Galen Tromble
Founder, climateyogi.org - Silver Spring, MarylandSilver Spring, Maryland
When I first became aware of the climate impacts of air travel, I thought that offsetting the emissions was enough. I no longer think that, though I still encourage people who travel by air to buy offsets. It may not fully undo the damage, but it makes people think about the connection between their flight and climate change.
I still fly if the purpose is important enough to me and there isn’t an alternative. I have two granddaughters in France. I’d like to see them more often, but make the trip about every two years.
I think it’s a significant shift to understand that flying has serious consequences. It changes from a casual thing to do whenever you want to a thing you do only when you feel you truly need to.
Galen Tromble is a yoga teacher and climate activist living in Maryland. Galen agrees with Naomi Klein that “the solution to global warming is not to fix the world, it is to fix ourselves.” We need to move from a perspective of separation to one of connection. Seeing ourselves as separate from nature, we have pushed Earth’s climate out of balance, with consequences that we don’t fully understand but which are certain to fall heavily on future generations.
Galen founded ClimateYogi in 2018, believing that the ethical principles and transformative practices of yoga can help people wake up to their connection and interdependence, and to engage in the positive action needed to bring Earth’s climate back into balance.