Flying Green

Dear Reader,

Everybody knows that aviation presents a major barrier to the project of reducing carbon emissions in order to slow down the process of climate change. Flying is supremely carbon-intensive, and, after a Covid-induced pause, more and more people want to do it. Is there an answer to this problem, other than the evidently impossible one of getting everybody to agree to fly less often?

Christopher de Bellaigue, the British journalist and author, went looking far and wide for good news about less environmentally problematic aviation, and he found it. Flying Green is the result of his ambitious (alas, mainly by air) travels around the world to talk to scientists, engineers, and businessmen who are trying to make green aviation something other than an oxymoron. In places as scattered as Switzerland, coastal California, and rural Mississippi, he met people who have started initiatives to make decarbonized jet fuel, electric-powered airplanes, and airships that use hydrogen to get off the ground. He takes us on a spirited, lively tour of these decarbonization pioneers’ efforts, full of fascinating people and ideas.

De Bellaigue’s characters are small-scale startup entrepreneurs, not people working for the major airlines. But, as he points out, it’s with such people that positive changes often originate. Their stories collectively make for that great rarity, a deeply researched work about climate change that is optimistic.

Best,

Nicholas Lemann
Director, Columbia Global Reports