Please see Special Note at the end of this post. ListeningRadio is a medium I love. Easy access. Music. Stacks of information and opinion without having to wait for technicians to carry cameras around to show the background or the surly face of the interviewed complainant. And I can listen just about wherever I am. My favourite place is in bed, with an earphone stuck in one ear. Flight shameLast Sunday night, half asleep, I heard 'flygskam'. I jerked properly awake. I've come to know that word. It's pronounced 'fleegskaam'. I first met it when writing a climate change post earlier this year – Friday 3 May. On Sunday night the weekly programme Mediawatch, a programme commenting on the New Zealand news media, had begun and the first sentence I heard was this: "Flygskam is rapidly replacing hygge as the media's favourite Scandanavian word. But whereas hygge introduced the world to to the warm and fuzzy Danish concept of feeling good due to the simple pleasures of life, the Swedish word flygskam – or flight shame – is all about bringing your holiday ambitions down to earth." SwedenOver the last few months flygskam has become a large movement in Sweden. Here's what Jon Henley, Europe corresponent for The Guardian, said on the 4th of June. Echoing the schoolgirl climate activist Greta Thunberg’s refusal to fly because of the harm to the environment, a survey published last week by Swedish Railways (SJ) found 37% of respondents chose to travel by rail instead of air, compared with 26% last autumn and 20% in early 2018. SJ said the shift was evident in its passenger numbers: the total number of journeys on its network rose by 5% last year to 31.8m, but then by a further 8% in the first quarter of this year, with business trips surging 12%. The trend was also apparent in recent figures from Swedavia, which operates Sweden’s 10 busiest airports. The company said domestic passenger numbers fell by 8% from January to April, following a 3% fall in the whole of 2018. According to SJ a single flight between Sweden's two biggest cities, Stockholm and Gothenburg, generates as much CO2 as 40,000 train journeys – a fact that has plainly struck a chord with Swedes, previously a nation of frequent flyers that last year experienced a record heatwave and wildfires in the Arctic. According to Swedish environmentalist Susanna Elfors, the flygskam movement is not only growing because of Greta Thunberg's influence but also because her mother, famous opera singer Malena Ernman, a year or two ago, decided not to fly. And, says Elfors, in April last year Ernman turned down an invitation to sing in New Zealand because of the air travel. New ZealandI was surprised, while listening to the radio, to realise that Mediawatch had found enough New Zealand press, radio and TV coverage of flygskam to be worth talking about. Not flying out of principle is not something I associate with New Zealanders. Most people I know fly without a thought – if they can afford to do so. And they don't talk about climate change. Moreover New Zealand is a small, underpopulated, island country with limited long journey passenger rail services. Nonetheless apparently Stuff, Radio New Zealand and the New Zealand Herald have all recently covered flygskam. And Stuff, on the 8th of June addressed its readers like this: International concernThe same Stuff story covered a recent meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) at which flygskam and the consequent fall-off in passenger travel was a significant topic. Major airlines are very concious of their need to find other fuels and other propulsions in an effort to reduce emissions and therefore attract rather than put off passengers. Being a New Zealand story, Air New Zealand was featured.
"In a country like ours with sustainable electricity and renewable electricity, it's a good place for us to be heading to," Luxon told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. "On turboprops, we could probably within seven to 10 years actually see an electric aircraft that could be flying in regional New Zealand."' PersonalAll the discussion and all the promises are interesting but they don't stillleave any thoughtfull individual trying to decide her or his own reponse. The issue is very present for me. Next Thursday I fly to Australia to play croquet for nearly a fortnight. It's a winter holiday. Which of the three answers in the Stuff graphic do I give? Which do you, my readers, think I should give? Well this year it's, "A little but not enough to change." But what about next year, some months before the same tournament, when I'm thinking of booking a flight? What will you then think I should do? ########## At a tangent This week I saw Woman at War, a film set in Iceland. It had English sub-titles. It's strange, funny, sad, spiritual, provocative, symbolic, suspensefull, thematic and beautiful. One of the best films I've seen in years. If you like quirky, environmental movies, find out where it's showing and go see! John McInnes Friday 28 June 2019 References Mediawatch Sunday 23 June 2019 Indulgences The Independent - flygskam Susanna Elfers Stuff Patrick Hatch 8 June 2019 The Guardian Jon Henley 4 June 2019 Special Note There will be no posts to this blog Fridays 5, 12, and 19 July. The next Friday post will be 26 July. But if you are a newcomer to this blog you may like to read some earlier posts over the vacant weeks. Use either Archives or Categories. Just click and the whole group opens. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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