Meteorologist vows never to fly again after seeing latest climate report

Ground staff check a VietJet A320 airplane before departure for Bangkok at Noi Bai international airport in Hanoi September 25, 2013. Vietnamese low-cost airline VietJet is in talks with Airbus about an order for as many as 100 jets worth up to $10 billion, sources familiar with the discussions said on Tuesday. A French government source had expressed hope the provisional deal would be signed in front of visiting Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Paris on Wednesday, setting the stage for 60 firm orders for medium-haul aircraft as well as options for 30 more.

When meteorologist Eric Holthaus read the recent climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he saw that things were worse than even he had anticipated.

Writing a reaction piece in Quartz, Holthaus wrote that for the first time, the IPCC's report "mentioned projections of climate change beyond 2100 and painted a picture of a bleak world, possibly unrecognizable to those living today, should fossil fuel use continue on its current trajectory."

Then, while getting ready to board a flight in San Francisco on Sept. 27, Holthaus began tweeting about his more emotional reaction to the report.

I just broke down in tears in boarding area at SFO while on phone with my wife. I've never cried because of a science report before. #IPCC
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) September 27, 2013

I realized, just now: This has to be the last flight I ever take. I'm committing right now to stop flying. It's not worth the climate.
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) September 27, 2013

 It's not an empty sacrifice for Holthaus, an avid traveler.

Granted, I love flying. I have a pilots license, actually. I grew up flying with my dad. But, enough is enough. #lastflight #climatechange
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) September 27, 2013

In another post for Quartz, Holthaus writes that while he's long done things to help the environment (he recycles, doesn't eat meat, brings his own bags to the store, etc.), his flying habits (75,000 miles flown last year) were no longer something he could ignore.

Holthaus used a carbon footprint calculator from UC Berkeley and found that his flying accounted for nearly half of his household's emissions. He found that if he stopped flying, his carbon footprint would go from being about double the American average to around 30 percent less than average.

Via Quartz:

I’ll still have to travel a lot (by car and train), and I’ll use videoconferencing for meetings I can’t miss. But by removing my single biggest impact on the climate in one swoop, I can rest a bit easier knowing I’ve begun to heed the IPCC’s call to action. Individual gestures, repeated by millions of people, could make a huge difference.