"This is your captain speaking .......... I'd like to welcome you aboard our low CO2 emission flight to the south of France."
The airline pilots association are claiming that the airline industry is being unfairly targeted as the worst of the contributors to climate change. Full ABTN article.
“Air travel has just been an easy target. But not any more. World air travel actually accounts for only 2% to 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions according to the International Panel on Climate Change and while air travel is proving more popular, carbon dioxide emissions will not be more than 6% by 2050 – a tiny amount compared to the big polluters.”
Isn’t it amazing just how easily human nature forces all of us to adopt an ‘it’s not us, it’s them’ type of attitude? Just one question – who is giving us the real numbers and the actual facts?
But we all may stop jetting off to the Mediterranean sun anyway if the researchers at New Scientist are correct – it will be waaaay tooooo hot for us Brits to handle! See Dangerously hot.
Back to sunny Skegness it is then.
Arms dealing - the career of the future?
Meanwhile, how to profit from Global Warming - become an arms dealer! Taken from The Observer.
'Expect huge migrations of people looking for food and shelter as they flee areas that become uninhabitable because of crop failure or flooding,' he says. 'You are already seeing this happen in places such as Bangladesh. That will force western governments to increase their military spending to keep people out.'
Now that’s how to put an optimistic slant on forthcoming geo-political disasters caused by global warming! Just to be fair though, he has hedged his bets by putting some huge investments into Green technologies too. Heads he wins, tails he wins?
He mentions Bangla Desh – the UN reckons the disastrous Darfur conflict, as well as smaller episodes in Somalia and Ivory Coast, are also a direct consequence, to some degree, of global warming, too. Sci-Tech Today story.
3 comments:
One does get to hear the 'but we're only responsible for this much' defence these days, and I have a certain sympathy when one sector gets the full force of activist, authority and public opinion, especially when others who are more polluting seem to still be getting a free pass. See what our Ken had to say in my first and forthcoming next instalment of the Guardian Climate Cahnage 'Summit' (I have to put those in) review.
Interestingly he was quite balanced on air travel, but that may have been something to do with Heathrow being on his doorstep.
In terms of the air industry's reply, they are being quite consistent, as what I heard from BAA mirrors all this precisely, which indicates a coordinated hearts and minds campaign.
Thing is, what can be done? The business and personal demands of modern society on our time and work/family reasons to be other places have built up over the decades, with technological igenuity and marketing opportunism simply keeping pace. Racking back, especially in the face of an increasing, and in other areas increasingly affluent air-affluent population will be hard to resist. I just don't see it happening voluntarily or through bad press.
Maybe what the Tories puplicised (I don't think I can credit them with thinking it up) and Ken, suprisingly, endorsed, is the only solution - namely travel credits - is the only solution.
However, as I got to pose a question to Ken on this, which he fudged, this may not be quite so easy to put into practice.
I was interested recently in a couple of leads in some online news outlets' travel sections (which is a fudge of their own, really), one mainstream and one eco, that seemed to be without any irony when they advocated going to see various threatened species and locations 'before it's too late'.
Maybe a good name for a booking agency would be Malthus Travel?
Peter,
You are probably correct - some sort of travel credits system may be the only way forward under current aircraft engine technology. But what's around the corner in terms of technology breakthrough? See below.
Regarding the irony in marketing travel trips to see 'xxx' before it becomes extinct/disappears/dries up/floods [select whichever is appropriate] - I too have noticed that there seems to be a lot more of this appearing in various guises.I guess its just a gut marketing reaction to an opportunity that will get exploited whether it contributes to the problem or not. Envisage the winter holiday mags in another 10/20 years or so - 'last chance to winter ski in Europe - book your holiday now'.
Malthus Travel - I like it, very clever.
Technology Breakthrough?
OK, how about an electric engined airplane? Sound daft? Well, according to some research into superconductors, the use of super conducting magnets in electric motors, cooled by liquid hydrogen, is not just possible, the technology is actually in place. See http://www.gizmag.com/go/7459/
All that's needed is the funding.
I write this having stared at, and clicked on a Google Adsense ad for carbon offsetting... on my (our) blog... whose provenance was unclear and hence of little value, to me at least.
Just shows that little is as ideal as we might hope.
A big issue to me at the 'summit' (boy, am I going to milk that for a while) was the number of times technology was touted as a solution, with little nod to other complementary options, such as reduction.
However, at least we have such mitigations until a viable reduction system is established in a fair manner (there is a LOT in that simple sentence).
But whilst exciting, let's not forget that the electricity and hydrogen for this new airborne propulsion system has to come from somewhere, and until it is sourced from purely alternative sources that simply means the exhaust pipe is in another place. Of course, when it comes to high-atmosphere emissions, there is a significant additional benefit as these are thought to be more damaging.
I wonder if it will make a noise like the Jetson's car?
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