Abstract Air travel is an important factor among the human-driven causes of climate change, leading to significant deterioration of health worldwide. There is an increasing awareness of climate impacts of academic air travel in international research communities. Whereas approaches to Green Conferencing are already being debated, academic long-distance invitations, as another frequent practice, have not yet been intensively addressed. This article takes the international bioethics community as an example for analyzing the ethical implications of (not) inviting a colleague from far away or (not) accepting such a decision, respectively. Arguments from health and justice are cited to defend the position that bioethicists have a prima facie professional duty not to remain indifferent towards climate change. The article attempts to clarify the debate and to enable concrete decision-making for traveling bioethicists by discussing factors that should legitimately be considered for the decision whether or not to undertake a job-related long-distance flight on invitation. In addition, factors will be presented that potentially have an undue influence on such decisions. Finally, the position is taken that there is a specific and profession-related duty of bioethicists to consider the climate impact of long-distance academic invitations and that this should become part of an “air travel bioethics”.
Sabine Salloch (Wed,) studied this question.