Ryanair vs Ian Pearson MP
 

Here we go again - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6233019.stm

and the arguement is only going to get more intense so we need to know what we are talking about when people suggest aviation is the chief of emission sinners!

Does it really matter who is the worst offender, as long as somebody is making significant steps to improve things?
And if the airline industry is perceived to be the worst offender, yet not actually the worst, if they make the first 'big step' then perhaps the real worst offender will follow suit?
Rather than sitting around doing the blame game bit, should we not get off our widening backsides and do something......

[quote=Kiwiguy;2977669]
I did hear a scary statistic. When USA's aviation fleet was grounded on Sept 11th there was a perceptable 2% drop in CO2 emissions.

My son was in LON when 'it' happened.

Shortly afterwards he e-reported clear skies for the first time since he had arrived there, and that the temperatures plunged in the 4-5 days that Atlantic traffic was halted. No readings to support the assessments.

Three of my years, while flying in the Middle East downstream of Europe, when I did not <i>once</i> observe the sun rising from, or sinking behind, the horizon, has convinced me to remain in Oz, to enjoy the clear skies while they still exist here, and to try to work out how this solitary mote can effect the atmosphere of the world - for the better.

I'm sure I can. I'm sure I can. I hope to !!!!! WE can.

Jen of YBBN

(p.s.
Can anyone point me to where I can arm the html editor on this site? Ta! [In early poster mode.])

What's missing from the 9/11 "CO2 drop" data is - what is the statistical day-to-day variation in CO2 level?

We know that temperature, pressure, water vapor, etc. all vary from time to time and place to place. Do we really think that CO2 is a constant? Is the "2% drop" statistically significant?

Maybe the answer really exists, but it hasn't yet come to the surface.

Aeroplanes and Carbon Dischages - BBC Action Network
 

Some more confusion here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A18167727

JenCluse

I don't mean to sound smart-arsey or anything, but the fact that the temperature dropped and the skies cleared several days after the grounding of air traffic means absolutely nothing, at least in the UK! Whether the traffic was in the air or not, i can almost guarantee that the weather would have changed anyway!!!

As an aside, as a youngun, as many of us are, it isn't for me really a case of whether the environment is changing with or without input from human sources, I personally feel that people should do as much as they REASONABLY can to reduce this whole carbon footprint - use a bicycle where realistic, walk, etc when it isn't necessary to travel by any other method.

And while I'm not sure whether global warming is that heavily affected by humans, what I am sure of is that the things we do put into the atmosphere make the air we breathe less pleasant and more unhealthy with who knows what toxins. Up in the north west, the ICI paint plant produces an extremely unpleasant smell when you go past it and you know that the poor people that live around it have to breathe that air.

But then again, why am I on this forum? Because I'm just about to start training to fly airliners and burn masses of fuel over my (hopefully) 35 year career so who are we to give advice - no matter how little they contribute?!

cf

The scientific mind in me desires relative data before supporting opinions.

From a relative standpoint I would be interested in variations by yearly decades not by days. I expect large amounts of daily hash in the data but some trending up and down as well.

We can then postulate all we want on the reason for the trending variations.

From a relative standpoint, can we see variations driven by volcanic eruptions (pretty common stuff). Major wars with oil fires? deforestation by burning?

I suspect that air travel emissions are minor compared to the above.

Lomapaseo

refer to my previous post. Why does somebody have to be 'the worst offender' before they actually have to do something?

Sorry for the analogy - are today's terrorists 'better' than a certain notorious German who died in '45? They have all killed.

Are airlines better than power generators? They are all polluting.

Best Regards,

N1 Vibes

I believe that we have not yet agreed on the usage of the word offender in your context.

There is nothing offensive in living our lives in the world that we live in. Nature is a series of balances and we are only a tiny bit of it. To me it is the relativity to other humans that is important. So I'm willing to listen to arguments where my/our actions are upsetting the balances of nature in a measurable way. If you can't measure it, then how do I know that I'm measuably improving the world I live in?