A climate researcher who was fired from his job for refusing to take a flight back from a work trip has been awarded compensation in court for unfair dismissal. Gianluca Grimalda has been reducing his air travel since 2010. But in 2023, his employer, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) in Germany, terminated […]
So I’m glad he was compensated, but I struggle to take his stance seriously when he works for a neoliberal think tank and genuinely believes his personal travel arrangements make any difference whatsoever when someone like him should definitely be aware that billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime (spare me the “every little help” platitude, at the scales we’re discussing here, this person’s itinerary makes zero difference, and only serves to alleviate his personal guilt. The only difference we can make as individuals is to unite and tear down the systems that are actually destroying the planet, and the people responsible).
If someone does something psychotic a lot, does that make it ethical for someone-else to do it even once?
A. air travel isn’t “psychotic”, fuck off with that ableism and
B. he wouldn’t be doing it once, he would be doing it 0.00000000000000001% of a time
So again:
And apparently, some of yours, too!