I declined almost $10,000 to teach for an Ivy League U. for a week in Shanghai

[seattlecyclone]

Good for you, making decisions in keeping with your goals and values.

I am curious how you calculated the carbon emissions for that flight.

A search on Kayak for an arbitrary date about a month from now shows the cheapest flight from JFK-PVG is operated by China Eastern Airlines, which uses a Boeing 777-300ER for that flight. That aircraft has a fuel capacity of 47,890 gallons. Per the US Energy Information Administration, jet fuel releases 9.57 kg of CO2 per gallon burned. That means if the plane fills its tanks completely before the flight and burns every drop of fuel, the flight will release a total of 458.3 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each way.

The aircraft as configured for China Eastern holds 316 passengers, including six first-class seats and 52 in business class. If you apportion the CO2 equally across each passenger regardless of seat size and assume the CO2 is burned only for the benefit of the passengers (no other cargo being transported), that's 1.45 metric tons each way, or 2.9 for a round trip. Knock that number down a bit for coach travel, assume a bit of cargo on the plane, and assume the plane isn't burning every drop of fuel in a full tank, and you probably get the actual emissions pretty darn close to your two-ton annual budget.

2.0 (or even 2.9) is still quite a lot, but it's significantly less than 4.9.

[zombiehunter]

Good for you, making decisions in keeping with your goals and values.

I am curious how you calculated the carbon emissions for that flight.

A search on Kayak for an arbitrary date about a month from now shows the cheapest flight from JFK-PVG is operated by China Eastern Airlines, which uses a Boeing 777-300ER for that flight. That aircraft has a fuel capacity of 47,890 gallons. Per the US Energy Information Administration, jet fuel releases 9.57 kg of CO2 per gallon burned. That means if the plane fills its tanks completely before the flight and burns every drop of fuel, the flight will release a total of 458.3 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each way.

The aircraft as configured for China Eastern holds 316 passengers, including six first-class seats and 52 in business class. If you apportion the CO2 equally across each passenger regardless of seat size and assume the CO2 is burned only for the benefit of the passengers (no other cargo being transported), that's 1.45 metric tons each way, or 2.9 for a round trip. Knock that number down a bit for coach travel, assume a bit of cargo on the plane, and assume the plane isn't burning every drop of fuel in a full tank, and you probably get the actual emissions pretty darn close to your two-ton annual budget.

2.0 (or even 2.9) is still quite a lot, but it's significantly less than 4.9.

There is a 'multiplier' effect due to the altitude of the emissions.  See the radiative forcing feature on this calculator:  http://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx?tab=3.  This calc suggests 3.6 including the multiplier in economy for JFK-PVG direct round trip. 
 

[Pigeon]

.     There's a reason why the iPhone factory in China has netting around it -- to reduce the suicide rate among workers.  That's the personal suffering.  And all those rare metals that make up the core of iPhone, mined and shipped for assembly and then shipped for retail -- that's the environmental destruction.  Practically any commercial good shares one or both of these harms. 

The vast majority of workers in the iPhone or other sweatshops in China are young migrant women who have come from the countryside. While their working conditions are deplorable, let's not kid ourselves. Young Chinese widely regard these jobs as infinitely better than the drudgery and poverty of farming in the countryside.

Young rural Chinese women kill themselves at a staggering rate-- four to five times higher than women living in urban areas.

People who live in the poverty of undeveloped areas might disagree that having a poorly paid (by western standards) factory job is bad thing. I think we tend to romanticize life in undeveloped locations and underestimate just how hard it is to live at a subsistence level.

That's an interesting take on it -- that by buying my iPhone which is assembled in China with rare metals and then shipped around the world to me, I'm actually improving the life of the workers who assemble it because the factory worker suicide rate is lower than the non-factory worker suicide rate?  That seems plausible.  A factory assembly job would probably lift a rural farm worker out of extreme poverty. 

So my consumption is good because it lifts the extremely poor worker out of poverty (at the expense of environmental quality).  That's got to be one of the most anti-Mustichian arguments I've read around here.  But if limited strictly to the context of the poverty of the factory worker (assuming that worker would not be able to work in some less awful job, a reasonable assumption), perhaps it's true?

Taking this argument farther, by refraining from consumption/being Mustachian, i'm actually preventing a transfer of wealth from myself to the more impoverished.  Which isn't very progressive. 

However, you've ignored the environmental degradation associated with the mining, the transportation costs, the plastic fabrication pollution, the toxic disposal issues, etc.  Ultimately, the environmental argument wins out as the greater concern, because the transfer of wealth from myself to the impoverished is fleeting, when considered against the environmental "debt" created for future generations.

I wasn't addressing the environmental consequences, which may certainly be a factor.

I'm just pointing out that your smug self-righteousness about alleviating "a trail of personal suffering" regarding factory laborers isn't particularly accurate.

[The Money Monk]

[
All in all, The chance that his decision to not fly will happen to actually reduce the total number of international flights is so minuscule it's actually hilarious.

Time machine:  "All in all, the chance that his decision not to purchase a human slave on the auction block will happen to actually reduce the total number of human slaves is so minuscule that it's actually hilarious."

Individual participation is unlikely to have market-moving effect, that's true, especially considered in isolation.  But eventually, enough people figure out which action is moral and which action is immoral, and societies and behaviors change -- in some cases by force of law.  E.g. emancipation or carbon tax. 

But you would still certainly agree that not purchasing the slave is the moral choice -- even though that decision not to purchase is unlikely to end the slave trade -- and that taking an immoral action simply because "the plane will fly anyway / someone else will fill that seat / someone else will purchase that slave" still doesn't make it moral, right?

Not a good argument. Is the original poster, you, or anyone else in this thread, arguing that creating any level of pollution at all is "immoral'?

Slavery is something that is unacceptable in any amount. It is something that is pretty universally agreed to be wrong to participate in, regardless of whether your participation has an impact on the overall practice or not. "Pollution" isn't the same. Airplanes aren't immoral. We aren't talking about whether the original poster should create some pollution - We know he is, we all are. So the issue then just becomes one of where people set their arbitrary limits of what AMOUNT they feel is acceptable.

So since we are talking about how MUCH he creates (not whether he does it at all) then the fact that his decision will not actually reduce the flights is absolutely relevant, and important.

He could take this flight and still work to reduce pollution, use of planes, or whatever, and not even be a hypocrite. Unless he is going to pretend that flying is "worse" than other types of polluting activities, even in situations where the marginal impact isn't.

[The Money Monk]

All in all, The chance that his decision to not fly individual vote will happen to actually reduce the total number of international flights affect the outcome of an election is so minuscule it's actually hilarious.

And that, my friends, is why voter turnout is abysmal in the US.

 No its not. Turnout is abysmal because people just don't care. Millions of people can't even name the VP - they rationalize their inaction by saying votes don't matter, but that is usually just an excuse.

But regardless, the voting thing is a good example of what I am saying. Taking all the 'social responsibility' or 'moral' arguments out of it, it is absolutely true that any one person's individual vote in the presidential election did not make a difference.

Yes if lots of people get discouraged by this fact and stay home, then results can be affected. But that doesn't change that fact that if you were to have removed a single persons vote it would not have made a difference in the outcome.

The same is true about the OP flying to china. There is no point in talking about what happens if "everybody" does something. Who cares? I'm talking about the OP - and it is a fact that his decision to not fly is incredibly unlikely to make a significant difference in the number of flights and plane pollution.

[JoshuaSpodek]

To the people who say my actions make no difference -- what I believe MMM would call complainypants -- people have already written me that they've reduced flying as a result of my actions.

Even if their arguments that lowering demand didn't lower demand held water, I don't know why they are arguing against straw men.

As they know, I didn't just avoid one round trip flight. I wrote a piece on Inc. and copied it here. As they could easily find out, I wrote other relevant pieces on Inc. as well as my blog, and my podcast to come. I expect other people will change their flying and other polluting habits as a result of the collective actions of the community of people, not just me, reducing their consumption.

Even if I didn't publicize my experience, I lived a better life staying home, as I wrote, so even if I had no effect, I improved my life by living by my values. As I wrote, along with MMM, I chose freedom and so on.

I chose personal responsibility. If I bought a ticket, it would be my responsibility for paying for the pollution. If you want to argue against personal responsibility, good luck.

When I ask myself why people would argue against personal responsibility, to say that lowering demand didn't lower demand, to ignore relevant information such as that I'm doing more than just avoiding flying, Occam's razor tells me that these people know that buying tickets makes them responsible for things they are uncomfortable being responsible for, so they rationalize their choices. Of course, I could be wrong and they know their motivations better than I do.

Other pieces on Inc., for reference:
What a Year Without Flying Taught Me About Responsibility, Empathy, and Community
A Millennial Making America Great
Why Do We Dream Big About Everything Except Changing Our Behavior to Pollute Less?
Leadership, Paris, the Environment, and You: Are You Leading?
Scientists Find Most Trashed Spot on Earth: A Once-Pristine Paradise

[The Money Monk]

All in all, The chance that his decision to not fly individual vote will happen to actually reduce the total number of international flights affect the outcome of an election is so minuscule it's actually hilarious.

And that, my friends, is why voter turnout is abysmal in the US.

 No its not. Turnout is abysmal because people just don't care. Millions of people can't even name the VP - they rationalize their inaction by saying votes don't matter, but that is usually just an excuse.

But regardless, the voting thing is a good example of what I am saying. Taking all the 'social responsibility' or 'moral' arguments out of it, it is absolutely true that any one person's individual vote in the presidential election did not make a difference.

Yes if lots of people get discouraged by this fact and stay home, then results can be affected. But that doesn't change that fact that if you were to have removed a single persons vote it would not have made a difference in the outcome.

Does that mean that you don't vote, because the hour you spend at the polling place is better spent elsewhere and your vote doesn't matter?  Of the people I know who don't vote, the vast majority genuinely believe that their time is better spent elsewhere, because their vote doesn't matter (I'm aware that's anecdote, not data).  Regardless of weather that is representative, however, my intention was that just because an individual's decision to do or not do something (vote, fly, whatever) is unlikely to change the outcome, doesn't mean they shouldn't make that decision according to their values.  I know that my vote is functionally useless, but I still vote.  I'm sure many others agree, despite knowing the minuscule odds of mattering.

I specifically said ASIDE from social responsibility or moral arguments, so why are you talking about people's values? Can you just not help yourself?

The same is true about the OP flying to china. There is no point in talking about what happens if "everybody" does something. Who cares? I'm talking about the OP - and it is a fact that his decision to not fly is incredibly unlikely to make a significant difference in the number of flights and plane pollution.

By that logic, no one should bother "voting with their dollars" on any issue whatsoever.  No one should opt into green energy initiatives at their utility company, because one adopter more or less won't make a difference.  No one should bother donating to their local NPR radio station, because their $50 is negligible in the station's budget.  No one should vote in national elections, because it's not worth their time.


Are you really this bad at understanding argumentative reasoning, or are you just messing with me?  Stop trying to make over-arching philosophical statements from simple facts. I never made a value statement about good or bad, or what should be done, or what is "worth" people's time - I simply stated facts - that the OP was likely exaggerating the pollution that is reduced by not taking the flight. What people "bother" to do with that information is a separate issue.

1. $50 is negligible in a radio stations budget.
2. If large numbers of people decline to donate because they are affected by that FACT, then the station won't get enough money.

You do understand that both of these things can be simultaneously true, right? There is no point in bringing up what would happen if everybody does something. That doesn't make #1 not true.


It's not about individuals making a difference.  It's about society as a whole making a difference through the sum of small actions.  Yes, any individual action makes no significant difference.  That doesn't mean our decisions don't matter.


I never said it doesn't matter. Seriously, work on your reading comprehension. I said it doesn't make as big of an impact as he thinks. Somebody who creates way less pollution than the average person doesn't need to fret about once-in-a-decade (for work) hopping on a flight that is very likely going to take place anyway.

[The Money Monk]

To the people who say my actions make no difference -- what I believe MMM would call complainypants -- people have already written me that they've reduced flying as a result of my actions.

Who said your actions make NO difference?

Even if their arguments that lowering demand didn't lower demand held water, I don't know why they are arguing against straw men.

First of all, that's not how strawman is used. Second, I've already explained to you why your individual decision to not take this job is unlikely to affect the number of flights happening. You didn't address my points at all, just kept repeating the same things.

I am not using that to argue for or against you taking the flight. I do not care at all what you do. I was just pointing out that the marginal impact is less than you seemed to think. That doesn't mean you should take the flight, or change anything. I DON"T CARE. Why are you so triggered by me simply pointing it out?

As they know, I didn't just avoid one round trip flight. I wrote a piece on Inc. and copied it here. As they could easily find out, I wrote other relevant pieces on Inc. as well as my blog, and my podcast to come. I expect other people will change their flying and other polluting habits as a result of the collective actions of the community of people, not just me, reducing their consumption.

Good for you. Still has nothing to do with my point.

Even if I didn't publicize my experience, I lived a better life staying home, as I wrote, so even if I had no effect, I improved my life by living by my values. As I wrote, along with MMM, I chose freedom and so on.

Again, great. I'm glad you are happy with your life. It is irrelevant to my point.

I chose personal responsibility. If I bought a ticket, it would be my responsibility for paying for the pollution. If you want to argue against personal responsibility, good luck.

See, now THAT is a strawman. Attacking an argument I never made. Feel free to show me where I argued against personal responsibility. 
How you feel about polluting or flying has nothing to do with what the ACTUAL impact of that action is. If you think ANY amount of environmental impact from flying is wrong and to be avoided at all costs, that's fine - live your life the way you want, I DON"T CARE. But you don't have to be dishonest about the actual impact an action will likely have to do so, or act like I am attacking your lifestyle and mother gaia by pointing out that I think you overestimated it.

When I ask myself why people would argue against personal responsibility, to say that lowering demand didn't lower demand, to ignore relevant information such as that I'm doing more than just avoiding flying, Occam's razor tells me that these people know that buying tickets makes them responsible for things they are uncomfortable being responsible for, so they rationalize their choices. Of course, I could be wrong and they know their motivations better than I do.


Other pieces on Inc., for reference:
What a Year Without Flying Taught Me About Responsibility, Empathy, and Community
A Millennial Making America Great
Why Do We Dream Big About Everything Except Changing Our Behavior to Pollute Less?
Leadership, Paris, the Environment, and You: Are You Leading?
Scientists Find Most Trashed Spot on Earth: A Once-Pristine Paradise


 Look, you're obviously super proud of your non-flying lifestyle, and it is a big part of your self identity. I assumed you made this thread to get some sort of feedback, not just to brag. I was wrong. It appears that by even suggesting that in this particular situation it wouldn't have caused much of an additional environmental impact, I have triggered you badly. So just forget it. You don't need my permission to not fly. Flying is the worst thing ever, no matter what the marginal impact is. We're all convinced now, and we will forever feel shame for not living like you do. Thank you captain planet for bestowing your wisdom upon us lowly earth-ravaging mortals. Goodnight.

 

[Poundwise]

I assumed you made this thread to get some sort of feedback, not just to brag. I was wrong.

Come on, this forum is entitled "Share Your Badassity" after all! :P

[The Money Monk]

I assumed you made this thread to get some sort of feedback, not just to brag. I was wrong.

Come on, this forum is entitled "Share Your Badassity" after all! :P

Touche

[Dicey]

I assumed you made this thread to get some sort of feedback, not just to brag. I was wrong.

Come on, this forum is entitled "Share Your Badassity" after all! :P

Touche

That's completely true, but there's an air of self-righteousness in this thread that's rather alienating, IMO. Not sure exactly what it's going to take for OP to be happy, but I'm certain I'll never live up to their exacting standards. Luckily,  I'm  pretty okay with that ;-)

[JoshuaSpodek]

That's completely true, but there's an air of self-righteousness in this thread that's rather alienating, IMO. Not sure exactly what it's going to take for OP to be happy, but I'm certain I'll never live up to their exacting standards. Luckily,  I'm  pretty okay with that ;-)

I'm curious too, since I don't see anything in what I wrote about judging others or imposing my values on others, yet plenty about being more happy, free, and responsible, in the spirit of MMM, whom I name as having inspired me.

[Dicey]

That's completely true, but there's an air of self-righteousness in this thread that's rather alienating, IMO. Not sure exactly what it's going to take for OP to be happy, but I'm certain I'll never live up to their exacting standards. Luckily,  I'm  pretty okay with that ;-)

I'm curious too, since I don't see anything in what I wrote about judging others or imposing my values on others, yet plenty about being more happy, free, and responsible, in the spirit of MMM, whom I name as having inspired me.

I said "air of self-righteousness"*. I did not say "judging others or imposing my values on others".

*Adjective. 1. confident of one's own righteousness, especially when smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinions and behavior of others.

[fluffmuffin]

Just saw this article and thought it was relevant to the discussion: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals

I think people should do what they need to do in order to sleep at night and feel like their personal choices are in line with their values. Sounds like for JoshuaSpodek, that's taking a stand on not flying. Others may have different priorities. Mine is sustainable, local food, so I'm totally going to keep going to the farmers market, and I hope the OP keeps not flying--but it's pretty delusional to think that climate change is getting solved without taking on the giant corporate interests and infrastructure problems that are responsible for such a huge amount of environmental damage. The constant, unrelenting focus on policing individual choices is a distraction tactic that (IM oh-so-very HO) those big interests use to keep everyone occupied with squabbling about whether or not someone should take a flight to Shanghai, instead of working on the large-scale structural policies that actually have a chance of addressing climate change.

[JoshuaSpodek]

From Thursday's New York Times, "Flying Is Bad for the Planet. You Can Help Make It Better,":
First, fly less.

The most effective way to reduce your carbon footprint is to fly less often. If everyone took fewer flights, airline companies wouldn’t burn as much jet fuel.
Continue reading the main story

According to the World Bank, the average American generated about 16.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2013; according to some calculations, a round-trip flight from New York to San Francisco emits about 0.9 metric tons of carbon dioxide per person. For an American, that represents about one-eighteenth of your carbon emissions for the year.

(For perspective, the global average was about five tons of carbon dioxide per person in 2013.)

[...]

Fly coach.

According to a study from the World Bank, the emissions associated with flying in business class are about three times as great as flying in coach.

In business class and first class, seats are bigger, so fewer people are being moved by the same amount of fuel. The study estimates that a first-class seat could have a carbon footprint as much as nine times as big as an economy one.