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I always feel the talks of private jets are missing the point. (Besides, it's always the private jets of Al Gore and Bill Gates that are in question. People n

I always feel the talks of private jets are missing the point. (Besides, it's always the private jets of Al Gore and Bill Gates that are in question. People never ask about the private jets of BP execs.) To simplify, let's assume that Bill Gates has a Boeing 747, which burns about 38 pounds of fuel per mile [1]. Distance between New York (JFK) and London (LHR) is 3,440 mile. For a round trip, double that, so we have about 261k pounds, or 118 ton of fuel. Applying jet fuel to CO2 conversion ratio of 3.16 [2], we get about 374 ton of CO2. If Bill Gates takes this trip every day for a year, we get about 137,000 tons of CO2. Okay, that's a lot! However, Mankind emitted about 35 billion ton of CO2 in 2020. That's about 66,000 tons per minute. So Bill Gates would have contributed about two minute's worth of global warming in a year. That's still an extremely large amount for a single person, but the question we should ask is, did Bill Gates's action (such as advocating nuclear power) result in delaying global warming by two minutes? Not one year, not even a day, but just two minutes? Alternatively, did he speed up mankind's preparation, again, by two minutes? If the answer to either question is Yes, then I'd argue that it's worth the CO2 spent on it. Now let's invert the question. What's the justification for people who say "Fuck global warming!" and hop on a trip to Hawaii? Collectively they sustain many more flights per year, and it's not like most of them are doing anything substantial to mitigate AGW. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft [2] https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-growth-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-commercial-aviation https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-growth-in-gr...

yucky 4y ago
>Besides, it's always the private jets of Al Gore and Bill Gates that are in question. People never ask about the private jets of BP execs. Because the BP execs aren't being hypocrites and telling all the commoners to lower their living standards..
- h0l0cube 4y ago
  You have to think of the counterfactual. If 1x emissions are required for, say, government advocacy, that reduces emissions by 100x, you would lose 99x of emissions reductions by avoiding the advocacy. It’s not hypocrisy so much as pragmatism
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Can't they just send letter or call on phone? You know minimise the emissions from their own actions. I always wondered why are people flying of all things to these climate conferences, instead of biking or just having them fully remote standing outside in a field...
    - h0l0cube 4y ago
      Telepresence (at least by today's standard) is not the same as being there, and being literally present with decision makers. Overhearing conversations, hallway encounters, inspecting physical infrastructure, having individual agency to move in a space (see things for yourself), being able to 'read the room', and communicating, by your extra commitment, that you are serious not just the decision makers but even the wider public (photo ops), are just the few intangible benefits missing from a zoom call straight off the top of my dome, and that's just scratching the surface. Telepresence is getting better by the day, but let's not pretend it's as effective, particularly in global politics, finance, etc.
      - Ekaros 4y ago
        So maybe we should permanently lock them in single island and throw some gruel and water at them so they don't starve? They could have all the time with each other they need with minimal emissions.
        h0l0cube 4y ago
        Good luck with executing on your plan. May it reap all the benefits we need to shift us away from climate catastrophe.
      - yucky 4y ago
        That also explains why they always seem to own 3+ homes averaging 15,000 sq. feet each?
        4y ago
- epakai 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/bp_plc/status/1186645440621531136 https://twitter.com/bp_plc/status/1186645440621531136 Maybe not directly, but neither is Bill Gates.
prng2021 4y ago
Bill Gates is one of a small group of people I feel should be taking private jets. He and his wife are the world's biggest philanthropists and they do much more good for the world quickly meeting the necessary people to effect change than wasting hours at the airport. For the vast majority of other ultra rich, they should be suffering through awful airports and airlines like everyone else. Partly just so there's a chance their collective frustration of flying actually results in somehow working to improve the broken industry.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  Bill Gates has also built a carbon capture plant. I believe it's still mostly prototype tech, but I have to assume it can capture enough to offset his private plane flight. I feel like if we taxed everyone who buys a private jet 1 carbon capture plant, that would be a good tradeoff.
Ekaros 4y ago
I deeply believe in leading by example. Anyone demanding others change should be fully committed to those actions and demonstrate them in all aspects of their life. Anything else is absolutely purely hypocritical and person doesn't deserve to be heard and should be mocked out from any polite and non-polite conversation.
- yongjik 4y ago
  I have to disagree. Proposing social change and living the change is better than just proposing social change, but (in many cases) the latter is still better than not proposing the change or actively working against it. When you use "leading by example" as an absolute stick, what happens is that you end up being more lenient to the more corrupt and greedy. These people propose that everybody should just take whatever they can buy with their money, consequences be damned, and they live the exact same life - no hypocrisy at all! (It's just a coincidence that they have so much money and power that they can fuck over the less fortunate, while others can't.) I have seen it play out many times in my country (Korea), which is hardly unique in that regard. Once in a while a politician would propose, say, an election reform to cut down illegal funding, and others would attack him "Look at the hypocrite! He says he's against illegal funding of elections, but he used more than one tenth of the illegal funding we did!" True story.

yucky 4y ago

>Besides, it's always the private jets of Al Gore and Bill Gates that are in question. People never ask about the private jets of BP execs. Because the BP execs aren't being hypocrites and telling all the commoners to lower their living standards..

h0l0cube 4y ago
You have to think of the counterfactual. If 1x emissions are required for, say, government advocacy, that reduces emissions by 100x, you would lose 99x of emissions reductions by avoiding the advocacy. It’s not hypocrisy so much as pragmatism
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Can't they just send letter or call on phone? You know minimise the emissions from their own actions. I always wondered why are people flying of all things to these climate conferences, instead of biking or just having them fully remote standing outside in a field...
  - h0l0cube 4y ago
    Telepresence (at least by today's standard) is not the same as being there, and being literally present with decision makers. Overhearing conversations, hallway encounters, inspecting physical infrastructure, having individual agency to move in a space (see things for yourself), being able to 'read the room', and communicating, by your extra commitment, that you are serious not just the decision makers but even the wider public (photo ops), are just the few intangible benefits missing from a zoom call straight off the top of my dome, and that's just scratching the surface. Telepresence is getting better by the day, but let's not pretend it's as effective, particularly in global politics, finance, etc.
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      So maybe we should permanently lock them in single island and throw some gruel and water at them so they don't starve? They could have all the time with each other they need with minimal emissions.
      - h0l0cube 4y ago
        Good luck with executing on your plan. May it reap all the benefits we need to shift us away from climate catastrophe.
    - yucky 4y ago
      That also explains why they always seem to own 3+ homes averaging 15,000 sq. feet each?
      - 4y ago
epakai 4y ago
https://twitter.com/bp_plc/status/1186645440621531136 https://twitter.com/bp_plc/status/1186645440621531136 Maybe not directly, but neither is Bill Gates.

prng2021 4y ago

Bill Gates is one of a small group of people I feel should be taking private jets. He and his wife are the world's biggest philanthropists and they do much more good for the world quickly meeting the necessary people to effect change than wasting hours at the airport. For the vast majority of other ultra rich, they should be suffering through awful airports and airlines like everyone else. Partly just so there's a chance their collective frustration of flying actually results in somehow working to improve the broken industry.

hotpotamus 4y ago
Bill Gates has also built a carbon capture plant. I believe it's still mostly prototype tech, but I have to assume it can capture enough to offset his private plane flight. I feel like if we taxed everyone who buys a private jet 1 carbon capture plant, that would be a good tradeoff.

Ekaros 4y ago

I deeply believe in leading by example. Anyone demanding others change should be fully committed to those actions and demonstrate them in all aspects of their life. Anything else is absolutely purely hypocritical and person doesn't deserve to be heard and should be mocked out from any polite and non-polite conversation.

yongjik 4y ago
I have to disagree. Proposing social change and living the change is better than just proposing social change, but (in many cases) the latter is still better than not proposing the change or actively working against it. When you use "leading by example" as an absolute stick, what happens is that you end up being more lenient to the more corrupt and greedy. These people propose that everybody should just take whatever they can buy with their money, consequences be damned, and they live the exact same life - no hypocrisy at all! (It's just a coincidence that they have so much money and power that they can fuck over the less fortunate, while others can't.) I have seen it play out many times in my country (Korea), which is hardly unique in that regard. Once in a while a politician would propose, say, an election reform to cut down illegal funding, and others would attack him "Look at the hypocrite! He says he's against illegal funding of elections, but he used more than one tenth of the illegal funding we did!" True story.