MOVE
In principle, the use of biofuels like these
could reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For
that to happen, though, they’d need to be
much cheaper, available at scale, and gen-
erated in sustainable ways. In 2010 the air-
lines’ trade association set a goal of drawing
10 percent of the industry’s fuel from sus-
tainable sources by 2017; in 2018 such fuels
represented only 0.002 percent of the total.
In spite of some real improvements, the
airplane emissions crisis hasn’t gone away.
In fact it’s getting bigger every day. Whatever
efficiency gains we get from newer planes
with bent-up wings, better traffic manage-
ment, or biofuels have been overwhelmed
by the fact that people are flying a lot more.
Passenger numbers are expected to nearly
double by 2037, while airlines’ fuel efficiency
is improving by only 1 or 2 percent a year.
The UN’s International Civil Aviation Orga-
nization forecasts that by 2050, global inter-
national aviation emissions could balloon
by 300 to 700 percent. Maybe Nixon had
it right: We may not need to stop air travel
altogether, but we sure need to scale back.
CHRISTIE ASCHWANDEN (@cragcrest) is
an Ideas columnist for wired.com
ExtraTerrestrial_Some environmentally conscious people are
trying to give up flying. For many trips, there’s
a great, cleaner alternative: It’s called a train.BYAlex Davies ILLUSTRATION BYAlvaro DominguezFlight Plan
↙
For help identifying the least terrible ways to
take a plane, the International Council on Clean
Transportation’s Dan Rutherford has devised a
mnemonic: “Fly like a NERD.”
_
N IS FOR NEW:
Book your flight on newer, more efficient aircraft.
E IS FOR ECONOMY:
Economy-class cabins, with denser seating
plans, produce fewer emissions per passenger.
R IS FOR REGULAR:
Average-size planes, as opposed to small or
jumbo ones, tend to get the best mileage.
D IS FOR DIRECT:
Nonstop saves fuel.
Airlines don’t always make it easy to follow this
advice. You can’t filter flights by airplane age or
size. But ICCT has tracked overall airline fuel effi-
ciency in the US since 2010, and its latest ratings
show there’s a pretty wide gap between the best
and worst. (See chart on previous spread.)