Re:Eclipse viewing at 30k feet: Delta to offer path-of-total...
by Panino on Thursday February 22, 2024 @01:29PM
(#39471096)
Although my first thought was also the climate emissions, we have to be careful with these numbers, as 1kWh of electricity in Sweden is very different from 1kWh of electricity in Poland.
Poland is about 30x dirtier than Sweden. World numbers vary all over the place.
Similarly for beef - are the cattle raised under conventional agriculture (with maximum emissions) or regenerative agriculture (with minimum emissions)?
By my rough count, an example round-trip flight for this trip is about 2600 miles (~4200km) with an approximate climate cost of about 1100kg per person. This accounts for the fact that airline emissions do roughly 3x the damage as expected (compared to ground transportation) as contrails form cirrus clouds which "are too thin to reflect much sunlight, but ice crystals inside them can trap heat. Unlike low-level clouds that have a net cooling effect, these contrail-formed clouds warm the climate... A 2011 study suggests that the net effect of these contrail clouds contributes more to atmospheric warming than all the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by planes since the dawn of aviation."
We have ways to make electricity and food carbon-cheap, and potentially even carbon-negative, but the same is not currently true for flying. I think we should move to passenger ships for transoceanic trips and electrified trains for overland travel.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
Poland is about 30x dirtier than Sweden. World numbers vary all over the place.
Similarly for beef - are the cattle raised under conventional agriculture (with maximum emissions) or regenerative agriculture (with minimum emissions)?
By my rough count, an example round-trip flight for this trip is about 2600 miles (~4200km) with an approximate climate cost of about 1100kg per person. This accounts for the fact that airline emissions do roughly 3x the damage as expected (compared to ground transportation) as contrails form cirrus clouds which "are too thin to reflect much sunlight, but ice crystals inside them can trap heat. Unlike low-level clouds that have a net cooling effect, these contrail-formed clouds warm the climate... A 2011 study suggests that the net effect of these contrail clouds contributes more to atmospheric warming than all the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by planes since the dawn of aviation."
https://www.science.org/content/article/aviation-s-dirty-sec...
We have ways to make electricity and food carbon-cheap, and potentially even carbon-negative, but the same is not currently true for flying. I think we should move to passenger ships for transoceanic trips and electrified trains for overland travel.