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It's not their individual flights that are the problem, it's starting a business unit that burns an average lifetime's worth of carbon for a couple day recreati

It's not their individual flights that are the problem, it's starting a business unit that burns an average lifetime's worth of carbon for a couple day recreational trip that's the problem. It's not a "campfire".

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> it's starting a business unit that burns an average lifetime's worth of carbon for a couple day recreational trip that's the problem Can’t think of many better ways to kill political support for real climate change legislation than advocating ceding our technological leadership in space technology like this.
- whatever1 5y ago
  So you just presented the priorities of the US. Military and space domination. Climate is way down the in list of priorities. Should we just stop pretending?
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > Should we just stop pretending? Who claims climate change is the greatest policy concern to the U.S. or any of the world's regional powers? It's plain as day that isn't the case. That's the problem. That's why nipping at small fry, like plane travel and rockets, is stupid. It deploys limited political capital to a small problem. That distracts from the bigger stuff we need to accomplish, e.g. carbon taxes, electrifying transportation and greening primary production.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      A lot of people claim that. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/greatest-threat-global-security-climate-change-not-merely-environmental-problem https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/greatest-threat-glob...
- monocasa 5y ago
  I'm not sure how "look at stopping recreational flights if we're getting to the point of asking average people to take less airliner flights", is "ceding our technological leadership in space technology".
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    Sorry, I was responding to advocating against e.g. SpaceX and Blue Origin. Strongly believe we need a carbon tax, which would reduce air travel organically.
arcticbull 5y ago
The ride up emitted 82.5T of CO2 per person. A single Bitcoin transaction emits 1T of CO2. An average American home emits 5T of CO2 per year. One round-trip flight from New York to London emits 1T of CO2 per person, and seats about 300 people. So for perspective, it produces about as much CO2 to fly 4 people to space as a 777 from New York to London round-trip. Now there are 233 daily flights from New York to London - or 85,000 per year. And that's just New York to London. There have been 18 Blue Origin launches. It's a campfire. A pricy luxury that a few folks take advantage of. Should everyone do it? No. Can everyone do it? No. A carbon tax will sort all this out. But saying we shouldn't address the 85,000 flights from NYC to LHR per year because Bezos blasted off a few times is a really poor way of framing the conversation.
- monocasa 5y ago
  I question your numbers because New Shepard doesn't use carbon based fuel at all. It's replacement, New Glenn, is the problem here.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    I see, I was using this [1] although you are of course right that it's a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket. While it's not carbon free to obtain those, but the numbers are probably quite a bit lower for New Shepard. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/19/billionaires-space-tourism-environment-emissions https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/19/billionaires...
  - whatever1 5y ago
    Hydrogen today is coming mostly as a by product of extraction & refining fossil fuels. https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-resources https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-resources

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> it's starting a business unit that burns an average lifetime's worth of carbon for a couple day recreational trip that's the problem Can’t think of many better ways to kill political support for real climate change legislation than advocating ceding our technological leadership in space technology like this.

whatever1 5y ago
So you just presented the priorities of the US. Military and space domination. Climate is way down the in list of priorities. Should we just stop pretending?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Should we just stop pretending? Who claims climate change is the greatest policy concern to the U.S. or any of the world's regional powers? It's plain as day that isn't the case. That's the problem. That's why nipping at small fry, like plane travel and rockets, is stupid. It deploys limited political capital to a small problem. That distracts from the bigger stuff we need to accomplish, e.g. carbon taxes, electrifying transportation and greening primary production.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    A lot of people claim that. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/greatest-threat-global-security-climate-change-not-merely-environmental-problem https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/greatest-threat-glob...
monocasa 5y ago
I'm not sure how "look at stopping recreational flights if we're getting to the point of asking average people to take less airliner flights", is "ceding our technological leadership in space technology".
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  Sorry, I was responding to advocating against e.g. SpaceX and Blue Origin. Strongly believe we need a carbon tax, which would reduce air travel organically.

arcticbull 5y ago

The ride up emitted 82.5T of CO2 per person. A single Bitcoin transaction emits 1T of CO2. An average American home emits 5T of CO2 per year. One round-trip flight from New York to London emits 1T of CO2 per person, and seats about 300 people. So for perspective, it produces about as much CO2 to fly 4 people to space as a 777 from New York to London round-trip. Now there are 233 daily flights from New York to London - or 85,000 per year. And that's just New York to London. There have been 18 Blue Origin launches. It's a campfire. A pricy luxury that a few folks take advantage of. Should everyone do it? No. Can everyone do it? No. A carbon tax will sort all this out. But saying we shouldn't address the 85,000 flights from NYC to LHR per year because Bezos blasted off a few times is a really poor way of framing the conversation.

monocasa 5y ago
I question your numbers because New Shepard doesn't use carbon based fuel at all. It's replacement, New Glenn, is the problem here.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I see, I was using this [1] although you are of course right that it's a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket. While it's not carbon free to obtain those, but the numbers are probably quite a bit lower for New Shepard. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/19/billionaires-space-tourism-environment-emissions https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/19/billionaires...
- whatever1 5y ago
  Hydrogen today is coming mostly as a by product of extraction & refining fossil fuels. https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-resources https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-resources