I totally agree with you but there’s a question that should be asked when it comes to going on vacation all over the place (and from what I understand it’s more common in the USA/English Canada to move very far for school and to take the plane multiple times a year to go see one’s family)… It’s simply unsustainable but people keep pointing at the rich with their private jet but when looking at the big picture, it’s tourists that allow commercial flights companies to continuously increase the number of flights they offer…
It’s really not, though. Commercial aviation and transport (including private jets, commercial flights, and shipping/import) combined make up only 5.3% of the total CO2 in use. While commercial flights make up 70% of that slice, they also have an exponential effect vs. the alternative. Even if there are more flights, unless they are less than half-full, using commercial airlines is more sustainable and also safer than the other alternatives because the effect is multiplicative.
Imagine everyone was taking private jets. If you forced everyone to fly in pairs, you would literally halve the amount of CO2. Force them to fly in 4’s, and it’s a further halving of that first half (equal to 1/4 the amount of CO2 now). Extend that further and further until you have a flight with 647 passengers (the “average” amount for commercial flight globally) and look how much CO2 you’ve prevented from entering the atmosphere. Even if someone is touring 6 or more times per year, as long as they’re flying a commercial flight, it’s better for CO2 production than a car or individual transport.
It’s far more effective to direct efforts to something outside of that 5% (or especially a subsection of that 5%) like manufacturing or industrial CO2 pollution.
People shouldn’t be flying so dang much, it’s that simple. It’s not normal to expect to take one week off work and to be able to spend it guilt free on the other side of the world. I’m talking about eliminating commercial flights not to replace them with private jets, but to replace them with local vacations and with the expectation that if you decide to move across the continent you won’t be seeing your family four times a year but once every four years.
Our incredible mobility is an unsustainable anomaly in human’s history.
You can’t just make a claim like “people shouldn’t fly as much” without a reason why or claims like “mobility is an unsustainable” without any kind of evidence. Our mobility is 100% sustainable. Not only that, it’s sustainable in its current form.
What? What you’re saying doesn’t make sense, your previous message you were saying so yourself, 5.3% of all CO2 emissions, 70% of that coming from commercial passenger flights!
I think you’re not understanding the numbers. 70% of 5.3% of total emissions is 3.7% of total global emissions. In other words, if you eliminated all commercial flights, you’d only remove 3.7% of the total emissions being produced in the world. There are more impactful changes that can be made that do not have the impact of “no one can ever fly anywhere and you won’t see your family for years”.
No, it’s not. With your attitude we can justify not intervening to reduce emissions in any sector because all of them taken individually don’t represent that much emissions.
Fossil fuel use in non-aviation transportation makes up almost 26% of the CO2 emissions globally. Don’t be ridiculous. I have said multiple times that there are much more impactful ways to make a big dent in CO2 emissions that don’t require people to live isolated from their families. You’re being dishonest.
And planes aren’t as efficient as cars for the same mileage traveled and people use then to travel longer distances than they would if they went on vacation by car. Even better if trains as an alternative.
As far as emissions are concerned, planes are the worst to transport both people and goods and should be limited to what is absolutely necessary.
Oh is the current state of the ice sheets because of the 3% of CO2 from airlines? Or maybe there are bigger contributors to what’s going on there that we can tackle first?
I can’t decide which is more depressing, you fighting for people to have the right to keep polluting by flying around their own jets, or the fact that you’ll never even benefit from your campaign to defend the rich assholes fucking up our environment for their own convinience.
I can’t help it if you’re wrong. I’m not defending rich people, I’m just stating a fact. Planes are more fuel efficient than cars and there are more cars with less fuel efficiency. If you want to help the problem, planes are farther down the list of impacts than cars.
“A new report from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute shows that flying has become 74% more efficient per passenger since 1970 while driving gained only 17% efficiency per passenger. In fact, the average plane trip has been more fuel efficient than the average car trip since as far back as 2000, according to their calculations.”
The report is called “Making Driving less Energy Intensive than Flying”.
What’s depressing is that you’re so confidently incorrect yet continue to argue.
Commercial aviation and transport (including private jets, commercial flights, and shipping/import) combined make up only 5.3% of the total CO2 in use.
That’s between the total CO2 emissions of Russia and India, ranked 3rd and 4th worldwide (only China and the USA have higher emissions, and those two lead by huge margins). By that logic, all countries in the world besides China and the USA could stop reducing emissions because they only cause sub 10% shares of the total.
You just can’t argue that way. 5% are a big, signifikant amount. There isn’t a whole lot “outside that 5%”. Ultimately, all of it has to become 0 anyway.
By that logic, all countries in the world besides China and the USA could stop reducing emissions because they only cause sub 10% shares of the total.
No, because China and the USA are both affected by the emissions regardless of which one of them are responsible for them. In that case, the one we’re actually faced with, it makes more sense to tackle the emissions that are highest first and that have the lowest barriers. You pick the problems with the largest return on investment in time and resources. Airplanes are not that. Banning commercial flights for people is a fantasy and banning private jets, although something I agree with for other reasons, is not enough to make a dent.
There isn’t a whole lot “outside that 5%”.
Yes, there is. Cars, on average, have not lowered their emissions at anywhere near the same rate as airplanes have over the last 20 years and that’s including new electric cars. Until electric cars overtake gas-powered vehicles, which is currently projected to happen in 2031, there is enough within this sector alone that is more than 5% of the problem and that doesn’t require an absolute fantasy for a solution. And that doesn’t even touch manufacturing and industrial emissions which account for an even bigger slice because of the energy they use.
You’re right… it all has to become 0 anyways but we don’t have unlimited time or unlimited resources. Efforts need to be prioritized to put the ways that are realistic and meaningful at the top and unrealistic ways that solve 5% of the problem at the bottom.
Fossil fueled cars aren’t going to get that much more efficient in the foreseeable future, especially since manufacturers know they are a dead horse.
So what do you propose for that sector? Banning driving? And that’s then easier than banning private flying, despite far more people relying on it every day, it being far more decentralized and far harder to regulate for that reason? Globally, at that?
I mean of course we should improve public transit to make it a better alternative, but that’s an equally monumental task that will take decades in most places.
Air travel is definitely a lower hanging fruit as for the majority of people it’s a luxury, not a necessity.
You do know that electric cars exist, right? Replacing gas powered cars, trucks, and semis would have a far more significant impact with less inconvenience and change required than it would to ban commercial air travel even partially. You say it’s a luxury but companies, families, and governments rely on it.
Commercial aviation and transport (including private jets, commercial flights, and shipping/import) combined make up only 5.3% of the total CO2 in use.
That may very well be but there are parts of that that are significantly more useful than others. Travelling from A to B only to travel back a few days later is probably among the most inefficient of those. That covers things like family visits, tourism, business meetings and many other human round-trips. There are probably a few exceptions, such as specialist workers coming to the device they repair if that device is even harder to move but overall most travel for short periods of time is very wasteful.
That’s not accurate, though. The number one usage of cars globally is commuting to and from work and that averages 1.2 passengers per vehicle. If you look at total car and light-duty usage across any kind of trip, it’s 1.3 passengers per vehicle. Usefulness has nothing to do with it and tourism contributes far more than it takes. All forms of travel are wasteful. Aviation is just less wasteful than other means of travel no matter how you slice it.
You’re comparing the environmental impact of a trip taken by plane vs. the same trip taken by car. I don’t think that is a reasonable comparison.
The presence of the aviation industry makes it feasible for a New York family to take a vacation in California or Hawaii. Without aviation, that same family is unlikely to choose the long-distance trip, and would likely decide to visit Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, North Carolina, or some other nearby destination instead, driving 280-500 miles instead of flying 2800-5000 miles.
No. The parent made that comparison when they said it’s more sustainable to drive a Suburban with 4 people than it is for them to fly. That is just flat out untrue no matter how you look at it for all but the shortest of trips where it’s not even practical to take a flight.
I think you need to read the parent comment again. They are are specifically arguing that people shouldn’t regularly be taking such long trips. They specifically argued against the common practice of “USA / English Canada” students taking multiple long-distance flights a year.
I think you need to reread the (now) grandparent comment again:
Did you know that four passengers in a Suburban pollute less for the same amount of miles traveled than if they were going to their destination by plane?
They’re arguing that people should be required to isolate from their families if they live far enough away. That’s nonsense.
They specifically argued against the common practice of “USA / English Canada” students taking multiple long-distance flights a year.
Yes, and I’m arguing that that’s nonsensical considering that all CO2 emissions from all form of commercial aviation travel are less than 3% of the global total.
They suggested in a subsequent comment that the practice of going to school far away was unusual outside of USA/Canada. Their suggestion was that people shouldn’t move that far from their families if they plan on regularly visiting them. Their suggestion was “pick a school 20 or 200 miles from home, rather than 2000”.
You seem to be hung up on one particular point about suburbans and not on the overarching message, which is just “travel less”.
3% is a lot. I don’t know where you get the idea that it isn’t.
You seem to be hung up on one particular point about suburbans and not on the overarching message, which is just “travel less”.
No, not at all. I am hung up on the overall point to “travel less” because air travel doesn’t make up a significant portion of the problem. 1% of travelers make up the majority of the use here. And that’s not in the “1% of the richest people in the world” 1% it’s the 1% of people who travel the most often and they’re already flying commercial - one of the most cost effective and energy efficient means of mass transit that we have. They’re not using private jets.
3% is a significant portion of emissions. I don’t know why you keep insinuating that it is not.
Commercial flight is not energy efficient. You said it yourself: it is time efficient. You don’t get to constantly repeat their “suburban” argument and then ignore that the suburban - one of the least energy-efficient passenger vehicles - is considerably more energy efficient than air travel. You will burn less fuel per mile per person in the suburban than in the airplane.
Reducing travel expectations has a massive effect. Changing societal expectations from 2000-mile trips to 200-mile trips reduces a 3% problem to a 0.3% problem.
Electric vehicles are now viable options for most personal and commercial vehicles. Even heavy-haul has viable electric options coming online. Natural gas produces about 1/3 the carbon output as an energy equivalent amount of jet fuel, and has replaced diesel in the majority of metro bus fleets.
The state of alternative energy use in aviation is in its infancy: no options to date are remotely viable replacements for kerosene-based jet fuel. As absolute carbon use declines in the ground transport fleet, the relative proportion of carbon use rises in the aviation sector. Every other sector is primed to reduce emissions. Lagging behind is the aviation sector. That 3% number has nowhere to go but up.
They're arguing that people *should be required to isolate from their families if they live far enough away*. That's nonsense.
That’s exactly how people lived until the 1950s, if people decided to move across the continent for school they isolated themselves from their family and knew that was the price to pay.
I’m pointing out that we’re living in an historical anomaly and I’ve proven multiple times by now that it’s not sustainable unless you don’t understand how math works.
that’s 5.3% of the carbon emissions that don’t actually contribute to the economy in a useful way. We will have to continue burning carbon to transport food and goods; transporting rich assholes to davos? fuck’em. if they want to go that bad get on commercial (GODS FORBID FIRST CLASS) or hop on the fucking yachts they all love.
5.3% is commercial airlines. 5.3% includes all air travel including commercial and commercial makes up 70% of that 5%. If you’re going to argue against something, get it straight what you’re actually arguing about.
Also, you’re insane if you think that commercial aviation and transport don’t contribute to the economy. How do you think your cell phone that you’re using to type this nonsense got to you?
Do you live in China? If not, it may have gotten to you by a combination of means definitely involving an airplane. Even if it didn’t make it to you directly, it likely travelled to several different places before it even got in your hands and the likelihood of an airplane being part of that is extremely high.
No one’s talking about rich assholes. We’re talking about the top 1% of travelers. That may include some rich assholes but that’s not what the article is talking about. It’s talking about the top 1% of travelers which also includes scientists, public figures, and missionaries.
transporting rich assholes to davos? fuck’em. if they want to go that bad get on commercial (GODS FORBID FIRST CLASS) or hop on the fucking yachts they all love.
since you obviously didn’t read it the first time.
I totally agree with you but there’s a question that should be asked when it comes to going on vacation all over the place (and from what I understand it’s more common in the USA/English Canada to move very far for school and to take the plane multiple times a year to go see one’s family)… It’s simply unsustainable but people keep pointing at the rich with their private jet but when looking at the big picture, it’s tourists that allow commercial flights companies to continuously increase the number of flights they offer…
It’s really not, though. Commercial aviation and transport (including private jets, commercial flights, and shipping/import) combined make up only 5.3% of the total CO2 in use. While commercial flights make up 70% of that slice, they also have an exponential effect vs. the alternative. Even if there are more flights, unless they are less than half-full, using commercial airlines is more sustainable and also safer than the other alternatives because the effect is multiplicative.
Imagine everyone was taking private jets. If you forced everyone to fly in pairs, you would literally halve the amount of CO2. Force them to fly in 4’s, and it’s a further halving of that first half (equal to 1/4 the amount of CO2 now). Extend that further and further until you have a flight with 647 passengers (the “average” amount for commercial flight globally) and look how much CO2 you’ve prevented from entering the atmosphere. Even if someone is touring 6 or more times per year, as long as they’re flying a commercial flight, it’s better for CO2 production than a car or individual transport.
It’s far more effective to direct efforts to something outside of that 5% (or especially a subsection of that 5%) like manufacturing or industrial CO2 pollution.
You don’t understand what I’m saying.
People shouldn’t be flying so dang much, it’s that simple. It’s not normal to expect to take one week off work and to be able to spend it guilt free on the other side of the world. I’m talking about eliminating commercial flights not to replace them with private jets, but to replace them with local vacations and with the expectation that if you decide to move across the continent you won’t be seeing your family four times a year but once every four years.
Our incredible mobility is an unsustainable anomaly in human’s history.
Why?
You can’t just make a claim like “people shouldn’t fly as much” without a reason why or claims like “mobility is an unsustainable” without any kind of evidence. Our mobility is 100% sustainable. Not only that, it’s sustainable in its current form.
What? What you’re saying doesn’t make sense, your previous message you were saying so yourself, 5.3% of all CO2 emissions, 70% of that coming from commercial passenger flights!
It’s. Not. Sustainable.
I think you’re not understanding the numbers. 70% of 5.3% of total emissions is 3.7% of total global emissions. In other words, if you eliminated all commercial flights, you’d only remove 3.7% of the total emissions being produced in the world. There are more impactful changes that can be made that do not have the impact of “no one can ever fly anywhere and you won’t see your family for years”.
It is sustainable.
🙄
No, it’s not. With your attitude we can justify not intervening to reduce emissions in any sector because all of them taken individually don’t represent that much emissions.
Fossil fuel use in non-aviation transportation makes up almost 26% of the CO2 emissions globally. Don’t be ridiculous. I have said multiple times that there are much more impactful ways to make a big dent in CO2 emissions that don’t require people to live isolated from their families. You’re being dishonest.
And planes aren’t as efficient as cars for the same mileage traveled and people use then to travel longer distances than they would if they went on vacation by car. Even better if trains as an alternative.
As far as emissions are concerned, planes are the worst to transport both people and goods and should be limited to what is absolutely necessary.
Oh the ice sheets on your planet are fine huh?
JFC
Oh is the current state of the ice sheets because of the 3% of CO2 from airlines? Or maybe there are bigger contributors to what’s going on there that we can tackle first?
Idiot.
I can’t decide which is more depressing, you fighting for people to have the right to keep polluting by flying around their own jets, or the fact that you’ll never even benefit from your campaign to defend the rich assholes fucking up our environment for their own convinience.
either way you’re a sad, dumb sack of trash.
I can’t help it if you’re wrong. I’m not defending rich people, I’m just stating a fact. Planes are more fuel efficient than cars and there are more cars with less fuel efficiency. If you want to help the problem, planes are farther down the list of impacts than cars.
http://websites.umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/UMTRI-2014-2_Abstract_English.pdf
“A new report from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute shows that flying has become 74% more efficient per passenger since 1970 while driving gained only 17% efficiency per passenger. In fact, the average plane trip has been more fuel efficient than the average car trip since as far back as 2000, according to their calculations.”
The report is called “Making Driving less Energy Intensive than Flying”.
What’s depressing is that you’re so confidently incorrect yet continue to argue.
That’s between the total CO2 emissions of Russia and India, ranked 3rd and 4th worldwide (only China and the USA have higher emissions, and those two lead by huge margins). By that logic, all countries in the world besides China and the USA could stop reducing emissions because they only cause sub 10% shares of the total.
You just can’t argue that way. 5% are a big, signifikant amount. There isn’t a whole lot “outside that 5%”. Ultimately, all of it has to become 0 anyway.
No, because China and the USA are both affected by the emissions regardless of which one of them are responsible for them. In that case, the one we’re actually faced with, it makes more sense to tackle the emissions that are highest first and that have the lowest barriers. You pick the problems with the largest return on investment in time and resources. Airplanes are not that. Banning commercial flights for people is a fantasy and banning private jets, although something I agree with for other reasons, is not enough to make a dent.
Yes, there is. Cars, on average, have not lowered their emissions at anywhere near the same rate as airplanes have over the last 20 years and that’s including new electric cars. Until electric cars overtake gas-powered vehicles, which is currently projected to happen in 2031, there is enough within this sector alone that is more than 5% of the problem and that doesn’t require an absolute fantasy for a solution. And that doesn’t even touch manufacturing and industrial emissions which account for an even bigger slice because of the energy they use.
You’re right… it all has to become 0 anyways but we don’t have unlimited time or unlimited resources. Efforts need to be prioritized to put the ways that are realistic and meaningful at the top and unrealistic ways that solve 5% of the problem at the bottom.
Fossil fueled cars aren’t going to get that much more efficient in the foreseeable future, especially since manufacturers know they are a dead horse.
So what do you propose for that sector? Banning driving? And that’s then easier than banning private flying, despite far more people relying on it every day, it being far more decentralized and far harder to regulate for that reason? Globally, at that? I mean of course we should improve public transit to make it a better alternative, but that’s an equally monumental task that will take decades in most places.
Air travel is definitely a lower hanging fruit as for the majority of people it’s a luxury, not a necessity.
You do know that electric cars exist, right? Replacing gas powered cars, trucks, and semis would have a far more significant impact with less inconvenience and change required than it would to ban commercial air travel even partially. You say it’s a luxury but companies, families, and governments rely on it.
That may very well be but there are parts of that that are significantly more useful than others. Travelling from A to B only to travel back a few days later is probably among the most inefficient of those. That covers things like family visits, tourism, business meetings and many other human round-trips. There are probably a few exceptions, such as specialist workers coming to the device they repair if that device is even harder to move but overall most travel for short periods of time is very wasteful.
That’s not accurate, though. The number one usage of cars globally is commuting to and from work and that averages 1.2 passengers per vehicle. If you look at total car and light-duty usage across any kind of trip, it’s 1.3 passengers per vehicle. Usefulness has nothing to do with it and tourism contributes far more than it takes. All forms of travel are wasteful. Aviation is just less wasteful than other means of travel no matter how you slice it.
You’re comparing the environmental impact of a trip taken by plane vs. the same trip taken by car. I don’t think that is a reasonable comparison.
The presence of the aviation industry makes it feasible for a New York family to take a vacation in California or Hawaii. Without aviation, that same family is unlikely to choose the long-distance trip, and would likely decide to visit Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, North Carolina, or some other nearby destination instead, driving 280-500 miles instead of flying 2800-5000 miles.
No. The parent made that comparison when they said it’s more sustainable to drive a Suburban with 4 people than it is for them to fly. That is just flat out untrue no matter how you look at it for all but the shortest of trips where it’s not even practical to take a flight.
I think you need to read the parent comment again. They are are specifically arguing that people shouldn’t regularly be taking such long trips. They specifically argued against the common practice of “USA / English Canada” students taking multiple long-distance flights a year.
I think you need to reread the (now) grandparent comment again:
They’re arguing that people should be required to isolate from their families if they live far enough away. That’s nonsense.
Yes, and I’m arguing that that’s nonsensical considering that all CO2 emissions from all form of commercial aviation travel are less than 3% of the global total.
They suggested in a subsequent comment that the practice of going to school far away was unusual outside of USA/Canada. Their suggestion was that people shouldn’t move that far from their families if they plan on regularly visiting them. Their suggestion was “pick a school 20 or 200 miles from home, rather than 2000”.
You seem to be hung up on one particular point about suburbans and not on the overarching message, which is just “travel less”.
3% is a lot. I don’t know where you get the idea that it isn’t.
No, not at all. I am hung up on the overall point to “travel less” because air travel doesn’t make up a significant portion of the problem. 1% of travelers make up the majority of the use here. And that’s not in the “1% of the richest people in the world” 1% it’s the 1% of people who travel the most often and they’re already flying commercial - one of the most cost effective and energy efficient means of mass transit that we have. They’re not using private jets.
3% is a significant portion of emissions. I don’t know why you keep insinuating that it is not.
Commercial flight is not energy efficient. You said it yourself: it is time efficient. You don’t get to constantly repeat their “suburban” argument and then ignore that the suburban - one of the least energy-efficient passenger vehicles - is considerably more energy efficient than air travel. You will burn less fuel per mile per person in the suburban than in the airplane.
Reducing travel expectations has a massive effect. Changing societal expectations from 2000-mile trips to 200-mile trips reduces a 3% problem to a 0.3% problem.
Electric vehicles are now viable options for most personal and commercial vehicles. Even heavy-haul has viable electric options coming online. Natural gas produces about 1/3 the carbon output as an energy equivalent amount of jet fuel, and has replaced diesel in the majority of metro bus fleets.
The state of alternative energy use in aviation is in its infancy: no options to date are remotely viable replacements for kerosene-based jet fuel. As absolute carbon use declines in the ground transport fleet, the relative proportion of carbon use rises in the aviation sector. Every other sector is primed to reduce emissions. Lagging behind is the aviation sector. That 3% number has nowhere to go but up.
They're arguing that people *should be required to isolate from their families if they live far enough away*. That's nonsense.That’s exactly how people lived until the 1950s, if people decided to move across the continent for school they isolated themselves from their family and knew that was the price to pay.
We don’t live in the 1950s, jackass. If we did, people wouldn’t all own cars either. Your comparison is wrong.
I’m pointing out that we’re living in an historical anomaly and I’ve proven multiple times by now that it’s not sustainable unless you don’t understand how math works.
that’s 5.3% of the carbon emissions that don’t actually contribute to the economy in a useful way. We will have to continue burning carbon to transport food and goods; transporting rich assholes to davos? fuck’em. if they want to go that bad get on commercial (GODS FORBID FIRST CLASS) or hop on the fucking yachts they all love.
5.3% is commercial airlines. 5.3% includes all air travel including commercial and commercial makes up 70% of that 5%. If you’re going to argue against something, get it straight what you’re actually arguing about.
Also, you’re insane if you think that commercial aviation and transport don’t contribute to the economy. How do you think your cell phone that you’re using to type this nonsense got to you?
Very probably on a boat.
Do you live in China? If not, it may have gotten to you by a combination of means definitely involving an airplane. Even if it didn’t make it to you directly, it likely travelled to several different places before it even got in your hands and the likelihood of an airplane being part of that is extremely high.
good for it, it’s part of commerce. flying rich assholes around the world not so much. fuck off.
No one’s talking about rich assholes. We’re talking about the top 1% of travelers. That may include some rich assholes but that’s not what the article is talking about. It’s talking about the top 1% of travelers which also includes scientists, public figures, and missionaries.
since you obviously didn’t read it the first time.
What are you talking about? The article isn’t talking about the 1% richest. It’s talking about the top 1% of commercial travelers.