Fabunderds, Let’s talk air travel and carbon

The view over Islas Zapatillas on my way to Panama City from Bocas del Toro.

According to the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), an estimated 14% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to travel. If you travel as frequently as I do, perhaps somewhere mid-flight over the middle of the Atlantic, you’ve had an overwhelming sense of guilt as you realize that in order to hurtle yourself to your destination in a timely fashion, you quite literally will contribute tons of carbon into the atmosphere. And yet, as you recline in your seat to watch your third movie of a trans-Atlantic flight, any of the guilt you might have felt somehow disappears as you wonder, well, how else am I going to get there? Somehow, and perhaps because we can’t see or smell our waste as we jet across the sky, we erase our responsibility through the belief that there is no other option.

 Why are we so comfortable with this behavior knowing that airline travel is by far the worst source of carbon pollution of all transportation methods? According to bitsofscience.org, train travel is the least carbon-intensive, even in comparison to carpooling in an energy efficient car.

 For an upcoming trip in May, I calculated how much carbon I will be emitting into the skies from JFK to Johannesburg. 2.52 metric tons!! Calculate your next trip here and if you are a visual learner like me, then click here to see what that means. For the record, I don’t own a car, I have no children, and I ride my bike as much as possible which are all great ways to offset demand on our planet and to curb carbon emissions. However, I do travel often which means I somehow need to lay off the jet fuel and atone for my cross-Atlantic adventures.

 Truthfully, the only way to cut travel emissions is to stop flying altogether or to reduce how many flights I take in a year. With cheap airline tickets that are at price points that are more and more accessible to burgeoning middle classes throughout the world, airlines continue to make beaucoup de cash. Why would a growing cash making machine ever want to stop supplying this kind of demand? (insert sarcasm) Well, it’s all fun and games until our natural resources dry up, food and water become scarce and we are all climate change refugees prowling the earth looking for food. Okay, that was very dramatic, but seriously…how do we deal with this?

 Carbon offsetting is one way to help mitigate airline emissions, but truthfully, while it may feel good to give $40 to an organization planting trees in the middle of nowhere, I feel like I am shirking my responsibility as a frequent flyer. Perhaps we need to change our way of thinking from how many points we rack up on flights to tallying up how many trees our points can plant to pay for the environmental cost of that free flight you just awarded yourself for contributing to the climate change crisis.

Professor Don MacKenzie at the The Sustainable Transportation Lab at University of Washington wrote it best, “Park your ass in economy class!” (see blog here)

According to Dr. MacKenzie, business class travel in comparison to economy class travel is 2.5 times as emissions intensive. That’s serious talk folks. That 14-hour flight that I wanted to upgrade to business class is definitely going to remain economy and my rear will most definitely be parked with my economy party people in the back. Looks like I will be doing the crazy lady in compression socks walks up and down the aisles every hour including my stretches by the bathroom and random lunges in the aisles in economy. Let’s get this party started, right?! Let’s get this party started quicklyyyyyyyy!

But what about the airlines? What are they doing to change their impact? What can we do to hold them accountable and ourselves? Why is this never discussed? How are airline companies making billions of dollars, and yet technology for cleaner ways to fly is not a top priority?

Clearly, I seem to have uncovered more questions than answers. In an effort to mitigate my upcoming carbon footprint I am pledging to continue to ride my bike as often as possible, take ground transportation between countries rather than fly, park my ass in economy class and book fewer flights per year. Additionally, I am going to find a way to plant some mangroves to offset my carbon use.

Again, all of this sounds nice and perhaps it might temporarily even make me feel good, but I know deep inside that to truly make change, flying as we know it would have to come to a screeching halt. As a scientist, I know I have to do better to reduce my fuel consumption, and as consumers we must demand cleaner technologies.

What are you going to do to offset your next trip?