I committed to a year of “slow academic travel,” i.e. no flying, in 2019-2020. In that year, I traveled to conferences, fellowships, and archival libraries using electric or plug-in hybrid cars and trains. The more invested I became with the available climate science, the less I could ignore the cognitive dissonance at work in regular air travel, particularly when low-emissions transportation options exist.

The discomfort grew when I attempted to reconcile higher education’s chief ambition—to prepare future generations to lead lives of fullness and purpose—with its tacit endorsement of industries that will likely make our students’ lives far harder: companies that extract, insure, sell, or burn massive quantities of fossil fuels.