**Warning 1st World Problem / Hypocrisy Incoming**
We are fully leccyd up on the car front. But for southern European adventures without flying, my big old dirty diesel A6 (not really old or that dirty) would have been perfect for wafting down to the ski/sun.
Is anyone else struggling to justify flying for pleasure in light of the overwhelming climate issues ? I’m starting to wonder if I can justify flying anymore and would love to hear other peoples thoughts.
Im not. If I want to fly for pleasure then why not? I dont see why I shouldn’t enjoy a trip to make some invisible token gesture that wont make any difference.
One of the most depressing things about climate change discussions is the nit picking glee some seem to take from pulling apart other people’s carbon reduction efforts. And then using that glee/smugness as a justification as to why they might as well not bother. You see it in threads like this about air travel, diet based threads, car based threads and consumer purchase threads.
+1
Same as I don't give to charity because.
The answer is always because you're a selfish ****er....
@airvent - a truly terrifying prospect. China is the blueprint for all this stuff and it's slowly making its way over here. I have a friend who works in the city for a major high street bank and he has told me that their organisation is looking at developing a bank account that controls your 'carbon credits'. Ultimately, you'll need to build up x number of tokens to be able to book a flight for example. If you can't afford to buy a flight you can sell your carbon credit for flying to someone who can afford it. Now that just doesn't sit right with me. It's still embryonic, but the fact it's being considered is still incredibly worrying.
Ultimately, you’ll need to build up x number of tokens to be able to book a flight for example. If you can’t afford to buy a flight you can sell your carbon credit for flying to someone who can afford it. Now that just doesn’t sit right with me. It’s still embryonic, but the fact it’s being considered is still incredibly worrying.
Basically the same as carbon credits for industry....
Im not. If I want to fly for pleasure then why not? I dont see why I shouldn’t enjoy a trip to make some invisible token gesture that wont make any difference.
That's moronic. And you of course know that because it's so obviously moronic, so you're just using it to justify doing whatever you want and sod the consequences.
Ultimately, you’ll need to build up x number of tokens to be able to book a flight for example. If you can’t afford to buy a flight you can sell your carbon credit for flying to someone who can afford it
So its just a tax or fee by stealth. Want to bet there's no reduction/restriction in flights?
Those who want to fly just have to pay for it, with the bank/app taking a cut no doubt.
If you can’t afford to buy a flight you can sell your carbon credit for flying to someone who can afford it. Now that just doesn’t sit right with me. It’s still embryonic, but the fact it’s being considered is still incredibly worrying.
whats worrying about that? its a form of wealth distribution that drives behavioural change, like most taxes, but it also directly rewards "good" behaviour, which is normally really hard to achieve (its a carrot and a stick). I fly a lot so don't want any tax, but if there's going to be one, this seems like a nice way to do it
So its just a tax or fee by stealth. Want to bet there’s no reduction/restriction in flights?
Those who want to fly just have to pay for it, with the bank/app taking a cut no doubt.
Except you'd be paying other people, not the government.
If you can afford to fly away for a ski holiday, a summer holiday and a city break or two over the year, as well as heat a large house, then you'd have to buy those carbon credits off someone who didn't need them (ostensibly because they can only afford a small house, no car and no holidays).
Same as the energy system is run, except in that market there are so many 'credits' available that the certificates required to say your homes energy consumption is carbo free currently costs about £2. Over time the idea is the number of credits is reduced so that it becomes cheaper for companies to build renewable generation than to burn fuels and buy the credits.
Im not. If I want to fly for pleasure then why not? I dont see why I shouldn’t enjoy a trip to make some invisible token gesture that wont make any difference.
That’s moronic. And you of course know that because it’s so obviously moronic, so you’re just using it to justify doing whatever you want and sod the consequences.
Not really, Why should I not go and enjoy myself? Is it less moronic than riding and ebike for example, are you going to say that riding an ebike is moronic? Perhaps we should take it a stage further and say riding bikes for pleasure, ie not offsetting a real car journey, is moronic, no one needs to ride for pleasure from an environmental perspective. Where do you want to stop before we are all walking naked from our mud huts to protect the environment?
How is it any worse than the King inviting everyone to fly to London to talk about climate change on their way to COP 27 where they will talk about it some more?
The simple fact is that there isn’t anything even close to a nudge towards a global change in behaviour to make a difference, there simply isn’t the political will to do it.
Calling people moronic because they have a different view isn’t really helpful. I fully accept that man made climate change is a real issue for society, along with natural variations as well. We are trashing the planet from the perspective of it remaining fit for human habitation.
Not really, Why should I not go and enjoy myself? Is it less moronic than riding and ebike for example, are you going to say that riding an ebike is moronic? Perhaps we should take it a stage further and say riding bikes for pleasure, ie not offsetting a real car journey, is moronic, no one needs to ride for pleasure from an environmental perspective. Where do you want to stop before we are all walking naked from our mud huts to protect the environment?
A bike generates about 100kg CO2 over it's lifecycle.
A return flight to the Alps is about 500kg.
The two aren't even going to be in the same ballpark.
A bike generates about 100kg CO2 over it’s lifecycle.
A return flight to the Alps is about 500kg.
The two aren’t even going to be in the same ballpark.
Treks environmental report states 165kg just to make it and then the ECF says 26g/km riddenhttps://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycling-really-sav e"> http://-https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycling-really-save
At what point does an activity become low enough in its pollution generation for it to be an acceptable leisure activity?
I’m looking at transport alternatives within Europe that the event can manage/offer.
This would be awesome, I'd be fully on board with your event's no-fly policy but it basically means I can't do the event ☹️
You need some sort of TNR Megabus from Edinburgh to Turin! 😎
Cloud storage has a bigger carbon footprint that the airline industry.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-staggering-ecological-impacts-of-computation-and-the-cloud/
The global trainer (shoes) market is 1.8% of global emissions. The aviation industry is 2.2%. That was in 2019; I’d imagine it’s near parity today.
We must be mad, pain in the arse SNCF/DB/trainline websites to book tickets
Watched an interesting video about the European rail network, of course I knew there were different gagues and voltages all over the place but what I didn't know was that many countries have blocked opening up their ticket system to third parties so the booking becomes a nightmare. I seem to remember France was one of the blockers. Such a shame as while the voltage and gague issues are hard to solve that one should be easy.
Yes, it’s about 1.25 flights per person on average but 70% of flights are taken by just 15% of residents and around half don’t fly at all.
Is that all flights or personal flights? Because comparing someone who ends up doing 20 flights a year for work and zero personal Vs someone who does 2 personal and zero work gives a different impressions.
Cloud storage has a bigger carbon footprint that the airline industry.
Umm, that's not really cloud storage you're reading about. It's talking about data centres, which host most of what we do regardless of wether or not it's considered 'cloud'. Also, cloud computing can be more efficient than traditional because you can over-allocate resources by betting that not all your customers will need 100% of their available capacity at the same time.
I'd like to see a like-for-like comparison of cloud vs traditional on-prem workloads.
Pollution is a problem. A burden shared by us all. But the 'climate crisis' is a scientific nonsense, brought to you by those who do the most to pollute the environment.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. Live as closely aligned to nature as is possible.
I have never had much of a need to fly. My best holidays have been on these fair lands.
But the ‘climate crisis’ is a scientific nonsense
Why listen to scientist when you can listen to happy sounding waffle from some random on the internet?
Talking of pollution… can we get a “filter out the rubbish being scattered about the threads from the obvious new troll” function for the forum, please?
Interesting read on the subject from the Guardian this morning.
Umm, that’s not really cloud storage you’re reading about. It’s talking about data centres, which host most of what we do regardless of wether or not it’s considered ‘cloud’.
As per the article
“While in technical parlance the “Cloud” might refer to the pooling of computing resources over a network, in popular culture, “Cloud” has come to signify and encompass the full gamut of infrastructures that make online activity possible, everything from Instagram to Hulu to Google Drive.”
Talking of pollution… can we get a “filter out the rubbish being scattered about the threads from the obvious new troll” function for the forum, please?
Proving you prefer an echo chamber to considering alternate viewpoints.
The production of any vehicle produces more CO2 than the fuel it burns during its lifetime.
This was of interest (having interest in bike manufacturing and transport impact vs Co2 saved by replacing car journeys) but looking at some basic figures I don't think it's right.
Petrol cars produce approx 10kg Co2 per gallon. 150k miles on a car in it's life at 45mpg = 3,333 gallons = 33,333kg CO2. Lower miles at lower average efficiency will work out similar.
Average car manufacturing figures seem to be nowhere near that. 250-300 gallons, 2,500-3,000kg Co2 equivalent in one report.
And the battery alone for an EV could consume much more than that. If you added both the car estimate and the max battery figure you're still at ~18,000kg Co2.
That agrees very roughly with something I read about EVs taking much/most of an average mileage ownership to balance up their manufacturing cost to be CO2 neutral (petrol C02 saved less energy needed to charge, less manufacturing impact).
"It takes roughly the equivalent of 260 gallons of gasoline to make the typical car of around 3,000 pounds, according to an exhaustive study by the Argonne National Laboratory. (And I do mean exhaustive. These guys have factored in darn near everything but the calories consumed by the assembly-line workers.)"
"Tesla Model 3 holds an 80 kWh lithium-ion battery. CO2 emissions for manufacturing that battery would range between 3120 kg (about 3 tons) and 15,680 kg (about 16 tons)"
Interesting read on the subject from the Guardian this morning.
its not hugely surprising, but I expect the curve isn't as bad as wealth - that is to say I bet the mean output is also way higher than the bottom 10% - so most of the gap will be between low and medium than medium and high (which isn't the same as earnings). So I wouldn't be surprised if people on £170k might be pushing out double or triple the output of someone on £50k, but the £50k earner might be outputting 5-10x the amount of the poorest 10% - who (because of costs) will almost never drive a private car, heat a very small accomodation a minimal amount etc etc
someone on 170k is unlikely to be consuming any more food (or a significantly more meat-rich diet) than an average earner, nor are they likely to drive a significantly different number of miles, they might buy more expensive clothes, but will they buy more of them? no idea. They are likely to fly more though
You have to be extremely cynical about these published reports. There are plenty of companies who are paid to produce bent reports, presumably by the car industry.
As we speak my wife has gone to Vegas for two days. She has to go, but doesnt want to. Mad isnt it!?!
I dont like flying generally, but will if pushed. Its not the actual flying I hate its the whole airport bullsh*t I hate. As a family our best holidays are UK based or European active holidays. We drove to Switzerland in the summer mtb'ing and we all loved it. Greek beach holidays in 40+ temps, we all hated. wife is half Greek so feels the need sometimes..
Add to this one of my son's is a bit Tourette's so cant halp talking about bomb's in airports (and Nazi's whilst in Switzerland surrounded by German's), which is always fun. My wife used our Sunflower Lanyard on her last visit to see her dad which helped
Proving you prefer an echo chamber to considering alternate viewpoints.
We do consider them. We just don't agree with them.
You have to be extremely cynical about these published reports.
Agreed. If you're looking at production and shipping vs use, for approx impact ratios a scan of a few reports and figures tends to give an average estimate to work with. It's just to get a 50% or 500%? level of estimate.
When hyrbid cars first came out there were stories all over the internet about how they were worse for the environment than a Hummer - with their 0.4kWh batteries.. but the stories were all derived from a single report. This looked very scientific and listed all its assumptions but there were some absolute howlers in there. Like the assumption that hybrid drivers would be very eco-conscious and not drive much, so the lifetime mileage of a hybrid would only be 100k miles versus 300k miles for a Hummer.
Misinformation all over the internet, no shit eh. Or more like, it's full of shit.
This was interesting -
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-airways-lobby-government-emissions-booking-data-jet-zero-climate-change/
up to 60% higher impact per passenger mile from BA than others. More space for passengers, less efficient planes etc. I didn't think it'd vary that much (which is why BA don't want the figures published)
up to 60% higher impact per passenger mile from BA than others. More space for passengers, less efficient planes etc. I didn’t think it’d vary that much (which is why BA don’t want the figures published)
to be fair, that's compared to norwegian, who were running 100% brand new planes (BA were on creaky old 747s at the time) and priced so cheaply that they would fill a plane every time, and then go bust. I imagine that if you compared BA to other full-service airlines (like virgin) the numbers would be a lot closer.
to put it in perspective, BA's old a318 (that only ran business class) would seat 32 passengers, whereas a normal (economy) a318 would seat over 100 passengers - so you're going to be running at something like 250% higher for that route alone.
At what point does an activity become low enough in its pollution generation for it to be an acceptable leisure activity?
Simple, if you were allocated a sustainable carbon footprint budget for the year (IIRC it's about 3tones) then you have the options of:
Drive a car (~1500kg/year)
Take a foreign holiday (1000kg)
Heat your house with gas/electric (1500kg/year)
Eat meat (1500kg/year)
Be veggie but not vegan (500kg/year)
Buy a new bike 165kg
Then you can pick and choose which ones you want.
There's a clue in that list as to why global warming is out of control too.
to be fair, that’s compared to norwegian, who were running 100% brand new planes (BA were on creaky old 747s at the time) and priced so cheaply that they would fill a plane every time, and then go bust.
Detail I didn't know and why BA may be against the report - still, interesting to me that flights can vary in MPG like cars and car brands, which is kinda obvious thinking about it. And I would compare it if booking.
