Stéphane Rousset’s Post

Hello from Mexico City 👋 Yesterday I flew from Switzerland to Mexico to start a 2 month travel with my partner across Central America. I was going to post that this morning, partially because I am excited for the trip but also because I post a lot about how we need to reduce flying and live within our boundaries and I just took a massive long flight that came to an outrageous 1.6 tonnes of C02 emissions. My partner and I have planned this trip since we got together, and although we researched alternatives with what we try to do in our day lives and the lack of alternatives we decided we would take this flight (We obviously offset 😉) I did this fully aware of the privileged position I am in in being able to make such a calculation. I wanted to come out with it to also make the post that while, yes, we must all do more to reduce our emissions and the material we consume it is not just about us and our emissions. Me living as a hermit will not solve the climate crisis, that is why I engage in activism to ensure that we adjust our infrastructure and how we make socio-economic decisions to ensure that all people have the privilege to make the choice I made and that this comes within the regenerative boundaries of our Planet. This was the original post but it now needs to be adjusted as this morning I woke up to find out that I was the center of some unwanted Media attention. Someone recognised me in the Airport and thought the mature thing to do, rather than speak to me, was to take a photo and send it to the Press expressing their outrage that I was on their flight (Went via Paris to Mexico). After speaking with the Media for 20 minutes this morning explaining my reasoning and that I was aware of the damage I had caused with this as well as my privilege in doing it they decided not to post any of that. Once again 20 Minuten, Blick and TeleZüri decide that rather than reports facts and explain a situation they want to feed the hate media mill. They want to ensure that everyone gets angry at the climate activist and then continue ignoring the droughts in France and Italy, The heatwaves in America and China and the fact that we are already on course to break record temperatures. I am not here to say that what I did was right. Flying needs to be avoided to the maximum possible level, a maxim i try to hold to with many other areas of my life We can transition to a better society within planetary limits. But for that we need the Media to stop seeing its primary role as promotion of scandal to sell papers and to start seeing its role as the passer of information, in this case science backed public information on the Climate Crisis. Also, I invite the person who photographed me to a coffee so that we can discuss how we can reduce both of our flying. https://lnkd.in/edGj6kQd