"Over all, air travel accounts for about 2.5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions — a far smaller share than emissions from passenger cars or power plants."
2.5% means we should focus on reducing somewhere else in the near term.
2.5% means we should focus on reducing somewhere else in the near term.
"It doesn't matter what Norway does because we're less than 1% of global emission" "It doesn't matter with air travel because it's only 2.5% of emissions" "It doesn't matter with coal power in Germany, because overall it's not that much"
If the rest of the world has that attitude, it won't matter if China and the US (often cited as the ones that matter) get to zero, as that's still not enough.
CO2 emissions is death by a 1000 papercuts, we need to tackle them all
So yes, let's bring aviation under carbon tax and/or cap and trade schemes, then people can decide how much they're willing to pay for these emissions compared to other sector emissions. I would guess travel is something people value and would be willing to pay for, until there are better solutions available
Note: I say this as someone that travel quite a bit for work and leisure - I would definitely be penalized if I have to pay for my emissions
The week following 9/11 was dramatically different. NASA recorded the change in daily temperature range. Less significantly, we had crystal clear skys where I live - for a week!
Water vapor can also seed cloud formation. Air travel causes a daily cycle in this, which might just keep more heat in at night.
You can look at data and see the temperature rise along with energy use (CO2). But to compare it with the rise in air travel is also informative. IIRC there is even an uptick of both during WWII.
But y'all can keep screaming 'bout CO2 till the cows come home. It may be that we really need coal fired airplanes that dont emit water vapor, just more CO2.
Do you have links for this?
The research by Hong and his colleagues, published in Geophysical Research Letters, follows other studies arguing that the September 2001 temperature variations can be explained by the clear, dry weather on the crucial days4, and that climate-modelling results do not support the contrail effects claimed by Travis's group5.
I contend the clear dry weather was a consequence of the lack of planes. It sounds the one of the original authors does too.
All I know is the weather here was beautiful. And very uncharacteristically so. Unfortunately nobody is going to repeat the experiment by grounding the entire fleet for 3 days just to test it.
doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<1671:cctac>2.0.co;2
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0442%28200...
https://www.int-res.com/articles/cr2002/cr2004/26/c026p001.p...
I'd think the vapor trails would also reflect the suns heat so help cool the day time temperatures.
When the op says, "we should focus on…" I assume he's talking about policy, technology, etc., not individual concessions.
The best argument I can imagine for encouraging individual concessions is that, if the campaign to do so is massively successful, it might create a new norm, which will increase public awareness, which will increase public support for new policies and participation in the development of new technologies. But imo that's an unnecessarily roundabout course to chart.
I’m not saying that is or isn’t my perspective, just pointing out that it is a perspective that may hold some validity.
But I do think it's very easy to get sucked into a mindset of, "Let's shame individuals into making sacrifices," without actually doing the math on whether or not that's an effective approach.
I agree that flights are perhaps not the most urgent issue. But encouraging people to fly more is still wrong. When possible, we should avoid flights.
Someone I know got denied boarding a flight on employee standby (~free ticket, family member works for the airline) because they needed the weight for cargo.
You'd think with this limit a leaner airline would come out with per-kg passenger surcharges?
Roughly half the takeoff weight of an airliner is fuel. The fuel burned on a continental-distance (3000+ km / 2000+ mile) flight is roughly equal to the passenger's weight. CO2 emissions by mass exceed the mass of the fuel by a factor of three, as you're adding the mass of the oxygen that's added, far more than the hydrogen that's split off.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-emission-fuels-d_1085...
For a 747, roughly, takeoff, climb and descent require a fixed share of fuel, 7840 kg, and take about 250km (30.1 kg/km), cruise, another 10.1 kg/km. Shorter flights are comparatively worse, but what gets you in long-haul flights is simply the total distance: about 12,000 km for each leg of that Shanghai-NYC trip. And that's allocated across about 420 passengers.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/how-many-cars...
Back-of-the-envelope estimates: At Shanghai-NYC distances, that's 34,300 kg of fuel vs. about 420 * 100 kg/passenger total allowance (rough numbers), or roughly 3x the fuel mass per passenger, per leg, or 9x the CO2 emissions mass. That works out to about 1.8 tonnes based on my figures and maths, which is lower than your parent, but probably assumes too large a plane and too many passengers for a long-distance flight.
But yes: tonnes of CO2 emissions per passenger for round-trip international travel is about right.
That's sounds very low for fuel burn at that distance for a 747. The 747-8 carries over 191,000kg of fuel, yet has a maximum range of only 14,320km.
As an aside, I wonder if using "carbon" as shorthand for "carbon dioxide" does more harm than good.
The "carbon" vs. "fuel" vs. "CO2 emissions" terminology is legitimate -- these are all different real aspects of the phenomenon. Playing fast and loose between these, or simply confusing the terms (see also kW vs. kWh confusion in energy discussions) is far too common. I specifically called which of these I was using and how they're related.
Much of this would benefit by more use of tables and graphs and sensible comparisons, so that people are at least familiar with appearances. Understanding might or might not follow, but the journalistic practice of "tell a story around numbers without using numbers or pictures" seems to me actively harmful.
On the ground, we're starting to have "entirely green days" for electricity - and say new cars that use it.
Look at this like optimizing a program. If you do a profile and one function takes up 80% of the profile and everything else is a tiny fraction, sure, focus on that hot spot. But if you have many many slow functions and none is a clear hotspot, they all need attention, even the 2.5% one.
Of course we have to be smart about our efforts, but it's time we stopped passing the buck around.
In the long term, electric planes would be ideal if we can figure out energy storage (or perhaps wireless energy transmission).
With the flow battery using synthetic fuel you produce & atmospheric oxygen to produce energy & CO2. Which will then get captured again by your synthetic fuel factory.
Win win. :)
There are options to make fuels from other sources - but every time someone brings this up we get the oil shrills screaming about why use food for fuel, or their tired old energy neutral studies that haven't changed their numbers in 20 years.
If you are a management consultant you probably produce more CO2 from air travel in a year than from all other CO2 sources in 5 years
This is global data per sector. The rest of the page is fantastically insightful, too.
However, when talking about world climate actions, we have 7 billion people acting. There's no need to focus. We can cut air travel AND ALSO do everything else. And in fact we need to.
More migration - the smartest researchers in photovoltaics can move to a city where they can make a bigger impact, and still visit their families. Even without migrating, researchers can collaborate across continents.
Increases economic productivity - when production stops at a nuclear plant, you can fly in parts/personnel quickly.
Economic development - if you couldn't fly in technical experts to China, how could you source components from there? Imagine how expensive lithium batteries would be if all components were made in western (expensive) countries. Teslas are fairly expensive, and they already source many parts from China.
The solutions for climate change requires technology and money. Why kill the economy with draconian measures? We need this economy to produce the solutions.
This can make them more rational and less prone to manipulation & hysteria than if they never left the town or country they were born in.
It cracks me up when people talk about plastic and throwaway clothing as ways to cut back on carbon emissions.
1. The alternative's include things they can own and control. This is really important in rural or suburban areas. It's also important for a lot of businesses. 2. The alternative's are handled in a cost effective rollout manner.
Basically, the solutions need to be in the public interest with them in mind. Not sure how that factors into startup and VC thinking these days.
I would imagine that eco friendly public transit systems could cut down on emissions, cut overall costs, and cut congestion in cities. That seems like a good place to target as low hanging fruit.
For many in US just the idea of sharing a space with strangers is revolting. Same applies to dense living.
And that brings another question: how would you have effective public transit system in suburban sprawl?
However, if someone tries to take my car before those alternatives are in place, we're going to have a problem. My problem will be getting to work. The transport authority's problem will be obtaining money from a hostile and/or evaporated tax base.
We build a better world by working together, not by raiding each other and hoping that somehow, in the aftermath, the mass fixes itself.
I use and love public transit and would love to see downtown car free zones that help encourage transit usage and phase out the need to have a car - I wouldn't love to see everyone's car instantly impounded.