Just 1% of people are responsible for half of all toxic emissions from flying.

  • @[email protected]
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    fedilink
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    01 year ago

    No, it’s not. You’re taking the fuel economy of a flight based on the average number of passengers but the fuel economy of a car based on a specific number you picked that makes your point

    As are you.

    despite it being a rare occurrence.

    There is no justification for your assumed average of 1.2 people per trip. You’re comparing “commutes” to things like “vacations”. I don’t take the wife and 4 kids with me to work; I do take them on vacation.

    Even if we do assume a single rider, you don’t get to automatically assume “car”. An airplane is a mass-transit vehicle. A bus gives 180 to 300 MPG per passenger mile, and a train can be well over a thousand.

    But we’re getting away from the point: whether by bus, car, train, plane, or even bicycle powered by a rider who consumes oxygen and expels CO2, the lowest level of emissions are produced when the trip is eliminated entirely, and the second lowest are when a long trip is replaced with a short trip. We need to focus on reducing travel in general.

    • Zoolander
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      01 year ago

      As are you.

      No, I’m not. Stop lying. I’m taking the average for both because that’s the only way to determine which is more fuel efficient and which sector has the most opportunity for a change.

      You’re comparing “commutes”

      No, I’m not. More lies. I used commutes initially because that was the most common usage for a car by a landslide which is the same thing I did for air travel. You weren’t ok with that so I used the more general number and took the total average for all types of rides in a car with any number of passengers at all distances. That number is 1.3 passengers per ride. Anything less than, taking a subsection of the rides to narrow it down to only rides with 3+ passengers and only for “vacations” or whatever other nonsense constraints you want to put on it, only reduces the total available impact since rides with 3+ passengers are already an extremely small percentage of rides in a car and “vacation travel” is an even smaller portion than that.

      you don’t get to automatically assume “car”

      I didn’t. You guys used the example of a suburban. Emissions figures separate out mass transit from personal travel because they’re not comparable and mass transit has less opportunity for impact since it’s already the most sustainable method of transportation.

      the lowest level of emissions are produced when the trip is eliminated entirely, and the second lowest are when a long trip is replaced with a short trip

      A complete straw man. If people need to get to a destination, going on a shorter trip is meaningless as is eliminating the trip. The most impactful changes are those that have the highest ROI in terms of barriers and resources. Airplanes ain’t that.