Decarbonizing Academia's Flyout Culture

Flight is technologically and culturally central to academic life. Academia's flyout culture is built on a set of shared beliefs and values about the importance of flying to being an academic. But flight also generates a large proportion of academia’s carbon emissions, posing a cultural challenge for its ongoing importance. In this chapter, we assess the underlying values animating flyout culture and examine how those values might change as universities respond to pressures to decarbonize operations. We approach this analysis in four parts. First, we identify six values that support flyout culture – values of ideas, efficiency, quality, evaluation, recreation, and status. Second, we discuss how each value will be affected by four modes of decarbonization: carbon offsets; shifting travel modes; centralized, infrequent or slow conferencing; and virtual communication. Third, we consider new values that may emerge as universities decarbonize: values of localism, climate concern, emissions transparency, and verification. Finally, we discuss inertia that will resist change as well as optimism about how academia can realign its operations and culture with a liveable climate. As decarbonization pressures grow, the interplay of cultural dimensions will determine if such efforts succeed or fail.