George Monbiot Turns Up the Heat

Wait, in terms of aviation, is he saying there is absolutely no way we can curtail the amount of fumes released into the air with every flight (like we're trying to do with cars... and just starting to get succcessful with) or is he saying we're just not working hard enough towards a solution?

I get that flying is environmentally damaging, but it seems like the benefits of having the rest of the world an airport away is probably one of our greatest acheivements, and promoting steps to make it environmentally feasible would be better than shunning it altogether.

There are definitely ways to make flying less damaging (see this), but if we wait 30 years to make changes or just keep flying more and more, those won't have much effect.

but if we wait 30 years to make changes or just keep flying more and more, those won't have much effect.

If we wait thirty years, air transport will be 5% of the problem instead of 2%, and "cheap air travel" will go from less than 1% of the problem to maybe 2% of the problem.

Why this is given so much attention is beyond me.

Hats off to him, I say. Anyone who pushes harder and screams louder and invokes true FEAR that our current tepid actions are insignificant (California's recent legislation, for example). Yes, fear. Everyone needs to be AFRAID of what is happening and true warriors like Monbiot know the effectiveness of this tool. I've ordered the book and can't wait to check it out.

The thing with air travel is not just how much, it's also where. Emissions at high altitude have much bigger effects on the ozone layer AFAIK.

The thing with air travel is not just how much, it's also where. Emissions at high altitude have much bigger effects on the ozone layer AFAIK.

On the ozone layer? I think you're confounding two different problems.

CO2 emissions are going to have the same effect regardless of where. The main difference with airplane emissions is contrails, but those have a mixed effect.

if we wait thirty years, air transport will be 5% of the problem, instead of 2%

Anonymous, I think the problem is that those 2% and 5% figures you give are as a percentage of global emissions, no? Yet developed countries, who are the ones needing to cut their emissions most dramatically, are responsible for a massive majority of airtravel, both domestic and international. It is therefore a much higher total of their national emissions. If the UK, for example, needs to cut its emissions by 90%,or even a mere 60%, then it probably needs to cut its aircraft emissions by around 90% (or 60%). There might be some room for manouver if other sectors manage much greater cuts than those needed, but given the tight timeframe this is a tall order. Cuts of this magnitude are almost certainly impossible if airtravel continues to grow at current rates, and are probably impossible even if it stays at current levels. The only option, then, is to curtail the number of flights, and provide alternatives wherever possible, and to make sure those planes that do fly are as efficient as possible.

As I said in my post, I'm not necessarily qualified to analyse all the figures Monbiot gives myself, so I'll resort back to the evidence the author has provided in the book. Hope it clarifies some of the points he's making. I'd be interested to know if you feel he's mistaken (I'm from the UK and about to marry an American, so I would love to fly with a clean conscience!).

One of the major peices of evidence he cites is a 2005 study by the Tyndall Centre, one of the leading centres for climate change research:

If we attempt to stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at 550 parts per million (which roughly corresponds to the governments target), and aviation continues to grow as the government envisages, by 2050 it would account for 50 per cent of our carbon emissions. If we tried to stabilize them at 450 parts (which is closer to my [Monbiot's] target) flying would produce 101 per cent of the carbon the entire economy was able to release. If the carbon emissions were multiplied by 2.7, to take into account the full impact of aviation on the climate, the figures would be 134 per cent and 272 per cent respectively.

I believe this study is available free to download online from the Tyndall Centre website.

I must say I dislike Monbiot with a passion. All he ever seems to do is blame people he doesn't agree with politically and call for bans, taxes and more layers of regulation. I don't see him making any POSITIVE suggestions anywhere, it's all alarmist doom, personal attacks and thinly veiled class war. As a result I have very little time for anything he says.

Anonymous, I think the problem is that those 2% and 5% figures you give are as a percentage of global emissions, no? Yet developed countries, who are the ones needing to cut their emissions most dramatically, are responsible for a massive majority of airtravel, both domestic and international. It is therefore a much higher total of their national emissions.

If you include international bunker fuels, it comes to 3.4% for the United States (239.5 out of 7,074.4 Tg CO2 equivalent total emissions - as of 2004).

Coal used for electricity generation is 8 times that much. Personal transportation (cars and light trucks) is 5 times as much.

Point is, if you take care of 1/13 (a mere 8%) of the personal transport and coal-fired electricity issue, it's the same as if you eliminated air transport altogether.

Again, so-called "wasteful personal air travel", which is what seems to be the source of ire for Mr. Monbiot et al, is obviously a small (and subjectively assessed) portion of air transport overall, so the portion of change applied to coal-fired electricity and personal transport needed to be equivalent to eliminating "wasteful personal air travel" is even smaller than 8%.

I can't even begin to address the countless logical errors in Mr. Monbiot's arguments. He would be advised to spend less time preening his intellectual appearance and more time thinking about the relative scale of things, the likelihood of where changes can occur, and most importantly, the possibilities for solutions which he fails to acknowledge (eg, high-speed ground transport substitutes for a portion of air transport).

Anonymous, I'm as ill equipped to judge the accuracy of your figures as I am to judge the accuracy of Monbiot's. What are the sources for the 3.4% figure you quote? Does it include multiplier effects of NoX, contrails etc.? Either way,even if you're figures are correct, 3.4% and growing fast, with very few likely short-term solutions for cutting emissions. Seems to me it should be addressed, and soon.

RE: Alternatives. Monbiot does actually look at high-speed rail. Unsurprisingly, for those who say he's a doom monger and a nay sayer, he suggests that their potential is also limited:

"... a discussion paper by Professor Roger Kemp of Lancaster University shows that energy consumption rises dramatically at speeds over 200kmph. Increasing the speed from 225 kmph to 350 kmph, he reveals, almost doubles the amount of fuel they burn... Even if trains were confined to 250 kmph, Kemp's graph suggests, trains would still consume 14 litres of fuel per seat, giving us a carbon cut of just 30 per cent. In reality, the effects of ultra-high-speed trains would be worse than this, for they would draw people not only out of planes, but also out of slower trains and coaches."

I'm not saying the guy is right. This, after all, is only quoting one discussion paper, and we all know that journalists can be very selective as to which research they quote. But I am certainly finding his book an interesting challenge to conventional environmental wisdom. I look forward to seeing your responses to his numbers - you've obviously got more of a head for figures than me.

it's all alarmist doom . . .

Indeed, it is alarmist doom. To dismiss it because of its alarmist notions is high foolishness. What we need more of is alarm sounding, not less. The environmental movement is riddled with people who erroneously believe we have the luxury of time. Again, hats off to Monbiot for tugging on the bell ropes.

I don't see him making any POSITIVE suggestions anywhere.

I'm not always the biggest fan of Monbiot either. However, I would recommend reading the book. It is full of some very positive suggestions. He has taken on the challenge of showing how we can make MASSIVE cuts in Co2 with little or no loss in material comfort. I'd say that is pretty positive.

Just because some of his suggestions (e.g. regulations, limits to aviation) are not what we want to hear, does not mean his arguments are necessarily flawed. And I certainly welcome anyone who is questioning claims by industry that they can sort it out by themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I welcome Branson's calls for a 25% cut in aviation emissions, but even if they are achieved these will be cancelled by his plans for expansion (less fuel burned = cheaper tickets = more passengers). Likewise I welcome car manufacturer's announcements of new hybrids and/or hydrogen cars etc. but, if past efforts are anything to go by, these announcements will be atleast greatly exagerated (and some will be downright fabrication) in order to keep the threat of regulation off their backs.

The point MGR makes about not waiting 30 years is also vital, and something that Monbiot covers convincingly in his book. Most industry solutions to aviation and many other problems (e.g. the hydrogen economy), even if they are all they are cracked up to be, are some way down the line. The problem is with Co2 emissions that a tonne saved now is worth much more than a tonne saved in 20 years time i.e. a slow rate of emissions reductions gradually speeding up to reach our goal ends up generating much more Co2 over time than steeper reductions immediately that gradually taper off as we get nearer and nearer our goal (The graph in the book illustrates this much more clearly than I can in words). And if this weren't enough, given the threat of some of earth's "feedback" mechanisms (e.g. melting permafrost, greater forest fires) kicking in, some of which look like they are already being activated, I personally want huge reductions as quickly as possible. I just can't see the gradual creep towards LED lightbulbs and a slow improvement in fuel-economy standards delivering the kind of cuts we need.

´Wait, in terms of aviation, is he saying there is absolutely no way we can curtail the amount of fumes released into the air with every flight (like we're trying to do with cars... and just starting to get succcessful with) or is he saying we're just not working hard enough towards a solution?´
He is saying that the advances in fuel-efficiency for each individual flight, which there will be, will not be anywhere near enough to displace the huge increases in global warming emmissions from continued increases in global aviation traffic. Technology alone will not be enough - it will need to be coupled with reductions in air traffic. This in effect means individuals need to be more responsible when it comes around to deciding whether to fly or not.

´If we wait thirty years, air transport will be 5% of the problem instead of 2%, and "cheap air travel" will go from less than 1% of the problem to maybe 2% of the problem. Why this is given so much attention is beyond me.´
If we wait thirty years and society falls for your arguments, it will be 15% or more and one of the biggest problems, if not the biggest. It was 3.5% of the problem a couple years back and is more than that now. And ´cheap´ air travel will be the biggest share of that 15% because the only reasons air passenger traffic are increasing so fast are because of low-cost airlines.
Luckily for us, it is only beyond you.

´If you include international bunker fuels, it comes to 3.4% for the United States (239.5 out of 7,074.4 Tg CO2 equivalent total emissions - as of 2004).´
It is quite amazing that Mr.Anonymous keeps insisting that air traffic is only 1 or 2% of the problem and can quickly and easily come up with figures of 3.4 when it is to his argumentative convenience. This 3.4 figure, which is misleading since it only counts CO2 emisssions rather than total air traffic contribution to global warming (surely he must be smart enough to realize that CO2 is only one of the greenhouse gase emitted by planes that contribute to global warming), nevertheless should highlight the arguments made that developed countries need to reduce air traffic. If the EUs and USs figures are only slightly higher than the world´s total, that means developing countries are contributing almost nothing. If they are to achieve comparable air traffic flows to that of developed countries WITHOUT developed countries reducing their current air traffic, the global levels will shoot straight through the roof.

´Coal used for electricity generation is 8 times that much. Personal transportation (cars and light trucks) is 5 times as much.´
Mr. Anonymous seems insistent on confusing humans with monkeys. He seems to think that because we have other big problems, we can only deal with one or two at a time. We are too few and too stupid to deal with all problems at the same time. I happen to disagree. We are not monkeys. We are not stupid. And there are more than enough of us to deal with all of the thousands of issues that need to be dealt with simultaneously to control global warming.

´Point is, if you take care of 1/13 (a mere 8%) of the personal transport and coal-fired electricity issue, it's the same as if you eliminated air transport altogether.´´
Very misleading comment. That would be true if air traffic remained static in growth. But to remain static we would have to stop increases in the developed world at the current levels AND prohibit the development of air traffic in China, India, Brazil, Russia and all of the rest of the developing world. Both of which Mr. Anonymous is basically arguing against with his other arguments. Mr.Anonymous´ argument is hightly specious and irresponsible.

´Again, so-called "wasteful personal air travel", which is what seems to be the source of ire for Mr. Monbiot et al, is obviously a small (and subjectively assessed) portion of air transport overall, so the portion of change applied to coal-fired electricity and personal transport needed to be equivalent to eliminating "wasteful personal air travel" is even smaller than 8%.´
First, irresponsible air passenger traffic is a considerable portion of the air traffic problem in the developed world, where rich people have money to spend irresponsibly. It is a highly insignificant problem in the Third world where they don´t - yet. Second, it is growing extremely fast NOW in the first world - faster than all other air transport - due to more and more low-cost airlines and the resultant competition that is leading to price wars and decreasing air ticket prices. The same phenomena is expected to take root, and to some extent already is, in the Thirld world. So today, air passenger traffic is exploding in the West and tomorrow it will do so everywhere else. Closing our eyes to this problem doesn´t make it go away.

´I can't even begin to address the countless logical errors in Mr. Monbiot's arguments.´
I haven´t read his arguments, but I have read yours. And if your countless errors in logic are anything to go by, his logic must be pretty good.

´He would be advised to spend less time preening his intellectual appearance and more time thinking about the relative scale of things,´
I advise you to do exactly the same.

´the likelihood of where changes can occur, and most importantly, the possibilities for solutions which he fails to acknowledge (eg, high-speed ground transport substitutes for a portion of air transport).´
There are numerous solutions to promoting responsible air traffic. Solutions that are, as you once mentioned, like ´picking the low hanging fruit.´ It is much easier to increase airline fuel taxes in the EU from their current level of 0 to say 25% or more than it is to build a widespread system of wind farms. It is far easier to include the airline industry in the CO2 cap-and-trade system than it is to develop large-scale and widespread bike infrastructure. It easier to establish a citizen carbon-allowance system than to stop global deforestation. It is exponentially easier to reduce air traffic than to change our energy infrastructure. Furthermore, I suggest Mr. Anonymous simply take a look at Japan´s transport infrastructure to see what is possible before saying it isn´t. Widespread use of bullet-trains, hydrofoils, and high-efficiency cars. He should stop trying to make things easier for low-cost airlines and start trying to make things easier for the rest of mankind.

It is quite amazing that Mr.Anonymous keeps insisting that air traffic is only 1 or 2% of the problem and can quickly and easily come up with figures of 3.4 when it is to his argumentative convenience. This 3.4 figure, which is misleading since it only counts CO2 emisssions rather than total air traffic contribution to global warming

No, what's quite amazing is that you're telling me I'm a liar. Pay attention. I said "CO2 equivalent", which means it includes ALL greenhouse gas emissions. If you were actually familiar with the subject, this nomenclature would be familiar to you.

See Table 3-5 for the bunker fuel numbers, and Table 3-7 for jet fuel and aviation gasoline numbers.

I'm not going to deal with the rest of your novel.

from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

4.8 What are the Overall Climate Effects of Subsonic Aircraft?

The climate impacts of different anthropogenic emissions can be compared using the concept of radiative forcing. The best estimate of the radiative forcing in 1992 by aircraft is 0.05 Wm-2 or about 3.5% of the total radiative forcing by all anthropogenic activities. For the reference scenario (Fa1),the radiative forcing by aircraft in 2050 is 0.19 Wm-2 or 5% of the radiative forcing in the mid-range IS92a scenario (3.8 times the value in 1992).

http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/av(E).pdf

Like I said - 3.5% now, 5% by 2050.

Now tell us how the IPCC is "hightly specious and irresponsible".

"I'm not always the biggest fan of Monbiot either. However, I would recommend reading the book."

I think the main reason I dislike him so much is the sneering way he suggests anything which doesn't conform to his World View is wrong, no debate. He strikes me as doing it purely for attention, as whatever cause is going, he'll have something to say about it, usually involving blaming someone (normally Jeremy Clarkson, who seems to be at fault for everything from antisocial behaviour to Third World debt) and then telling us that what we need is an end to globalisation, capitalism, more regulation, more taxes, bigger Government and so on. I just find him exceedingly odious. He will quite simply never be happy. If he hasn't got something to moan about, he doesn't have a column, hence he's never going to say "you know what, x industry has actually done a really good job cleaning up their act", he'll just rant about "wasteful aviation" then jet off to Australia for a lecture tour...

I find Monbiot's understanding of the political side of these issues very simplistic. I haven't read this book, but I recently read "The Age of Consent", and found it incredibly disappointing. He denigrates the work of the global justice movement as being too idealistic and fragmented, and proposes setting up a "world government" instead. He strikes me as being very unrealistic, self-aggrandizing, and with a poor understanding of how political structures shape the possibilities for change.

Thank you for the useful link. I went ahead and took a look at it and ran the numbers myself. According to your link, aviation´s total for 2003 was 290.4 of CO2 equivalent, this out of a total for the US in that year of 6959.1. 290.4/6959.1= 4.2% This number is odd considering that you claimed the 2004 figure came out at 3.4%. So I am not saying you are lying about your calculations, I am saying you must be confused.

´I'm not going to deal with the rest of your novel.´
And I wont deal with the rest of yours.

´The climate impacts of different anthropogenic emissions can be compared using the concept of radiative forcing. The best estimate of the radiative forcing in 1992 by aircraft is 0.05 Wm-2 or about 3.5% of the total radiative forcing by all anthropogenic activities. For the reference scenario (Fa1),the radiative forcing by aircraft in 2050 is 0.19 Wm-2 or 5% of the radiative forcing in the mid-range IS92a scenario (3.8 times the value in 1992).´
First, I am glad you finally got off the 1 to 2% figure. Thank you. Second, this figure that you quote was published in 1999. So we can say that the current figure is higher than 3.5.

As for the 5% you quote, it is but one of a number of figures they calculated for 2050. The highest figure they calculated came out to 15%.

According to your link, aviation´s total for 2003 was 290.4 of CO2 equivalent, this out of a total for the US in that year of 6959.1. 290.4/6959.1= 4.2% This number is odd considering that you claimed the 2004 figure came out at 3.4%.

You sure like dickering over little tiny things.

Let's take a look at the most recent data (2004).

Total US Greenhouse Gas Emissions = 7,074.4 Tg CO2 Eq.

Emissions from Jet Fuel, including international bunkers = 237.4 Tg CO2 Eq.

Emissions from Aviation Gasoline = 2.1 Tg CO2 Eq. [ibid.]

(237.4 + 2.1)/7,074.4 = 3.39%

So I am not saying you are lying about your calculations, I am saying you must be confused.

Apparently the confused person is you, because I keep getting the same numbers no matter how many times you claim I'm lying and/or wrong.

First, I am glad you finally got off the 1 to 2% figure. Thank you.

Yes, we're now all the way up to 3 or 4% -- and 5% in 44 years. Look at us claw up the ladder of insignificane to another level of insignificance.

You seem to keep forgetting what is at issue is so-called "irresponsible cheap air travel". I am giving you not only straight emissions numbers, but also including radiative forcing numbers and so forth -- FOR ALL AIR TRANSPORTATION. Dig all you want, but "irresponsible cheap air travel" (whatever that is, and whoever thinks they're fit to determine such a thing) is, at the most generous, 1/2 or less of air transport in total -- probably much less. So, you're left with less than 2% today and at most 2.5% forty-four years into the future.

I know this is very, very important to you to bash rich people and airplanes, but the numbers are NEVER going to add up to anything worth worrying about. It just won't.

As for the 5% you quote, it is but one of a number of figures they calculated for 2050. The highest figure they calculated came out to 15%.

Apparently you have no experience with long-term modelling. I'm sure they could concoct a scenario which made it come to 50%. Who cares? The only thing which is relevant is the probability of something occurring. That is why it's common sense to use the most-likely scenario as the baseline.

But again, by 2050, this game is either lost or won -- and no one, no matter how big their brain, has the ability to even the vaguest sense of accuracy with respect to predicting the outcome of this 44 years from now.

Here, in the present, in the time that matters and the one we can best measure, it is a tiny contributor to global warming, and it simply won't get much bigger (since, sadly, other things continue to grow as well).

You're intent on your outlook, and no amount of factual information or reason is apparently going to sway you from that outlook. So perhaps you should just let it rest.

I haven't heard a retraction or apology from you for the "highly irresponsible and specious" remark, among many personal insults you lobbed.

The IPCC's numbers are in line with mine. So, are they "highly irresponsible and specious", or do they have some sort of pass that lets their numbers (which are the same as my numbers) be "responsible" and "trustworthy"?

Do you or do you not consider the IPCC a legitimate authtority on climate change? If so, and since they say it's 3.5% in 1992 and most likely 5.0% in 2050 (ie, in the distant future), it would mean it's about 3.8% today -- including the radiative forcing you insist on including.

So, they say 3.8%. in 2006. By 2030 (Monbiot's "crucial" date) it will be 4.4%.

Slice and slice, it is still dwarfed by coal for electricity and personal transport. Heck, cement making even contributes more.

Prioritize. Bang for the buck. Changeability. Realism.

And I wont deal with the rest of your [novel]

Um, I wrote one paragraph. Hardly a lengthy treatise compared to what you're writing.

Here's some more context.

Growth in Greenhouse Gas Emissions, US, 1990-2004 (Tg CO2 Eq., with % incr. in parentheses)

Automobiles... 17.5 (2.8%)
Light Duty Trucks... 210.5 (66.8%)
Light Vehicles... 228.0 (24.4%)

Coal, Electricity Generation... 379.8 (25.0%)

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions, All... 965.4 (15.8%)

Air transport... 16.0 (7.2%)

So, let's get some context here.

The INCREASE in emissions by light-duty trucks alone (ie, personal SUVs and trucks) from 1990-2004 is 88% of TOTAL emissions from air transport.

The INCREASE in emissions by coal-fired electricity generation is 159% of TOTAL emissions by air transport.

The growth in emissions by light vehicles, even on a percentage basis, is 3.4 times that of air transport. Coal-fired electricity grew at 3.5 times the rate of emissions from air transport.

In fact, growth in emissions from air transport was less than half the rate for all emissions growth. Consequently, air transport accounted for 3.7% of emissions in 1990 and 3.4% in 2004 -- ie, THE SHARE HAS GONE DOWN. In fact, the absolute amount has ALSO GONE DOWN - from a peak in 2000 of 253.7 Tg CO2 Eq. to 239.5 Tg in 2004 -- a decrease of 14.2 Tg.

Granted, these are US and not International figures, but seeing as the US makes 1/4 of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, it's highly relevant. It also flies directly in the face of hysteria about some extreme growth rate in emissions, when in fact the exact opposite is occurring in the country which is the biggest polluter.

Another thing which Mr. Monbiot and his fellow travelers seem to miss is that even in the UK, emissions from air transport only went up 0.1 Tg from 2000-2003. Even from 1990 to 2004, the air transport sector only increased emissions by 18.6 Tg -- less than 9% of the amount of increase for light-duty trucks in the US.

Say by some miracle Mr. Monbiot's dream comes true and the entire UK goes cold turkey on all air transport -- including air mail, military flights, and so forth. Doing so would drop the amount of greenhouse gas output on the planet by a "huge" amount -- a whole 1/10 of 1%.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D5695.xls

For anyone who is interested in a very detailed analysis of GHG emissions across a wide range of angles, WRI put out an excellent report last year.

http://pdf.wri.org/navigating_numbers.pdf

-You sure like dickering over little tiny things.-
As do you, unfortunately.

-Mr Anonymous calculations:(237.4 + 2.1)/7,074.4 = 3.39%-

Once again thank you for the useful new links. Here are the correct calculations.
---Internatioanal Aviation Bunker Fuels - 2004 - 59.9 + Jet Fuel - 2004 - 237.4 + Aviation Gasoline 2.1 = 299,4 divided by 7074,4 = 4.2%----
Please try not to misquote the EPA again.

-Apparently the confused person is you, because I keep getting the same numbers no matter how many times you claim I'm lying and/or wrong.-
I hope the new calculation for 2004 has finally cleared your perpetual confusion.

-Yes, we're now all the way up to 3 or 4% -- and 5% in 44 years. Look at us claw up the ladder of insignificane to another level of insignificance.-
Yes, closer to 4%. Thank you for finally admitting that. As for the 5% figure, it is one of seven possible plausible scenario figures that the IPCC came up with. 5 being one of the LOWEST. And 15 being the highest. The 5 figure assumes some level of regulation to reduce air traffic. The 15 figure assumes completely unconstrained air traffic growth - which happens to be what you are advocating. So I believe 5 will come about if we start doing something about air traffic now. And 15 will come about if people listen to you. Furthermore, the IPCC assumes continued total global increases in global warming gases. So the 15 figure would be a bigger share of a bigger pie.

--You seem to keep forgetting what is at issue is so-called "irresponsible cheap air travel".--
No, what is at issue is ALL air travel together. People need to be responsible in flying or transporting goods whether it cost $10 or $100. But cheap air tickets make possible increased irresponsibility of air traffic. And are the reason air traffic is increasing so fast.

--I am giving you not only straight emissions numbers,--
You have been doing anything but. You keep finding ways to confuse numbers and calculations.

-but also including radiative forcing numbers and so forth-
The radiative forcing number that you quoted from the IPCC was .05 for 1992. They say:´According to the range of scenarios considered here, the forcing
is projected to grow to 0.13 to 0.56 Wm-2 in 2050´ So this radiative forcing (AKA global warming contribution) will grow either to over two times bigger with regulations to limit air growth or over ten times bigger with unconstrained growth.

--Dig all you want, but "irresponsible cheap air travel" (whatever that is, and whoever thinks they're fit to determine such a thing) is, at the most generous, 1/2 or less of air transport in total -- probably much less.-
Let me see. You admit that it could be 50% today and at the same time that this is minor? And this being today. For the fastest increases are coming from air passenger traffic driven by cheaper and cheaper flights from low-cost airline competition. So it will be more than 50% in the near future - probably much bigger.

-So, you're left with less than 2% today and at most 2.5% forty-four years into the future.-
You keep finding ways to try to get low-cost airlines off the hook. New ways to shrink the numbers and make the problem look...how do you say it, ´insignificant.´ Air passenger traffic needs to be reduced if we are to keep the future total air traffic contribution to global warming at 5% and that of cheap air passenger traffic at 2.5%. Without regulation NOW, the number will be much higher than 2.5 - probably more than 10% of total global warming.

-I know this is very, very important to you to bash rich people and airplanes,-
I know it is very important for you to try and characterize rich people as irresponsible people who are opposed to society implementing regulations to curb global warming, but in my opinion, your negative view of rich people is way off. The majority are responsible people trying to do the right thing about global warming. As for planes, you also like to try to make people think that they are all irresponsible and that all oppose moves to regulate air traffic growth when nothing could be further from the truth. There are already numerous EU airlines who have publicly voiced support for market-based regulatory schemes.

--but the numbers are NEVER going to add up to anything worth worrying about. It just won't.--
The numbers already add up. And clearly so. You just can´t add them.

-Apparently you have no experience with long-term modelling. I'm sure they could concoct a scenario which made it come to 50%.-
They said they COULD in the IPCC report. For this reason, they decided to keep to the seven most PLAUSIBLE scenarios that they could come up with. All of those scenarios already incorporate continued airline fuel and operational efficiencies in their calculations. So the main differences are based on economic factors which affect demand for air PASSENGER traffic.

--Who cares?--
Obviously the airlines since it is they who asked the IPCC to come up with these figures so that they would have some idea of their contribution to global warming now and in the future. And why did they ask the IPCC? Because the IPCC is the most authoritative instution with regards to global warming calculations - they were set up by the international community for that express purpose. To figure out how much global warming is going on and what the sources are and what might be possible solutions.

-The only thing which is relevant is the probability of something occurring. That is why it's common sense to use the most-likely scenario as the baseline.-
The most-likely scenario is a 5% figure. Why do I say this now? Because I know that EU governments will begin implementing air traffic regulations soon. They are currently in the discussion and design phase of these regulations. And I know that as soon as the EU has their regulations up and running, the US will soon thereafter copy them. And when the US does this, the rest of the world will follow. And this is what the IPCC is expecting in their 5% baseline scenario figure - the most probable scenario. So why do I keep pushing the 15% figure? To make clear to those that might be confused on this issue that without air traffic regulations, the IPCC calculated figure of 15% for unregulated traffic growth would be the ´most realistic´ figure.

--But again, by 2050, this game is either lost or won --
Quite true, that is why we need to take airline emissions seriously today and not tomorrow.

--and no one, no matter how big their brain, has the ability to even the vaguest sense of accuracy with respect to predicting the outcome of this 44 years from now.--
That was what the IPCC was set up for by the international community. To collect the smartest brains on the planet to try to figure out the problem and where it is headed. But I guess you have a bigger brain then the international community and all of the experts at the IPCC put together. At least that is whay you seem to be arguing. You know better than them.

--Here, in the present, in the time that matters and the one we can best measure, it is a tiny contributor to global warming, and it simply won't get much bigger (since, sadly, other things continue to grow as well).--
Here, in the present, in the time that matters and the one we can most do something about, is where we need to head off problems before they develop. Problems such air traffic, which is close to 4% of our current global warming problem, that will potentially grow to 15% if people fall for specious and irresponsible arguments, that is amongst the very easiest global warming problems to fix, and that, sadly, will grow to take a bigger share of a bigger global warming problem - a 15% share if governments do nothing to regulate current air traffic increases.

--You're intent on your outlook, and no amount of factual information or reason is apparently going to sway you from that outlook. So perhaps you should just let it rest.--
Mr. Anonymous, you are intent on your outlook and no amount of factual information or reason is apparently going to sway you from that outlook. So perhaps you should just let it rest.

--I haven't heard a retraction or apology from you for the "highly irresponsible and specious" remark, among many personal insults you lobbed.--
First, I have not insulted you, and I am sorry to hear that that is whay you believe. Second, I have not heard a retraction or apology from your ´hysterical´ and ´zeolout´ and ´novel´ remarks, among many personal insults you have directly and indirectly lobbed at me.

--The IPCC's numbers are in line with mine.--
Actually, they are not in line with yours. You quoted them as saying that air traffic contribution to global warming was 3.5% in 1992 and one paragraph later said: See, as I said, 3.5% NOW. No, not now, in 1992 - over 14 years ago. Second, you quoted them as saying that one possible scenario figure for 2050 was 5%, a figure which happens to be one of the lowest of seven with 15% being the highest. And one paragraph later said: See, as I told you, 5% in 2050.

--So, are they "highly irresponsible and specious",--
Nope. Not one itsy-bitsy bit. I support everything stated in the report that you so graciously provided a link to. They say that air traffic was contributing 3.5% of the problem in 1992, that air passenger traffic was increasing considerably faster than passenger-km fuel efficiencies, that air passenger traffic would grow substantially over the coming decades and that this would lead to large increases in global warming contribution, that they came up with seven scenario figures for 2050 to gauge the evolution of air traffic´s contribution to global warming, that of these seven figures 5% was the second lowest and 15% the highest plausible outcomes, that these figures both assume continued fuel and operational efficiencies, that the 5% figure assumes moderation of air traffic growth as a result of increases in regulation and establishment of alternative transport methods, and so on and on. I agree with absolutely EVERYTHING they say. As opposed to you, who agrees with a few things they say and quote those few things out of context. It is you who is making specious and irresponsible arguments.

or do they have some sort of pass that lets their numbers (which are the same as my numbers) be "responsible" and "trustworthy"?

--Do you or do you not consider the IPCC a legitimate authtority on climate change?--
The most authoritative. It is you who does not. Try quoting them in context.

--If so, and since they say it's 3.5% in 1992 and most likely 5.0% in 2050--
Most likely 5% in 2050 because they, like me, believe regulations will be implemented to reduce air traffic growth in the near future. But if society falls for specious and irresponsible arguments that argue against any type of regulations on air traffic of any kind at any time, then the figure will be 15%. But the IPCC does NOT believe it very probable that society will fall for such arguments, just as I do not believe they will, for the vast majority of people are responsible people who will support governentments implementing the necessary regulations to limit global warming impacts, which for air traffic means policies to control air traffic growth.

--(ie, in the distant future),--
I will still be living in 2050. I will still be riding around on my mountain bike - if global warming does make the heat unbearable that is. So, for me, it is not so distant. And I happen to believe anyone else who expects to be alive then will think more or less the same. In any case, that doesn´t mean that they aren´t contributing to global warming now. All sectors, all businesses have a responsibility to try and reduce their global warming impact. Many airlines realize and are taking directions forward in this regard, including discussing with politicians how best to develop regulations and market-mechanisms to promote responsible air travel.

--it would mean it's about 3.8% today -- including the radiative forcing you insist on including.--
Yes, I agree. I think it is about 3.8% today. Including the radiative forcing which is only appropriate to include.

--So, they say 3.8%. in 2006. By 2030 (Monbiot's "crucial" date) it will be 4.4%.--
Yes, probably it will be 4.4% with the likely air traffic regulations and policies that will be between now and then. But if the less probable scenario of no regulations and policies being implemented to control air traffic growth, then the figure would be more like 10% or more by 2030.

-Slice and slice, it is still dwarfed by coal for electricity and personal transport. Heck, cement making even contributes more.--
Slice and slice. It is still close to 4% of total global warming. Not matter how small you wish to make this, it is still a problem that needs to be dealt with today along with all those other things that only contribute a few percentage points - like phantom loads powered by coal electricity or Hummers powered by gasoline. They ALL need to be given equal weight, equal attention, and equal solutions. Noone gets to be a freerider on this issue. No industry or business gets a carte blanche to be irresponsible about global warming.

--Prioritize.--
Yes. Priority one: solve global warming. Priority somewhere down the list: maintain unlimited cheap air passenger traffic.

-Bang for the buck.-
Yes. It is much cheaper to control air traffic growth than to reduce coal consumption. Instituting taxes and regulations that would promote responsible air travel costs virtually nothing in comparison with trying to substitute coal with renewable or even nuclear energy. So, yes, let us keep bang for buck clearly in mind.

--Changeability.--
Yes. It is much easier to change air traffic regulations and policies than to change an established energy infrastructure, which will much effort, money and time.

--Realism.--
Yes. Air traffic levels are easy, cheap and quick to control. Displacement of coal energy by renewables or safe nuclear is none of those. But we have to move toward renewables at every level no matter how expensive, difficult or long it takes. Luckily, the air traffic problem is a relative breeze to solve.

-Um, I wrote one paragraph. Hardly a lengthy treatise compared to what you're writing.-

Yes, quite true. I am not into short, simplistic answers. I should have said that I will not bother with the rest of your dimestore sci-fi paperback - those tend to be relatively short.

Global warming is not a US problem alone. All air traffic throughout the world has to be taken into consideration. And you are only looking at the US. A market whose air traffic levels have levelled off considerably in the past decades due to the industry maturity in the US. A market that also is the most energy wasting of the large developed countries. Futhermore, it is a market that is not experiencing the same level of air passenger traffic increases as the EU due to the proliferation of ultra-low cost airlines. Yes, there is price competition in the US. But the EU level is higher. Taking the US out of a global context is misleading. It would be nice if you took the same numbers that you gave us for the US and gave the corresponding global numbers. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that overseas air traffic from the US plummeted after 2001, which dipped the numbers for for the past five years. But don´t worry, I have saved all the files you have linked to and am currently reading them at home. I will analyze all your figures closely and slice and dice them as much as you do. I will soon provide you a real ´novel´.

--air transport accounted for 3.7% of emissions in 1990 and 3.4% in 2004 -- ie, THE SHARE HAS GONE DOWN.--
The share was 4.2% of CO2 equivalents in 2004. So is your 1990 figure is correct, IT WENT UP. And then you say you are not misleading.

--In fact, the absolute amount has ALSO GONE DOWN - from a peak in 2000 of 253.7 Tg CO2 Eq. to 239.5 Tg in 2004 -- a decrease of 14.2 Tg.--
It was almost 300 TG in 2004. It INCREASED in absolute terms. You are quite confused. And I haven´t even looked into whether you 253 figure for 2000 is correct or not yet. Two mistakes in a row that I spotted of the top of my head. I can´t wait to take a thorough look at the rest of your calculations.

As do you, unfortunately.

Not really. I'm quite satisfied whether it's 2% or 3% or 4% or whatever. All of them are INSIGNIFICANT. You, however, seem obsessed with getting a high level of precision down to the tenth of a pecent, when the issue is whether this is a significant matter in the first place.

Once again thank you for the useful new links. Here are the correct calculations.
---Internatioanal Aviation Bunker Fuels - 2004 - 59.9 + Jet Fuel - 2004 - 237.4 + Aviation Gasoline 2.1 = 299,4 divided by 7074,4 = 4.2%----
Please try not to misquote the EPA again.

LOL!

Why don't you pay attention instead of continually carrying around your misplaced attitude? YOU'RE DOUBLE-COUNTING BUNKER FUELS.

If you paid more attention, you'd see that even including them in the first place is not always standard because of problems with properly allocating numbers for international bunkers (see Section 3.11).

So this radiative forcing (AKA global warming contribution) will grow either to over two times bigger with regulations to limit air growth or over ten times bigger with unconstrained growth.

They also have scenarios where air transport's share goes DOWN by 2050. Like I said, one can construct any number of scenarios. The issue is plausability. And, again, if you would actually read these reports, they discuss the uncertainties with long-term modelling, and the whole "science" of radiative forcing, which at this point really isn't well-understood. So you're latching onto the worst-case scenario of something far into the future (which is irrelevant to dealing with a problem which is urgent TODAY), then also banking on uncertain theories about forcing and effects. And no matter all that, the numbers still don't amount to a hill of beans. And then based on all that speculation, we're supposed to stop flying entirely? Set up the "Bureau of Determining The Responsibility of Your Travel"?

You really don't realize how ridiculous that whole ball of wax is.

And once again, you write 10,000 words for each one of mine, so I'm just going to ignore the rest of what you spewed out (as I'm sure it's loaded with just the same insults about me "lying" and whatnot), as evidenced by your iunnumerate outburst in your final post.

Understand the material, THEN run the numbers. Don't make a basic error like double-counting something, then use that as the basis for claiming someone else is wrong. My numbers are correct. Deal with it.

Rattle off another novel, if you like. I won't be reading it.

You keep double-counting bunker fuels. It's included in the number for "Jet Fuel". Pay closer attention to the chart.

Now that you've hopefully straightened that out, reexamine all the incorrect conclusions and statements you made based on that error (including, once again, insulting me for making an error that I'm not making).

'Pay attention. I said "CO2 equivalent", which means it includes ALL greenhouse gas emissions. If you were actually familiar with the subject, this nomenclature would be familiar to you.'
Mr. Anonymous, please pay attention. I said 'it only counts CO2 emissions rather than total air traffic contribution to global warming', which means that 'CO2 equivalent' does NOT reflect total air traffic contribution to global warming. If you were actually familiar with the subject, this fact would be familiar to you. The 'CO2 equivalent' figure is supposed to be a combined measure of a number of GHG in CO2 equivalents equally applicable to ALL sectors in an economy; however, aviation's non-carbon dioxide emmissions have unique multiplier effects due to where the emissions are produced NOT accounted for by CO2 equivalents. So one can not simply use CO2 equivalent numbers for aircraft emmissions and say that that number represents total air traffic contribution to global warming because it does NOT.
I have decided to quote the 1999 IPCC Aviation study that you so graciously put a link to. ---'Aircraft emissions of NOx are more effective at producing ozone in the upper troposphere than an equivalent amount of emission at the surface. Also increases in ozone in the upper troposphere are more effective at increasing radiative forcing than increases at lower altitudes.'---(This fact is not taken into account in CO2 equivalent numbers.)
---'Contrails tend to warm the Earth’s surface, similar to thin high clouds. The contrail cover
is projected to grow to 0.5% by 2050 in the reference scenario (Fa1), at a rate which is faster than the rate of growth in aviation fuel consumption.'---(Contrails are formed by the water vapor given off by flying planes. This fact is not taken into account in CO2 equivalent numbers.)
---'Extensive cirrus clouds have been observed to develop after the formation of persistent contrails.......On average an increase in cirrus cloud cover tends to warm the surface of the Earth. An estimate for aircraft induced cirrus cover for the late 1990s ranges from 0 to 0.2% of the surface of the Earth. For the Fa1 scenario, this may possibly increase by a factor of 4 (0 to 0.8%) by 2050;'---(This fact is not taken into account in CO2 equivalent numbers.)
---'Because aerosols influence the formation of clouds, the accumulation of aerosols from aircraft may play a role in enhanced cloud formation and change the radiative properties
of clouds.'---(Not taken into account in CO2 equivalents.)
---'Over the period from 1992 to 2050, the overall radiative forcing by aircraft (excluding that from changes in cirrus clouds) for all scenarios in this report is a factor of 2 to 4 larger than the forcing by aircraft carbon dioxide alone. The overall radiative forcing for the sum of all human activities is estimated to be at most a factor of 1.5 larger than that of carbon dioxide alone.'---

CO2 equivalent numbers are meant to try and reflect the1.5 figure quoted. They do NOT reflect the special case of air traffic which is HIGHER than this 1.5 figure. Considering this, the share made up by US air traffic of the US's total greenhouse contribution in 2004 is more like 7% (based on a CO2 equivalent calculation of 3.4%).

Mr. Anonymous said: "Now tell us how the IPCC is "hightly specious and irresponsible".'
My reply IPCC quotes from the IPCC source quoted by Mr.Anonymous:
'...the aviation industry has undergone rapid growth...In the absence of policy intervention, the growth is likely to continue...Passenger traffic... has grown since 1960 at nearly 9% per year, 2.4 times the average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate...Total aviation emissions have increased, because increased demand for air transport has outpaced the reductions in specific emissions from the continuing improvements in technology and operational procedures. Passenger traffic, assuming unconstrained demand, is projected to grow at rates in excess of GDP....Aircraft emit gases and particles directly into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere where they have an impact on atmospheric composition. These gases and particles alter the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (O3), and methane (CH4); trigger formation of condensation trails (contrails); and may increase cirrus cloudiness—all of which contribute to climate change...because some of
aviation’s key contributions to radiative forcing are located mainly in the northern mid-latitudes, the regional climate response may differ from that derived from a global mean radiative forcing (my translation: it will be hotter in the EU and US than the global mean temps would suggest)...The IPCC has developed A RANGE OF SCENARIOS (my emphasis), IS92a-f, for future greenhouse gas and aerosol precursor emissions based on assumptions concerning population and economic growth, land use, technological changes, energy availability, and fuel...Global passenger air travel..is projected to grow by about 5% per year between 1990
and 2015, whereas total aviation fuel use...is projected to increase by 3% per year...Projections beyond this time are more uncertain so a RANGE OF FUTURE unconstrained emission SCENARIOS (my emphasis) is examined...These scenarios represent a range of plausible growth for aviation... All of these scenarios assume that technological improvements leading to reduced emissions per revenue passenger-km will continue in the future and that optimal use of airspace availability (i.e., ideal air traffic management) is achieved by 2050. If these improvements do not materialize then fuel use and emissions will be higher. It is further assumed that the number of aircraft as well as the number of airports and associated infrastructure will continue to grow and not limit the growth in demand for air travel. If the infrastructure was not available, the growth of traffic reflected in these scenarios would not materialize...According to the range of scenarios considered here, the forcing (AKA global warming contribution) is projected to grow to 0.13 to 0.56 Wm-2 in 2050 (my statement: it was .05 in 1992)...For the range of scenarios, the range of increase in carbon dioxide emissions to 2050 would be 1.6 to 10 times the value in 1992...The historical breakdown of aviation fuel burn for civil (passenger plus cargo) and military aviation was 64 and 36%, respectively, in 1976, and 82 and 18%, respectively, in 1992. These are projected to change to 93 and 7%, respectively, in 2015, and to 97 and 3%, respectively, in 2050...Improved operational efficiency may result in attracting additional air traffic...Although improvements in aircraft and engine technology and in the efficiency of the air traffic system will bring environmental benefits, these will not fully offset the effects of the increased emissions resulting from the projected growth in aviation. Policy options to reduce emissions further include more stringent aircraft engine emissions regulations, removal of subsidies and incentives that have negative environmental consequences, market-based options such as environmental levies (charges and taxes) and emissions trading, voluntary agreements, research programmes, and substitution of aviation by rail and coach. Most of these options would lead to increased airline costs and fares.'

My response to my IPCC quotes: This report takes the words right out of my mouth. Well, obviously, it is the reverse; I have been taking their words and thoughts and preaching them here.

My response to Mr.Anonymous: Nope. I don't think the IPCC is specious or irresponsible one itsy-bitsy bit.

More quotes from the IPCC:

'Engine emissions certification is a means for reducing specific emissions. The aviation authorities currently use this approach to regulate emissions for carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, NOx, and smoke. The International Civil Aviation Organization has begun work to assess the need for standards for aircraft emissions at cruise altitude to complement existing LTO standards for NOx and other emissions.'

'Market-based options, such as environmental levies (charges and taxes) and emissions trading, have the potential to encourage technological innovation and to improve efficiency, and may reduce demand for air travel. Many of these approaches have not been fully investigated or tested in aviation and their outcomes are uncertain. Environmental levies (charges and taxes) could be a means for reducing growth of aircraft emissions by further stimulating the development and use of more efficient aircraft and by reducing growth in demand for aviation transportation.'

'Another approach that could be considered for mitigating aviation emissions is emissions trading, a market-based approach which enables participants to cooperatively minimize the costs of reducing emissions. Emissions trading has not been tested in aviation though it has been used for sulfur dioxide (SO2) in the United States of America and is possible for ozone-depleting substances in the Montreal Protocol. This approach is one of the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol where it applies to Annex B Parties.' (My statement: Considering that this report's research was conducted considerably before its publication in 1999, this would explain why it does not mention the current CO2 cap-and-trade system in place in the EU, which is currently being considered as the place to put the EU's aviation industry.)

'Voluntary agreements are also currently being explored as a means of achieving reductions in emissions from the aviation sector. Such agreements have been used in other sectors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to enhance sinks. Measures that can also be considered are removal of subsidies or incentives which would have negative environmental consequences, and research programmes.'

'Substitution by rail and coach could result in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions per passenger-km. The scope for this reduction is limited to high density, short-haul routes, which could have coach or rail links. Estimates show that up to 10% of the travelers in Europe could be transferred from aircraft to high-speed trains.' (My statement: And this coming from a report written almost ten years ago. I wonder how much higher that percentage is now. Too bad they didn't do some calculations for high density, short-haul passenger shipping routes.)

Mr. Anonymous, I must make an apology to you. Your calculations regarding US air traffic's share of total US CO2 equivalent emissions in 2003 and 2004 are correct. I made a mistake in my calculations by double counting international air bunker fuels. I have been carefully looking at the yearly statistics and see that your calculations regarding a decrease from 2000 to 2004 is correct. I apologize for this mistake and for automatically assuming that your calculations were conveniently misleading. From 2000 to 2004 there was indeed a decrease in both the absolute numbers and the relative numbers. Your implied statement that air traffic increases in the US are currently not a problem are correct. I have noticed that since the terrorist attacks of 2001, US air traffic's total CO2 equivalent emissions have been off of their historical upward trend. Total jet fuel CO2 equivalent contributions in 1990 were 220.4 with commercial aircraft emitting 117.2 of that and international aviation emitting another 46.2. In 1997, the corresponding figures were 232.1 (jet fuel), 128.5 (commercial aviation), and 55.9 (international aviation). In 1998, they were 235.6, 126.3, and 56.7. In 1999, 242.9, 136.4, and 58.9. In 2000, 251.2, 140.6, 60.5. In the year of the AlQueda attacks 2001, the numbers fell to 240.4, 132.8, and 59.4. In 2002, there was continued decrease to 234.4, 121.7, and 61.8. In 2003, 228.6, 122.8 and 59.6. I do not have the 2004 numbers since I am looking at the report one year older. While there was a 23% increase in CO2 equivalent emissions from 163.4 (commercial plus international aviation) in 1990 to 201.1 in 2000 (meaning a yearly average increase of 2.1%/year), there was a corresponding decrease from 2000 to 2003 of 9.3%. It is clear that the fear of terrorism, coupled with new tedious US airport security measures, fear of overseas travel to areas with higher levels of anti-Americanism, the insecurities produced by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the impact all of these things have had (and others) on increasing fuel prices have managed in combination to discourage unnecessary air travel. So for the time being, at least in the US, the need for regulations to control air traffic increases seem unnecessary. How long this combination of factors will manage in themselves to keep passenger air traffic increases under control is unknown. I think, considering the continued foreign wars the US is in, the continued threats from Al-Queda, the stringent security measures, and the resultant jet fuel price volatility, that it may well continue to keep air passenger traffic under control for some time to come. However, as soon as the numbers start heading upward again, the US should implement regulations to significantly moderate any increases. Having said this, that does not mean I believe the EU should not start implementing regulations now unless the impacts of 2001 and its corresponding fallout have led to similar declines in EU air passenger traffic. I would need to see actual figures before believing that it has had such a similar impact. The EU is not the US. While the UK situation is comparable to the US one, the rest of the EU's is not. So I still support EU politicians' attempts to begin soon regulating the EU airline industry to control traffic increases.

I have not been able yet to check the British Excel file you linked to. Your figure of increase from 2000 to 2003 seems plausible since much of the transatlantic air traffic that occurs does so between the US and UK and this took a hit with the terrorist attacks. And has continued to do so with the continued terrorist attempts. As I said, the UK is in a comparable situation to the US, but the EU as a whole is not.

-http://pdf.wri.org/navigating_numbers.pdf-
Thank you for this link. I have decided to quote some of its passages.
---Aviation, as noted above, represents approximately 12 percent of CO2 emissions from transport when international flights are included (and about 1.6 percent of the world GHG total).115 Emissions from international flights are more than half of overall air emissions.116 Air travel—and associated CO2 emissions—have grown at tremendous rates over the past few decades. Since 1960, passenger traffic has grown at about 9 percent per year, though the rate has slowed in recent years as the industry has matured.117 Looking ahead, passenger and freight traffic are expected to grow at rates well in excess of GDP growth.118 The global warming effect of aviation is larger than suggested by the numbers and emissions trends discussed above, which are based on fossil fuel consumption. The climate impacts of air travel are amplified when ozone-producing NOX emissions, contrail formation, water vapor release, and other high-altitude effects of aircraft use are accounted for. Most of these effects are characterized by high levels of uncertainty, and are difficult to account for. The IPCC estimates that, although aircraft accounted for only 2 percent of anthropogenic emissions in 1992, they produced an estimated 3.5
percent of total radiative forcing from human activities.119 IPCC projections suggest that radiative forcing from aircraft may increase by a factor of nearly four by 2050, accounting for 5 percent of total radiative forcing from human activities...Parties to the Climate Convention have requested assistance in dealing with air emissions from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), although no formal
agreements have been reached...approximately 16,000 jet aircraft in service worldwide in 2003.121 Industry
forecasts project demand for almost 24,000 new jet aircraft through 2023---
Figure 12.8 CO2 from Aviation in 2002
US - 37.2% of total world air traffic - 7% change in CO2 emissions from 1990 - 14.3% of international air traffic - 31% change from 1990
EU25 - 20.3% - 49% change - 30.3 - 59% change
Japan - 5% - 42% - 6% - 59%
UK - 4.9% - 54% - 6.1% - 65%
Germany - 3.3% - 25% - 5.9% - 48%
France - 3.1% - 69% - 4.1% - 52%
China - 2.8% - 611% - .8% - 442%
Canada - 2.4% - 19% - .8% - 3%
Spain - 2% - 75% - 2.3 - 137%
Total world air traffic change in emissions 38%-Total International air traffic change in emissions 38%

According to Figure 1.3 GHG Flow Diagram, Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions CO2 Equivalents
- Transportation 13.5% (Road 9.9%, Air 1.6%, Rail-ship-other 2.3%)
- Electricity and Heat 24.6% (Residential 9.9%, Commercial 5.4%)
- Other Fuel Combustion 9%
- Industry 10.4% (Iron and steel 3.2%, aluminum-non ferrous 1.4%, Machinery 1%, Pulp-paper-printing 1%, Food and Tobacco 1%, Chemicals 4.8%, Cement 3.8%, Other 5%)
- Fugitive Emissions 3.9%
- Industrial Processes 3.4% (T&D losses 1.9%, Coal mining 1.4%, Oil/Gas extraction-refining-processing 6.3%)
- Land Use Change 18.2% (Deforestation 18.3, Harvest/management 2.5%, others -2.6)
- Agriculture 13.5% (Energy Use 1.4%, Soils 6%, Livestock-manure 5.1%, Rice 1.5%, Other .9%)
- Waste 3.6% (Landfills 2%, Wastewater-other 1.6%)
(My comment: These figure are from 2000 or before. The Air figure of 1.6% reflects CO2 equivalent measures rather than the more accurate and advanced radiative forcing measure developed by the IPCC for the particular case of aviation because of aviation's unique multiplier effects to global warming. That is why the CO2 equivalent is 1.6% and the new more advance radiative forcing measure is 3.5%.)

Figure 2.1 Top GHG Emitting Countries
1. US - 6928 MtCO2 equivalent - 20.6% of world GHGs
2. China - 4938 - 14.7
3. EU25 - 4725 - 14
4. Russia - 1915 - 5.7
5. India - 1884 - 5.6
6. Japan - 1317 - 3.9
7. Germany - 1009 - 3
8. Brazil - 851 - 2.5
9. Canada - 680 - 2
10. UK - 654 - 1.9
Developed - 17,355 - 52
Developing - 16,310 - 48

I took a quick look at your comparison calculations. While they seem correct (I did some superficial calculations and came up with the same basic numbers), and they do make air traffic seem insignificant, I ended up coming back to the same point I have come back to on numerous occassions. If you dissect things in certain ways, you can make anything look either big or small. For instance, you take the example of coal-generated electricity. Practically all coal consumption and emissions in the US come from electric-generation. So basically, when we talk about CO2 equivalent emissions from coal, we are talking about electricity. This electricity is consumed by residences, office building, industries, and so on. Within residences this is further subdivided into electric usage for space heating or cooling, water heating, refridgerators, washers, dishwashers, light bulbs. Within the light bulb categories, it is further divided into outdoor lighting, indoor lighting, specialized lighting. Or between halogens, incandescents and CFLs. In the end, what percentage of this total coal consumption can be attributed to residential lighting? Is it more than 7%? If not, or if about the same, or if somewhat higher but with no increases at all, why does your argument that we are losing focus not apply equally to attempts to substitute incandescents for CFLs? Governments in many countries have gone to great lengths to get people to use CFLs. But why if it is so insignificant? After all, the portion of coal consumed by all residential lighting must be truly insignificant, even in comparison with air passenger traffic's contribution. Is the world wasting its time with CFLs? What about governments' attempts to get residences to throw out old refridgerators and replace them with energy efficient ones. The total consumption of coal from refridgerators must be as insignificant as that of residential lighting. And the impact, if kept in your type of 'proper' perspective, must truly be inconsequential in the 'greater scheme of things.' So why bother? If your arguments about perspective apply to air traffic, would it not therefore be coherent to also apply them to these two things and many, many others? And if we are going to be coherent and keep each thing in perspective, meaning that we do nothing to halt their increases to global warming, what exactly is left to focus on? Lightbulbs would be a waste of time. Refridgerators would be a waste of time. Computers would be a waste of time. You say coal electricity and 'ground' transport. The incandescent light industry might say 'all' transportation and deforestation. If they say keep things in perspective, transportation consumes way more than residential lighting and substituting incandescents for CFLs doesn't do squat, should I say, based on your logic, yes we are wasting our time with CFLs? Should I accept their argument that all focus should be on transport, which includes aviation, and deforestation? What if I told the incandescent industry that transportation is divided into numerous sectors - aviation, shipping, rail, buses, cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc. - many of which are also, when dissected further, insignificant. Buses are very insignificant. Does that mean that governments' should not make efforts to stop their emissions? Because I see them doing that left and right. Why has no one gone to them and said that their efforts are inconsequential? Every industry and every business can dissect themselves out of the problem. You are taking coal electricity and ignoring that this electricity is consumed by other devices (just like the oil sector doesn't consume what it produces - it is consumed by others, like aviation), as if the devices are not the end consumers of the coal. (And coal and oil are roughly equal in their contribution to global warming in the US and in the world.) You are taking certain subcategories of ground vehicles, the bigger polluters in global warming, and ignoring the smaller ones, like buses and trains. And you don't further dissect the numbers to specific vehicle types. For instance, RVs are probably in the light truck sector. Do you think the RV industry will make the same argument that we need to keep things in perspective? And if it applies to your industry than why not to theirs? And if it does apply to theirs, than RVs are out. What about Hummers? Their impact in comparison with the bigger picture must be really small. So they are out too. Each industry can dissect itself out of the problem. So if each industry or product can play with the figures to make itself look small in relation to 'bigger' things, then where exactly are we left? It seems to me that we are left with little to fix. But global warming is real. It is very dangerous. And we have to try to stop it. How are we going to stop it if there is nothing to fix? To me, the solution lies in discarding the argument that we need to focus on this or that industry and forget this one or that one. If we accept that argument, practically every industry, business and individual then has an argument to excuse themselves from responsibility to do their bit to stop global warming. And this means that we don't solve it. In practice, discarding this argument means that ALL industries, businesses and individuals have a responsibility to reduce their global warming impact and the more, the better. The 'keep things in perspective' argument is a slippery slope to widespread freeriderism (why should I contribute to solving the problem when others will solve it for me?) and is not a solution to global warming. Furthermore, as I have mentioned on numerous occassions, man has the ability to deal with all of these problems at one. There are more than enough intelligent, hard-working people to start implementing global warming solutions in all industry segments. We don't have to focus on this or that at the exclusion of this or that. It is a false choice. We can begin making efforts at controlling the emissions of every sector at the same time. Which leads me back to what I keep saying. We need to begin implementing measures to halt increases in air traffic's contribution to global warming and the sooner, the better. This same argument holds for every industry. If governments' are serious about halting global warming, this is what will be necessary. No exceptions. No freeriders.

--Granted, these are US and not International figures, but seeing as the US makes 1/4 of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, it's highly relevant. It also flies directly in the face of hysteria about some extreme growth rate in emissions, when in fact the exact opposite is occurring in the country which is the biggest polluter.--
Several comments on this. First, the aviation industries of the developed world are fairly advanced and developed with high levels of air passenger traffic. The US airline industry being the most mature, meaning that it's growth rates in relation to previous years will be amongst the lowest in the world. The airline industries of most of the rest of the world are very underdeveloped in comparison - in numbers of airports, airlines, airplanes, air passengers, and so on. According to The Economist 2005 international statistics, the US had 1,132,266 million passenger-km per year, Japan (the second highest) had 215,520 (with about 2/5ths the population of the US, this shows this island chain countries ability to control air traffic growth), the UK 172,845, Germany had 117,099, France 93,171 (France and the UK have same sized populations) while China, with 1.3 billion people, had 117,243, and India, with almost 1.1 billion, having 24,756, and Indonesia, with a population of 217.5 million, having 18,210. As you can see close to 3 billion people in the developed world have close to 160,000 million passenger miles between them while slightly over 600 million westerners have close to 1,730,000. There is over a ten times difference, and this is without factoring in the difference in populations. Dividing the 3 billion by 5 gives 600 million, and dividing 160,000 million passenger miles by 5 gives 32,000. Comparing 1,730,000 to 32,000 shows a 54 times difference. If those 3 billion people develop comparable levels of passenger air traffic to those of the developed countries mentioned, the increases in jet fuel consumption will soar straight up. The developed world will have no moral or legal right to tell them to control their increases in air traffic global waming emissions (or any other sector). The only moral, non-hypocritical argument that will impact the developing world's air traffic growth levels is reductions in first world air traffic contributions to global warming. The rich world can not tell the poor world that they can not increase their aviation levels to the same level as the rich world without showing serious and honest attempts to reduce their own air traffic global warming contribution.
Second, the US, EU and Japan, contribute most of the world's GHG emissions, adding the rest of the developed world (Australia, Canada, South Korea, etc.) puts another significant chunk to that. The developed world's contribution to global warming is therefore more than half the world total. The developing world's 5 billion plus population (less than 1 billion for rich world countries) is growing in wealth relatively fast, especially China, India, Brazil and a several other countries. Their total contributions to GHGs from all sectors in their societies' will soar, along with that of aviation. It should be expected that mature industries' GHGs emissions (including aviation) in the developed world will grow at much lower rates than that of immature sectors in developing countries. For two reasons, one because the developed market is more or less saturated (eventually everyone has a fridge), and two because first world country industries have more resources to implement technologies to improve efficiency and reduce emissions. So the facts that the US, the most developed country in the world, contributes 21% of global GHGs and that their air traffic CO2 equivalent emissions increases over the past decade have been relatively small, which should be amongst the lowest in the world, should highlight that the lifting of 5 billion plus people to standards of living comparable to that of the US will result in huge increases in GHGs in all global sectors, including global aviation.

---Say by some miracle Mr. Monbiot's dream comes true and the entire UK goes cold turkey on all air transport -- including air mail, military flights, and so forth. Doing so would drop the amount of greenhouse gas output on the planet by a "huge" amount -- a whole 1/10 of 1%.---
How much coal would be displaced in the UK by going cold turkey and eliminating all residential lighting? Would it be a comparable amount? Is it possible that it could be, say, 1/20 of 1%? So do you think efforts at reducing wasteful use of lighting and increasing the efficiency of residential lighting are pointless as well? Applying your logic coherently to other activities in society, the answer should be yes. Is reducing wasteful use of other electrical appliances and improving their efficiency, let us say washing machines, also pointless? Extending this logic across the field of human activity, what exactly makes sense to be focusing on? After all, the UK has a population of 60 million out of a total world population of over 6000 million. It is less than 1% of world population. Anything that the UK does to reduce total world global warming will have a miniscule effect. It could completely eliminate all of its GHG emissions and still reduce total global warming contributions by only 1.9%, so what is the point of them eliminating any whatsoever, aviation or otherwise? By your logic, the only countries that really need to be reducing their emissions, are the United States and China since they are the only two that contribute more than 6% of total global warming. And even within these two countries, there are only a few things that contribute more than 10% to total global warming. We keep doing this and we end up trying to reduce emissions from less than 20% of the problem. And even massive reductions in that 20% of the problem end up contributing next to nothing to halting global warming. So what is the point then of trying to reduce the emissions of absolutely anything? Applying your logic coherently and consistently to everything means that it is pointless to try to fix global warming since very little is big enough to be worth fixing and any reductions made in those few things won't do much if anything to halt global warming.

-Another thing which Mr. Monbiot and his fellow travelers seem to miss is that even in the UK, emissions from air transport only went up 0.1 Tg from 2000-2003. Even from 1990 to 2004, the air transport sector only increased emissions by 18.6 Tg -- less than 9% of the amount of increase for light-duty trucks in the US.-
The terrorist attacks in New York of 2001 had a strong negative impact on transatlantic air travel between the UK and the US. And it has had an overall negative impact on air travel period in the UK. The continued terrorist threats have damped air traffic demand. This explains why the UK's figures are so low. It also explains why the average from 1990 to 2004 is 1.24 Tg per year while the average for the years 2000-2003 is practically 0 Tg, which means that practically all of that 18.6 Tg increase occurred between 1990 and 2000. This would mean an average yearly increase of almost 1.7 Tg per year. And as I have said before, one can take any combination for comparison to make one figure look either big or small. Considering that over the 1990-2002 period, the UKs total CO2 equivalents emissions decreased 15%, any increase in UK aviation emissions is a big number in comparison. And when you consider that from 1990-2002 the UKs CO2 emissions from total air travel increased 54%, then this number compared to a 15% decrease for all of the UKs total CO2 equivalent emissions is huge. As mentioned before, completely eliminating all UK vehicles, not just airplanes, all UK electrical plants, all UK animal farming, and all other human and economic activities in the UK that contribute to global warming only eliminates 1.9% of total global warming. This is half of world aviation's total current contribution of around 3.8%. So which makes more sense, that the UK make efforts to reduce the total UK global warming contribution, or that it reserve its efforts for global aviation which is twice as big a problem? According to the logic of focusing on bigger problems, the answer is global aviation.

More quotes from -http://pdf.wri.org/navigating_numbers.pdf-:
--We know that some countries have both more responsibility and more capacity than others. These countries must move first if we are to succeed. But a solution will only be found by working to adopt policies that fit the needs of both developed and developing nations. We know that it is possible to decouple our energy use from the emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing the problem. While this certainly offers hope for the future, we know that the longer we wait, the bigger a step will be needed to bring the climate system into balance. We know that some sectors contribute more than others to the global climate problem. Transport and energy production—which are also implicated in issues such as energy security and balance of trade payments—are ones we need to address quickly. But taken too narrowly, action in any one of these sectors alone will not form an adequate basis for international agreements. We know that solving this problem requires a broad, comprehensive effort covering multiple sectors and multiple gases and nations from around the world.--

--Mid-range projections suggest that, in the absence of policy actions, GHG emissions will increase by another 50 percent by 2025 compared to present levels, with emissions in developing countries growing the fastest. Avoiding dangerous climate change will require slowing this global trend in the short term, and reversing it over the next one to two decades.--

--GHG emissions come from almost every human activity. The GHG Flow Diagram (Figure 1.3, p.4) illustrates the contributions that different sectors and activities make to the worldwide annual emissions of GHGs. Because of their large contributions, key policy targets are electricity
and heat, transport, buildings, industry, land-use change and forestry, and agriculture. Future growth is likely to be especially high in the electricity and transport sectors, suggesting that these are particularly important sectors for promoting policy change, investment, and technology innovation.--

--To keep the global average temperature from rising more than 2o C (3.6o F) above pre-industrial levels, worldwide emissions would need to peak around 2015 and subsequently decline by 40 to 45 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.2 Yet, over this century, the global population is expected to increase by 40 to 100 percent and economic growth is projected to climb 10- to 20-fold. Reducing emissions to levels that avoid dangerous human interference with the climate
system, in the face of economic and population growth, will require substantial changes in energy use, including technological innovation plus advances in efficiency, conservation, and alternative energy sources.--

--Emissions growth rates are highest among developing countries, where collectively CO2 emissions
increased by 47 percent over the 1990–2002 period...Emissions in China grew about 50 percent, although preliminary estimates for 2003 and 2004 suggest extraordinary growth in China, about 35 percent over this two-year period alone.12 In absolute terms, this CO2 growth in China accounts for more than half of the worldwide CO2 increase during the 2003–04 period...Carbon dioxide emissions in the developed countries were unchanged over the 1990–2002 period, although this figure masks considerable national disparities. Emissions in the EU declined slightly over this period, led by significant GHG (six gas) reductions in the United Kingdom (-15 percent) and Germany (-19 percent)... In contrast, GHG (six gases) growth was significant in the U.S. (13 percent),Canada (20 percent), and Australia (22 percent)--

--In a majority of countries, economic growth (measured here as increases in GDP per capita) has
the strongest influence on emissions levels, usually putting upward pressure on emissions.--

--The IPCC has developed four “families” of scenarios incorporating different sets of assumptions....The wide range in projections reflects both differing assumptions, for instance with respect to future policy choices, and substantial uncertainties, particularly regarding economic forecasts.--

--Policy changes are needed in the near term to slow and reverse emission trends. ..While
uncertainty in future projections is pervasive, all forecasts examined here suggest very large increases in worldwide GHG emissions over the coming decades..Significant delay in abatement efforts will either require steeper abatement in later years or lead to severe physical impacts from climate change...Policy changes in the near term, on the other hand, could begin to shift investment patterns in a manner that moves toward a lower carbon future, and avoids some of the most adverse impacts...a successful international climate regime will need to encompass all major emitters, including developing countries. In response to their historical responsibility and financial and technological capabilities, most industrialized and transition countries have adopted fixed (i.e., absolute) emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol.--

--In general, there is a relatively strong relationship between emissions per capita and income per capita, with wealthier countries having higher emissions per capita. This is due to higher rates of consumption and more energy-intensive lifestyles--

--International agreements predicated on equal per capita emission entitlements are unlikely to garner consensus. Since the 1980s, a number of proposals have been advanced to address the problem of global climate change by equalizing emissions per capita across countries.23 These approaches have received considerable support from a range of governments and NGO groups...However, it is important to note that the implementation of virtually any national or international climate change policies is likely to have the effect of promoting a convergence in per capita emission levels over time. Considering that over the long term net emissions must fall to zero, convergence is a corollary of climate protection.--

-GHG emissions can only be understood properly within the broader socioeconomic context. Such a context gives a sense not just of emissions, but the degree to which countries have the financial and institutional capacity to address the causes and consequences of climate change.--

--More significantly, levels of economic development shape energy use. As discussed in Chapter
7, many developing countries lack access to electric power and modern transportation. Developing
countries also have lower penetration rates for many energy-consuming appliances, such as refrigerators, televisions, computers, and air conditioners.--

(37% of total GHGs comes from oil consumption and 37% from coal consumption. From a pie graph shown.)
--Future growth in coal consumption is expected to be significant, though not as fast as growth in oil and gas.---

--Although global reserves of oil are widely disputed, the most recent estimates from BP suggest that, at current prices and consumption rates, just over 40 years of reserves remain.--

--International cooperation on climate change may need to pursue one or both of the following options: switch away from coal toward lower-carbon natural gas or renewables, or capture and sequester CO2 emitted from coal plants. Both will require significant technology transfer and high capital investment costs. Some advanced coal technologies, it should be noted, are not conducive to climate protection. Emerging coal-to-liquids technologies, in particular, would enable coal to be consumed as a transport fuel (after liquification), which would increase the carbon intensity of transport.--

´I'm quite satisfied whether it's 2% or 3% or 4% or whatever. All of them are INSIGNIFICANT. You, however, seem obsessed with getting a high level of precision down to the tenth of a pecent, when the issue is whether this is a significant matter in the first place.´
As I have said on numerous occassions now. It is only insignificant to you. When it comes down to it very few human activities contribute more than 4% to total global warming contributions and very few US human activities contribute more than 7%. So ´keeping things in perspective´ and dissecting things down as low as possible, as you conveniently do for air traffic (and attempt to dissect even further down to low-cost airlines), there are only a few activities that contribute more than 4% and not much more than four. For instance, you decided to compare cement in the US to US aviation´s global contribution which made it seem as if aviation was puny in comparison. The global figure for cement´s contribution to global warming is 3.8%, that same as that of global aviation. I guess we should ignore cement production too, right? Let us now start building absolutely every single house out of cement.

´If you paid more attention, you'd see that even including them in the first place is not always standard because of problems with properly allocating numbers for international bunkers (see Section 3.11).´
Which is exactly why I automatically assumed that the international air bunker fuels were NOT included in the US national jet fuel numbers. I assumed what you just said. It standard practice amongst countries to not include them in their national totals.

´They also have scenarios where air transport's share goes DOWN by 2050. Like I said, one can construct any number of scenarios. The issue is plausability.´
The radiative forcing increases from .05 to .16-.56 include the seven scenarios listed. The most optimistic scenario has total radiative forcing increasing by over three times as much as the .05. No scenario predicts decreases in total radiative forcing from air traffic. And their ´base´ scenario - the one you argued before that I should focus on - has total radiative forcing from global air traffic increasing by over a multiple of 4. Yes, any can construct any number of scenarios, including ones that predict air traffic contribution over 50% of total world contribution in 2050, even 100%. Luckily, the experts at the IPCC kept it at the seven most PLAUSIBLE scenarios they could come up with - and the most pessimist of those says it will rise to 15%.

´And, again, if you would actually read these reports,´
I suggest you do the same thing.

´they discuss the uncertainties with long-term modelling, and the whole "science" of radiative forcing, which at this point really isn't well-understood. So you're latching onto the worst-case scenario of something far into the future (which is irrelevant to dealing with a problem which is urgent TODAY), then also banking on uncertain theories about forcing and effects.´
If I were to accept this argument, then the logical conclusion is to adopt the precautionary principle since air traffic´s contribution may grow to 15% or higher, much higher.

´And no matter all that, the numbers still don't amount to a hill of beans.´
15% or higher doesn´t amount to a hill of beans for you. In my opinion, increasing from 3.8 to 15% or over is going in the wrong direction. Our ultimate efforts are to reduce global warming contributions, so the only good numbers are negative numbers - not numbers increasing exponentially.

´And then based on all that speculation, we're supposed to stop flying entirely?´
First, about the speculation. You argue that I should forget about future projections that say it will grow to 15% because all forecasting is highly speculative, then you go ahead and try to convince me that the numbers in the future won´t increase much, and then you tell me to stop speculating with the numbers - as if you aren´t doing the same thing in the opposite direction. Second, you once again are intent on making this issue into a false choice between getting rid of all air traffic and doing nothing at all. There are countless things that can be done between those two extremes. I am not at the extreme of calling for a BAN on air traffic; you, however, are at the extreme of saying we should do absolutely nothing.

´Set up the "Bureau of Determining The Responsibility of Your Travel"?´
No. In the EU, increase aviation fuel taxes from the current level of 0 to something like 25% or more to begin - depending on effect they could be increased or decreased. Use those gererated funds to improve and expand rail infrastructure, passenger shipping infrastructure, promotion of fuel-efficient cars, bus networks, etc. Put the EU aviation industry in the EU CO2 cap and trade system. This will force the airline industry to get serious about dropping their increases in global warming emissions and promote more responsible air travel. Implement fuel-efficiency standards for aircraft engines like those established for automobiles, but make them more stringent. Adopt an individual carbon allowance system that would cap the total amount of GHG emissions the indivual can spew out in a year - this measure by itself, in my opinion, is all that is needed to both keep air traffic emissions down and to promote responsible energy consumption in every other field of human activity. If just this measure were implemented, the other measures would probably be redundant. These are some measures that could be implemented by the EU that I can think of off the top of my head. None of these measure only or all together will cause air traffic to stop in the EU. They would just greatly reduce and possibly stop emissions increases (if the right combination of measures are implemented) in future.

´You really don't realize how ridiculous that whole ball of wax is.´
You really don´t realize how important and easy implementing regulations would be.

´And once again, you write 10,000 words for each one of mine,´
Yes. As I said I am not into simplistic arguments.

´so I'm just going to ignore the rest of what you spewed out´
You do as you wish. I do as I wish. I will not be ignoring what you spew out.

´(as I'm sure it's loaded with just the same insults about me "lying" and whatnot),´
And this is not an insult to me? You interpret my comments however you want, and I interpret your comments however I want.

´as evidenced by your iunnumerate outburst in your final post.´
And this post is not an enumerate outburst on your part? You interpret things however you want, and I will interpret them however I want.

Btu per passenger-mile

Certificated air carriers... 3,587
Transit buses... 4,160

Clearly, all transit buses must stop running immediately.

Btu per passenger-mile, 1970-2003
-------------------------------
Certificated air carriers... -65%
Intercity buses... -44%
Light trucks... -35%
Automobiles... -27%
Intercity Amtrak ... -20%
Commuter rail... -9%
General aviation... 0%
Rail transit ... 32%
Transit buses... 68%

from the IPCC

There are a number of key areas of scientific uncertainty that limit our ability to project aviation impacts on climate and ozone:

* The influence of contrails and aerosols on cirrus clouds
* The role of NOx in changing ozone and methane concentrations
* The ability of aerosols to alter chemical processes
* The transport of atmospheric gases and particles in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere
* The climate response to regional forcings and stratospheric perturbations.

There are a number of key socio-economic and technological issues that need greater definition, including inter alia the following:

* Characterization of demand for commercial aviation services, including airport and airway infrastructure constraints and associated technological change
* Methods to assess external costs and the environmental benefits of regulatory and market-based options
* Assessment of the macroeconomic effects of emission reductions in the aviation industry that might result from mitigation measures
* Technological capabilities and operational practices to reduce emissions leading to the formation of contrails and increased cloudiness
* The understanding of the economic and environmental effects of meeting potential stabilization scenarios (for atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases), including measures to reduce emissions from aviation and also including such issues as the relative environmental impacts of different transportation modes.

Level of scientific understanding = "Very Low"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IPCC_Radiative_Forcings.png

"inherently unpredictable"

Projecting future emissions differs from other types of prediction that scientists make. Many natural systems, such as planetary motions, are governed by well-understood physical natural laws. The ability to predict future behavior and even events can be impressively high. Other physical systems may have well-understood physical laws, but these laws have shown that long-term prediction is impossible (e.g., chaotic systems). A third category includes systems to which the concept of governing laws expressed by mathematical equations is not applicable (Gaffin, 2002). For these systems, the driving forces change over time, sometimes radically, making prediction of specific outcomes a speculative effort. Many social, political, and economic science systems would fall into this category. Future anthropogenic emissions are a function of such socioeconomic systems and, as a result, are inherently unpredictable. Instead, emissions analysts offer “scenarios” that illustrate possible pathways for future emissions.

http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309095069/html/101.html

and

Developing emissions scenarios is tantamount to asking how different societies will produce, transform, and consume energy; extract and use Earth’s resources; and modify the landscape for the next century. The possible answers to this vast and complex question are manifold. Uncertainties arise in all facets of the problem of building long-term scenarios. Moreover, unforeseen events, such as a revolutionary breakthrough in technology or a geopolitical shift, could occur and radically alter future emissions.

http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309095069/html/103.html

Verbosity does not exclude simplistic and/or erroneous thinking. It often serves as a way of masking it, in fact.

'So, they say 3.8%. in 2006. By 2030 (Monbiot's "crucial" date) it will be 4.4%...Heck, cement making even contributes more.'
I commented on this cement thing before. When I previously commented on this, I had said you had compared US air traffic with US cement making. Now that I have reread your post, I see that you were comparing global air traffic contributions to global warming and global cement contributions to global warming. Global warming contributions from cement in 2000 were 3.8%, the same level as air traffic contributions. Heck, cement making contributed the same and will contribute even less than air traffic in future.

Growth in GHGs, US, 1990-2004 (Tg CO2 Eq., % incr. in parentheses)
----Automobiles... 17.5 (2.8%)
----Light Duty Trucks... 210.5 (66.8%)
----Light Vehicles... 228.0 (24.4%)
----U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions, All... 965.4 (15.8%)
----Air transport... 16.0 (7.2%)
'Another thing which Mr. Monbiot and his fellow travelers seem to miss is that even in the UK, emissions from air transport only went up 0.1 Tg from 2000-2003. Even from 1990 to 2004, the air transport sector only increased emissions by 18.6 Tg -- less than 9% of the amount of increase for light-duty trucks in the US.'
I just had a chance to quickly look over the British excel files that you kindly put a link to. Here are the numbers that they give for absolute contributions to GHGs by the UK from 1990-2004 in CO2 equivalents.
- 1990 (20367) -
- 1991 (19285) -
- 1992 (21023) -
- 1993 (22813) -
- 1994 (22753) -
- 1995 (24656) -
- 1996 (26465) -
- 1997 (28044) -
- 1998 (31416) -
- 1999 (33842) -
- 2000 (37347) -
- 2001 (36823) -
- 2002 (36114) -
- 2003 (37355) -
- 2004 (38971) -

Year 2000: 37347. 2003: 37355. (37355 - 37347 = 8) (8/37347=0% increase from 2000-3)
......This 2000-3 period and its increase were the ones you pointed out.

Year 2002: 36114. 2004: 38971. (38971 - 36114 = 2857) (2857/36114=8% increase 2002-4)
......Isn't it so easy to play with the numbers to get the results you want?

Year 1990: 20367. 2004: 38971. (38971 - 20367 = 18604) (18604/20367=91% increase 1990-2004)
......A 91% increase in 15 years. Why didn't you use these figures rather than the US's total absolute increase of 16 Tg from 1990-2004 (compared with the UKs 18.6 Tg over the same period - a country five times smaller) and the US' total percent increase of 7.2% (compared with the UKs 91% increase over the same period)? I guess it was to put things in your view of 'proper perspective' rather than anyone else's. Well, here is a different 'proper' perspective to highlight how easy it is to compare things to make anything look small: The total absolute increase in UK air traffic emissions was 18.6 Tg (and 91% growth) while that of US (car country supremo and 5 times bigger than the UK) automobiles over the same period was 17.5 Tg (2.8% growth). Using your logic of 'concentrate on the big things', the world should concentrate on UK aviation and ignore US automobiles.

UK Cement, lime and plaster 2004 GHG CO2 equivalent 11.9 Tg
.....Heck, UK air traffic emissions in 2004 were over three times bigger than those of UK cement, lime and plaster production. Even more astonishing is that the UKs 18.6 Tg increase is 35% bigger than ALL of the emissions produced by production of cement, lime and plaster in 2004.

Any new links and reports gladly accepted and read.

---Btu per passenger-mile
Certificated air carriers... 3,587
Transit buses... 4,160
Clearly, all transit buses must stop running immediately.---
First, source, link? May I check the report myself please. Second, year? Third, country or global? There are large disparities between countries on the fuel efficiency of their buses. Many third world countries use the second-hand buses given to them from the First world that are over forty years old. Aircrafts lifespan is usually less than thirty years, and the huge increase in air traffic in the past decade with its corresponding purchase of new planes will have brought the global international age of an airplane considerably below that of the global average age of a bus. So comparing global fuel-efficiency standards between new planes and old buses is like comparing the freshness of a freshly picked apple to that of one that has been thrown away two months ago because it had worms. Try comparing in context: what is the BTU per passenger mile of an average bus in Germany to an average plane in Germany? Fourth, what is the total global contribution of bus traffic to global warming in relation to that of air traffic? Lastly, and more importantly, and the only argument that really matters, is that all sectors of society need to reduce their global warming emissions, whether it be buses or airplanes, as I have already mentioned in a previous post where I discussed governments efforts to decrease emissions from their bus fleets. Cities left and right are going out of their way to make their buses more fuel-efficient, to convert them to bio-diesel or ethanol, to make them fuel-cell or electric. National governments impose high fuel taxes which bus companies have to pay. Buses also under other taxes and regulations that try to force them to reduce emissions (in the first world). Local governments (in the first world) are spending good chunks of money to make their buses green. The same kind of efforts need to be directed to all sectors without exceptions. This includes aviation. No freeriders.

----Btu per passenger-mile, 1970-2003
-------------------------------
Certificated air carriers... -65%
Intercity buses... -44%
Light trucks... -35%
Automobiles... -27%
Intercity Amtrak ... -20%
Commuter rail... -9%
General aviation... 0%
Rail transit ... 32%
Transit buses... 68%----
First, source, link? May I please check the source myself to see what it says? Second, as mentioned already, are these some particular countries´ figures or global figures? There are large disparities between countries in the development of their different transport sectors. Third, as already mentioned on many many occasions now, aircraft fuel-efficiency has been improving considerable year after year BUT passenger traffic has been increasing WAY MORE. I have already quoted on several occassions that global air traffic is expected to increase by about 5% a year for the coming decade but fuel consumption is only expected to increase by 3% - why a 2% difference, because of fuel-efficiency improvement. That still means air traffic´s contribution to global warming will increase by more than 3% per year. The only way to STOP such yearly increases is to reduce traffic increases to slightly below increases in fuel-efficiency. So if air traffic fuel efficiency increases at 2% a year, we should be aiming to keep air traffic increase to a level below that, say 1.5% a year. Third, I have already mentioned why comparing global figures for buses and global figures for planes is misleading. Fourth, the rail number increases are related to increases in speed. The faster a train goes, the more fuel it consumes. The reason there are more and more fast trains is to displace transport by less fuel-efficient transport modes such as cars, trucks and airplanes. Try quoting numbers in context: what is the BTU per passenger km of an average German (or Japanese or French or Spanish, etc.) train to the BTU per passenger km of an average German plane? Lastly, and most importantly, and the only argument that really matters, all sectors need to be pushed to increase fuel-efficiency. This should be done through a combination of regulations and policies, which is already the case in many developed countries for almost all transport sectors. Aviation is a notable and glaring exception to this overall trend. They have no special right to be treated differently. No exceptions. No freeriders.

---There are a number of key areas of scientific uncertainty that limit our ability to project aviation impacts on climate and ozone:
* The influence of contrails and aerosols on cirrus clouds
* The role of NOx in changing ozone and methane concentrations
* The ability of aerosols to alter chemical processes
* The transport of atmospheric gases and particles in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere
* The climate response to regional forcings and stratospheric perturbations.---
From the IPCC:
-'Aircraft emissions of NOx are more effective at producing ozone in the upper troposphere than an equivalent amount of emission at the surface. Also increases in ozone in the upper troposphere are more effective at increasing radiative forcing than increases at lower altitudes.'
-'Contrails tend to warm the Earth’s surface, similar to thin high clouds. The contrail cover
is projected to grow to 0.5% by 2050 in the reference scenario (Fa1), at a rate which is faster than the rate of growth in aviation fuel consumption.
-'Extensive cirrus clouds have been observed to develop after the formation of persistent contrails.......On average an increase in cirrus cloud cover tends to warm the surface of the Earth. An estimate for aircraft induced cirrus cover for the late 1990s ranges from 0 to 0.2% of the surface of the Earth. For the Fa1 scenario, this may possibly increase by a factor of 4 (0 to 0.8%) by 2050;'
-'Because aerosols influence the formation of clouds, the accumulation of aerosols from aircraft may play a role in enhanced cloud formation and change the radiative properties
of clouds.'

--Verbosity does not exclude simplistic and/or erroneous thinking. It often serves as a way of masking it, in fact.--
Quite true. Just as two sentence arguments that simplisticly reduce complex issues also often serve as a way of masking simplistic and erroneous thinking. And I see that your posts are getting longer and longer and more detailed and nuanced. Which is the way it should be if you want a serious discussion about a serious subject.

---There are a number of key socio-economic and technological issues that need greater definition, including inter alia the following:

* Characterization of demand for commercial aviation services, including airport and airway infrastructure constraints and associated technological change
* Methods to assess external costs and the environmental benefits of regulatory and market-based options
* Assessment of the macroeconomic effects of emission reductions in the aviation industry that might result from mitigation measures
* Technological capabilities and operational practices to reduce emissions leading to the formation of contrails and increased cloudiness
* The understanding of the economic and environmental effects of meeting potential stabilization scenarios (for atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases), including measures to reduce emissions from aviation and also including such issues as the relative environmental impacts of different transportation modes.---
All these things are true. And I support all of them. But all of these things are equally true to every other economic sector in society that is contributing to global warming. You have argued over and over that we should focus on coal-electricty and ground transport. Do you think these same kind of issues do NOT apply to them? That similar serious analyses do NOT need to be done for these sectors? Yes, they do. Nevertheless, we don´t use that fact as an argument for NOT doing anything to regulate car emissions or coal power plant emissions. All sectors need careful analysis, but analyses does not exclude action. Coherent and consistent application of your implied argument means society does nothing to regulate any emissions from any sector. And this argument is no different than the one used for decades by the tobacco industry to block legislation and the oil industry now to try and confuse environmentalists.

´Level of scientific understanding = "Very Low"´
Is it not also true to say that the general scientific understanding of global warming as a whole over the past centuries, the present and into the future is not fully understood and incomplete? Is that an argument for doing nothing? Because if it is, then this argument has been lost to the world - understanding of global warming is fuzzy but we know it is real and we know it will increase and we bend over backward here at TH and all over the world try to stop it. As I said, this ´incomplete understanding, lets do nothing´ argument has been used over and over by industry. The tobacco industry used it. The oil industry uses it. And now the low-cost airlines are using it. Lastly, that same argument can be used by environmentalists to demand automatic implementation of the precautionary principle - if we don´t know what is going to happen, then don´t use it (airplanes).

---Projecting future emissions differs from other types of prediction that scientists make. Many natural systems, such as planetary motions, are governed by well-understood physical natural laws. The ability to predict future behavior and even events can be impressively high. Other physical systems may have well-understood physical laws, but these laws have shown that long-term prediction is impossible (e.g., chaotic systems). A third category includes systems to which the concept of governing laws expressed by mathematical equations is not applicable (Gaffin, 2002). For these systems, the driving forces change over time, sometimes radically, making prediction of specific outcomes a speculative effort. Many social, political, and economic science systems would fall into this category. Future anthropogenic emissions are a function of such socioeconomic systems and, as a result, are inherently unpredictable. Instead, emissions analysts offer “scenarios” that illustrate possible pathways for future emissions.---
We are no longer arguing about the need to regulated air traffic. Now we are arguing about whether or not global warming is real and whether it is anything to worry about. Considering the fact that you previously mentioned that you do believe it to be real and dangerous and considering the fact that TreeHuggers have already made up their mind on this issue, for me to argue why it is real and dangerous does nothing. I will let the readers decide for themselves whether they accept the argument that global warming may not be real and may not be dangerous.

---Developing emissions scenarios is tantamount to asking how different societies will produce, transform, and consume energy; extract and use Earth’s resources; and modify the landscape for the next century. The possible answers to this vast and complex question are manifold. Uncertainties arise in all facets of the problem of building long-term scenarios. Moreover, unforeseen events, such as a revolutionary breakthrough in technology or a geopolitical shift, could occur and radically alter future emissions.---
As I said, this is an argument that puts into question that global warming exists and puts into question whether it worth worrying about. This argument is not substantially different from the one made by the oil industry. I will not argue this as TreeHuggers can determine for themselves whether they think global warming is real and dangerous.

One gets weary being called a liar repeatedly.

One also grows weary hearing things like "no freeriders" amd "everything deserves the same attention". If you were taking a test that had two questions, with the first question accounting for 98.5% of your grade and the second one 1.5% of your grade, would you fail the test if you skipped the second question entirely and answered the first question successfully? No, you'd get a fantastic grade.

No one cares how you get the fantastic grade. Oh, and assume question #2 is essentially impossible to solve, since Monbiot is proposing solutions which simply will never happen, but also tells us the problem can't be solved otherwise.

I also knew the numbers for bus transit would upset you, since they fly directly in the face of yours and Monbiot's hysterics. Why is it that a shared mode which is getting less efficient over time, and is less efficient than aviation, which has gotten radically more efficient over time -- why should that mode get a "free ride"? Oh, because it's transit, and everyone knows "transit=good, planes=evil". And that's just energy intensity. Diesel puts out more CO2 per unit of energy than jet fuel, so the difference is even greater.

You either apply objective standards or you don't. Instead, you're just lying back and resting on boilerplate eco/lefty notions about what's good and what's bad.

Fourth, what is the total global contribution of bus traffic to global warming in relation to that of air traffic?

WAIT! I thought that wasn't supposed to matter. NO FREERIDERS, right? No problem too small to ignore!

Honestly, I know this issue is terribly crucial to you and you think that you'll beat me with a flood of words and repeated insults (eg, calling me a liar, saying I'm being irresponsible, etc). I'm none of those things, and to top it off, I know I'm right on this issue and time will prove me right as well.

So, as I said, if you feel like going on and on, have at it, but you're not going to sway me to your side, but rather make me think less and less of it.

With every post I get labeled a liar, simplistic, and now I'm supposedly shilling for the oil industry and denying global warming exists.

Not sure what happened to a comment I made earlier today, but I'm just wondering where your consistency is with respect to transit. It's a lot less efficient per person than commercial aviation is, yet somehow transit is "good" and airplanes are "evil incarnate". Then you also question how much transit makes up total emissions, after repeatedly giving me the "no freeriders" and "everything deserves equal attention" speech. Now all of a sudden if something isn't a big part of the picture, it doesn't deserve scrutiny.

You say you're against simplistic arguments, but really all I'm seeing are elaborate rationalizations for boilerplate opinions from a good chunk of the environmentalist crowd that doesn't require any thinking at all (like the transit=good, planes=bad thing).

You're not going to change my mind, and I'm not going to change yours. Perhaps we should stop wasting Treehugger's bandwidth and call it a day.

'Scenarios of human-caused emissions are CENTRAL to policy analysis of climate change because they provide future baseline trends for emissions that POLICY seeks to ALTER. The major driving forces of future emissions, such as demographic patterns, economic development, and environmental conditions, also underpin the assessment of vulnerability and development of adaptation strategies........Future anthropogenic emissions are a function of such SOCIOECONOMIC systems and, as a result, are inherently unpredictable. Instead, emissions analysts offer “scenarios” that illustrate POSSIBLE pathways for future emissions.....In developing scenarios, it has been standard practice to consider futures with a range of policy interventions. On one end of the spectrum are noninterventionist emissions scenarios, which have been variously named business as usual, normative, reference, and no climate policy, among other terms.' http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309095069/html/117.html
This applies to all sectors, including air traffic. The 7 possible scenarios that have been developed by the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) - an organization set up over a decade ago by the international community for the express purpose of trying to figure out what is going on with global warming, what will probably happen, and what can be done to solve the problem - for air traffic show that it will grow from 3.5% (.05 Wn-2) of total global warming in 1992 to a possible 'baseline' scenario of 5% of total global warming contribution (.20 Wn-2) in 2050 with the highest scenario predicting a possible growth to 15% of total global warming contribution (.56Wn-2) in 2050. The 5% figure assumes regulations and policies being implemented to try to control air traffic growth. The 15% scenario assumes no regulations or policies being implemented. So if we do nothing, it is more logical to expect the 15% to come to pass than the 5%. And if we coherently and unbiasedly apply your argument that we should ignore these scenario predictions because future emissions are 'inherently unpredictable', then it is equally valid to say that air traffic's contribution to global warming in 2050 can be either 1% or 99%. And if it can end up being any number on the spectrum from 0 to 100, then the precautinory principle applies and needs to be implemented. If we are to take your argument to its logical extreme, aircraft emissions may grow to any number - it could grow from .05 Wn-2 to 5.0 Wn-2 or to 50 Wn-2 or to 500 Wn-2 or higher or higher or higher. Any number is possible because any attempt at prediction is 'inherently unpredictable' and therefore any prediction saying that it WON'T go to 500Wn-2 is also 'inherently unpredictable' and untrustworthy - to be ignored. If we accepted this argument and took it to its logical extreme, not only would the precautionary principle have to be applied but it would have to be applied in its most extreme form - the implementation of bans on air traffic. I, for one, do not accept the implied argument that because global warming predictions are 'inherently unpredictable' that we should ignore the scenario predictions calculated by the IPCC. That is their job. To give us an idea of how things will likely develop. We use scenario predictions all the time in all areas of economic, political, diplomatic, military, social, etc. policy implementation. Ask Bernanke, ask the Pentagon, ask the State Dept., ask any company, or NGO, or public institution. Ask any individual who has mortgage payments to make.

Mr. Anonymous, these are the vague figures you quoted:

---Certificated air carriers... 3,587
Transit buses... 4,160---

Here are some other figures:
US 2002 (BTU per passenger-mile):
Commercial air - 3,703
Bus, intercity - 932
http://cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb24/Edition24_Chapter02.pdf

It turns out that when you do an appropriate comparison between buses and planes, buses are more efficient. Four times more efficient.

---One also grows weary hearing things like "no freeriders" amd "everything deserves the same attention".---
As one grows weary of hearing that certain sectors have some special right to be freeriders. There are no exceptions, no matter how special that sector thinks itself.

--If you were taking a test that had two questions, with the first question accounting for 98.5% of your grade and the second one 1.5% of your grade, would you fail the test if you skipped the second question entirely and answered the first question successfully? No, you'd get a fantastic grade.---
Question #1: Air traffic 3.8% of the grade.
Question #2: Rail, ship, other 2.3%.
Question #3: Road 9.9%
4: Residential energy 9.9
5: Commercial energy 5.4
6: Other Fuel use 9
7: Iron, steel 3.2%
8: aluminum, non ferrous 1.4
9: machinery 1
10: pulp,paper,printing 1
11: Food, tobacco 1
12: Chemicals 4.8
13: Cement 3.8
14: other 5
15: Fugitive Emissions 3.9%
16: T&D losses 1.9
17: Coal mining 1.4%
18: Oil/Gas extraction-refining-processing 6.3%
19: Deforestation 18.3
20: Harvest/management 2.5%
21: Agriculture Energy Use 1.4%
22: Soils 6%
23: Livestock-manure 5.1%
24: Rice 1.5%
25: Other .9%)
26: Landfills 2%
27: Wastewater-other 1.6

If we answer deforestation correctly, we may get up to 18.3% of the grade (don´t hold your fingers). Road transport, maybe up to 9.9 (don´t hold your fingers), and residential energy use, maybe up to 9.9 (don´t hold your fingers because you are not going to stop typing on your energy-using computer). Total of the grade, maybe up to 38%, but don´t count on it because we are not going to completely eliminate either road transport, residential energy use, nor deforestation. Let us say we are lucky and get half, we are at 19%. At 19 we fail. Even at 38 we fail. Global warming wins. Correct test taking method: try to get ALL the answers right.

--assume question #2 is essentially impossible to solve--
I don´t assume this. And neither do you according to your past arguments. You have mentioned increasing fuel efficiency in the past. Planes are getting more fuel-efficient, but air traffic is growing much faster. So we need to reduce air traffic increases to levels that can be accomodated by fuel-efficiency gains. And there are a large number of regulations and policies that can be implemented to achieve this. Easy pickings kind of stuff. Low-hanging fruit, as you like to say.

--since Monbiot is proposing solutions which simply will never happen, but also tells us the problem can't be solved otherwise--
I am not Monbiot, and you are not an employee of Mr. OLeary, correct? So stick to what I have been arguing, and I´ll stick to what you have been arguing.

--I also knew the numbers for bus transit would upset you, since they fly directly in the face of yours and Monbiot's hysterics.--
I posted some appropriate numbers. They show that intercity buses are four times more fuel efficient than airplanes in the US. I am still wondering where you got the numbers and why you decided to put such an inappropriate comparison.

--Why is it that a shared mode which is getting less efficient over time, and is less efficient than aviation, which has gotten radically more efficient over time -- why should that mode get a "free ride"?--
First, buses are four times more efficient than airplanes. I am still wondering where you got your numbers and why you used such an inappropriate comparison. Second, buses do not get a freeride and haven´t been getting a free ride. In my home city of Madrid, they are making efforts to convert buses to other forms of renewable fuels and to make them more fuel-efficient, as in most other cities of the developed world. Buses aren´t getting special treatment, as opposed to airlines which are.

--Oh, because it's transit, and everyone knows "transit=good, planes=evil".--
So you were inappropriately comparing transit buses with long-distance air traffic. Don´t you think it more appropriate to compare airplanes with long-distance intercity buses, which are four times more efficient than airplanes? After all, when my wife drives our Yaris in the city with all the stopping and starting, our average MPG shoots straight up - even though it is the same car! Oh, and I am not calling planes evil. I am simply saying that we need to implement policies and regulations to limit air traffic GROWTH to manageable levels.

--And that's just energy intensity. Diesel puts out more CO2 per unit of energy than jet fuel, so the difference is even greater.--
Considering how much effort cities throughout Europe are putting into converting their transit buses to renewable energies, I wonder how appropriate your diesel statement is.

´You either apply objective standards or you don't.´
I am. Everyone gets treated the same. It is not fair to regulate intercity buses and transit buses and not airplanes as is currently the case. Especially considering that airplanes are four times more fuel-intensive than comparable bus traffic.

---Instead, you're just lying back and resting on boilerplate eco/lefty notions about what's good and what's bad.---
Funny you make such a statement in an environmentalist website such as Treehugger. You couldn´t pick a worst site to make such an inappropriate statement. And, no, no one at Treehugger is leaning on ´boilerplate eco-lefty notions´ of anything. However, you do seem to be leaning on ´boilerplate low cost airline-business as usual notions.´

--WAIT! I thought that wasn't supposed to matter. NO FREERIDERS, right? No problem too small to ignore!--
You are right. I retract that sentence. It is irrelevant. No freeriders. No exceptions.

--Honestly, I know this issue is terribly crucial to you--
Just as for some reason it is terrible crucial for you to ensure that no regulations and policies are implemented to limit air traffic growth.

--and you think that you'll beat me with a flood of words and repeated insults--
You too seem to think that you´ll beat me with a flood of words and repeated insults.

--(eg, calling me a liar, saying I'm being irresponsible, etc).--
(eg, calling me a liar, and hysterial, zeolout, incapable of making appropriate comparison, etc)

--I'm none of those things,--
I´m none of those things.

--and to top it off, I know I'm right on this issue and time will prove me right as well.--
And to top it off, I know I´m right on this issue and time will prove me right as well. Regulations and policies will be implemented to reduce air traffic growth.

--So, as I said, if you feel like going on and on, have at it,--
So, as I said, if you feel like going on and on, have at it.

--but you're not going to sway me to your side--
I´m not trying to sway you to my side, just like I am not really so dull as to think you are trying to sway me to your side. I am trying to make sure that Treehuggers understand that regulations and policies will be necessary to limit growth in air traffic emissions. Just like you are trying to make sure Treehuggers don´t come to that conclusion.

--but rather make me think less and less of it.--
You do as you wish. I do as I wish. I will not be ignoring the arguments you make here.

--With every post I get labeled a liar, simplistic, and now I'm supposedly shilling for the oil industry and denying global warming exists.--
With every post I get labeled a liar, simplistic, and leading the world to global warming doom through incapacity to see ´the big picture.´

--Not sure what happened to a comment I made earlier today, but I'm just wondering where your consistency is with respect to transit.--
Making an appropriate comparison between flying between cities and going by bus between cities, buses are four times more efficient. If we had transit airplanes that flew people from one end of town to another end of town and stopped at dozens of pick up-drop off points throughout the city inbetween, then transit buses would still be four times or more efficient than transit planes.

--It's a lot less efficient per person than commercial aviation is,--
Comparable buses are four times more efficient.

--yet somehow transit is "good" and airplanes are "evil incarnate".--
Neither. What is bad is uncontrolled increases in global air traffic GROWTH, which needs to be limited to within a level that can be accomodated by increases in aviation fuel efficiency gains.

--Then you also question how much transit makes up total emissions,--
No, I asked for intercity buses. Not in city buses.

--after repeatedly giving me the "no freeriders" and "everything deserves equal attention" speech.--
I have already said that transit buses are being extremely regulated (in the EU at least) as opposed to airlines which are not.

--Now all of a sudden if something isn't a big part of the picture, it doesn't deserve scrutiny.--
It does, and it is getting proper scrutiny as opposed to airplanes, which are not.

--You're not going to change my mind, and I'm not going to change yours. Perhaps we should stop wasting Treehugger's bandwidth and call it a day.--
You are right. We are not going to change each other´s minds. But that was obvious a long time ago. I am trying to make sure that other people understand that regulations to limit air traffic growth will be needed. So they should expect them rather than think they are unneeded.

You guys might want to have a look at this.

" I am trying to make sure that other people understand that regulations to limit air traffic growth will be needed. So they should expect them rather than think they are unneeded."

Unfortunately, you're wrong, and consequently, you're going to be very disappointed when air transport keeps on growing instead of being severely curtailed. In the meantime, technologies are going to emerge which are better than air transport, supplanting much of it (but not eliminating it) during the coming century.

This is going to happen because of the strong motivation to improve the world (not just environmentally, but in terms of ease, comfort, and safety) will always beat out the control desires of people who are always obsessed with doomsday notions.

So you were inappropriately comparing transit buses with long-distance air traffic. Don´t you think it more appropriate to compare airplanes with long-distance intercity buses, which are four times more efficient than airplanes? After all, when my wife drives our Yaris in the city with all the stopping and starting, our average MPG shoots straight up - even though it is the same car!

The Prius gets better city mileage than highway mileage.

I know you love just fighting over every little thing, but the reason I mentioned the energy efficiency of transit buses versus commercial aviation is because it's about wastefulness, yes? About "no freeriders", yes? Yet, as I predicted, the boilerplate "transit=good, planes=bad" notion doesn't allow you to be objective about it -- instead grasping at other things.

Good that you mentioned Greyhound, too -- since it's a great example of efficiency, because it's a for-profit company which is accountable for fuel costs and has a strong incentive to fill up their vehicles with passengers, just like commercial aviation does -- which public transit does not. Oh my God - I thought capitalism was evil (acc'd to Monbiot et al), yet here the modes which increase in efficiency the most over time are those in which capitalism is forcing the changes.

And if you are actually proposing that Greyhound is a substitute for an airplane, then you obviously have not taken Greyhound over a substantial distance.

To put this concern in context, read National Geographic's "China Rising," and then add India's population. Is the writer willing to take on these populations' desire for a better life?

The reason planes are sometimes cheaper than trains is that they are indirectly subsidised by local councils wanting the to fill their local hotels ect. Most tree huggers would want to subsidise everything from public transport to farming and housing with the money coming from taxation and at the sametime return industry to days of the handloom. Sort the subsidy issues out and everything else will find its own economic price and the most fuel efficient will be the cheapest

Most tree huggers would want to subsidise everything from public transport to farming and housing with the money coming from taxation and at the sametime return industry to days of the handloom.

What's it like in Bizarro World?

We just wanted to let people that read treehugger in the US that they will now be able to read George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning. South End Press is publishing the US edition of HEAT.

It's not too late, but there is no time to waste to stop the planet from burning. Read this important and challenging book and then take action.