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Comment by 22c | Hacker News Reader

"not putting carbon into the atmosphere" != "removing carbon from the atmosphere"

Comparing the "cost" of not putting carbon into the atmosphere with the cost of taking it out is incredibly misleading and irresponsible and it leads to the kind of logic of "I was totally about to burn this entire forest down but instead I decided not to, look at how much emissions I've saved!".

Putting that trap aside, according to a calculator I found via Google[1], if this were made mandatory for all passengers then it seems like it would increase the one-way cost of JFK -> LHR by about $10 which seems pretty reasonable. I imagine short-haul flights might become more expensive, but that might encourage more people to consider other means of transport.

[1]: https://co2.myclimate.org/en/portfolios?calculation_id=65175...

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> "not putting carbon into the atmosphere" != "removing carbon from the atmosphere"

That’s not what they claim. Their claim is that the effect on global warming of creating X fewer contrails equals that of putting Y amount of CO2 less into the atmosphere (our main concern isn’t having so much CO2 in the atmosphere, it’s its effect on temperatures)

Unfortunately they also produce Z amount of extra CO2 and don’t know yet whether the effects of X compensate for Y and Z combined.

I may be wrong, but I think user 22c may be trying to point out that we put an amount, W, of CO2 into the air by making the collective decision to fly so many planes in the first place.

More specifically I was talking about equating contrail reduction with removing carbon from the atmosphere, which the article does when it says

> Marc Shapiro, the head of contrails at Breakthrough Energy, calls reducing contrails [...] the equivalent of removing carbon from the atmosphere at a cost of 10 dollars per ton or less

Contrail reduction and carbon sequestration aren't the same thing and it's not fair to equate them on cost.

Its not about carbon. Its about removing contrails (made of water vapor) that warm the atmosphere. Removing the contrails would have a cooling effect that is "equivalent" to removing carbon.

This article is not about carbon at all so I'm not sure why you are bringing that up.

From the article:

> Marc Shapiro, the head of contrails at Breakthrough Energy, calls reducing contrails the “highest-leverage climate opportunity that we know of,” the equivalent of removing carbon from the atmosphere at a cost of 10 dollars per ton or less. ...

> It’s not yet clear how this service will be deployed commercially. Google and Breakthrough view it as research underlying their commitments to reducing carbon footprints.

With effective governance and regulation this kind of measure could be part of addressing climate change in a more cost effective way. In the absence of that bad ideas and even good ideas can fail.

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