Climate researcher fired for refusing air travel wins compensation

Climate researcher fired for refusing air travel wins compensation
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news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/01/climate…

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Huge respect for the man but

His research trip in 2023 meant taking 40 days to travel from Europe to Bougainville and 72 days to return. According to his calculations, carbon emissions from this slow 28,000-kilometer (17,400-mile) round trip was 10 times lower than flying.

Taking 50x the travel time to safe 10x in emissions... I don't think I have it in me. I accept to replace a 45 minutes flight with 7-10 hours of train (and do it often) but that's about the limit of my sanity.

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I have to agree, but I also respect the hell out of anyone willing to stick to their beliefs this hard.

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That's some Willy Fog lecel of perseverance though. In fact, Willy Fog had better options before air travel became a thing.

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The real travel are the friends we make along the way

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Well, if he worked during the trip, why fire him? Was it that much more expensive to travel slowly?

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Because he was supposed to be back in the office at a certain point and was unable to make it without flying. That was agreed to months earlier and without the delays it would have been possible for him to slow travel back.

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So I'm glad he was compensated, but I struggle to take his stance seriously when he works for a neoliberal think tank and genuinely believes his personal travel arrangements make any difference whatsoever when someone like him should definitely be aware that billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime (spare me the "every little help" platitude, at the scales we're discussing here, this person's itinerary makes zero difference, and only serves to alleviate his personal guilt. The only difference we can make as individuals is to unite and tear down the systems that are actually destroying the planet, and the people responsible).

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If someone does something psychotic a lot, does that make it ethical for someone-else to do it even once?

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A. air travel isn't "psychotic", fuck off with that ableism and

B. he wouldn't be doing it once, he would be doing it 0.00000000000000001% of a time

So again:

spare me the “every little help” platitude, at the scales we’re discussing here, this person’s itinerary makes zero difference, and only serves to alleviate his personal guilt.

And apparently, some of yours, too!

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