Flight is technologically and culturally central to academic life. Academia’s flyout culture is built on a set of shared beliefs and values about the importance of flying to being an academic. But flight also generates a large proportion of academia’s carbon emissions, posing a cultural challenge to flight’s ongoing importance. In this chapter, we assess the underlying values animating flyout culture and examine how those values might change as universities respond to pressures to decarbonise operations. We approach this analysis in four parts. First, we identify six values that support flyout culture—values of ideas, efficiency, quality, evaluation, recreation and status. Second, we discuss how each value will be affected by four modes of decarbonisation: carbon offsets; shifting travel modes; centralised, infrequent or slow conferencing; and virtual communication. Third, we consider new values that may emerge as universities decarbonise: values of localism, climate concern, emissions transparency and verification. Finally, we discuss inertia that will resist change and optimism about how academia can realign its operations and culture with a liveable climate. As decarbonisation pressures grow, the interplay of cultural dimensions will determine if such efforts succeed or fail.
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