Jet planes do more harm than cars

I BELIEVE that jet planes are largely responsible for global warming.

Here are some figures for you that are available for anyone to see online...

At any one time there are between 15,500 and 17,500 planes in the sky. Approximately 46% are carrying passengers, the rest are cargo and military planes.

CO2 emissions from a typical passenger plane, a Boeing 737-400, using aviation fuel, are equivalent to 90kg per passenger per hour – on a long-haul 12-hour flight with 350 passengers that is 378,000kg of CO2.

As well as the CO2, harmful nitrogen oxides (NOx) are triggered by the vapour trails caused by flying at high altitudes and in clouds.

This latter contributes twice as much to global warming as the CO2 does and in 2018 was responsible for two thirds of aviations impact on global warming.

Over half a million people are believed to be in the air at any one time, so using the same reasoning as before, 90kg multiplied by half million is 45 million kgs of CO2 per hour deposited in the atmosphere at high altitude

This is just those planes carrying passengers, 46% of planes flying.

Cargo and military planes are also contributing possibly even more harmful gases into the atmosphere.

There are no trees up there to absorb it like there are down here. Where are they going and why? In this age of instant communications, face-to-face video links, etc, business people can only be using this as an excuse for a trip abroad, so essentially it’s a pleasure trip, the same as most other passengers, apart from those flying to see friends and relatives in other countries.

The government and local councils are trying every trick in the book to make it difficult, financially and otherwise, for people to own and use their own cars, while ignoring the harm that planes do, allowing airports to extend runways and blaming global warming on the motorist.

This is just my opinion and to be fair there are other figures online that suggest flying is less harmful than driving, with lower emissions per person, but based on the total population, including those that never fly, so it’s bound to be lower.

There are other conclusions from reputable websites that aviation is the biggest cause of greenhouse gases and global warming.

Patrick Collins

By email