After one flight within Europe at sixteen I did not fly again until 40 years later when my son married a girl from Crete (we’re Dutch). It took too long and was too expensive to get there by train. Yes, I’ve always had “carskam” as well as flygskam, have never owned a car, didn’t even take driving lessons. Aren’t I smug? At least that’s what I think the irresponsible travel addicted will say now. It’s all so threatening, isn’t it?

Because of illness in the family I traveled from Schiphol to Seattle and back 4 years ago.

On this, my first and only transatlantic flight, I was incredibly excited. I would be able to see Iceland, Greenland, Canada from far above, a possibility nobody could have dreamt of a hundred years ago. And it was beautiful, it was wondrous to also fly through time, have no day or night, taking it all in in wonder….

My fellow passengers closed the ‘curtains’ and the flight assistant kept insisting that I would do that too. Well, I nearly closed it, bent down awkwardly, but was not stopping experiencing the wonder of it all.

It’s so incredibly sad so many people are blasé and have lost their sense of wonder….

We can now all see the results. It’s unbelievably sad to be part of beautiful earth and destroy it….