[Coral-List] Stop flying????!

Sun Mar 15 16:17:40 UTC 2020

I agree with Gregory's point. I worked in aviation and a flight will not be
cancelled because of few empty seats also on long haul flights around 10%
of the income is from hauling freight, on the contrary a full flight as a
lowest CO2 emission per single passenger compared to an empty one
(especially with many companies having a CO2 offset policy that basically
works "more people book a ticket more money we'll invest to offset the
emission of this flight" ). on the other hand we can all do a huge deal by
avoiding as much as possible to move by car considering that if we decide
to walk or take public transportation instead of use a car then our car
wouldn't just go around empty.

Carlo Di Natale

On Sun, 15 Mar 2020, 14:32 Gregory Boland via Coral-List, <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> A friendly suggestion in comparing "facts" in this interesting debate.
> When one person, or even every single scientist planning to fly to Bremen
> or any other meeting requiring a flight decides not to fly to reduce carbon
> emissions, that does not translate to all the aircraft being grounded. I
> brought this point up earlier with a few somewhat hostile responses. The
> example being set by reducing air travel is certainly admirable, at least
> on a philosophical basis, but one person not flying is not the same as not
> eating 530 steaks. The jets fly anyway. Even now with a world pandemic, a
> recent article noted that many flights are even flying empty or near empty
> to preserve valuable routes and slots at airports. This remarkable
> situation could not go on long-term, but flights with 1, 2 or 20 empty
> seats are not going to be cancelled. The value of face-to-face interaction
> at science conferences has been outlined many times here. Before
> sacrificing those benefits, it would seem best to weigh actual impacts.
>
> Greg Boland
>
> ________________________________
> From: Coral-List <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> on behalf of
> Gaétan Morand via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2020 8:19 AM
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Stop flying????!
>
> Hi,
>
> As we all know, if we want to try and mitigate climate change, we need to
> base our actions on actual information rather than feelings.
> I'm hoping I can contribute to this discussion by bringing in a few facts
> (with sources) on air travel and eating meat.
>
> One serving of beef is responsible for about 3kg of CO2 [1]. Most other
> meats have a lower carbon footprint.
> One return transatlantic flight is responsible for 1 to 1.6 tonne of CO2
> [2], which is the same as 330 to 530 beef steaks.
>
> This means that just one yearly transatlantic return flight offsets the
> emissions savings from being vegan.
>
> Yes, air transport is only responsible for a small part of global
> emissions, but only because a small percentage of people actually fly,
> whereas 90% of people globally eat meat [3].
> For perspective, if every person in the world took just one return
> transatlantic flight per year, it would represent a minimum of 7.5
> Gigatonne of CO2 (the current global emissions are around 36 Gigatonne per
> year [4]).
>
> In conclusion, reducing meat consumption is absolutely a priority as it is
> responsible for about 14.5% (7.1 Gigatonne) of global greenhouse gases
> emissions [5]. But on an individual scale, flying frequently is much worse
> than eating meat.
>
> Gaetan Morand
>
> [1] http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet
> [2]
> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/jul/19/carbon-calculator-how-taking-one-flight-emits-as-much-as-many-people-do-in-a-year
> [3]
> https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-09/an_exploration_into_diets_around_the_world.pdf
> [4] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions
> [5] http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Alina Szmant via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Stop flying????!
>
> Great if people want to stop flying. But ALL aviation is only 2 % of
> global fossil fuel emissions while animal agriculture produces 30 % of
> global emissions,  and animal agriculture account for 60+% of land use
> which means deforestation and habitat destruction, lots of pollution and
> animal suffering.  So go vegan and travel to your heart's content.
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Sue Wells via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Date: 3/9/20 9:14 AM (GMT-05:00)
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Stop flying????!
>
>
>
> Well done, Mark.  Yes, we must reduce our travel significantly - once the
> virus peak is over there is likely to be a rush to take holidays and hold
> meetings and the skies will be full of planes again.  You rightly question
> whether enough effort is being made to enable "virtual" attendance at coral
> reef meetings.  I know that people are looking into this, and hope that
> some
> solutions will soon be on offer.
>
>
>
> In the meantime, my recent positive experience might be of interest. Over
> the course of 4 days in February, from the comfort of my office in
> Cambridge, I dialled into two international meetings, one in Washington DC
> on MPAs and one in Germany on protected areas more generally.  Both were
> fairly small (DC had 65 participants, with 5 dialling in; Germany probably
> less than 50 with c. 3 dialling in) and involved plenary sessions with
> break-out discussion groups.  There was a joint session when the two
> meetings "met" virtually, with others dialling in remotely.  The meeting in
> Germany used "global.gotomeeting.com" and the DC meeting used "webex" -
> both
> systems seemed to work fairly well for those dialling in.
>
>
>
> Overall, the presentations worked well (as is the case with webinars), and
> I
> could follow the plenary Q&A sessions and for the most part get noticed if
> I
> wanted to ask a question myself.  Ironically the one session when the
> presentations did not work was the MPA one on technology, but this turned
> out to be "human error" rather than anything technical with the dialling-in
> system.
>
>
>
> One big advantage was that I could attend both meetings, unlike other
> participants.  With the time zone difference, this led to some long days
> but
> it was worth it.  I could provide feedback from one meeting to the other -
> particularly useful for the discussions on the CBD post2020 target for
> protected areas which evolved as the meetings progressed.
>
>
>
> So what did I miss? Break-out groups were of course not possible to join,
> and I did miss the social side (catching up with old friends and making new
> ones) and networking.  I would not want to do it for every meeting.
>
>
>
> But in some ways I achieved as much as I did by participating in person
> last
> year in another meeting on protected areas, held in a mountainous part of
> Italy.   In line with my aim not to fly when overland transport is
> available, I used trains and buses.  I spent 2 days and 3 nights (c. 60
> hrs)
> at the meeting location, and over 3.5 days and 2 nights (some 70 hrs)
> travelling.  Admittedly, there were some unusual aspects to the trip, which
> coincided on my way back with temperatures of 40oC in France and a major
> disruption to train services due to an accident But it gave me some real
> insight of what travelling will be like once the effects of climate change
> fully take hold.  International conservation meetings should definitely no
> longer be held in remote locations, however beautiful the surroundings,
> unless absolutely essential.
>
>
>
> As Mark says, we need to reduce travelling, keep flights to a minimum/those
> that are essential and unavoidable, and use the rapidly developing
> technology more effectively to keep in touch with each other.
>
>
>
> Sue Wells
>
>
>
> Sue Wells
>
> 95 Burnside
>
> Cambridge CB1 3PA
>
> Mob: 07905 715552
>
> e-mail:  <mailto:suewells1212 at gmail.com> suewells1212 at gmail.com
>
>
>
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