Carbon Reality and Flying

*I recently started blogging at Verdens Skove (World Forests), the Danish equivalent of Rainforest Action Network. Although rainforests have never been my particular area of expertise, my goal is to tie them into the mélange of nature, humans, and climate change, which is the great crossroads of our time. I shall blog there in Danish, but will be translating my posts and re-posting them here if the subject matter is relevant for English speakers. My first post, from a few weeks ago, was written specifically for a Danish audience My post from yesterday however, was relevant for a climate worrier of any language. I hope you'll come back and check the "Verdens Skove" tag on this blog and follow my progress there. Also, I truly hope this will help me update this blog more often as well!*

We are well on our way toward a new era where we will have to re-think a whole lot of things. It's really quite odd to be here, right on the crossroads of actually having the theoretical and practical know-how to tackle our environmental problems, yet at the same time, doing nothing, and being literally on the verge of planetary collapse. Quite a number of harmful processes created by anthropogenic global warming have already started - the ecological descent has begun. And we act as though nothing's amiss. We continue, under the cloak of "business as usual". 

At some point, we will have to refrain from some of the things we take for granted. We cannot eat industrially produced meat, every day. We will have to cut back on material consumption. Things we consider everyday items will have to become a little special, rare, maybe even luxurious. At least until we implement A Better Way of Doing Things. 

One of the things I've done myself, for which there is no sustainable alternative, is to stop flying. It's not an easy decision, considering my American background (living in Denmark). And it's neither easy nor cheap to get around, while travelling. It is nonetheless the fastest way to halve (or more!) one's annual emissions. And it's also part of sending an important signal, that what we usually take for granted needs to be the exception to the rule, if not an act of ecocide. 

350

350 is an important number. 350 ppm (parts per million) is the saturation of carbon in our atmosphere that is safe, compatible with life on this planet as we know it. It's also a number we've already passed (pre-industrial ppm number was 280). And not long ago, we passed 397 ppm.

We've already acculmulated a dangerous amount of carbon in the atmosphere, too much to keep the planetary balance that keeps us, and everything else, alive. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere right now, and the number keeps getting higher btw, means that the average temperature on the planet will rise, and eventually undermine all life on it. 

If we do not turn this around, if our emissions do not peak before 2020, in just 7 years, our world will become 2 degrees warmer. Science tells us that this must be avoided at all costs. If we do not peak before 2030, it will become 4 degrees warmer. To put it bluntly - a 4 degree temperature rise means we can't live here anymore. It's not just a question of the seas rising, it's a question of complete systemic collapse. 

The Carbon Bill of Flying

Our lifestyle already costs too much for our carbon budget. Even everyday things - warm baths, laundry, cooking, electricity for our time's most important mode of communication (the one I'm typing on right now)... it all adds to the atmospheric carbon soup which is no longer being absorbed by the seas and dwindling natural world at the same rate - they've already reached saturation.  

Air travel is, unfortunately, one of the giants of individual carbon consupmtion. Flights can't be calculated as carbon emissions on land, as with cars, busses, trains (though that's often how it is calculated nonetheless, and don't think it helps to buy offsets). The plane's actual fossil fuel usage is made even worse by the physical trail of condensation released into the troposphere, which creates contrails that end up containing yet more heat in the atmosphere.  

A roundtrip flight actually doubles annual carbon emissions. There are several calculations floating out there, but even the most conservative estimate puts one plane trip as the equivalent of 10 whole months of annual emissions, including all the daily emissions we take for granted. One of the larger calculations puts the same plane trip at a whopping 3 and a half years (smaller, propeller driven planes flying at lower altitudes are exempt from these calculations)! And take note - these are calculated per person. Get a calculator and have at it.

So - even if you stick to the most optimistic formula, air travel is an irresponsibly large consumption of an individual's annual emissions, and something most people use frivolously at that. There is no good excuse for doubling, or possibly trippling, emissions - for a vacation. 

Misguided Charity

Now, I don't want people to believe that I think we should stop having any fun, and go back to living under Middle Age standards. We have a right to be here. We have a right to food, clean water, hygiene, freedom of movement. But it is imperative that we do it as gently as possible. Air travel is not gentle. Far from it. We must remember what is more important. The opportunity to live well, love our friends and family, eat well and varied, have a well-functioning daily life. Or one vacation (alone) on another continent? Unfortunately, from a carbon budget's perspective, it's either or - not both. 

Air travel has done wonderful things for humanity, let's not forget that. But our cultural view of flying as something that is solely for good must be tweaked. The reality being that flying is more harmful for our climate that so many other things. Being privy to that information makes it positively irresponsible to continue flying. Misanthropic even. 

Not long ago, Verdens Skove posted a picture on their facebook page, citing that large areas of rainforest are cleared to grow bio-fuel crops (link: http://on.fb.me/17DJ833). We need fuel for just about everything - for the agriculture that grows crops for our food, the transportation of those crops, electricity to prepare meals, keeping us warm, or cool. Is it then reasonable that we keep creating a demand for decidedly unnecessary things? 

On Verdens Skove's website, just above the links to bloggers' posts is a disclaimer: "Verdens Skove does not necessarily agree with our bloggers' posts, and we do not necessarily agree with their opinions". Well - the feeling's mutual. Verdens Skove does a lot of great work toward conserving something the planet desperately needs to stay healthy. The rainforests are the planet's lungs (the oceans are as well, but I get how trees are better poster boys for the climate than, say, plankton), and must be saved, no matter what. 

The current contest on Verdens Skove's web-site (if you've ever bought a rainforest certificate, you're in the running for a trip to Costa Rica) is part and parcel of the very contradiction I started this post with - knowing the physical carbon reality of our planet, and not heeding it, despite that. Advertising for a charity is fine, by all means, the message needs to be put out there. But actually creating the demand for more fuel that will spur more deforestation to produce the same? Well.

I am privileged to be blogging for Verdens Skove, and I think this is one of the better NGOs out there, up there with Greenpeace and Amnesty. But no amount of goodwill or charity can ever outweigh air travel. And that is why I am not participating in the current contest, despite the fact that I've bought several acres worth of certificates through the years, and despite that I'd love to see the rainforest with my own eyes one day. I hope that other climate worriers join me in publicly denouncing the concept. New times with a new carbon reality requires new thinking. Think, don't fly.

Links:

- The current ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere http://co2now.org/ 

- Infographic of a 4 degree warmer world: http://climatechange.worldbank.org/content/4-degree-warmer-world-we-must... 

- In depth article by George Monbiot on flying - recommended!: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/21/travelsenvironmentalimpact.ethicalliving

- Revisiting the Climate Academic on a Plane Argument. Blog post by climate scientist Kevin Anderson: http://kevinanderson.info/blog/revisiting-the-climate-academic-on-a-plan...

- To Fly, Or Not to Fly. Blog post by lawyer and climate activist: http://globalwarmingispants.blogspot.dk/2011/10/to-fly-or-not-to-fly.html?showComment=1366114088566#c5239893289333449557

- Is It Okay to Fly? Article :http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2006/may/20/ecotourism.guardiansaturday...

- Kicking the Habit: Air Travel in a Time of Climate Change: http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/kicking-the-habit-air-travel-in-a-time-of-climate-change

- Air Travel and Climate Change, Take the Train: http://www.treehugger.com/travel/air-travel-and-climate-change-take-the-train.html

- If You Fly by Jet You Kill? Tough post about air travel by social scientist and environmental acitivst: http://dogwoodinitiative.org/blog/stainsbyfly

- Can We Afford to Fly? The Impact of Air Travel: http://alwayswellwithin.com/2011/03/13/can-we-afford-to-fly/

- Toward Sustainable Travel – Breaking the Flying Addiction. Blog post on Yale's climate site, recommended!: http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2280

- Should Fear of Climate Change Make Us Stop Flying?:http://www.good.is/posts/should-fear-of-climate-change-make-us-stop-flying

Hiatus - OVER! Now: What's This Really All About

I hadn't expected to let this blog go to seed for over a year - sorry about that! A thesis got in the way. My thesis. Which I wrote all through last Spring and Summer, finally turning it in in September. The Danish title of my thesis is Et mærkbart klima - Affekt og politik i klimakultur. Roughly - A Climate of Emotion - Affect and Politics in Climate Culture, dealing with examples of emotions and feelings in culture relating to climate change. It was an interesting ride, and might actually have helped me quite a bit in gaining some of that elusive distance to climate change. The distance I didn't have before, the lack of which kept the threat and fear of climate change on my sleeve as it were.

Anyway, I'm back, I've written more posts than I can remember, up in my head of course, goodness knows where they are now. Something that I do keep thinking about, and answering in my head, is a question that a friend asked me over a year ago. I imagine I was on one of my many Twitter rants about the climate, having just read some dire report, eyes freshly salted, sad and angry. He asked - "what is this really all about"? And I was kind of stumped to be honest. Who couldn't see what this was about?

I'm guessing what my friend was asking, in essence, was "Why are you so afraid of death?". Isn't that, after all, the inner core driving humanity? We do everything we can to survive as far as immediate, primary needs go (food, sleep, shelter). And we create secondary needs to hide the fact that fear is what drives the primary needs. But still - it's much bigger than death, isn't it?

It's the largest collective human existential crisis since the Cold War, except for the fact that the button has been pushed, is still being pushed (long before the Cold War actually), and we seem to be crying in one voice: "Push harder! Push harder!", even though we know what that means. Well....

Not to mention, this is about more than humanity, since we're taking more than ourselves down with us. Prognoses have given the impression that we'll be pretty much wiping Earth's slate clean, leaving it to need more than just a few million years to reboot life that resembles anything we know. Not exactly fair of us, I'd say.

But on the human side of things, it bothers me that we're wiping out human potential. We're a mixed bag as far as species go, I know that. Good, bad, ugly, and all that. But damn, the good things have been really really good. Art alone can be enough to make me cry with joy, such a shame to see it go to waste. Not a soul in the universe to appreciate it after we're gone (as far as we know of course). Have we even neared the height of what we can do? Is there time to prove it? I suppose it's all these unknowns that bug me. For - even if one human dies, it's in the cards that someone else will pick up the slack, carry on where s/he left off, add to it even, make it better, bring humanity forth...We take solace in that when we leave this place individually.

Climate change is a serious threat to that, the ultimate effect being....absolutely nothing.

Interview - This is What Love Looks Like

I'm not sure if I should keep linking to my podcasts here, since you probably know where to find them. Or? What say ye?

I really urge you to click on this link and read this article, or rather, interview with Tim DeChristopher. It's beautiful and scary. But so necessary. Tim is what I'd call a hero.

Podcast - Episode 2

Climate Worrier Podcast - Episode 2 by ClimateWorrier

Podcast!

I have no intention of neglecting this blog, but I will be supplementing it, and taking it to another level by the addition of the Climate Worrier podcast. The message is the same, but I hope to be more personal, and reach more people with this more emotional side of climate change put forward.

Climate Worrier Podcast Inaugural Episode by ClimateWorrier

And a happy New Year, of course!

Right Here, Right Now

It sometimes seems a wonder that the human race is, at this point in time, at this very juncture, with this very dilemma. Not a moment too soon, not a moment too late.

Imagine if the grand ecosystem of the planet had been much less adaptable, much more delicate, and people in the early 20th century were already getting the hems of their petticoats and coattails wet in rising tides from melting poles. The technology being that less advanced back then would certainly have meant our demise, not being able to save us from ourselves.

The fact that our own technology today is evolving practically exponentially is a comfort. Do we have a chance to technologize ourselves out of this? It's kind of the only hope, isn't it?

It also seems...planned. I'm not going theistic on your ass, don't worry, after all, I do rely on science and healthy scepticism to keep this very physical problem in the physical paradigm wherein it presides. But really, how lucky are we that this is all happening at precisely this moment in time?

Look how far we've come. We're more co-operative and peaceful than we've ever been in our entire history. I have faith in the human race. Technology is bringing movements together. Can it also geo-engineer us out of catastrophe? If anyone in the history of time has the chance to find out, we're it.

Climate and Aviation - The Flying Post

I got myself into a Twitter discussion about flying's impact on the environment last week. Twitter has a 140 character limit, which isn't exactly conducive to a good debate about this. I could've just copy/pasted some links, but it's just not enough. So, now I find myself writing a whole post about it. This blog is intended to be about the emotional side of AGW, but for this rare occasion, I'll be dealing with figures.

First off, I have to get a few things out of the way. I conscientiously do not fly, and I haven't flown for 4 years for several reasons.

1) Not flying is one of the single easiest things to do to lower your emissions (going vegetarian and cutting consumption right behind it).

2) Flying uses mind boggling amounts of fuel, fuel which preferably should be used on food production instead of vacations, since, according to the IEA, oil production already peaked, back in 2006. If you haven't thought about what that means for the world, you, or your children, run along and google "peak oil", freak out a bit, then come back.

3) I am not interested in checking out of society to curb my emissions, so I find alternatives. In the past 4 years, my family and I have been to Morocco twice, Finland, Sweden, Southern France and Spain, all without flying. People colonized the globe before air travel, c'mon, it's not the only way to get around.

4) In a few years, my kids will learn about climate change in school. When they ask me what I did, knowing the existential ground below our feet was disappearing, I will not look them in the eyes and tell them that I just pretended everything was going to be okay, and kept doing everything as per usual.

5) Science tells us that we should aim to bring carbon levels down to 350 ppm to avoid catastrophe. We're already way beyond that, at 391 (look at the bar of stats at the top). I don't feel a need to make that number a lot worse just so I can have a vacation.

Now that I got that off my chest, some sources.

My main go-to person on the issue of flying and carbon emissions is environmental journalist, George Monbiot. Anyone can go to any number of websites and have their carbon emissions figured out for certain activities. But as Monbiot points out, in the case of flying, this method isn't applicable. One must take the resulting number and multiply it with IPCC figure of 2.7, to get the true impact (the Tyndall Centre of Climate Change uses a more conservative estimate of 1.9, still more that your usual carbon footptint equation), owing to atmospheric impact. Here's an article of his, where I have highlighted the important details on this. So remember, when calculating flights on an internet service such as this, the results are unfortunately only applicable for a plane flying at ground level, usually not the case.

Here's another sobering Monbiot article about flying with a moral twist, if you're up for it.

There are many variables to calculating the effects of air travel, distance, plane model, etc. For sure though, a long haul flight easily doubles the average person's annual emissions in one go (indeed, I've seen higher estimates still), as illustrated in this extensive paper, on page 7. We already need to eat, use electricity, and travel locally on our carbon budgets - would we rather eat or go on vacation, given a certain amount of carbon to use annually?

Biofuels were cited during my Twitter debate as being a viable fuel alternative, ergo my non-flying stance was "hogwash". For one, biofuel technology is out there, great, but it's not in aviation use (oh, apart from that one time Richard Branson powered one short Virgin flight with 20% nut oil. Can you imagine how many people those nuts could have fed instead?). Even then, biofuels have a lot against them still (see pages 5-7).

I've opted for train travel instead of flying. Certainly, it takes longer. As it happens, one of our favorite destinations at my house is Morocco. in theory, we could board a plane in Copenhagen and arrive in Morocco 5-6 hours later. If it weren't for environmental impact and fuel use, awesome. Especially if it's for a shorter trip. As it were, it takes 3 days in all from Copenhagen to Tangier, with stops in Paris and Madrid. We've had time to visit friends, drink wine, eat tapas and be merry en route. Point being, the extended travel time has been a joy, not a chore. And while train travel isn't pristine emissions-wise, it certainly figures more climate friendly than flying.

I do also have family in the States I haven't visited for a while, and it doesn't look like I'll visit them any time soon. Does that bother me? Yes and no. My mother flies here to visit us (1 person's emissions to visit 4 people is still better than 4 people's emissions to visit 1 person), so my children know their grandmother, and we Skype, which is like being in the same room. The thing that does hurt most, for both of us, is the fact that I won't fly over to take care of her estate when she goes. The thought does sadden me, but it's been arranged that someone stateside will take care of that, and my mother is donating her body to science. But to be honest, my mother has many years left in her, I'm pretty sure that peak oil will prevent most air travel before her time is up, at any rate. But not seeing family in the flesh bothers me a lot less than knowingly contributing to ruining my children's future. Sounds pretty heavy, I know - it is!

To sum up - I appreciate the cultural impact that aviation has had on the world- We're closer, more connected, and as a result more peaceful and able to cooperate. I live where I do today because of air travel. That said, flying is a bad habit that we have to stop. The fact that technology for alternatives to conventional aviation is out there and not in use? A travesty. And that's exactly why I will not aid and abet the aviation industry's detrimental effect on the climate, nor should anyone else who is truly concerned about it (there, I said it!).

What flying did to encourage positive socio-anthropological changes in the past 100 years, the internet does now. We're still connected, more so even. We've come a long way, now let's take another road that's not as destructive. Internet use isn't a climate saint, but I'll save that for another post. Now, go no-fly!