Surf Girl – July 2019

126 SurfGirl Magazine

opinion

FLYGSKAM:

MY BATTLE WITH ‘ECO SHAMING’

ARE PEOPLE REALLY DOING ENOUGH TO HELP SAVE THE

PLANET, AND DOES SO-CALLED FLIGHT SHAME BENEFIT US?

words SOPHIE HELLYER

I

was filming a quick Instagram story on my phone

as I boarded a flight to Ireland, trying to share my

excitement at the prospect of my first surf in several

months. After capturing my surroundings and typing a

caption, I hit upload. Then boom – a feeling of unease hit

me. I rushed to delete the video as a flight attendant urged

me to turn off my phone. ‘Wait! Just let me pull this down,’

I thought, in a mild panic.

I was wracked by what the Swedes now call Flygskam

• quite literally ‘flight shame’. And apparently I’m not the
  only one.
  The teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg,
  also from Sweden, has inspired climate strikes from
  students around the globe and made adults think twice
  about their carbon footprint. She has refused to fly at all
  since 2015 and her message is clearly spreading: The
  number of air passengers from Sweden has dropped for
  seven consecutive months.We are in the midst of what
  Thunberg, like most scientists, describes as “the greatest
  crisis humanity has ever faced”. No wonder people are
  increasingly sharing my sense of guilt whenever they
  board a plane.

SMALL ACTS

As someone who routinely talks on social media about

my small-scale sustainability efforts, I feel I have a

responsibility to my audience. So I wondered if deleting

my video to hide my actions and avoid the valid wave

of criticism that might follow, was worse than simply

declaring them. Not only was I damaging the environment,

I was now guilty of hypocrisy and tokenism.

The truth is, I’ve already been on eight flights this year

and I have to ask myself: do my everyday actions such

as beach-cleaning and avoiding single-use plastics really

matter when I continue to fly this much?

I’m a big advocate of ‘small acts’, making simple

changes to our lifestyles in favour of more sustainable

options, whether that’s using a bamboo toothbrush,

organic cotton tampons or buying vegetables loose,

without the plastic packaging. I feel that everything we do

matters.

There’s a meme that goes: “It’s only one straw, said 7

billion people,” which supports my belief that every single

action in our individual lives can collectively have a huge

impact.

It’s proven, however, that straws only make up only

0.03% of the ocean’s plastic, whereas the fishing industry

accounts for an estimated 46%. So while links between

climate change and plastic are clear (6% of global oil

consumption goes towards creating plastics, and on

top of this plastics give off powerful greenhouse gases

as they break down) I do sometimes wonderif giving

up plastic straws helps enough, or is it just a superficial

attempt at sustainability while we continue to use planes

or occasionally eat fish?

In my opinion, individual acts of conservation are

as important as ever because they bring integrity and

purpose to our daily lives. Without them we are conscious-

less.These behaviours can also easily reflect and spread

through communities to create groundswells of change.

In the surfing world to which I belong, unsustainable

behaviours remain the norm – and none is more obvious

than the issue of people flying to far-flung destinations in

the search of perfect waves.

Like Thunberg, the professional surfer turned organic

farmer, Fergal Smith, decided to stop air travel several

years ago. His individual standpoint has signalled an

emergency to those around him, creating awareness of

the climate emergency and showing others they too have

the power and responsibility to create change.

Spending time around Smith and his like-minded

friends in West Ireland, where I previously lived, has fuelled

my fundamental antipathy to flying. To be clear, he has

never flight-shamed me. That’s not his purpose or his

nature. But seeing him make significant changes to his

lifestyle and career has opened my eyes – and I’m grateful

for that.

POLICY CHANGE

That said, I’m still bugged by the fear that focusing on

individual actions may distract people from pressuring

corporations and governments to enact the broader

policy change we need to meet our climate goals. After

all, policy level change and international agreement is

what is ultimately needed to enforce sustainable solutions

and regulate things like the polluting fishing and aviation

industries. That’s where the real seismic changes are

made.

In fact, I would fuse my two overarching concerns

together and say that one of the most important ‘small

acts’ we can all make is to steer our governments and

corporations by voting. You don’t necessarily have to

vote for the Greens, but by voting in ways that support

meaningful, scalable, sustainable solutions over foolhardy,

short-term economically-driven policies, we can play a

critical role in shaping the future of our planet.