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Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

Yes, I am not bothered by that. I'm bothered by the price. The time is usually fine; there are plugs in the train and it's comfortable. But for trips I do Malaga-Amsterdam or Malaga-London return we are talking 400-600 for train vs <150 for a flight. Bus is the same price as a plane ticket but unsafer (than both train & flight), longer and vastly more uncomfortable (I am Dutch; tall and not a spring chicken).

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I'm not bothered by the price. As a freelancer, I run a business. And businesses should be held accountable for their actions and their impact on the climate. It would be hypocritical for me to complain about Shell using their corporate structure to ruin the earth while my own business is buying plane tickets for European destinations.

So I have no problem with having a little less profit at the end of the year if it means that my business operates with zero-emissions.

I wish I could upvote this more. And thanks for sharing this. It’s good to know I’m not alone and not the only “lunatic”.

If you are truly trying to reduce emissions, it is probably far more effective to buy the $150 plane ticket, and then buy $300 in carbon credits, or solar power or something like that.

You seem to be spot on. According to ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) the carbon footprint of a flight from Malaga -> Amsterdam for 1 person is about 0.161t (metric ton) [1]. One carbon credit gives you the right to release 1t carbon dioxide and according to the NYT (2019) one 1 carbon credit is worth no more than $30 [2]. So, in taking the plane you release 0.16t, but you can prevent the release of up to $300/$30 = 10t with the money you save.

So sure, the train releases less CO2, but if you instead fly and buy carbon credits you prevent 62 times your carbon footprint from the plane ever being released into the atmosphere. But I'm starting to wonder, does my math really check out here? These numbers seem kinda absurd.

1: https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CarbonOffset/P...

2: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/02/climate/prici...

EDIT: I made some edits to a better source, my inital source reported a flight would release 0.4t when in reality it's closer to 0.2

Great, so now we have more trees in a country that I will likely not visit. Meanwhile the people in my own country are suffering from the local pollution caused by planes and corresponding infrastructure. The noise a plane makes. The gigantic space that the airport needs. The local wildlife that suffers.

I was under the impression that carbon dioxide was largely a global problem. I don't have the knowledge to comment on that, or the other problems you brought up - in fact, I don't have much of an established opinion on the topic at all. I just wanted to present some math on how you could theoretically contribute to there being 62 times less CO2 in the atmosphere overall - if that's in your interests. I can't comment on the other intricacies (I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything, I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.)

Trains aren't that great either, unfortunately. Airports are a stain on a place, but railways cut huge stretches of habitats in two. Wildlife passes can help, but it's expensive to build a lot of them, and they're not a panacea. Plus, in some places you have to destroy valuable natural areas if you need to build more rail.

Still, until we have planes that pollute dramatically less (both in gases and in noise), they're the best we have.

You would probably have less trees in that country actually, give that trees need carbon dioxide to grow.

So you're one of those Dutch people living in Andalusia, flying out to work in the Netherlands or other places during the week?

I can understand why someone would do that, but it is affordable only because aviation is mostly untaxed and very inexpensive compared to any other transportation modes. And it is, imo, not a very sustainable lifestyle.

Aviation should be taxed like other transportation (fuel, vat), I do not understand why it is taking forever for politics to come around to doing this. Airplane tickets need to cost at least twice what they are now, the tax income used for sustainable energy investments, that would work much better than that CO2 add-on that they try to shame you into buying at KLM.

I fly to NL twice a year :) I fly mostly to Asia for clients. But I would do that twice a year by train if it were cheaper as that's (usually) not for business.

And yes, I agree they should add it on. I am not bothered with paying a bit more and making it more sustainable, so I try to convince clients to do more via video conferencing, but it is just not as good. I suffer from terrible tinnitus and I found that a lot of (men) suffer from that as well but don't talk about it (shame?) so in conference calls often just no-one can understand anything and politeness/shame prevents anyone (but me) from saying anything about it. Face to face that issue is just not there.

Edit: also I would Find it a better idea if the gov subsidizes the NS like they used to; you want cars of the streets and people travel less by air; make trains really really cheap. Inside NL it's often cheaper (and definitely more convenient) to take the car as well. To me that makes no sense really. I take the train usually in NL because I don't have a car there, but everyone I know just takes their car everywhere unless they live in the center of Amsterdam and travel inside Amsterdam.

Edit:

> I can understand why someone would do that, but it is affordable only because aviation is mostly untaxed and very inexpensive compared to any other transportation modes.

I understand this point that yes, that is not fair. And I understand it is not a viable model if I would just fly where I work (which I don't; I work 90% from home) and I know others do though. But the non sustainable model comes from the fact there are too many emissions which are not covered; as a consumer, why would I care, in any other way but that, about how these prices are formed? I see they are (a lot cheaper), so if I cover the emissions, they are still cheaper. So it's far better than taking the train if you look at it like that. And it does not seem to change soon either so seems quite sustainable too.

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