4 ms·

People keep repeating to avoid air travel... but that's not what's going to make an impact. People need to rank their daily activities and make changes in thei

People keep repeating to avoid air travel... but that's not what's going to make an impact. People need to rank their daily activities and make changes in their daily lives where the impact is biggest. Most people fly once a year at most. In the US I'm thinking that daily transportation and daily use of energy in electricity/heating/air con are at the top of the list.

js8 7y ago
> Most people fly once a year at most. IIRC (from https://www.withouthotair.com/ https://www.withouthotair.com/ ) one round trip over Atlantic is around the same carbon emmissions as a daily commute with the car. So things are not that simple. That's why I also think it needs to be cultural norm. There is small minority of people who air travel a lot. If we could somehow manage to change the norm so they would travel less (for example, stayed much longer in the same place), it would be great.
- NotPaidToPost 7y ago
  How often do most people fly across the Atlantic? My point remains: Air travel is not at the top of the list for the majority of people so let's not always mention it as an important action. It would probably be more productive to tell people to drop all fossil fuels energy at home, and for their car if they can.
  - perfunctory 7y ago
    > Air travel is not at the top of the list Almost nothing is at the top of the list. As I mentioned there are not low hanging fruits. Everything is important. Also, not flying might be exactly something doing on individual level, while "drop all fossil fuels energy at home" requires infrastructure change. Also not-flying is a more publicly visible action which might inspire others to follow.
    - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
      The problem is we should stop with the PR bollocks of doing useless but "publicly visible" actions. There are real, important things at the top of the list. Changing electricity supplier, driving less, buying the most efficient car possible or an electric one (if you can charge it with non-fossil fuel sources), etc. should occupy the headlines more that "air travel is bad (TM)"
  - js8 7y ago
    > Air travel is not at the top of the list for the majority of people so let's not always mention it as an important action. I disagree. It is important to realize its impact, so that we can organize the society so that it is not needed. The people who don't travel often still need to hold the minority accountable.
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_avia... is a good read on this. If the airline industry continues growing at current rates by 2050 it will consume the whole CO2 budget if we want to stay below 2°C. In reality we now need to change everything and pretty quickly.
- NotPaidToPost 7y ago
  > The IPCC has estimated that aviation is responsible for around 3.5 percent of anthropogenic climate change, a figure which includes both CO2 and non-CO2 induced effects. The IPCC has produced scenarios estimating what this figure could be in 2050. The central case estimate is that aviation's contribution could grow to five percent of the total contribution by 2050 if action is not taken to tackle these emissions, though the highest scenario is 15 percent. As I said, people tend to overstate the actual impact of aviation. There are much higher priority things to do.
  - Slimbo 7y ago
    3.5% for a single activity is actually quite a big deal, particularly for something that in the main is non essential.
Slimbo 7y ago
To me, air travel is one of those things that's artificially cheap. It's zero rated for tax and largely encouraged for economic growth reasons. It's direct impacts are perhaps not as bad, but indirectly someone going from the UK to New York for a hen weekend is the kind of thing that should be unacceptably and prohibitively expensive.
mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
Actually there are a bunch of culprits and a bunch of solutions: drawdown.org

js8 7y ago

> Most people fly once a year at most. IIRC (from https://www.withouthotair.com/ https://www.withouthotair.com/ ) one round trip over Atlantic is around the same carbon emmissions as a daily commute with the car. So things are not that simple. That's why I also think it needs to be cultural norm. There is small minority of people who air travel a lot. If we could somehow manage to change the norm so they would travel less (for example, stayed much longer in the same place), it would be great.

NotPaidToPost 7y ago
How often do most people fly across the Atlantic? My point remains: Air travel is not at the top of the list for the majority of people so let's not always mention it as an important action. It would probably be more productive to tell people to drop all fossil fuels energy at home, and for their car if they can.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  > Air travel is not at the top of the list Almost nothing is at the top of the list. As I mentioned there are not low hanging fruits. Everything is important. Also, not flying might be exactly something doing on individual level, while "drop all fossil fuels energy at home" requires infrastructure change. Also not-flying is a more publicly visible action which might inspire others to follow.
  - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
    The problem is we should stop with the PR bollocks of doing useless but "publicly visible" actions. There are real, important things at the top of the list. Changing electricity supplier, driving less, buying the most efficient car possible or an electric one (if you can charge it with non-fossil fuel sources), etc. should occupy the headlines more that "air travel is bad (TM)"
- js8 7y ago
  > Air travel is not at the top of the list for the majority of people so let's not always mention it as an important action. I disagree. It is important to realize its impact, so that we can organize the society so that it is not needed. The people who don't travel often still need to hold the minority accountable.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_avia... is a good read on this. If the airline industry continues growing at current rates by 2050 it will consume the whole CO2 budget if we want to stay below 2°C. In reality we now need to change everything and pretty quickly.

NotPaidToPost 7y ago
> The IPCC has estimated that aviation is responsible for around 3.5 percent of anthropogenic climate change, a figure which includes both CO2 and non-CO2 induced effects. The IPCC has produced scenarios estimating what this figure could be in 2050. The central case estimate is that aviation's contribution could grow to five percent of the total contribution by 2050 if action is not taken to tackle these emissions, though the highest scenario is 15 percent. As I said, people tend to overstate the actual impact of aviation. There are much higher priority things to do.
- Slimbo 7y ago
  3.5% for a single activity is actually quite a big deal, particularly for something that in the main is non essential.

Slimbo 7y ago

To me, air travel is one of those things that's artificially cheap. It's zero rated for tax and largely encouraged for economic growth reasons. It's direct impacts are perhaps not as bad, but indirectly someone going from the UK to New York for a hen weekend is the kind of thing that should be unacceptably and prohibitively expensive.

mrhappyunhappy 7y ago

Actually there are a bunch of culprits and a bunch of solutions: drawdown.org