Just 1% of people are responsible for half of all toxic emissions from flying.
I think you need to reread the (now) grandparent comment again:
Did you know that four passengers in a Suburban pollute less for the same amount of miles traveled than if they were going to their destination by plane?
They’re arguing that people should be required to isolate from their families if they live far enough away. That’s nonsense.
They specifically argued against the common practice of “USA / English Canada” students taking multiple long-distance flights a year.
Yes, and I’m arguing that that’s nonsensical considering that all CO2 emissions from all form of commercial aviation travel are less than 3% of the global total.
They suggested in a subsequent comment that the practice of going to school far away was unusual outside of USA/Canada. Their suggestion was that people shouldn’t move that far from their families if they plan on regularly visiting them. Their suggestion was “pick a school 20 or 200 miles from home, rather than 2000”.
You seem to be hung up on one particular point about suburbans and not on the overarching message, which is just “travel less”.
3% is a lot. I don’t know where you get the idea that it isn’t.
You seem to be hung up on one particular point about suburbans and not on the overarching message, which is just “travel less”.
No, not at all. I am hung up on the overall point to “travel less” because air travel doesn’t make up a significant portion of the problem. 1% of travelers make up the majority of the use here. And that’s not in the “1% of the richest people in the world” 1% it’s the 1% of people who travel the most often and they’re already flying commercial - one of the most cost effective and energy efficient means of mass transit that we have. They’re not using private jets.
3% is a significant portion of emissions. I don’t know why you keep insinuating that it is not.
Commercial flight is not energy efficient. You said it yourself: it is time efficient. You don’t get to constantly repeat their “suburban” argument and then ignore that the suburban - one of the least energy-efficient passenger vehicles - is considerably more energy efficient than air travel. You will burn less fuel per mile per person in the suburban than in the airplane.
Reducing travel expectations has a massive effect. Changing societal expectations from 2000-mile trips to 200-mile trips reduces a 3% problem to a 0.3% problem.
Electric vehicles are now viable options for most personal and commercial vehicles. Even heavy-haul has viable electric options coming online. Natural gas produces about 1/3 the carbon output as an energy equivalent amount of jet fuel, and has replaced diesel in the majority of metro bus fleets.
The state of alternative energy use in aviation is in its infancy: no options to date are remotely viable replacements for kerosene-based jet fuel. As absolute carbon use declines in the ground transport fleet, the relative proportion of carbon use rises in the aviation sector. Every other sector is primed to reduce emissions. Lagging behind is the aviation sector. That 3% number has nowhere to go but up.
They're arguing that people *should be required to isolate from their families if they live far enough away*. That's nonsense.
That’s exactly how people lived until the 1950s, if people decided to move across the continent for school they isolated themselves from their family and knew that was the price to pay.
We don’t live in the 1950s, jackass. If we did, people wouldn’t all own cars either. Your comparison is wrong.
I’m pointing out that we’re living in an historical anomaly and I’ve proven multiple times by now that it’s not sustainable unless you don’t understand how math works.
