air travel

[Andy Hamilton]

A couple of years ago I took my last flight. I went of to Germany to visit some friends. I made a concious effort not to fly, but I do want to go over and visit Nev sometime and see his amazing country. Is there any excuse for flying? Would I really have to take a fortnight or whatever it is getting there on a boat if I was to go there.

[Camile]

Hi Andy ..

why don't you want to fly ? is the boat less poluting than a plane ?

I kind of flight regularly because I'm in Ireland and need to go back to France or wherever ..

But I took the ferry once, from Cherbourg (Normandie - West of France) to Rosslare (South-East Ireland) .. and that took 18h ! plus my girlfriend was sick for the whole journey ..

So I don't know how long the journey is but a fortnight sounds close enough ..
Camile

[Clarabel]

Everything in moderation I guess! If you fly very occasionally and only when necessary I don't see it being such a terrible sin! As I understand it, the real damage is people flying short haul where it's completely unnecessary.

Have you considered carbon neutralising? I've never done it and I imagine if you used it as an excuse to fly reguarly it wouldn't be much use, but maybe in these instances?

Clare

[Andy Hamilton]

yep we plan to make ssish carbon neutral one day soon. I am not sure how we are going to calculate it.

I am not sure about carbon nutralising for air travel it strikes me as a way to ease guilt rather than to actually make up for not just the oil used but the energy used getting that oil from the ground to the plane.

The curse of budget airlines eh? - I think that airlines and govenments need to take some kingd of responsiablity for this.

perhaps it is not a great sin, it is the same for using 4 x 4 - some people actually do need to, I am not entirely against that. I think that people do need to sit down and work out if they really need to fly. I have said before (on here) about the use of video conferancing rather than flying somewhere that sort of behaviour needs looking at and perhaps taxed.

[the.fee.fairy]

i don't understand why planes are so bad:

if trains/buses are better than cars, it is because for the carbon they create, they carry a lot more people, so planes should be even more friendly because of the hundreds of people (and goods) they carry.

I'm flying to India in October, so i'm planting two trees in my friend's wood - hopefully oaks that i've grown myself, but we'll see.

[Wombat]

Well we're all agreed then. The bed's made up, so when are you coming?

Nev

[Muddypause]

i don't understand why planes are so bad:

if trains/buses are better than cars, it is because for the carbon they create, they carry a lot more people, so planes should be even more friendly because of the hundreds of people (and goods) they carry.

I'm flying to India in October, so i'm planting two trees in my friend's wood - hopefully oaks that i've grown myself, but we'll see.

I think you are right; travelling by air is not, per se, evil, wrong, wicked or bad, any more than travelling by car is, per se. And nor do I think it is sensible for any one of us to guilt trip our way into carrying the burdens of our collective wrong-doing alone.

But I was inspired to do a bit of research, and thought I would share my findings with you. As ever, take all this with a pinch of salt - remember that I failed my physics exams, and most of this was researched via Google, which means it's as reliable as the internet - ie. possibly not very. But let's just suppose for a moment that me and Google have between us assembled some semblance of sense.

Concord would, at best (ie, when every seat was filled) achieve a fuel consumption of 17 miles per gallon per person. That is to say, it would consume about 7.5 gallons per mile.

The latest wonder of aviation, the recently debuted Airbus A380, can carry 35% more passengers than a Boeing 747 and consume 12% less fuel per seat. It will be the first long-haul aircraft to consume less than three litres of fuel per passenger over 100 kilometres. At 555 seats, this could be interpreted as being an overall consumption of around 16.5 litres per kilometer, or 5.8 gallons per mile. This all equates to about 94 mpg per passenger.

Now the A380 is being heavily touted as being environmentally friendly. In fact, at best it could be said to be less environmentally unfriendly. But even this is open to considerable interpretation. Its 12% advantage in fuel efficiency will be lost if the aircraft travell half empty. And some predictions show, that although the aircraft are becoming more efficient, the number of aircraft journeys increase year by year, so the overall fuel consumption will continue to rise. The thing is, 94 mpg sounds very good indeed; a modern, lean-burn, efficient, turbo-diesel family car won't get better than two thirds of that (though you could carry four people in it).

But if you travel from the UK to Australia, you will have done around 12,000 air miles - that's a full year's average mileage of a car, in one shot, and this applies to each passenger. And then you've got to come back again. Even given the A380's superior fuel economy, the return journey would still consume enough fuel to run 350 average cars for a year - 630,000 litres.

630,000 litres of aviation fuel will produce something like 1,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide - 2,800 kg per passenger. In it's lifetime, a tree will absorb something in the region of 7-800kg. Anybody going the tree planting route, will need to plant three and a half trees for every return journey to Oz (about 2,000 trees per A380) - and make sure those trees are replaced when they are cut down. Now I love trees, but I reckon we might soon run out of space if this is a serious attempt at neutralising carbon emissions.

Thing is, a full bus is better than 30 odd nearly empty cars, because those car journeys are being replaced by the bus. It's difficult to consider many aircraft journeys as a direct substitution for car journeys.

[Martin]

I'm firmly in the "ban all pleasure and business flights as soon as possible" camp! 8)
It's all very well talking about "balancing" the emissions, what is forgotten is that it isn't as simple as that! Because they are shovelling the pollutants out high up in the atmosphere, they are particularly damaging, and to my mind, if a dreadfully polluting activity can be easily replaced with clean technology then we should do it at once!
When I was a kid, virtually noone flew anywhere - it was too expensive - if you wanted to emigrate to Oz, you paid your £10, and leapt on a boat which slowly chugged its way there.......I can't recollect that life was any worse for lack of civil flying - holidays were taken either in the UK, or you used a ferry to go to the continent.
What we need is just a slight shift in holiday patterns - you want your fortnight in the sun in Spain - no problem - fast passenger sailing boats leaving from Southampton- perhaps racing each other to their destinations - how nice, how civilised, a REAL holiday, with a touch of real romance about it..........then your two weeks of cheapo sun and sangria, and a return trip the same way. At the moment there are queues of people who will pay good money to get on the few sail training boats to work their passage somewhere - doesn't take a great leap of imagination to see that this could benefit SO many sections of society 8)
But then I always was an idealistic dreamer!

[Millymollymandy]

- you want your fortnight in the sun in Spain - no problem - fast passenger sailing boats leaving from Southampton- perhaps racing each other to their destinations - how nice, how civilised, a REAL holiday, with a touch of real romance about it..........then your two weeks of cheapo sun and sangria, and a return trip the same way.

All the way round Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar to the Costas, past the Bay of Biscay - that'd be how many hours on the Vomit Comet????? I don't think it would be very romantic. Just from St Malo to the Channel Islands, a one hour trip, the fast ferry is called the Vomit Comet, because ....... so many people throw up!

I'm all for flying, if it is necessary, or you only do it occasionally. How on earth would I have been able, as a non-driver, to get to my mother when she had a heart attack last year? And I got there at least 5 times cheaper than I would have done by car and ferry.

I think it is all very well for those who do not have family in far flung places to preach about it, but for some it is the only way to see their nearest and dearest.

[Martin]

I live on the edge of the Sussex Weald - a natural bowl - in summer in calm weather we get a vile yellow "smog" that sits there, and makes allergy sufferers lives a misery - nearby we have Litlington which has the highest UK atmospheric pollution levels!!!!!!! Although 40 miles away, we're on one of the flight paths into Gatwick - at night there is never a moment without a blasted aircraft somewhere in the sky - all happily dumping their pollution on our heads. Sorry, that is totally unpardonable! - especially when for the most part it is overweight "consumers" winging their way off somewhere (that they couldn't find on a map) to get very drunk on cheap booze somewhere hot, where they can pick up an std...............
I sympathise with "compassionate" flights, and would suggest that they should be allowed in extremis, but to allow unbridled "holiday and business trips" by air is totally indefensible! A few years ago, I needed to go to Frankfurt on business - my colleague said "great, we'll fly" - my reply was, "correction, you fly, I'll see you there!" - I got the ferry, and then a train - I had a very civilised trip - the food was excellent, the people I met along the way were super, and I enjoyed the reality of scale that you get when slogging across a continent by train - a real feeling of the distance, and a really good sight of all the differing countryside -I sauntered off the train, well fed and rested, to be greeted by my visibly stressed out buddy who'd flown. Chill! - take your time............remember the old Chinese proverb "it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive!"
Although I've promised myself trips to India and China "one day when I've got the money", it will NOT be by air, I shall enjoy the trip by sea, rail, and if needs be, road - take longer travelling, and enjoy it all as part of the whole experience - I cannot morally justify to myself the extra burden of my taking a plane (quite apart from the fact it is the most singularly ghastly way of travelling ever devised!) 8)

[ina]

I think it is all very well for those who do not have family in far flung places to preach about it, but for some it is the only way to see their nearest and dearest.

I know this is going to be very controversial - but if the nearest and dearest are in far flung places, they are so voluntarily, and, to my mind, should accept being out of reach of their family... If they wanted to be nearby, they should have stayed there in the first place.

My sister lives in South Africa. When she emigrated, she did so by ship (that was 40 years ago). I have visited her twice, by plane - that was a bit before the time when I became conscious of how damaging this was to the environment. Nowadays, I wouldn't dream of going there just for a visit; just as I wouldn't dream of going and visiting my niece who happens to live in India. It's their decision to live where they do - I have my issues with that, too, but won't argue with them - they just can't expect me to hop over if they feel lonely.

[Millymollymandy]

but if the nearest and dearest are in far flung places, they are so voluntarily

Not all of them. What about children? They don't get a say in the matter as to where they live. My father lived 12,000 miles away from me.

[Andy Hamilton]

hmm that is a very staunch view to take Ina, although I did not visit my sister for the 3 years that she lived in the States. but saying that she has never visited me since I moved out of Northampton 7 years ago.

I have said it before on here but I think the only real anwser is a carbon card, you get rationed for the amount of carbon you use. go over and you are grounded. - this would include air travel, food miles, car journeys - it would make you stop and think "is this journey really necessary?" - It could be like in ww2 with rationing and if you had a wedding comming up you would save your clothing coupons - so if you want to visit someone in a far flun place you would have to not drive for a year and eat local for 2.

Begs the question though would you have a black market? spiv walking about "wanna buy a jumbo jet, I'll do you a special on a helicopter".

[Hillbilly]

Dunno Andy - I am kind of thinking the same thing here as Ina. If you move to somehwere far, FAR away can you really expect your family to fork out the whatever-it-costs to fly over there and see you? I know airfares are coming down but still...we could never manage it I know that much.

Of course this wouldn't be being discussed if air travel was banned fullstop. Cos no-one would be far from their families in the future. It would go back to nuclear families. And less imported food. All local...ah...the sheer (unrealistic) bliss.........

But for some people, the grass is always greener the further away you get...

[Millymollymandy]

And no cars or trains or boats, other than rowing boats. So if you can't fly to go and visit anyone, then I don't think you should use your cars to go and visit your families either. Or to go shopping or go to work! Because if you need a car for your job, why didn't you choose a job where you don't need a car to do it?

Why all this anti flying all of a sudden when a couple of days ago everyone was anti car? It sure beats me.