Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions • Hacker News Board

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#151

Post by frakkingcylons » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #71

ahelwer wrote: post #17

It is an interesting exercise to ask people to imagine a world without air travel. Where you can't just appear halfway around the world at the drop of a hat. Travel again becomes the domain of boats & trains. To almost anyone you talk to, banning air travel sounds completely ridiculous. In reality it wouldn't be enough by itself. It's on the lower end of action that is required.

This is kind of only true if you're the sort of person who flies a lot. If you're someone who never flies, or flies once every year or two, it's not really a big deal at all. On the rare occasion I travel transcontinental I would need to set aside 3 days each way for travel instead of one, which would be inconvenient but not really a huge problem. Even if my transoceanic freight exclusively went by boat, it wouldn't…

There are probably millions of people in the US alone with family overseas. Set aside a month just to travel there? Be real.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#152

Post by gjasny » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

egdod wrote: post #119

j-pb wrote: post #101

If I take the train, which is the most green transport (CO2 neutral) from one edge of europe to the other (e.g. Berlin to Sicily), the amount I pay is 500 euros and it takes me 35 hours. If I fly the same distance it takes me 3 hours, and I pay 100 euros. Heres the kicker, it costs me 100 euro to buy CO2 compensation and make the flight CO2 neutral, and whenever me and my spouse fly we always pay twice that so that w…

Where do you buy your carbon offsets? What actually happens to the money that you spend on them?

For example at atmosfair: https://www.atmosfair.de/en/

Their website lists some CO2 compensation projects.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#153

Post by rubinelli » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

weeksie wrote: post #14

misiti3780 wrote: post #2

"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.

Yeah, this reads very much as the same kind of moral panic we recently endured over plastic straws. Air travel does emit a ton of carbon per person, but on the whole we're better off putting effort into making renewables cheaper and greening up the agriculture industry. Not that we shouldn't put pressure on the airlines to put R&D into lowering emissions but pretending this is something people can fix by "flying a li…

There's nothing wrong in picking the low-hanging fruit. Pick enough of these, and you start seeing a difference with minimal cost.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#154

Post by rb808 » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #68

misiti3780 wrote: post #2

"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.

Air travel is more important because of the water vapor far more than the carbon. 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 th…

Today was a beautiful clear day too though, September tends to do that.

I'd think the vapor trails would also reflect the suns heat so help cool the day time temperatures.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#155

Post by c0nfused » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

I haven't gotten around the paywall to read the article but the last stats from the US government I can find, 2017 show that aviation has reduced emissions 7.5 percent compared to 1990.

Medium and heavy truck emissions are UP 89.5 percent in the same period but aviation is the crisis. Passenger cars up 20%.

Let's look at Tg emissions in 2017 Aviation: 174.8 On road vehicles 1,558.6

Source: https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P100WUHR.pdf page 2

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#156

Post by frakkingcylons » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

egdod wrote: post #119

j-pb wrote: post #101

If I take the train, which is the most green transport (CO2 neutral) from one edge of europe to the other (e.g. Berlin to Sicily), the amount I pay is 500 euros and it takes me 35 hours. If I fly the same distance it takes me 3 hours, and I pay 100 euros. Heres the kicker, it costs me 100 euro to buy CO2 compensation and make the flight CO2 neutral, and whenever me and my spouse fly we always pay twice that so that w…

Where do you buy your carbon offsets? What actually happens to the money that you spend on them?

I've used COTAP in the past: https://cotap.org/

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#157

Post by loeg » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #143

blunte wrote: post #136

If you need to travel long distances, there's little substitute for an airplane. If air travel accounts for less emissions than passenger cars, and if the top 15 polluting large container ships produce as much (noxious oxides of nitrogen and sulphur) pollution as all cars, then we need to fix shipping first. And if you look at a lot of the crap that is being shipped, it's stuff we just don't need. A lot of things are…

> If you need to travel long distances, there's little substitute for an airplane. The emphasis here isn't on substitute, it's on "need". Not many people need to travel long distances on a regular basis; they're just made to believe they need do.

Price in the carbon and let consumers decide if they still need the travel. I expect a carbon offset tax wouldn't actually decrease air travel that much -- there's so much business travel that needs doing -- but it probably would slow down growth.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#158

Post by csallen » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #88

csallen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems implausible to me that this is a problem that's going to be solved by asking people to make personal sacrifices. The numbers don't add up. 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 n…

There are people who believe that is an essential course to chart because with out the will to change we are nothing. I’m not saying that is or isn’t my perspective, just pointing out that it is a perspective that may hold some validity.

Totally, and this is the perspective I'm responding to. I don't think it's necessarily invalid.

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.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#159

Post by esotericn » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #86

I fly fairly frequently to California from NY for work, lately after reading a few articles like this, I wonder if I should put my foot down to my manager and tell them that I'm not going to anymore until flying is less terrible for the atmosphere. I don't think I'll be fired for that, and even if I were I'd probably be able to find another job without too much trouble at this point, but I feel a bit bad for people d…

Do it. I'm happy to be your accountability partner if that means anything.

I am planning to limit flying to absolute emergencies (think: my parents die and I need to get to the funeral).

I live in a country which has an almost renewable grid. Long journeys can be made by electric car, public transport (which can be electrified), trains, etc.

The highest carbon output from my lifestyle is heating the home, and the embodied emissions of products that are difficult for me to control (I think embedded CO2 on labels, or carbon pricing, etc would be a great idea).

I already fund offsetting efforts, I posted earlier[1] to crowdfund ideas on how I should spend more.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21024358

Why should we do this? Because we can. Because limitless consumption does not make a happy life.

I think that wealthy, or moderately well off, or whatever you want to call it - we people have an obligation to do this. Call it the modern noblesse oblige.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#160

Post by jnwatson » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

tobib wrote: post #112

dr_dshiv wrote: post #104

Can't we put some chemicals in the fuel to mitigate the warming effects? Just do it secretly, so the chemtrails people don't freak. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_inject...

Have you learned nothing from the movie "Snowpiercer"?

The silly dystopian arguments against climate engineering are facile.

Do you think the first attempt will be done at global scale? No, it will be done first at small scale, and then larger and larger.

There is no reasonable scenario in which we would be surprised by the impact of climate engineering.