According to Terrapass, Lindsey and I will each be responsible for almost 5,500 pounds of carbon dioxide by flying from San Francisco to Europe and back. 5,500 pounds, or about 2.5 metric tons, is half as much carbon as the average Serbian or Croatian produces in an entire year.
Moreover, as summarized on Oroeco, the contrails of jets, because of the radiative property of clouds, may double the global warming effects of flying. In other words, we aren't saving the earth with this vacation.
I'd also like to point out that flying is absolutely amazing. In just a few hours, we will board a flying machine that will take us halfway around the world in less than a day of travel. Compared to past centuries of civilization, we would appear like gods. The comedian Louis CK does a good job of summing up how amazing this is (and how we've become unaware of how awesome it is) in this video.
Flight has brought humanity enormous good, and it has allowed the world be connected in a way that would otherwise be impossible. I wonder if people would care as much about global problems if they weren't able to fly and see the globe.
The solution isn't to stop flying (although better telecommuting can avoid the need for some flights). The solution is for us to figure out how to fly without polluting. That will likely be really hard–batteries are too heavy for flight, and biofuels require large amounts of land and water. Nonetheless, we figured out how to fly. I'm sure that if we put effort in (investment, lots of it) we can figure this out.
I wish I could spend a bit extra on my flight to invest in the development of non-polluting flight technology. But the airlines don't offer that, so I will do the next best thing and buy carbon offsets. Obviously, offsets are imperfect, but at least we're doing something about our pollution.
So, for two people flying to Europe, we bought offsets for 11,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, which cost us $65 on Terrapass. Yes, that is a lot of money, but it is small compared to the price (gulp) of the ticket, and it is one tenth of what the airlines are charging us to ship two bikes to Europe and back ($150 per bike per leg!).
At least we're taking public transit to the airport. I only hope that BART lets us take the bikes on at rush hour…
[…] Tarrapass estimates that by flying, we emitted, combined, about 5,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. By biking from the airport instead of driving, I estimated that we saved about one to two pounds. (Here’s the blog entry on buying offsets.) […]
[…] It feels somewhat just that flying with bikes is such a major headache. It is as if the universe is trying to tell us that flying and bicycling are two forms of transportation that are not supposed to go together. Maybe the God of Flight and the God of Bikes never talk to each other. Or maybe it is because my website and cause is about climate change, and it is obvious that flying is one of the worst things you can do with regards to climate change (here’s a blog I wrote about buying offsets for this trip). […]