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.
3% is a significant portion of emissions. I don’t know why you keep insinuating that it is not.
I’m not insinuating anything, much less that. I’m simply saying that there are more impactful ways to make a difference and, relative to the other options, that 3% is also more difficult to change. It’s not realistic to ask people not to travel when we live in a world where families can span continents especially when there are easier ways to make a bigger difference.
is considerably more energy efficient than air travel.
This is simply not true. In the link that the “suburban” commenter sent, it says that planes have an average fuel/distance/passenger ratio of 67mpg per passenger. There is not a single car available that gets 67 mpg much less per passenger. The Toyota Prius is a hybrid (so its rating isn’t even based completely on burning fuel) and it gets 52mpg. And most commutes average 1.2 people per trip with an average of 4 trips per day. It’s not even close.
That 3% number has nowhere to go but up.
You’re only proving my point. When those other sectors get to the point where their emissions are a single digit percentage lower than 5 of the overall total, we can talk about whether we should keep working on those or switch to airplanes.
There is not a single car available that gets 67 mpg much less per passenger.
A suburban gets 27mpg highway. A suburban with just 3 people on board gets 81mpg per passenger.
67 mpg per passenger is terrible mileage for a mass transit vehicle. A bus gets about 6mpg, but typically carries 30 to 50 people. That’s 180 to 300mpg per passenger.
I reject your “1.2 people per commute” argument because we aren’t talking about commuting. We’re talking about long-distance trips.
No, aviation is one of the largest sectors left that has made no significant headway on eliminating emissions. Every other sector has a solid plan for shifting away from oil that they are in the long process of executing.
The airlines are still at the stage of trying to optimize their use of fossil fuels, not replacing fossil fuels with renewables. They are getting good at making bigger, more efficient engines and airframes, but they have no feasible approach to actually switch away. The energy density of oil is just too high to readily replace.
Until they can actually make some headway, we should absolutely be discouraging long-distance travel in general, and aviation travel in particular.
There are loads of good e fuels now with various projects coming on line to start supplying them commercially.
When using e fuels flying is far better for the environment than a train, especially when track maintenance and etc are factored in.
But beyond technical stuff, I don’t know if you’re a secret agent of the captain planet baddies and if so then great work on the talking points, if there’s one way to turn people away from green issues it’s too tell them they can’t have a holiday or travel to see their parents at Christmas.
Yeah, this person is delusional. COVID basically proved that telling people that they can’t have parties indoors wasn’t even possible. This guy thinks that telling people they can’t travel to see their families unless they live within a 200km radius and they make the trip by car is a realistic solution.
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.
You haven’t proven anything. I’ve literally shown you and provided sources that show that airplanes are more fuel efficient than cars in our current use, have improved in efficiency by over 57% in the last 20 years, are less than 5% of the actual outputted emissions (including contrails), and that there are many, many other industries that would have a bigger impact in changing over airlines. It is 100% sustainable unless we make no other movement in any other emissions types.
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.
I’m not insinuating anything, much less that. I’m simply saying that there are more impactful ways to make a difference and, relative to the other options, that 3% is also more difficult to change. It’s not realistic to ask people not to travel when we live in a world where families can span continents especially when there are easier ways to make a bigger difference.
This is simply not true. In the link that the “suburban” commenter sent, it says that planes have an average fuel/distance/passenger ratio of 67mpg per passenger. There is not a single car available that gets 67 mpg much less per passenger. The Toyota Prius is a hybrid (so its rating isn’t even based completely on burning fuel) and it gets 52mpg. And most commutes average 1.2 people per trip with an average of 4 trips per day. It’s not even close.
You’re only proving my point. When those other sectors get to the point where their emissions are a single digit percentage lower than 5 of the overall total, we can talk about whether we should keep working on those or switch to airplanes.
A suburban gets 27mpg highway. A suburban with just 3 people on board gets 81mpg per passenger.
67 mpg per passenger is terrible mileage for a mass transit vehicle. A bus gets about 6mpg, but typically carries 30 to 50 people. That’s 180 to 300mpg per passenger.
I reject your “1.2 people per commute” argument because we aren’t talking about commuting. We’re talking about long-distance trips.
No, aviation is one of the largest sectors left that has made no significant headway on eliminating emissions. Every other sector has a solid plan for shifting away from oil that they are in the long process of executing.
The airlines are still at the stage of trying to optimize their use of fossil fuels, not replacing fossil fuels with renewables. They are getting good at making bigger, more efficient engines and airframes, but they have no feasible approach to actually switch away. The energy density of oil is just too high to readily replace.
Until they can actually make some headway, we should absolutely be discouraging long-distance travel in general, and aviation travel in particular.
There are loads of good e fuels now with various projects coming on line to start supplying them commercially.
When using e fuels flying is far better for the environment than a train, especially when track maintenance and etc are factored in.
But beyond technical stuff, I don’t know if you’re a secret agent of the captain planet baddies and if so then great work on the talking points, if there’s one way to turn people away from green issues it’s too tell them they can’t have a holiday or travel to see their parents at Christmas.
Yeah, this person is delusional. COVID basically proved that telling people that they can’t have parties indoors wasn’t even possible. This guy thinks that telling people they can’t travel to see their families unless they live within a 200km radius and they make the trip by car is a realistic solution.
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.
You haven’t proven anything. I’ve literally shown you and provided sources that show that airplanes are more fuel efficient than cars in our current use, have improved in efficiency by over 57% in the last 20 years, are less than 5% of the actual outputted emissions (including contrails), and that there are many, many other industries that would have a bigger impact in changing over airlines. It is 100% sustainable unless we make no other movement in any other emissions types.