3 ms·

The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is gr

by kaybe 8y ago

The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.)

fghtr 8y ago
Reference: http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full.jpg http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full...
- Pelam 8y ago
  Interesting fact, jet powered short haul flights are worse per distance due to the fact that most energy is used in takeoff and landing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati... I also read somewhere that propeller based airplanes flying lower in the atmosphere would be better option for short haul flights.
- kaybe 8y ago
  I wonder what the difference between 'switch electric car to car free' and 'live carfree' is? The effect over time or not using rentals/other people's cars maybe?
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Manufacturing and maintaining a vehicle produced pollution itself, so not creating demand for one is less polluting than still creating a demand for a vehicle of any type.
- peanutz454 8y ago
  I find this difficult to believe! One transatlantic round trip flight is about 60% as bad as living car free? Assuming you do not travel at all - right? But you will travel. You will cycle to work, and you will burn more calories, and you will therefore eat more food, ending up contributing just as much too increasing emissions!
  - amvalo 8y ago
    It's true! Rule of thumb (which may surprise people) is that cars, boats and planes are all about the same for grams CO2 / passenger mile. So if you commute 10 miles to work every day, they are similar.
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    "just as much" This part of your statement desperately requires citation and supporting logic. Among other things to consider - Compare moving a ~80kg person and a ~13kg bike at 18kph vs moving an 80 kg person in one-300th (ish) of a ~300,000 kg plane (call it 1000 kg of plane per person) at 960 kph. 777 GTOW is ~335,000 kg Now considering that drag is roughly proportional to the cube of velocity, and compare 18kph on a bike to 960 kph on a plane. We'll call it ~50 times faster to keep the math simple. Drag is now 50^3 greater for the plane, or 125,000 times greater. So you're moving about ten times as much weight and need to overcome 125,000 times as much air resistance while doing it. I think it's fair to say that you can got a lot more miles per burrito on bike than plane. (https://www.quora.com/Why-is-air-resistance-roughly-proportional-to-the-cube-of-speed https://www.quora.com/Why-is-air-resistance-roughly-proporti...) This is a shame, because I love traveling to faraway places. But it comes at enormous cost. A low-frills slow cruise ship (think cargo ship with beds, not the Queen Mary 2) might manage all right, but even that's not fantastic. Better electrified rail to replace overland flights would be a good starting point
    - kaybe 8y ago
      You get to discount the drag of the plane since at cruising altitude you only have 1/3rd of the pressure. edit: But then again emissions at that altitude have a larger warming effect..
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    This got me thinking: do the environmental cost calculations for food waste include calories consumed in excess of daily requirements? What about alcohol consumption? Is confectionary, eg. chocolate, lollies, ice cream, considers food waste for environmental purpose, given they are highly processed and completely uncessary from a nutritional perspective?
w0utert 8y ago
>> The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.) And yet the total CO2 contribution of the world-wide aviation industry is 'only' 2%. Based on that chart I would say having (more) children is by far the worst culprit. By now I'm really 100% convinced that the only way to save the earth is if everyone everywhere around the globe stops getting more than 2 children per couple, preferably not more than 1, so the world's population can shrink down back to somewhere around 1/10th of what it is now. I'm 100% serious about this, and it makes me sad and angry nobody is actually really talking about this. Nothing we can do like eating less meat or skipping a holiday will help if the world's population doesn't shrink by a significant factor. It's a very unpopular opinion to have, because everyone likes children, they are the future, they are god's gift, it's a human right to make babies, bla bla, etc. But reduced to cold hard facts, there are simply way.too.many.people. Yes I know this would absolutely kill our debt-based economies and probably significantly reduce the standard of living in many places, at least in the short-to-medium term, but that's a different topic. Completely destroying the earth will have much worse effect on the economy and standard of living anyway.
- Pelam 8y ago
  I'm not disputing that the sheer massive number of people on the planet is a major factor in the climate change. However, the contribution of children in the chart we are referring is dubious. The number is so high that I once googled and found what I think to be the original source. (A couple of swedish researches IIRC.) They counted the children's and their descendants contributions and assigned them to parents for ongoing year. There are many problems there. For example if the birth rate would be calculated as 2, the contribution would be infinite. Also counting multiple generations is problematic, because if climate change is not mitigated within one generation we could be in for Mad Max * Water World.
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  Another frustratingly neglected topic is fusion. Fusion is really the least painless way to get out of this mess. It should be one of the major investments for every developed country right now. Even if it doesn't work out, the benefits of it does are so big that we absolutely need to throw out full weight behind the research. Yet funding keeps getting cut because it's "nuclear" and no politician currently in power will get to claim the enormous win for themselves.

by kaybe 8y ago

The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.)

fghtr 8y ago

Reference: http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full.jpg http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full...

Pelam 8y ago
Interesting fact, jet powered short haul flights are worse per distance due to the fact that most energy is used in takeoff and landing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati... I also read somewhere that propeller based airplanes flying lower in the atmosphere would be better option for short haul flights.
kaybe 8y ago
I wonder what the difference between 'switch electric car to car free' and 'live carfree' is? The effect over time or not using rentals/other people's cars maybe?
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Manufacturing and maintaining a vehicle produced pollution itself, so not creating demand for one is less polluting than still creating a demand for a vehicle of any type.
peanutz454 8y ago
I find this difficult to believe! One transatlantic round trip flight is about 60% as bad as living car free? Assuming you do not travel at all - right? But you will travel. You will cycle to work, and you will burn more calories, and you will therefore eat more food, ending up contributing just as much too increasing emissions!
- amvalo 8y ago
  It's true! Rule of thumb (which may surprise people) is that cars, boats and planes are all about the same for grams CO2 / passenger mile. So if you commute 10 miles to work every day, they are similar.
- CalRobert 8y ago
  "just as much" This part of your statement desperately requires citation and supporting logic. Among other things to consider - Compare moving a ~80kg person and a ~13kg bike at 18kph vs moving an 80 kg person in one-300th (ish) of a ~300,000 kg plane (call it 1000 kg of plane per person) at 960 kph. 777 GTOW is ~335,000 kg Now considering that drag is roughly proportional to the cube of velocity, and compare 18kph on a bike to 960 kph on a plane. We'll call it ~50 times faster to keep the math simple. Drag is now 50^3 greater for the plane, or 125,000 times greater. So you're moving about ten times as much weight and need to overcome 125,000 times as much air resistance while doing it. I think it's fair to say that you can got a lot more miles per burrito on bike than plane. (https://www.quora.com/Why-is-air-resistance-roughly-proportional-to-the-cube-of-speed https://www.quora.com/Why-is-air-resistance-roughly-proporti...) This is a shame, because I love traveling to faraway places. But it comes at enormous cost. A low-frills slow cruise ship (think cargo ship with beds, not the Queen Mary 2) might manage all right, but even that's not fantastic. Better electrified rail to replace overland flights would be a good starting point
  - kaybe 8y ago
    You get to discount the drag of the plane since at cruising altitude you only have 1/3rd of the pressure. edit: But then again emissions at that altitude have a larger warming effect..
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  This got me thinking: do the environmental cost calculations for food waste include calories consumed in excess of daily requirements? What about alcohol consumption? Is confectionary, eg. chocolate, lollies, ice cream, considers food waste for environmental purpose, given they are highly processed and completely uncessary from a nutritional perspective?

w0utert 8y ago

>> The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.) And yet the total CO2 contribution of the world-wide aviation industry is 'only' 2%. Based on that chart I would say having (more) children is by far the worst culprit. By now I'm really 100% convinced that the only way to save the earth is if everyone everywhere around the globe stops getting more than 2 children per couple, preferably not more than 1, so the world's population can shrink down back to somewhere around 1/10th of what it is now. I'm 100% serious about this, and it makes me sad and angry nobody is actually really talking about this. Nothing we can do like eating less meat or skipping a holiday will help if the world's population doesn't shrink by a significant factor. It's a very unpopular opinion to have, because everyone likes children, they are the future, they are god's gift, it's a human right to make babies, bla bla, etc. But reduced to cold hard facts, there are simply way.too.many.people. Yes I know this would absolutely kill our debt-based economies and probably significantly reduce the standard of living in many places, at least in the short-to-medium term, but that's a different topic. Completely destroying the earth will have much worse effect on the economy and standard of living anyway.

Pelam 8y ago
I'm not disputing that the sheer massive number of people on the planet is a major factor in the climate change. However, the contribution of children in the chart we are referring is dubious. The number is so high that I once googled and found what I think to be the original source. (A couple of swedish researches IIRC.) They counted the children's and their descendants contributions and assigned them to parents for ongoing year. There are many problems there. For example if the birth rate would be calculated as 2, the contribution would be infinite. Also counting multiple generations is problematic, because if climate change is not mitigated within one generation we could be in for Mad Max * Water World.
ajmurmann 8y ago
Another frustratingly neglected topic is fusion. Fusion is really the least painless way to get out of this mess. It should be one of the major investments for every developed country right now. Even if it doesn't work out, the benefits of it does are so big that we absolutely need to throw out full weight behind the research. Yet funding keeps getting cut because it's "nuclear" and no politician currently in power will get to claim the enormous win for themselves.