Travel and Work
The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024
In the first `100 days of 2024 we will explore 100 climate solutions that may “empower you to evaluate, engage, and act” to address on-going climate change as an individual on your terms.
We are moving on from our cars and considering how we travel longer distances. Due to the almost complete lack of reliable high-speed passenger rail service, the US relies on domestic airlines to move around the country. To get anywhere fast in this big country, we are forced by the US built infrastructure to fly on a plane. Globally, airplane travel represents a significant 3.5% of total greenhouse gas emissions, which may seem small, but they are growing – having doubled since the mid-1980s.
The issue with aviation is regional equity: “just 1 percent of the global population is responsible for 50 percent of the CO2 emissions from commercial aviation”. And the US domestic market makes up 25% of all air passengers globally. It is part of our culture and mitigating the impact of the airline industry is a daunting task. If you choose not to fly, it is likely that plane will fly anyway with someone else in the seat. To be effective, your individual choice on how you fly must make an economic impact on airlines – it is a challenge without an evident global, systemic approach for resolution.
In the face of daunting systemic challenges, we usually default to a hope for a technological revolution that magically solves the problem. In the commercial aircraft industry, there is an essential tension between the US represented by Boeing and Europe represented by Airbus. The technology approach championed by Airbus is to develop hydrogen fueled planes. The US Department of Energy, on the other hand, is focused on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) “made from renewable biomass and waste resources have the potential to deliver the performance of petroleum-based jet fuel but with a fraction of its carbon footprint, giving airlines solid footing for decoupling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from flight.”
This approach is controversial and (in my opinion) borderline greenwashing; this notion of growing renewable biofuels to wrestle the aviation to slightly above carbon neutral. It entails developing the agriculture and chemical processing infrastructure to feed a fuel-hungry aviation industry. But in the interest of doing everything, we have to try, I guess. It rises to the level of Grand Challenge for the Department of Energy.
In considering the longer trips where we might consider flying (it is unlikely that I am going to take a plane to the local store for groceries), flying solo might actually have a lower carbon intensity (energy per person per distance traveled) than driving the same distance solo in a gasoline fueled car with typical fuel economy.
However, the more people in the car (and the better the fuel efficiency), the greater the impact on lowering emissions for the trip. One passenger with you and you roughly break even with flying. Put the whole family in the car (3 or more), drive to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving on highways at moderate speed, and you are definitely starting to make a difference! [Remember to take your most fuel efficient vehicle. In fact, put everyone in an EV and now you are getting somewhere!]
Life is complicated. We often have to travel for work. We want to fly to see friends, family and for a well-earned vacation. However, we are going to have to start making hard choices, and we will not be able to rely on future, as-yet-unrealized technology breakthroughs that will only reduce and not eliminate greenhouse gas pollution from planes.
One of the controversial ideas is to pack as many passengers per plane as possible, for instance, by eliminating premium classes (which have larger seats thus lowering passenger density). Short of that, for committed individuals who are already making changes, we will soon explore the impact of business and conference travel (Action 19) and remote work (Action 22).
This is a challenging action, because we can only make an impact at a system level, and we know the system (tragedy of the commons) is aligned so that a sacrifice by an individual potentially puts that individual at a disadvantage. However, as Heidi notes, “for those of us who fly, flying less is an important climate act”.
Next Up: Climate Action in 2024 – Day 16: Vacation Closer to Home
Howard Creel
#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com