>We can talk about the effectiveness of condoms in preventing infection even though there are a million variables affecting it with numerous outlier cases.
Sure, but you're discussing something completely different from what I care about. Nobody is forced to not wear a condom for work, and you can't buy "condom credits" to offset not wearing a condom. The individual calculus of flying (and whether to fly based on emissions) is completely different from wearing or not wearing a condom.
Ultimately, I can only control my own flying and my own donations, and that's what I'm interested in here. I think I should've been more clear: what I'm looking for is something where I can, as a passenger, see the CO2e of my flight. If I fly DL 259 in economy, what will be the impact of this? If I have the option, does it make sense to replace this with (say) 3 round trip economy flights on KL 1385? (for example, one important conference vs 3 less important ones.) What will it cost to offset my flight?
I took a look at the 3 links you provided and I can't say I'm convinced. The UCS one has pretty pictures, but ignores CO2e which is inexcusable as that is where the bulk of the issue is. I don't see anything resembling an established model from those; it seems to be simply just people gathering (mostly) theoretical data and putting it into Excel. In particular, I am really not convinced that anyone has a good understanding of the factors involved in CO2e and from what I can tell the literature supports me on this.
Quoting one of your own links: different methodologies are responsible for a factor of 2 difference in CO2e and "there is as yet no internationally agreed and adopted methodology for the calculation of aviation emissions" (from Dr. Jardine's report)
>>> I'm going to make a bold claim: the CO2e per passenger kilometer can vary by at least one order of magnitude depending on the flight characteristics (airline, weather, route, direction, location, aircraft, etc) - before you take class into account!
>That's not a bold claim at all; it's just irrelevant.
It's absolutely a bold claim to 99% of people. Nearly everywhere, from large newspapers to "calculator" sites to social media, people do not realize that the emissions for a flight are very individual to that specific flight. If you asked random travelers, I bet nearly none would expect things like seating configuration or weather to strongly affect emissions. If you told some random people that by choosing a densely seated plane they could strongly reduce their emissions I bet they'd be interested!
Sure, but you're discussing something completely different from what I care about. Nobody is forced to not wear a condom for work, and you can't buy "condom credits" to offset not wearing a condom. The individual calculus of flying (and whether to fly based on emissions) is completely different from wearing or not wearing a condom.
Ultimately, I can only control my own flying and my own donations, and that's what I'm interested in here. I think I should've been more clear: what I'm looking for is something where I can, as a passenger, see the CO2e of my flight. If I fly DL 259 in economy, what will be the impact of this? If I have the option, does it make sense to replace this with (say) 3 round trip economy flights on KL 1385? (for example, one important conference vs 3 less important ones.) What will it cost to offset my flight?
I took a look at the 3 links you provided and I can't say I'm convinced. The UCS one has pretty pictures, but ignores CO2e which is inexcusable as that is where the bulk of the issue is. I don't see anything resembling an established model from those; it seems to be simply just people gathering (mostly) theoretical data and putting it into Excel. In particular, I am really not convinced that anyone has a good understanding of the factors involved in CO2e and from what I can tell the literature supports me on this.
Quoting one of your own links: different methodologies are responsible for a factor of 2 difference in CO2e and "there is as yet no internationally agreed and adopted methodology for the calculation of aviation emissions" (from Dr. Jardine's report)
>>> I'm going to make a bold claim: the CO2e per passenger kilometer can vary by at least one order of magnitude depending on the flight characteristics (airline, weather, route, direction, location, aircraft, etc) - before you take class into account!
>That's not a bold claim at all; it's just irrelevant.
It's absolutely a bold claim to 99% of people. Nearly everywhere, from large newspapers to "calculator" sites to social media, people do not realize that the emissions for a flight are very individual to that specific flight. If you asked random travelers, I bet nearly none would expect things like seating configuration or weather to strongly affect emissions. If you told some random people that by choosing a densely seated plane they could strongly reduce their emissions I bet they'd be interested!