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Tangentially related Good news: You can avoid about half the greenhouse effects of flight by slightly changing the flight plan to avoid cloud forming regions B
by ZeroGravitas 3mo ago
Tangentially related Good news: You can avoid about half the greenhouse effects of flight by slightly changing the flight plan to avoid cloud forming regions
Bad news: this generally wasn't counted before and when counted roughly doubles the impact so in some senses you're back to where you started.
But it's a much lower hanging fruit than anything else and as yet we're not doing it.
- CrimsonRain 3mo agobecause doing this will increase costs instead of performative actions.
- mi_lk 3mo agohow do know if a route would go through cloud forming regions
- kubafu 3mo agoA lot of us is avoiding more by choosing not to fly.
- orphereus 3mo agoI don't think that not travelling is the solution. A lot of people cannot avoid flying.
- tngranados 3mo agoBut even more people can
- delusional 3mo agoWe should be careful not to confound a call to reduce with a call to eliminate. I don't think most people want to completely abolish modern air travel.
- CalRobert 3mo agoIn many instances there are alternatives. Amsterdam to Berlin is served by good rail (except when DB are crappy) and flight options. NYC to DC or Boston. Maybe, someday, SF to LA, and others.
- jtwaleson 3mo agoIMHO you can remove the "good" and "except when". DB is 30% of the time a frustrating experience, which I've noticed makes me want to avoid it, even though I love trains. Trains in the rest of Western Europe are pretty great!
- CalRobert 3mo agoFair, Deutsche Bahn is awful. Went to Berlin with them last November and instead of getting in at 9:00 PM we got in at 1 AM, which was especially horrible given we had a 6 and 8 year old with us.
- jtwaleson 3mo agoThey just cancelled a train from Amsterdam to Munich for me and never replied to my form for a refund. I called them about. Had to spend 600 extra for a sleeper instead.
- port11 3mo agoBoy what happened to DB since 2022? That was when I last travelled in Germany and I was never able to relate to everyone’s online complaints about them. Did Berlin to Nessau through small routes: wonderful. Berlin to Prague? Stellar, if long. Berlin to Munich? Amazing all 4-5 times, unless they forget to stock up on soft pretzels.
- iamgopal 3mo agowandering is human nature, we can not avoid it. with tech, almost 99% reason to travel can be avoided, we human as a nature, we will not skip it.
- ktallett 3mo agoWandering can be slower paced, or to places that are magical but nearer and connected via alternative to planes. Also we can avoid using planes for less important things, like business meetings etc.
- imjonse 3mo agohomo sapiens could avoid wandering in the skies for 200k years, yes we can avoid it. Finding joy in life should not really be correlated with flying often to faraway places.
- dash2 3mo agoI hope I'm not overinterpreting, but I get the sense that you think that's morally better than simply avoiding contrails. If so then this is surely a mistake! While an individual who imposes heavy costs on himself to do something socially valuable is certainly demonstrating commitment to the cause, the best solution for society is the one with the lowest costs.
- lavela 3mo agoPlease explain how more flights with optimal routing are environmentally cheaper than less flights with optimal routing.
- gblargg 3mo agoSounds like parent was taking into account all costs, not just certain ones.
- mlrtime 3mo agoHint: It's performative. The people who are actually doing this don't come to HN to announce it.
- jtrip 3mo agoThis is an issue, a question of an issue, with the maximalist position. By simply using trains wherever possible and avoiding 'frivolous' travel a huge impact can be achieved on one's carbon footprint.
- mmooss 3mo agoActually, lots of people acting together regularly accomplish things - almost everything wortwhile is accomplished that way, probably back to our non-homo ancestors. As a simple matter, it keeps my city clean - we all put garbage in the bins (yes there's a law, but no way could it be enforced if the great majority of people didn't do it already). More dramatically and recently, the protests in India. > society Society is us - you, me, everyone. Nobody else is coming to help us. I'm responsible for what I do, for the consequences of my actions. It's embarassing to say it's someone else's job (especially when the someone else is 'society'), and therefore I'm not going to do anything.
- gleglegle 3mo agocontrails.org do a great job of explaining this and have some solid interactive tools that allow you to simulate the effect of flight plan changes: https://explore.contrails.org/explorer?time_start=2025-01&time_end=2025-12 https://explore.contrails.org/explorer?time_start=2025-01&ti...
- dr_dshiv 3mo agoSo, getting better at manipulating clouds will help prevent planetary heating. I assume there is a huge amount of public support for this scientific research?