At the moment there are only infrequent rocket launches, if the numbers go up because of space tourism the damage becomes greater, especially if space tourism reaches the price level parent was talking about.

Airplanes are pretty common and don't account for much of the overall pollution. According to the EPA, transport accounts for 29% of total emissions, and of that, only 10% are airplanes. On the other hand 75% comes from cars and trucks.

If rockets became commonplace, they would most like replace leisure travel on airplanes and would eliminate car traffic once you arrive at your destination. The CO2 emission of the current SpaceX rockets is about the same as one full plane across the Atlantic. So if you could take 300 people in one launch, you'd probably take those 300 people away from an airplane flight and it would actually be better for the planet.

Have you considered the secondary effects from higher altitude? Planes have less emissions per passenger and kilometer than cars but the advantage is completely cancelled by secondary effects because of the high altitude.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566

And rockets need special start locations to reduce the amount of fuel to reach the desired altitude, additionally the landing places must be way outside of your flight location, so you need extra transportation to your destination too.

How do rockets eliminate car traffic at the destination? Every proposal for rocket transport I have seen basically puts an airport outside of town, so the traffic is a wash, no?

When I arrive in space I don't need a car to get around, and even if I did, the pollution wouldn't affect the Earth. :)

Ohh, ha! I thought you meant replacing flights directly to Earth destinations. So instead of taking a 787 from Seattle to Taipei I would take a Starship.

Yes, there are environmental benefits to putting the actual destination in space, I hadn’t really considered that.

this argument is used to justify literally every climate hypocrisy, from pro skiers to billionaires on down

"i do X high-carbon thing to bring awareness to the plebs"

So your argument is that anyone concerned about the planet should kill themselves, as that will do the most to directly minimize their climate impact?

It seems obvious to me that climate activists can use leverage, like anyone else. In other words it's perfectly reasonable to produce a small amount of carbon in pursuit of making the sweeping changes necessary. Climate change isn't going to be solved by parts of the population choosing to fly a little less often.

the argument is simply that going to the farmer's market for local produce, then going on a ski trip to Chile doesn't equal out, doesn't make you a climate warrior, and doesn't make you better than anyone else -- even if you repost Greta Thurnberg on Twitter.

That's just a mathematical fact.

The reality of solving climate change is a separate topic. 70% of emissions come from large corporations -- that's where the impact is and always was going to be made.

That can be had cheaper with a dose of LSD

The idea that we have a system that mints billionaires with outsized power, who we then must shoot into space in order to help them gain sufficient perspective to not want to see the planet destroyed makes me think of Rube Goldberg.

We're in the part of the Rude Goldberg machine where every single domino that falls is triggering a new biblical plague.