from Hacker News

41% of French pop in favour of limiting everyone to 4 flights for entire life

by amilios on 9/29/23, 9:02 PM with 82 comments

• by legitster on 9/29/23, 9:22 PM

  Having to trust Google translate on this one, but it seems like people were specifically asked if they support it as a "medium-term" solution for climate change - not lifetime.

  And also, small sample size online survey conducted by under-grads. Grain of salt and all that.

• by abeppu on 9/29/23, 9:33 PM

  But around 2.5% of emissions come from aviation (or maybe 3% of actual warming emissions). I think that puts it in the range of 10% of transportation emissions. Apparently personal vehicles are responsible for ~58% of transportation emissions.

  You're likely much more effective giving up your car than giving up flights.

  https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-aviation

  https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

  https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58861

• by amilios on 9/29/23, 9:12 PM

  Suffice to say I think this would only work in places like Europe where everything is relatively densely connected by rail. For me personally I live in North American and I visit my family in Europe once a year. Cutting me off from them would suck and effectively force me back to Europe :) this seems like it's coming from a place of "privilege" per se of everything being nearby.

• by shrubble on 9/29/23, 9:30 PM

  This is an example of what is called a 'push poll' which is a poll designed to be used to popularize a point of view to the public. There are so many ways to bias a poll like this.

• by teekert on 9/29/23, 9:28 PM

  But what about all that CO2 compensation stuff, that's really not expensive, in fact it seems like it can't work. What would be real cost to undo all damage I do to the world with a flight? I don't mind paying more. But how much more are we talking about? That is the real question imho.

  Edit, a recent example, as calculated using https://co2.myclimate.org/

  Your flight:

  From: Amsterdam (NL), AMS to: Pogdorica (CS), TGD via: VIE, Vienna International, Austria, AT, Roundtrip, Economy Class, ca. 3,300 km, 1 traveller CO2 amount: 0.746 t

  Take responsibility for your CO2-emissions by supporting climate protection projects in developing and emerging countries. EUR 21.00

  To compensate it asks me to pay 21 eur. That's nothing. Just add it to all flights. Actually, it doesn't say that this will undo my emitted CO2. So what does this do? Stimulated eco friendly projects. Of course it would be better to stimulate them AND avoid the flight... I wonder what it would cost to really really just remove that CO2 from the atmosphere.

• by benzoate on 9/29/23, 10:52 PM

  I understand the poll is misrepresented but I find the proposition to be extremely anti-human in the first place — climate change is a real threat, but any directives need to take in to consideration the death and misery caused by restricting the opportunity to travel freely.

  The focus should be on reducing the average emissions for each mile travelled — reducing private flights, improving electrified road and rail networks and improving the economy of commercial flights.

  I would also wager that the political and high business class would also not face this restriction should something like it ever come to exist.

• by rich_sasha on 9/30/23, 8:29 AM

  France is a wonderful holiday destination. It has mountains, snow in winter (for now...), hiking in the summer, hot seaside, cool seaside, Arcadian countryside, lakes, rivers. Museums, castles, palaces, Roman ruins, Eiffel Tower...

  If you live in France, there are so many holidays you can take by driving for 3-4 hrs. But so many places (many of them lovely) where you can never do most of these. If you live in Iceland, for example, I don't think hot beat holidays are for you without a flight.

• by karaterobot on 9/29/23, 10:39 PM

  Not a terrible idea. Four seems low, and I have no idea how they arrived at that exact number, but in principle plane travel is one of the most inexpensive and time-efficient ways an average person can release tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I mean, we ban drinking straws and fret about the environmental cost of electric cars, but really the biggest impact on the environment an average person could have would be to fly less.

• by alwillis on 9/29/23, 9:38 PM

  It’s just a preview of some of the tough choices we may have to make as climate change gets worse.

  Maybe we get a certain amount of carbon credits and we get to decide how to use them. Sure, if a parent is sick, take a flight to be with them but it may mean you take public transportation for a couple of weeks when you get back instead of driving to work. Or work from home for a while if that’s an option.

• by bagels on 9/29/23, 9:30 PM

  They are in favor of eliminating all business travel, essentially. Good luck participating in the modern economy.

• by swader999 on 9/29/23, 9:28 PM

  This will never apply to everyone.

• by CSMastermind on 9/29/23, 10:11 PM

  There is decidedly a difference in political strategy between those who try to control others behavior and those who try to balance the incentives of a system so that the behavior of its participants considers all of the relevant information.

• by dharma1 on 9/29/23, 9:30 PM

  While the CO2 emissions caused by personal air travel aren’t that significant compared to many other things, hopefully we will have renewable jet fuel soon and people can fly as much as they like without being guilt tripped

• by baron816 on 9/29/23, 9:35 PM

  I wonder what the proportion of Parisians who would support this policy would be.

  It would not surprise me if 41% of the French population has taken fewer than 5 flights in their life, and that the proportion of Americans would be similar.

  The problem with these types of policies (restrictions or even just taxes on meat consumption, light bulb usage, or overall carbon output) is not just that they become unpopular when actually implemented, it leads to "solution aversion". The solitons to a problem become so detrimental that some people then convince themselves that the problem does not even exist.

• by sacnoradhq on 9/30/23, 12:24 AM

  Either The Onion strikes again or the French expect everyone to walk across continents and swim across oceans while holding their breath and farts.

• by indy on 9/29/23, 9:24 PM

  If only we had a source of energy that didn't rely on fossil fuels and didn't contribute to climate change.

• by josephcsible on 9/30/23, 1:14 AM

  I wish that such a rule could be applied just to the people in favor of it.

• by sandworm101 on 9/29/23, 9:31 PM

  Well, I've done two in the last 48, together totaling about 12hour airborne (government biz). I guess I'm the devil. How many tanks of glass should we be limited to? How many internet searches? How many of those undergrads own Bitcoin?

• by mensetmanusman on 9/29/23, 9:17 PM

  Can’t go rush to see dying family then.

• by based-nerd on 9/29/23, 9:46 PM

  LOL

• by baggy_trough on 9/29/23, 9:27 PM

  The cure is worse than the disease.

• by roryisok on 9/29/23, 9:43 PM

  One practical way you could attempt to do this would be to massively tax airline tickets, ideally by distance flown, and then allow people to claim 4 untaxed tickets.

  You could also maybe allow people to sell their tickets if they never intend to use them, which would create a new financial incentive for people to never get on a plane.