Flyga till skidsemestern: En intervjustudie om uppfattningar, dissonans och förnekelse hos flygresande skidåkare

Abstract

Air travel has been pointed out as one of our times biggest challenges in fighting climate change. With increasing numbers of passengers and technical solutions to reducing emissions possibly decades away, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency now claim it is the number of flights each person takes that needs to decrease. So why do we keep flying? One group with a strong incentive to limit the consequences of climate change are skiers. Dependent on preserving snow layers while also with a desire to travel, skiers are caught in a conflict of interests. Whilst several studies have examined skiers' responses to the effects of climate change, none have yet examined their responses to the knowledge of climate change and how it shapes their attitudes towards flying. This study applies theories from environmental sociology combined with previous studies on tourists' attitudes towards climate change and air travel to investigate why young skiers choose to fly to their vacation despite the high emissions released from air travel. Data on young skiers attitudes towards climate change and air travel was collected through 6 semistructured interviews and analyzed using a thematic analysis. In accordance with previous literature, the study found that the participants used mechanisms of denial and defence to downplay the importance of their behaviour and maintain a positive self-image. The denial was both implicatory, meaning the participants realized the climatic effects of air travel but did not see them as implicating a change in travel behaviour, and socially organized, created and reproduced in social contexts. As a result of this the participants did not consider emissions as a factor when choosing mode of transport, even though they often considered the environment in other personal choices such as consumption of food or clothing. These defences were shown to be a result of cognitive dissonance, the participants experiencing an inconsistency between their incentive to be environmentally friendly and their desire to travel. As a result of the social context surrounding air travel and climate change, as well as air travel being significantly cheaper and faster than other modes of transport, the participants managed to keep a negative outlook on flying while maintaining their habits of flying on vacation.