Wealthy people with environmental ideals are the biggest emitters

[Ed_]

12 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Why? Required, or choose to?

I think my point is that the amount of work flying someone does is less likely to be affected by their environmental ideals than their personal flying. 

 

For example a company CEO could choose to never fly for personal reasons but is unlikely to be able to do the same regarding work travel regardless of their personal beliefs, so not considering this distinction introduces a source of bias into the analysis.

[saveasteading]

5 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

How many were on the bus.

Average 8? Probably 20 used it in total.

 

5 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

bus does about 6MPG, 

It was going that way anyway. So close to zero fuel used for us.

In term time it would have been packed.

 

It is possible some of those people don't have a car and were coming back from hospital. 

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

Solve the local link, e.g with affordable (subsidised) electric taxi'

Exactly. One solution is that your local community has a vehicle and volunteer drivers plus a free parking agreement at the bus stop.

[saveasteading]

5 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

How many were on the bus.

Average 8? Probably 20 used it in total.

 

5 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

bus does about 6MPG, 

It was going that way anyway. So close to zero fuel used for us.

In term time it would have been packed.

 

It is possible some of those people don't have a car and were coming back from hospital. 

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

Solve the local link, e.g with affordable (subsidised) electric taxi'

Exactly. One solution is that your local community has a vehicle and volunteer drivers plus a free parking agreement at the bus stop.

Stand as a local councillor and you can do this using the huge fund that the wind turbine people will give you.

[Gone West]

We have a bus run through the village three days of the week, once in the morning and returning in the afternoon. Without huge subsidy there is no way public transport could be used for even a fraction of the journeys made locally. Most people live in urban areas and don't have a clue what public transport is like in the countryside.

[SteamyTea]

29 minutes ago, Gone West said:

Without huge subsidy there is no way public transport could be used for even a fraction of the journeys made locally

We have huge subsidies.

https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/transport-parking-and-streets/public-transport/cornwalls-transport-services/enhanced-partnership-and-bus-service-improvement-plan/

 

A new allocation of £10.59m Bus Grant funding for 2025/26 has been awarded to Cornwall Council.  This includes:      

• £9.72m BSIP funding - £5.48m revenue funding will be focused on maintaining the existing bus network. £4.24m capital funding will improve access and deliver upgrades to:
  • bus stations
  • bus stops and
  • real-time passenger information screens
• £0.87m funding to include: Bus Services Operators Grant (BSOG) to support tendered bus services.  As well as an allocation to support BSIP delivery.

 

About £17 quid each.

They may be spending the money on the wrong things.

 

[Gone West]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

They may be spending the money on the wrong things.

 

Well, half on maintenance of existing bus services, half on upgrading bus stops and stations. So at least we shouldn't lose services, but I can't see services being expanded. It would need a lot more than £10m for a rural county like Cornwall.

[Beelbeebub]

Whilst air travel does ha e a carbon footprint it also has massive benefits. 

 

Without it intercontinental travel, especially between the America's, Australia and africa/europe/Asia would become almost impossible for the average person. It would become the preserve of the ultra rich who could afford to take 2 weeks or more to travel each way. 

 

I would point out that the carbon emissions of uk domestic and international air travel (I know attributing carbon to a territory is tough but there are various estimates) is around 40MtCO2e

 

The emissions from passenger cars is about 60MtCO2e and residential heating is about 50MtCO2e

 

So we could decarbonise (electrify) passenger cars and heating (Ev's and heatpumps) and carry on flying. 

[JohnMo]

2 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

Whilst air travel does ha e a carbon footprint it also has massive benefits. 

 

Without it intercontinental travel, especially between the America's, Australia and africa/europe/Asia would become almost impossible for the average person. It would become the preserve of the ultra rich who could afford to take 2 weeks or more to travel each way. 

 

I would point out that the carbon emissions of uk domestic and international air travel (I know attributing carbon to a territory is tough but there are various estimates) is around 40MtCO2e

 

The emissions from passenger cars is about 60MtCO2e and residential heating is about 50MtCO2e

 

So we could decarbonise (electrify) passenger cars and heating (Ev's and heatpumps) and carry on flying. 

Do find this very much goes against everything you seem to preach. It may have massive benefit for ease of travel, but is this travel really needed or just a nice to have?

 

 

[Beelbeebub]

5 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Do find this very much goes against everything you seem to preach. It may have massive benefit for ease of travel, but is this travel really needed or just a nice to have?

Ha! I can see why you might think that but I'm not a carbon zelot. 

 

Being able to move things, including people from one side of that globe to the other in under 24h is a huge benefit. 

 

We should be minimising flying where possible. Eg, sub 500 mile (to pick an approximate distance) flights should be replaced with rail, business meetings that could be done remotely should be done remotely.

 

But I would rather we saved carbon by moving to EVs and heatpumps and continue flying (albeit maybe at a slightly lower rate) rather than cut flying so we can drive ICE cars and use gas boilers. 

 

And we would save *much* more carbon by doing those things (and improve energy security) than by stopping flying all together. 

[Iceverge]

Commercial flying is mass transport and ballpark similar to an ICE car with one person on board in terms of CO2/Km . 

 

It's just that someone rarely drives the equivalent distances. 

 

You could probably half CO2 of airliners by having a large and much slower turboprop aircraft but the idea of taking 24hrs in an economy seat to get to New York won't make you many friend's among the travelling public.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

Being able to move things, including people from one side of that globe to the other in under 24h is a huge benefit. 

Yes we can get fresh fruit from the other side of the world out of season, we can go ongoing haul holiday's - is any of this good for the environment - no. But sounds like you want to keep your holidays and who cares.

 

Sorry me swooping to ASHP may have a good impact on the environment - but it's super small impact. Insignificant compared to even starting a gas turbine let alone dragging 540 Tonnes of A380 into the sky. The aircraft can do about 80 to 90 miles per US gallon per person. Which any diesel car can do with 2 people in it and double that with 4 people in it.

Edited 3 hours ago by JohnMo

[SteamyTea]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft

 

An Airbus 380 on a long haul flight uses 3.27 l/100 km (86.39 British MPG)

 

I went to Australia and back in a 747-400, that does 3.76 l/100km, which is 75 MPG.  That is about the same as my car does on an upcountry run, though it does around 10 MPG less locally.

The route I took to Sydney was via San Francisco, and the route back was via Kuala Lumpur, a total of 23,458 miles or 37,752 km.  That works out at 1,420 litre of fuel.

That flight was for work, and was, nearly 25 years ago (where has my life vanished, I booked the flight just after 911 and got it for $400.  I also got bumped off the flight, got my $400 back and an upgrade to 1^st Class to KL and then Business Class to Heathrow).

Since then, I have probably driven 625,000 miles in various cars, the worse on economy was my little Corsa Automatic, it struggled to do 40 MPG (and was a lot worse around London), but all the other have easily done 50 MPG.  So about 2270 lt/year, which is 5.6 l/100km.

Should have stayed in Australia.

[JohnMo]

7 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

An Airbus 380 on a long haul flight uses 3.27 l/100 km (86.39 British MPG)

 

I went to Australia and back in a 747-400, that does 3.76 l/100km, which is 75 MPG.  That is about the same as my car does on an upcountry run, though it does around 10 MPG less locally.

The route I took to Sydney was via San Francisco, and the route back was via Kuala Lumpur, a total of 23,458 miles or 37,752 km.  That works out at 1,420 litre of fuel.

Sorry you are very wrong - you forgot that consumption is per person based on being full of passengers. A 747 holds between 182,000 to 240,000 litres, based on your fuel economy that one hell of a lot miles it could do. 

[SteamyTea]

21 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

you forgot that consumption is per person based on being full of passengers

Based on consumption per revenue passenger kilometre.

Read the Wikipedia article.

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by SteamyTea

[JohnMo]

4 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Based on consumption per revenue passenger kilometre.

Read the Wikipedia article.

 

 

Did read.

 

So your calculations are still wrong. It still uses almost the same quantity of fuel for 1 person or a few hundred. I've been on business only flights from Singapore to Houston and there were 12 fare paying passengers - so the maths don't make much sense.

 

My car car does 20 mpg, but with 5 people in it, does it all of a sudden do 100mpg. No it still does 20mpg. 

 

Strange way to say I like long haul flights and here is my justification. Aircraft use a shit load of fuel, putting the emissions where they do the least good.

 

I have done way more than my fair share of trips around the world, doesn't make good or sensible anymore.