The airplane takes off if, on average, the sum of dollars that all ticketed passengers are willing to pay for the benefit of being on it is larger than the operational and capital cost of the airline for operating that one flight.
Your contribution (in a purely causal sense, regardless of what moral statement you might read into it) to all of this is very indirect and diluted, but that does not make it zero.
Silly questions aren’t they?
> How much could you reduce your carbon footprint if you didn’t use HN? Google?
Again, I don't really subscribe to the idea of carbon footprints, but for the sake of the argument: Insignificantly little, compared to the emissions caused by the flights I take.
> Silly questions aren’t they?
Absolutely.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34494390
From just a brief Google search, 500,000 people are in the air at any given time.
When my wife an I fly we are
0.0004% of all of the people in the air. Is that percentage “significant”?
My point is, carbon footprint or not, that buying flight tickets and airplanes flying are in a causal relationship, which you seem to be denying, which in turn I find absurd.
You are responsible (again, no moral judgement or carbon footprint shaming implied; again, I fly too, and not too infrequently) for the consequences your actions, and dilution of responsibility seems like an extremely immature way of dealing with that.
Buying a flight ticket isn‘t the same thing as chartering a private jet, but it‘s also not the same thing as riding a bike around the block in terms of energy and resource expenditure. What we do about all of these things is a question completely secondary to the discussion at hand.
Are you not also “diluting” the responsibility by not taking into account all of the energy you use by being on your computer? By being on the internet?
At what point does it become silly? Or do you set the bar right above “the things I don’t do”?
No, I am accepting the responsibility for all of these actions (at least insofar as I am aware of their consequences) – which are not nearly in the same ballpark as flying in terms of energy expenditure, but again, you're the one counting/comparing, not me.
> Or do you set the bar right above “the things I don’t do”?
Like what, taking airplanes? You seem to be intentionally ignoring the fact that I have repeatedly stated that I do. I just don't engage in ridiculous logical acrobatics in trying to rationalize away the consequences of doing so.
I fly for both business and leisure myself, but arguing that "the plane will take off with or without me on it" is beyond ridiculous.