To Fly or Not to Fly (to California): That is the Question

A few weeks ago I blogged about the things I'd done to assuage my carbon guilt. John Thackara promptly knocked me back down with a comment (rightly so) that carbon offsets only really work if you assume that people in the developed world can pollute proportionally more than people in the developing world. If you give everyone on earth an equal share of a sustainable carbon footprint, then a single transatlantic round-trip flight is about 2 years worth of your allowable carbon output. Yikes. This is following the method advised by George Monbiot, who argues in his new book Heat that:

...cuts can be achieved in almost every sector of society without significant loss of material comfort or alteration to our way of life. The one exception to this, he believes, is aviation. No amount of innovation or change in the aviation industry is likely to offset it’s projected growth and, he claims, the only option is to significantly curtail our “right to fly”. He accepts that this may well be hard to swallow, but points out that it is only a real hardship for a small, relatively wealthy minority of the world’s population.

Quote from George Monbiot Turns Up the Heat (TreeHugger).

Well I'm one of those wealthy minority, and now I'm worse than most, flying a ridiculous amount so I can live in Manhattan and work for IFTF in Palo Alto (I fly out here about every six weeks, spewing approximately 4 tons of CO2 into the stratosphere per trip). Plus all the trips to client sites.

So seeing that buying a TerraPass isn't going to be enough, I've been toying with the idea of taking the train out to California from New York for this year's Ten Year Forecast summit in April instead of flying, blogging about the whole experience and possibly turning into a book about the unsustainability of aviation and energy-intensive global mobility. I'm sure it will be an education, but the thought of 3 nights on Amtrak (albeit in a sleeper car), paying 2-3 times the airfare, and potentially being offline and out of cell service for hours or even days is not attractive. Also, I'm not even sure how much of a net reduction in carbon output that would be (Alex thinks that finding the answer to that question is a whole chapter in and of itself).

The question: to fly or not to fly? At least to the Ten Year Forecast summit. That is the question. What do you, the peanut gallery, think?

Comments

[joeyjoseph]

Every six weeks is roughtly 36000 tons a year. Sounds like a lot. But if it's "important" work, you've almost got to do it. So in this case I guess you cut where you can, in some other areas. Will it offset? Depends. But I'm wondering what we dump out getting TO the airport. If airtravel, and not just passenger, but freight, are going to increase as forcasted, maybe we need to live closer to airports. Does anyone remember that aerotropolis article? http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/107/aerotropolis.html
I wonder if these will help offset some of the airplane nastiness. If we didn't have to drive to the airport since we lived right there. If we didn't have to ship goods allover since, again, we lived and worked right there. I wonder if after we run the numbers, we'd have some sort of surpluss, and we could fly nearly guilt free.

But back on topic, trains through Europe are beautiful.... trains through the US....? I don't know, but maybe someone should go find out for the rest of us ;-)

[steve gelmis]

Anthony,

You have raised an important question worthy of the first-hand exploration you propose.

As a public intellectual, the opportunity to launch and shape a public policy debate (or perhaps identify a target for entrepreneurial activity) is certainly worth having the experience.

An incisive exposition of why long distance train travel is not a viable alternative -- and what might make it so -- may ultimately be more valuable than a simple determination that it already is (if one is in the right frame of mind, etc.).

The question is also and obviously incredibly well timed. The rate and degree to which business and public policy institutions are becoming aligned with the progressive part of our culture in the environmental domain is faster than at any time in this Boomer's memory.

So please, on all our behalf, take your three day adventure...and then start a new meme.

[Tom Arnold]

Anthony:

The first place is to think why you have to go back and forth so much. I assume you've already tried to adjust schedules, video conference, move, hire someone else, etc.

Secondly, you may find that driving in a Prius or Insight with a friend is actually lower than the train (Caltrain, for your reference, gets 88 passenger mpg at 100% capacity).

However, you would be surprised that even this won't reduce your CO2 that much.

That is why, until we have more sustainable energy sources, offsets are a reasonable pathway tool to balance out the emissions you have to make.

[Genevieve Foskett]

I remember traveling by train from Milwaukee to Philadelphia as a child. A few positives to mention: 1) great way to see parts of the country you'll never see otherwise; 2) the variety of people traveling on the train - both passengers and train staff - was an enlightening experience; 3) forces you to slow down, and in your case it sounds like disconnecting for a while; 4) catch up on reading and writing - and I mean the "words on paper" kind of reading and writing.

You apparently see "potentially being offline and out of cell service for hours or even days" as a negative. Perhaps see this as an experiment in disconnection from the fast, electronic pace for a few days. Challenge yourself to go tech-free and see what is allowed to come in to fill the void.

Due to lack of knowledge on my part, I am unable to address the CO2 aspect of your post, though it will be interesting to follow that thread.