Anyone else think banning private jets would be generally a much better thing for climate? I find it pretty shocking the rich are allowed to pollute the way they do.
All aviation, altogether, private jets inclusive, is less than 3% of world emissions. Getting people fired up about rich people using private jets is just a distraction from the truth in the same way that paper straws are. The reality is that a small handful of industries generate the majority of pollution, and they have no meaningful regulatory pressure to stop, and that even that mostly pales in comparison to the emissions generated by electricity production, which we need to decarbonize as quickly as possible.
> The reality is that a small handful of industries generate the majority of pollution
You can pick your pie chart, and they'll all be a bit different based on the categories they choose. I like this one from 2016 because, even though it's 8 years old, it seems to have all the sectors:
If you want to get to zero emissions, you have to replace or remove all of these:
Iron and Steel: 7.2%
Road Transport: 11.9%
Aviation Transport: 1.7%
Commercial Buildings: 6.6%
Residential Buildings: 10.9%
Cement: 3.0%
Those are all small percentages. There's really no one thing you can eliminate to solve the majority of the problem.
If you went by broader strokes, let's say you get rid of:
ALL of Industry: 29.4%
ALL of Transportation: 16.2%
ALL energy for buildings: 17.5%
ALL agriculture: 18.4%
So at that point, we're basically back in the stone age and the various waste categories will be zero too. But then you'd have 8 billion people huddling around fire pits, which isn't zero emission either.
If anyone is inclined to find another pie chart to contradict this one, make sure it's not focused on the emissions in just one tiny sector. We can say that everyone should have electric cars because ICEs are 99% of vehicle emissions, but fixing 99% of 11.9% of the total problem isn't going to solve the total problem.
I rather that aviation contributes 1.5% instead of 3%. Of course, industries that pollute more should work harder to reduce their pollution.
Rather than banning private jet, we could ask that private jet uses only carbon neutral fuels, since they could afford it. However, it might cause rich people to pollute more by using their cars instead of flying, so there's a balancing act.
We might have been able to get away with a goal of non-zero if we had reduced carbon emissions 40 years ago, but now our goal is 0. So that means we must eliminate or sequester from all sectors, including aviation.
If you say "we should attack the bigger numbers first", well we have started those. We have started replacing electricity generation with renewables, started replacing ICE cars with electric, and started replacing fossil heating with electric heat pumps.
Banning private jets may be an unreasonable ask, but forcing private jets to 6x their fuel costs to use net-zero fuels is not an unreasonable ask, IMO.
The problem is that the idea is we should make personal sacrifices for the sake of the climate (I agree that we should generally speaking) and do things like ban gas stoves. Ok.
But when you tell me that and then I see people and companies writing off private jets as a business expense, all that makes me want to do is say get your hands off my stove because clearly this can't be that serious of a problem [1] if this is continuing to occur.
Nobody will be willing to make sacrifices voluntarily that wealthier people aren't and so we have a big marketing problem here. Raise the taxes on private jets and aviation fuel for them 5,000% and have those go to funding climate science (or some other general idea here) and we can talk about my stove.
> The reality is that a small handful of industries generate the majority of pollution
No, your argument is the distraction. "Lets do nothing, there's these big guys over here doing worse". And for whom do these industries generate goods and services for?
The problem with this line of thinking in my opinion is that we have 30x3% problems... sure individually they would not make a difference but we need to act on all front.
This is the NIMBY of polluting. Everyone can point to other emissions and say "mines only 3%, worry about those other 50% guys over there." when I bet one of the top "small handful of industries" you're going to point to is something like concrete that is literally making affordable buildings for the peasants to live in while homelessness is already far too high.
The real question is what actual reductions you think are easy to make on which particular industries that doesn't make housing, electricity, and heat more expensive for the global median income of $3k, while these people are private jetting to watch a football game in person that's on TV. Because when it comes to 0.5% of emissions, I know I'm going to pick taxing wasteful private jets rather than charge the global poor another $50 they don't have. Not to mention the messaging and optics, ffs look at that thread. Hypocritical private jetting is not how you get people collectively on board to fight climate change. If they have to sacrifice, you do too.
No, we should just tax the shit out of carbon emissions and then redistribute all proceeds evenly per-capita. Much better than spending limited attention and political energy/capital on piecemeal bans. We need to halt 100% of new carbon entering the carbon cycle, not just the stuff that seems egregious enough to get people riled up about, and we need to align the economic incentives to have a hope of getting there in the timeframe that we need to.
This is a plan that’s supported by a very large number of top economists, I’ve seen it called something like a “Carbon Dividend with Border Carbon Adjustment”: https://clcouncil.org/our-plan/
> You’d be better off getting cargo ships to stop using sludge for fuel
We're doing that. The thing is, cutting the sulfur aerosols emitted by bunker fuel burning ships has possibly led to a rise in ocean surface temperatures. The sulfur oxides were like a mini, constant Krakatoa. They caused a minor volcanic winter year round. Lots of anti global warming geoengineering projects involve emitting sulfur higher in the atmosphere to block the sun, and we were already kind of doing that. So it turns out we've really _really_ painted ourselves into a corner as regards global warming.
You could do this for anything though. Eating meat for the frivolous reason of enjoying the taste even though it's far less efficient than eating plants.
Everything that doesn't impact ourselves is an easy target.
How would this work? A major political figure or celebrity just hangs out at gate A33 waiting for their flight while a mob gathers? Or are only certain people allowed to own private jets? Or are only certain destinations allowed if for "worthy" reasons?
Sure, yes. What's a more realistic way to implement this in the USA while still allowing small-plane hobbyists to fly easily? Could the FAA mandate landing fees based on emissions / passengers?
Might be helpful to define it for people - a pigouvian tax is a tax on something to balance out the negative externality it inflicts on society. A carbon tax like you’re suggesting seems like our best hope of averting disaster. I’m not sure what would get it done, though, it would be very much against the short term interests of the rich, since they’d bear the brunt, as the largest emitters, and would massively disrupt the status quo in terms of what products are most cost effective. Making it revenue-neutral by dividending out all takings would help with its political popularity, and make it so it would positively impact the poor (since they use less carbon per capita than the average). But still seems hard to get it passed. It’s a bit wonkish, which is a big problem compared to something that feels better, like “ban all private planes!”.
I live in Canada, and it's strange that we are able to ban little things like single use plastic bags, cutleries, and straws, but not ban big ticket items like private jets.
But that's not really what you want is it? You want to ban private jets being used for reasons that you think are idiotic. You presumably don't have an issue with private jets being used for sensible productivity enhancing reasons. The real question is, who would you like to determine which is which?
Note that this question covers much more ground then just private jets.
> You presumably don't have an issue with private jets being used for sensible productivity enhancing reasons
What are those? Could it have been a Zoom meeting? I'm not the person you're replying to, but I also have a problem with those jets you're mentioning..
Lots of comments in that thread more or less saying "The drive back to LA would be the same time as the flight"...
These people have never left Vegas on a Sunday and it shows. That drive is 4 hours, without traffic. With traffic it's an easy 7, I've heard of it being as high as 13. So yeah, if you've got a jet, and the money to fly it, I'd say that you can probably justify using it here, it's like half the time.
Though, even flying commercial would save almost the same amount of time, you might pick up an extra hour, much more waiting around, but, beats being stuck in the middle of BFE in traffic.
I don't know from experience, but I'd argue the entire point of private jets is to not have to share anything with anyone. These are a different class of people; they don't think like you or I do.
I agree with your point's sentiment, but I doubt anyone in here is chartering a bus or van to attend an event their neighbors are also attending the next town over.
They think the same way we do. We play the game at the level we can afford. Their game is higher level, but it is played the same.
Pulling my plane out of the hangar is no different than pulling the Subaru out of the garage. Thinking about sharing the ride never enters into it. I don't need to trade reduced cost for increased efficiency and reduced convenience. Neither do these 525 jet owners or charter clients.
I'm wondering if this stat is calculated correctly, because there's not room for 525 private jets to be sitting around at once there, let alone in the giant airplane parking lots in Arizona.
a random redditor who didn't link to a source said that they could accommodate 475 parked jets, and that the others flew in from other airports to drop off/pick up their passenger and immediately left
yeah i was going to say pick ups staged at other airports would be possible.
i saw the random reddit stuff too but still...it's got to be, if that is a count of departures, that they left off the arrivals that didn't stay.
i mean that's like O'Hare raised to the ATL exponent, as stated.
As long as none of those people have lectured us or people below them about climate change then I'm fine. One flight from LA to Vegas is the same CO2 the same as 40,000 cars doing the trip?
I'm honestly a little surprised it's not more. In the small SEC town where I went to college, there would be dozens of private planes that would leave shortly after a home football game. Not all were jets, but some where.
Readit News
You can pick your pie chart, and they'll all be a bit different based on the categories they choose. I like this one from 2016 because, even though it's 8 years old, it seems to have all the sectors:
https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
If you want to get to zero emissions, you have to replace or remove all of these:
Those are all small percentages. There's really no one thing you can eliminate to solve the majority of the problem.If you went by broader strokes, let's say you get rid of:
So at that point, we're basically back in the stone age and the various waste categories will be zero too. But then you'd have 8 billion people huddling around fire pits, which isn't zero emission either.If anyone is inclined to find another pie chart to contradict this one, make sure it's not focused on the emissions in just one tiny sector. We can say that everyone should have electric cars because ICEs are 99% of vehicle emissions, but fixing 99% of 11.9% of the total problem isn't going to solve the total problem.
There isn't a silver bullet for this.
Rather than banning private jet, we could ask that private jet uses only carbon neutral fuels, since they could afford it. However, it might cause rich people to pollute more by using their cars instead of flying, so there's a balancing act.
I'm happy if restricting single use plastic like plastic straws helps even a small amount to reduce plastic pollution.
If i can put up with a soggy straw after 15 mins in a drink, the ultra rich can fly 1st class more often.
We might have been able to get away with a goal of non-zero if we had reduced carbon emissions 40 years ago, but now our goal is 0. So that means we must eliminate or sequester from all sectors, including aviation.
If you say "we should attack the bigger numbers first", well we have started those. We have started replacing electricity generation with renewables, started replacing ICE cars with electric, and started replacing fossil heating with electric heat pumps.
Banning private jets may be an unreasonable ask, but forcing private jets to 6x their fuel costs to use net-zero fuels is not an unreasonable ask, IMO.
According to this [1], 28% of US emissions are from transport, and for the aircraft it's 7% of the 28% for commercial and 2% of 28% private.
That does seem like mostly a non-issue.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
Indonesia 270m 1.5%
Pakistan 210m 0.9%
Brazil 210m 1.2%
Bangladesh 160m 0.4%
Thats the 5 most populous countries after india, prc, us.
The problem is that the idea is we should make personal sacrifices for the sake of the climate (I agree that we should generally speaking) and do things like ban gas stoves. Ok.
But when you tell me that and then I see people and companies writing off private jets as a business expense, all that makes me want to do is say get your hands off my stove because clearly this can't be that serious of a problem [1] if this is continuing to occur.
Nobody will be willing to make sacrifices voluntarily that wealthier people aren't and so we have a big marketing problem here. Raise the taxes on private jets and aviation fuel for them 5,000% and have those go to funding climate science (or some other general idea here) and we can talk about my stove.
[1] It's a very serious problem.
No, your argument is the distraction. "Lets do nothing, there's these big guys over here doing worse". And for whom do these industries generate goods and services for?
The real question is what actual reductions you think are easy to make on which particular industries that doesn't make housing, electricity, and heat more expensive for the global median income of $3k, while these people are private jetting to watch a football game in person that's on TV. Because when it comes to 0.5% of emissions, I know I'm going to pick taxing wasteful private jets rather than charge the global poor another $50 they don't have. Not to mention the messaging and optics, ffs look at that thread. Hypocritical private jetting is not how you get people collectively on board to fight climate change. If they have to sacrifice, you do too.
Dead Comment
This is a plan that’s supported by a very large number of top economists, I’ve seen it called something like a “Carbon Dividend with Border Carbon Adjustment”: https://clcouncil.org/our-plan/
Private jets aren’t even close to the worse things. They are just easy targets. Your worst offenders are industry.
We're doing that. The thing is, cutting the sulfur aerosols emitted by bunker fuel burning ships has possibly led to a rise in ocean surface temperatures. The sulfur oxides were like a mini, constant Krakatoa. They caused a minor volcanic winter year round. Lots of anti global warming geoengineering projects involve emitting sulfur higher in the atmosphere to block the sun, and we were already kind of doing that. So it turns out we've really _really_ painted ourselves into a corner as regards global warming.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin...
Which produces for?
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Private jets are so the rich can avoid the peasants. There’s no benefit for 99.99% of the rest of the world.
While I may be in favor of more mass transit options, completely banning private options seems to be a step too far.
There is also the question of what qualifies as private. It seems anyone with enough wealth could easily create a company to own the plane they use.
Everything that doesn't impact ourselves is an easy target.
This is why we have football games and why it's meaningful to see it in person, if you like to.
Their private jets don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
Dead Comment
Note that this question covers much more ground then just private jets.
What are those? Could it have been a Zoom meeting? I'm not the person you're replying to, but I also have a problem with those jets you're mentioning..
These people have never left Vegas on a Sunday and it shows. That drive is 4 hours, without traffic. With traffic it's an easy 7, I've heard of it being as high as 13. So yeah, if you've got a jet, and the money to fly it, I'd say that you can probably justify using it here, it's like half the time.
Though, even flying commercial would save almost the same amount of time, you might pick up an extra hour, much more waiting around, but, beats being stuck in the middle of BFE in traffic.
https://www.amtrak.com/charter-your-private-train
Reminds me of this episode from Archer : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2207833/
Wouldn't it be just as quick and easy for most of these people if they just chartered a bigger plane together?
They think the same way we do. We play the game at the level we can afford. Their game is higher level, but it is played the same.
Pulling my plane out of the hangar is no different than pulling the Subaru out of the garage. Thinking about sharing the ride never enters into it. I don't need to trade reduced cost for increased efficiency and reduced convenience. Neither do these 525 jet owners or charter clients.
We’re a drop in the ocean compared to these people.
i mean that's like O'Hare raised to the ATL exponent, as stated.