Green Flights

[TCC]

Actually, I don’t feel bad at all about this topic. Collectively, the worldwide piston GA impact is a drop in the bucket.

 

I say that based on the experience of burning 90,000 lbs of JP-8 daily for each of the aircraft in my squadron. That’s about 1.5M lbs per week or 75M lbs per year. And that’s one of five squadrons in the wing, which is one of 40+ flying wings in the Air Force.

 

A combined arms brigade burns 256gph at idle just for the 16 M1A1s; it’s not unheard to have 50K gallon weeks in garrison. For just one platform in one of 42

combat crusades.

 

Let’s not even get into boats. Or any of the other 192 countries with some type of government forces in the world.

 

If someone wants to give money away to feel better about themselves for their hobby, they are more than welcome to do so.

 

But don’t think it’s making a difference, because it’s not.

 

 

 

 

 

[1964-M20E]

The genie is out of the bottle.  The most vocal of the climate change groups that claim we humans have an effect on the climate are not willing to live as we did back in the 1700's.  'They still want to have electric lights, refrigerators, air conditioning, heat and high speed transportation.

However, I will not argue with anyone that the climate is changing.  The climate has been changing on earth since our solar system was born and will continue to change up until the day when The emperor and Darth Vader use the death star to destroy planet earth.

Here in southeast Louisiana the sea levels appears to be rising not because of melting ice caps but because the Mississippi river delta is sinking.  There are those who like to blame oil exploration, man made canals, climate change and putting levees on the Mississippi river.  However, mother nature always gets her way and this area would be suffering the same fate even if none of the above listed activities occurred.

[DXB]

22 hours ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

But, I also believe the biggest driver to Global Warming AND Climate Change is the money!!  Universities and Research Institutions getting government money to research it.  If the theory dies, so does the money stream.

This often repeated idea about scientific research funding is wrong.  I'm not a climatologist, but I am a government-funded academic researcher. It a the dream of everyone like me is to knock down a widely held scientific consensus by providing compelling contradictory evidence - successfully doing so leads to enormous respect from ones peers, secure research support, and sometimes Nobel Prizes. That type of success also inevitably creates a new field that equally merits research funding - the research community's focus simply shifts to the new paradigm.  Even without knowing much climate science, my intimate knowledge of incentives in academic science makes me take the widely held consensus across the vast climate science community very seriously.  In research fields where the evidence is soft, that level of consensus simply does not emerge, and multiple competing explanations persist.

[MB65E]

I do think about it slightly while idling an APU for 2hrs or burning 3500lbs/hr at MCT, but 10gal per hr in my m20?  2-3 times a month? My 5lbs of Kingsford charcoal on the BBQ tonight probably had more carbon emissions than the airplane did this month. 
So where where would the money go? 
Some EU countries require carbon buybacks for international operators. The problem is they want all of the funds from the point of departure. It’s all a money grab. 
It’s not a horrible thought, but the buyback program isn’t the way to approach things.
For what it’s worth, Had a friend that sailed in SF bay in the 70’s he said there are now areas he can no longer access due to the low tide, not high tide. Run that to ground for the rising sea waters...

Go fly your Mooney while you still can!

-Matt

[Andy95W]

2 hours ago, DXB said:

Let's face it - we burn leaded gas at rich dirty mixtures with no catalytic converter and generally get poor gas mileage....

.....Of course it's a drop in the bucket compared to vast quantities of CO2 emitted by turbines of transport category aircraft. But there's nothing wrong with @Conrad wanting to take responsibility for the environmental impact of this great privilege...

...but I think his motivations are correct...

+1

I think it's worth thinking and talking about.  @Conrad was successful in starting that.  And I will credit him for having the courage to bring it up in the first place.

But no, I'm not going to stop flying my Mooney because my 50 hours per year really is an insignificant drop in the bucket.  But I'm glad for the conversation.