4 ms·

Seems bad for the environment

by jonny_eh 6y ago

nickff 6y ago
Most activities are bad for the environment, recreational activities are 'unproductive' and bad for the environment.
- beervirus 6y ago
  This wastes more fuel per capita than most.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    Planes are quite fuel efficient per passenger. Somewhere around 90mpg. Furthermore, I imagine this particular flight will free of baggage, lightening the load and improving efficiency even more. At any rate, most entertainment and recreational activities are bad for the environment, but as far as most of them go, this one is relatively clean.
    - Johnny555 6y ago
      But still, in 7 hours, a 500mph plane can go 3500 miles, so that's 38 gallons of fuel per passenger. A month's worth of gas for many people.
      - brnt 6y ago
        Nowadays, that amount lasts me two or three months!
        Johnny555 6y ago
        Back when the COVID isolation started in March, I put fuel stabilizer in our second car and filled up the tank (and hooked up a battery tender). I've driven it a few times, but the gas gauge still says "full" on that same tank of fuel. Even with the stabilizer I'm thinking that I need to take it out for a long drive to use up the fuel. At the rate things are going, I'm not sure I'll need the car for commuting until next summer.
    - jonny_eh 6y ago
      > Planes are quite fuel efficient per passenger Not if they go "nowhere".
- octodog 6y ago
  Not an insightful comment. Airline travel is particularly bad.
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    Well, obviously your comment is not insightful. How bad is airline travel? Like what's worse, taking one such flight once a year, or using a personal car to the office every day instead of taking a bus? Or is it worse to take one such flight once a year, or renting larger apartment which consumes more electricity due to air conditioning? (There's a simple answer to all these questions: carbon tax and market economy.)
    - Zenbit_UX 6y ago
      > Well, obviously your comment is not insightful. Nope his comment was, yours isn't. > How bad is airline travel? What part about a journey to nowhere confuses you? Let me break it down: 1. That's not travel 2. It's quite bad for the environment compared to doing just about any other possible leisure activity - because that's what a trip to nowhere is, not travel. > Or is it worse to take one such flight once a year, or renting larger apartment which consumes more electricity due to air conditioning? A truly irrelevant question to top off the delight that is your contribution to this thread. Is your ~20% larger apartment's AC fueled by burning methane?
      - lightgreen 6y ago
        > That's not travel Let me put it another way: What's worse: a) take a flight nowhere, and spend the rest of a vacation in a nearby town, reachable by train b) take a flight to some remote location and spend a week there ? > Is your ~20% larger apartment's AC fueled by burning methane? AC is fueled by whatever electicity is produced from. Worldwide, less than half of electricity is produced from more or less safe sources. > 20% When choosing between a flat in a city and a house in a countryside the apartment area difference can be easily 200% for the same rent. > A truly irrelevant question I'm sorry I did not explained how is that relevant. Trying to be spend money on what's "good" is a path nowhere. It will likely lead to the same CO2 emissions, because any person does not know how much CO2 this particular activity produces per dollar spent. (E. g. how much CO2 was emitted to produce this can of beer?) CO2 emissions can be included in the price of goods (carbon tax), that way people won't have to behave "good" to be actually good for the environment. Like if someone wants to take a flight nowhere, go ahead, take it, pay for CO2 emissions, but restrict themselves on doing something else which emits CO2.
Nginx487 6y ago
Murphy's Law: "Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral or fattening"
- mdifrgechd 6y ago
  Or puritain instinct, many people can't stand the idea of others enjoying themselves so look to find some reason why doing anything fun is bad.
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    This is very good comment, but I think it is only partially true. People cannot stand the idea when other enjoying themselves, while they restrict themselves for doing that because they worry for the planet. Their intentions are good, but their methods aren't. They ask other people to stop doing whatever they want doing. What should they do instead, is to ask governments to making everyone stop doing that. And the best way to do that (and I apologize for saying it 100s time in this topic) is to introduce a CO2 tax.
    - mdifrgechd 6y ago
      Personally I favor governments investing in carbon sequestration + other alternatives that let people live the kind of lives they want to live (and dont favor people who are already comfortable having come up in an older regulatory regime). There is no reason why reducing CO2 has to automatically be coupled with forced lifestyle changes or wealth redistribution. Edit - I see this very much along the lines of healthcare, we are better off focusing on keeping people healthy and not trying to force a lifestyle on people. I know there are those that disagree, but I think that largely comes back to my puritain comment
mitchbob 6y ago
Yes. A single long-haul flight can generate as much CO2 per passenger as many people in the world generate in an entire year [1]. There are lots of calculators you can use to determine your impact; here's one from the UN: [2]. It could easily be tons of CO2. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/jul/19/carbon-calculator-how-taking-one-flight-emits-as-much-as-many-people-do-in-a-year https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/... [2] https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Carbonoffset/Pages/default.aspx https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Carbonoffset/P...
- lightgreen 6y ago
  > A single long-haul flight can generate as much CO2 per passenger as many people in the world generate in an entire year Then ask your government to introduce carbon tax to make easier for normal people decide how to spend their hard earned money climate-efficiently instead of shaming people. > It could easily be tons of CO2 Sure. Maybe they should buy a new flat instead, which was build using concrete, which was produced emitting a lot of CO2. Or maybe they should buy a car instead and burn oil producing CO2 and driving roads and bridges which were built from concrete with emissions lot of CO2. Or maybe they should just spend their money buying some useless stuff without even thinking how much CO2 was emitted for production of that stuff. Just introduce carbon tax.
  - guerrilla 6y ago
    One can do that and demand that people stop doing immoral and destructive things. No need for "just" anything.
    - lightgreen 6y ago
      This is exactly the problem! Some people insist something is immoral without doing any quantitive analysis. (The statement "one flight produces the same amount of CO2 as ..." is not good enough analysis. Airlines (including freight) produce about 2% of all emissions, so if all people stop using planes completely, it will amount only to 2% reduction). (Should I also avoid buying something with expedited delivery because it will be deliverd by an airplane? Should I stop flying for a vacation once a year? Should I stop inviting my parents to visit me, because they would come by plane?) How can we be sure that flying is more immoral than other activities which produce CO2 (including driving, housing, electricity and so on)? And again, even if in theory all people in the world will try to do only the "right" things, it will still work worse than carbon tax. Simply because people don't know and cannot know much CO2 in that particular dollar spent, but competivite market knows. Shaming is just counter-productive virtue signalling. Carbon tax is a rational and efficient way to solve CO2 emissions riddle.
sukilot 6y ago
Similar to a Cruise Ship, I reckon.
shoo 6y ago
In the spirit of David MacKay's wonderful freely available book "Sustainable Energy – without the hot air" let's do a back-of-the-envelope estimate to roughly quantify how bad: The aircraft is a Qantas B787-9 Dreamliner with 236 seat passenger capacity [1]. This trip took 134 passengers and lasted for 7 hours [2]. A Boeing B787-9 has a fuel consumption of roughly 5600 kg fuel / hour [3]. Following the Australian government, we assume the aircraft is 100% fueled by Aviation Turbine Fuel [4] aka "avtur" aka Jet A1. Jet A1 fuel has an emissions factor (kg CO_2 / kg fuel) of 3.15 [5] . Note: this emissions factor is pretty close to a naive estimate of how much CO_2 you'd get if you burned petroleum ( 1kg of petroleum at 85% C by mass gives 0.85 kg of C gives mass(C) * molar_mass(CO_2) / molar_mass(C) = 3.12 kg CO_2 ). So, fuel burned per passenger = (7 hours * 5600 kg fuel / hr ) / 134 passengers = 293 kg fuel / passenger. CO_2 emissions per passenger = 293 kg fuel / passenger * 3.15 kg CO_2 / kg fuel = 922 kg CO_2 . But, we're not just burning things at ground level, we're burning jet fuel in the sky, which the 1999 IPCC special report on "aviation and the global atmosphere" explains has an additional impact in terms of radiative forcing. As summarised by MacKay: > Is flying extra-bad for climate change in some way? Yes, that’s the experts’ view, though uncertainty remains about this topic [[ 6 ]]. Flying creates other greenhouse gases in addition to CO2, such as water and ozone, and indirect greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxides. If you want to estimate your carbon footprint in tons of CO2-equivalent, then you should take the actual CO2 emissions of your flights and bump them up two- or three-fold. [7] So using MacKay's suggested 2x -- 3x multiplier, we get: Global warming impact per passenger for a single 7 hour flight to nowhere: equivalent to around 1.8 -- 2.8 metric tons of non-aviation CO_2 emissions. For reference, that's around 7 -- 11% of an average Australian per-capita annual climate footprint, or 19% -- 29% of an average EU28 per-capita annual climate footprint [8]. [1] https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-experience/onboard/seat-maps/boeing-787-9.html https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-experience/onboard/seat-... [2] https://www.qantas.com/au/en/promotions/great-southern-land.html https://www.qantas.com/au/en/promotions/great-southern-land.... [3] https://alliknowaviation.com/2019/12/14/fuel-consumption-aircraft/ https://alliknowaviation.com/2019/12/14/fuel-consumption-air... [4] https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/environmental/emissions/files/Managing-the-Carbon-Footprint-of-Australian-Aviation.pdf https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/environmental/emi... [5] https://www.verifavia.com/greenhouse-gas-verification/fq-how-are-aircraft-co2-emissions-calculated-11.php https://www.verifavia.com/greenhouse-gas-verification/fq-how... [6] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224795892_Aviation_and_the_Global_Atmosphere_Summary_for_Policy_Makers https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224795892_Aviation_... [7] http://www.withouthotair.com/c5/page_35.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c5/page_35.shtml [8] http://climatecollege.unimelb.edu.au/ndc-indc-factsheets http://climatecollege.unimelb.edu.au/ndc-indc-factsheets
emersonrsantos 6y ago
Being alive is bad for the environment.
- monomyth 6y ago
  that really depends on your life choices.

Seems bad for the environment

nickff 6y ago

Most activities are bad for the environment, recreational activities are 'unproductive' and bad for the environment.

beervirus 6y ago
This wastes more fuel per capita than most.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- missedthecue 6y ago
  Planes are quite fuel efficient per passenger. Somewhere around 90mpg. Furthermore, I imagine this particular flight will free of baggage, lightening the load and improving efficiency even more. At any rate, most entertainment and recreational activities are bad for the environment, but as far as most of them go, this one is relatively clean.
  - Johnny555 6y ago
    But still, in 7 hours, a 500mph plane can go 3500 miles, so that's 38 gallons of fuel per passenger. A month's worth of gas for many people.
    - brnt 6y ago
      Nowadays, that amount lasts me two or three months!
      - Johnny555 6y ago
        Back when the COVID isolation started in March, I put fuel stabilizer in our second car and filled up the tank (and hooked up a battery tender). I've driven it a few times, but the gas gauge still says "full" on that same tank of fuel. Even with the stabilizer I'm thinking that I need to take it out for a long drive to use up the fuel. At the rate things are going, I'm not sure I'll need the car for commuting until next summer.
  - jonny_eh 6y ago
    > Planes are quite fuel efficient per passenger Not if they go "nowhere".
octodog 6y ago
Not an insightful comment. Airline travel is particularly bad.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  Well, obviously your comment is not insightful. How bad is airline travel? Like what's worse, taking one such flight once a year, or using a personal car to the office every day instead of taking a bus? Or is it worse to take one such flight once a year, or renting larger apartment which consumes more electricity due to air conditioning? (There's a simple answer to all these questions: carbon tax and market economy.)
  - Zenbit_UX 6y ago
    > Well, obviously your comment is not insightful. Nope his comment was, yours isn't. > How bad is airline travel? What part about a journey to nowhere confuses you? Let me break it down: 1. That's not travel 2. It's quite bad for the environment compared to doing just about any other possible leisure activity - because that's what a trip to nowhere is, not travel. > Or is it worse to take one such flight once a year, or renting larger apartment which consumes more electricity due to air conditioning? A truly irrelevant question to top off the delight that is your contribution to this thread. Is your ~20% larger apartment's AC fueled by burning methane?
    - lightgreen 6y ago
      > That's not travel Let me put it another way: What's worse: a) take a flight nowhere, and spend the rest of a vacation in a nearby town, reachable by train b) take a flight to some remote location and spend a week there ? > Is your ~20% larger apartment's AC fueled by burning methane? AC is fueled by whatever electicity is produced from. Worldwide, less than half of electricity is produced from more or less safe sources. > 20% When choosing between a flat in a city and a house in a countryside the apartment area difference can be easily 200% for the same rent. > A truly irrelevant question I'm sorry I did not explained how is that relevant. Trying to be spend money on what's "good" is a path nowhere. It will likely lead to the same CO2 emissions, because any person does not know how much CO2 this particular activity produces per dollar spent. (E. g. how much CO2 was emitted to produce this can of beer?) CO2 emissions can be included in the price of goods (carbon tax), that way people won't have to behave "good" to be actually good for the environment. Like if someone wants to take a flight nowhere, go ahead, take it, pay for CO2 emissions, but restrict themselves on doing something else which emits CO2.

Nginx487 6y ago

Murphy's Law: "Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral or fattening"

mdifrgechd 6y ago
Or puritain instinct, many people can't stand the idea of others enjoying themselves so look to find some reason why doing anything fun is bad.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  This is very good comment, but I think it is only partially true. People cannot stand the idea when other enjoying themselves, while they restrict themselves for doing that because they worry for the planet. Their intentions are good, but their methods aren't. They ask other people to stop doing whatever they want doing. What should they do instead, is to ask governments to making everyone stop doing that. And the best way to do that (and I apologize for saying it 100s time in this topic) is to introduce a CO2 tax.
  - mdifrgechd 6y ago
    Personally I favor governments investing in carbon sequestration + other alternatives that let people live the kind of lives they want to live (and dont favor people who are already comfortable having come up in an older regulatory regime). There is no reason why reducing CO2 has to automatically be coupled with forced lifestyle changes or wealth redistribution. Edit - I see this very much along the lines of healthcare, we are better off focusing on keeping people healthy and not trying to force a lifestyle on people. I know there are those that disagree, but I think that largely comes back to my puritain comment

mitchbob 6y ago

Yes. A single long-haul flight can generate as much CO2 per passenger as many people in the world generate in an entire year [1]. There are lots of calculators you can use to determine your impact; here's one from the UN: [2]. It could easily be tons of CO2. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/jul/19/carbon-calculator-how-taking-one-flight-emits-as-much-as-many-people-do-in-a-year https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/... [2] https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Carbonoffset/Pages/default.aspx https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Carbonoffset/P...

lightgreen 6y ago
> A single long-haul flight can generate as much CO2 per passenger as many people in the world generate in an entire year Then ask your government to introduce carbon tax to make easier for normal people decide how to spend their hard earned money climate-efficiently instead of shaming people. > It could easily be tons of CO2 Sure. Maybe they should buy a new flat instead, which was build using concrete, which was produced emitting a lot of CO2. Or maybe they should buy a car instead and burn oil producing CO2 and driving roads and bridges which were built from concrete with emissions lot of CO2. Or maybe they should just spend their money buying some useless stuff without even thinking how much CO2 was emitted for production of that stuff. Just introduce carbon tax.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  One can do that and demand that people stop doing immoral and destructive things. No need for "just" anything.
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    This is exactly the problem! Some people insist something is immoral without doing any quantitive analysis. (The statement "one flight produces the same amount of CO2 as ..." is not good enough analysis. Airlines (including freight) produce about 2% of all emissions, so if all people stop using planes completely, it will amount only to 2% reduction). (Should I also avoid buying something with expedited delivery because it will be deliverd by an airplane? Should I stop flying for a vacation once a year? Should I stop inviting my parents to visit me, because they would come by plane?) How can we be sure that flying is more immoral than other activities which produce CO2 (including driving, housing, electricity and so on)? And again, even if in theory all people in the world will try to do only the "right" things, it will still work worse than carbon tax. Simply because people don't know and cannot know much CO2 in that particular dollar spent, but competivite market knows. Shaming is just counter-productive virtue signalling. Carbon tax is a rational and efficient way to solve CO2 emissions riddle.

sukilot 6y ago

Similar to a Cruise Ship, I reckon.

shoo 6y ago

In the spirit of David MacKay's wonderful freely available book "Sustainable Energy – without the hot air" let's do a back-of-the-envelope estimate to roughly quantify how bad: The aircraft is a Qantas B787-9 Dreamliner with 236 seat passenger capacity [1]. This trip took 134 passengers and lasted for 7 hours [2]. A Boeing B787-9 has a fuel consumption of roughly 5600 kg fuel / hour [3]. Following the Australian government, we assume the aircraft is 100% fueled by Aviation Turbine Fuel [4] aka "avtur" aka Jet A1. Jet A1 fuel has an emissions factor (kg CO_2 / kg fuel) of 3.15 [5] . Note: this emissions factor is pretty close to a naive estimate of how much CO_2 you'd get if you burned petroleum ( 1kg of petroleum at 85% C by mass gives 0.85 kg of C gives mass(C) * molar_mass(CO_2) / molar_mass(C) = 3.12 kg CO_2 ). So, fuel burned per passenger = (7 hours * 5600 kg fuel / hr ) / 134 passengers = 293 kg fuel / passenger. CO_2 emissions per passenger = 293 kg fuel / passenger * 3.15 kg CO_2 / kg fuel = 922 kg CO_2 . But, we're not just burning things at ground level, we're burning jet fuel in the sky, which the 1999 IPCC special report on "aviation and the global atmosphere" explains has an additional impact in terms of radiative forcing. As summarised by MacKay: > Is flying extra-bad for climate change in some way? Yes, that’s the experts’ view, though uncertainty remains about this topic [[ 6 ]]. Flying creates other greenhouse gases in addition to CO2, such as water and ozone, and indirect greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxides. If you want to estimate your carbon footprint in tons of CO2-equivalent, then you should take the actual CO2 emissions of your flights and bump them up two- or three-fold. [7] So using MacKay's suggested 2x -- 3x multiplier, we get: Global warming impact per passenger for a single 7 hour flight to nowhere: equivalent to around 1.8 -- 2.8 metric tons of non-aviation CO_2 emissions. For reference, that's around 7 -- 11% of an average Australian per-capita annual climate footprint, or 19% -- 29% of an average EU28 per-capita annual climate footprint [8]. [1] https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-experience/onboard/seat-maps/boeing-787-9.html https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-experience/onboard/seat-... [2] https://www.qantas.com/au/en/promotions/great-southern-land.html https://www.qantas.com/au/en/promotions/great-southern-land.... [3] https://alliknowaviation.com/2019/12/14/fuel-consumption-aircraft/ https://alliknowaviation.com/2019/12/14/fuel-consumption-air... [4] https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/environmental/emissions/files/Managing-the-Carbon-Footprint-of-Australian-Aviation.pdf https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/environmental/emi... [5] https://www.verifavia.com/greenhouse-gas-verification/fq-how-are-aircraft-co2-emissions-calculated-11.php https://www.verifavia.com/greenhouse-gas-verification/fq-how... [6] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224795892_Aviation_and_the_Global_Atmosphere_Summary_for_Policy_Makers https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224795892_Aviation_... [7] http://www.withouthotair.com/c5/page_35.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c5/page_35.shtml [8] http://climatecollege.unimelb.edu.au/ndc-indc-factsheets http://climatecollege.unimelb.edu.au/ndc-indc-factsheets

emersonrsantos 6y ago

Being alive is bad for the environment.

monomyth 6y ago
that really depends on your life choices.