After Refusing to Fly, Climate Researcher Loses His Job

Getting from the northern German city of Kiel to the South Pacific is a schlep no matter what. By commercial air, it takes about two days and several connecting flights.

But Gianluca Grimalda, an Italian social scientist, opted to make the trip much, much longer when he set out from Kiel to Papua New Guinea on a research trip earlier this year.

To journey the 14,038 miles, he took five trains, nine buses, two ferries, two taxis, one shared car, one police convoy and, when there were no other options, two flights. Dr. Grimalda did this out of concern for the climate, wanting to generate as few planet-heating emissions as possible, even though the whole trip took 35 days.

But he said his plan to journey back to Kiel much the same way cost him his job.

On Wednesday, Dr. Grimalda said he was being fired from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank, after refusing to take transcontinental flights back from Papua New Guinea.

“Many people asked me if I regret not catching a plane to go back,” Dr. Grimalda wrote by email. “And my answer is no.”

“I have a moral commitment to this type of travel,” he later said in a phone interview from Papua New Guinea. “To be at peace within myself knowing that I have done the absolute right thing.”