Somehow this regular American girl wound up living all over the world. As a teenager I lived in Saudi Arabia, went to school in England, and visited places like India and Kenya and Rome and so forth. In early adulthood, I thought it the most normal thing to jump on a plane to Scotland to visit friends that I’d made in Saudi, for instance.

Now I understand that I have had more than my fair share of all that carbon emissions craziness (among other things). I also don’t sit in drive-throughs idling my car. I buy my food as local as I can. I garden. I plant trees (which is part of why it’s nice to sit on my back porch - - so I’m not 100% altruistic!). I make my own shampoo and all sorts of cleaning products in an effort to keep some plastic (and the untold costs of manufacturing it and shipping it) out of the waste stream.

And I pledge to be flight-free not just for 2021 but for the rest of my life.