Well, perhaps you can clarify my confusion, which could be similar to the poster you are replying to:
I took your original point "caring about improving the world for others" to mean "you should make decent efforts/sacrifices to help others if you have the capacity".
That is, you should not go on this flight, because the CO2 released will make the world a worse place.
But if you have this moral obligation to help others, it seems like the much greater mistake here is to spend $1200/person on the flight. $1200 is enough to save ~240 children's lives for a year if donated to an effective charity (Helen Keller Foundation). Compared to that good, the moral harm of the CO2 released is a rounding error (someone mentioned a bit over 1 ton/person).
I've never understood the moral axiom that says "you need to make sacrifices for others, but only if those sacrifices are for carbon dioxide release. You don't have to make much smaller sacrifices which do vastly more good". That to me seems clearly absurd - can you help me understand what mistake I'm making?
To be clear, I'm not saying it's wrong to cut your carbon footprint - I'm saying that if there's a moral compulsion to do that, it seems like there's a stronger moral compulsion to donate a high % of your worth to effective charities. But nobody every seems to think that is the case!
The idea that not taking this flight is framed a "sacrifice" is kind of the point I'm getting at. It shows how inverted and skewed the framing is by default to be egocentric rather than holistic
Let me use an example from this morning.
My kids ride the bus to school. The bus stop is about 800 feet from our house and an equivalent distance to other kids' houses. That's at most a two minute walk. Almost everyday, unless the weather is basically PERFECT, there will be four SUVs running and burning gas waiting at the bus stop where the other parents literally drive 800 feet so their kid isn't mildly cold, wet etc...
This is what is confusing behavior TO ME. It's wasteful and unnecessary because the prevailing behavior for people is "do not be inconvenienced, avoid discomfort, and maximize experiential pleasure with no thought of externalities"
Why is this flight even an option to begin with? Simply because someone at Delta thought, hey this is a great opportunity to make revenue and be fun and etc...I'm sure someone even made the point that "well we buy carbon credits so that solves that pesky carbon problem." Delta used it's propaganda (advertising) to induce a novel fear of missing out in order to increase it's revenue and brand. That's it. There is simply no thoughts here other than "maximize revenue" and "have fun."
This is not "growing the pie" the people who buy these tickets are choosing this environmentally egregious set of actions, and actively crowding out more pro-social spending.
Why is my simple advocacy for the elimination of poverty threatening to your philosophy?
Or are you projecting your fears and biases into the discussion?