Also not to mention that flying even ONCE per year round-trip across the country will likely emit more carbon than a full year's worth of local commutes. Now multiply that by 6 for every 2 months.
Everything everyone says about greenhouse gas benefits of remote work just went out the window as soon as air travel is mentioned.
Well, but that kind of criticism applies to anything and everything. For e.g. Do you also judge whether to buy a particular computer based on the amount of greenhouse gas or chemical pollutants in the supply chain that were caused due to its manufacture? Or do you also consider the fact that every-time you make a purchase it has to be put on a ship or a truck or a plane so that it gets to you? If you live in a remote area with low pop. density, there is more fuel being wasted bringing things to fewer people, etc, etc. Trying to reconcile Whats good for the planet vs Whats good for me/everyone is going to involve compromises.
A longer commute will generate more, being stuck in traffic will generate more, building new roads will generate more. A flight that is not cross-Atlantic will generate much less.
It’s not clear which way the balance will tilt, but you can’t just make blanket statement that planes will be worse than cars - you have to show your math.
A round trip from JFK to FRA emits about 0.91 t (910 kg) CO2 but if you account for radiative forcing [1] it is equivalent to 1.62 t (1620 kg) [2].
That's not to mention multiplying all these figures by 6 (for every 2 months), so that's 9720 kg.
I don't think it's a wash.
[0] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1006/ML100621425.pdf
2. Few people will move form US to Germany. It's more likely someone will move e.g. from Portland to San Diego. 275kg roundtrip, 550kg adjusted for radiative forcing.
So if you fly 3 times per year it's a wash, if you fly 6 times a year it's double the CO2 emission.
One reason is that users frequently give corrective upvotes (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=corrective%20upvote&dateRange=...), which leaves a complaint like this dangling as uncollected garbage.