When I read the tragic news about another crash of a Boeing Max 737 jetliner, this time in Ethiopia, and how the pilots fought the programming and the automatic controls to keep the plane in the air, I remembered a sci-fi movie I watched about a coming war between man and machines. This movie might have been a “flight” of some screen writer’s imagination except that the imminent astrophysicist Stephen Hawking worried about the peril of intelligent machines. Hawking believed AI or artificial intelligence had the potential to threaten mankind. Still, I doubt he ever considered malevolent autopilots becoming a problem.
Nervous flyers might be hesitant to fly after hearing about the Max 737 crashes. I get it. I’m not a fan of flying either. I’ve fought irrational fears of flying for several years. In fact, one time I boarded a one-hour flight to Portland, Oregon, and in a martini fog (acquired at the airport bar trying to bolster my courage) I staggered up from my aisle seat and blew alcohol fumes into the stewardess’s face when I begged, “Miz? Hey miz? I wanna get off the plane. Can I? Pleeze?”
There are other, more rational reasons to reconsider flying as your form of transportation, which have nothing to do with machines running amok or phobias. According to Sciencefocus.com the amount of CO2 spewed by one jumbo jet traveling a distance of 400 miles is the same as 336 cars driving that same distance.
So, the approximately 20,000 flights taking place daily across our planet emit a tremendous amount of destructive greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
That’s why, despite having largely conquered my flying phobia, I decided on a recent trip to New York City to fly one way—and take the train home.
I felt very good about taking the train back from NYC—noble even. After all, rail transportation accounts for only 2% of total transportation greenhouse gases. I could rest easy riding the rails—and I did. I took numerous naps in my deluxe sleeper, lulled by the gentle rocking of the train on the tracks. Due to the research I’d done I knew taking the train meant my carbon “shoe” was a modest size 2 instead of a clown flipper size 14. I was relaxed until our train slowed down coming into the Philadelphia rail yard. Then I blinked my eyelids open and gazed out the window to see dozens of CSX rail cars loaded with coal.
The thing about taking a train is that you share tracks and rail yards with other trains, especially freight trains. Coal is primarily moved by freight trains. For some reason, pure black carbon in the form of coal seems much more threatening to me than the nebulous greenhouse gases blown out of a jumbo jet. Our train passed one coal car after another in Pittsburg, Chicago, Omaha, Denver, and Salt Lake. I finally stopped seeing coal cars when the train dropped me off in the middle of the night at a lonely passenger shelter in Elko, Nevada.
Traveling green can be challenging no matter what form of transportation you choose to take.
The good news about flying is, there are ways to go greener. Check the airplane statistics when you book. Many jets now use biofuels. Also, most major airlines offer carbon credits you can purchase to support various green initiatives. Of course, if you really want to lessen your carbon footprint, nothing beats staying home. But then you’d miss out on a chance to see the Statue of Liberty and who wants to do that?
image credit: airplane
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