Anirvan Chatterjee and Barnali Ghosh devised and embarked on their “Year of No Flying” project, with the goal of traveling around the world without boarding a single airplane. According to Sepia Mutiny, “techie” Chatterjee and landscape architect Ghosh were surprised to learn that their carbon footprint was bigger than 90 percent of Americans, despite their green efforts which included living without a car. They found that air travel was to blame and challenged themselves to spend a year without flying. Chatterjee wrote about why it would be hard to give up flying, just before embarking upon the Year of No Flying project: “Growing up in a family of post-1965 transnational immigrants, our history is deeply connected with the democratization of air travel — countless flights to and from India, Canada, Nigeria, and the United States. Our stories begin and end in airports.” As part of the no-flying challenge, the couple crossed continents and oceans to explore solutions to the problem of aviation sector emissions, meeting with environmentalists and planners, including youth activists in India and Vietnam. They crossed the Pacific and Atlantic by container ships and traveled by train through Asia. Post-challenge they plan to continue writing about the latest developments in green travel and aviation emissions
