In the UK at the moment we have a "climate Camp" which is protesting about airport expansion in the UK; it points out that 17% of UK emissions are through air travel and a lot of air travel is unnecessary seeing as its under 500km. Now obviously for long haul flights flying is always going to be the preferred option but something we can all do is take less short haul flights.

A ton of carbon released in the sky is as damaging as two released on the ground!

What are your thoughts on this? Should we encourage air travel, should we put an aviation tax on flights making flights more expensive? Is it all a pile of crap?!

I'm no global warming denier, but I'm not going to change any travel plans

Finally! Something in the news that cannot be blamed solely upon Americans.
Those of us in North America are not the ones jetting off to somewhere under 500km just because the fare is 20 p.

The problem obviously affects everyone, but Ryanair, Easyjet and their ilk are not available to us here. I can't remember the last time I went to Malaga for the weekend.

Clearly, we should not be flying as much as we do, particularly over short distances (which have a greater environmental impact, since takeoff and touchdown burn significantly more fuel than cruising), or in the small planes that are now ubiquitous.

One thing you don't mention is that jet contrails - which are just water, and have nothing to do with carbon or any other greenhouse gas - also contribute to global warming. Apparently in the days following 9/11 there was a measurable drop in average temperatures as planes throughout the US were grounded, and flying was significantly reduced worldwide.

That said, we all love to travel, so significantly raising the cost of flying is a bad thing, from a strictly selfish point of view.

I don't know what the solution is. On the one hand, I very strongly feel that travel should not just be for the rich. On the other hand, higher taxes would be by far the simplest way to reduce pollutants caused by airlines, and discourage the dangerous, different country every weekend type of flying that's now possible, particularly in Europe.

Maybe rationing flights? Everyone has the right to one round trip per year. For anything more, you have to either save over several years, or purchase someone else's ration at a rate set by the free market?

We should encourage the production of machines (planes, cars, etc) that cause less damage. obviously, there's a certain political group in the US, which rhymes with republicans, that is opposed to causing such hardships upon big business.

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Maybe rationing flights? Everyone has the right to one round trip per year. For anything more, you have to either save over several years, or purchase someone else's ration at a rate set by the free market?

Good luck with that.

And, the fact is, that is the case for many people. Outside of BnA, people aren't jetting off every year on vacation. My parents, for example, can probably go a year or two without getting on a plane. If I didn't travel so much for work, I probably wouldn't get on a plane as often as I do. I can't afford it.

So, my solution is to live as greenly as possible in my day-to-day life to offset the pollution produced by my air travel. I support companies that promote environmental sustainability. My company (and hopefully, subsequent companies for whom I may work) has a carbon offset program, which is a good effort, despite my personal feelings on the matter.

It would be nice, however, if there was some sort of alternate-fuel airplane in development, or if these folks in their corporate jets (Al Gore, lookin' at you babe) consolidated their efforts.

It is a much bigger argument, anyway, because tourism creates jobs, flights create tourism, reducing flights may push people onto the roads, roadtrips equal pollution, etc.

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Originally posted by Justin7199:
I'm no global warming denier, but I'm not going to change any travel plans

I have.

My hours-in-the-air are down about 75% year-on-year since making the conscious, deliberate decision to fly less. Two things have made this happen: those silly, fun "how many earths do you use" web sites (which exposed flying as my great environmental sin, by far outweighing the brownie points earned by my otherwise green lifestyle) and my increasingly severe allergic reaction to the stresses of modern air travel. More to come.

The new rules for me are a) not more than one long haul flight per year, and b) take the train in continental Europe as much as possible.

Seconding Her Greatness, AnnieBanannie, we as folks interested in traveling tend to fly more than most. But there are zillions more of them, so...

When discussing the environmental math of air travel with green friends, I suggest segregating work flights from pleasure (and hence optional) air journeys.

I am a skeptic that letting the free market resolve these issues without help, believe rationing just does not work, and think the few of us trying to live green are really just making a token effort in the global sense. I support all sorts of things that would make people consider different, greener options: carbon taxes, tightened air travel regulation (from efficiency to noise to service levels to seat space), rail infrastructure subsidies, etc.

I'm not willing to put down the crack pipe that is air travel just yet.

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It would be nice, however, if there was some sort of alternate-fuel airplane in development,

http://www.virgin-fuels.net/

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believe rationing just does not work

I'm not convinced that it doesn't work, though I agree that there isn't the political will to institute it.

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Outside of BnA, people aren't jetting off every year on vacation.

The thing is that I'm not convinced those of us that are jetting around once a year (or once every two years, as is more likely for those of us with tighter budgets) are the problem. The problem is the excessive travel for business - there should certainly be incentives for companies to reduce their reliance on physically moving people around all the time - and people who take multiple, shorter holidays more often. Such as the people with monthly trips to Vegas. In Europe, the avaliability of cheap flights litterally mean that a middle class person could fly somewhere different every week without breaking the bank...and, as jealous as I am of that freedom, it's horribly damaging to the planet.

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Originally posted by 2wanderers:
I'm not convinced that it doesn't work, though I agree that there isn't the political will to institute it.

How would rationing work? Each person only fly 10 hours/year? (Not likely.) Cap airline's flight hours? Problems include which airlines get the hours (and, without an auction processes (which is effectively a tax) then it amounts to a government subsidy for a prefered company) and how would it work for edge cases, like international flight, currierier flights (moving empty planes about), freight, etc.

I argue that it would be much more simple, sane, economical and fair to use a carbon tax as the means to discourage air travel. Firstly, it is addressing the problem (CO2) at the source of the problem--airlines with greener aircraft benefit, those that don't lose, etc. Secondly, a rationing system will likely result in bureaucracy and corruption that even I, a government-and-regulation-can-be-good kind of guy, find disturbing.

Do remember that as Ryanair claims, less than 2 % of the world's CO2 admissions come from planes. We can change this habit but getting people to stop being wasteful in the everyday lives would help the other 98%...

As far as taxes, a CO2 tax makes no sense in the way Britain has come up with it. It would be most logical to have fuel tax on the fuel airlines purchase. This cost would be passed on to the customer. This makes much more sense because may higher capacity airlines that fly modern planes would use less fuel per passenger than those flying ancient aircraft on inefficient short hauls.

I dont see any problem with it. Leisure travel on the whole is not the problem, if I decide to take 3 flights a year across the world fine, not much impact. Its business travellers & food transport that are the problem air travel wise. Business travellers take up far more space on the airplane and they take perhaps 10 times as many flights per year depending on job.

Besides you should stop eating meat, the amount of methane and other gases produced by cows and other cattle goes a long way to destroying our environment lol! Aswell as the fact that cattle is a very very innefficient way of producing food

I dont think leisure travel should be taxed, it should become cheaper. Business's and agricultural TNC's such as Cargill are the people that need taxing.

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Leisure travel on the whole is not the problem, if I decide to take 3 flights a year across the world fine, not much impact.

Um, not particularly true.

Fact is, aircraft are some of the worst kg-of-CO2/kg-of-fuel emitters. Check out Terrapass.com's CO2 flight calculator I put in three trips a Brit might make: LHR to Ibitza, Thailand, and Portland (for the BnA xmas party). That works out to 9230lbs of CO2. With your average Brit contributing 9.4 metric tonnes a year (half that of an American), which is 20,723 lbs of CO2.

So, those three flights work out to six months of CO2 in your case. For three trips. Maybe 50 hours in the air?

Like I said earlier in the thread, with the help of those "how much harm do you cause" web sites I realized that my very green life style (small flat, no car, public transport using, recycling, vegetarian, energy efficient lights, etc) was, in the context of CO2 emissions, a joke. E.g.: I was flying ~120/hours a year for about five or six years in a row. 120 hours is roughly five days. Five days in an aircraft is roughly equal to the CO2 emissions of a single Brit!

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Do remember that as Ryanair claims, less than 2 % of the world's CO2 admissions

The BBC say 3%, and it is well known that air travel is skyrocketing. From the BBC page, "'Aviation emissions need to be brought under control, because they are rising very fast,' said Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. 'Since 1990, they have gone up about 90% and, by 2020, they are going to be doubled, if business continues as usual.'"

Point is, aircraft CO2 'admissions' are not nominal and should not be ignored as inconsequential.

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It would be most logical to have fuel tax on the fuel airlines purchase.

It certainly would be easier to implement, and I'm ok with the idea. But do realize that CO2 emissions are not firmly linked to fuel economy. Linked, yes. But two engines with the same efficiency can produce drastically different levels of CO2. (We have some Boots around these parts that surely could explain the details.)

So, how about the gas tax with a regulatory requirement on the level of CO2 an engine produces?

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I dont think leisure travel should be taxed, it should become cheaper.

We are talking about flights, not travel. And 'cheaper' is OK with me, as long as we can do so in an environmentally responsible way. You can minimize our time in the air by a) using ground transport, b) sticking with closer destinations, c) one big trip than lots of small trips, etc.

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Originally posted by Stoo:

Um, not particularly true.

Fact is, aircraft are some of the worst kg-of-CO2/kg-of-fuel emitters. Check out Terrapass.com's CO2 flight calculator I put in three trips a Brit might make: LHR to Ibitza, Thailand, and Portland (for the BnA xmas party). That works out to 9230lbs of CO2. With your average Brit contributing 9.4 metric tonnes a year (half that of an American), which is 20,723 lbs of CO2.

Of course since the UK is the size of Florida roughly, you guys dont have as much room to travel around as we have to do in the states (stupid American joke, sorry). But I'm guessing that the Brits have a lower carbon cost than Americans because of the train and bus systems, in that it's easy to hop on the train to get to work vs driving there in your car. Not to mention the fact that gas is heavily taxed over there, so I'd imagine people are much more careful and stingy in time spent driving in cars.

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Originally posted by mikeheenan:
But I'm guessing that the Brits have a lower carbon cost than Americans because of the train and bus systems, in that it's easy to hop on the train to get to work vs driving there in your car....

Whatever.

Even if we use the US per capita number in the above analysis, those three flight work out to a quarter of what an average American's CO2 contributions each year. For three trips.