18 ms·

Airbus and Climate Change

91 points by timlod 4y ago

cowpig 4y ago
I find myself oscillating between bargaining, depression, and acceptance on this topic. Something will happen in the world, like Bolsonaro losing his election and Lula making some promises, and I will gain hope. Then I'll look at the IPCC again and feel depressed. Then I'll make some commitment to change my life habits in some way that's a bit greener and accept that I can't do much more. But there's still some cognitive dissonance when I reach acceptance. I don't really accept it deep down. I live in fear, especially fear for my kids' generation.
- tito 4y ago
  For you and others reading this, here's some ways to put your skills to work on solutions: https://workonclimate.org/ https://workonclimate.org/ https://www.mcjcollective.com/ https://www.mcjcollective.com/ https://bootup.airminers.org/ https://bootup.airminers.org/
- abyssin 4y ago
  What's helped me is changing my opinion about what I, my kids and the rest of humanity deserve in the grand scheme of things. I used to think we deserve to live in comfort and safety, with the hope of reaching an old age. I thought technology, knowledge and progress where the reason for all that luxury. Now I believe it's got more to do with a sudden rise in available energy. The trend is going down. Life is becoming more tragic again. I won't lie to my children and let them believe war happens to others. I know the world has never been as safe and rich as it's been recently. But I think the peak is around in my part of the world, and the environmental crisis is going to cause many peaks everywhere. I often wonder about refugee camps and wonder how I'd fare in one of them. Is it possible to organise theater courses? How difficult is it to find a space to meditate? Would people still care to have intellectual discussions? A difficult life is still one worth living.
  - nativecoinc 4y ago
    I resent this comment.
  - mozman 4y ago
    I volunteered at a Ukranian refugee camp in Warsaw. You don’t want to go there, see the despair, the frightened children. I hope you’re trolling.
    - abyssin 4y ago
      Of course I don't want to go there. I don't want the consequences of global warming, war, peak oil, and the likes.
      - quonn 4y ago
        It‘s not a consequence but your imagination. Peak oil and global warming are actually opposites. You can‘t fix climate change and hope to find more oil. There‘s a big difference between perhaps not doing holidays in a place far away or even not buying a smart TV or new phone and what you describe.
        abyssin 4y ago
        They aren't opposites, they're different things. My energy hungry lifestyle contributes to global warming and it is comfortable in the short term. What's good now and has been good for me in the past causes something bad in the future. The decline of easy energy is bad for my current lifestyle, and I don't think it can be avoided. But what would be even worse is trying to avoid the decline of easy energy. Because even if there's petrol and coal and gas left in the ground, we should stop burning it, because we have to mitigate climate change. That's the tragedy. We're faced with a choice: maximizing short-term comfort by putting back the consequences of reducing available energy, or minimizing long-term discomfort (might be a euphemism) by deliberately cutting down on still available energy.
  - quonn 4y ago
    What‘s your point? Climate change will lead to war? > Now I believe Exactly. You believe. Old age has very little to do with energy and far more with knowledge and progress in medicine.
- quonn 4y ago
  Fear is the problem, not the solution. I recently talked to a friend and he‘s so much in fear that he just gave up on all the good ways to improve the situation.
kelseyfrog 4y ago
If you don't want to navigate a link to understand what rate 70 means, it refers to a A320 Family production rate of 70 aircraft per month by Q1 2024. Up from 45 aircraft per month in Q4 2021.
- Mesopropithecus 4y ago
  Thank you! I found that hard to dig up even on the linked page.
mcculley 4y ago
While I am completely convinced that humans are changing the climate, I am not convinced that air travel is the big contributor claimed by many. We are only now getting satellite evidence of the amount of methane venting being done industrially, which seems to be a bigger contributor per unit of mass emitted. I live in the U.S., which has many big automobiles transporting just one person. They are a much bigger emitter of carbon per person per unit of distance traveled. I don’t see why we should be discouraging commercial air travel while allowing individual automobiles to emit so much. Those of you who are against air travel for climate reasons, can you share a source that has convinced you that it is a real problem?
- dottedmag 4y ago
  I'm not against air travel for climate reasons, so I can only venture a guess that this is the result of the same psychological mechanism that rivets people attention to air crashes and terrorism, not to car deaths and heart attacks: saliency of former and familiarity of latter.
- abyssin 4y ago
  All sources of emission are real problems, because the consequences of emissions are catastrophic. The issue is to prioritize which ones to work on first. Flying is nice, but less necessary than many other human activities. Living at a continental or planetary scale is completely unnecessary.
  - mcculley 4y ago
    Incentivizing the development of suburbs and lots of driving is unnecessary.
    - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  - mozman 4y ago
    Air travel is a necessity for many, and has quite significant benefits. Goong abroad and learning about people, cultures, and yourself is a difficult thing to quantify but it absolutely pays dividends later in life.
gsatic 4y ago
Cant tell what level of the hierarchy this is coming from. Coming out of the chaos of Brexit and Covid and now with Ukraine, I am not surprised. Seems to be the mood in most large corps in the EU.
zokier 4y ago
I'm kinda confused why the rate 70 is negative thing. They are an aircraft company, obviously they are going to try to sell as many aircraft as possible? What else are they going to do? Having a "green aircraft program" is all nice and dandy, but you need money to do so and money comes from sales.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  They're a killing company, obviously they are going to kill as many people as possible. What else are they going to do? Killing less people is nice and dandy, but you need money to do so and that comes from sales.
- jmcgough 4y ago
  These aircrafts are going to be flying for 30 years, continuing to add to emissions. We have a lot of passenger planes from the 1980s. Producing as many as we possibly can right now is a step in the wrong direction.
  - goethes_kind 4y ago
    They are presumably more fuel efficient than previous generations of aircraft the are replacing, no? Why is it a step in the wrong direction?
martythemaniak 4y ago
One of the biggest mental blocks people have in regards to climate change, is not being able to separate carbon emissions from general environmental angst. In short there's nothing stopping us from converting our civilization to being carbon neutral, but our very existence will always have some environmental impact there is no getting past that. Aviation in particular will be carbon neutral either through synthetic hydrocarbon fuel (Prometheus Terraform), new hydrogen engines, or a network of shorter hop flights with battery powered aircraft (Eviation). In fact it may turn out to be one of the easier industries convert to carbon neutral. If you're really worried, you can work on one of these. If you don't have the skills or the time there's always politics, since you approaches like this will face regulatory and political hurdles that are at least as big as the technical hurdles.
11235813213455 4y ago
I have taken a plane less than 10 times in my whole life (I'm 35) and that'll stay like that for the rest, I already declined travels for work. My CO2 impact is around 400kg/year, so just 2 flights would double it. The average person CO2 impact in my country is around 9tonnes/year
- cagenut 4y ago
  its the single most impactful marginal decision a person can make, thank you.
  - quonn 4y ago
    No it isn‘t. The single most impactful one would be to not have kids. And let me make it clear that I‘m not saying to not have them. I’m just saying that there are different factors that contribute and how one person chooses to cut is their and only their decision. Going a long distance by car is about 4x better than flying, but if you drive 4x as far you have emitted more than on that flight.
    - 11235813213455 4y ago
      It's an optimisation problem, with no binary answers, so everything has to be optimised. Personally: no cars, no plane travels, no kids, no meat/fish, no consumerism, but people don't have to go that far like 1 kid, a light fuel-efficient or light electric vehicle, local food, eggs, and an optimised consumerism, this already cuts down by at least 2 the average CO2 impact by person which is around 9t/y in developed countries
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        Refusing to have children to stop global warming completely defeats the purpose. Global warming isn't going to destroy the Earth within our lifetime, so our future generations are the only reason we should worry about it at all.
dkarl 4y ago
> And it has been quite surprising to discover that, behind the curtains, Airbus employees are much less corporate than we might think. It's depressing that this is surprising, and even more depressing that it gives him optimism about the behavior of Airbus as a whole. The behavior of corporations doesn't reflect the morality of the people in them. The myth that it does is consistently used to argue against the necessity of regulations and enforcement. "Hey, look at all these people working in the ____ industry, they aren't evil. Bad behavior is the exception, a rare perfect storm when a handful of morally bankrupt individuals randomly converge." No, indifference to good and evil is the rule, regardless of the morality of the individuals involved. Destructive strategies that result in profit will be pursued to the hilt, and individuals inside a corporation are helpless to prevent this without laws and aggressive enforcement to support them.
pjerem 4y ago
Airbus have always been a beloved company in Europe. It’s the company we are proud of. It’s the demonstration of the European countries working together. I’m not trying to get romantic, it’s a big company with a lot of issues of course. But it’s a symbol. It’s a company you are proud to say you work for. And I truly hope they will be smart enough to transition or to to help in the energetic transition because if they don’t, they’ll die. And it would be a shame when you are employing so much good engineers. But I’m not sure they will.
goethes_kind 4y ago
I find this sort of discussion a bit too shallow and simple minded. What is Airbus supposed to do exactly? The author sort of implies that Airbus is somehow refusing to adapt or something. But this is just not a good representation of reality. There are only two options to reduce carbon from aviation: 1. don't fly, 2. use synthetic fuels. The use of synthetic fuels is not really up to Airbus. They are not in the fuel business and they do not even build their own engines. So it's really not up to them at all as far as I can see.
- jnsaff2 4y ago
  Even Airbus themselves have powerpoint slides about how they are going to do hydrogen planes etc. Please don't be with a limited imagination.
  - goethes_kind 4y ago
    That is exactly what I am referring to with "synthetic fuels". But this is actually not up to Airbus at all. Airbus cannot, by themselves, create a whole synthetic fuel supply chain. This would be an undertaking that the whole of Europe needs to do together. And Airbus do not produce their engines either. And there is no point in creating an aircraft that cannot be flown because no fuel for it is available.
    - jnsaff2 4y ago
      Synthetic fuels is usually referring to synthetic kerosene which you can just feed into the existing jets as JET-1A. Hydrogen is very-very different and needs complete redesign of the plane. Hydrogen availability is pretty good, I mean most of the availability is not much better in CO2 emissions but with the time it would take Airbus to get the plane into commercial service getting the supply chain there would be pretty easy. I still don't buy your argument that poor airbus has nothing it can do. If it wants to stay relevant in the 20-40 year horizon it needs to go at these hard problems now. If it doesn't then it has made a decision and might die, so what?
      - 4y ago
renewiltord 4y ago
We're going to out-tech this disaster, or we're going to lose a few hundred million. This is not an existential risk. I reckon we'll be fine. We might even arrive at novel regulatory technology involving carbon provenance. We shall see.
gardenfelder 4y ago
I'm reading these comments and I'm remembering Ted Nelson's famous quote: "Everything is intertwingled" google it. The point being that everything is connected, meaning: (In my view) trying to argue distinct components in some massively connected universe may not be all that helpful. It's true that reductionism gets us some grand theories, but, what are the ways we could structure vastly more holistic conversations on these matters?
Kukumber 4y ago
This article is very suspicious considering aviation's future is looking very bright with Airbus, specially in the UK [1], supposed country of the author Don't fall for the FUD, it's like EVs/FuelCell [2] [1] - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/27/airbus-sets-up-uk-facility-to-focus-on-hydrogen-tech-for-aircraft.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/27/airbus-sets-up-uk-facility-t... [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WeoeJyJmN4&t=455s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WeoeJyJmN4&t=455s
joak 4y ago
Flying less or more generally consuming less is not going to solve the climate crisis. We need to go to net zero emissions and then to net negative emission, we need to capture the excess of GHGs to go back to a level where warming stops. If we divide, let's say, by 10 the emissions, we are still emitting too much. The only solution is too eliminate completely the use of fossil fuels. For flying this means zero emissions planes (electric, hydrogen, ...) and/or synthetic fuels. Synthetic fuels is probably the fastest path to net zero emissions: no need of new technology, no need even to build new airplanes. Synthetic fuels is quite easy, if electricity is cheap enough synthetic kerosene will be cheaper than classic kerosene. Luckily, thanks to renewables, electricity is becoming exponentially cheaper. Several companies are on the path of producing synthetic fuels cheaper than fossil ones. One example in mind: terraform industries in Pasadena.

91 points by timlod 4y ago

I find myself oscillating between bargaining, depression, and acceptance on this topic. Something will happen in the world, like Bolsonaro losing his election and Lula making some promises, and I will gain hope. Then I'll look at the IPCC again and feel depressed. Then I'll make some commitment to change my life habits in some way that's a bit greener and accept that I can't do much more. But there's still some cognitive dissonance when I reach acceptance. I don't really accept it deep down. I live in fear, especially fear for my kids' generation.

tito 4y ago
For you and others reading this, here's some ways to put your skills to work on solutions: https://workonclimate.org/ https://workonclimate.org/ https://www.mcjcollective.com/ https://www.mcjcollective.com/ https://bootup.airminers.org/ https://bootup.airminers.org/
abyssin 4y ago
What's helped me is changing my opinion about what I, my kids and the rest of humanity deserve in the grand scheme of things. I used to think we deserve to live in comfort and safety, with the hope of reaching an old age. I thought technology, knowledge and progress where the reason for all that luxury. Now I believe it's got more to do with a sudden rise in available energy. The trend is going down. Life is becoming more tragic again. I won't lie to my children and let them believe war happens to others. I know the world has never been as safe and rich as it's been recently. But I think the peak is around in my part of the world, and the environmental crisis is going to cause many peaks everywhere. I often wonder about refugee camps and wonder how I'd fare in one of them. Is it possible to organise theater courses? How difficult is it to find a space to meditate? Would people still care to have intellectual discussions? A difficult life is still one worth living.
- nativecoinc 4y ago
  I resent this comment.
- mozman 4y ago
  I volunteered at a Ukranian refugee camp in Warsaw. You don’t want to go there, see the despair, the frightened children. I hope you’re trolling.
  - abyssin 4y ago
    Of course I don't want to go there. I don't want the consequences of global warming, war, peak oil, and the likes.
    - quonn 4y ago
      It‘s not a consequence but your imagination. Peak oil and global warming are actually opposites. You can‘t fix climate change and hope to find more oil. There‘s a big difference between perhaps not doing holidays in a place far away or even not buying a smart TV or new phone and what you describe.
      - abyssin 4y ago
        They aren't opposites, they're different things. My energy hungry lifestyle contributes to global warming and it is comfortable in the short term. What's good now and has been good for me in the past causes something bad in the future. The decline of easy energy is bad for my current lifestyle, and I don't think it can be avoided. But what would be even worse is trying to avoid the decline of easy energy. Because even if there's petrol and coal and gas left in the ground, we should stop burning it, because we have to mitigate climate change. That's the tragedy. We're faced with a choice: maximizing short-term comfort by putting back the consequences of reducing available energy, or minimizing long-term discomfort (might be a euphemism) by deliberately cutting down on still available energy.
- quonn 4y ago
  What‘s your point? Climate change will lead to war? > Now I believe Exactly. You believe. Old age has very little to do with energy and far more with knowledge and progress in medicine.
quonn 4y ago
Fear is the problem, not the solution. I recently talked to a friend and he‘s so much in fear that he just gave up on all the good ways to improve the situation.

kelseyfrog 4y ago

If you don't want to navigate a link to understand what rate 70 means, it refers to a A320 Family production rate of 70 aircraft per month by Q1 2024. Up from 45 aircraft per month in Q4 2021.

Mesopropithecus 4y ago
Thank you! I found that hard to dig up even on the linked page.

mcculley 4y ago

While I am completely convinced that humans are changing the climate, I am not convinced that air travel is the big contributor claimed by many. We are only now getting satellite evidence of the amount of methane venting being done industrially, which seems to be a bigger contributor per unit of mass emitted. I live in the U.S., which has many big automobiles transporting just one person. They are a much bigger emitter of carbon per person per unit of distance traveled. I don’t see why we should be discouraging commercial air travel while allowing individual automobiles to emit so much. Those of you who are against air travel for climate reasons, can you share a source that has convinced you that it is a real problem?

dottedmag 4y ago
I'm not against air travel for climate reasons, so I can only venture a guess that this is the result of the same psychological mechanism that rivets people attention to air crashes and terrorism, not to car deaths and heart attacks: saliency of former and familiarity of latter.
abyssin 4y ago
All sources of emission are real problems, because the consequences of emissions are catastrophic. The issue is to prioritize which ones to work on first. Flying is nice, but less necessary than many other human activities. Living at a continental or planetary scale is completely unnecessary.
- mcculley 4y ago
  Incentivizing the development of suburbs and lots of driving is unnecessary.
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
- mozman 4y ago
  Air travel is a necessity for many, and has quite significant benefits. Goong abroad and learning about people, cultures, and yourself is a difficult thing to quantify but it absolutely pays dividends later in life.

gsatic 4y ago

Cant tell what level of the hierarchy this is coming from. Coming out of the chaos of Brexit and Covid and now with Ukraine, I am not surprised. Seems to be the mood in most large corps in the EU.

zokier 4y ago

I'm kinda confused why the rate 70 is negative thing. They are an aircraft company, obviously they are going to try to sell as many aircraft as possible? What else are they going to do? Having a "green aircraft program" is all nice and dandy, but you need money to do so and money comes from sales.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
They're a killing company, obviously they are going to kill as many people as possible. What else are they going to do? Killing less people is nice and dandy, but you need money to do so and that comes from sales.
jmcgough 4y ago
These aircrafts are going to be flying for 30 years, continuing to add to emissions. We have a lot of passenger planes from the 1980s. Producing as many as we possibly can right now is a step in the wrong direction.
- goethes_kind 4y ago
  They are presumably more fuel efficient than previous generations of aircraft the are replacing, no? Why is it a step in the wrong direction?

martythemaniak 4y ago

One of the biggest mental blocks people have in regards to climate change, is not being able to separate carbon emissions from general environmental angst. In short there's nothing stopping us from converting our civilization to being carbon neutral, but our very existence will always have some environmental impact there is no getting past that. Aviation in particular will be carbon neutral either through synthetic hydrocarbon fuel (Prometheus Terraform), new hydrogen engines, or a network of shorter hop flights with battery powered aircraft (Eviation). In fact it may turn out to be one of the easier industries convert to carbon neutral. If you're really worried, you can work on one of these. If you don't have the skills or the time there's always politics, since you approaches like this will face regulatory and political hurdles that are at least as big as the technical hurdles.

11235813213455 4y ago

I have taken a plane less than 10 times in my whole life (I'm 35) and that'll stay like that for the rest, I already declined travels for work. My CO2 impact is around 400kg/year, so just 2 flights would double it. The average person CO2 impact in my country is around 9tonnes/year

cagenut 4y ago
its the single most impactful marginal decision a person can make, thank you.
- quonn 4y ago
  No it isn‘t. The single most impactful one would be to not have kids. And let me make it clear that I‘m not saying to not have them. I’m just saying that there are different factors that contribute and how one person chooses to cut is their and only their decision. Going a long distance by car is about 4x better than flying, but if you drive 4x as far you have emitted more than on that flight.
  - 11235813213455 4y ago
    It's an optimisation problem, with no binary answers, so everything has to be optimised. Personally: no cars, no plane travels, no kids, no meat/fish, no consumerism, but people don't have to go that far like 1 kid, a light fuel-efficient or light electric vehicle, local food, eggs, and an optimised consumerism, this already cuts down by at least 2 the average CO2 impact by person which is around 9t/y in developed countries
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      Refusing to have children to stop global warming completely defeats the purpose. Global warming isn't going to destroy the Earth within our lifetime, so our future generations are the only reason we should worry about it at all.

dkarl 4y ago

> And it has been quite surprising to discover that, behind the curtains, Airbus employees are much less corporate than we might think. It's depressing that this is surprising, and even more depressing that it gives him optimism about the behavior of Airbus as a whole. The behavior of corporations doesn't reflect the morality of the people in them. The myth that it does is consistently used to argue against the necessity of regulations and enforcement. "Hey, look at all these people working in the ____ industry, they aren't evil. Bad behavior is the exception, a rare perfect storm when a handful of morally bankrupt individuals randomly converge." No, indifference to good and evil is the rule, regardless of the morality of the individuals involved. Destructive strategies that result in profit will be pursued to the hilt, and individuals inside a corporation are helpless to prevent this without laws and aggressive enforcement to support them.

pjerem 4y ago

Airbus have always been a beloved company in Europe. It’s the company we are proud of. It’s the demonstration of the European countries working together. I’m not trying to get romantic, it’s a big company with a lot of issues of course. But it’s a symbol. It’s a company you are proud to say you work for. And I truly hope they will be smart enough to transition or to to help in the energetic transition because if they don’t, they’ll die. And it would be a shame when you are employing so much good engineers. But I’m not sure they will.

goethes_kind 4y ago

I find this sort of discussion a bit too shallow and simple minded. What is Airbus supposed to do exactly? The author sort of implies that Airbus is somehow refusing to adapt or something. But this is just not a good representation of reality. There are only two options to reduce carbon from aviation: 1. don't fly, 2. use synthetic fuels. The use of synthetic fuels is not really up to Airbus. They are not in the fuel business and they do not even build their own engines. So it's really not up to them at all as far as I can see.

jnsaff2 4y ago
Even Airbus themselves have powerpoint slides about how they are going to do hydrogen planes etc. Please don't be with a limited imagination.
- goethes_kind 4y ago
  That is exactly what I am referring to with "synthetic fuels". But this is actually not up to Airbus at all. Airbus cannot, by themselves, create a whole synthetic fuel supply chain. This would be an undertaking that the whole of Europe needs to do together. And Airbus do not produce their engines either. And there is no point in creating an aircraft that cannot be flown because no fuel for it is available.
  - jnsaff2 4y ago
    Synthetic fuels is usually referring to synthetic kerosene which you can just feed into the existing jets as JET-1A. Hydrogen is very-very different and needs complete redesign of the plane. Hydrogen availability is pretty good, I mean most of the availability is not much better in CO2 emissions but with the time it would take Airbus to get the plane into commercial service getting the supply chain there would be pretty easy. I still don't buy your argument that poor airbus has nothing it can do. If it wants to stay relevant in the 20-40 year horizon it needs to go at these hard problems now. If it doesn't then it has made a decision and might die, so what?
    - 4y ago

renewiltord 4y ago

We're going to out-tech this disaster, or we're going to lose a few hundred million. This is not an existential risk. I reckon we'll be fine. We might even arrive at novel regulatory technology involving carbon provenance. We shall see.

gardenfelder 4y ago

I'm reading these comments and I'm remembering Ted Nelson's famous quote: "Everything is intertwingled" google it. The point being that everything is connected, meaning: (In my view) trying to argue distinct components in some massively connected universe may not be all that helpful. It's true that reductionism gets us some grand theories, but, what are the ways we could structure vastly more holistic conversations on these matters?

Kukumber 4y ago

This article is very suspicious considering aviation's future is looking very bright with Airbus, specially in the UK [1], supposed country of the author Don't fall for the FUD, it's like EVs/FuelCell [2] [1] - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/27/airbus-sets-up-uk-facility-to-focus-on-hydrogen-tech-for-aircraft.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/27/airbus-sets-up-uk-facility-t... [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WeoeJyJmN4&t=455s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WeoeJyJmN4&t=455s

joak 4y ago

Flying less or more generally consuming less is not going to solve the climate crisis. We need to go to net zero emissions and then to net negative emission, we need to capture the excess of GHGs to go back to a level where warming stops. If we divide, let's say, by 10 the emissions, we are still emitting too much. The only solution is too eliminate completely the use of fossil fuels. For flying this means zero emissions planes (electric, hydrogen, ...) and/or synthetic fuels. Synthetic fuels is probably the fastest path to net zero emissions: no need of new technology, no need even to build new airplanes. Synthetic fuels is quite easy, if electricity is cheap enough synthetic kerosene will be cheaper than classic kerosene. Luckily, thanks to renewables, electricity is becoming exponentially cheaper. Several companies are on the path of producing synthetic fuels cheaper than fossil ones. One example in mind: terraform industries in Pasadena.