jacobin].
“What is good for the American tourist is terrible for the planet. At the height of the pandemic, the grounding of air travel in 2020 led to a 60 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from aviation. One round-trip flight across the Atlantic emits about as much carbon dioxide as heating an average American home with natural gas for a year. And Americans are disproportionately to blame. Prior to the pandemic year, the United States, with just over 4 percent of the world’s population, was responsible for 24 percent of all emissions from passenger flights. And within the US, just 12 percent of adults take 68 percent of the flights. With planes once again ferrying Americans to ostensibly exotic locales, tourists are back to mucking up the planet in the middle of a climate disaster…
While the elite tourist should be the primary target, even those who aren’t racking up frequent flier miles should avoid unnecessary air travel. To justify their jaunts, American tourists will go on and on about

the opportunity to experience new cultures,
meet new people,
and contribute to the local economy of waiters, cab drivers, and tour guides….

Once upon a time, when people traveled infrequently and stayed at places for long periods of time, it made more sense to think of tourism as a moral good, as something that could actually accomplish its stated goals of

meeting people and
learning about new cultures without unduly harming the earth.

In those days, nobody zipped off 

to Vail for a weekend of skiing or
to Paris for a four-day birthday trip,

the sort of travel that’s common among today’s wealthy cosmopolites. As climate change foments weather disasters and threatens to make one in three plant and animal species extinct, the planet can no longer accommodate such indulgent sightseeing.”