Dear Prudence,
I am part of a fairly affluent crowd, and in the last few years, there has been a significant uptick in travel. At the same time, my awareness about environmental harm has grown, and I’m limiting my travel to necessary work travel, offsetting all flights including work, food, and consumption, and no longer sharing all about it when I do so that I don’t glorify travel. But I find myself feeling upset when I see my friends bragging about how many places they’ve flown to in a short period of time or how many miles they’ve accumulated with (at least that I’m aware) no regard for the harm it causes. How can I try to educate my community without making them feel defensive and judged? (It’s easy for me to cut back since I’ve been lucky to have traveled so much in the past that I don’t feel like I’m missing out.) And particularly on social media, where it’s all just a giant travelogue and all the comments are positive, so I don’t want to be a nagging buzzkill. And how can I feel less bothered by it? I feel like it’s actively harming my relationships, because even when I don’t talk about, I’m still thinking about. For what it’s worth, I’ve joined the board of an environmental nonprofit, so I try to talk about that instead, with flying as a bit of an offhand comment.
—Not a Flight-Shamer