For the Sake of the Planet — Get Off the Plane and Onto the Train
Turning flygskam (flight shaming) into tagskryt (train bragging)
By now, you’ve probably heard of the flygskam or flight shaming phenomenon — the idea that we can be shamed into flying less, if not giving it up completely, for the sake of the environment. Greta Thunberg’s recent trip across the Atlantic by sailboat to the UN’s Climate Change Summit in New York was all about flight shaming.
There is no doubt that we do need to fly less if we can. From a climate change perspective, flying really is bad. Period.
Flying is bad for the environment
Last year, airlines burned 94 billion gallons of fossil fuels. According to the airline lobby group, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), this contributed approximately 2% to global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). On the face of it, this does not look so bad. However, this figure is only part of the story. Two other factors need to be considered.
Firstly, aircraft don’t just emit carbon dioxide, they also emit nitrogen oxides (one ton of which is equivalent to 298 tons of carbon dioxide), water vapor, and various other damaging particulates. As these emissions take place at high altitude, they have greater warming potential because they persist longer than they would if emitted at the surface. Taking all this into account, scientists conclude that airlines contribute approximately 5% of global annual GHG emissions.
Secondly, there is the important question of efficiency. According to research from the British government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the average GHG emissions per passenger per mile, differs significantly between forms of transport. Assuming the only realistic alternative to aircraft for long-distance travel is high-speed rail (more about this later) the comparison is as follows:
Short-haul flights proportionately emit more GHGs because 25% of all aircraft emissions take place during take-off and landing.
There is no doubt that high-speed rail is the most efficient and lowest emitting form of mass, long-distance transport currently available. For example, a one-way trip from Paris to Barcelona emits 137 kilograms of GHG per passenger if you fly (calculation includes all particulate emissions). Going by train, this falls to just 11 kilograms per passenger. A figure that will continue to fall as electricity generation transitions away from fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy sources. You can go to www.ecopassenger.org and calculate the differences over numerous journeys in Europe.
So we have clear evidence that air travel is very bad for the environment relative to traveling by train. It’s even worse if you fly business or first class because your relative proportion of emissions is higher.
The impact of flight shaming
A recent report from the Swiss Bank, UBS, records the impact that flight shaming is having in Europe and the United States. The report, which surveyed 6000 people in the US, UK, Germany, and France found that 21 percent, that’s more than 1 in 5, said they had reduced the number of flights they took in 2018. One in four Americans said they had taken fewer flights in 2018. An additional 27% of respondents said they were seriously considering flying less in the future.
In Sweden, where flight shaming first emerged in 2017, the national airline, SAS, has seen passenger numbers shrink by 2% this year. Sweden’s airports report handling 5% fewer domestic passengers so far this year, compared to 2018.
Global airlines are responding to the flight shaming phenomenon. The head of the IATA, Alexandre de Juniac, stated in June that if left “unchecked” the movement “will grow and spread”. In the first direct response, KLM, the Dutch national carrier, has launched a “Fly Responsibly” campaign.
Responding to the UBS report, headlines throughout the world claimed that flight shaming could half the predicted growth in air travel. Just to be clear, that’s not half the amount of air travel, it’s half the predicted growth, which translates into a slowing of growth.
There is evidence that growth is slowing. According to the United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), 4.3 billion passengers flew in 2018. That’s an increase of 6% over 2017, but less than the 8% increase in 2017. In 2018 growth in Europe (accountable for 26% of all global passengers) was 7% compared to 8 percent in 2017. In the US (accountable for 23% of all global passengers), growth in both 2017 and 2018 was 5%.
But growth in Europe and the United States is, of course, only part of the story. Overall growth is strongest in Asia and the Pacific, ignored by the UBS report. This region accounted for 27% of all global passenger transport in 2010. Last year it accounted for 37%. According to IATA, growth in China is expected to double by 2036, contributing 1.5 billion passengers, or 25% of all passenger traffic. The IATA estimates that China and India alone will account for 50% of all passenger growth by 2035.
Overall, these increases are consistent with passenger growth globally over the last decade or so, with numbers doubling every 15 years. Given these figures, it’s fair to say that the current hype around flight shaming is just that, it’s hype.
That said, flight shaming is a step in the right direction towards us flying less. However, for significant cuts in air travel to occur two changes must take place. Firstly, there must be a realistic alternative to flying — a technical/political challenge. Secondly, our attitude towards time spent traveling needs to be transformed— an adaptive challenge.
The alternative to flying — high-speed rail links
The only realistic alternative to flying are high-speed rail links. These are defined as trains that travel at speeds between 120 and 160 mph for the majority of each journey (compared to about 500 mph for a typical airliner).
There are currently no high-speed rail links in America (speeds reached on the Acela Express between Boston and Washington do not meet the international “high-speed” standard). While some high-speed links are planned in the US, the ongoing debacle with the California high-speed rail project indicates that none of these plans will likely reach maturity, at least not under the current President (Trump withdrew federal funding for the California link in May of this year).
This is not to say that the idea of a network of high-speed rail links has disappeared. The Green New Deal being pushed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others has ambitious plans to “build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary”.
In contrast to the American situation, Europe has over 6 500 miles of high-speed rail links, with another 1000 miles under construction. A couple of quick comparisons between similar distance routes for rail in the US compared to high-speed links in Europe makes for sobering reading:
We should be cautions, however, to be overly enthusiastic about high-speed rail in Europe. A recent European Union report lamented the fact that high-speed links are little more than a “patchwork of national lines” that are “not well linked”. It noted that high-speed trains only ran at their highest speeds 45% of the time and that the EU’s target of 19 000 miles of high-speed track by 2030 would be missed.
We should also be cautious of seeing high-speed rail as a realistic alternative to flying in terms of time spent traveling. Even where excellent high-speed rails links exist, it cannot compete with flying times:
Relative costs also need to be factored in, as going by train is not always the cheapest option. To go from Paris to Lyon on a weekday in October by air costs $131, while the high-speed rail option is $95. However, Madrid to Barcelona by plane is $50, by train it’s $102. For Berlin to Munich, it’s $40 and $44 respectively.
China has been leading the world in the construction of high-speed rail links. In the 20 years of its so-called “Speed-up” campaign, it’s added 20 000 miles of high-speed rail, two-thirds of the world’s total. It added 2500 miles in 2018 alone. That said, China’s must vaunted “bullet train” between Beijing and Guangzhou still takes 8 hours, compared to 3 hours 20 minutes by plane.
What this means is that no matter how fast high-speed rail links can be built, they will not for the foreseeable future complete with aircraft in terms of journey time. Thus, we need to think about the time it takes to travel differently.
Alternative thinking about traveling
If high-speed rail links are to become meaningful alternatives to flying, then we need to accept that we will not get to our destinations by rail as quickly as we would if we were to fly.
But in this world where most of us are “speedaholics”, to borrow the phrase from Carl Honore’s In Praise of Slow, that’s a significant challenge. In this “time is money”, “gig economy” where we are all invited, if not coerced, to perpetually produce and consume, the extra time taken on a train to get to our destination can appear as a problem.
The real challenge is to try and see this not as a problem, but as an opportunity. An opportunity to slow ourselves down.
Slowing down how we go from A to B offers us the chance to step outside of what Jonathan Crary describes in 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep as the “unsparing weight” of the present. An “unsparing weight” which is constantly driving us to do more, consume more and be more. You only need to look at the seemingly endless posts on Medium dedicated to increased “productivity” and better “time management” to see the magnitude of this problem.
If we can think differently about traveling, then sitting on a train could offer us the chance, however briefly, let go of the stress in our lives. It even offers us an occasion to sleep, the only time that Crary notes “cannot be colonized and harnessed to a massive engine of profitability”.
Honore argues that taking part in activities that defy acceleration is the key to slowing down. With this in mind, the slower journeys we take by train could be a perfect opportunity for us to temporarily exit the hectic world that will be waiting for us when you step off the train.
It’s clear that we need to build more high-speed rail links as they are the only realistic alternative to flying. This transition will be a huge challenge and will be opposed by an array of forces, but there are a number of technical/political changes we can make.
We can use taxes as a disincentive to travel by air (France recently announced an “eco-tax” on flying) and ring-fence the money raised from these taxes for investment in high-speed rail. We can divert the hundreds of billions of dollars of fossil fuel subsidies into high-speed rail construction. And, yes we can elect presidents and prime ministers not wedded to the fossil fuel industry.
But, for Flight Shaming to really become Train Bragging an adaptive shift needs to take place in our heads as well. This, I suspect, is an equally difficult challenge.
