Just 1% of people are responsible for half of all toxic emissions from flying.

  • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    For all purposes of travel, planes are more efficient. The longer a plane trip is the more efficient it is because the plane loses weight as you travel, not the other way around.

    How can you ignore the multiple sources I’ve provided to still get the math wrong? Flying is more fuel efficient than cars. The only way you can make it less efficient is to limit the car rides to only rides that have 3+ passengers and only those that are multiple hundreds of miles in distance. That limits the trips we’re talking about to such a small percentage of auto travel that making progress in that specific area renders it meaningless. The majority of the carbon impact of driving comes from all the other usage. Airline travel has been more efficient than road travel since the start of the millennium.

    • Kecessa
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      1 year ago

      For all purposes of travel, planes are more efficient. The longer a plane trip is *the more efficient it is* because the plane loses weight as you travel, not the other way around.

      The 67mpg/passenger number from the source I provided is based on trillions of miles traveled, don’t you think that’s taken into consideration?

      I don’t get the math wrong, you interpret the data incorrectly and think that planes get 67mpg/vehicle instead of 67mpg/passenger and you compare car rides to work to long distance air travel instead of comparing leisure travel for both in which case cars are much more likely to be used for multi passenger travel.

      • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        you interpret the data incorrectly and think that planes get 67mpg/vehicle

        No I don’t. I have never said that anywhere.

        Stop lying and stop moving the goalposts.

        • Kecessa
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          1 year ago

          Yes you do, you keep arguing as if it was the case!

          • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            No, I don’t. I’m arguing against your multiplication of the mpg of the Suburban because you arbitrarily picked 3 passengers. The 67mpg/passenger amount for planes is based on the average number of passengers in a plane. If we did what you’re doing and picked it based on ideal figures to suit our own points, the mpg for the plane would be even higher.

            • Kecessa
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              1 year ago

              What was the average distance travelled by plane again? You keep dodging that part. If the plane is more efficient per passenger mile but people travel three to four times further when taking a plane for vacation vs a car then that means… oh my… plane vacations are less efficient because people use the fact that they travel quicker as a justification to go further away! 😱

              Unless you think that the average American would travel 1900 miles by car (one way) for a one week vacation. Because if you think so then you’re truly hopeless.

              • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                What are you talking about?!

                Planes are more efficient the farther the distance traveled! The average commercial flight was 900km for 2022. Planes still only account for 5% of the total emissions when including commercial, private, and transport flights and accounting for emissions from contrails. Now do that math for cars, trucks, and ground transport. Go ahead.

                people use the fact that they travel quicker as a justification to go further away!

                They absolutely do not. People choose their destination first and then they determine the mode of transport. No one changes their destination to someplace farther away because it takes less time to get there by plane than it does by driving.

                Unless you think that the average American would travel 1900 miles by car (one way) for a one week vacation

                They wouldn’t. I don’t see how that’s relevant. If someone needs to travel from CA to NYC for a trip, a car isn’t even an option for them. If someone wants to go from Alaska to Texas, a car isn’t an option for them. Even if you banned most commercial flights, that doesn’t change the calculus. It just makes the remaining flights more expensive and forces people to find alternatives to get there. If a family decides they want to go to Disney World for a vacation, they’re going to pick the only method of travel that’s practical. They’re not going to go to Six Flags instead because they can get there by car.