It’s not the one time meetings that are a problem. It’s a problem when it becomes a habit to fly super regularly, on a daily or weekly basis.
Picking climate friendly locations for a one off meeting has close to zero impact.
Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
51–60 of 85 posts
Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
#52Europe has quite a few high-quality, high-speed rail connections. If I may suggest a feature, in order for the tool is to be faithful to its mission, alternative mods of transport could be supported as well. Personally, I am more than happy to take an overnight train than a short-flight, given the additional overhead of travelling to/from the airport. An overnight train can take you pretty far within continental Euro…
That's what I'm going to do this August with my 3yr old as we'll be visiting friends and family etc. I'd be taking a train to London (about 3h), then EuroStar to Paris (2h 15), then to Berlin (about 8h). Total time ~13 hours. Flight time for me to Berlin is ~4h, but to get to Airport and the wait for boarding brings it probably close to 8h, but then I can't visit the relatives in Paris that easy. Actually I don't lik…
This is the ideal case. However, I have been involved in quite a bit of European projects and it is not that easy. Last meeting was in Poznan and I could have used the train via Berlin from south Germany, but somehow I have not been able to book any night trains lately and traveling over the day would have taken a whole day of my work week instead of half. Next trip is the other direction to The Hague. I will take the train but last time I had to replan my trip 3 times while traveling due to cancellations and delays. I don't want to fly but I am always totally stressed after long train trips. To a typical meeting people from like 10 countries come in a European research project. Traveling from Germany to Spain or even Greece is not really feasible by train until we get better night train connections (only Austrian rail is actually operating them, but there seems currently no chance to book them)
Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
#53It’s not the one time meetings that are a problem. It’s a problem when it becomes a habit to fly super regularly, on a daily or weekly basis. Picking climate friendly locations for a one off meeting has close to zero impact.
I agree with the general sentiment (fix harmful habits first, exceptions later) - but if we set the ideal at no flights - then even a few mid-distance flights come out as pretty bad.
Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm not sure if the tool specifically accounts for that or if the math just ends up working out, but I was testing with various combinations of my family and it always ended up at someone's home airport. Not sure. But if you put the two locations of Caracas, VE and San Francisco, US, they suggest meeting in Houston, US. Does it make sense? Is it more environmental friendly for two people to meet in the middle rathe…
Better for one to travel. A disproportionate amount of a flight’s fuel is in takeoff and climb. Meeting in Houston is far worse because you’ve doubled the required takeoff rolls.
Unless it's accounting for no direct flights between Caracas and San Francisco, which would mean either the Caracas person needs to fly to SF connecting in Houston, or both go to Houston in a direct flight, meet there and go back. It's the same 4 takeoffs.
(Disclaimer, I have no idea if there are direct flights from Caracas to SF, but from Brazil I always need to stop by in a hub)
Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what I'm going to do this August with my 3yr old as we'll be visiting friends and family etc. I'd be taking a train to London (about 3h), then EuroStar to Paris (2h 15), then to Berlin (about 8h). Total time ~13 hours. Flight time for me to Berlin is ~4h, but to get to Airport and the wait for boarding brings it probably close to 8h, but then I can't visit the relatives in Paris that easy. Actually I don't lik…
This is the ideal case. However, I have been involved in quite a bit of European projects and it is not that easy. Last meeting was in Poznan and I could have used the train via Berlin from south Germany, but somehow I have not been able to book any night trains lately and traveling over the day would have taken a whole day of my work week instead of half. Next trip is the other direction to The Hague. I will take th…
Do you have the option to use the train seat as a work space? That way daytime train travel is still useful.
Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what I'm going to do this August with my 3yr old as we'll be visiting friends and family etc. I'd be taking a train to London (about 3h), then EuroStar to Paris (2h 15), then to Berlin (about 8h). Total time ~13 hours. Flight time for me to Berlin is ~4h, but to get to Airport and the wait for boarding brings it probably close to 8h, but then I can't visit the relatives in Paris that easy. Actually I don't lik…
This is the ideal case. However, I have been involved in quite a bit of European projects and it is not that easy. Last meeting was in Poznan and I could have used the train via Berlin from south Germany, but somehow I have not been able to book any night trains lately and traveling over the day would have taken a whole day of my work week instead of half. Next trip is the other direction to The Hague. I will take th…
I don't travel for work by train but for fun, so my experience is probably different to yours.
Some EU countries (Greece, Poland, Portugal) still have terrible, slow trains. Paris-Berlin takes 8h (fastest one) for about 877 km. Berlin-Gdansk takes 8h for about 400 km (!!).
I last traveled by night train about 20 years ago throughout Germany and Poland. It was terrible experience. But great if I was looking for a companion to beer, or surprise sex with random folk.
Also night trains are non-existent in some countries. For example in the UK, most trains run from 6am onwards on week days. Forget if you need to travel from York and be in London for 8am. We have some night services[0] that go out of London to Scotland/Cornwall but I see them more like touristic offer than for any economic reason.
[0] https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/on-the-train/sleeper-trains/
Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
#57Europe has quite a few high-quality, high-speed rail connections. If I may suggest a feature, in order for the tool is to be faithful to its mission, alternative mods of transport could be supported as well. Personally, I am more than happy to take an overnight train than a short-flight, given the additional overhead of travelling to/from the airport. An overnight train can take you pretty far within continental Euro…
I was working on an app as a side project similar to this. Basically each traveler would fill out a form saying I live in X and I have access to car/train/etc. transportation. The idea was to match people and then find a central location for remote teams to meet up. For example, 2 people live in Chicago, 3 in NYC, and one in SF. Where is the best city to meet up; however, I was optimizing on cost.
It turns out several people on HN had similar ideas (Villagers app was one but it seems to be offline now https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33344734). I stopped working on it after reading this HN thread where several people linked to various articles like https://blog.garrytan.com/travel-planning-software-the-most-....
Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
#58It would be cool to see the non-euclidean paths. Still very nice.
Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
#59It’s not the one time meetings that are a problem. It’s a problem when it becomes a habit to fly super regularly, on a daily or weekly basis. Picking climate friendly locations for a one off meeting has close to zero impact.
Agreed. I've met a bunch of people that literally commute via airplane. That's just crazy to me.
A one off meeting isn't going to move the needle as compared to that.
Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location
#60The cheapest place to meet at is usually some destination for tourists, ouside of vacation season of couse.