Minderbender, a loyal MM reader, asks:
How should we think about the environmental costs of commercial flying?
It seems as though the average cost is high, but the marginal cost is
quite low. When I fly across the country, it doesn’t cause any extra
flights, it just makes the one I’m on slightly heavier. Yes, the
increased revenues might give the airline an incentive to increase the
number of flights, but this effect seems very weak – much lower than
the average cost of my flight (the consumption of fuel divided by the
number of passengers). Maybe I’m just miscalculating?
I think about this every time I fly. A simple model of route expansion is that higher demand increases the number of total flights by some probability. For the system as a whole, the decisive flying unit has to come somewhere and there is no reason why, on average, it can’t be you. In other words, at least in stochastic terms you can’t escape the blame.
A second simple model of route expansion is that gates and other airport facilities are scarce and underpriced relative to demand. When demand goes up, supply is not very elastic and mostly they raise price rather than increasing output. Those who feel very guilty should prefer this second model.
The more they cut back on flights, as they have been doing, the more likely the first model is true. The second model is most likely true if you are flying into regulated foreign markets although I believe the Europeans are now opening up for U.S. carriers.
You might ask comparable questions about eating meat and killing cows. If you’re worried about your net impact, eat animals from countries with very privileged, monopolized and highly regulated, supply-inelastic livestock sectors.
I think we also miss that when we fly, we travel less miles. I looked at taking the train from Detroit to NYC once. The ticket cost more than flying, it was not direct, there were severl change overs, and I would have needed to take and extra day off of work.
Numbers for driving here. By train. And BTS numbers for energy consumption for travel modes
Aaron,
Don’t forget to add in the BTU’s used in driving to and from the the airport. Depending on how far it is, and how congested, that can add 150-200,000 BTU’s or more.
I included the time, but ignored the added BTUs for drive to the airport. Adding on another 300,000BTU, the plane still comes in under driving.
I also didn’t consider making the entire trip on a motorcycle…
You might ask comparable questions about eating meat and killing cows. If you’re worried about your net impact, eat animals from countries with very privileged, monopolized and highly regulated, supply-inelastic livestock sectors.
But won’t this only work if there are enough consumers that are not able to switch their consumption away from these same providers?
-Kevin
I still fail to see how using less energy is a moral good, in and of itself. I find the environmental ethic to be profoundly anti-human, anti-progress, and immoral. It’s a betrayal of the Enlightenment.
Interesting that you (TC) brought up vegetarianism in the outro. As I was reading through your response, the same analogy immediately occurred to me. Most likely because it’s the most common case I deal with of people arguing about marginal impact on a discrete process (in this case, it manifests as “that cow was going to be butchered whether you buy the meatballs or not”). There’s some quirk of human psychology wherein people tend not to believe that the large aggregation of small behaviors creates a highly leveraged output that can dramatically change with small percentage changes in behavior.
“if airlines are shifting their usage patterns to newer and more efficient planes are they using up more energy for creating the planes”
Some airlines are continuing to honor contracts to buy new planes. I don’t think anyone other than Southwest has the cash flow right now to initiate previously unplanned aircraft purchases. Last I read, even Southwest is considering deferring purchases of some NextGen 737′s. The rest of the carriers are fighting for survival, grounding aircraft just to slow the cash bleed. At least for a while, the energy expended to build new jet airliners should be minimized.
A person on her own luggage, leaving the noise of the city, into the 花蓮民宿 arms. To savor the refreshing nature of the original. In Taiwan, as long as a departure from the flow of downtown, everywhere in the garden-like 宜è˜æ°‘宿 you, they like their own home Like a warm and comfortable. Taiwan’s Lodge 室內è¨è¨ˆ, the two luxury five-star hotel suite as if the presidential suite general Wah. It is there away.
New technology is always given us surprising and life way changing.
Every success is based on continuous efforts. It is not possible be done over nigh.
I like the way you broke this down in terms of statistics. Personally, I am of the mindset that if I only fly once in a while, I really do not have an impact on this equation.
Comments on this entry are closed.