Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
Back to the roots, passenger ships, ferries, railways (fast overnight connections).
Ban short-distance flights.
Imagine Ryanair as a fast train operator.
Rail is so nice. I wish there were connections everywhere.
When it’s done right, it’s amazing. The problem is that (here in the UK) it’s just terrible.
Example, going from London to Edinburgh
A flight takes 1h30m and costs £33 A train takes 4h26m and costs £178
Yes there are other monetary costs involved (driving to the airport, parking) and other time costs involved (you need to be at the airport 90 minutes early) but the headline price make a flight seem like much better value for time and money.
Trains are also often late or cancelled, this seems to happen much less with flights.
Until flights are taxed to hell people aren’t going change their habits.
That's interesting, because it's basically the opposite in the US. They're cheaper and more reliable. You can't buy a puddle jumper flight for less than $100, and trains are rarely delayed by much, if at all.
I road that train! 70 minutes late so I got a full refund.
Ban all jet aircraft with fewer than 200 seats.
No matter the number of seats, if you get 4.5L/100km/passenger or less you're better off traveling by car instead. That means two people in a Corolla pollute less than two people doing the same trip in an A380 filled with passengers.
The UK could meet its net-zero goals if it halved the number of private-jet flights.
Flying isn’t entirely horrible, but private jets are just about the worst thing you can do for the environment.
Flying is horrible, 2.5% of emissions with twice the impact because it's released at high altitude, mostly done for leisure or to transport stuff that should be transported by boat and trains? Ban all non essential air traffic.
What really should happen is short flights should become electric.
The first time I heard an aviation ceo spruiking this BS on NPR it was so clear that it was a complete lie. There was no serious attempt by a scientist to quantity emission reductions, just a lot of feel good marketing nonsense.
SAFs are just a cynical ploy by an industry that remains a climate disaster.
It is no sustainable product, anyway. We did the calculations some time ago, and the results were that in order to supply the airline fuel needed in this country, we would have to turn each and every piece or arable land into rapeseed plantations. Every field, meadow, winyard, whatever. Every year, without any rotation.
Air traffic is unsustainable in general, you can take four people, have them ride a Suburban with a big V8 and they'll burn less fuel to travel the same distance compared to doing it by plane and that's not even considering the anti pollution equipment found on road legal vehicles that is pretty much non existent for aircrafts.
This is not even close to the truth.
Passenger airplanes burn about 4 to 5L/100km/passenger when they're full, a Suburban burns about 13.5L/100km mixed driving, that's about 3.4L/100km/passenger if there's 4 passengers in it.
Yeah, but suburbans only carry two people. I know they have more seats than that, but realistically, they only carry two people.
Not to mention, you drive your suburban somewhere, and now you drive it is everywhere. Take a plane somewhere, and you either share a rental car, or you take public transit instead of driving the suburban.
Well if it's only two passengers then a Corolla with two passengers is better for the environment than an airplane.
I'm using the Suburban as an example to show what it's like for a family taking a vehicle that isn't efficient vs taking an airplane. The SUV wins.
Getting a rental car once you reach your destination is the same as driving your own car from an environmental perspective, the only difference is that you polluted more to reach your destination than if you had just taken your car from the beginning.
It's also possible to use ride sharing apps to fill up your car if you were otherwise going to travel alone.
The real solution is for people to stop traveling all over the world like they're doing right now, but if they want to continue traveling long distances then airplanes are the least efficient way to do it in most cases, cars, bus, trains are all much better for the environment but the best is to just not travel long distances at all.
Also, I'm just talking about fuel economy, emissions released by airplanes cause twice as much damage AND cars have catalytic converters to at least reduce other emissions, airplanes don't have that and if we look at smaller aircrafts with piston engines they even use leaded fuel!
Because they're can't fly like Peter Pan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919
Currently in production and use by China Eastern Airlines, although the production run is very limited (13 built, 7 in active use). It's high efficiency passenger plane with a range of 3500 miles, capable of holding 156-168 people based on seat configuration.
This vehicle threatens to compete with the Airbus 320 and Boeing 737 Max jets.
It should be noted that the engines for these planes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_LEAP) was originally developed as a joint project by the American engineering company GE and the French Safran Aircraft Engines. Chinese firms bought the design specs, insourced the production, and are now rolling them out for productive use while their French counterparts are still stuck on old designs and the Americans are just shoving their planes nose-first into the tarmac.
About 4L/100km/passenger, no better than a big SUV with four passengers but the SUV actually has anti emissions tech and doesn't release it's emissions at altitude.