Just received in my Inbox, from Virgin Atlantic: ‘Picture this: London from $256.’ Don’t get me wrong. I am a big admirer of Richard Branson’s entrepreneurial genius. This is not an effort to single out Virgin Atlantic. Rather, I am pointing at the pervasive nature of our modern consumerist culture.
I was curious, and wanted to find out how much CO2 damage a flight like the Virgin Atlantic one would cause. I tried to google ‘air travel, carbon footprint’, and went nowhere. There was no carbon calculator, that could give me the exact CO2 equivalent for a specific trip, let say, San Francisco – London round trip. If any of you know of one, please pass on the information!
Carbon offsets have a role to play in instances where one absolutely has to travel. But going to London on a whim, just for the fun of it? I think that time has passed.
It’s not exactly what you’re looking for, but the carbon calculator at climatecrisis.net explains its methodology; perhaps you could use that?
Thanks, great info, Darmok! This is what I was looking for. For other interested readers, I am copying the relevant section, straight from the climatecrisis.net site:
‘Airplane: Air travel per-mile emissions are significantly affected by the length of the flight because a high percentage of fuel use and emissions are expended on take-off. Therefore we ask for number of short, medium, long, and extended flights. The default input is simply the number of each type of flight, defined as each leg of a flight such that a round trip flight with one stop each way has four legs. If this default is used we estimate an average length of 250 miles for a short flight, 800 miles for a medium flight, 2500 miles for a long flight, and 5000 miles for an extended flight.
Different emissions factors are used for each flight length, as follows:
Short flight: .64 lbs/mile
Medium flight: .45 lbs/mile
Long flight: .39 lbs/mile
Extended flight: .39 lbs/mile
The total number of miles for each type of flight is multiplied by the emissions factor for that type of flight to get pounds of carbon dioxide, which are then added together to get the total carbon footprint from air travel.
Air travel definitions and factors are from the GHG Protocol Mobile Combustion Tool. The emissions factors for short and long haul flights are originally from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The emissions factor for medium haul flights was derived, using an assumed distance of 1600 km and the following formulae based on Emission Factors provided by DEFRA.
X+452y =3D.18*452 for short haul
X+6342y=3D.11*6342 for long haul ‘
There’s got to be an easier way . . . Takers anyone?
It’s not that complicated though, is it? The distance from San Francisco to London is around 5300 miles, so that’d be in the “extended flight” category (~5000 miles). So we use 0.39 lb/mi. 5300 mi * 2 (round trip) * 0.39 lb/mi = 4100 lb. Right?
You are right. The maths are simple! I am just dreaming of a site where I could put the mileage in little windows and I would get the result with just one click, complete with CO2 equivalents. (not just lbs of the stuff). What I am after are tools that are super user friendly and ‘talk’ to average users. But at least, you got us to a place, where we can access the data . . .
Marguerite,
I thought you might find this interesting!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7052037.stm
Thanks Sunny, for this awesome article. I never ceased to be surprised when it comes to anything green. . . just when I thought ships were better than planes!