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Comment by vfc1 | Hacker News Reader

I think it's not just tourism, it's traveling in general. We need to stop taking the car or the plane like it's nothing for the environment, and taxes are the only way, we can't rely on people's common sense.

A single roundtrip from New York to Los Angeles a year offsets the combined effort of going vegetarian and recycling for example - https://shameplane.com/?fromCity=New%20York&fromCode=JFK&toC...

I've gone to many of those places: The Egypt Pyramids, Paris, London, Austria, Amsterdam, Crete, Cuba, Japan. After a while it becomes all the same, it all feels like a tourist trap everywhere you go, most likely because it is.

Seeing natural wonders like the canary islands, it's probably still worth it, but visiting man-made cities with their tourist trap monuments? No thank you.

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> I've gone to many of those places: The Egypt Pyramids, Paris, London, Austria, Amsterdam, Crete, Cuba, Japan.

You can’t be flexing about the place you’ve been while making the point of travelling doesn’t matter.

Eh, I disagree. At least, in the absolute you pose. I don't need to invalidate the opinion of drug users who advise against it. I think there is merit in "I did X, it wasn't worth it".

Though, perhaps we read the Parent's message differently.

Drugs have a negative connotation though. It’s more like eating out while making a point about this shouldn’t be done. Then listing all the fancy places you’ve been to.

Seems to me if you want to say that touristing has a point of diminishing returns, there's nothing wrong with providing a first-hand account.

OT, but flexing means bragging?

Yeah it’s a slang for showing off or bragging.

Picture the musclebound jock showing off making each pec move independently, but for any topic.

Nice, let's tax travelling like crazy, so it's only an option for the elite / wealthy people.

So, it's ok to trash the environment, as long as you have money to burn?

And, for what it's worth, travel is already pretty expensive and taxed like crazy. If you can take a week long vacation to Europe and don't think you're elite and/or wealthy, I have some news for you. :)

It's still not OK, but it's probably the only practical solution for preventing the Earth from warming above 2 degrees, which the latest science says we only have 12 years to prevent.

I don't think even with taxes we can prevent it to be fair, it's going to get ugly. But I for me I've stopped traveling as my kids are now still small, and I don't plan on resuming it once they grow up, at least to visit man-made cities.

Flying across the globe just to visit a tourist trap monument like the Eiffel tower is just not worth it, neither for the experience or for the environmental impact.

But the idea of traveling is still very romanticised and associated with wealth and status, so I don't think people will stop doing it anytime soon unless some measures are put in place.

As for the elites, quite frankly I think things private jets should be literally forbidden due to environmental impact.

I don't think a huge carbon tax (as would be needed to change over to renewables quickly enough) is as realistic as it sounds to the technocratically-minded. If you tell people they can't visit their family who live across the country a couple times per year, they will vote you out of office. Look at the huge negative reaction to fuel taxes in France and the UK. Here in the US, we've got a lovely climate-denying party that is already structurally favored to win anyway.

I think you instead need to combine a strategy of making it more expensive in progressive ways with building more infrastructure and finding technology to support low-carbon travel.

Other options include waiting lists and lotteries. However, they don't provide the revenue to maintain tourist infrastructure.

I guess you could combine both with something like a lottery ticket?

IMO this is an elitist point of view. Taxing will only serve to make travel a luxury for the elite, as it once was.

The only reason tourism has increased so much is because it's become affordable to the middle class.

The economy will adapt. There will be more tourist destinations to cancel out the increased crowds, with time.

Flying is a great way to travel in an environmentally friendly way. It's far less wasteful per mile than driving.

How many people drive thousands of miles in a single day for a one week holiday?

Flying is environmentally friendly? That's a bold statement

Fuel is a huge airline expense so people are packed into an aluminum can at maximum density. It's public transit, except the seats are nearly full at every stop.

Fuel economy is about 75 mpg per passenger. This is nearly twice the average mileage as busses, and better than nearly any other realistic form of travel https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10311

(Other sources give 75mpg for airline average but this may be for a full plane)

It's a huge misconception that flying is a wasteful means of travel. It's practically the most efficient means there is

Interesting that buses are so "unfriendly". But it probably makes sense if most of the times they cruise with nearly no passengers.

Thanks for the info.

These data, and your broader argument seem to ignore that rail travel can be relatively easily converted to renewable energy, while flying (so far) cannot. Aviation alone would consume 25% of our 2050 carbon budget.

It can locally, but not economically in a huge country like the US. Electrified rail is a lot more maintinence.

For long distance travel were going to be using fossil fuel for a long time, at least until batteries double or so in density.

A car with two people can get over 75 mpg per passenger..

The right motorcycle with two riders can get over 120!

An SUV with 8 people can get 200 mpg/person. The link considers average occupancy. Planes are highly efficient because they're usually full

Average occupancy is only relevant from a system view. If I'm driving my own car, it's the actual occupancy that matters.

So yes, if I'm traveling solo, a plane beats car. But with multiple people, car wins.

This doesn't change flying being a more efficient means of travel. Despite many incentives to carpool and take public transportation, planes are still more efficient because the high travel speed makes being packed like sadines worth it

How are you defining efficient? Airlines are time efficient but obviously not environmentally efficient.

They are environmentally efficient, see the link I posted. They're one of the most fuel efficient means of transport

It's "not wasteful" if you assume that everybody is going to travel a fixed distance, regardless of the price and availability of flights. That's obviously not true. In an instance of Jevon's Paradox, the increasing efficiency of travel has increased the amount of travelling done, and vastly so.

Its also not the same fuel so comparing mpg is apples to oranges. LAX covers south LA in damaging small particulate pollution that you wont find anywhere not downwind of an airport.

Flying and driving aren't that easy to compare. It's going to depend on the car's efficiency, number of people in the car, whether the plane is full, and whether you measure it based on distance or time.

Airplanes produce more greenhouse gas emissions per km than other travel methods. Over a nominal 1100 km, a generic passenger liner will produce 0.17 metric ton, whilst trains contribute a quarter to less than a tenth that, and coach buses a fifth. The same distance would be like driving a petrol car averaging about 36 US mpg or 6.5 L/100 km -- but your family of 4, let's say, would split that emissions impact in the car, where in the airplane it'd be 4x.

The notion that jetsetting should be a right of the masses is a myth built on future generations paying for the damage mass flying does today. Thinking ubiquitous travel should be cheap and trivially available may actually be the elitist view, as the elite or wealthy will be the only ones able to protect their way of life as the natural environment changes and cities become more difficult to live or work in.

Edit: I used https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx, who describe their methodology here: https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculatorfaqs.html

I think your math is off - planes are usually loaded with people and per person mile far better than a mere roadtrip. You should divide the airplane emissions by at least 70. Fluid friction vs rolling helps a lot.

While trains and fully loaded buses may be superior it is still far from the worst evil for long distances.

You can have a look at the calculations if you'd like. There's a deceptively high amount of emissions with jet kerosene, even with the planes loaded up.

https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx

This source from US govt shows that planes are very efficient in MPG https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10311

Cabron density of kerosine vs gasoline isn't that different.

Maybe the carbon footprint website doesn't consider average occupancy? Cars and busses usually cruise around at far less than their passenger capacity, not so for planes

> Flying is a great way to travel in an environmentally friendly way. It's far less wasteful per mile than driving.

Good thing these aren't the only ways to travel then. The fact that driving is insanely wasteful doesn't mean flying is environmentally friendly.

Driving a modern car is more environmentally friendly than flying

https://www.thoughtco.com/flying-driving-which-better-for-en...

> this is an elitist point of view

putting the environment before humans will always be an "-ist" point of view to somebody.

> Taxing will only serve to make travel a luxury for the elite, as it once was.

sure but why not use older technology such as sail boats for everyone else? If you want to travel across the world, it will take you months.

>The economy will adapt. ...with time.

We're out of time. Social justice takes back seat while we get back on track environmentally.

> It's far less wasteful per mile than driving.

That may be true but both driving and flying are unfriendly.

> and taxes are the only way, we can't rely on people's common sens

We can, many people are already campaigning against air travel, and this is a new (2019) thing .

> I've gone to many of those places: The Egypt Pyramids, Paris, London, Austria, Amsterdam, Crete, Cuba, Japan. After a while it becomes all the same,

Yeah, see, everyone wants to get to that point where they ve seen enough that "everything becomes the same". You wouldn't say the same if you hadnt been to any of them.

Can clean-electric cars and planes help with this? A world-wide hyperloop network, perhaps?

Not sure if "just add more taxes" is the solution to everything.

Sure they can help with this. The problem is that we have ten, maybe twenty years to radically change how we generate and use energy. That's not enough time to build a world-wide hyperloop network, or electric jumbo jets.

We tax carbon and you lose your pet before I lose my holiday. You lose your foreign fruit, your meat, and maybe you even lose the chance to bring children into the world. But I’m carbon negative every year, so I get to fly.

And I’ve been to those places too and it looks like you missed out on something. I really don’t feel like they were anything alike.

I do not understand how Canary Islands are less of a tourist trap than, say Cuba? Granted, there are no volcanoes in Cuba but that does not make it's nature less interesting. And tourism in Canary Islands is definitely much higher developed industry than in Cuba.

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