Guest post by Dan Tipney, September 2013
‘I deeply care about maintaining a liveable future on our planet, but who am I to speak out when I burn fossil fuels for a living?’… ‘I am worried whether or not my children’s generation will have food, water, breathable air and a safe environment but how can I take action when I work for a company that is intricately linked to climate and ecological breakdown?’… ‘I feel profoundly sad at the loss of species and ecosystems but engaging in any kind of environmental action would be so hypocritical given the life that I live.’
When people have asked me about my professional choices, I have found myself saying something like…
‘…turns out I was an environmentalist trapped in an airline pilot’s body’.
There is some truth in this and it does help to briefly and light-heartedly summarise why I chose to stop flying, but at the same time, it feels slightly misleading.
At some level, l believe that most people are environmentalists. Anyone who wishes for a safe and habitable future must (consciously or not) have a vested interest in the world that nourishes and protects us.
It is my belief that very many of us are in some way conflicted between the life that we live and our deepest desire for the survival of our children, our grandchildren… and ourselves.
Internal conflict such as this is painful, both when it is deep-rooted within our ‘sixth sense’ and if or when it becomes a conscious experience. Many of us are familiar with that sense of discomfort, with an unknown source — something that can become apparent only once an event triggers our realisation. For example, we could have a sense that a particular lifestyle choice is unhealthy but it might take the occurrence of a health scare for us to consciously engage with the issue, following which we then may or may not make a behavioural change. The same is true for climate conflict. For years, when I went to work, I had a sense that something didn’t ‘feel right’ about the impact and the direction of the aviation industry, from an environmental perspective. However, at an intellectual level, I was passionate about my career — something I had dreamt of since I was a child and was therefore reluctant to explore this discomfort for fear of what it might uncover. The trigger events that I experienced were becoming a parent, combined with an opportunity to better understand climate science via some kind, well-informed environmentalists in my social network. As such, my own barriers of cognitive bias and dissonance were lowered sufficiently so that I could become consciously aware of the source of discomfort; a strong conflict between my love of flying (and everything that it ‘provided’ for me) and my desire for our (at the time) unborn child to have safe future on earth.
Whilst the conscious experience of such conflict can be more acutely challenging than when it is a niggling sense within our subconscious, it is important that we reach this level of awareness. This is both for the benefit of our own wellbeing and for our potential to make a positive contribution… in this case contributing towards actions for a liveable future. The pain which I have referred to relates to the various emotional responses that can be experienced as a result of inner conflicts. Such strong feelings, especially when chronic, if left unattended have significant implications on mental health and wellbeing but can also hijack our ability to take action.
The emotional responses that I experienced were varied. I felt a great sense of guilt — that everyday, I was contributing to and complicit in, the burning of many tons of jet fuel, something that by this point I knew was directly leading to the very real and imminent possibility of reaching irreversible tipping points in terms of global heating. Repressed guilt can easily lead to a sense of shame, something which for some time prevented me from joining environmental groups or even sharing my concerns with my closest friends and family. I felt shame for my professional role, which at the same time I also believed to be part of my identity. Something else I frequently experienced was a sense of loneliness; an emotional response that is associated with our innate human need for connection and belonging. Working in an environment in which you perceive yourself to be alone with your beliefs and concerns can threaten our (social) human needs. It can also feel scary… really scary! Both engaging with climate science and the idea of speaking out about it were aspects of my journey that I have found deeply intimidating. Fear can trigger our threat response within our limbic system, preparing us to fight, to run or to hide (or pretend to be dead!) from the source of the threat. However, unlike sources of threat that were faced 20,000 years ago, we cannot run or hide when it comes to the human impact on climate breakdown and the only way that we (humans) can effectively ‘fight’ is through critical thinking, communication and subsequent action. To reach this stage, we need the opportunity to process the feelings which can prevent constructive responses and hence the need to talk about inner conflict.
Upon realising my internal climate conflict, I started to acknowledge and understand my own emotional response. As a result, I started to voice my concerns which led me to discover a group of (many!) like-minded aviation professionals, with whom I was able to discuss and process these feelings and address the sense of loneliness. Recognising my conflict, embracing how I felt, talking about my concerns and finding a support network, all collectively had a huge impact on my mental wellbeing and subsequently my ability to contribute towards a better chance of having a liveable future.
When it comes to taking action, it can seem overwhelming when we consider the enormity of the challenge. Whilst individual contributions can seem small, in the words of Margaret Mead…
’Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has’.
I am now actively involved with various environmental activist groups, I am a member of Safe Landing; an organisation campaigning for a just transition within the aviation sector and a member of Champions for Earth; a movement harnessing the energy of sport to help avert the climate and ecological crisis. I also took the decision to stop flying altogether just over three years ago. Through speaking and writing, I share my story as a means of engaging people in conversation and provoking thought. By facilitating discussion, I seek to compassionately help others to ‘join the dots’ and to recognise and address their own internal environmental conflict. I often wonder just how many people are affected in this way… or indeed, how many more thoughtful committed citizens could help change the world, if not constrained by the pain of their inner conflict.
Published originally on Medium. Reproduced here with the author’s consent.