Comments on: I demand action on aviation emissions (from someone else)

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:07:58 +0000

Sorry, CO2 emissions were cleared up long ago? I missed that news story. Last I heard aviation emptied 83 million barrels of oil into the sky every day in the form of carbon dioxide, water vapour, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, soot, sulphate particles, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and sulphur oxides. Which of those makes flying good for the environment?

It certainly has little to do with clouds, because planes create contrails, which are high-level cirrus clouds. Sunlight passes straight through those.
Even if planes did help create dense low-level clouds, these block heat in the day, but trap heat in the night, keeping it within the earth’s atmosphere. So on balance, cloud would have little effect either way.

By: Theyarehere

Theyarehere — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:35:49 +0000

Seems like a good post, except you missed out one thing: Tell me, how is aircraft flight connected to climate change? Certainly not by CO2 emmissions? That old hat has been cleaned uplong ago. If anything: fliying will reduce climate change, by emitting particles that will bind water droplets, which will create clouds hence block sunrays => Stop/reduce the warming of a certain area.

By: Eilleen

Eilleen — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 05:33:40 +0000

Yes a great post.

It seems that too many people have that attitude – not just in regards to aviation travel, but also in many other areas of life.

By: Obi-Mom Kenobi

Obi-Mom Kenobi — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:26:57 +0000

Excellent post, Jeremy, as usual. Thanks for pulling these materials together.