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Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

nytimes.com

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Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#281

Post by henrikschroder »

esotericn wrote: post #268
saalweachter wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... then we need to fix shipping first. The problem with this logic is that we aren't one person looking at a bug tracker queue deciding one to tackle next. We are a civilization . We need to fix everything all at once, as quickly as possible. If shipping is a problem, fix it now . If air travel is a problem, fix it now . If grid electric is a problem, fix it now . If automotive emissions are a problem, fix it now…

Right. 7 billion people is an unfathomable amount. You don't understand what it means. I don't understand what it means. A person can tackle a bug in a tracker. A company can tackle a bug tracker. A few cities' worth can tackle manufacturing the computer. The world? We got this. All in. If we're enough to fuck it up, we're enough to sort it out.

> If we're enough to fuck it up, we're enough to sort it out.

That's the one thought that gives me comfort around the whole climate crisis problem. We humans have screwed up the climate through absolute mountains of labour. It didn't just happen, it happened as an emergent property of all the various economic activities that humans have been doing for hundreds of years. We don't lack labour to tackle the problem, we lack direction for the labour, incentives that makes civilization as a whole change course and move in the right direction.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#282

Post by m463 »

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…

I remember reading years and years ago that teleconferencing would really change once we put a panel at the end of a conference table with life size images of the participants.

Teleconferencing now isn't what it could be. I think if it were a little bit higher-end it might eliminate a number of physical trips.

I mean, it IS doing that now on laptops all over the world, but I mean make it Telepresence instead of Teleconferencing.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#283

Post by romwell »

the_gastropod wrote: post #241
TulliusCicero wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People traveling, the tourism that is so often bemoaned, is a huge part of the connections between countries, a huge part of diversity and understanding. A world with greatly reduced air travel is a more insular and less understanding world.

Ticking off the number of countries you've visited is hardly a benevolent hobby. You can learn the history, culture, language, traditions, etc. of any country by opening a book, if that's really what you're interested in.

Yeah right, because nobody who travels to a country reads up on the history, culture and traditions. Traveling and reading, after all, are mutually exclusive. /s

Let me tell you of a night in Mardid.

I headed out to see the night Madrid around midnight. Going along a crowded street, I heard someone singing. I was carrying a portable synthesizer, so I played along. Three people, carrying two guitars and a saxophone were walking in the opposite direction; they stopped, and joined in.

Eventually, the girl who was singing left; and the trio asked me if I'd join them to hear a jazz jam. Something is still happening this late, I asked. Yeah, it starts at 2:30AM.

I thought it was an open jam, but it was mostly the house/invited bands playing. Still, I managed to persuade the saxophone player to take the stage with a solo: he played it to me in the corner, where nobody could hear it, and I thought it was really good.

When the jam was over, we resumed making music until sunrise, playing at a bus stop (no buses were running that late). Random people joined in at times.

When the night was over, I left carrying with me something that I'd have trouble putting in words, much less so reading from a text written by someone else. It's an impossible task, after all, to convert a person or a memory into a string of characters losslessly.

You can learn many things from books. And then there is so much more that you can't.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#284

Post by blunte »

marcosdumay wrote: post #258
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…

> noxious oxides of nitrogen and sulphur People keep repeating that. Nobody cares about nitrogen and sulfur oxides on deep sea. Good luck trying to even find evidence it's locally harmful to organisms (most likely, it isn't). At the extent that people are against ship emissions, it's about what they emit at the coast, and that is a very small share of that total you cite. Ships are quite clean of the pollutants that…

There's a great number of humans that live in coastal areas affected by shipping pollution. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1440801/

From that publication, "About 98% of the particles emitted from diesel engines are less than 10 microns in diameter (PM10)" -> that gets into your lungs and potentially into your bloodstream.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#285

Post by DuskStar »

mehrdadn wrote: post #270
DuskStar wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's dubious and far more benign than the consequences of a world with climate change. I'd rather have a connected world with climate change than a disconnected world with WW3... (and probably still climate change, because war is great for CO2 emissions) For that matter, how many people will care about the Great Barrier Reef (etc) if there's no possibility of them ever being able to travel there?

You're worried about CO2 emissions resulting from war? You do realize the role climate change itself can play in migration, refugees, wars, catastrophes..? You need to be worried about climate change resulting in war...

Climate change might also result in war! But I think cutting people off from other countries makes it a lot easier to categorize populations as 'other' and thus ok to go to war with.

There's a lot of ways for the world to fail here.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#286

Post by frereubu »

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 air travel accounts for less emissions than passenger cars..."

I presume you're talking absolutes, but ICE cars (particularly the more fuel efficient ones in Europe) produce less CO2 emissions per passenger mile that planes as far as I understand it, particularly cars with multiple occupancy. I live with my Spanish wife in the UK, and our family goes to see her parents in northern Spain once a year. Having done the calculations it's way better for the three of us to drive than fly.

I also don't agree with the idea that you need to fix one thing before the others - why not try to fix all of them? I don't think it's beyond our ability to tackle more than one thing at a time. The issue here is that emissions from air travel are accelerating - if we do nothing now that will just get worse.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#287

Post by Robotbeat »

lorenzhs wrote: post #280
Robotbeat wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think getting an electric car is even lower hanging. No change in lifestyle, a similar total cost of ownership, but a factor of 2.5-3x lower emissions with even the current grid (and effectively zero emissions in the future grid we'll need anyway). (Plus now you can go on emissions-free road trips.)

Replacing something that still works and isn’t all that old with a new, more energy-efficient product rarely yields a net reduction in emissions. That new thing need to be produced, and production is often a major component of lifecycle emissions.

I understand the Jevons paradox. However, unlike hybrids, electric cars allow complete elimination of emissions. It's a totally different animal, and it avoids the Jevons paradox while also allowing near-term emissions reduction. It's at least 2.5x better. You're not going to drive 2.5x more.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#288

Post by blunte »

arcticbull wrote: post #274
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…

Shipping is the single most efficient way to move anything, followed by trains.

That entirely depends on how you define efficient. In pure immediate financial cost, yes - because the negative consequences of shipping are not borne by the shipping companies or their immediate customers.

And of course, there is also the question of whether it is necessary to ship all the goods that we ship. For example, the Netherlands is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world. Beyond the standard farming fields, there are immense plots of greenhouses - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-...

Yet, if you go to the grocery stores here, you'll find a lot of produce from Brazil and other overseas sources. That's because it's more cost effective, when total costs are not considered, to grow high quality produce here and export it, then import cheaper produce (not necessarily low quality, but just lower cost) from overseas.

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#289

Post by martyvis »

m463 wrote: post #282
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…

I remember reading years and years ago that teleconferencing would really change once we put a panel at the end of a conference table with life size images of the participants. Teleconferencing now isn't what it could be. I think if it were a little bit higher-end it might eliminate a number of physical trips. I mean, it IS doing that now on laptops all over the world, but I mean make it Telepresence instead of Telec…

We actually had these in our office at HP. https://youtu.be/TC4sNztp8dk They were quite well used by execs, but those of us at the bottom end probably only a couple of times for virtual team meetings. They were very expensive, to get the high end video (think 2008). As soon as you have one or two remote attendees though the point of it goes away. After the demerger, building shuffles, they were decommissioned

Re: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

#290

Post by nitwit005 »

More efficient aircraft generally means cheaper flights, which unfortunately also means more flights. The efficiency may well make things worse.

I'd actually prefer if air travel was more expensive. It's become expected that you fly groups of people across the continent to business meetings, and some people make regular flights.

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