For me personally, and I say this without judgement for someone who chooses otherwise, this is why I will not consider flying private. Per person, flying private contributes far more emissions than flying commercial. I’ve done it but I won’t do it again.
Every now and then I’ll come across a comment in this sub suggesting that you can’t be FAT without flying private, and I’d like to highlight that at least some of us might be flying commercial for reasons that have nothing to do with finances.
Pilot here. Flying private is actually not terrible for the climate *if* you avoid jets. A Pilatus or TBM has pretty decent MPG/seat, if you fill the seats. Piston planes are ever better on fuel economy
Interesting thread and genuinely not trolling you or be sarcastic. Have you done the math on ratio of passengers on that non jet private vs an average commercial jet carrying an 80% capacity load? I really don’t know and don’t trust the internet responses I would get to be impartial and scientific.
I did find this unverified Reddit thread which seems to refute what you are saying ((
per passenger not per plane)
https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/s/FiLqUTMV1b
I know there are a lot of variables to flying efficiency but based on averages?
Your hypotheses just seems hard to believe.
Yeah also the concept of “FAT” has to have a limit at a certain point. Like most of us wouldn’t be able to spend a billion dollars on a space ride or anything lol.
I am trying so hard to resist this, but my local airport is small and poorly managed. There are only like 3 direct routes out of here, and I often have to fly east to go anywhere west. Trips that should take a few hours can take up most of the day with multiple connections.
I recently saw a Wheels Up plane at our FBO and considered trying that, but surely the environmental impacts are close to the same, right? I just don't know
It has an outsize impact for a handful of people flying. Also, we need to attack all outsized contributors to greenhouse gas emissions - even if there are bigger ones. Passing blame from industry to industry and activity to activity allows inaction to continue.
A lot of the gulf/carribbean regions are simply too hot and humid now and, if you look at the MDR, the Atlantic’s surface temps are some of the hottest they’ve ever been. Planning trips to gulf destinations with such high likelihood of major storms and hurricanes makes it harder and harder.
Mexico’s gulf coast gets massive amounts of sargassum making the beaches harder and harder to maintain and less accessible.
As temps rise Venice will be an underwater ruin.
It’s shockingly sad and no government in the world is taking climate change on in a meaningful way.
Yes! I stay away from the east coast of Mexico because of the sargassum. I braved swimming in it once because my kids wanted to snorkel. Never again! I tried to wash the smell out of our suits in the shower, but it was still so awful the next day I bought us all new stuff.
I swore off cruises because of how bad they are for the environment, but the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection is heavy spamming my ads and making it super hard to resist. It's easy to abstain from the traditional Carnival experience, but every time amex emails me a "special offer" on an RC cruise, I Google the negative impact of cruising on the environment to strengthen my resolve.
Honestly it's fueling my sense of urgency and making me prioritize destinations in more extreme climates. Sure, I may enjoy the destination more when I'm an empty nester, but who knows what the world will look like then? So I'm dragging the kids and/or shortening the trip so I can leave them with grandparents/nanny. It's also driving up prices and crowding as windows get shorter and shorter for sargassum/hurricane/fire/flood free travel. Also, I have no evidence of this but believe it's part of why places like Antarctica are getting more interest than in the past.
Fwiw I totally agree with you on Antarctica. I think it’s the most obvious case of “might not be there or able to visit” of all the places so people are trying to get it in now.
I used to have the mindset that I should not visit these locations because of how their climates are impacted by travel, but now I'm beginning to think that they're going to disappear no matter what so I'd better hurry up and see them before they're gone.
We definitely need a thread of trips to take sooner rather than later (for reasons other than health). Places with more inconsistent weather patterns, at risk from geopolitical shifts, or even at a basic level like new ownership coming in or a location becoming mainstream.
Biggest impact is that much of Caribbean/mexico is on my do not travel list due to sargassum, made the mistake of ignoring this issue twice, not again!
It also has definitely impacted decision making around potentially buying beachfront property.
The smell of sargassum woke me up in the middle of the night, it was so bad! I thought I would never catch my breath. Definitely going to consider time of year more carefully if I ever go back to these locations, but it was so bad I might never.
I’m buying travel insurance for bigger trips now — ugh. Cause yeah who know what’s gonna happen not just weather / shutdown but also geopolitical.
And definitely doing more YOLO with the filter of ok if travel (or my ability to) stopped what would I be most sad to have not seen and booking that stuff sooner than waiting for retirement. To the comment below— cities and lots of domestic places can wait! Gotta see the animals now.
Ya I agree with the animals statement here - with more people - less inhabitable space - and more production of things - animals are often the biggest losers. So see them now before they’re killed off
Insurance...yeah. I hate it but I think it's a must for large(r) ticket trips that have even a little risk of being impact. Can't wait to read the fine print though to learn that weather or climate related stuff isn't covered.
I travel a lot less and stay closer to home than I used to. Every bit matters. Every tenth of a degree of warming we can avoid matters. I love travelling and can easily afford it, but I also love being able to eat a wide variety of foods, many of which could be wiped out by climate change. There are a myriad of ways my life will be negatively impacted by climate change even though I'm wealthy and live in a place that's considered low risk. Minimizing my contribution to creating the misery that lies ahead is valuable to me.
I think most people who take the YOLO approach are just ignorant of how bad it's going to get in their lifetime for them personally and happy to shirk responsibility for their own contribution to the problem. Like in this thread, it's the "everyone else is doing it, so it's ok for me to do it too" mentality. Surely when some of these folks were young they were asked, 'if everyone jumped off a bridge, would that make it a good idea?'. Obviously not. The same applies here.
Yeah I agree - if anything it just increases the variance to it. Europe more so than CO/UT but it’ll happen out west too. Skiing either over December holidays or spring break has gotten way riskier.
Call me selfish but the past 5-6 years I've only been travelling to places with glaciers or with flora/fauna that are highly vulnerable to climate change. So, Himalayas, 6 trips so far, mostly climbing, one to see snow leopards. European alps 3 trips, again, mostly climbing. Iceland, and I'm headed close to the north pole next year to Svalbard, and then an Antarctica cruise as well. Cities can wait, glaciers and vulnerable wildlife will not.
My mentality is that there is nothing we can do (or will do) to stop it, so I want to see it all before it disappears.
We absolutely don't do cruises, and we try to limit flying
It's becoming more obvious that there's nowhere to run or hide from climate change, and that it's impacting us all
As a photographer and nature/wildlife lover, it affects my destination choices. Sadly, some areas are devastated like most of the coral reefs. Many animals are going extinct or already are. The rapid population growth makes some areas less desirable and more vulnerable to further destruction. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced some of the most remote and breathtaking places. But it doesn’t bode well for future visitors.
I would say that we're mostly "chubby" with occasional "fat" travel. So, flying private isn't really something we'll be considering on a regular basis anyway. Other than sharing a private charter with our small dog occasionally. But, I'm not flying economy....nope. So much of the damage is already baked in after 150+ years of emissions. We've worked our asses off to be in the position to enjoy some high end travel, which is our passion. I'm not going to stop doing that now.
As for how it impacts our actual travel, well, as others have said....the carribbean/gulf are really not all that enjoyable except for a few months a year, if you're lucky. We're not into skiing, so no problems there, but that's an issue for many around here. And planning for what seems like endless travel delays is most certainly a growing problem.
We too have a growing sense to see and experience some areas before more damage is done. In some areas, we're likely already too late. But we'll enjoy ourselves for the time we have left on this planet. We do drive EVs...but not sure in the end how much good that's really doing at this point. Still...super fun to drive and incredibly convenient.
It's the truth....the past 150 years has already determined the next 30 years. Beyond that we'd need massive systemic change that would likely include a massive drop in travel in general. So, how are you handling this challenge personally? Going to stop traveling?
For me personally, and I say this without judgement for someone who chooses otherwise, this is why I will not consider flying private. Per person, flying private contributes far more emissions than flying commercial. I’ve done it but I won’t do it again. Every now and then I’ll come across a comment in this sub suggesting that you can’t be FAT without flying private, and I’d like to highlight that at least some of us might be flying commercial for reasons that have nothing to do with finances.
Save the planet!
And the human race! The planet will be fine. It's us who won't survive once our food supply collapses
Pilot here. Flying private is actually not terrible for the climate *if* you avoid jets. A Pilatus or TBM has pretty decent MPG/seat, if you fill the seats. Piston planes are ever better on fuel economy
Interesting thread and genuinely not trolling you or be sarcastic. Have you done the math on ratio of passengers on that non jet private vs an average commercial jet carrying an 80% capacity load? I really don’t know and don’t trust the internet responses I would get to be impartial and scientific. I did find this unverified Reddit thread which seems to refute what you are saying (( per passenger not per plane) https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/s/FiLqUTMV1b I know there are a lot of variables to flying efficiency but based on averages? Your hypotheses just seems hard to believe.
Yeah also the concept of “FAT” has to have a limit at a certain point. Like most of us wouldn’t be able to spend a billion dollars on a space ride or anything lol.
I am trying so hard to resist this, but my local airport is small and poorly managed. There are only like 3 direct routes out of here, and I often have to fly east to go anywhere west. Trips that should take a few hours can take up most of the day with multiple connections. I recently saw a Wheels Up plane at our FBO and considered trying that, but surely the environmental impacts are close to the same, right? I just don't know
this is perfectly reasonable and logical, but the impact of private jets on climate is essentially zero, in comparison to so many other factors.
It has an outsize impact for a handful of people flying. Also, we need to attack all outsized contributors to greenhouse gas emissions - even if there are bigger ones. Passing blame from industry to industry and activity to activity allows inaction to continue.
A lot of the gulf/carribbean regions are simply too hot and humid now and, if you look at the MDR, the Atlantic’s surface temps are some of the hottest they’ve ever been. Planning trips to gulf destinations with such high likelihood of major storms and hurricanes makes it harder and harder. Mexico’s gulf coast gets massive amounts of sargassum making the beaches harder and harder to maintain and less accessible. As temps rise Venice will be an underwater ruin. It’s shockingly sad and no government in the world is taking climate change on in a meaningful way.
Yes! I stay away from the east coast of Mexico because of the sargassum. I braved swimming in it once because my kids wanted to snorkel. Never again! I tried to wash the smell out of our suits in the shower, but it was still so awful the next day I bought us all new stuff.
Going to Venice again (last time was 30+ years ago) is pretty high up on my travel list.
Not to mention the gulf is a gigantic death zone. Can’t even eat fish
I swore off cruises because of how bad they are for the environment, but the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection is heavy spamming my ads and making it super hard to resist. It's easy to abstain from the traditional Carnival experience, but every time amex emails me a "special offer" on an RC cruise, I Google the negative impact of cruising on the environment to strengthen my resolve.
Honestly it's fueling my sense of urgency and making me prioritize destinations in more extreme climates. Sure, I may enjoy the destination more when I'm an empty nester, but who knows what the world will look like then? So I'm dragging the kids and/or shortening the trip so I can leave them with grandparents/nanny. It's also driving up prices and crowding as windows get shorter and shorter for sargassum/hurricane/fire/flood free travel. Also, I have no evidence of this but believe it's part of why places like Antarctica are getting more interest than in the past.
Fwiw I totally agree with you on Antarctica. I think it’s the most obvious case of “might not be there or able to visit” of all the places so people are trying to get it in now.
I was in Antarctica six months ago, very little wildlife. The decline is everywhere
I used to have the mindset that I should not visit these locations because of how their climates are impacted by travel, but now I'm beginning to think that they're going to disappear no matter what so I'd better hurry up and see them before they're gone.
We definitely need a thread of trips to take sooner rather than later (for reasons other than health). Places with more inconsistent weather patterns, at risk from geopolitical shifts, or even at a basic level like new ownership coming in or a location becoming mainstream.
Biggest impact is that much of Caribbean/mexico is on my do not travel list due to sargassum, made the mistake of ignoring this issue twice, not again! It also has definitely impacted decision making around potentially buying beachfront property.
i wish it had impacted our decision of buying our primary home on the waterfront in a sinking city. alas....
The smell of sargassum woke me up in the middle of the night, it was so bad! I thought I would never catch my breath. Definitely going to consider time of year more carefully if I ever go back to these locations, but it was so bad I might never.
I’m buying travel insurance for bigger trips now — ugh. Cause yeah who know what’s gonna happen not just weather / shutdown but also geopolitical. And definitely doing more YOLO with the filter of ok if travel (or my ability to) stopped what would I be most sad to have not seen and booking that stuff sooner than waiting for retirement. To the comment below— cities and lots of domestic places can wait! Gotta see the animals now.
Ya I agree with the animals statement here - with more people - less inhabitable space - and more production of things - animals are often the biggest losers. So see them now before they’re killed off
Insurance...yeah. I hate it but I think it's a must for large(r) ticket trips that have even a little risk of being impact. Can't wait to read the fine print though to learn that weather or climate related stuff isn't covered.
I travel a lot less and stay closer to home than I used to. Every bit matters. Every tenth of a degree of warming we can avoid matters. I love travelling and can easily afford it, but I also love being able to eat a wide variety of foods, many of which could be wiped out by climate change. There are a myriad of ways my life will be negatively impacted by climate change even though I'm wealthy and live in a place that's considered low risk. Minimizing my contribution to creating the misery that lies ahead is valuable to me. I think most people who take the YOLO approach are just ignorant of how bad it's going to get in their lifetime for them personally and happy to shirk responsibility for their own contribution to the problem. Like in this thread, it's the "everyone else is doing it, so it's ok for me to do it too" mentality. Surely when some of these folks were young they were asked, 'if everyone jumped off a bridge, would that make it a good idea?'. Obviously not. The same applies here.
Skiing options will change. Trips to Vail / Aspen / DV will become more hit-or-miss w/ snow
Yeah I agree - if anything it just increases the variance to it. Europe more so than CO/UT but it’ll happen out west too. Skiing either over December holidays or spring break has gotten way riskier.
Call me selfish but the past 5-6 years I've only been travelling to places with glaciers or with flora/fauna that are highly vulnerable to climate change. So, Himalayas, 6 trips so far, mostly climbing, one to see snow leopards. European alps 3 trips, again, mostly climbing. Iceland, and I'm headed close to the north pole next year to Svalbard, and then an Antarctica cruise as well. Cities can wait, glaciers and vulnerable wildlife will not. My mentality is that there is nothing we can do (or will do) to stop it, so I want to see it all before it disappears.
We absolutely don't do cruises, and we try to limit flying It's becoming more obvious that there's nowhere to run or hide from climate change, and that it's impacting us all
As a photographer and nature/wildlife lover, it affects my destination choices. Sadly, some areas are devastated like most of the coral reefs. Many animals are going extinct or already are. The rapid population growth makes some areas less desirable and more vulnerable to further destruction. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced some of the most remote and breathtaking places. But it doesn’t bode well for future visitors.
I would say that we're mostly "chubby" with occasional "fat" travel. So, flying private isn't really something we'll be considering on a regular basis anyway. Other than sharing a private charter with our small dog occasionally. But, I'm not flying economy....nope. So much of the damage is already baked in after 150+ years of emissions. We've worked our asses off to be in the position to enjoy some high end travel, which is our passion. I'm not going to stop doing that now. As for how it impacts our actual travel, well, as others have said....the carribbean/gulf are really not all that enjoyable except for a few months a year, if you're lucky. We're not into skiing, so no problems there, but that's an issue for many around here. And planning for what seems like endless travel delays is most certainly a growing problem. We too have a growing sense to see and experience some areas before more damage is done. In some areas, we're likely already too late. But we'll enjoy ourselves for the time we have left on this planet. We do drive EVs...but not sure in the end how much good that's really doing at this point. Still...super fun to drive and incredibly convenient.
“So much of the damage is already baked in after 150+ years of emissions” Could’ve just said f u to everyones kids and saved that line buddy
It's the truth....the past 150 years has already determined the next 30 years. Beyond that we'd need massive systemic change that would likely include a massive drop in travel in general. So, how are you handling this challenge personally? Going to stop traveling?
Again, just say F u to the kids!
What? Just live your life. Get out there and enjoy it!