Should we give up flying for the sake of the climate?
December 1, 2022 4:47 PM Subscribe
“I thought I was so green, but then I realised I'm flying,” she says.
Aviation, consumption and the climate change debate ‘Are you going to tell me off for flying?’ (pdf)
Aviation, consumption and the climate change debate ‘Are you going to tell me off for flying?’ (pdf)
Are you going to tell me off for flying?’ This question was asked three times by a lady in South Manchester, England, when we asked her to participate in our qualitative in-home study on flying. She asked it once when we approached her in the street to ask if we may interview her. She asked again when we phoned to confirm the time and address of the interview, and she asked it a third time while serving tea and biscuits at the beginning of the interview. Needless to say we had given absolutely no indication that the interview would pass ‘judgment’ on her flying activities. The lady had undertaken six return trips by air for leisure in the previous year, and in the final section of the interview commented ‘I will have a conscience, but I won’t not fly to Miami. . .’. As this one example shows, the frequent flying/environmental impact question is currently a hot topic. It brings forth a cocktail of rich unprompted discussion and a mixed bag of responses, it has become emotionally charged and polemic. Accounts and justifications concerning frequent flying range from surprise that a taken-for-granted everyday activity which until very recently had been considered a culturally desirable thing to do, has suddenly become frowned upon; to a sense of almost guilty pleasure, apology and, at its extremes, defiance. What the significance and explanation for this might be in sociological terms is the focus of this paper. The answers are important, in particular for policy stakeholders seeking to curb consumption behaviours as one of a portfolio of emissions reduction strategies. It is to the policy audience that this paper primarily speaks. It also provides a quite different – out of the box – insight and contribution to the aviation and emissions debate, which complements the more ‘supply side’ technology and research and development focused papers which dominate the aviation and emissions-reduction literature currently.BINGE FLYING: Behavioural addiction and climate change (pdf)
Recent popular press suggests that ‘binge flying’ constitutes a new site of behavioural addiction. We theoretically appraise and empirically support this proposition through interviews with consumers in Norway and the United Kingdom conducted in 2009. Consistent findings from across two national contexts evidence a growing negative discourse towards frequent short-haul tourist air travel and illustrate strategies of guilt suppression and denial used to span a cognitive dissonance between the short-term personal benefits of tourism and the air travel’s associated long-term consequences for climate change. Tensions between tourism consumption and changing social norms towards acceptable flying practice exemplify how this social group is beginning to (re)frame what constitutes ‘excessive’ holiday flying, despite concomitantly continuing their own frequent air travels.Knowledge, Fear, and Conscience: Reasons to Stop Flying Because of Climate Change (pdf)
Much research on the societal consequences of climate change has focused on inaction, seeking to explain why societies and individuals do not change according to experts’ recommendations. In this qualitative study, we instead consider people who have changed their behaviour for the sake of the climate: They have stopped travelling by air. We first asked them to elaborate their rationales for the behaviour change. Then, using topos theory to find thought structures, we analysed their 673 open‐text answers. Several themes emerged, which together can be regarded as a process of change. Increased knowledge, primarily narrated as a process by which latent knowledge was transformed into insight, through experience or emotional distress, was important. Contrary to certain claims in the literature, fear stimulated change of behaviour for many in this group. Climate change was framed as a moral issue, requiring acts of conscience. Children were invoked as educators and moral guides. Role models and a supportive social context played an important part. Alternatives to flying were brought forward as a motive to refrain from flying. Only a few mentioned shame as momentous. Instead, stopping travelling by air invoked a feeling of agency and responsibility, and could also result in a positive sensation.
I am convinced that the centering of climate change discourse on individual choices and making it all about the sins and failings of individual people is the ultimate psy-op by Big Oil.
posted by star gentle uterus at 5:13 PM on December 1, 2022 [164 favorites]
posted by star gentle uterus at 5:13 PM on December 1, 2022 [164 favorites]
It's an interesting paper, but it's absolutely not applicable to America (possibly the Western Hemisphere?) As a relatively privileged white collar worker, I get 15 days of combined sick/vacation a year. All my family live at least 10 hours' drive from me (most live on the opposite coast). So until I get separate vacation and sick time and both of those times are at least doubled from what I have now, it's not even a question. If this somehow happened, the extreme limits of American train transportation would mean I'd probably take the plane anyway.
If someone tried a shame-based approach to get me to stop flying, I'm afraid that they'd probably get all the wrath that I can't use on my boss or representatives. I can't get them to treat me better as a worker or improve the nation's infrastructure, but I can get mad at somebody who's judging me for something that's completely out of my power (unlike, say, meat consumption, where it's just that I like the taste and there's nothing compelling me to buy and consume meat). Not a pretty thing to admit but it's true.
posted by kingdead at 5:14 PM on December 1, 2022 [41 favorites]
If someone tried a shame-based approach to get me to stop flying, I'm afraid that they'd probably get all the wrath that I can't use on my boss or representatives. I can't get them to treat me better as a worker or improve the nation's infrastructure, but I can get mad at somebody who's judging me for something that's completely out of my power (unlike, say, meat consumption, where it's just that I like the taste and there's nothing compelling me to buy and consume meat). Not a pretty thing to admit but it's true.
posted by kingdead at 5:14 PM on December 1, 2022 [41 favorites]
I have digits to spare to count the times I have flown round trip but given my age and the usual reason for flying, I face a few more to which to unwillingly look forward. Even then it's a shrew size footprint in comparison.
posted by y2karl at 5:38 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 5:38 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure how motivated by shame I am, but I have found myself making radical adjustments as I come to better understand the luxury of my own agency to resist what is considered normal within society. I don't feel entitled to eat meat any more than I feel entitled to be in physical proximity to far-flung loved ones with any particular frequency. Others past and present have gone without by no choice of their own, and I'm simply not more special, merely fortunate. Even in adjusting my advantage-taking, alternatives present themselves that are rich in their own way, like being able to have video correspondence in real time, or choose from impressive selections of faux meat offerings at a supermarket.
I'm surprised more don't welcome discovering opportunities to improve their personal habits of consumption. I get that much of the problem is beyond any one person's choices to remedy, and welcome structural changes, but of course it can be two things.
posted by otsebyatina at 5:42 PM on December 1, 2022 [28 favorites]
I'm surprised more don't welcome discovering opportunities to improve their personal habits of consumption. I get that much of the problem is beyond any one person's choices to remedy, and welcome structural changes, but of course it can be two things.
posted by otsebyatina at 5:42 PM on December 1, 2022 [28 favorites]
I am convinced that the centering of climate change discourse on individual choices and making it all about the sins and failings of individual people is the ultimate psy-op by Big Oil.Big Oil definitely put a lot of effort into promoting it but I think it’s a mistake to take that as anything other than needing to do both. Consumer preference is powerful and we need every tool we can get right now, especially because it’s something which starts instantly. Switching from beef to any other sort of meat, for example, lowers your carbon impact today, not years in the future when political will hits critical mass.
Flying is important because it’s both highly visible and saps support for building the kind of rail system we should have (e.g. plane flights in the region between, say, Chicago, DC, and Boston are policy failures). Choosing not to fly doesn’t reverse that overnight but it stops bankrolling it and starts getting awareness that maybe our vacation plans shouldn’t use a year’s worth of carbon to spend less than a week on another continent.
None of that means that we shouldn’t be swinging for big oil, only that it’s possible for terrible people not to be wrong about everything.
posted by adamsc at 5:42 PM on December 1, 2022 [30 favorites]
Thank you so much for sharing all of this. It can be more ammunition against the large expansion airport they want to build just outside our town. We should be making it more difficult to fly, not easier.
The only upside is that it might bring decent mass transit (light rail) which we do not have.
kingdead, I hear you and I am not sure how to fix this. Easy, inexpensive transportation over formally unthinkable distances is woven into our lives in a way that would be hard to untangle.
posted by olykate at 5:43 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
The only upside is that it might bring decent mass transit (light rail) which we do not have.
kingdead, I hear you and I am not sure how to fix this. Easy, inexpensive transportation over formally unthinkable distances is woven into our lives in a way that would be hard to untangle.
posted by olykate at 5:43 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
You don't have to center all climate change discussion on individual choice but that's what this thread is about so it is what we are talking about here. It's infantile to absolve oneself from doing things one can control to help the situation, simply because there are systemic and corporate players that fuck things up too.
Isn't it awfully convenient to only want to talk about the things you can't do, rather than things that you can do but don't want to?
Who you think creates demand for destructive products and services? It's you.
We can work on more than one thing at once, and we'll need to. Going on about corporate players in a thread about personal choice is like running through an AIDS benefit babbling about cancer sucks worse.
Metafilter is usually better than #AllLivesMatter, so maybe try not to insert "BiG OiL is TO BlaMe" at the top of every thread about things we can actually do as individuals to help save our planet?
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:43 PM on December 1, 2022 [36 favorites]
Isn't it awfully convenient to only want to talk about the things you can't do, rather than things that you can do but don't want to?
Who you think creates demand for destructive products and services? It's you.
We can work on more than one thing at once, and we'll need to. Going on about corporate players in a thread about personal choice is like running through an AIDS benefit babbling about cancer sucks worse.
Metafilter is usually better than #AllLivesMatter, so maybe try not to insert "BiG OiL is TO BlaMe" at the top of every thread about things we can actually do as individuals to help save our planet?
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:43 PM on December 1, 2022 [36 favorites]
The per-passenger-mile being fairly close to car travel is a bit of a red herring. The per-mile cost may be similar, but the number of miles is many times larger. Air travel makes it logistically easy enough to travel dozens of times farther at that “same” per-mile cost, for dozens of times greater impact. People aren’t driving a car 1000 miles each way to go to Thanksgiving.
posted by notoriety public at 5:44 PM on December 1, 2022 [30 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 5:44 PM on December 1, 2022 [30 favorites]
Exactly notoriety public. It's a really rare day when I drive my car 6000 miles in a single day.
Also, the mental gymnastics of people justifying their lifestyles while blaming Big Earl is really something to behold.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:51 PM on December 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Also, the mental gymnastics of people justifying their lifestyles while blaming Big Earl is really something to behold.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:51 PM on December 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
That average per-passenger fuel economy by travel mode chart from the first comment makes it look like air travel is remarkably efficient... until you read the footnotes: "Airlines are an increasingly efficient form of transport as more passengers are fit onto planes and ticketing software fills most planes to capacity. [...] Transit buses are not very efficient at their current ridership rates, where, on average, a given bus is less than 25% full." The only reason buses aren't efficient is because we don't ride them.
The chart of per-km-per-capita emissions for Europe in the first article of the post shows buses and trains as dramatically better than flying. So, to repeat a quote in that first article...
"We need the public demand for these things, and then hopefully, governments and businesses will over time respond"
And yes, we also need to call for governments and businesses to take initiative and recognize that they incentivize and/or require flying and that is problematic and they should cut it out! But there is no dichotomy here, we can and should work on it from both ends at the same time.
(That first article is really pretty good; it also has some advice on mitigating impacts if/when you do have to fly.)
posted by sibilatorix at 5:55 PM on December 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
The chart of per-km-per-capita emissions for Europe in the first article of the post shows buses and trains as dramatically better than flying. So, to repeat a quote in that first article...
"We need the public demand for these things, and then hopefully, governments and businesses will over time respond"
And yes, we also need to call for governments and businesses to take initiative and recognize that they incentivize and/or require flying and that is problematic and they should cut it out! But there is no dichotomy here, we can and should work on it from both ends at the same time.
(That first article is really pretty good; it also has some advice on mitigating impacts if/when you do have to fly.)
posted by sibilatorix at 5:55 PM on December 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
There was this open source software project that I failed to contribute to once. It needed a lot of work done and was in serious danger of falling into irrelevance. But the current maintainer objected to the large changes I wanted to make, because they were such big changes to a project that hadn't seen such changes in years. And the current maintainer also objected to the small changes I wanted to make, because they were so small and insignificant and why was I trying to fix something that wasn't a big deal?
It turns out that the current maintainer just didn't want any change to happen, and this false divide was a convenient way to ensure that.
posted by AlSweigart at 5:56 PM on December 1, 2022 [15 favorites]
It turns out that the current maintainer just didn't want any change to happen, and this false divide was a convenient way to ensure that.
posted by AlSweigart at 5:56 PM on December 1, 2022 [15 favorites]
Who you think creates demand for destructive products and services? It's you.
Talk about infantile.
MetaFilter is usually very good about recognizing the ways powerful and moneyed interests manipulate and control the economy and society at a structural level to induce regular people who have little to no agency to do do or consume against their own interests or to be forced to "choose" from manufactured false options. But when it comes to the climate it's just good old simply supply and demand!
It's not me, or you, who do things like create regulatory, tax, and subsidy policies that make beef artificially cheap and cheaply available which in turn encourages people to "choose" to consume more.
The comments thus far are frankly disappointing from MeFi. All this nonsense does is make us waste time and energy pointing fingers at each other and engage in greener-than-thou posturing when it doesn't make a damn lick of difference whether you do or don't have a burger or take a flight or not. The only thing that will actually help is action at a government scale.
Which this bullshit actually hinders because it bogs everyone down in idiotic culture war nonsense. Maybe people who right now think they're against environmental regulation would be more open to supporting it if they didn't associate it with other people attacking them for grilling a steak.
This is "Al Gore said he wanted to address climate change through regulation but he takes planes to DC!" crap.
posted by star gentle uterus at 5:58 PM on December 1, 2022 [60 favorites]
Talk about infantile.
MetaFilter is usually very good about recognizing the ways powerful and moneyed interests manipulate and control the economy and society at a structural level to induce regular people who have little to no agency to do do or consume against their own interests or to be forced to "choose" from manufactured false options. But when it comes to the climate it's just good old simply supply and demand!
It's not me, or you, who do things like create regulatory, tax, and subsidy policies that make beef artificially cheap and cheaply available which in turn encourages people to "choose" to consume more.
The comments thus far are frankly disappointing from MeFi. All this nonsense does is make us waste time and energy pointing fingers at each other and engage in greener-than-thou posturing when it doesn't make a damn lick of difference whether you do or don't have a burger or take a flight or not. The only thing that will actually help is action at a government scale.
Which this bullshit actually hinders because it bogs everyone down in idiotic culture war nonsense. Maybe people who right now think they're against environmental regulation would be more open to supporting it if they didn't associate it with other people attacking them for grilling a steak.
This is "Al Gore said he wanted to address climate change through regulation but he takes planes to DC!" crap.
posted by star gentle uterus at 5:58 PM on December 1, 2022 [60 favorites]
to quote myself
Do as I say, not as I do?! Both. We need both. We still need both. We have always needed both.
posted by aniola at 6:00 PM on December 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
Do as I say, not as I do?! Both. We need both. We still need both. We have always needed both.
posted by aniola at 6:00 PM on December 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
My father used to angrily lament that people who lived one county south of us would drive through our county to work one county north of us. All a mess, he said, contributing to traffic problems and many other ills. If it were up to him, he would say, no one would be allowed to live a significant difference from their place of employment! That would make things better, by gum!
His feelings about all of that were complicated and based in various sorts of fantasies and irritations. He was correct, however, in the sentiment that it will take an external force to prevent people from peopling. Whether that’s a natural disaster, or an anti-air-travel dictatorship, or, as star gentle uterus points out, a more serious regulatory approach. In the absence of that, people gonna people.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:06 PM on December 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
His feelings about all of that were complicated and based in various sorts of fantasies and irritations. He was correct, however, in the sentiment that it will take an external force to prevent people from peopling. Whether that’s a natural disaster, or an anti-air-travel dictatorship, or, as star gentle uterus points out, a more serious regulatory approach. In the absence of that, people gonna people.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:06 PM on December 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I've been agonizing over my own situation wrt flying. I was vegan for 18 years; I recently started eating a little meat/fish/eggs to connect to my heritage, and I still have doubts about that. I've flown probably fewer than ten times in my life. My heart yearns to return to the country of my birth to experience it and see a parent I barely know, but how can I justify a vacation length trip given everything I know about flying? So I imagine somehow making it worth it with a year long trip, or even a one way move. And then the procrastination takes over. It looks like you actually can cross the Pacific by passenger cargo ship, is that actually better? Meanwhile, I see acquaintances flying NY to FL for a weekend Bitcoin conference and I feel sour inside.
posted by okonomichiyaki at 6:09 PM on December 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by okonomichiyaki at 6:09 PM on December 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
The policy vs individual choice thing is a derail, please. The original post has at least one substantial paper targeted at policy writers. There's something for everyone.
posted by aniola at 6:09 PM on December 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by aniola at 6:09 PM on December 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
On the other hand, people derive a lot of their reactions to policies on the basis of their preferred individual choice ("how dare you implicitly criticize me by saying there is another way of doing things!!1!" type of reaction is pretty common.)
posted by aramaic at 6:17 PM on December 1, 2022
posted by aramaic at 6:17 PM on December 1, 2022
I worry about flying, because I want to make choices that are better for the planet, and I do eat red meat but no more often than once/week (and typically just a couple times/month) and I go to great lengths to avoid buying plastic including fibers in my clothes, and stuff like that, but I also fly home to see my parents 2-3 times a year, because as mentioned above I don't have that much vacation time, and my parents are pushing 80, and I'm not willing to give up seeing them to make up for the asshole down the street rolling coal. But I wish I had better choices.
posted by joannemerriam at 6:17 PM on December 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by joannemerriam at 6:17 PM on December 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
I don't know how best to evaluate the impact of cargo freighter passenger trips - they are big heavy inefficient boats, but at least you're hitching a ride on something that is already traveling!
There are a couple of up-and-coming sail freight companies that I believe may take passengers:
https://www.sailcargo.inc/ (mostly N-S trips in the Americas so far, I believe)
https://www.kaapkargo.com/ (transatlantic, charterable for cargo, I don't know for sure if they would take passengers)
I REALLY hope to see more of these soon. I can find good transit options on land, but crossing oceans is still a major chokepoint for non-motorized or minimally-motorized travel.
posted by sibilatorix at 6:21 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
There are a couple of up-and-coming sail freight companies that I believe may take passengers:
https://www.sailcargo.inc/ (mostly N-S trips in the Americas so far, I believe)
https://www.kaapkargo.com/ (transatlantic, charterable for cargo, I don't know for sure if they would take passengers)
I REALLY hope to see more of these soon. I can find good transit options on land, but crossing oceans is still a major chokepoint for non-motorized or minimally-motorized travel.
posted by sibilatorix at 6:21 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
METAFILTER: all the wrath that I can't use on my boss or representatives
posted by philip-random at 6:21 PM on December 1, 2022 [28 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 6:21 PM on December 1, 2022 [28 favorites]
The USA is building 14 odd new LNG export terminals, each of which will emit around 8MT CO2 a year, each more than the oil refineries.
Most of these are being built by Venture Global, Inc, from Arlington, Virginia.
Most of these have been planned to be built in Louisiana, where the supreme court recently stripped us of voting rights, again.they are being built over local objections.
When you watch these things burn all day and night, it is honestly difficult to imagine that stopping airline traffic is going to do much
The tail is wagging the dog. Demand is invented to justify the continued supply of methane. They call it 'export' or 'war in Ukraine '.
They will invent new uses if you stop flying.
posted by eustatic at 6:26 PM on December 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
Most of these are being built by Venture Global, Inc, from Arlington, Virginia.
Most of these have been planned to be built in Louisiana, where the supreme court recently stripped us of voting rights, again.they are being built over local objections.
When you watch these things burn all day and night, it is honestly difficult to imagine that stopping airline traffic is going to do much
The tail is wagging the dog. Demand is invented to justify the continued supply of methane. They call it 'export' or 'war in Ukraine '.
They will invent new uses if you stop flying.
posted by eustatic at 6:26 PM on December 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
How do people afford to fly these days? For many reasons, I haven't flown in probably 15+ years, but a huge reason is it's way too expensive. I am always stunned by how much people manage to fly.
Jealous? Yeah, I am.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:42 PM on December 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Jealous? Yeah, I am.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:42 PM on December 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
(I wish I could fly more, is my point. Even in the face of this. I fear I will never travel the world)
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:46 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:46 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
For an Australian with a desire to visit other countries... this is a bitter pill indeed.
posted by neonamber at 6:51 PM on December 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by neonamber at 6:51 PM on December 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
If we had trains in the United States as fast as those in Japan, a trip from New York to Los Angeles could be done in about 15 hours. That’s not much longer than a plane trip, with the 2-3 hours of bullshit on either side of the trip.
posted by rhymedirective at 6:57 PM on December 1, 2022 [26 favorites]
posted by rhymedirective at 6:57 PM on December 1, 2022 [26 favorites]
With a couple of exceptions, the replies on this comment thread could be held up as a great response to "why do Republicans continue to win elections, even though everyone including their voters know they're horrible?" They are horrible, and so are most of their voters, but what tips them over the edge into victory so many times is the insufferability of so many progressives. "I'm surprised more don't welcome discovering opportunities to improve their personal habits of consumption." That comment in itself just swung a couple of state house seats.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:00 PM on December 1, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:00 PM on December 1, 2022 [27 favorites]
Oh, I wouldn't blame progressives personally for ruining the vote--just like with flying, it's structural factors (gerrymandering).
Now that I've said that, let me down the jet bridge, I have an appointment with an 18-inch seat, a bottle of water, and a packet of pretzels.
posted by kingdead at 7:05 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Now that I've said that, let me down the jet bridge, I have an appointment with an 18-inch seat, a bottle of water, and a packet of pretzels.
posted by kingdead at 7:05 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Here s the OGI video of these new methane refineries. These are the doomsday devices.
posted by eustatic at 7:05 PM on December 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 7:05 PM on December 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
This has been brought up a bit in some of the consulting adjacent circles I work within. What’s the future of work that requires you to fly out every Monday and home every Thursday (consulting)? Virtual collaboration works to an extent, but the result is usually less productive and impactful than in-person work. How can we continue to work in person but not kill the environment? Money is not an object (for the most part) to those us us that fly 40+ flights per year when it’s being charged back to corporate America and rewarded with frequent traveler programs perks.
Consumers in the US will never be enough voices to get government to fund and maintain public transportation. Riding trains in Europe and Asia makes me so depressed for the US. We can’t even get bike lanes built in Chicago until multiple people die in the same intersection, so I’m not sure how we can get the momentum and action around more sustainable travel.
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:07 PM on December 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Consumers in the US will never be enough voices to get government to fund and maintain public transportation. Riding trains in Europe and Asia makes me so depressed for the US. We can’t even get bike lanes built in Chicago until multiple people die in the same intersection, so I’m not sure how we can get the momentum and action around more sustainable travel.
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:07 PM on December 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Eh, I'm not concerned over being perceived as insufferable. I recognize the suffering is often happening at great remove from those I'm typically engaged with.
posted by otsebyatina at 7:07 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by otsebyatina at 7:07 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I’m not sure how we can get the momentum and action around more sustainable travel.
Among my heroes are those people who worked hard to make positive change whose fruits they did not expect to experience during their own lifetimes.
posted by aniola at 7:14 PM on December 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Among my heroes are those people who worked hard to make positive change whose fruits they did not expect to experience during their own lifetimes.
posted by aniola at 7:14 PM on December 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
The USA is building 14 odd new LNG export terminals, each of which will emit around 8MT CO2 a year
From a greenhouse perspective, I'd bet the methane released from those terminals will absolutely dwarf the CO2.
posted by pompomtom at 7:17 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
From a greenhouse perspective, I'd bet the methane released from those terminals will absolutely dwarf the CO2.
posted by pompomtom at 7:17 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Sector by sector: where do global greenhouse gas emissions come from? (On mobile, the graphical summary may be at the bottom of the article; it is worth scrolling to study it.)
posted by biogeo at 7:29 PM on December 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 7:29 PM on December 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
The most relevant bit from that link, I think:
Emissions come from many sectors: we need many solutions to decarbonize the economyposted by aniola at 7:36 PM on December 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
It is clear from this breakdown that a range of sectors and processes contribute to global emissions. This means there is no single or simple solution to tackle climate change. Focusing on electricity, or transport, or food, or deforestation alone is insufficient.
Even within the energy sector – which accounts for almost three-quarters of emissions – there is no simple fix. Even if we could fully decarbonize our electricity supply, we would also need to electrify all of our heating and road transport. And we’d still have emissions from shipping and aviation – which we do not yet have low-carbon technologies for – to deal with.
To reach net-zero emissions we need innovations across many sectors. Single solutions will not get us there.
Shame isn't a solution, its a red herring, if it worked we would have solved climate change when An Inconvenient Truth came out 20?! years ago.
Regarding ships I've looked into it repeatedly. Pound for pound, large ships are actually by far the most efficient transport method. Ships are about 5 times more efficient than rail and 10 times more than a truck. (Which, for east coasters, potentially makes canned Italian tomatoes have a smaller footprint than those from California or Mexico, which arrive on a truck.)
For travel the trouble is the time it takes. The Queen Mary 2 still makes transatlantic crossings but it costs as much as a first class flight and takes days. I'm not sure how much of that is that there is low demand and no competition, but the staff to clean up after you and feed you for days or weeks has got to increase the cost of travel significantly. I wonder how much tickets on the passenger/cargo ships in the pacific cost.
posted by being_quiet at 7:43 PM on December 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Regarding ships I've looked into it repeatedly. Pound for pound, large ships are actually by far the most efficient transport method. Ships are about 5 times more efficient than rail and 10 times more than a truck. (Which, for east coasters, potentially makes canned Italian tomatoes have a smaller footprint than those from California or Mexico, which arrive on a truck.)
For travel the trouble is the time it takes. The Queen Mary 2 still makes transatlantic crossings but it costs as much as a first class flight and takes days. I'm not sure how much of that is that there is low demand and no competition, but the staff to clean up after you and feed you for days or weeks has got to increase the cost of travel significantly. I wonder how much tickets on the passenger/cargo ships in the pacific cost.
posted by being_quiet at 7:43 PM on December 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Good link, specifically the breakdown that flying is 1.9% of current total emissions, which is not nothing - in fact it's 1.9% larger than nothing! - but, like, it's the same size as landfills and smaller than cement.
What difficult about flying is that it's a sector for which we currently don't really have a very good alternative to fossil fuels, and it's reasonably large impact and it certainly feels like we should be able to take alternatives, especially because our own personal situation and opinions are going to wildly influence how we feel about air travel without us really realising just how wide that gulf is.
posted by Merus at 7:45 PM on December 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
What difficult about flying is that it's a sector for which we currently don't really have a very good alternative to fossil fuels, and it's reasonably large impact and it certainly feels like we should be able to take alternatives, especially because our own personal situation and opinions are going to wildly influence how we feel about air travel without us really realising just how wide that gulf is.
posted by Merus at 7:45 PM on December 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
The USA is building 14 odd new LNG export terminals, each of which will emit around 8MT CO2 a year, each more than the oil refineries.
Without getting into creepy details, roughly 200 fully-dedicated individuals could take that entire capacity offline for an extended period. As a Fermi Estimate, probably on the order of half the time required for original construction, if the strike occurred once they were in operation and a petrochem engineer was involved in the planning.
...the bad part, however, is that I do mean fully dedicated individuals. No backsies.
It's harder than monkeywrenching, but it is still doable.
Not saying it's a good idea per se, just saying, y'know, stuff can happen regardless of what the nation-states say.
posted by aramaic at 7:57 PM on December 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Without getting into creepy details, roughly 200 fully-dedicated individuals could take that entire capacity offline for an extended period. As a Fermi Estimate, probably on the order of half the time required for original construction, if the strike occurred once they were in operation and a petrochem engineer was involved in the planning.
...the bad part, however, is that I do mean fully dedicated individuals. No backsies.
It's harder than monkeywrenching, but it is still doable.
Not saying it's a good idea per se, just saying, y'know, stuff can happen regardless of what the nation-states say.
posted by aramaic at 7:57 PM on December 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Should we give up flying for the sake of the climate?
Yes, we obviously should. It's not that complicated. Voluntarily taking an action that dumps a bunch of greenhouse gases into the environment is unequivocally harmful.
I'm not going to judge others, and I'm not judging y'all here in this thread, but in my own life, if ever I get on another plane, it will be with the intellectual honesty that I'm doing something shitty so I can sit on a Hawaiian beach and drink piña coladas or whatever. And just the thought of that is a pretty big disincentive; I haven't flown since 2017, but it's also not a promise to never fly again.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:58 PM on December 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
Yes, we obviously should. It's not that complicated. Voluntarily taking an action that dumps a bunch of greenhouse gases into the environment is unequivocally harmful.
I'm not going to judge others, and I'm not judging y'all here in this thread, but in my own life, if ever I get on another plane, it will be with the intellectual honesty that I'm doing something shitty so I can sit on a Hawaiian beach and drink piña coladas or whatever. And just the thought of that is a pretty big disincentive; I haven't flown since 2017, but it's also not a promise to never fly again.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:58 PM on December 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
Shame isn't a solution, its a red herring,
Shame was never proposed as a solution? One of the abstracts I quoted (in case people didn't read the admittedly-long papers) says "Only a few mentioned shame as momentous."
From the section on shame:
Shame was never proposed as a solution? One of the abstracts I quoted (in case people didn't read the admittedly-long papers) says "Only a few mentioned shame as momentous."
From the section on shame:
Finally, shame is mentioned in the material, but only a few times. Conscience, and other notions having to do with morality, is much more common, as discussed above. Shame is thus not very visible, neither in the open‐text answers nor among the pre‐selected alternatives. Like with every word in the responses, we have taken them at face value but at the same time looked at their context and the argumentative structure. Shame is often understood as a socially formed conscience. Respondents mention many examples of social or media discourses that apparently impacted their decision to stop flying, either as role models or through normative or moral discussions. There is a social dimension of conscience, not mentioned as a negative feeling by the respondents, but rather as a kind of support to be the person one wants to be.posted by aniola at 8:00 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was curious about the numbers and the comparisons here. Australian east coast air routes are some of the highest trafficked in the world. But I was surprised by how little air emissions and indeed transport overall are in the most recent (2020) accounts:
Total of all economic sectors: 498.1124 Mt
Total for all transport, postal, warehousing: 30.0954 Mt
Road: 13.5562 Mt
Rail: 3.9016 Mt
Air/space: 6.6439 Mt
There's been a long history of proposals for Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane fast trains, to reduce emissions, along the lines of the Japanese and Euro examples, but so far they've foundered on a) the sheer costs of buying land in the corridors, b) mountains in the way, and c) that the actual potential benefit for the costs isn't clear, since a high-speed train would substitute largely business passengers, compared to other solutions involving people simply not making those trips at all, and getting emissions cuts and productivity out of other ways to have meetings and do business between cities. (Something very bad happened in 2020, shortly after these numbers came out, that has had just this side-effect!).
Merus: 'flying is 1.9% of current total emissions, which is not nothing'
Indeed! The thing about flying for business or holidays is that it's a very highly visible and human-experienced form of transport. Unlike, say, flying cargo around, which is just economic activity.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:02 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Total of all economic sectors: 498.1124 Mt
Total for all transport, postal, warehousing: 30.0954 Mt
Road: 13.5562 Mt
Rail: 3.9016 Mt
Air/space: 6.6439 Mt
There's been a long history of proposals for Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane fast trains, to reduce emissions, along the lines of the Japanese and Euro examples, but so far they've foundered on a) the sheer costs of buying land in the corridors, b) mountains in the way, and c) that the actual potential benefit for the costs isn't clear, since a high-speed train would substitute largely business passengers, compared to other solutions involving people simply not making those trips at all, and getting emissions cuts and productivity out of other ways to have meetings and do business between cities. (Something very bad happened in 2020, shortly after these numbers came out, that has had just this side-effect!).
Merus: 'flying is 1.9% of current total emissions, which is not nothing'
Indeed! The thing about flying for business or holidays is that it's a very highly visible and human-experienced form of transport. Unlike, say, flying cargo around, which is just economic activity.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:02 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
As others point out, there is a lack of plausible alternatives in North America.
In a few weeks I am flying across the country to see my failing father for quite possibly the last time. I haven't seen him in five years and I haven't been on a plane in longer than that. I am taking a plane, which will cost me about $400 each way and take about five hours. I could also take a train, which would take a little over four days each way... and cost about $600 in each direction. I could walk, I guess; to go off Google Maps directions, if I left today and walked six hours a day, I'd be there on April 23rd.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:11 PM on December 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
In a few weeks I am flying across the country to see my failing father for quite possibly the last time. I haven't seen him in five years and I haven't been on a plane in longer than that. I am taking a plane, which will cost me about $400 each way and take about five hours. I could also take a train, which would take a little over four days each way... and cost about $600 in each direction. I could walk, I guess; to go off Google Maps directions, if I left today and walked six hours a day, I'd be there on April 23rd.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:11 PM on December 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
My perception of why flying seems to attract more than its share of criticism is that, for very significant numbers of people, flying is something they do maybe once or twice in their life. It's something that is a big deal to them, along the lines of the early days of commercial flights where people got all dressed up, you got a flight bag and the kids got to visit the cockpit and all that. They can't get their head around the idea of just jumping on a plane and heading off somewhere at the drop of a hat. So, for many people, flying is pure luxury but, for many others, it's just how they get to work.
A couple of people have mentioned the time saved by plane travel and that's a massive issue in some countries. A few months ago, my wife and I went on a trip to North Queensland (Cairns and points north up to Cape Tribulation) that was originally going to be a fly-up-there, hire a car, stay in airbnb places etc trip. We decided to drive up in the end, because it meant we could tow our camper and save money on accommodation and car rental so the whole trip was way cheaper. But what would have been a two-hour flight each way turned into a three-day drive each way, because it's fucking 2,000 km to Cairns from our place! Would I have done that when I had to drag kids with me?
Not fucking likely. We're lucky that we have four weeks a year of paid holiday from work, so can take the time. I hear a lot about people in the US getting one or two weeks a year and that's it, so there's a massive incentive to be time-efficient on holidays and that often means flying is the only way. Of course, there's always the solution of holidays at or near home, but I doubt we can ever quench that thirst for seeing faraway places in the foreseeable future.
I'm not sure that solutions such as high-speed trains are viable for countries like Australia because of the ridiculous distances between cities and low populations. There's just no way to pay for that sort of infrastructure here.
I have been incredibly disappointed to see how quickly air travel has bounced back after all the lockdowns and restrictions ended. Not tourism air travel, because I don't really have a big issue with that, but business travel is what pisses me off. I have spoken with quite a few people working in government and, despite having realised that all those in-person meetings could be far more efficiently handled by video, they have launched straight back into being required to flit about all over the country for meetings that could easily have been remote. I have personally been pushing back against flying for work, but big bosses like to see their people in head office now and again I guess, so they can reassure themselves we actually exist. I've also pondered the idea of a massive re-distribution of jobs to move people's jobs closer to where they live. It's clear lots of people are crossing over one another to travel to and from work and I wish there was a way to match people to equivalent jobs closer to home.
I do wonder how much the climate cost is of so many countries getting out of manufacturing and importing everything instead. In particular, the stupidity of Australia harvesting a range of raw materials that are sent to China to be made into products that are then exported to Australia. Boy, didn't we find out about the stupidity in that during COVID restrictions! Have we learned our lesson? Don't be stupid, of course we haven't.
posted by dg at 8:20 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
A couple of people have mentioned the time saved by plane travel and that's a massive issue in some countries. A few months ago, my wife and I went on a trip to North Queensland (Cairns and points north up to Cape Tribulation) that was originally going to be a fly-up-there, hire a car, stay in airbnb places etc trip. We decided to drive up in the end, because it meant we could tow our camper and save money on accommodation and car rental so the whole trip was way cheaper. But what would have been a two-hour flight each way turned into a three-day drive each way, because it's fucking 2,000 km to Cairns from our place! Would I have done that when I had to drag kids with me?
Not fucking likely. We're lucky that we have four weeks a year of paid holiday from work, so can take the time. I hear a lot about people in the US getting one or two weeks a year and that's it, so there's a massive incentive to be time-efficient on holidays and that often means flying is the only way. Of course, there's always the solution of holidays at or near home, but I doubt we can ever quench that thirst for seeing faraway places in the foreseeable future.
I'm not sure that solutions such as high-speed trains are viable for countries like Australia because of the ridiculous distances between cities and low populations. There's just no way to pay for that sort of infrastructure here.
I have been incredibly disappointed to see how quickly air travel has bounced back after all the lockdowns and restrictions ended. Not tourism air travel, because I don't really have a big issue with that, but business travel is what pisses me off. I have spoken with quite a few people working in government and, despite having realised that all those in-person meetings could be far more efficiently handled by video, they have launched straight back into being required to flit about all over the country for meetings that could easily have been remote. I have personally been pushing back against flying for work, but big bosses like to see their people in head office now and again I guess, so they can reassure themselves we actually exist. I've also pondered the idea of a massive re-distribution of jobs to move people's jobs closer to where they live. It's clear lots of people are crossing over one another to travel to and from work and I wish there was a way to match people to equivalent jobs closer to home.
I do wonder how much the climate cost is of so many countries getting out of manufacturing and importing everything instead. In particular, the stupidity of Australia harvesting a range of raw materials that are sent to China to be made into products that are then exported to Australia. Boy, didn't we find out about the stupidity in that during COVID restrictions! Have we learned our lesson? Don't be stupid, of course we haven't.
posted by dg at 8:20 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
A question to consider:
Have you ever noticed that the people who scold others for flying and how it impacts the climate always seem to target people who are considering flying somewhere for a rare vacation, or the people who head overseas for once- or twice-a-year international conferences - and not the people who regularly fly their private jets for trips that would take less than an hour to drive?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:57 PM on December 1, 2022 [32 favorites]
Have you ever noticed that the people who scold others for flying and how it impacts the climate always seem to target people who are considering flying somewhere for a rare vacation, or the people who head overseas for once- or twice-a-year international conferences - and not the people who regularly fly their private jets for trips that would take less than an hour to drive?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:57 PM on December 1, 2022 [32 favorites]
How much would gasoline cost without subsidies?
The International Monetary Fund, which is a conservative organization, not liberal, has done a lot of work in this area. Their peer-reviewed studies show that the overall gasoline subsidy is now at USD 5.2 trillion per year... So, each gallon of gasoline in the U.S. is being subsidized by USD 5.09, and that’s going up by an additional 0.09 per year... It’s worthy of note that essentially every country in the world still subsidizes gasoline. Even Norway, where hardly anyone even uses it anymore, still subsidizes it down to USD 7.08/gallon. A gallon of gas costs $9.27 in Hong Kong, though, where that price comes a little closer to reflecting actual costs.
Source used by article.
posted by Brian B. at 9:03 PM on December 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
The International Monetary Fund, which is a conservative organization, not liberal, has done a lot of work in this area. Their peer-reviewed studies show that the overall gasoline subsidy is now at USD 5.2 trillion per year... So, each gallon of gasoline in the U.S. is being subsidized by USD 5.09, and that’s going up by an additional 0.09 per year... It’s worthy of note that essentially every country in the world still subsidizes gasoline. Even Norway, where hardly anyone even uses it anymore, still subsidizes it down to USD 7.08/gallon. A gallon of gas costs $9.27 in Hong Kong, though, where that price comes a little closer to reflecting actual costs.
Source used by article.
posted by Brian B. at 9:03 PM on December 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
How do people afford to fly these days? For many reasons, I haven't flown in probably 15+ years, but a huge reason is it's way too expensive. I am always stunned by how much people manage to fly.
A Ryanair flight from Birmingham in the UK to Denmark takes less than two hours, and can be done for less than £50 return (if you don't need much luggage) if you're going outside of peak times. It costs more than that to get from Birmingham to the Eurostar terminal, and a similar amount of time. Then you've got to pay for the Eurostar (also more expensive) and train tickets across France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. Rail is just not an option for anyone but the ultra-rich, with an excess of available leisure time. There is no longer a passenger ferry route (which would likely have had worse per passenger emissions anyway).
Regarding ships I've looked into it repeatedly. Pound for pound, large ships are actually by far the most efficient transport method.
The ICCT strenuously disagree. Cruise ships are the literal worst.
Aviation is less than 2% of all GHGs, yet there is WAY more than 2% of energy and focus dedicated to it. Why are we so much more interested in tinkering with the margins than tackling any of the sectors where a substantially larger impact can be made? There are meaningful alternatives to cars (buses, trains) in a way that there just aren't for a lot of aviation, but we're spending all of our energy on trying to get people to lower their quality if life substantially by just giving up on a capacity when we could be looking at much lower handing fruit with much bigger impact. But I guess flying is something that's important to other people, while eg my car is essential.
posted by Dysk at 9:17 PM on December 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
A Ryanair flight from Birmingham in the UK to Denmark takes less than two hours, and can be done for less than £50 return (if you don't need much luggage) if you're going outside of peak times. It costs more than that to get from Birmingham to the Eurostar terminal, and a similar amount of time. Then you've got to pay for the Eurostar (also more expensive) and train tickets across France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. Rail is just not an option for anyone but the ultra-rich, with an excess of available leisure time. There is no longer a passenger ferry route (which would likely have had worse per passenger emissions anyway).
Regarding ships I've looked into it repeatedly. Pound for pound, large ships are actually by far the most efficient transport method.
The ICCT strenuously disagree. Cruise ships are the literal worst.
Aviation is less than 2% of all GHGs, yet there is WAY more than 2% of energy and focus dedicated to it. Why are we so much more interested in tinkering with the margins than tackling any of the sectors where a substantially larger impact can be made? There are meaningful alternatives to cars (buses, trains) in a way that there just aren't for a lot of aviation, but we're spending all of our energy on trying to get people to lower their quality if life substantially by just giving up on a capacity when we could be looking at much lower handing fruit with much bigger impact. But I guess flying is something that's important to other people, while eg my car is essential.
posted by Dysk at 9:17 PM on December 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
Demand is invented to justify the continued supply of methane. They call it 'export' or 'war in Ukraine '.
Sure, the war in Ukraine is "invented" ... in the sense that Vladimir Putin invented it.
One could also call the need to rapidly replace Russian gas exports to Europe, so that people don't freeze and industry doesn't shut down en masse, "invented," if one wanted to. It doesn't make it less real.
Obviously Europe, like the U.S., needs to accelerate its transition to renewable energy. But it can't be accelerated fast enough to happen in one year.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:24 PM on December 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Sure, the war in Ukraine is "invented" ... in the sense that Vladimir Putin invented it.
One could also call the need to rapidly replace Russian gas exports to Europe, so that people don't freeze and industry doesn't shut down en masse, "invented," if one wanted to. It doesn't make it less real.
Obviously Europe, like the U.S., needs to accelerate its transition to renewable energy. But it can't be accelerated fast enough to happen in one year.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:24 PM on December 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
WRT military aviation fuel consumption, consider also Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War [pdf], Neta C. Crawford [WP bio], Boston University|Watson Institute, 13 November 2019:
posted by cenoxo at 9:38 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
If climate change is a “threat multiplier,” as some national security experts and members of the military argue, how does the US military reduce climate change caused threats? Or does war and the preparation for it increase those risks?More facts and figures in the paper.
In its quest for security, the United States spends more on the military than any other country in the world, certainly much more than the combined military spending of its major rivals, Russia and China. Authorized at over $700 billion in Fiscal Year 2019, and with over $700 billion requested for FY2020, the Department of Defense (DOD) budget comprises more than half of all federal discretionary spending each year. With an armed force of more than two million people, 11 nuclear aircraft carriers, and the world’s most advanced military aircraft, the US is more than capable of projecting power anywhere in the globe, and with “Space Command,” into outer space. Further, the US has been continuously at war since late 2001, with the US military and State Department currently engaged in more than 80 countries in counterterror operations.
All this capacity for and use of military force requires a great deal of energy, most of it in the form of fossil fuel. As General David Petraeus said in 2011, “Energy is the lifeblood of our warfighting capabilities.” Although the Pentagon has, in recent years, increasingly emphasized energy security—energy resilience and conservation—it is still a significant consumer of fossil fuel energy. Indeed, the DOD is the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly, the single largest institutional producer of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world. From FY1975 to FY2018, total DOD greenhouse gas emissions were more than 3,685 Million Metric Tons of CO2 equivalent. While only a portion of US total emissions, US military emissions are, in any one year, larger than the emissions of many countries. In 2017, for example, the Pentagon’s total greenhouse gas emissions (installations and operations) were greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of entire industrialized countries, such as Sweden, Denmark and Portugal and also greater than all CO2 emissions from US production of iron and steel....
posted by cenoxo at 9:38 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Every human activity comes with an emissions cost, which is not currently priced into what we all pay for things.
It will require coordination and action on the part of world governments to estimate that cost and impose it on every energy-based transaction, be it travel by plane, train, bus, car, or consumption of meat, or purchase of new clothing, etc. etc.
Call it a carbon tax or whatever else one likes, but the point is that our governments do not collect this cost, and so there is not as much economic pressure towards efficiency and renewable energy as there needs to be.
It will come, especially once coastal cities in developed nations start having to pay for the effects of the worsening climate crisis. It might well be too late at that point, but it will happen or some system like it, to approximately recoup damages.
In the meantime, individual consumers can make choices if they so choose (and the Google post down below on the front page includes the kinds of emissions estimates that are needed for that), but it should happen with the understanding that it is voluntary and will not effectively change the larger course of climatic changes underway, which require state-level action.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:45 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
It will require coordination and action on the part of world governments to estimate that cost and impose it on every energy-based transaction, be it travel by plane, train, bus, car, or consumption of meat, or purchase of new clothing, etc. etc.
Call it a carbon tax or whatever else one likes, but the point is that our governments do not collect this cost, and so there is not as much economic pressure towards efficiency and renewable energy as there needs to be.
It will come, especially once coastal cities in developed nations start having to pay for the effects of the worsening climate crisis. It might well be too late at that point, but it will happen or some system like it, to approximately recoup damages.
In the meantime, individual consumers can make choices if they so choose (and the Google post down below on the front page includes the kinds of emissions estimates that are needed for that), but it should happen with the understanding that it is voluntary and will not effectively change the larger course of climatic changes underway, which require state-level action.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:45 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Have you ever noticed that the people who scold others for flying and how it impacts the climate always seem to target people who are considering flying somewhere for a rare vacation, or the people who head overseas for once- or twice-a-year international conferences - and not the people who regularly fly their private jets for trips that would take less than an hour to drive?
To quote the main article, "Though there is no exact data, Dan Rutherford, shipping and aviation director at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a US-based non-profit, estimates just 3% of the global population take regular flights."
Why are we so much more interested in tinkering with the margins than tackling any of the sectors where a substantially larger impact can be made?
It is possible to care about more than one thing at a time. I don't ride in planes AND I don't ride in trains AND I don't ride in buses AND I don't ride in cars AND I have been partially responsible for important policy change (that I cared about due to personal choices I had made in my own life) AND I eat a mostly plant-based diet AND AND AND. These are hard work in my society! These are not perfect options! They close some doors while opening new paths.
Everyone's got their things they're working on, and everyone's contributing the best they can with the physical/mental/emotional/financial/social resources they have available. It's good to know what your options are, and not flying is one option. And it's good to know that there are other people out there who support you in doing the hard things when they are the moral thing to do.
posted by aniola at 9:53 PM on December 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
To quote the main article, "Though there is no exact data, Dan Rutherford, shipping and aviation director at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a US-based non-profit, estimates just 3% of the global population take regular flights."
Why are we so much more interested in tinkering with the margins than tackling any of the sectors where a substantially larger impact can be made?
It is possible to care about more than one thing at a time. I don't ride in planes AND I don't ride in trains AND I don't ride in buses AND I don't ride in cars AND I have been partially responsible for important policy change (that I cared about due to personal choices I had made in my own life) AND I eat a mostly plant-based diet AND AND AND. These are hard work in my society! These are not perfect options! They close some doors while opening new paths.
Everyone's got their things they're working on, and everyone's contributing the best they can with the physical/mental/emotional/financial/social resources they have available. It's good to know what your options are, and not flying is one option. And it's good to know that there are other people out there who support you in doing the hard things when they are the moral thing to do.
posted by aniola at 9:53 PM on December 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Cruise ships are the literal worst.
Massive amounts of particulate matter and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions have made Lisbon's port the sixth most-polluting in the whole of Europe. SO2 emissions from the cruise ships are 86% higher than those emitted by Portugal's entire car traffic over a year.
posted by gimonca at 10:02 PM on December 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Massive amounts of particulate matter and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions have made Lisbon's port the sixth most-polluting in the whole of Europe. SO2 emissions from the cruise ships are 86% higher than those emitted by Portugal's entire car traffic over a year.
posted by gimonca at 10:02 PM on December 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Call it a carbon tax or whatever else one likes, but the point is that our governments do not collect this cost, and so there is not as much economic pressure towards efficiency and renewable energy as there needs to be.
I have heard an interesting counter-argument to this, which is: would a carbon tax cause sufficient economic pressure to drive the necessary change? For one thing, renewable energy is already the cheapest form of electricity, to a point where the pressure to move to renewables already exists. On the other hand, the invasion of Ukraine has driven up the price of oil and gas because that was a huge part of Russia's economy, and while there have been token efforts to decarbonise, quite a lot of the economy has just eaten the cost full in the face, driving huge inflation. Most carbon tax proposals are fairly modest compared to what has already happened.
The legislation of a carbon tax is not free; there's an opportunity cost involved where we could have done other things, like legislate car charging networks, build a market for energy storage, build new infrastructure, or build alternatives to fossil fuel extraction in areas dependent on that work for money and purpose. In this era of cheap solar and wind, does it still make sense? Would the simplest solution to dealing with the expense of the carbon tax be to lobby conservatives to remove it?
posted by Merus at 10:02 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have heard an interesting counter-argument to this, which is: would a carbon tax cause sufficient economic pressure to drive the necessary change? For one thing, renewable energy is already the cheapest form of electricity, to a point where the pressure to move to renewables already exists. On the other hand, the invasion of Ukraine has driven up the price of oil and gas because that was a huge part of Russia's economy, and while there have been token efforts to decarbonise, quite a lot of the economy has just eaten the cost full in the face, driving huge inflation. Most carbon tax proposals are fairly modest compared to what has already happened.
The legislation of a carbon tax is not free; there's an opportunity cost involved where we could have done other things, like legislate car charging networks, build a market for energy storage, build new infrastructure, or build alternatives to fossil fuel extraction in areas dependent on that work for money and purpose. In this era of cheap solar and wind, does it still make sense? Would the simplest solution to dealing with the expense of the carbon tax be to lobby conservatives to remove it?
posted by Merus at 10:02 PM on December 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
It is possible to care about more than one thing at a time.
It is, but we are collectively dedicating a completely disproportionate amount of time and energy to aviation. Like, it would be weird and counterproductive if I wanted to reduce my expenses significantly and spent way more time and energy on my sweets budget (miniscule) than my pub budget (comparatively massive)* - it would indicate an unwillingness to tackle the actual problem, or at least hinder my ability to effectively achieve my stated goal.
*(I don't actually go to the pub basically at all these days, example is purely illustrative)
posted by Dysk at 10:09 PM on December 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
It is, but we are collectively dedicating a completely disproportionate amount of time and energy to aviation. Like, it would be weird and counterproductive if I wanted to reduce my expenses significantly and spent way more time and energy on my sweets budget (miniscule) than my pub budget (comparatively massive)* - it would indicate an unwillingness to tackle the actual problem, or at least hinder my ability to effectively achieve my stated goal.
*(I don't actually go to the pub basically at all these days, example is purely illustrative)
posted by Dysk at 10:09 PM on December 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Jet travel is public transit. It’s hard to discuss flying because Americans can’t wrap their heads around rich people using public transit.
posted by Headfullofair at 10:10 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Headfullofair at 10:10 PM on December 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I've been agonizing over my own situation wrt flying. I was vegan for 18 years; I recently started eating a little meat/fish/eggs to connect to my heritage, and I still have doubts about that. I've flown probably fewer than ten times in my life. My heart yearns to return to the country of my birth to experience it and see a parent I barely know, but how can I justify a vacation length trip given everything I know about flying? So I imagine somehow making it worth it with a year long trip, or even a one way move. And then the procrastination takes over. It looks like you actually can cross the Pacific by passenger cargo ship, is that actually better? Meanwhile, I see acquaintances flying NY to FL for a weekend Bitcoin conference and I feel sour inside.
I've had to make some hard choices as a result of my ethics, too. I've given this a lot of thought. And what I've come up with may not be appropriate for most people in this thread, but it might be of interest to you. My idea is a travel modeshare fundraiser of sorts. I guess maybe something like cap and trade but on an individual scale? I have no idea if cap and trade is a good idea or terrible one (my guess is that its usefulness is as of an interim solution but I really haven't looked into it at all), but my idea goes something like this:
"My heart yearns to return to the country of my birth (etc.) so I am going to save up motor minimalist miles" with the idea being that you and/or other people who want to support you travel by some mode of transportation that you feel good about for miles that you/they would have originally traveled in a less ecological manner. If you and everyone you know already literally bike/walk/etc. everywhere, you can add in some other new positive change and use a conversion metric of your choice. Then, once you have enough motor minimalism miles saved up, you can make your journey!
posted by aniola at 10:10 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've had to make some hard choices as a result of my ethics, too. I've given this a lot of thought. And what I've come up with may not be appropriate for most people in this thread, but it might be of interest to you. My idea is a travel modeshare fundraiser of sorts. I guess maybe something like cap and trade but on an individual scale? I have no idea if cap and trade is a good idea or terrible one (my guess is that its usefulness is as of an interim solution but I really haven't looked into it at all), but my idea goes something like this:
"My heart yearns to return to the country of my birth (etc.) so I am going to save up motor minimalist miles" with the idea being that you and/or other people who want to support you travel by some mode of transportation that you feel good about for miles that you/they would have originally traveled in a less ecological manner. If you and everyone you know already literally bike/walk/etc. everywhere, you can add in some other new positive change and use a conversion metric of your choice. Then, once you have enough motor minimalism miles saved up, you can make your journey!
posted by aniola at 10:10 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I guess to me there's a privilege of circumstance or a privilege of luck to never needing to fly, especially in a place like the US where there aren't better options.
I don't like flying, it's uncomfortable, miserable and expensive but it's also far cheaper than trains and less physically and mentally exhausting than driving.
posted by Ferreous at 10:12 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I don't like flying, it's uncomfortable, miserable and expensive but it's also far cheaper than trains and less physically and mentally exhausting than driving.
posted by Ferreous at 10:12 PM on December 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I fly way too much, in the service of a job promoting green infrastructure which is of course the greatest irony. I needed to get from Brussels to Barcelona about a year ago and thought: Finally! A route doable by rail. But looking into it the rail trip took 12 hrs and cost €180, while a flight could be had for €12 and took 1.5 hrs. This is absurd, there was no way to motivate the greener solution to those who hold the purse strings. Plus, I believe this whole route was bookable on SNCF but most long distance rail trips in Europe require working with multiple providers and their interfaces whereas I can literally search for a flight and buy a ticket on my phone in under three minutes. We need systems to make the green choice the easy one too.
posted by St. Oops at 11:01 PM on December 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 11:01 PM on December 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
> would a carbon tax cause sufficient economic pressure to drive the necessary change?
The idea is to increase the tax until it reaches the point at which it does create the necessary economic change.
> and while there have been token efforts to decarbonise
Are they token efforts? It's a serious question, my impression is that politically we've had a warning not to rely on dictators, and financially lot of momentum for renewables has been built. IDK
> The legislation of a carbon tax is not free; there's an opportunity cost involved where we could have done other things, like legislate car charging networks, build a market for energy storage, build new infrastructure, or build alternatives to fossil fuel extraction in areas dependent on that work for money and purpose.
The beauty of a carbon tax is it taxes the thing we do not want, all at once, relatively equally across the board. While everything else you name:
- Requires a million separate legislative battles distributed across every government.
- Requires a trillion points of enforcement across space and time as opposed to: the points at which carbon comes out of the ground or enters the economy.
- Results in a ten million loopholes and exceptions and inequalities across regions that have to be individually handled.
Meanwhile a carbon tax:
- passively encourages all things you named, and most things we would legislate.
- can be distributed equally back to people in a dividend (which is effectively progressive taxation! UBI on a slant!), or towards carbon projects.
That said, it turns out a carbon tax is an easy political target, while a itemized list of goals can grease squeaky wheels, meaning that as far as I can tell the one crippling problem with a carbon tax is that it may be harder to pass.
posted by tychotesla at 12:13 AM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
The idea is to increase the tax until it reaches the point at which it does create the necessary economic change.
> and while there have been token efforts to decarbonise
Are they token efforts? It's a serious question, my impression is that politically we've had a warning not to rely on dictators, and financially lot of momentum for renewables has been built. IDK
> The legislation of a carbon tax is not free; there's an opportunity cost involved where we could have done other things, like legislate car charging networks, build a market for energy storage, build new infrastructure, or build alternatives to fossil fuel extraction in areas dependent on that work for money and purpose.
The beauty of a carbon tax is it taxes the thing we do not want, all at once, relatively equally across the board. While everything else you name:
- Requires a million separate legislative battles distributed across every government.
- Requires a trillion points of enforcement across space and time as opposed to: the points at which carbon comes out of the ground or enters the economy.
- Results in a ten million loopholes and exceptions and inequalities across regions that have to be individually handled.
Meanwhile a carbon tax:
- passively encourages all things you named, and most things we would legislate.
- can be distributed equally back to people in a dividend (which is effectively progressive taxation! UBI on a slant!), or towards carbon projects.
That said, it turns out a carbon tax is an easy political target, while a itemized list of goals can grease squeaky wheels, meaning that as far as I can tell the one crippling problem with a carbon tax is that it may be harder to pass.
posted by tychotesla at 12:13 AM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
Actually, every discussion of climate change should start with " "BiG OiL is TO BlaMe". It is the source of the fuel, the largest source of the pollution, it is a source of political corruption, it is THE source of the very successful disinformation and misdirection and inaction campaigns. Any climate plan that can't pursuade or defeat the political leaders the fossils own is moot.
"We need the public demand for these things, and then hopefully, governments and businesses will over time respond". This model of public awareness and support leading to political policy change and corporate reform is a zombie idea, it keeps getting debunked and yet persists.
It's why climate scientists keep losing to political scientists. It misunderstands power, agency, class, prerogative disharmony, policy synthesis, institutional self-defense.... its an example of engineers disease: people informed and expert in one arena assuming their expertise translates to other orthogonal domains. 0 democracies (or other states) over the past 40 years have accomplished this. But sure, just a little bit more public mood pressure will do it.
civilian air travel is already exceptionally rare outside the wealthy, and removing or reversing the subsidies for air travel, or fossil fuels would reduce it further. But civilian air travel has never had to be a viable business just as neither have civilian nuclear power plants, olympic villages and other forms of structured potempkin businesses. They accomplish political goals, not economic ones.
The climate depends on about the total amount and rate of pollution and habitat destruction, politics cares about who does it, the economy cares about what it is done for.
No special treatment is needed for air-travel. renewable fuels exist and are merely expensive, alternative transport exists and is merely inconvenient, when the climate destroys agriculture, your frequent flier miles will dance on the head of a pin, and us with them and the angels.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 1:06 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
"We need the public demand for these things, and then hopefully, governments and businesses will over time respond". This model of public awareness and support leading to political policy change and corporate reform is a zombie idea, it keeps getting debunked and yet persists.
It's why climate scientists keep losing to political scientists. It misunderstands power, agency, class, prerogative disharmony, policy synthesis, institutional self-defense.... its an example of engineers disease: people informed and expert in one arena assuming their expertise translates to other orthogonal domains. 0 democracies (or other states) over the past 40 years have accomplished this. But sure, just a little bit more public mood pressure will do it.
civilian air travel is already exceptionally rare outside the wealthy, and removing or reversing the subsidies for air travel, or fossil fuels would reduce it further. But civilian air travel has never had to be a viable business just as neither have civilian nuclear power plants, olympic villages and other forms of structured potempkin businesses. They accomplish political goals, not economic ones.
The climate depends on about the total amount and rate of pollution and habitat destruction, politics cares about who does it, the economy cares about what it is done for.
No special treatment is needed for air-travel. renewable fuels exist and are merely expensive, alternative transport exists and is merely inconvenient, when the climate destroys agriculture, your frequent flier miles will dance on the head of a pin, and us with them and the angels.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 1:06 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
"merely inconvenient" is one way to characterise literal days versus mere hours I guess. With the way our lives and economies are structured, it might as well not exist - if you can only book a week of holiday at once, four days each way is impossible in practical terms.
posted by Dysk at 1:15 AM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 1:15 AM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
Sorry, i was so stunned by the early comments that I forgot to add: I have no objection to voluntary abstenance, i have strenuous objection to relying on voluntary unenforceable demand side only abstence as a policy avenue.
[Redacted] burns much less fuel and would accomplish much more.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 1:16 AM on December 2, 2022
[Redacted] burns much less fuel and would accomplish much more.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 1:16 AM on December 2, 2022
I guess I’d add that from the Australian point of view, the kind of contact with the outside world that has come in the later 20thC from airline travel, that being high immigration, tourists and visitors arriving, and our own citizens leaving to live and work in the rest of the world, has been one of the most powerful forces to break down the notorious parochialism of a very remote society. That’s not nothing either.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 1:43 AM on December 2, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 1:43 AM on December 2, 2022 [11 favorites]
I have heard an interesting counter-argument to this, which is: would a carbon tax cause sufficient economic pressure to drive the necessary change?
Might Australia provide a case-study? We had a carbon tax, during which time emissions dropped. Conservatives removed it and emissions skyrocketed.
posted by pompomtom at 3:15 AM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
Might Australia provide a case-study? We had a carbon tax, during which time emissions dropped. Conservatives removed it and emissions skyrocketed.
posted by pompomtom at 3:15 AM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
kingdead: It's an interesting paper, but it's absolutely not applicable to America (possibly the Western Hemisphere?) As a relatively privileged white collar worker, I get 15 days of combined sick/vacation a year. All my family live at least 10 hours' drive from me (most live on the opposite coast).
No, not the Western hemisphere, probably just the USA (and possibly Canada?). Most people in the Western hemisphere get longer vacations, and don't live that far from their families.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:16 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
No, not the Western hemisphere, probably just the USA (and possibly Canada?). Most people in the Western hemisphere get longer vacations, and don't live that far from their families.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:16 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
It’s hard to discuss flying because Americans can’t wrap their heads around rich people using public transit.
Is it really "public transit" if someone is using a private jet?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:39 AM on December 2, 2022
Is it really "public transit" if someone is using a private jet?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:39 AM on December 2, 2022
Might Australia provide a case-study? We had a carbon tax, during which time emissions dropped. Conservatives removed it and emissions skyrocketed.
We did! The person who made this argument to me, who was a climate scientist in Australia although one prone to eccentricity, put the bulk of that improvement down to the renewable energy target, which was gutted at the same time as the carbon tax.
(This was a government scheme where energy retailers had to prove that a certain amount of the energy they purchased came from renewable sources, which meant that they were willing to pay a premium for certified cheap energy that still worked out to be cheaper than coal. This in turn drove investment because as the price for electricity went down, generators could raise the price of the certification, but because rooftop solar also generated certified renewable energy, there was only so much they could gouge retailers by (and thus, the end consumer). From what I've been told, it was a surprisingly effective system - a little like carbon credits, but because the 'credits' can only be generated by actual renewable energy sources, you don't get the rorting you get in a lot of the international carbon trading schemes. I think he had some experience with the German scheme, which I imagine drove some of the bitterness about carbon taxes.)
Of course, the renewable energy target doesn't do a single thing about landclearing, and Australia's car emission laws are some of the worst in the developed world, so there's a lot of things that might have been covered by climate taxes that weren't.
posted by Merus at 3:42 AM on December 2, 2022
We did! The person who made this argument to me, who was a climate scientist in Australia although one prone to eccentricity, put the bulk of that improvement down to the renewable energy target, which was gutted at the same time as the carbon tax.
(This was a government scheme where energy retailers had to prove that a certain amount of the energy they purchased came from renewable sources, which meant that they were willing to pay a premium for certified cheap energy that still worked out to be cheaper than coal. This in turn drove investment because as the price for electricity went down, generators could raise the price of the certification, but because rooftop solar also generated certified renewable energy, there was only so much they could gouge retailers by (and thus, the end consumer). From what I've been told, it was a surprisingly effective system - a little like carbon credits, but because the 'credits' can only be generated by actual renewable energy sources, you don't get the rorting you get in a lot of the international carbon trading schemes. I think he had some experience with the German scheme, which I imagine drove some of the bitterness about carbon taxes.)
Of course, the renewable energy target doesn't do a single thing about landclearing, and Australia's car emission laws are some of the worst in the developed world, so there's a lot of things that might have been covered by climate taxes that weren't.
posted by Merus at 3:42 AM on December 2, 2022
It’s quite something how many comments are “Are you going to tell me off for flying?”
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:44 AM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:44 AM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
Why are we so much more interested in tinkering with the margins than tackling any of the sectors where a substantially larger impact can be made?
This continued focus on flying feels a lot like the intense focus on recycling -- these are frankly feel-good (or feel-bad, if people are being shamed) things that not only don't address the much larger structural forces at play, but actively distract from them.
Very frankly, if 2 or 3 percent of global emissions is what it costs to be able to fly to see grandma before she passes or go on a vacation that you have been planning for and saving for, people are mostly going to find that a pretty good deal. That doesn't mean we shouldn't make the situation better -- like providing high quality and fast rail service, appropriately taxing industries, taxing rich people such that they aren't flying around on private jets quite so casually, and so on. But even if you halted all flying today, that leaves ~98% of emissions untouched and doesn't really change the big picture.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:24 AM on December 2, 2022 [14 favorites]
This continued focus on flying feels a lot like the intense focus on recycling -- these are frankly feel-good (or feel-bad, if people are being shamed) things that not only don't address the much larger structural forces at play, but actively distract from them.
Very frankly, if 2 or 3 percent of global emissions is what it costs to be able to fly to see grandma before she passes or go on a vacation that you have been planning for and saving for, people are mostly going to find that a pretty good deal. That doesn't mean we shouldn't make the situation better -- like providing high quality and fast rail service, appropriately taxing industries, taxing rich people such that they aren't flying around on private jets quite so casually, and so on. But even if you halted all flying today, that leaves ~98% of emissions untouched and doesn't really change the big picture.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:24 AM on December 2, 2022 [14 favorites]
That seems like a major misread of Dip Flash's comment, thoroughburro, or at least an extremely uncharitable one.
posted by sagc at 6:39 AM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by sagc at 6:39 AM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is probably just a "we'll agree to disagree" thing, which is fine, but in case it is helpful to state my point differently:
1. Flying is a very small part of total emissions.
2. Flying provides services that people find personally valuable (as well as all the strategic, cargo, military, etc. portion of flying, which obviously isn't going away).
3. Therefore, arguing about flying is mostly going to create a lot of conflict but will lead to at best very small changes in global emissions (and most likely lead only to changes almost too small to measure).
4. This is a distraction from the low hanging fruit of emissions reductions, which require regulatory action rather than individual consumption decisions.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:09 AM on December 2, 2022 [13 favorites]
1. Flying is a very small part of total emissions.
2. Flying provides services that people find personally valuable (as well as all the strategic, cargo, military, etc. portion of flying, which obviously isn't going away).
3. Therefore, arguing about flying is mostly going to create a lot of conflict but will lead to at best very small changes in global emissions (and most likely lead only to changes almost too small to measure).
4. This is a distraction from the low hanging fruit of emissions reductions, which require regulatory action rather than individual consumption decisions.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:09 AM on December 2, 2022 [13 favorites]
Annual growth in global air traffic passenger demand from 2006 to 2022, Statista, Published by Erick Burgueño Salas, Oct 30, 2022. This statistic represents the annual growth in global air traffic passenger demand between 2006 and 2022. In 2021, due to the coronavirus outbreak, global air traffic passenger decreased by 58.3 percent compared to 2019.
Give people a bad enough reason to not fly, and they won’t?
posted by cenoxo at 7:43 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Give people a bad enough reason to not fly, and they won’t?
posted by cenoxo at 7:43 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
But looking into it the rail trip took 12 hrs and cost €180, while a flight could be had for €12 and took 1.5 hrs. This is absurd, there was no way to motivate the greener solution to those who hold the purse strings.
Not to mention you'd have to convince your bosses that you should take the slower, less efficient travel option. I'm a fellow frequent business traveler and this would never be approved for me even if it was an option (which it usually isn't - most of the places I go have terrible to nonexistent train connections). I don't particularly enjoy flying but I also like being employed.
posted by photo guy at 8:02 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Not to mention you'd have to convince your bosses that you should take the slower, less efficient travel option. I'm a fellow frequent business traveler and this would never be approved for me even if it was an option (which it usually isn't - most of the places I go have terrible to nonexistent train connections). I don't particularly enjoy flying but I also like being employed.
posted by photo guy at 8:02 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
"We can change policy and ourselves at the same time, and given that policy is meaningfully an average of what we accept as individuals within society".
Policy is not an average of individual choices and preferences. Policy is what the people with guns and the owners and your managers tell you to do.
"we polled the slaves and they want to not be handcuffed to the sewing machine" is not how it works.
The customsr is not always right, the customer is the mark. Efforts to make changes to the global pollution crisis by convincing billions of people to resist advertising, work requirements, social pressure, short term benefits etc in order to change what the people who plan and deploy capital are doing is like trying to get people to steer the plane by tilting their arms to the right to avoid hitting the WTC. It mistakes the power relationship.
The pilots of the political economy need to get removed from the cockpit before they finish killing the earths life support system. The pilots care about polling and consumer sentiment because it is feedback on the effectiveness of their marketing and popularity, their soft power over you. Not because they are trying to know and serve you better. Try to strike or protest and see how fast its men with guns who respond.
Organize and fight back, take over the cockpit before the Musks of industry twitters the biosphere, before the next Bushs Iraq-wars the next generation of kids, before the kochs Purdue you.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 8:03 AM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
Policy is not an average of individual choices and preferences. Policy is what the people with guns and the owners and your managers tell you to do.
"we polled the slaves and they want to not be handcuffed to the sewing machine" is not how it works.
The customsr is not always right, the customer is the mark. Efforts to make changes to the global pollution crisis by convincing billions of people to resist advertising, work requirements, social pressure, short term benefits etc in order to change what the people who plan and deploy capital are doing is like trying to get people to steer the plane by tilting their arms to the right to avoid hitting the WTC. It mistakes the power relationship.
The pilots of the political economy need to get removed from the cockpit before they finish killing the earths life support system. The pilots care about polling and consumer sentiment because it is feedback on the effectiveness of their marketing and popularity, their soft power over you. Not because they are trying to know and serve you better. Try to strike or protest and see how fast its men with guns who respond.
Organize and fight back, take over the cockpit before the Musks of industry twitters the biosphere, before the next Bushs Iraq-wars the next generation of kids, before the kochs Purdue you.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 8:03 AM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
tl;dr Demand doesnt exist in a vaccum. Your range of consumer choices are the ones chosen for you by the producers, same as your political choices.
Good luck individually choosing not to breath polluted air, drink poisoned water, or be corralled into your cell because you are "tresspassing" on the earth they own, which is all of it. Enjoy the friendly skies.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 8:12 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
Good luck individually choosing not to breath polluted air, drink poisoned water, or be corralled into your cell because you are "tresspassing" on the earth they own, which is all of it. Enjoy the friendly skies.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 8:12 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
1. Flying is a very small part of total emissions.
IMO flying gets far too much subsidy and far too much press. The MTA in NYC carries more people on a daily basis than every airport in the US combined, but which gets more subsidy and press?
The US has severely under-invested in mass transit, putting multiple airports in every major city, and airline traffic is still less than one single transit agency.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:13 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
IMO flying gets far too much subsidy and far too much press. The MTA in NYC carries more people on a daily basis than every airport in the US combined, but which gets more subsidy and press?
The US has severely under-invested in mass transit, putting multiple airports in every major city, and airline traffic is still less than one single transit agency.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:13 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
Private Aviation Is Booming And Bursting At The Seams, Doug Gollan, Forbes, May 22 2022 [alternate link]:
posted by cenoxo at 8:15 AM on December 2, 2022
Business in private aviation is booming. At the opening lunch for media at the European Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition being held in person in Geneva, Switzerland, for the first time since 2019, Kenny Dichter, Chairman and CEO of Wheels Up Experience, told the audience he has seen a transformation from private aviation being a luxury to an essential part of the lifestyle for his over 12,000 members.More in the article.
…
David Paddock, the President of General Dynamic’s Jet Aviation, speaking at the same welcome session, said after an initial 70% drop in business at the outset of Covid, sales at its FBOs have recovered to nearly 20% ahead of pre-pandemic highs.
Globally, around 80% of the 500 operators surveyed by JetNet IQ expect increased utilization in fractional and charter operations seen over the past 12-to-18 months will continue.
However, the issues that are roiling the airlines and greater economy are also hitting the business aviation segment, somewhat misnamed as much of the boom has been spurred by leisure flyers. In fact, despite records every month, Dichter says corporate flying is still lagging….
posted by cenoxo at 8:15 AM on December 2, 2022
I've been trying to decarbonize my work, especially since I'm doing more and more work on the climate crisis (new book out in a few months!).
tl;dr - it's tricky.
The easy part is the classes I teach (part time). I take the Metro into DC and walk to campus, no problem. I also have access to commuter rail.
But my other clients? Some are outside the US, and flight remains the main way to get to them all.
Within the US... the BBC piece is cheery, but we have really poor access to places by rail, as others have pointed out. I'm in the DC area so I can Amtrak etc. up the northeast corridor, but heading into the rest of the country is a problem.
I've been trying to coax clients into doing more virtual events, and that's been successful to a degree. For my business, it's less revenue (I charge less for online) but a big time savings, so it's good. Yet academics (I work in higher ed) really have a deep preference for face-to-face.
Some clients have offered to buy carbon offsets or to donate extra funds to climate groups, which I've been accepting. I'm thinking of making the latter a kind of surcharge for events where I need to drive or fly.
posted by doctornemo at 8:19 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
tl;dr - it's tricky.
The easy part is the classes I teach (part time). I take the Metro into DC and walk to campus, no problem. I also have access to commuter rail.
But my other clients? Some are outside the US, and flight remains the main way to get to them all.
Within the US... the BBC piece is cheery, but we have really poor access to places by rail, as others have pointed out. I'm in the DC area so I can Amtrak etc. up the northeast corridor, but heading into the rest of the country is a problem.
I've been trying to coax clients into doing more virtual events, and that's been successful to a degree. For my business, it's less revenue (I charge less for online) but a big time savings, so it's good. Yet academics (I work in higher ed) really have a deep preference for face-to-face.
Some clients have offered to buy carbon offsets or to donate extra funds to climate groups, which I've been accepting. I'm thinking of making the latter a kind of surcharge for events where I need to drive or fly.
posted by doctornemo at 8:19 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
On flying in academia:
This seems to be a deeply contentious topic. There's a lot of pushback from faculty who see flying as a legit function of their work, even in the teeth of the climate crisis. Arguments include:
-being in person is essential for early career academics
-the social interaction is crucial for everyone, and can't be done as extensively online
-there are some on-site academic needs, like visiting archives with undigitized material or exploring facilities (labs, buildings)
-academic use of air travel is minute on the global scale, and academics should spend precious time lobbying for actions which would have greater impact
There are other points, too, perhaps not so openly expressed. One is that flying is a perk for a job which often doesn't compensate well. Another is that interpersonal bonds are precious when academia is suffering under a lot of stresses.
When I've raised the idea - not calling on people to fly less, but just introducing the topic - I've gotten a wild range of responses. Some cheer on the idea, especially younger people, students, and staff (as opposed to faculty). Some deem the idea anti-intellectual. Indeed, I was charged with being Trump-adjacent for mentioning the topic. Others wonder about student travel, either study abroad or (for Americans) student athletes. Then some people dive into the details.
I've been forecasting campus activism on climate issues to accelerate. Among other ways this can play out, I'm waiting for groups to demand faculty fly less.
posted by doctornemo at 8:26 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
This seems to be a deeply contentious topic. There's a lot of pushback from faculty who see flying as a legit function of their work, even in the teeth of the climate crisis. Arguments include:
-being in person is essential for early career academics
-the social interaction is crucial for everyone, and can't be done as extensively online
-there are some on-site academic needs, like visiting archives with undigitized material or exploring facilities (labs, buildings)
-academic use of air travel is minute on the global scale, and academics should spend precious time lobbying for actions which would have greater impact
There are other points, too, perhaps not so openly expressed. One is that flying is a perk for a job which often doesn't compensate well. Another is that interpersonal bonds are precious when academia is suffering under a lot of stresses.
When I've raised the idea - not calling on people to fly less, but just introducing the topic - I've gotten a wild range of responses. Some cheer on the idea, especially younger people, students, and staff (as opposed to faculty). Some deem the idea anti-intellectual. Indeed, I was charged with being Trump-adjacent for mentioning the topic. Others wonder about student travel, either study abroad or (for Americans) student athletes. Then some people dive into the details.
I've been forecasting campus activism on climate issues to accelerate. Among other ways this can play out, I'm waiting for groups to demand faculty fly less.
posted by doctornemo at 8:26 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Is it possible to create a future where international travel as a leisure activity is not seen as aspirational and as a sign of a cultured and self-actualized upper/upper middle class person? A lot has gone into producing this image. There's even an "eco-tourism" niche.
posted by Selena777 at 8:27 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 8:27 AM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
ITT: the very nations that made economic migration away from native countries necessary for migrants' survival are wagging their fingers at migrants for daring to hop on a plane to see our family on a semi-regular basis. Well okay then how about you let my parents and aunts and uncles emigrate here. I'll stop taking flights back home if you make work visas easy for them to get.
posted by MiraK at 8:31 AM on December 2, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 8:31 AM on December 2, 2022 [12 favorites]
The "‘Are you going to tell me off for flying?’" paper was very interesting. The gender differences struck me.
posted by doctornemo at 8:37 AM on December 2, 2022
posted by doctornemo at 8:37 AM on December 2, 2022
I think the issue is that I’m not aware of any “low hanging fruit”.
A lot of Europe have combustion engine car bans coming in within the next decade or two (though they don't go far enough or fast enough, and only affect new sales) - that seems like an obvious example where there are meaningful alternatives, and where the potential impact is greater than 2%. Coal plants (and fossil fuel generation in general) are another comparatively easy win, given that renewables are getting to be the cheaper option, and again, the potential impact is much, much bigger. Electrifying mass transit. Banning sulpherised marine diesel. Getting rid of the emissions exemptions for light duty trucks in the US. Et cetera, et cetera. Why focus on something that is so contentious, where the alternatives are so, so poor as to be incomparable (and often not a meaningful alternative at all) all for the sake of - at the very most, if you grounded every single plane worldwide, both passenger and cargo - 2% of emissions? It just doesn't make sense. There is a lot of fruit that, at least by comparison, is incredibly low-hanging, and far more impactful.
posted by Dysk at 8:51 AM on December 2, 2022 [10 favorites]
A lot of Europe have combustion engine car bans coming in within the next decade or two (though they don't go far enough or fast enough, and only affect new sales) - that seems like an obvious example where there are meaningful alternatives, and where the potential impact is greater than 2%. Coal plants (and fossil fuel generation in general) are another comparatively easy win, given that renewables are getting to be the cheaper option, and again, the potential impact is much, much bigger. Electrifying mass transit. Banning sulpherised marine diesel. Getting rid of the emissions exemptions for light duty trucks in the US. Et cetera, et cetera. Why focus on something that is so contentious, where the alternatives are so, so poor as to be incomparable (and often not a meaningful alternative at all) all for the sake of - at the very most, if you grounded every single plane worldwide, both passenger and cargo - 2% of emissions? It just doesn't make sense. There is a lot of fruit that, at least by comparison, is incredibly low-hanging, and far more impactful.
posted by Dysk at 8:51 AM on December 2, 2022 [10 favorites]
(And fully agree with MiraK - I'm in a position where I can choose to live in the same country as either my husband, or my parents. Racist laws (and Brexit) make it so that flying is the only practicable way for me to see my parents, and I don't have a meaningful option of moving to rectify that. And in many ways I have it so much easier than a lot of other migrants.)
posted by Dysk at 8:54 AM on December 2, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 8:54 AM on December 2, 2022 [10 favorites]
Putting the responsibility on individuals to stop flying would impact immigrant families more than most, which I don’t see anyone mentioning.
posted by cali at 9:07 AM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by cali at 9:07 AM on December 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
For various political and economic reasons, my immediate family started the 20th century in one village and ended it spread out over 4 continents. I’m all for trying to reduce unnecessary business air travel (and I personally don’t enjoy flying so it’s easy for me to stop flying for leisure), but my aunt had to leave, alone, on a boat to Australia as a teenager in the 1960s - the fact that her (now North American) siblings can travel to see her on her 80th birthday is a small modern miracle.
posted by btfreek at 9:10 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by btfreek at 9:10 AM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Is there a way to take care of it all in one step? Obviously not, right? So why not “2% down, however many more to go!”?
It is all part of the same equation, though flying registers as a huge waste per person because the miles are huge, but it compares in waste to cheap throwaway imports shipped from elsewhere, times ten billion per year. This is the point of the debate between personal responsibility to magically reduce supply, versus higher costs for subsidies of best alternatives. In the case of it being a personal sin policy, the fuel supply isn't even reduced, simply priced lower for someone else to drive their monster truck further. Then comes the grand idea that "if everyone did it then it would go away" hence the magical reduction that relies on the power of guilt in the face of economic incentives to do otherwise. The new problem is that shame has its cultural roots in poverty, and the wealthy and aspiring wealthy will fly as a matter of entitlement that goes with creating jobs or being famous or confident. What is worse is the mental distortion of doing the righteous thing that follows a poor policy which leaves uncollected tax on the table which could fund alternatives. Or keeping out flying tourists who would balance the trade problem caused by cheap imports. Personal choice reduction has misled many to conceive of expanding light rail as a solution (because more choice is imagined as a solution) which apparently costs over 200 million USD per mile, and is the reason it doesn't exist over longer distances. The point is that traveling should not be a mass consumed service, and more tax opportunity exists with elite modes of transportation, and if this is too discriminatory, then we create a deduction for one trip on the tax return.
posted by Brian B. at 9:10 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
It is all part of the same equation, though flying registers as a huge waste per person because the miles are huge, but it compares in waste to cheap throwaway imports shipped from elsewhere, times ten billion per year. This is the point of the debate between personal responsibility to magically reduce supply, versus higher costs for subsidies of best alternatives. In the case of it being a personal sin policy, the fuel supply isn't even reduced, simply priced lower for someone else to drive their monster truck further. Then comes the grand idea that "if everyone did it then it would go away" hence the magical reduction that relies on the power of guilt in the face of economic incentives to do otherwise. The new problem is that shame has its cultural roots in poverty, and the wealthy and aspiring wealthy will fly as a matter of entitlement that goes with creating jobs or being famous or confident. What is worse is the mental distortion of doing the righteous thing that follows a poor policy which leaves uncollected tax on the table which could fund alternatives. Or keeping out flying tourists who would balance the trade problem caused by cheap imports. Personal choice reduction has misled many to conceive of expanding light rail as a solution (because more choice is imagined as a solution) which apparently costs over 200 million USD per mile, and is the reason it doesn't exist over longer distances. The point is that traveling should not be a mass consumed service, and more tax opportunity exists with elite modes of transportation, and if this is too discriminatory, then we create a deduction for one trip on the tax return.
posted by Brian B. at 9:10 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
> It’s quite something how many comments are “Are you going to tell me off for flying?”
posted by Horace Rumpol
Wow I wonder why that is..
> We had given absolutely no indication that the interview would pass ‘judgment’ on her flying activities
Yep. They're all overly defensivene. Guilty conscience much? We never said a single thing that could possibly make the lady in that paper (or anyone in this comment section) think we're judging. We AREN'T judging. This isn't about shaming anyone, we aren't trying to label them as bad or faulty in any way ---
> BINGE FLYING: Behavioural addiction and climate change (pdf)
Recent popular press suggests that ‘binge flying’ constitutes a new site of behavioural addiction.
Wait, no, that's not shaming or labeling people as bad! Addiction is a *disease*. It's not an addict's "fault". It's not like we're saying they *deliberately* choose to get high (see what I did there) despite knowing better ---
> ... two national contexts evidence a growing negative discourse towards frequent short-haul tourist air travel and illustrate strategies of guilt suppression and denial used to span a cognitive dissonance
Well okay maybe we ARE saying that, but hey, we aren't judging, we promise. This is a no-judgment zone. Come on. Everyone uses common psychological defenses like denial and bargaining. Everyone copes with cognitive dissonance in their own way. This is normal human psychology, not some kind of MORAL failure ---
> Knowledge, Fear, and Conscience: Reasons to Stop Flying Because of Climate Change (pdf)
Wait, no, we didn't mean it that way! No judgement! No judgement! You're the judgment!
> Much research on the societal consequences of climate change has focused on inaction, seeking to explain why societies and individuals do not change according to experts’ recommendations. In this qualitative study, we instead consider people who have changed their behaviour for the sake of the climate: They have stopped travelling by air.
See? That's a completely neutral observation. It is neither wrong nor right to follow expert recommendations. Well. It's right to follow them and wrong not to follow them, obviously, but we aren't SAYING that here in so many words, are we? It's cool. You can do the wrong thing all you like. (Not really, but we won't say that.) Where's the judgment?
Wait, where are you going? We're definitely not judging you for your blatant disregard for expert recommendations or for your total inaction in the face of this crisis, we swear! Come back! No judgement!!
posted by MiraK at 9:14 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpol
Wow I wonder why that is..
> We had given absolutely no indication that the interview would pass ‘judgment’ on her flying activities
Yep. They're all overly defensivene. Guilty conscience much? We never said a single thing that could possibly make the lady in that paper (or anyone in this comment section) think we're judging. We AREN'T judging. This isn't about shaming anyone, we aren't trying to label them as bad or faulty in any way ---
> BINGE FLYING: Behavioural addiction and climate change (pdf)
Recent popular press suggests that ‘binge flying’ constitutes a new site of behavioural addiction.
Wait, no, that's not shaming or labeling people as bad! Addiction is a *disease*. It's not an addict's "fault". It's not like we're saying they *deliberately* choose to get high (see what I did there) despite knowing better ---
> ... two national contexts evidence a growing negative discourse towards frequent short-haul tourist air travel and illustrate strategies of guilt suppression and denial used to span a cognitive dissonance
Well okay maybe we ARE saying that, but hey, we aren't judging, we promise. This is a no-judgment zone. Come on. Everyone uses common psychological defenses like denial and bargaining. Everyone copes with cognitive dissonance in their own way. This is normal human psychology, not some kind of MORAL failure ---
> Knowledge, Fear, and Conscience: Reasons to Stop Flying Because of Climate Change (pdf)
Wait, no, we didn't mean it that way! No judgement! No judgement! You're the judgment!
> Much research on the societal consequences of climate change has focused on inaction, seeking to explain why societies and individuals do not change according to experts’ recommendations. In this qualitative study, we instead consider people who have changed their behaviour for the sake of the climate: They have stopped travelling by air.
See? That's a completely neutral observation. It is neither wrong nor right to follow expert recommendations. Well. It's right to follow them and wrong not to follow them, obviously, but we aren't SAYING that here in so many words, are we? It's cool. You can do the wrong thing all you like. (Not really, but we won't say that.) Where's the judgment?
Wait, where are you going? We're definitely not judging you for your blatant disregard for expert recommendations or for your total inaction in the face of this crisis, we swear! Come back! No judgement!!
posted by MiraK at 9:14 AM on December 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
I am convinced that the centering of climate change discourse on individual choices and making it all about the sins and failings of individual people is the ultimate psy-op by Big Oil.
I'm convinced the constant push against the recognition of any sort of individual agency and responsibility for anything is the the ultimate psy-op by Big Lebowski.
posted by srboisvert at 9:41 AM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm convinced the constant push against the recognition of any sort of individual agency and responsibility for anything is the the ultimate psy-op by Big Lebowski.
posted by srboisvert at 9:41 AM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
I guess to me there's a privilege of circumstance or a privilege of luck to never needing to fly, especially in a place like the US where there aren't better options.
Vegans and vegetarians have been known to go hungry when there weren't better food options available to them. Lots of people in the US have never left the state they live in. Most people in the world already don't fly! If they can do it, so can I.
I mean, how do you define better? I define better as better for the planet, of which I am just one small part. In which case, a lot of the time, limited mobility (for the traveling thousands of miles sense of "mobility") can be the better option.
I am a motor minimalist. I am aware that I live in a motor-based society, but it has been years since I traveled by plane, train, bus, or car. This is both limiting and expanding. I've been doing it for years; I am well aware of what I'm giving up. The path isn't always easy and everyone has different priorities and values. But for me, this is what it looks like when I try to keep my ethics in line with my morals as best I can (while recognizing that it's unattainable), and I feel good about that. My traveling radius is smaller than yours, average reader, but that means I live in a bigger and more connected world.
There's hard decisions and even painful decisions, like not visiting my much-loved grandmom before she died; not visiting other far-flung friends and family members (most of whom are in the United States, which is HUGE as it turns out), bicycling on life-threatening roads because they're the only option, job discrimination, and so much more!
But there's also payoff. I know it's impossible for morals and ethics to align, but I feel better about myself when I try. For me, as a person who bikes, it means I get fresh air, sunshine, and to move my body. It means I have decent core strength. It helps with my mood. Strangers like to tell to me that they wish they could bike like me. Most people can. I've been surprised more than once when I've gone for first-time longer bike rides with people I had known for years, and learned that they were surprised at how ... doable it was. People of all ages, income levels, abilities, etc., manage to get by without flying just about everywhere in the US where there aren't better options.
If not flying isn't a priority, then there are other things that are more important. There's no need for excuses. Own it. There's only so many things we can prioritize in life, and that's ok. We're all working to make the world a better place the best we know how.
posted by aniola at 10:48 AM on December 2, 2022 [9 favorites]
Vegans and vegetarians have been known to go hungry when there weren't better food options available to them. Lots of people in the US have never left the state they live in. Most people in the world already don't fly! If they can do it, so can I.
I mean, how do you define better? I define better as better for the planet, of which I am just one small part. In which case, a lot of the time, limited mobility (for the traveling thousands of miles sense of "mobility") can be the better option.
I am a motor minimalist. I am aware that I live in a motor-based society, but it has been years since I traveled by plane, train, bus, or car. This is both limiting and expanding. I've been doing it for years; I am well aware of what I'm giving up. The path isn't always easy and everyone has different priorities and values. But for me, this is what it looks like when I try to keep my ethics in line with my morals as best I can (while recognizing that it's unattainable), and I feel good about that. My traveling radius is smaller than yours, average reader, but that means I live in a bigger and more connected world.
There's hard decisions and even painful decisions, like not visiting my much-loved grandmom before she died; not visiting other far-flung friends and family members (most of whom are in the United States, which is HUGE as it turns out), bicycling on life-threatening roads because they're the only option, job discrimination, and so much more!
But there's also payoff. I know it's impossible for morals and ethics to align, but I feel better about myself when I try. For me, as a person who bikes, it means I get fresh air, sunshine, and to move my body. It means I have decent core strength. It helps with my mood. Strangers like to tell to me that they wish they could bike like me. Most people can. I've been surprised more than once when I've gone for first-time longer bike rides with people I had known for years, and learned that they were surprised at how ... doable it was. People of all ages, income levels, abilities, etc., manage to get by without flying just about everywhere in the US where there aren't better options.
If not flying isn't a priority, then there are other things that are more important. There's no need for excuses. Own it. There's only so many things we can prioritize in life, and that's ok. We're all working to make the world a better place the best we know how.
posted by aniola at 10:48 AM on December 2, 2022 [9 favorites]
People aren’t driving a car 1000 miles each way to go to Thanksgiving.
I got a Thanksgiving invitation in SC this year, last minute enough for flights to be $$$, so I drove there and back from MA. 1,900 electric miles, mostly on Autopilot, about 16 hours each way. Worked pretty well, though coming back the Sunday after Thanksgiving in driving rain got a bit more difficult than I'd have hoped. It was fun to do once, but definitely not a practical alternative to flying unless things line up just right.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 11:37 AM on December 2, 2022
I got a Thanksgiving invitation in SC this year, last minute enough for flights to be $$$, so I drove there and back from MA. 1,900 electric miles, mostly on Autopilot, about 16 hours each way. Worked pretty well, though coming back the Sunday after Thanksgiving in driving rain got a bit more difficult than I'd have hoped. It was fun to do once, but definitely not a practical alternative to flying unless things line up just right.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 11:37 AM on December 2, 2022
thoroughburro > I tell each white blood cell: your fight against a mere handful of virus particles is statistically meaningless in the face of your entire world, the body, succumbing to a systemic infection which replicates more quickly than you can imagine. Additionally, the fight is in the lungs; you’re in the wrong place to make a big difference. It’s completely true, but I’m lucky they don’t listen.
Are you sure about that? Blood Music, 1985 novel by Greg Bear.
posted by cenoxo at 12:03 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Are you sure about that? Blood Music, 1985 novel by Greg Bear.
posted by cenoxo at 12:03 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Moving physical items around takes significant amounts of energy. We have constructed a civilization with increasing levels of dependence on being able to move anything or anyone to anyplace else in the world with little up front awareness or concern for the energy involved and the knock-on costs to the future environmental health of our planet, our only home.
This change has facilitated lots of massive freedoms and privileges in lifestyle. Live half a world away from friends and family and still expect to see them in person every year? (Guilty). Eat mangos in winter? Ship readily available raw materials for the most prosaic of items (e.g. toothpicks) across the world and back as a finished product, which drives profits to a few and provides incentives to preserve economic disparity and localized poverty?
If we want this to change significantly we have yo take a hard look at how we want to live, how much wealth disparity our planet can survive, and what the minimal energy requirements for a given lifestyle actually are. And then we have to me changes at all levels, at least for those of us living in the well-off part of the world.
posted by allium cepa at 2:14 PM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
This change has facilitated lots of massive freedoms and privileges in lifestyle. Live half a world away from friends and family and still expect to see them in person every year? (Guilty). Eat mangos in winter? Ship readily available raw materials for the most prosaic of items (e.g. toothpicks) across the world and back as a finished product, which drives profits to a few and provides incentives to preserve economic disparity and localized poverty?
If we want this to change significantly we have yo take a hard look at how we want to live, how much wealth disparity our planet can survive, and what the minimal energy requirements for a given lifestyle actually are. And then we have to me changes at all levels, at least for those of us living in the well-off part of the world.
posted by allium cepa at 2:14 PM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
I spent most of the last decade of my life being one of those hypermobile people who flew all around the world as part of their career. I would say 60% of those flights were in first class or business class, along with charter flights and private flights. I was racking up between 100,000 and 300,000 miles a year in the air.
2019 I made a conscious decision to stop living this lifestyle. Flying is a horribly dehumanizing way to travel, and it was also an extremely disruptive to be spending huge tracts of my life inside a pressurized metal tube far away from my home and the people I cared about.
I went from two or three flights a week to one flight a month to one flight every couple of months. During that period I restructured my writing career to no longer rely on remote event participation.
Then the pandemic happened, and my entire industry stopped traveling. For some of my colleagues it was an apocalypse, as they had grown dependent on the lifestyle and the income stream. I quickly discovered however, that I could easily push forward with zero travel in a way that had no negative impact on my career.
My industry began to pretend the pandemic was over starting this year, and the insane levels of travel associated with it resumed. I have not been on a plane however, since February 2020. And I don't intend to get on a plane for work purposes in the future.
It's very possible to do a complete 180° shift when it comes to travel, even if it seems like your career depends entirely on it. I didn't do mine for climate reasons, but climate reasons are pretty good reasons.
posted by jordantwodelta at 2:44 PM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
2019 I made a conscious decision to stop living this lifestyle. Flying is a horribly dehumanizing way to travel, and it was also an extremely disruptive to be spending huge tracts of my life inside a pressurized metal tube far away from my home and the people I cared about.
I went from two or three flights a week to one flight a month to one flight every couple of months. During that period I restructured my writing career to no longer rely on remote event participation.
Then the pandemic happened, and my entire industry stopped traveling. For some of my colleagues it was an apocalypse, as they had grown dependent on the lifestyle and the income stream. I quickly discovered however, that I could easily push forward with zero travel in a way that had no negative impact on my career.
My industry began to pretend the pandemic was over starting this year, and the insane levels of travel associated with it resumed. I have not been on a plane however, since February 2020. And I don't intend to get on a plane for work purposes in the future.
It's very possible to do a complete 180° shift when it comes to travel, even if it seems like your career depends entirely on it. I didn't do mine for climate reasons, but climate reasons are pretty good reasons.
posted by jordantwodelta at 2:44 PM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
I loved how travel ended during the pandemic. I've slipped slightly back into more travel than I like this fall, but regained some control again now. It takes vigilance to reign in those life wasting flights.
We'll have more pandemics more frequently as famines spread malnutrition of course, hopefully ending international travel more permanently, but all that'll happen much too slowly.
America recently relearned they should contain Russia, and likely China, by flooding the world with shoulder launched missiles. It'll maybe enable some future Children of Kali, which then unlocks political action against air travel.
We emit CO2 and methane across our whole economy, all of which demand social transformations beyond our societies' comfort level. How can activists make emissions uncomfortable so that political action becomes possible?
posted by jeffburdges at 3:17 PM on December 2, 2022
We'll have more pandemics more frequently as famines spread malnutrition of course, hopefully ending international travel more permanently, but all that'll happen much too slowly.
America recently relearned they should contain Russia, and likely China, by flooding the world with shoulder launched missiles. It'll maybe enable some future Children of Kali, which then unlocks political action against air travel.
We emit CO2 and methane across our whole economy, all of which demand social transformations beyond our societies' comfort level. How can activists make emissions uncomfortable so that political action becomes possible?
posted by jeffburdges at 3:17 PM on December 2, 2022
I've thought a lot about this, and also about the life I live. Living across the world from where I was born, doing what I do, with the relative lack of skills I possess is something that was nearly unthinkable for my parents' generation, and likely unimaginable for their parents, outside of joining the military, or a life in diplomatic service. I'm just a guy, living in a foreign country, going to work, and I can't really see this being as possible, as utterly normal and unremarkable, and this is almost entirely due to how commonplace international air travel had become by the time I was a college student.
I made the choice to be here, to get married, to build a career half-way around the world from my family. When I made that choice, I honestly don't remember hearing about air travel and carbon, and I've in general paid pretty close attention to climate related matters. As things stand now, I'm not sure what I would do if I was starting all over again. I'm not sure if young Ghidorah, looking at the climate cost of flying, would have made the choice to live and work in Japan.
Living here now, travel has definitely been curtailed for the last couple years, first, due to lockdown of the country, now due to incredible expense (tickets are more than double what we paid pre-pandemic). My last trips back to the states have been for a wedding, a funeral (having missed being able to be with the family member who passed), and another funeral.
I know there are people that will say "oh, we don't mean air-travel like that" but, don't we? When we're talking about the damage air travel does, sure, there are more egregious examples (flying to avoid a forty-five minute drive comes to mind), but all the trips we take are part of the whole problem (keeping in mind, yes, the idea that, I think, it's 100 companies causing something like 70% of total pollution, right), and are all part of what we should be reconsidering.
The thing is, without air-travel, there is no feasible way for me to see the few remaining family members I have. Even with the relatively ample vacation time my job provides, it is still not close to the time that would be needed for ocean travel (which, as mentioned above, is an incredible pollution in its own right) to the west coast, then train travel to the Midwest and back. And there are solid arguments, even some that I find myself agreeing with that say, yeah, tough shit, try Zoom. On the other hand, there was nothing that was going to stop me from being with my mother when she passed away, or being with my sister, after, so we could support each other in our grief.
To widen the focus a little, to go back to what was said earlier in the thread, specifically with regards to Australia, it's not so much that travel broadens the mind, it's contact with people who are different from us that changes us. That opens our minds, that helps us to see new ways of thinking. I can't help but see a kind of blindness towards this with calls to localize our lives. One of the best parts of the reckless freedom of travel is the chance to escape from unbearable hometowns, and being able to find a place that fits us. I didn't fly from my hometown to Chicago, but had I stayed where I was born, I would probably be dead by now, and I know there are people, if not in this thread, then most definitely on this site who can make similar claims. Escaping a parochial area is on thing, but the ability to travel and intermingle is also a key part of opening the minds of closed communities, of making communities more familiar with each other. That is a hell of a lot to give up, even if the cost of keeping it is becoming untenable. Even then, I can't say exactly where I stand, knowing how I feel (that I shouldn't fly), but knowing that, when push comes to shove, what I'll do (jump on a plane, if I can still afford it).
posted by Ghidorah at 5:44 PM on December 2, 2022 [11 favorites]
I made the choice to be here, to get married, to build a career half-way around the world from my family. When I made that choice, I honestly don't remember hearing about air travel and carbon, and I've in general paid pretty close attention to climate related matters. As things stand now, I'm not sure what I would do if I was starting all over again. I'm not sure if young Ghidorah, looking at the climate cost of flying, would have made the choice to live and work in Japan.
Living here now, travel has definitely been curtailed for the last couple years, first, due to lockdown of the country, now due to incredible expense (tickets are more than double what we paid pre-pandemic). My last trips back to the states have been for a wedding, a funeral (having missed being able to be with the family member who passed), and another funeral.
I know there are people that will say "oh, we don't mean air-travel like that" but, don't we? When we're talking about the damage air travel does, sure, there are more egregious examples (flying to avoid a forty-five minute drive comes to mind), but all the trips we take are part of the whole problem (keeping in mind, yes, the idea that, I think, it's 100 companies causing something like 70% of total pollution, right), and are all part of what we should be reconsidering.
The thing is, without air-travel, there is no feasible way for me to see the few remaining family members I have. Even with the relatively ample vacation time my job provides, it is still not close to the time that would be needed for ocean travel (which, as mentioned above, is an incredible pollution in its own right) to the west coast, then train travel to the Midwest and back. And there are solid arguments, even some that I find myself agreeing with that say, yeah, tough shit, try Zoom. On the other hand, there was nothing that was going to stop me from being with my mother when she passed away, or being with my sister, after, so we could support each other in our grief.
To widen the focus a little, to go back to what was said earlier in the thread, specifically with regards to Australia, it's not so much that travel broadens the mind, it's contact with people who are different from us that changes us. That opens our minds, that helps us to see new ways of thinking. I can't help but see a kind of blindness towards this with calls to localize our lives. One of the best parts of the reckless freedom of travel is the chance to escape from unbearable hometowns, and being able to find a place that fits us. I didn't fly from my hometown to Chicago, but had I stayed where I was born, I would probably be dead by now, and I know there are people, if not in this thread, then most definitely on this site who can make similar claims. Escaping a parochial area is on thing, but the ability to travel and intermingle is also a key part of opening the minds of closed communities, of making communities more familiar with each other. That is a hell of a lot to give up, even if the cost of keeping it is becoming untenable. Even then, I can't say exactly where I stand, knowing how I feel (that I shouldn't fly), but knowing that, when push comes to shove, what I'll do (jump on a plane, if I can still afford it).
posted by Ghidorah at 5:44 PM on December 2, 2022 [11 favorites]
I guess to me there's a privilege of circumstance or a privilege of luck to never needing to fly, especially in a place like the US where there aren't better options.
What nonsense. Privilege of luck in never "needing" to fly.
We're not talking about a funeral or two. We're talking about vacations.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:36 PM on December 2, 2022
What nonsense. Privilege of luck in never "needing" to fly.
We're not talking about a funeral or two. We're talking about vacations.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:36 PM on December 2, 2022
We're not talking about a funeral or two. We're talking about vacations.
That's not something that has been at all clear from the discussion here if so. People are condemning flying with no further clarification, or specifically clarifying that they mean all flying, not holidays.
(And even the most prolific holidayer is going to really struggle to come close to keeping up with e.g. a typical McKinsey consultant or similar in terms of air miles.) Meanwhile my once-a-year flight from the UK to Denmark and back - for which there is no meaningful alternative in terms of affordability and time, and the mileage of travel would nearly triple going overland eating most of the per-km efficiency advantages of overland transport anyway - has been specifically condemned in previous threads as well. A combustion car in the UK doing average mileage creates between one and two orders of magnitude more GHGs (according to this calculator) and I don't drive, but hey, flying is a luxury and people here are wishfully talking about shooting down civilian planes with shoulder carried rocket launchers.
Like, look at the post title - it doesn't all if we should give up flying for holidays, does it?
posted by Dysk at 1:21 AM on December 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
That's not something that has been at all clear from the discussion here if so. People are condemning flying with no further clarification, or specifically clarifying that they mean all flying, not holidays.
(And even the most prolific holidayer is going to really struggle to come close to keeping up with e.g. a typical McKinsey consultant or similar in terms of air miles.) Meanwhile my once-a-year flight from the UK to Denmark and back - for which there is no meaningful alternative in terms of affordability and time, and the mileage of travel would nearly triple going overland eating most of the per-km efficiency advantages of overland transport anyway - has been specifically condemned in previous threads as well. A combustion car in the UK doing average mileage creates between one and two orders of magnitude more GHGs (according to this calculator) and I don't drive, but hey, flying is a luxury and people here are wishfully talking about shooting down civilian planes with shoulder carried rocket launchers.
Like, look at the post title - it doesn't all if we should give up flying for holidays, does it?
posted by Dysk at 1:21 AM on December 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
Different people are talking about different things. Start where you are, and do better than that. Keep doing better than that.
This works on both a personal level and a policy level, and works for all levels of commitment to not flying.
posted by aniola at 7:56 AM on December 3, 2022
This works on both a personal level and a policy level, and works for all levels of commitment to not flying.
posted by aniola at 7:56 AM on December 3, 2022
> This works on both a personal level and a policy level, and works for all levels of commitment to not flying.
No, this definitely doesn't "work" on a personal level, certainly not for "all" levels of commitment to not flying. There is such a thing as flying for unavoidable reasons, or flying in order to live a decent human life. Weddings and funerals. Life saving surgeries. To hold a grandchild, or a dying relative. To be with your spouse and children for all of two weeks per year before you're back at your slave-labor job in the Dubai construction industry the rest of the year. Every few years to touch the earth in a country that sees you as its own instead of hating everything from your skin to your passport.
It is nothing short of dehumanizing for someone to suggest that an individual should even TRY to avoid flying to go see their grandchild get married or to be with their sick parent. Asking such people to even think about abstaining from flying in these circumstances, asking people to slowly work up to not flying even that means denying contact with loved ones at important moments... it reveals something so fundamentally callous about the ideology that I'm not content with merely ignoring it: I am highly motivated to take a stand against it, to discredit it, to call attention to how cruel it is underneath its morally superior clothing.
There's a prominent section of climate activists who believes these things; from the FPP a couple of days ago y'all's climate tribe is the neo-pastoralist tribe. There are other tribes on that taxonomy that make my skin crawl - there was an article in the New Yorker recently about the libertarian-technology-brats tribe (can't remember what their tribe was called) believing that the only realistic solution to global warming is to create an artificial cloud/ blanket of suspended droplets of some chemical (sulfur something?) ask around the earth to literally block out the sun. It's a good reminder that not all the climate tribes are good actors. Just because it's a climate philosophy, doesn't mean it's immune from being inhumane immoral, etc.
posted by MiraK at 3:52 AM on December 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
No, this definitely doesn't "work" on a personal level, certainly not for "all" levels of commitment to not flying. There is such a thing as flying for unavoidable reasons, or flying in order to live a decent human life. Weddings and funerals. Life saving surgeries. To hold a grandchild, or a dying relative. To be with your spouse and children for all of two weeks per year before you're back at your slave-labor job in the Dubai construction industry the rest of the year. Every few years to touch the earth in a country that sees you as its own instead of hating everything from your skin to your passport.
It is nothing short of dehumanizing for someone to suggest that an individual should even TRY to avoid flying to go see their grandchild get married or to be with their sick parent. Asking such people to even think about abstaining from flying in these circumstances, asking people to slowly work up to not flying even that means denying contact with loved ones at important moments... it reveals something so fundamentally callous about the ideology that I'm not content with merely ignoring it: I am highly motivated to take a stand against it, to discredit it, to call attention to how cruel it is underneath its morally superior clothing.
There's a prominent section of climate activists who believes these things; from the FPP a couple of days ago y'all's climate tribe is the neo-pastoralist tribe. There are other tribes on that taxonomy that make my skin crawl - there was an article in the New Yorker recently about the libertarian-technology-brats tribe (can't remember what their tribe was called) believing that the only realistic solution to global warming is to create an artificial cloud/ blanket of suspended droplets of some chemical (sulfur something?) ask around the earth to literally block out the sun. It's a good reminder that not all the climate tribes are good actors. Just because it's a climate philosophy, doesn't mean it's immune from being inhumane immoral, etc.
posted by MiraK at 3:52 AM on December 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
The Climate "Tribes" FPP which imo is really insightful, nonjudgmental, and has nothing to do with tribalism:
Nadia Asparouhova ... creates a framework to understand the diverse, complex, and sometimes conflicting objectives and narratives that shape different types of climate work and advocacy.
By reviewing blogs, videos, and publications, she identifies seven different categories (abundance/scarcity mindset, pro/anti economic growth, techo-optimist/techno-pessimist, optimistic/pessimistic future outlook, individualist/collectivist scope of concern) to identify seven "Climate Tribes":
- Energy Maximalism: Find cheap, plentiful scources of energy that move us past scarcity mindset.
- Climate Urbanism: Build dense, resilient networks of people by focusing on urban development.
- Climate Tech: Find low-hanging fruit and overlooked leverage points to make progress more quickly.
- Eco-Globalism: Reduce global carbon emissions by setting and enforcing targets.
- Environmentalism: Reduce our carbon footprint by learning to live within our limits and holding policymakers accountable.
- Neopastoralism: Revert society to a pre-industrial era, free from the harmful influence of technology.
- Doomerism: Prepare for the inevitable worst.
Each of these is broken down into some very insightful understanding of how different people see the world.
posted by MiraK at 5:44 AM on December 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
Nadia Asparouhova ... creates a framework to understand the diverse, complex, and sometimes conflicting objectives and narratives that shape different types of climate work and advocacy.
By reviewing blogs, videos, and publications, she identifies seven different categories (abundance/scarcity mindset, pro/anti economic growth, techo-optimist/techno-pessimist, optimistic/pessimistic future outlook, individualist/collectivist scope of concern) to identify seven "Climate Tribes":
- Energy Maximalism: Find cheap, plentiful scources of energy that move us past scarcity mindset.
- Climate Urbanism: Build dense, resilient networks of people by focusing on urban development.
- Climate Tech: Find low-hanging fruit and overlooked leverage points to make progress more quickly.
- Eco-Globalism: Reduce global carbon emissions by setting and enforcing targets.
- Environmentalism: Reduce our carbon footprint by learning to live within our limits and holding policymakers accountable.
- Neopastoralism: Revert society to a pre-industrial era, free from the harmful influence of technology.
- Doomerism: Prepare for the inevitable worst.
Each of these is broken down into some very insightful understanding of how different people see the world.
posted by MiraK at 5:44 AM on December 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
I, for one, am feeling a lot of cognitive dissonance around how the "yes, we should focus on individual responsibility for flying" crowd is slippery-sloping their way towards "and also we should talk about never taking buses or trains." Aren't those typically seen as the far-better-for-the-environment mass-transit alternatives? Don't get me wrong, I think it's incredibly neat that some people are able to live happy lives without touching a single motor-powered vehicle at any time, but it feels disingenuous to suggest that global society should be bracing itself for that to be the exclusive norm.
I live in Philadelphia. I haven't owned a car since 2008. I am extremely fortunate that I live in the parts of this city that let me buy groceries, find events, and enjoy parks and nature without touching a single vehicle in the process. I've even made a tradition out of walking to the Wissahickon forest, which in my old house was a 6-mile walk in each direction just to get to the starting point. When I do need transportation, I almost exclusively take trains or buses. (Though I will occasionally grab a Lyft or Zipcar, and, yes, I take a plane now and again.)
And when I say "extremely fortunate," I mean that it is extremely common for neighborhoods in this city to lack access to meaningful sources of food, employment, or recreation. For a lot of people, transit is absolutely necessary for survival. And oftentimes that means cars, because our network of buses and trains don't suffice.
Most weeks—and some months—I get to live that motor-free life. But my lifestyle is built on immense privilege. And the only way to make the things I take for granted available to other people is through significant structural change. Which doesn't stop folks from berating the poor, endlessly, for making "terrible" choices for the environment. Those privileged city people and their insistence on owning cars!
The talk about flying works similarly. I'd like to see statistics comparing collective individual travel to, say, business-only travel. How bad is the footprint of everybody in the world flying for the holidays compared to people who take flights from SF to LA three times a week? We can even leave aside freight transportation and shipping: let's look at the 1%, or even .1%, of individual flyers and compare them to everyone else who ever boards a plane combined. Because even if we're talking individual responsibility, the fact remains that most people who board a plane have a negligible impact on airplanes' effect on the environment. It's not going to be "2 or 3%." It's going to be a fraction of a percent at most.
In my opinion, this fractionalization serves nobody any good. Yes, it's important to be mindful. Yes, it's good to be aware of the fact that individual actions have consequences. But far too many people who tout the importance of individual behaviors have an ironic tendency to get very collectivist in their judgments: they lump every single individual behavior into one category, and then denounce every single individual in that lump for the sum total consequence of that category's existing. At which point, individuals who go "okay, but my specific choices aren't that consequential" get scolded for ignoring the lump, and individuals who go "okay, but that lump as a whole isn't that consequential" get scolded for trying to pivot away from individualistic responsibility.
I don't think it's arguing in bad faith. I think that a lot of people are very invested in their own individual choices, and view other people's dismissiveness as a personal attack. But that's a part of it, right? Your choice to be extremely environmentally studious is something you're invested in as an individual who's put a lot of thought into it and made sacrifices accordingly; when someone critiques the trend of that behavior, you're going to treat it like an individual criticism even when it's not intended as one. So maybe it's unsurprising that other people treat it the other way around, and get upset when their needing a plane to see their family is treated as a wasteful decision.
It's not bad-faith argumentation, but I don't think it's particularly effective or useful argumentation. Literally every person in this thread agrees that we are undergoing climate crisis and that drastic steps will need to be taken to prevent it. We disagree about what those "drastic steps" entail, but nobody is an enemy to anybody else here. And I'm not sure that anyone benefits from anybody else's Grand Unified Theory of which behaviors are immoral, for the same reason that most conversations about immorality lead to a certain kind of sanctimoniousness in all directions.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 5:47 AM on December 4, 2022 [7 favorites]
I live in Philadelphia. I haven't owned a car since 2008. I am extremely fortunate that I live in the parts of this city that let me buy groceries, find events, and enjoy parks and nature without touching a single vehicle in the process. I've even made a tradition out of walking to the Wissahickon forest, which in my old house was a 6-mile walk in each direction just to get to the starting point. When I do need transportation, I almost exclusively take trains or buses. (Though I will occasionally grab a Lyft or Zipcar, and, yes, I take a plane now and again.)
And when I say "extremely fortunate," I mean that it is extremely common for neighborhoods in this city to lack access to meaningful sources of food, employment, or recreation. For a lot of people, transit is absolutely necessary for survival. And oftentimes that means cars, because our network of buses and trains don't suffice.
Most weeks—and some months—I get to live that motor-free life. But my lifestyle is built on immense privilege. And the only way to make the things I take for granted available to other people is through significant structural change. Which doesn't stop folks from berating the poor, endlessly, for making "terrible" choices for the environment. Those privileged city people and their insistence on owning cars!
The talk about flying works similarly. I'd like to see statistics comparing collective individual travel to, say, business-only travel. How bad is the footprint of everybody in the world flying for the holidays compared to people who take flights from SF to LA three times a week? We can even leave aside freight transportation and shipping: let's look at the 1%, or even .1%, of individual flyers and compare them to everyone else who ever boards a plane combined. Because even if we're talking individual responsibility, the fact remains that most people who board a plane have a negligible impact on airplanes' effect on the environment. It's not going to be "2 or 3%." It's going to be a fraction of a percent at most.
In my opinion, this fractionalization serves nobody any good. Yes, it's important to be mindful. Yes, it's good to be aware of the fact that individual actions have consequences. But far too many people who tout the importance of individual behaviors have an ironic tendency to get very collectivist in their judgments: they lump every single individual behavior into one category, and then denounce every single individual in that lump for the sum total consequence of that category's existing. At which point, individuals who go "okay, but my specific choices aren't that consequential" get scolded for ignoring the lump, and individuals who go "okay, but that lump as a whole isn't that consequential" get scolded for trying to pivot away from individualistic responsibility.
I don't think it's arguing in bad faith. I think that a lot of people are very invested in their own individual choices, and view other people's dismissiveness as a personal attack. But that's a part of it, right? Your choice to be extremely environmentally studious is something you're invested in as an individual who's put a lot of thought into it and made sacrifices accordingly; when someone critiques the trend of that behavior, you're going to treat it like an individual criticism even when it's not intended as one. So maybe it's unsurprising that other people treat it the other way around, and get upset when their needing a plane to see their family is treated as a wasteful decision.
It's not bad-faith argumentation, but I don't think it's particularly effective or useful argumentation. Literally every person in this thread agrees that we are undergoing climate crisis and that drastic steps will need to be taken to prevent it. We disagree about what those "drastic steps" entail, but nobody is an enemy to anybody else here. And I'm not sure that anyone benefits from anybody else's Grand Unified Theory of which behaviors are immoral, for the same reason that most conversations about immorality lead to a certain kind of sanctimoniousness in all directions.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 5:47 AM on December 4, 2022 [7 favorites]
Incidentally, according to this, annual car ownership is significantly worse for the environment than multiple cross-country plane trips—an interesting tidbit that I'm sharing because I got curious and Googled it, rather than because I think it proves any particular point. (Because, again, my stance is that this is not a productive "argument" to be having to begin with.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 5:50 AM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 5:50 AM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
(Because, again, my stance is that this is not a productive "argument" to be having to begin with.)
It's really a painful thread to read. I don't think we have the language to talk about individual responsibility for collective activity--we think we do, we have words that look like we do, but whenever a topic like this comes up, it snarls down as though half the thread is accusing the other half of actual realtime murder. Actually, on that note, I'll just go ahead and say I kinda wish KSR's book weren't brought up in every climate-related discussion, especially the bit where terrorists blow up enough planes to change the airline industry, because that is so facile (kinda like the other thing people are always bringing up, the Malm blowing-up-pipelines) there's a sort of breezy cheer to it, a "let's roll up our sleeves and get to work, boys!" attitude which is at odds with the horrible violence and death and sorrow it advocates for. Three thousand people died on 09/11 as a result of two planes, and the entire geopolitics of the world was twisted and distorted in a deadly way for decades.
I wouldn't say people have to stop talking about individual decisions--talking about it is how we make individual decisions, after all--but we need to stop pretending there is any comprehensible rationale to follow. In MiraK's example, someone flies far away to hold their grandchild. But now, the grandparent holds some responsibility for the pain and suffering that grandchild will suffer as a result of climate change. Is it selfish for the grandparent to fly? Will the grandchild suffer any less if the grandparent stays home? Why wouldn't you embrace what joy and connectedness you could, here and now, knowing that your individual decision to stay home would hurt you and your family, while not saving your grandchild in the slightest? Why is this decision the one the grandparent should spend a lot of time thinking about, and that we should be judging? Shouldn't we be ruthlessly critiquing the grandparent for every other choice as well? (The plastic straws that were thrown away and went into the ocean and became microplastics that the fish ate that became the grandchild's lunch! The phone the grandparent used to make the plane reservation, that was put together by slave labor that resulted in an uprising that made the grandchild grow up in a politically tense world!) But no, we like plane travel because it sounds easy. Here's a big thing you can stop doing, and if you don't stop doing it, we can enact our judgment.
The thing that's going to kill us, in the end, is that we aren't set up to have this conversation. We don't know how to talk about what's coming, or how we got here, or how to stop it. We're too used to personal issues, where our finger-pointing and social pressure can keep people in line, but this is so much bigger than that.
posted by mittens at 6:22 AM on December 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
It's really a painful thread to read. I don't think we have the language to talk about individual responsibility for collective activity--we think we do, we have words that look like we do, but whenever a topic like this comes up, it snarls down as though half the thread is accusing the other half of actual realtime murder. Actually, on that note, I'll just go ahead and say I kinda wish KSR's book weren't brought up in every climate-related discussion, especially the bit where terrorists blow up enough planes to change the airline industry, because that is so facile (kinda like the other thing people are always bringing up, the Malm blowing-up-pipelines) there's a sort of breezy cheer to it, a "let's roll up our sleeves and get to work, boys!" attitude which is at odds with the horrible violence and death and sorrow it advocates for. Three thousand people died on 09/11 as a result of two planes, and the entire geopolitics of the world was twisted and distorted in a deadly way for decades.
I wouldn't say people have to stop talking about individual decisions--talking about it is how we make individual decisions, after all--but we need to stop pretending there is any comprehensible rationale to follow. In MiraK's example, someone flies far away to hold their grandchild. But now, the grandparent holds some responsibility for the pain and suffering that grandchild will suffer as a result of climate change. Is it selfish for the grandparent to fly? Will the grandchild suffer any less if the grandparent stays home? Why wouldn't you embrace what joy and connectedness you could, here and now, knowing that your individual decision to stay home would hurt you and your family, while not saving your grandchild in the slightest? Why is this decision the one the grandparent should spend a lot of time thinking about, and that we should be judging? Shouldn't we be ruthlessly critiquing the grandparent for every other choice as well? (The plastic straws that were thrown away and went into the ocean and became microplastics that the fish ate that became the grandchild's lunch! The phone the grandparent used to make the plane reservation, that was put together by slave labor that resulted in an uprising that made the grandchild grow up in a politically tense world!) But no, we like plane travel because it sounds easy. Here's a big thing you can stop doing, and if you don't stop doing it, we can enact our judgment.
The thing that's going to kill us, in the end, is that we aren't set up to have this conversation. We don't know how to talk about what's coming, or how we got here, or how to stop it. We're too used to personal issues, where our finger-pointing and social pressure can keep people in line, but this is so much bigger than that.
posted by mittens at 6:22 AM on December 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
Here's a big thing you can stop doing, and if you don't stop doing it, we can enact our judgment.
Thing is, there are lots of big things like that we could stop doing (and that have much bigger potential impact as well - again, about 2% for all aviation combined) but flying gets special focus because it's 'just' a luxury for many people, whereas it is so much more than that for a lot of especially immigrants.
Like, we'll happily still tell queer people it gets better, just move to a big city when you can, or to a country with friendlier laws and culture, but then slam them for the travel necessary to meaningfully still have a family while doing that. We build economies that rely on economic migrants, then tell immigrants off for flying home once a year. It's a complete failure of empathy, to see that different things might mean something fundamentally different to people in a different position in life, in society, in the world, even while benefiting from the structures that make that so.
posted by Dysk at 6:46 AM on December 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
Thing is, there are lots of big things like that we could stop doing (and that have much bigger potential impact as well - again, about 2% for all aviation combined) but flying gets special focus because it's 'just' a luxury for many people, whereas it is so much more than that for a lot of especially immigrants.
Like, we'll happily still tell queer people it gets better, just move to a big city when you can, or to a country with friendlier laws and culture, but then slam them for the travel necessary to meaningfully still have a family while doing that. We build economies that rely on economic migrants, then tell immigrants off for flying home once a year. It's a complete failure of empathy, to see that different things might mean something fundamentally different to people in a different position in life, in society, in the world, even while benefiting from the structures that make that so.
posted by Dysk at 6:46 AM on December 4, 2022 [4 favorites]
Anything like funerals, visiting family, or moving to the big city are simply distractions designed to mask the real problem: Aviation, cars, mostly carnivorous diets, and excessively global supply chains should just not be an option. It's clear people shall keep doing those things if these remain options, so they need to not have the option.
We won't make these unpopular decisions ourselves, but there are diverse powerful forces who govern the world, so some of them need to act unilaterally against our emissions. We're committing genocide against the tropics right now though, so they'll figure this out eventually, and also figure out we'll never let them migrate.
I think personal choices like not eating meat, not owning a car, not flying, deflating tyres, or protesting with XR all partially serve to reduce blow back against whoever eventually begins unilateral actions against our emissions, and maybe whether your grandchild get drafted.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:45 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
We won't make these unpopular decisions ourselves, but there are diverse powerful forces who govern the world, so some of them need to act unilaterally against our emissions. We're committing genocide against the tropics right now though, so they'll figure this out eventually, and also figure out we'll never let them migrate.
I think personal choices like not eating meat, not owning a car, not flying, deflating tyres, or protesting with XR all partially serve to reduce blow back against whoever eventually begins unilateral actions against our emissions, and maybe whether your grandchild get drafted.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:45 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Anything like funerals, visiting family, or moving to the big city are simply distractions designed to mask the real problem: Aviation, cars, mostly carnivorous diets, and excessively global supply chains should just not be an option. It's clear people shall keep doing those things if these remain options, so they need to not have the option.
Your literally asking for making it impossible for migrants to see their homelands and families. It's straight up (eco-)fascism.
posted by Dysk at 8:00 AM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
Your literally asking for making it impossible for migrants to see their homelands and families. It's straight up (eco-)fascism.
posted by Dysk at 8:00 AM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
As I said it's genocide for our society to continue as is, so the people who're gong to be victims have every right to stop us.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:04 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 8:04 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
> if I take MiraK at face value, there is literally no way for me to engage which wouldn’t dehumanize them. I’d like to leave on this note from earlier.
posted by thoroughborro
Wait, what? I quoted the specific words of a different commenter when I talked about dehumanization - specific words which directly contradict your note, in fact. YOU've made it clear that you don't condemn *all* flying. Others on this thread state that they do stand against *all* flying - and it's their position that I find dehumanizing, not yours. Other comments upthread have tried to explain how the opposition in this thread is due to some commenters taking a blanket stance against ALL flying (and even against all motorized travel). That is not your stance. So why are you feeling like the opposition is directed at you?
posted by MiraK at 8:13 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by thoroughborro
Wait, what? I quoted the specific words of a different commenter when I talked about dehumanization - specific words which directly contradict your note, in fact. YOU've made it clear that you don't condemn *all* flying. Others on this thread state that they do stand against *all* flying - and it's their position that I find dehumanizing, not yours. Other comments upthread have tried to explain how the opposition in this thread is due to some commenters taking a blanket stance against ALL flying (and even against all motorized travel). That is not your stance. So why are you feeling like the opposition is directed at you?
posted by MiraK at 8:13 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
In the context of this conversation, you seem to be saying that people from developing nations need to murder people going on vacation, so that someone else doesn't murder them while they fly to see family?
Or something? I feel you're not really owning the consequences of your future vision of the world, and the way and amount you bring it up is... unseemly? Too horny for it? Certainly not conducive to the conversation that seemed to be finally developing on the thread.
posted by sagc at 8:35 AM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
Or something? I feel you're not really owning the consequences of your future vision of the world, and the way and amount you bring it up is... unseemly? Too horny for it? Certainly not conducive to the conversation that seemed to be finally developing on the thread.
posted by sagc at 8:35 AM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
In particular, military strikes against CO2 and methane emitting infrastructure should no longer constitute acts of war.
this is a definitively Orwellian idea. But I think it could go further. Given that compelled unilateral removal of said infrastructure via firepower (I'm assuming) would possibly maybe save more lives than it would possibly maybe probably take, why not just call such attacks acts of love?
posted by philip-random at 9:05 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
this is a definitively Orwellian idea. But I think it could go further. Given that compelled unilateral removal of said infrastructure via firepower (I'm assuming) would possibly maybe save more lives than it would possibly maybe probably take, why not just call such attacks acts of love?
posted by philip-random at 9:05 AM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
it's their position that I find dehumanizing, not yours. Other comments upthread have tried to explain how the opposition in this thread is due to some commenters taking a blanket stance against ALL flying (and even against all motorized travel).
To me, that reads as jumping to conclusions. I think I'm the only one in this thread who has been talking about discomfort with most motorized travel. I am capable of simultaneously being opposed to nearly all flying and nearly all motorized travel AND recognizing that ya gotta do what you can where you are with the resources that you have available to you. That's why it's motor minimalism, not "absolutely no motorized travel no way no how"ism.
What I find dehumanizing is the way drivers treat me when I bike. I'm either an unwilling parade exhibit because I have a very weird bike (praise me, take photos, etc.) or threaten my life on the road (impatience, obliviousness, resentment, etc). Also the way citizens, politicians, planners, and engineers choose to prioritize for infrastructure. The fact that Level Of Service until recently didn't consider the needs of the most vulnerable users on the road.
It is hard to read things like "cruel it is underneath its morally superior clothing" when one of my morals/ethics/values/way I was raised is to never be morally superior (or any other variety of superior or inferior) to anyone else, and when the person who is most impacted by my own ethics is probably myself. One of my values is to share my values so that other people who want to feel similarly out on the edges of the Overton window can feel less alone. Which, if I read it right in another comment, apparently can "lead to a certain kind of sanctimoniousness in all directions" ... I'll have to think on that.
I, for one, am feeling a lot of cognitive dissonance around how the "yes, we should focus on individual responsibility for flying" crowd is slippery-sloping their way towards "and also we should talk about never taking buses or trains." Aren't those typically seen as the far-better-for-the-environment mass-transit alternatives? Don't get me wrong, I think it's incredibly neat that some people are able to live happy lives without touching a single motor-powered vehicle at any time, but it feels disingenuous to suggest that global society should be bracing itself for that to be the exclusive norm.
I think that's just me. I don't mean to suggest that global society should brace itself for that to be the exclusive norm. I think it should be reasonable and safe to be able to travel without using motor vehicles, and I try to live my life the way I want it to be.
I also don't think, for example, that there would be nearly as many vegans in a world where animals aren't treated as a commodity. There would just be a lot more people who didn't live off meat or dairy most of the time.
And when I say "extremely fortunate," I mean that it is extremely common for neighborhoods in this city to lack access to meaningful sources of food, employment, or recreation. For a lot of people, transit is absolutely necessary for survival. And oftentimes that means cars, because our network of buses and trains don't suffice.
Yes, I understand this. People literally die every day because they bike/walk/etc. in the presence of heavy hurtling motorized vehicles. Last time someone on the periphery of my social world had someone close to them be killed by a car? Couple months ago. I myself have been biking and walking for decades. I know all the ways it can be inconvenient and downright dangerous. But one of the best ways I know of to make it safer to bike/walk/etc is to bike/walk/etc. A lot of people don't have the choice to legally drive, anyway (e.g., for medical, legal, or financial reasons). The network of buses and trains still doesn't suffice for them in this motor vehicle-centric society, even though they don't even have the option to drive. In the US, about one third of people over the age of 16 do not have a driver's license.
How bad is the footprint of everybody in the world flying for the holidays compared to people who take flights from SF to LA three times a week?
From the main article, "In fact, if everyone in the world took just one long-haul flight per year, aircraft emissions would far exceed the US’s entire CO2 emissions, according to ICCT analysis." Most of the world never gets in an airplane. They stay local.
In my opinion, this fractionalization serves nobody any good. Yes, it's important to be mindful. Yes, it's good to be aware of the fact that individual actions have consequences. But far too many people who tout the importance of individual behaviors have an ironic tendency to get very collectivist in their judgments: they lump every single individual behavior into one category, and then denounce every single individual in that lump for the sum total consequence of that category's existing. At which point, individuals who go "okay, but my specific choices aren't that consequential" get scolded for ignoring the lump, and individuals who go "okay, but that lump as a whole isn't that consequential" get scolded for trying to pivot away from individualistic responsibility.
I don't know about other people, but as someone touting individual actions, I feel like I've tried to be very careful not to do this. I do think this personal transportation lump as a whole is consequential. I think an irresponsible level of motorized travel has been normalized as responsible. I also work hard to think that it's fine for people to put their priorities where they put their priorities, and that is fine and good.
I don't think it's arguing in bad faith. I think that a lot of people are very invested in their own individual choices, and view other people's dismissiveness as a personal attack. But that's a part of it, right? Your choice to be extremely environmentally studious is something you're invested in as an individual who's put a lot of thought into it and made sacrifices accordingly; when someone critiques the trend of that behavior, you're going to treat it like an individual criticism even when it's not intended as one. So maybe it's unsurprising that other people treat it the other way around, and get upset when their needing a plane to see their family is treated as a wasteful decision.
Agreed. I think that's a useful insight in both directions.
posted by aniola at 10:59 AM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
To me, that reads as jumping to conclusions. I think I'm the only one in this thread who has been talking about discomfort with most motorized travel. I am capable of simultaneously being opposed to nearly all flying and nearly all motorized travel AND recognizing that ya gotta do what you can where you are with the resources that you have available to you. That's why it's motor minimalism, not "absolutely no motorized travel no way no how"ism.
What I find dehumanizing is the way drivers treat me when I bike. I'm either an unwilling parade exhibit because I have a very weird bike (praise me, take photos, etc.) or threaten my life on the road (impatience, obliviousness, resentment, etc). Also the way citizens, politicians, planners, and engineers choose to prioritize for infrastructure. The fact that Level Of Service until recently didn't consider the needs of the most vulnerable users on the road.
It is hard to read things like "cruel it is underneath its morally superior clothing" when one of my morals/ethics/values/way I was raised is to never be morally superior (or any other variety of superior or inferior) to anyone else, and when the person who is most impacted by my own ethics is probably myself. One of my values is to share my values so that other people who want to feel similarly out on the edges of the Overton window can feel less alone. Which, if I read it right in another comment, apparently can "lead to a certain kind of sanctimoniousness in all directions" ... I'll have to think on that.
I, for one, am feeling a lot of cognitive dissonance around how the "yes, we should focus on individual responsibility for flying" crowd is slippery-sloping their way towards "and also we should talk about never taking buses or trains." Aren't those typically seen as the far-better-for-the-environment mass-transit alternatives? Don't get me wrong, I think it's incredibly neat that some people are able to live happy lives without touching a single motor-powered vehicle at any time, but it feels disingenuous to suggest that global society should be bracing itself for that to be the exclusive norm.
I think that's just me. I don't mean to suggest that global society should brace itself for that to be the exclusive norm. I think it should be reasonable and safe to be able to travel without using motor vehicles, and I try to live my life the way I want it to be.
I also don't think, for example, that there would be nearly as many vegans in a world where animals aren't treated as a commodity. There would just be a lot more people who didn't live off meat or dairy most of the time.
And when I say "extremely fortunate," I mean that it is extremely common for neighborhoods in this city to lack access to meaningful sources of food, employment, or recreation. For a lot of people, transit is absolutely necessary for survival. And oftentimes that means cars, because our network of buses and trains don't suffice.
Yes, I understand this. People literally die every day because they bike/walk/etc. in the presence of heavy hurtling motorized vehicles. Last time someone on the periphery of my social world had someone close to them be killed by a car? Couple months ago. I myself have been biking and walking for decades. I know all the ways it can be inconvenient and downright dangerous. But one of the best ways I know of to make it safer to bike/walk/etc is to bike/walk/etc. A lot of people don't have the choice to legally drive, anyway (e.g., for medical, legal, or financial reasons). The network of buses and trains still doesn't suffice for them in this motor vehicle-centric society, even though they don't even have the option to drive. In the US, about one third of people over the age of 16 do not have a driver's license.
How bad is the footprint of everybody in the world flying for the holidays compared to people who take flights from SF to LA three times a week?
From the main article, "In fact, if everyone in the world took just one long-haul flight per year, aircraft emissions would far exceed the US’s entire CO2 emissions, according to ICCT analysis." Most of the world never gets in an airplane. They stay local.
In my opinion, this fractionalization serves nobody any good. Yes, it's important to be mindful. Yes, it's good to be aware of the fact that individual actions have consequences. But far too many people who tout the importance of individual behaviors have an ironic tendency to get very collectivist in their judgments: they lump every single individual behavior into one category, and then denounce every single individual in that lump for the sum total consequence of that category's existing. At which point, individuals who go "okay, but my specific choices aren't that consequential" get scolded for ignoring the lump, and individuals who go "okay, but that lump as a whole isn't that consequential" get scolded for trying to pivot away from individualistic responsibility.
I don't know about other people, but as someone touting individual actions, I feel like I've tried to be very careful not to do this. I do think this personal transportation lump as a whole is consequential. I think an irresponsible level of motorized travel has been normalized as responsible. I also work hard to think that it's fine for people to put their priorities where they put their priorities, and that is fine and good.
I don't think it's arguing in bad faith. I think that a lot of people are very invested in their own individual choices, and view other people's dismissiveness as a personal attack. But that's a part of it, right? Your choice to be extremely environmentally studious is something you're invested in as an individual who's put a lot of thought into it and made sacrifices accordingly; when someone critiques the trend of that behavior, you're going to treat it like an individual criticism even when it's not intended as one. So maybe it's unsurprising that other people treat it the other way around, and get upset when their needing a plane to see their family is treated as a wasteful decision.
Agreed. I think that's a useful insight in both directions.
posted by aniola at 10:59 AM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
Eat mangos in winter? Ship readily available raw materials for the most prosaic of items (e.g. toothpicks) across the world and back as a finished product, which drives profits to a few and provides incentives to preserve economic disparity and localized poverty?
This, this is the absolute worst thing we do in terms of wasteful use of transport and the resulting pollution. It's also what drove a lot of the supply chain issues during COVID and now 'because of the war'. In the middle of the COVID restrictions, I needed some laminated veneer lumber beams for a construction project at home. These are items usually stocked by timber yards and readily available on a walk-in basis, but I was unable to find any within 16 weeks at best and, for a few suppliers, their wait time was 12 months or maybe never. These are made of pine, so I had always assumed (despite knowing better, on reflection) they were made locally. But, no. The process is that we grow the pine trees here in Australia, cut them down and slice them into veneers, then ship the veneers to China. In China, the veneers are glued together into thick sheets, cut into beams and then shipped back to Australia to be sold at a price cheaper than the sole plant manufacturing these beams in Australia can sell them for.
I'm pleased I was able to buy some from the plant in Australia, despite the 16 week wait, but this is only one example of this stupidity that we have all allowed to creep in over decades - we've gutted manufacturing capacity here to the extent that recovering that capacity is nigh on impossible and we now have almost no ability to manufacture anything at scale. We are now totally reliant on imports for everyday items and every single one of those items travels long distances on freighters or, because we want everything delivered tomorrow, on overnight cargo planes. Because we insist on paying stupidly low prices for everything, we've lost any care for quality, so we perpetuate the demand for lower and lower quality products that are produced at greater and greater human cost by the poorest of the poor and pile highly polluting manufacturing (because regulation would cost too much) on top of highly polluting transport (because local manufacture would cost too much) on top of highly polluting landfill (where everything ends up because nothing lasts or can be repaired any more).
Air transport is, no doubt part of the problem and needs to be reduced. But, in many ways, it's dependent on other collective decisions that we made and continue to make (not everyone, but close to it) that we want everything now and we want it cheap and we don't give a shit about who had to die to make it or give the tiniest of fucks how much we pollute the planet to get our new toy flown half-way across the world overnight. The only way to dramatically reduce the climate cost of transport generally is going to be to collapse global supply chains and re-establish local manufacturing. Before that can happen, we need to make a collective decision that we're going to stop buying cheap crappy items and direct our purchasing to items that are produced locally. We are the root cause of the problem, because we demand cheaper and cheaper products. It's no good pointing our fingers at everyone else and saying they have to change. Every one (OK, excepting a few outliers) of us is the problem.
posted by dg at 3:27 PM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
This, this is the absolute worst thing we do in terms of wasteful use of transport and the resulting pollution. It's also what drove a lot of the supply chain issues during COVID and now 'because of the war'. In the middle of the COVID restrictions, I needed some laminated veneer lumber beams for a construction project at home. These are items usually stocked by timber yards and readily available on a walk-in basis, but I was unable to find any within 16 weeks at best and, for a few suppliers, their wait time was 12 months or maybe never. These are made of pine, so I had always assumed (despite knowing better, on reflection) they were made locally. But, no. The process is that we grow the pine trees here in Australia, cut them down and slice them into veneers, then ship the veneers to China. In China, the veneers are glued together into thick sheets, cut into beams and then shipped back to Australia to be sold at a price cheaper than the sole plant manufacturing these beams in Australia can sell them for.
I'm pleased I was able to buy some from the plant in Australia, despite the 16 week wait, but this is only one example of this stupidity that we have all allowed to creep in over decades - we've gutted manufacturing capacity here to the extent that recovering that capacity is nigh on impossible and we now have almost no ability to manufacture anything at scale. We are now totally reliant on imports for everyday items and every single one of those items travels long distances on freighters or, because we want everything delivered tomorrow, on overnight cargo planes. Because we insist on paying stupidly low prices for everything, we've lost any care for quality, so we perpetuate the demand for lower and lower quality products that are produced at greater and greater human cost by the poorest of the poor and pile highly polluting manufacturing (because regulation would cost too much) on top of highly polluting transport (because local manufacture would cost too much) on top of highly polluting landfill (where everything ends up because nothing lasts or can be repaired any more).
Air transport is, no doubt part of the problem and needs to be reduced. But, in many ways, it's dependent on other collective decisions that we made and continue to make (not everyone, but close to it) that we want everything now and we want it cheap and we don't give a shit about who had to die to make it or give the tiniest of fucks how much we pollute the planet to get our new toy flown half-way across the world overnight. The only way to dramatically reduce the climate cost of transport generally is going to be to collapse global supply chains and re-establish local manufacturing. Before that can happen, we need to make a collective decision that we're going to stop buying cheap crappy items and direct our purchasing to items that are produced locally. We are the root cause of the problem, because we demand cheaper and cheaper products. It's no good pointing our fingers at everyone else and saying they have to change. Every one (OK, excepting a few outliers) of us is the problem.
posted by dg at 3:27 PM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
[context: only the so called usa]
I disagree that the decisions of wage slaves are the problem. If someone is required to work 40+ hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for 40+ years (to say nothing of the developmental 12-13 years of indoctrination and propaganda) in a supremacist labor environment built by and for white genociding slaver men, all the while being required to forego their own health (or actual knowledge of what health is), I'm going to say any decision made is under duress by definition. I disagree that they are the problem. I don't blame a hostage for stealing food between forced labor cycles. But I'm a softie like that.
These "decisions" people make were given to them through a power structure bought with genocide and slavery and maintained with violence. Maintained with violence by men alive today.
I do agree that air travel for leisure is near the top of selfish acts in terms of the net benefit to biological life, but I'd never personally limit all the folks pushed geographically apart by capitalist/imperialis violence from using it to see family, friends, etc.
But wealthy folks living off passive income flying around? Literal parasites. Conscious and lucid vampires eating the planet's life force with their eyes wide open. Really just terrible people.
With a magic wand I'd make every corporation half ESOP/worker-coop half split ownership to the supply chain / resource origin points. (maybe 40/60). Shave all individual wealth to $10M max and move aaaaalll that blood money to reparation funds to try and heal the people and places most impacted while also financing continued litigation/watchdogging of corporations seeking to continue vampiric relations with nature.
I'd also say abolish all prisons, but if anyone deserves permanent segregation from the gen pop of the planet, it's billionaires (and probably anyone with more than $20m). Though that's less "deserving" and more just safer.
As long as the assets on planet earth are owned by the people they're currently owned by, I don't see any measure of nonviolent collective action having a material impact on the climate apocalypse we're in an accelerating stage of. Hell, one of the solar system's most vile predators ever just bought one of the primary organizing tools the planet has ever known so he could turn it into a fascist amplifier. He just did it because he owns enough of the world and that's how he'll help his fellow fascists keep and take more. Foregoing luxuries may help some folks on their way to more impactful action, but it won't make a dent in that asset ownership nor the methods by which they grow and protect it. Especially as said purchasing power is diminishing by the day while capitalist ownership grows.
Just my opinion, man.
posted by CPAnarchist at 5:23 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
I disagree that the decisions of wage slaves are the problem. If someone is required to work 40+ hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for 40+ years (to say nothing of the developmental 12-13 years of indoctrination and propaganda) in a supremacist labor environment built by and for white genociding slaver men, all the while being required to forego their own health (or actual knowledge of what health is), I'm going to say any decision made is under duress by definition. I disagree that they are the problem. I don't blame a hostage for stealing food between forced labor cycles. But I'm a softie like that.
These "decisions" people make were given to them through a power structure bought with genocide and slavery and maintained with violence. Maintained with violence by men alive today.
I do agree that air travel for leisure is near the top of selfish acts in terms of the net benefit to biological life, but I'd never personally limit all the folks pushed geographically apart by capitalist/imperialis violence from using it to see family, friends, etc.
But wealthy folks living off passive income flying around? Literal parasites. Conscious and lucid vampires eating the planet's life force with their eyes wide open. Really just terrible people.
With a magic wand I'd make every corporation half ESOP/worker-coop half split ownership to the supply chain / resource origin points. (maybe 40/60). Shave all individual wealth to $10M max and move aaaaalll that blood money to reparation funds to try and heal the people and places most impacted while also financing continued litigation/watchdogging of corporations seeking to continue vampiric relations with nature.
I'd also say abolish all prisons, but if anyone deserves permanent segregation from the gen pop of the planet, it's billionaires (and probably anyone with more than $20m). Though that's less "deserving" and more just safer.
As long as the assets on planet earth are owned by the people they're currently owned by, I don't see any measure of nonviolent collective action having a material impact on the climate apocalypse we're in an accelerating stage of. Hell, one of the solar system's most vile predators ever just bought one of the primary organizing tools the planet has ever known so he could turn it into a fascist amplifier. He just did it because he owns enough of the world and that's how he'll help his fellow fascists keep and take more. Foregoing luxuries may help some folks on their way to more impactful action, but it won't make a dent in that asset ownership nor the methods by which they grow and protect it. Especially as said purchasing power is diminishing by the day while capitalist ownership grows.
Just my opinion, man.
posted by CPAnarchist at 5:23 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
- Energy Maximalism: Find cheap, plentiful scources of energy that move us past scarcity mindset.
- Climate Urbanism: Build dense, resilient networks of people by focusing on urban development.
- Climate Tech: Find low-hanging fruit and overlooked leverage points to make progress more quickly.
- Eco-Globalism: Reduce global carbon emissions by setting and enforcing targets.
- Environmentalism: Reduce our carbon footprint by learning to live within our limits and holding policymakers accountable.
- Neopastoralism: Revert society to a pre-industrial era, free from the harmful influence of technology.
- Doomerism: Prepare for the inevitable worst.
MiraK, thanks for this link. Personally, I don't identify fully with 1 one of those tribes, but I do find elements of the first 5 appealing. The other 2 are... ugh.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:23 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
- Climate Urbanism: Build dense, resilient networks of people by focusing on urban development.
- Climate Tech: Find low-hanging fruit and overlooked leverage points to make progress more quickly.
- Eco-Globalism: Reduce global carbon emissions by setting and enforcing targets.
- Environmentalism: Reduce our carbon footprint by learning to live within our limits and holding policymakers accountable.
- Neopastoralism: Revert society to a pre-industrial era, free from the harmful influence of technology.
- Doomerism: Prepare for the inevitable worst.
MiraK, thanks for this link. Personally, I don't identify fully with 1 one of those tribes, but I do find elements of the first 5 appealing. The other 2 are... ugh.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:23 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
Personally, I don't identify fully with 1 one of those tribes, but I do find elements of the first 5 appealing
couldn't agree more
The other 2 are... ugh.
... profoundly lacking in imagination
posted by philip-random at 9:52 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
couldn't agree more
The other 2 are... ugh.
... profoundly lacking in imagination
posted by philip-random at 9:52 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
... profoundly lacking in imagination
That's an excellent way of putting it. Or "painting with a very broad brush and only one color of paint."
I think I know too much about the rapidly evolving science, technology, and policy around climate to be a doomer. But I know too much about human nature to be a total optimist either.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:09 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
That's an excellent way of putting it. Or "painting with a very broad brush and only one color of paint."
I think I know too much about the rapidly evolving science, technology, and policy around climate to be a doomer. But I know too much about human nature to be a total optimist either.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:09 PM on December 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Appears the "flight shame" proved somewhat helpful, so really we should double down on socially penalizing flying, driving, meat eating, etc.
It'll only have limited immediate effect, but it likely helps enable government action, like the France's new ban on two (?) domestic flight routes.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:56 PM on December 29, 2022
It'll only have limited immediate effect, but it likely helps enable government action, like the France's new ban on two (?) domestic flight routes.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:56 PM on December 29, 2022
That's a very limited scope within which it is shown to be effective. Sweden isn't that big, and it has a very good rail network. Flight shaming might work in short haul where there is a meaningful alternative. That is a very small part of all flying.
posted by Dysk at 11:43 PM on December 29, 2022
posted by Dysk at 11:43 PM on December 29, 2022
We should push flight shaming universally though, just in case. At least it'll help give governments license to hike airport taxes, fuel taxes, etc., not that every one takes the license, but some may.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:01 AM on December 30, 2022
posted by jeffburdges at 1:01 AM on December 30, 2022
Boy, coming back to this and other climate threads is a trip. Metafilter ranges from "even hinting that I not pollute is a crime against my humanity, all my pollution is absolutely sacred and necessary" to " is it even a crime to do unilateral military strikes against infrastructure."
This is fine.
Our total pollution dooms the climate, how costs and benefits are distributed is what enriches and dooms various classes, nations, demographic groups etc.
To feed and house and educate and comfort 8 billion plus people, we might need some 100 million rich people to stop pretending they are transporting hearts for orphans, when they are eating endagered baby seal tears.... IDK.
" being able to travel to catch a funeral sounds like modern prilvedge Before formaldehyde and refridgeraton if you were more than two day's horse ride away, you missed it."
"Horses, ha? we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow"
Metafilter: talking climate change is problematic, let's just die from it.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 4:59 AM on December 30, 2022
This is fine.
Our total pollution dooms the climate, how costs and benefits are distributed is what enriches and dooms various classes, nations, demographic groups etc.
To feed and house and educate and comfort 8 billion plus people, we might need some 100 million rich people to stop pretending they are transporting hearts for orphans, when they are eating endagered baby seal tears.... IDK.
" being able to travel to catch a funeral sounds like modern prilvedge Before formaldehyde and refridgeraton if you were more than two day's horse ride away, you missed it."
"Horses, ha? we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow"
Metafilter: talking climate change is problematic, let's just die from it.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 4:59 AM on December 30, 2022
talking climate change is problematic
I recall when recycling was the thing to yell at people about. Then we find out that it was an PR scam, placing all the responsibility on convenience shoppers to take care of the toxic trash they bought from the plastics industry, and even get kids to clean up the beaches too. Because it was now their problem. It turns out plastic is very big business and killing the planet, twice as bad as air travel. Paper is no better either, which is the point. A cloth bag is worse. We are easily misled on solutions, but we know the problem. So we need to tax all carbon emissions across the board at various points of sale, and let everyone pay or reduce their way fairly, so we aren't hypocrites.
posted by Brian B. at 9:26 AM on December 31, 2022
I recall when recycling was the thing to yell at people about. Then we find out that it was an PR scam, placing all the responsibility on convenience shoppers to take care of the toxic trash they bought from the plastics industry, and even get kids to clean up the beaches too. Because it was now their problem. It turns out plastic is very big business and killing the planet, twice as bad as air travel. Paper is no better either, which is the point. A cloth bag is worse. We are easily misled on solutions, but we know the problem. So we need to tax all carbon emissions across the board at various points of sale, and let everyone pay or reduce their way fairly, so we aren't hypocrites.
posted by Brian B. at 9:26 AM on December 31, 2022
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posted by kickingtheground at 4:53 PM on December 1, 2022 [31 favorites]