For world economy
Why we can’t have nice climate:
On Friday, Dr Gianluca Grimalda, an environmental campaigner who refuses to fly on principle, was told by his employer, Germany’s Kiel Institute for World Economy, that if he was not at his desk on Monday he would no longer have a job to return to.
Trouble is he’s 14 thousand miles away.
Instead this week he was still waiting in Buka Town, Bougainville, to embark on a cargo ship to begin his journey back to Europe, after six months studying the impact of climate change and globalisation on communities in Papua New Guinea.
Grimalda said he intends to make the 22,000km (14,000-mile) return trip to Europe entirely without flying, instead travelling on cargo ships, ferries, trains and coaches – a journey he estimates will take two months, but that will, he estimates, save 3.6 tonnes of carbon emissions.
It seems pointless, of course, because the planes will fly anyway, but that’s why we can’t seem to do what needs to be done. What’s the use when everybody else keeps right on taking cruises and hopping on planes and driving 100 miles every day? So nobody does anything and on goes the rush into the abyss.
Papua New Guinea, of which Bougainville is a part, is one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of the warming climate. In a long Twitter thread detailing his encounters, Grimalda details his meetings with islanders who have been forced to move entire villages inland to avoid rising tides, or who were desperately planting mangroves to hold back the waters.
Yes but that’s far away. We can ignore what’s far away.
I doubt Grimalda will save “3.6 tonnes of carbon emissions” by “travelling on cargo ships, ferries, trains and coaches” which also create carbon emissions. I’d like to see the data that’s based on. Refusing to fly on principle seems like enough reason not to, because less people flying means less flights, but taken to it’s logical conclusion, i.e. if more people travelled by alternate means and didn’t fly, doesn’t that increase carbon emissions elsewhere (more cars with single passengers particularly)? I don’t think the principle is unsound in theory, but bussing people by aircraft in large groups for long distances is probably more fuel efficient than bussing them in smaller groups for long distances by land. The idea is to burn less fuel and be more efficient. Grimalda might see air travel as an unnecessary luxury, but it’s not as much of a luxury as cruise ships spewing large amounts of emissions solely for pleasure purposes, and similar (zero destination space tourism comes to mind).
Practicing the principle of frugality would solve so much more of the problem, but that’s not a popular idea. People want (nay demand!) their luxury, convenience, comfort, prestige, recreation, blah blah…
I think the Kiel Institute should keep him *on principle* rather than threaten to fire him, I mean if they want to virtue signal properly. But stupid is as stupid does.
I also doubt the savings. Flying is considerably more fuel efficient per person-kilometre of travel than any cargo ship. Air causes vastly less drag than water.
Holms, I’m not entirely sure about that. Yes, air causes less drag than water at the same speed and altitude. Drag increases rapidly with speed though, although with altitude the reduction in density reduces drag and lift both. Overall there is a slight gain in efficiency. With aircraft you also have to expend energy (fuel) to lift the weight to altitude and at most airports the flight approach profiles do not allow you to gain much back with an efficient glide.
The main issue though is that boats transport massive tonnage for the fuel burned. Adding 100kg of a person’s body and luggage to that has absolutely negligible effect. Much of his carbon cost will be in a months food and the electricity for his cabin, rather than the kms covered as such.
I’m really not convinced overall that his argument stacks up though. Unless you have lots of time you don’t value, he will never be as productive while travelling on a cargo ship as he would be in the office (or at least same city). I think we should all minimise frivolous travel, regardless of form, just as we should minimise frivolous consumerism. We still need to get things done. If he had been truely serious about reducing carbon cost, he would have contracted someone local to do his fieldwork for him. Not as much fun, and yes some nuance and detail will be lost, but that would have been truer to his beliefs.
Also, as a quick sanity check, a fully-laden A380 reportedly holds 320.000 litres of jet fuel, which weighs at most 0,845 kilograms per litre. Thus there are at most a total of 270.400 kilograms, or a bit more than 270 metric tonnes of fuel for a full-range trip. The A380’s full carrying capacity is 853 passengers according to the imminently-searchable Wikipedia article, and for the sake of argument let’s assume Dr. Grimalda’s flight was only at less than half capacity of 400 passengers. Therefore, also assuming the flight burned every ounce of its maximum fuel capacity, that means Dr. Grimalda’s own share of fuel consumption would have been 0,7 metric tonnes of fuel.
Note that every tonne of kerosene fuel burnt produces about 3,15 tonnes of CO2 — each carbon atom grabs two oxygen atoms from the atmosphere, oxygen is a bit heavier than carbon, but combustion also produces hydrogen so not all the fuel is converted to CO2. Of course, the flight would likely not have been a half-capacity A380, but a fully-loaded A350 or A320, each of which carry less fuel but also fewer people, so the numbers probably wash out (or if they err, they err in Dr. Grimalda’s favour — in reality his contribution would almost certainly have been less).
So even under our idealised conditions, we still don’t get to 3 metric tonnes; we get about 2,21. But I guess that’s close enough when one is already falling on one’s sword.
@4 I didn’t bother to do the emissions calculations, but it looks like he was comparing being on a months long land and sea journey to being on a months long flight. Or something. The standing on principle calculation was much easier (Y/N).
See these two pages for the transporation efficiency of ocean liners vs jet planes.
(Spoiler: the jet plane uses less fuel)
A chart showing many transport options
http://www.withouthotair.com/c20/page_128.shtml
specifically boats vs. planes
http://www.withouthotair.com/c20/page_133.shtml
See the whole thing for a discussion of the plusses & minuses of most energy sources & ways of using energy to do what we want.
http://www.withouthotair.com/
About 20 years ago I went to South Dakota to campaign for a Democrat who was running for Congress to replace Bill Janklow (who had killed a motorcyclist by speeding through a Minnesota stop sign on the way from a fundraising event. He blamed it on hypoglycemia, but there was an aide in the car with him who wouldn’t testify that there were any signs of low blood sugar. Apparently Janklow was one of those politicos who didn’t think the rules applied to him because he was a high-ranking “do you know who I am” official in South Dakota.)
Anyway, the campaign sent people to various parts of the state from Sioux Falls to Get Out the Vote. They rented Suburbans for us, and there were between 6 and 8 people per team tooling about the backroads. One of the people I was campaigning with complained that they hadn’t used more fuel-efficient vehicles, but I pointed out that even if the Suburban used 16 MPG, but a Ford Focus used 25 to 30 MPG, it would take two cars rather than one and so there is a net savings from using the larger SUV.
If his alternative were to fly a private jet or take his slowboat route, yes he would have a case that he was saving the planet. But unless his purchase of a ticket would result in the airlines adding a flight to accommodate him, he didn’t really save all that much carbon from being emitted into the air. Our realistic goal is not to stop people from flying, but to maximize the efficiency of the jets we do fly, because until transporters are invented, people are going to fly.