This argument does make sense and makes me wonder what other reasons there are for me to avoid flying if I accept that the impact of CO2 is solvable without excessive additional costs. What comes up is :
Not trusting the bought compensation. [This does not hold up on reflection: Given some research, I am confident that I would find trustworthy organisations such that I could be confident that the social costs are being addressed]
The feeling that ‘just paying for the costs’ is only an excuse and that actually I would be defecting. [This seems to just be caused by my emotions not following the inferential steps needed to realize that ‘the harm I inflict’ is actually taken care of]
Signalling to others the willingness of accepting non-trivial inconveniences when it comes to my behaviour affecting climate. [This aspect seems to be the most important. Even though not flying might not actually be a good way of having a positive influence regarding climate change, it *is* a simple and clear signal that I care about my influence on climate change.]
To conclude, I will update towards ‘flying can easily be worth the CO2’ and keep an eye out for alternative ways of signaling ‘this topic is important to me’ (‘I do not fly’ has the convenient properties of being i) easy to understand, ii) fast to transmit and iii) neither trivial nor too radical).
This argument does make sense and makes me wonder what other reasons there are for me to avoid flying if I accept that the impact of CO2 is solvable without excessive additional costs. What comes up is :
Not trusting the bought compensation. [This does not hold up on reflection: Given some research, I am confident that I would find trustworthy organisations such that I could be confident that the social costs are being addressed]
The feeling that ‘just paying for the costs’ is only an excuse and that actually I would be defecting. [This seems to just be caused by my emotions not following the inferential steps needed to realize that ‘the harm I inflict’ is actually taken care of]
Signalling to others the willingness of accepting non-trivial inconveniences when it comes to my behaviour affecting climate. [This aspect seems to be the most important. Even though not flying might not actually be a good way of having a positive influence regarding climate change, it *is* a simple and clear signal that I care about my influence on climate change.]
To conclude, I will update towards ‘flying can easily be worth the CO2’ and keep an eye out for alternative ways of signaling ‘this topic is important to me’ (‘I do not fly’ has the convenient properties of being i) easy to understand, ii) fast to transmit and iii) neither trivial nor too radical).