5 ms·

500 people going round-trip to any destination they want one time is a drop in the bucket. Pre-pandemic, do you have any idea how many business travelers would

500 people going round-trip to any destination they want one time is a drop in the bucket. Pre-pandemic, do you have any idea how many business travelers would hop on planes every single day, sometimes to travel just a few hundred miles (i.e. SFO to LAX)?

rsj_hn 5y ago
> sometimes to travel just a few hundred miles (i.e. SFO to LAX)? Nothing wrong with flying from LA to SF. Driving 400 miles gets old pretty quick. Depending on how heavy your foot is, that's ~6 hours of driving, and along one of the most boring stretches of road (I-5) imaginable. You will also need to stop and take breaks. And if you take PCH, it's 8 hours of winding road. Do that once for fun, but not twice. In terms of cost, a one way ticket LA to SF or vice-versa is $39. You can get those at short notice. Assuming 30 mpg at whatever high speed you will be traveling, driving the 400 miles will cost you ~13 gallons, so if gas is $3 per gallon, there's no price difference between flying and driving. And in CA, gas is $4.50 now, so you'd be crazy to drive, as that trip will cost you $60 just in terms of gas. Your time is also valuable. If you get to the airport an a hour head, then it's 1 hour at airport, 1 hour flight, 30 min getting out of plane and picking up luggage. Let's say at most 3 hours travel time, enter SFO to exit LAX. You can buy a business class ticket for $80. Do yourself a favor and get the business class seat and watch a movie or take a nap. You will be first to board and exit, saving time. If you value safety, flying is much safer.
- crubier 5y ago
  Some figures to keep in mind, since CO2 is absent from your calculations: Flying from SFO to LAX and back costs 0.2 Tons of CO2. That’s more than a month of your CO2 quota if we want to limit climate change to +1.5C. CO2 budget should be 2 Tons per year to reach that goal. Currently, emissions are 15 Tons per year per capita in the US.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    > That’s more than a month of your CO2 quota if we want to limit climate change to +1.5C. Fortunately, I don't have a CO2 quota, nor are we going to meet any of these targets, nor is there popular support for imposing quotas. But if you prefer to drive to LA, that's perfectly fine with me.
    - crubier 5y ago
      You won’t have a CO2 quota don’t worry, your little comfort will be fine. But easy oil will run out eventually anyway. Your children (if you have any) will live on an overheating planet, with mass climate migrations, and very high priced oil, even for things as basic as fertilizers.
      - dTal 5y ago
        I fear that waiting until oil is too expensive to use, is effectively waiting until all the oil has been dug up and put in the atmosphere. It's the non-answer. That way lies climate disaster. I am disturbed by the shoulder-shrugging attitude to mass environmental devastation.
        rsj_hn 5y ago
        I am disturbed by the hysteria and alarmism. People have been predicting "climate disaster" for 40 years now, along with population disaster, and many other disasters. I'm not onboard with this extremism, and neither is the majority of the population, and most important for you, neither is China, which is opening 120 new coal plants just this year. Yet for some reason I'm supposed to be terrified of flying from SFO to LAX and pretend that there is some sort of existential crisis. But don't worry, this will allow you to keep warning of collapse, just around the corner, for the next forty years as well. And the forty after that.
        dTal 5y ago
        >People have been predicting "climate disaster" for 40 years now Indeed. Notably, 40 years ago an Exxon internal report predicted a 1 degree rise in global temperature due to fossil fuel use by 2020 - and here we are, 1 degree warmer. [0] Do you appreciate how huge 1 degree is, in 40 years? The last time the Earth was this warm was 127,000 years ago. It's enough to wreck ecosystems, and has. And it's just getting started. >pretend that there is some sort of existential crisis. You're speaking as if the climate isn't visibly, dramatically changing; as if huge numbers of bottom-of-the-food-chain organisms like insects and phytoplankton are not declining precipitously; indeed, as if we were not in the middle of one of the largest mass extinctions in the history of the planet - on par with the times when it got hit by huge asteroids. The scientific consensus on the severity of what is happening is unanimous. Nobody knows exactly what will happen - it's too dramatic and unprecedented - but if you're not worried, you're simply in denial. >I'm not onboard with this extremism, and neither is the majority of the population Certainly not true in America: "A majority of Americans continue to say they see the effects of climate change in their own communities and believe that the federal government falls short in its efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change." [1] [0] https://xkcd.com/2500/ https://xkcd.com/2500/ [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of...
  - mFixman 5y ago
    A one-way flight from SFO to LAX releases 153kg of CO2 to the athmosphere [1]. A one-way road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a car with 30 MPG efficiency releases 135kg of CO2 to the athmosphere [2]. The only way out of this is to tax petrol high enough to convince people to take the bus. [1] https://curb6.com/footprint/flights/los-angeles-lax/san-francisco-sfo https://curb6.com/footprint/flights/los-angeles-lax/san-fran... [2] https://www.distance-cities.com/distance-los-angeles-ca-to-san-francisco-ca https://www.distance-cities.com/distance-los-angeles-ca-to-s...
tuatoru 5y ago
Read it again: the idea that a present that emits carbon is a good thing is what needs to change. And yes, I do know how many plane trips there were. That doesn't make it right, just like that fact that a lot of people smoke doesn't make that right.
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  > the idea that a present that emits carbon is a good thing is what needs to change. There are very few human activities that don't directly or indirectly "emit carbon". Like it or not, civilization is not going back to the horse and buggy. At least willingly.

rsj_hn 5y ago

> sometimes to travel just a few hundred miles (i.e. SFO to LAX)? Nothing wrong with flying from LA to SF. Driving 400 miles gets old pretty quick. Depending on how heavy your foot is, that's ~6 hours of driving, and along one of the most boring stretches of road (I-5) imaginable. You will also need to stop and take breaks. And if you take PCH, it's 8 hours of winding road. Do that once for fun, but not twice. In terms of cost, a one way ticket LA to SF or vice-versa is $39. You can get those at short notice. Assuming 30 mpg at whatever high speed you will be traveling, driving the 400 miles will cost you ~13 gallons, so if gas is $3 per gallon, there's no price difference between flying and driving. And in CA, gas is $4.50 now, so you'd be crazy to drive, as that trip will cost you $60 just in terms of gas. Your time is also valuable. If you get to the airport an a hour head, then it's 1 hour at airport, 1 hour flight, 30 min getting out of plane and picking up luggage. Let's say at most 3 hours travel time, enter SFO to exit LAX. You can buy a business class ticket for $80. Do yourself a favor and get the business class seat and watch a movie or take a nap. You will be first to board and exit, saving time. If you value safety, flying is much safer.

crubier 5y ago
Some figures to keep in mind, since CO2 is absent from your calculations: Flying from SFO to LAX and back costs 0.2 Tons of CO2. That’s more than a month of your CO2 quota if we want to limit climate change to +1.5C. CO2 budget should be 2 Tons per year to reach that goal. Currently, emissions are 15 Tons per year per capita in the US.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > That’s more than a month of your CO2 quota if we want to limit climate change to +1.5C. Fortunately, I don't have a CO2 quota, nor are we going to meet any of these targets, nor is there popular support for imposing quotas. But if you prefer to drive to LA, that's perfectly fine with me.
  - crubier 5y ago
    You won’t have a CO2 quota don’t worry, your little comfort will be fine. But easy oil will run out eventually anyway. Your children (if you have any) will live on an overheating planet, with mass climate migrations, and very high priced oil, even for things as basic as fertilizers.
    - dTal 5y ago
      I fear that waiting until oil is too expensive to use, is effectively waiting until all the oil has been dug up and put in the atmosphere. It's the non-answer. That way lies climate disaster. I am disturbed by the shoulder-shrugging attitude to mass environmental devastation.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        I am disturbed by the hysteria and alarmism. People have been predicting "climate disaster" for 40 years now, along with population disaster, and many other disasters. I'm not onboard with this extremism, and neither is the majority of the population, and most important for you, neither is China, which is opening 120 new coal plants just this year. Yet for some reason I'm supposed to be terrified of flying from SFO to LAX and pretend that there is some sort of existential crisis. But don't worry, this will allow you to keep warning of collapse, just around the corner, for the next forty years as well. And the forty after that.
        dTal 5y ago
        >People have been predicting "climate disaster" for 40 years now Indeed. Notably, 40 years ago an Exxon internal report predicted a 1 degree rise in global temperature due to fossil fuel use by 2020 - and here we are, 1 degree warmer. [0] Do you appreciate how huge 1 degree is, in 40 years? The last time the Earth was this warm was 127,000 years ago. It's enough to wreck ecosystems, and has. And it's just getting started. >pretend that there is some sort of existential crisis. You're speaking as if the climate isn't visibly, dramatically changing; as if huge numbers of bottom-of-the-food-chain organisms like insects and phytoplankton are not declining precipitously; indeed, as if we were not in the middle of one of the largest mass extinctions in the history of the planet - on par with the times when it got hit by huge asteroids. The scientific consensus on the severity of what is happening is unanimous. Nobody knows exactly what will happen - it's too dramatic and unprecedented - but if you're not worried, you're simply in denial. >I'm not onboard with this extremism, and neither is the majority of the population Certainly not true in America: "A majority of Americans continue to say they see the effects of climate change in their own communities and believe that the federal government falls short in its efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change." [1] [0] https://xkcd.com/2500/ https://xkcd.com/2500/ [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of...
- mFixman 5y ago
  A one-way flight from SFO to LAX releases 153kg of CO2 to the athmosphere [1]. A one-way road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a car with 30 MPG efficiency releases 135kg of CO2 to the athmosphere [2]. The only way out of this is to tax petrol high enough to convince people to take the bus. [1] https://curb6.com/footprint/flights/los-angeles-lax/san-francisco-sfo https://curb6.com/footprint/flights/los-angeles-lax/san-fran... [2] https://www.distance-cities.com/distance-los-angeles-ca-to-san-francisco-ca https://www.distance-cities.com/distance-los-angeles-ca-to-s...

tuatoru 5y ago

Read it again: the idea that a present that emits carbon is a good thing is what needs to change. And yes, I do know how many plane trips there were. That doesn't make it right, just like that fact that a lot of people smoke doesn't make that right.

LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> the idea that a present that emits carbon is a good thing is what needs to change. There are very few human activities that don't directly or indirectly "emit carbon". Like it or not, civilization is not going back to the horse and buggy. At least willingly.