How Green Is Your Air Travel?

By Robert McGarvey

Face the ugly reality: air travel is a significant contributor to global warming.  As reported in Mongabay: “In a recent study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, [Oxford climate scientist Milan] Klöwer and his colleagues calculated that aviation contributes around 4% to human-induced global warming.”

Klower told the publication: “taking an airplane is the one activity which probably unites all of science in terms of where we are really high emitters.”

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute added more gloomy numbers: “EPA reports that commercial airplanes and large business jets contribute 10 percent of U.S. transportation emissions, and account for three percent of the nation’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) production.”

Climate change is a reality and humans cause it. That just is fact.

But also fact is that humans can do something about it.

One solution of course just is not to fly. Already that is showing up across northern Europe where flygskam is a byword. In Germany for instance many executives are declining to fly short haul on business trips and are opting to take trains instead. In Sweden even more executives are saying nej to flights. The sentiment also shows up in US companies, although at reduced numbers – at least for now.

Personally, I’ve invoked a flygskam state of mind on occasion in the US, taking a train from NYC to Washington DC and really when you calculate the wait times at airports and the drive time to them, the train (under three hours) is about as quick as flying.

Would I take a train from LA to NYC? Nope. That’s about three days and 16 hours and when I can fly – even building in the hassles of LAX and EWR – in around eight hours door to door I am in for the trip at 36,000 feet.

And truth is that not many European business travels are choosing to boat across the Atlantic instead of flying.  The Queen Mary 2 could do it in five days – but that will appeal to few business travelers.

Which leaves us where?

Exactly here: in a search for new, cleaner ways to fly.  A recent article in The Week actually gives a little hope that greener flying may be on its way.  Titled “Can air travel ever be ‘green’?” the article explores a joint project involving NASA and Boeing with the intent of creating a green airplane. They are putting significant money on the table: around $725 million.

Said NASA administrator Bill Nelson in a statement: “It’s our goal that NASA’s partnership with Boeing to produce and test a full-scale demonstrator will help lead to future commercial airliners that are more fuel efficient, with benefits to the environment, the commercial aviation industry, and to passengers worldwide. If we are successful, we may see these technologies in planes that the public takes to the skies in the 2030s.”

The aim is to build a greener plane designed to serve the short and medium haul market, flights such as LA to San Francisco and NYC to Chicago.  That kind of flight is the bread and butter of business travel.  

A train from LA to San Francisco takes about 15 hours, by the way. Flight time is about 90 minutes. If the flight were greener there’d be no argument whatsoever.

The NASA Boeing project is not the only green game in town.  The New York Times reported that air carriers are exploring a range of alternative ways to power planes including “hydrogen-powered aircraft, fully electric planes and synthetic jet fuel made from carbon extracted from the atmosphere.”

Will any ever make their way to a runway near you?  Who knows? But what we definitely do know is that a lot of very big businesses – including airplane makers and air carriers – know that the clock is ticking down on traditional airplanes.  New ways to transport ourselves long distances need to be created – and greener planes sound good to me.

For shorter distances – under 200 miles perhaps – I like high speed rail which I have used in France, Spain and Portugal (also the US if we count Acela). But longer distances get me thinking about air travel.  

Count me as hopeful that the Boeing – NASA joint venture produces results I can fly on within 10 years. And if it doesn’t I am optimistic other research frontiers will deliver for us.