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Aviation is responsible for 2.4% of CO2 emissions. A tiny fraction of overall transportation, electricity, and other sources. This is just a bitter journalist

Aviation is responsible for 2.4% of CO2 emissions. A tiny fraction of overall transportation, electricity, and other sources. This is just a bitter journalist training the Guardian-reading climate change freakout crowd to hate the rich.

0xfaded 6y ago
Yet the wealthy are disproportionately represented in that 2.4%. You can literally look at it as a business class seat taking 3x the footprint of a cattle class seat. According to https://phys.org/news/2019-02-income-attitudes-affect-greenhouse-gas.html https://phys.org/news/2019-02-income-attitudes-affect-greenh..., transport related GHG emissions are most strongly correlated to income. So it's convenient to sweep air travel under the rug as a small contributor, when the "rich" are the biggest offenders.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  Exactly, the journalist is bitter that rich people can afford to fly airplanes. You can tell because it's a "data journalist" who forgot to mention she's writing about 2.4% of emissions.
cagenut 6y ago
This is a case of someone use a "technically correct" fact to make a misleading statement (at least in tone), and then following it up with a 'kill-the-messenger' political snipe at journalists. This is textbook contrarian reactionary misdirection. #1 - C02 emissions account for only about half of the overall GHG emissions impact of air travel. Anytime you see someone specifically isolating just the CO2 emissions you know they are either poorly informed or deliberately misleading you. #2 - It doesn't actually matter. If something is 2.5% of X or 5% of X and X needs to get to 0 then the distinction is without a difference. Its only the tone of phrasing that makes this sound like a counterpoint, when it is in fact not. #3 - unlike much of the other 95 percent of emissions airline travel is by far the most uniquely isolated to very wealthy (globally speaking) people. If you believe in any basic notion of "progressive taxation", and you apply that to GHG emissions, then getting rich (again globally relatively rich) people to stop flying or fly less is by far the most blatant outlier to address quickly and early.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  No, the purpose of the piece isn’t any sort of real policy proposal. It’s to adapt climate change hysteria to make readers hate the rich. And capping total prosperity is nothing at all like progressive taxation.
  - cagenut 6y ago
    Reducing the GHG emissions of <sector> to zero/near-zero/net-zero is not "hysteria". It is the mathematically simplest possible form of understanding the published climate science. Whats "hysteria" is trying to turn that into a political/social-beliefs debate about "prosperity" or "hating the rich" instead of a simple numbers analysis.
    - SamReidHughes 6y ago
      > Reducing the GHG emissions of <sector> to zero/near-zero/net-zero is not "hysteria". I didn't say that was hysteria, so why are you pretending I did? The actual purpose of the Guardian piece is to give its readers more reasons to hate the rich.

0xfaded 6y ago

Yet the wealthy are disproportionately represented in that 2.4%. You can literally look at it as a business class seat taking 3x the footprint of a cattle class seat. According to https://phys.org/news/2019-02-income-attitudes-affect-greenhouse-gas.html https://phys.org/news/2019-02-income-attitudes-affect-greenh..., transport related GHG emissions are most strongly correlated to income. So it's convenient to sweep air travel under the rug as a small contributor, when the "rich" are the biggest offenders.

SamReidHughes 6y ago
Exactly, the journalist is bitter that rich people can afford to fly airplanes. You can tell because it's a "data journalist" who forgot to mention she's writing about 2.4% of emissions.

cagenut 6y ago

This is a case of someone use a "technically correct" fact to make a misleading statement (at least in tone), and then following it up with a 'kill-the-messenger' political snipe at journalists. This is textbook contrarian reactionary misdirection. #1 - C02 emissions account for only about half of the overall GHG emissions impact of air travel. Anytime you see someone specifically isolating just the CO2 emissions you know they are either poorly informed or deliberately misleading you. #2 - It doesn't actually matter. If something is 2.5% of X or 5% of X and X needs to get to 0 then the distinction is without a difference. Its only the tone of phrasing that makes this sound like a counterpoint, when it is in fact not. #3 - unlike much of the other 95 percent of emissions airline travel is by far the most uniquely isolated to very wealthy (globally speaking) people. If you believe in any basic notion of "progressive taxation", and you apply that to GHG emissions, then getting rich (again globally relatively rich) people to stop flying or fly less is by far the most blatant outlier to address quickly and early.

SamReidHughes 6y ago
No, the purpose of the piece isn’t any sort of real policy proposal. It’s to adapt climate change hysteria to make readers hate the rich. And capping total prosperity is nothing at all like progressive taxation.
- cagenut 6y ago
  Reducing the GHG emissions of <sector> to zero/near-zero/net-zero is not "hysteria". It is the mathematically simplest possible form of understanding the published climate science. Whats "hysteria" is trying to turn that into a political/social-beliefs debate about "prosperity" or "hating the rich" instead of a simple numbers analysis.
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    > Reducing the GHG emissions of <sector> to zero/near-zero/net-zero is not "hysteria". I didn't say that was hysteria, so why are you pretending I did? The actual purpose of the Guardian piece is to give its readers more reasons to hate the rich.