Making Reparation: Offset Your Life - Stolen Future, Broken Present: The Human Significance of Climate Change - page 144

musicians, chefs, cultural critics, and people in the world of fashion can-
not remain on the cuting edge without being exposed to cultures else-
where. Would we welcome the results if they travelled less, if mutual influ-
ence took place in another way? Diplomats, workers in nongovernmental
organizations, and employees of aid groups travel frequently around the
world, but in a severe irony, by doing so they contribute to harming the
planet. How are they to do their work without relying on air travel?
The consequences of globalizing trade relations are at stake as well.
The increasing volume of goods moving between nations, especially by
sea, are inevitably accompanied by an increase in international air travel,
at least to support bilateral business arrangements. Globalization is also
felt in cultural exchanges of all kinds. Nowadays people who live in large
towns or small cities assume that they will have access to good French
and Italian food, a nice Mexican place, good Chinese food, a sushi restau-
rant, Thai and Indian food, and maybe even a tapas place as well. In any
large city, we assume that we'll experience some real multiculturalism,
too—that there will be sizable ethnic or cultural communities integrated
into the mix. In the last several decades, the United States has invited
highly skilled or educated immigrants into its society, creating an influx
of people from many nations around the world—migrants who may wish
to take flights back to their homelands from time to time. All these trade
relations, cultural contacts, and family ties rely on a mode of travel that
does immense and ongoing harm to the biosphere. Is it possible to main-
tain anything like this openness to the world without doing further harm?
However greatly we may value these cultural benefits of globaliza-
tion and the gradual shit from insular to more cosmopolitan atitudes,
we cannot give those benefits absolute priority over the survival of the
biosphere. Converting the planet into a multicultural ash heap does not
serve humanity well. To the extent that we can, we should sustain the
vibrancy and creativity associated with these international exchanges
while dramatically reducing the number of international flights. And
because those flights have a staggering carbon footprint, since they dam-
age the biosphere more than any others, we must consider cuting them
back as far as possible. If we do so, however, we will inevitably relinquish
many aspects of globalization on which we have come to rely—the easy
exchange of goods and fashions included. Our cultures and economies,