{"id":5797,"date":"2022-07-13T15:16:04","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T19:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ecooptimism.com\/?p=5797"},"modified":"2022-08-29T16:56:14","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T20:56:14","slug":"i-used-to-love-flying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecooptimism.com\/?p=5797","title":{"rendered":"I Used to Love Flying"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

And maybe I can again. This starts out non-EcoOptimistically, but it doesn’t end that way.<\/p>\r\n

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I like seeing cities. I like seeing museums. I like seeing ancient ruins. I like seeing family members who live on the other side of the continent. Sometimes I need to go sit on a remote beach. (I admit, I\u2019m not a hiking, canoeing, snorkeling kind of guy. I can see you wagging your finger: “you call yourself an environmentalist?”)<\/p>\r\n

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But you gotta fly to do a lot of that.<\/p>\r\n

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Now, I love flying. Just not the kind of flying we have to endure these days to do any of those things I like. In fact, I used to be a pilot \u2013 not 787s; just the kind with one propeller on the nose and two seats behind me. I found it fun (if intense) and beautiful, and I still love to watch planes landing. I even co-write a book back then on learning how to fly.<\/p>\r\n

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The problem is the commercial version isn\u2019t fun anymore and, maybe more problematically, it\u2019s one of the nastiest unsustainable things anyone \u2013 especially an environmentalist who doesn\u2019t want to be a hypocrite – can do.<\/p>\r\n

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First, the not-fun part. You\u2019ve been there. Crammed in a noisy metal cylinder, with a stranger six inches away and your knees practically in your lap. The food\u2019s no longer bad because there isn\u2019t any. Lines to get to the gate; lines at the gate; rushing to see if there\u2019s an overhead compartment left; more lines to get out. Fly the friendly skies? It\u2019s no wonder United Airlines had to retire that slogan.<\/p>\r\n

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And<\/em>, then there\u2019s the eco<\/em>-pessimistic side. Some stats from the BBC<\/a>:
\u201cAround 2.4% of global CO2 emissions come from aviation. Together with other gases and the water vapour trails produced by aircraft, the industry is responsible for around 5% of global warming.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

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The vast majority (90%) of people don\u2019t ever fly*, but for those who fly frequently it can easily become the largest part of their carbon footprint. “One round-trip flight between New York and San Francisco generates two to three tons of carbon dioxide emissions per passenger, more than 10 percent of the annual carbon footprint of the typical American.” I often ask my students to calculate their ecofootprint using an online calculator<\/a>, and then to redo it with less flying. Since many of them come from overseas, flying to and from New York a few times a year is a major part of their footprint. But what can they do? Not fly back home during breaks? That knowledge can instill “carbon guilt\u201d and leave them with despair, since they don\u2019t really have an alternative.<\/p>\r\n

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And what\u2019s an environmentalist to do? How can I justify flying to the Galapagos to \u2018see nature?\u2019 Or fly to a conference on sustainability?<\/p>\r\n

There’s even a term for the movement to have people fly less: “flight shame” or flygskam<\/em> – the original Swedish term.<\/p>\r\n

* Within that remaining 10%, there’s an increasing subset that, as noted<\/a> by Lloyd Alter in Treehugger, flies in private jets. The carbon footprint of those is many-fold the already high footprint of flying commercial.<\/p>\r\n

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And here\u2019s another, less talked about, factor. What about all those natural resources? Think about the aluminum, carbon fiber, copper, plastic and synthetic fabrics that all those huge containers are made of, and what happens to them when the plane is retired after 15 or 20 years. Most of those massive A380s, those double-decked 600-seat behemoths, have ended up in aircraft \u201cboneyards,\u201d some after less than ten years of use, alongside thousands of their grounded brethren.<\/p>\r\n

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Aerial view of the Tucson, AZ aircraft boneyard<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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That\u2019s a lot of not only materials, but also embodied (sometimes called upfront) carbon: the energy it took to make those materials. It may be trivial compared to the fuel those planes gobbled up in their short lifetimes, but the combination of that embodied energy and the \u201cstranded,\u201d essentially landfilled, materials is not insignificant.<\/p>\r\n

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Some of the parts in those planes can be salvaged, often for use in other planes. And there are designers who have been creative with what they\u2019ve found in the boneyards, making cool furniture and even buildings.<\/p>\r\n

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Motoart’s \u201cAlbatross Elevator Desk\u201d<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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\u201c747 Wing House,\u201d by David Hertz Architect<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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Hotel Costa Verde in Costa Rica<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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Recycled aluminum tiles<\/a> made from aircraft hulls<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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Not actually part of an airplane, this was, I was told, part of a modular system used to make temporary runways on beaches in WWII. It came from a boneyard, and I explored using them to screen a carport on a project.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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There is<\/em> an ecooptimistic side or two. First, we don\u2019t have to fly as much, at least for business, courtesy of our digital world; we\u2019ve all learned how to zoom. I do almost all my meetings that way, even when I could have subway’d there. (Luckily, I live somewhere that I don\u2019t need a car.) And one of the few positive things to arise from Covid is that I\u2019ve discovered I can have guest speakers in my classes who are anywhere in the world.<\/p>\r\n

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It doesn\u2019t mean I can do everything without flying; I can just do a lot more without it.<\/p>\r\n

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And there are a couple of other causes for hope on the near horizon. (Yep, that\u2019s an intentional pun.)<\/p>\r\n

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