Wanting to make the “right” moral decision often appears confusing and complicated. At least once you are past the initial black and white stage where everything appears to be clear cut: don’t eat meat, live vegan, buy organic and local, avoid plastic, don’t fly, etc. But of course, it ain’t that easy. Overall, avoiding flying is a useful guideline, though. It might not be the better choice in every individual case – an empty car might be slightly worse to go to Barcelona than a full plane (depending on the factors you include in your calculation) – but for the majority of cases, it will work. The main reason for this is that you will rarely drive distances that are as long as long-distance flights. Narrowing your radius of destinations, therefore, is already the first perk of not flying. The second one is not the geographical but the temporal confinement that comes with it: Since it often takes more time to get to places when not taking the plane, the journeys automatically last longer and hence are likely to occur less frequently. So much for general thoughts on why avoiding the plane has positive effects. Now, let’s take a look at some concrete numbers: Passenger aviation is responsible for roughly 2% of global emissions in 2018. “That doesn’t sound like a lot, let’s keep flying then!”, one could object. Yet, these emissions are divided very unequally amongst the global population: While amongst economically well-off westerners, it is common to fly at least once a year, in many developing countries the majority has never sat in an aeroplane. Accordingly, the wealthier half of the global population was responsible for 90% of the emissions caused by passenger flights in 2018. And naturally, as living standards are improving, the demand for flying will increase dramatically as well. Therefore, even though passenger aviation does not yet account for a massive share globally, if our lifestyle became universal across the globe, this would look very different. Additionally, when looking at an individual’s footprint, taking or not taking that overseas flight to go climb some new rocks with your pals makes a huge difference. For example, a round trip to San Francisco from Germany emits about 3.1 tonnes of CO2. This amount of CO2 would already be about 37% of an average European’s yearly CO2 footprint, just with a back and forth fly. In contrast, if everybody had an equal CO2 budget and we were to be aligned with the 1.5-degree target, our yearly CO2 budget would amount to something between 0.6 tonnes (my climate) and 2.5 tonnes (eingutertag.org). In short, we have to reduce our individual emissions massively and currently we are living on the backs of those less privileged and those not yet born. Shortly before our departure, I was talking to my dad. In the heat of an argument he threw at me: “Surely, you don’t actually think that with all the effort this trip requires (e.g. the whole detour through Lithuania) going by train is better than just taking a plane.” For a second there, he seeded some doubt in me. So, I went back to the internet to do the math again. Reassuringly, taking the train, in comparison to just flying amounted to this:
Sources: Graver, B., Zhang, K., & Rutherford, D. (2019). CO2 emissions from commercial aviation, 2018 [Working Paper]. Retrieved from International Council on Clean Transportation website: https://theicct.org/publications/co2-emissions-commercial-aviation-2018 myclimate.com CO2 calculator eingutertag.org calculator.carbonfootprint.com
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