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Excellent! First class is an environmental disaster. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/climate/airplane-pollution-global-warming.html https://www.nytimes.com/

Excellent! First class is an environmental disaster. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/climate/airplane-pollution-global-warming.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/climate/airplane-pollutio... http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/141851468168853188/pdf/WPS6471.pdf http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/141851468168853188...

flavius29663 8y ago
Depends, if you replace it with private jets like many climate change advocates (al gore, Leo di Caprio), it's gonna get worse.
- linuxasheviller 8y ago
  Semantics, but, I'm not sure either of the people you cited is advocating climate change.
  - gnulinux 8y ago
    What do you mean? Al Gore made an entire movie about climate change and Leo Di Caprio talked about climate change in his Oscar acceptance speech. GP is right about that.
    - jmalicki 8y ago
      Most people would say they're against climate change. Advocates of climate change would want to encourage climate change.
  - twic 8y ago
    Well, Leonardo DiCaprio has a long-standing grudge against icebergs.
- cdblades 8y ago
  This is a straw man. The price difference between a first class ticket and chartering a private flight is massive.
owenversteeg 8y ago
I'll be honest, although the environmental impact of first class is higher than economy, I'm not sure it's really as bad as people claim. First of all, fuel use goes down with less weight. One first class passenger reduces weight substantially vs. a claimed 3-9 economy passengers. Secondly, airlines don't like to fly with a lot of unused capacity, be that passenger seats or weight capacity. Many planes carry extra cargo if there's consistently extra weight available. Now, then you get into economic effects: the presence of the lighter first class passengers allows more cargo to be brought, which reduces demand, which reduces the cargo price, which encourages more polluting air freight. But that, of course, is far more complex to calculate. Ultimately I'm just not satisfied with any estimate of CO2 emitted by flying in general. Every estimate I've seen has critical flaws in it and neglects at least one major component of flying. I completely believe that flying is responsible for a large amount of CO2 emissions, but exactly how much I don't think anyone knows for sure. Has anyone here seen a decent model of CO2 output caused by flying?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- barunio 8y ago
  > Ultimately I'm just not satisfied with any estimate of CO2 emitted by flying in general. > Has anyone here seen a decent model of CO2 output caused by flying? The CO2 impact of flying, and of flying first-class, is understood incredibly well and quite simple to follow for first-order effects. First, to calculate the emissions associated with the sector as a whole, you don't need any modeling. If you know how much of what fuel the sector as a whole consumes, you can determine co2 emissions directly from that fact. That's how those broader statistics are determined. Second, losing one passenger impacts the fuel economy per person in a very negative way. Consider an Airbus A321, which is one of the more efficient commercial airplanes. Wikipedia states that its max takeoff weight is 93,000kg. Suppose it's configured to seat 220 people. That means 422kg of weight being transported per person. A typical airline seat weighs 11kg and an average adult is over 70kg. If you assume an average of 50kg per person for luggage, each person's marginal contribution to the weight being transported is 131kg. The rest is coming from moving the plane itself. So, if you replace two small seats with one big one, that one seat now goes from having a share of 422kg to (422 * 2 - 131) = 713kg. That's an increase of 69%. Edit: I realized I'm looking at max capacity for total weight but not max weights per passenger, which means my guess of the plane weight is overstated. But I also didn't account for the fact that first class also requires more flight attendants on the flight. These two things counter each other. The net increase is likely something other than 69%, but that's not too far off. Yes, there are other market impacts from using first class, but there's no basis for thinking those are anywhere close to the impact described above. (E.g., you can do the calculations for offsetting 50kg of cargo from another plane.) What's a little less certain is the impact of radiative forcing. CO2 emissions are a dangerously _understated_ way to think about climate impacts of flying. CO2e (co2 equivalent) is more relevant. When you release water vapor, NOx, etc. into the atmosphere at higher elevations, there are all sorts of other impacts that occur at different timescales. The IPCC recommends multiplying by a factor of 2.7x to account for that. Other studies are a bit lower, maybe 1.9x, but there's general agreement that it's very bad. The specifics still need to be understood a bit better. People have incredible wishful thinking when it comes to flying because it's so convenient. It is impossible to act responsibly towards the environment and engage in air travel with any form of technology that exists today or that we know of. It's hard to imagine many things more hypocritical than first-class passengers who also claim environmental concern.
namdnay 8y ago
Honestly you wouldn't believe how little environmental awareness there is in most businesses. I've seen people do return transatlantic flights for a single half day meeting...
- umanwizard 8y ago
  Why should they care, when individual action has no measurable effect in the face of 7 billion other people and the tragedy of the commons problem? What is needed is collective action, i.e. policy/regulation/laws/taxes, not individuals making sacrifices.
- cylinder 8y ago
  Try east coast US to APAC just to make a personnel change and fly back (24-48hr turnaround). It's an American thing mostly. It's absurd. I think a lot of people at those levels just want to avoid their families. And the businesses are reckless on spending and allocation of time resources.
mruts 8y ago
If there was only economy, the prices would be much much higher. First/business class and coach need each other: each is subsidizing the other through price discrimination.
dimensi0nal 8y ago
That's looking at seat footprint, not weight.

flavius29663 8y ago

Depends, if you replace it with private jets like many climate change advocates (al gore, Leo di Caprio), it's gonna get worse.

linuxasheviller 8y ago
Semantics, but, I'm not sure either of the people you cited is advocating climate change.
- gnulinux 8y ago
  What do you mean? Al Gore made an entire movie about climate change and Leo Di Caprio talked about climate change in his Oscar acceptance speech. GP is right about that.
  - jmalicki 8y ago
    Most people would say they're against climate change. Advocates of climate change would want to encourage climate change.
- twic 8y ago
  Well, Leonardo DiCaprio has a long-standing grudge against icebergs.
cdblades 8y ago
This is a straw man. The price difference between a first class ticket and chartering a private flight is massive.

owenversteeg 8y ago

I'll be honest, although the environmental impact of first class is higher than economy, I'm not sure it's really as bad as people claim. First of all, fuel use goes down with less weight. One first class passenger reduces weight substantially vs. a claimed 3-9 economy passengers. Secondly, airlines don't like to fly with a lot of unused capacity, be that passenger seats or weight capacity. Many planes carry extra cargo if there's consistently extra weight available. Now, then you get into economic effects: the presence of the lighter first class passengers allows more cargo to be brought, which reduces demand, which reduces the cargo price, which encourages more polluting air freight. But that, of course, is far more complex to calculate. Ultimately I'm just not satisfied with any estimate of CO2 emitted by flying in general. Every estimate I've seen has critical flaws in it and neglects at least one major component of flying. I completely believe that flying is responsible for a large amount of CO2 emissions, but exactly how much I don't think anyone knows for sure. Has anyone here seen a decent model of CO2 output caused by flying?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
barunio 8y ago
> Ultimately I'm just not satisfied with any estimate of CO2 emitted by flying in general. > Has anyone here seen a decent model of CO2 output caused by flying? The CO2 impact of flying, and of flying first-class, is understood incredibly well and quite simple to follow for first-order effects. First, to calculate the emissions associated with the sector as a whole, you don't need any modeling. If you know how much of what fuel the sector as a whole consumes, you can determine co2 emissions directly from that fact. That's how those broader statistics are determined. Second, losing one passenger impacts the fuel economy per person in a very negative way. Consider an Airbus A321, which is one of the more efficient commercial airplanes. Wikipedia states that its max takeoff weight is 93,000kg. Suppose it's configured to seat 220 people. That means 422kg of weight being transported per person. A typical airline seat weighs 11kg and an average adult is over 70kg. If you assume an average of 50kg per person for luggage, each person's marginal contribution to the weight being transported is 131kg. The rest is coming from moving the plane itself. So, if you replace two small seats with one big one, that one seat now goes from having a share of 422kg to (422 * 2 - 131) = 713kg. That's an increase of 69%. Edit: I realized I'm looking at max capacity for total weight but not max weights per passenger, which means my guess of the plane weight is overstated. But I also didn't account for the fact that first class also requires more flight attendants on the flight. These two things counter each other. The net increase is likely something other than 69%, but that's not too far off. Yes, there are other market impacts from using first class, but there's no basis for thinking those are anywhere close to the impact described above. (E.g., you can do the calculations for offsetting 50kg of cargo from another plane.) What's a little less certain is the impact of radiative forcing. CO2 emissions are a dangerously _understated_ way to think about climate impacts of flying. CO2e (co2 equivalent) is more relevant. When you release water vapor, NOx, etc. into the atmosphere at higher elevations, there are all sorts of other impacts that occur at different timescales. The IPCC recommends multiplying by a factor of 2.7x to account for that. Other studies are a bit lower, maybe 1.9x, but there's general agreement that it's very bad. The specifics still need to be understood a bit better. People have incredible wishful thinking when it comes to flying because it's so convenient. It is impossible to act responsibly towards the environment and engage in air travel with any form of technology that exists today or that we know of. It's hard to imagine many things more hypocritical than first-class passengers who also claim environmental concern.

namdnay 8y ago

Honestly you wouldn't believe how little environmental awareness there is in most businesses. I've seen people do return transatlantic flights for a single half day meeting...

umanwizard 8y ago
Why should they care, when individual action has no measurable effect in the face of 7 billion other people and the tragedy of the commons problem? What is needed is collective action, i.e. policy/regulation/laws/taxes, not individuals making sacrifices.
cylinder 8y ago
Try east coast US to APAC just to make a personnel change and fly back (24-48hr turnaround). It's an American thing mostly. It's absurd. I think a lot of people at those levels just want to avoid their families. And the businesses are reckless on spending and allocation of time resources.

mruts 8y ago

If there was only economy, the prices would be much much higher. First/business class and coach need each other: each is subsidizing the other through price discrimination.

dimensi0nal 8y ago

That's looking at seat footprint, not weight.