-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
What does a world of excessive dirty aviation look like? South Korean artist Ho-Yeol Ryu’s piece Flughafen (German for “airport”) tries to answer the question visually. His piece is a lovely and foreboding composite digital image created using layering and tilt-shift techniques, based in part on images of planes taking off from Hannover airport, and … Continue reading
Arctic sea ice is at an all-time recorded low in 2012, and dirty aviation plays a part. But new research shows that simply rerouting plane flights around the Arctic will delay Arctic sea ice melt, prevent 1.75-2% of global warming, and have a 50x return on investment in the US alone. Will governments and airlines listen? … Continue reading
Despite lip service about climate change, one President Obama’s first actions after his reelection was to keep US airlines from complying with European climate pollution laws. Writes Philip Bump in Grist: “Now that Obama has won reelection, he is freed up to follow his heart, moving forward forcefully in the fight against climate change. Put a … Continue reading
Aviation is responsible for 4.9% of climate change, making it one of the most climate-destructive industries on the planet. So there’s particular irony in the fact that climate change threatens to aviation industry’s own infrastructure. A new report from the National Research Council shows that if current trends continue, sea levels along the California coastline … Continue reading
Earth Day brings out the worst in polluters. This Earth Day, United Airlines started touting its newly-revamped carbon offset program, allowing customers to alleviate the guilt of climate pollution by spending money on climate-enhancing projects in three different countries. What United’s green PR team didn’t mention is that up till March, they were busy suing … Continue reading
The Sierra Club is celebrating Earth Day this year with the gift of CO2. The winner of their big Earth Day promotion receives a round trip flight from anywhere in the US to Seattle—possibly as climate-destructive as driving a car for 10 months. When did environmental groups start ignoring climate change? The aviation industry is … Continue reading
American Airlines, United Airlines, and the Airlines for America trade association gave up on any further legal challenge to the EU ETS, the European law that would make airlines operating in Europe pay for the pollution they emit. This comes shortly after the highest court in Europe rejected their challenge to the law. A trans-Atlantic team of … Continue reading
Five American Nobel Prize winning economists wrote a letter to President Obama this week urging him to drop his opposition to EU policies that would charge airlines for climate pollution. The letter will be delivered on Wednesday, according to Reuters. The letter written by the Nobel Prize winners and 21 other American economists, reads in part: … Continue reading
The aviation industry claims that it’s going green—but that’s not what the data shows. New research by David Lee, co-author of the recent UN Environment Program report “Bridging the Gap,” shows that the global aviation industry is rapidly increasing its contributions to global warming. According to David Lee, aviation emissions have grown over 11% between 2005 and … Continue reading
Aviation and climate change is a critical part of the title story in award-winning British writer Helen Simpson‘s new short story collection In-Flight Entertainment. Simpson is interviewed by the Paris Review, where she describes the book as her “climate-change suite. Per the publisher: “And in the title story, two men on a flight from London … Continue reading
Aviation Justice 