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Comment by andersa | Hacker News Reader

It makes no sense to worry about this as an individual while entire countries are failing to act, making the problem worse by refusing to use clean nuclear power and building new coal power plants instead. Or you could see some corporation wasting a million times more carbon than you produce every day because they save a few dollars over a more responsible process. Whether you take that flight or not has no impact on the world at all.

While you worried about this guy going on a vacation, Germany approved dismantling a wind turbine farm to make space for a new coal mine :)

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Air travel accounted for 2.5% of CO2 emissions in 2020, and its total contribution to global warming was probably closer to around 3.5%.[1]

Only 11% of the world's population travelled by air in 2018, with at most 4% taking international flights, and 1% of the world's population accounting for more than half of total emissions.[2]

Passenger air travel is projected to grow by about 44% by 2050,[3] and will probably take up an even more substantial slice of overall emissions by then because technologies to decarbonize air travel (other than direct carbon capture) do not yet exist.

The argument you are making is probably least compelling when applied to air travel compared to any other form of consumerism, and HN's readership (generally speaking) is uniquely culpable here.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-aviation

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802...

[3] https://www.eurocontrol.int/article/aviation-outlook-2050-ai...

People aren’t going to give up travel and it’s unrealistic to expect them to do so. If we rule that out, what alternatives remain?

I assume the answer is going to come in the form of reducing emissions from a typical flight and extracting CO2 from the air.

ExEcUsE Me, ItS JuSt a TeMpOrArY MeAsUrE, AlSo I dOn'T wAnT tO lIvE nExT tO HiRoScHiMa./s

This is a responsibility Dodge at best. You wouldn't say that murdering someone is ethical just because there are many murders worldwide and one more person is just a minor contribution.

If you believe the total carbon emissions pose a problem, then you have to believe your personal contribution is a problem as well if you you are intellectually honest. The sum of the parts add up to the whole.

You can make an argument that maybe it's not the highest priority for public action if you were to stack rank issues, fine. However, to to claim an individual contribution is exactly zero is incorrect.

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