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Comment by jsvaughan | Hacker News Reader

and be personally responsible for nearly 7 tons of CO2 emissions

fairly sure the planes would be going to the destinations regardless of whether he redeemed his FF miles or not.

yes this is a whole another argument that as a geek I get frustrated about. Not flying on a given trip doesn't reduce the amount of CO2 because the plane will fly anyway and either the weight reduction difference will be negligible in terms of CO2 or they'll just take more freight.

Then the counter argument to that is that if enough people don't fly the airplane won't fly at all... But that would just make it commercially infeasible to operate many routes and in turn whole airlines and then we just have a complete deterioration of the airline industry.

I'm surprised that this got downvoted, and you're both wrong; your argument is equivalent to saying that there's no point voting as you're only one vote in a big population.

Do people really care this little about the environment?

so yes, I do care about the environment. Air travel is something that concerns me, but of all the contributors to green-house gasses it is one of the ones that I see hardest to change/decrease. Case in point - I come from London but live in San Francisco and there is no other (reasonable) way to travel between the two cities other than by air.

I don't get how my argument is like voting. If we all vote together then something positive happens (change). If we all 'vote' by not flying then the airline industry collapses - which is not positive. If I've miss-understood your example + argument please elaborate.

the voting argument isn't applicable here.

The solution here isn't black & white unlike in voting (you vote or you dont vote). Sure you can choose to fly or not fly, that's a "solution" but the better solution is to create more efficient airplanes that emit less CO2.

As a sidenote: traveling and seeing the world is what made me start caring about the environment. When you go snorkeling in Hawaii or climb Machu Picchu, you can't help but care about the environment.

every convenience of modern life impacts the environment. the solution is not to give them all up, especially something as important as air travel (whether it's for business or pleasure).

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