Explore across the globe without damaging it
Use your eyes to see and not with your hands. It was a rule of thumb in your youth, and your desire to discover and experience the new was scrutinized by a cautious adult. Humans today manage our Earth in a very delicate way. Our willingness to learn about the world is being hampered by the realization that traveling internationally can be harmful to the very places that we pay time and money to see.
Today, more commercial flights are taking off today than at any period in the past. A lot of them allow tourists to view the most stunning natural beauty. Snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, hiking in the Amazon, and boat excursions in the Arctic. Cheap flights have opened up many parts of the world tourism and made sure that the masses can afford to visit it.
However, it’s come with a high price for the environment. Aviation is currently responsible for about 2 percent of the annually produced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This may not sound like an awful amount, but aircraft can heat the atmosphere at least 3 times higher than CO2 emissions by themselves since they emit nitrogen oxides, powerful greenhouse gases. They also generate contrails that follow them, which hold even more heat into the air.
One flight between London from London to New York is estimated to melt approximately 3.3 square meters of Arctic Ice. Greta Thunberg – the activist who initiated in the youth climate strike and is currently making the journey to take part in this year’s UN Annual climate conference in September. Instead of taking the transatlantic flight and adding to the melting of ice, her sailing will start from Plymouth on an eco-friendly yacht.
In the meantime, the air travel industry is expected to grow in 2040, which will double both the frequency of flights and the number of passengers taking these flights. The temperature of the Earth has increased by 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial times, and several coral reefs have been fighting to the limit of their thermal capacity as forests are drying out. Without a drastic change, it’s likely that there will be no reason to go out and explore nature’s beauty in the near future since there will be fewer of them to explore.
In the latest issue of Imagine, We asked scientists to examine the horizon of travel by air. Is the climate crisis a reason why us to turn our backs on the skies and stay in a stalemate? Perhaps a breakthrough in technology could help us keep our travel dreams in check.
What is Imagine?
Imagine is a monthly newsletter that comes from The Conversation that presents an idea of a world that is acting upon climate-related change. Based on the collective knowledge of experts across Zoology and anthropology to psychology and technology, it explores the numerous ways that life on Earth could be improved and more satisfying by engaging in radical actions on climate change.
You’re currently reading the online edition of this newsletter. Here’s the sleeker version that is optimized for email subscribers get. To receive Imagine delivered directly into your mailbox, sign up now.
We’re flying towards the climate emergency
” Our house is on fire“, Thunberg stated, as she spoke at on behalf of the World Economic Forum in January 2019. Few analogies convey how urgent the crisis of climate as quickly. The recognition of the crisis by politicians has been slow and at the moment that this article is being written, four nations have declared the existence of a crisis in the climate that includes The UK, France, Canada and Ireland. In the world, 935 local government organizations covering 206 million individuals across 18 countries have declared the same.
In the UK the UK, the parliament voted to declare the country a crisis in the climate on May 1, 2019. In less than a year earlier than that, lawmakers were able to vote more than 119 votes (415) to construct an additional runway in London’s Heathrow airport, which is already the biggest single source of CO2 emissions in the UK. Have the UK’s parliamentarians realised their mistake one year later? Most likely, they’re similar to the majority people who recognize the dangers of the climate crisis, but aren’t aware of or aren’t thinking about the magnitude of the changes needed to stop it.
This is a problem that threatens the many promises to cut emissions – not only those that are made at the international level. Within the cities and towns in which we reside, councils agree to drastic action. At the same time, they approve plans to increase emissions in the following. Leeds’ City Council Leeds has recently declared an emergency in the climate and ratified an extremely strict carbon budget that will see the city emitting less than 42 megatonnes of carbon dioxide between 2018 and 2050. In addition, city council members have accepted an expansion plan for Leeds Bradford Airport, which promises new connections to transport and a new commercial hub nearby.