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New emissions calculator reveals true cost of your flight

April 25, 2008

Forget high airfares. You don’t know the real cost of your next airline trip until you figure out how much of the environment you’ve destroyed. At least that’s the idea behind a new calculator by Stanford researchers that puts a pollution pricetag on air travel.

The site is the work of Enpalo, a for-profit startup which offer carbon and renewable energy credits. And while theirs isn’t the first-ever carbon calculator for commercial aircraft, it is thought to be the first of its kind to take into consideration airline fleet, route and seating information.

“We hope it will encourage air travelers to differentiate among carriers and carriers to invest in new, energy-efficient fleets,” says Evan Macmillan, the company’s chief strategy officer.

Using the calculator was a real eye-opener for me. For example, the flight I’m taking next week from Orlando to Newark will cost an extra $16.92. That doesn’t sound too bad. But when my family visits Germany this fall, they’ll add 18.57 metric tons of C02 to the atmosphere at a cost of $417.82 according to the calculator. That is bad.

One airline has already factored carbon emissions into its fares. What’s stopping the rest of them from doing it?

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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16 comments

  • Joe Farrell

    What about the CO2 load from breathing? How come no one wants to quantify that?

    I’m not buying all this preaching about CO2 – I’m not a skeptic, denier or blame shifter. Global warming is happening – or at least it WAS happening and has now reversed itself, but WE are NOT causing it. If it makes you feel good to reduce your CO2 emissions, good for you. It’s been ALOT warmer in the past 3000 years of human history and there was little CO2 emission from humans during most of that time. It’s been alot colder than now as well, and not much changed.

    I will spend ALL of my wealth on promoting reversing human made global warming if I can get TWO things to happen:

    Take ANY of the global warming climate models back to 1900AD – and then add the CO2 we KNOW was added , and then have the model ‘predict’ the conditions we have now and are verifiable. Not a single GW climate model can be taken back in time and then can recreate that which we KNOW happened. Until that simple test can take place, the ‘models’ are worthless since they cannot pass the test of reality, much less predict a future horror.

    The SECOND thing is simple – what is the goal? What is the Earth’s ‘perfect” temperature? What is the reason we are ‘reversing’ global warming? Certainly we do not want a runaway greenhouse, or an ice age. So, whats the goal? The temperature in 1900AD? 1900BC? When Christ walked the Earth? What about when wine grapes grew in Britain? Then it needs to be ALOT warmer. How about 1816? The year without a summer in the northern hemisphere? Why isn’t THAT cold the goal? Why not the Little Ice Age?

    Give me a goal here? Otherwise its just environmentalist mumbo jumbo that has no point, no reason and is there to make people ‘feel’ better.

  • ptkdude

    Regardless of whether you believe global warming exists or not or whether it is caused or partially caused by humans, what it boils down to for me is cleaner air. I don’t take transit to work because I want to save the planet; I take transit to work because it helps reduce the amount of pollution by the amount my car would emit.

  • StanfordoftheEastCoast

    Regardless of whether or not global warming is being accelerated by human CO2 emissions, carbon reduction amounts to more than just cleaner air and a cooler planet. In general, encouraging airlines to produce less carbon will lead to less fossil fuel burn and ultimately incentivize airlines to invest in alternative and more efficient energy sources. The way I look at it is this: even if the chance that we are accelerating global warming via CO2 emissions is low, we only have one earth. I rather err on the side of caution with our planet. Forget Al Gore and all the BS hype, this is a simple and reasonable approach.

  • Christopher Elliott

    I agree, this has nothing to do with global warming. Pollution is pollution, and while we can disagree about the effects of it, I think no one would dispute that it’s bad.

  • Joe Farrell

    It is NOT about pollution, it is a CO2 ‘tax,’ or ‘fee’ charged to help offset the CO2 emissions, it has nothing to do @ British Airways or Finnair about ‘pollution.’ It is ALL about the politics of global warming.

    Go read the description of the fee on the websites.

    Now, if we want to talk about pollution in the air, water and ground, then I’m all for taking steps to reduce it – I am not about to have someone take away my money involuntarily to make them have a marketing advantage or make some claim about being ‘environmentally conscious’ Let ME make the choice, and I will.

  • Josh McDan

    Joe, I really think you need to re-evaluate you position on global warming. Your position might have been defensible 5 or 10 years ago, but research after research report verifies as FACT that global warming is happening. Moreover, evidence is mounting that suggests humans are the cause of global warming.

    Plus, I’m all for airline companies moving toward more energy efficient fleets. Fuel prices are sky rocketing, and so is my airline ticket!

  • http://enpalo.com Carol Grissom

    I think this website is helpful…making these calculations easily accessible to an ordinary person, regardless of what they chose to do with the information! I agree it is about pollution, not global warming (which I also agree is nonsense).

  • Joe Farrell

    Josh, did i say GW is not happening? No, I didn’t. The evidence is verifiable that temps have gone up.

    If you go to the website referred to in this article, or the Finnair or Brit. Airways sites, the calculator ONLY calculates CO2 – it does not calculate any other ‘pollution,’ so, arguing pollution in general from this post simply is apples and oranges.

    There is zero point getting into a debate over GW since this is a travel forum. But, once again, my two challenges stand. And the facts underlying them stand as well.

    Josh is typical of those persons who are asked the two simple questions about GW. Oh, I do not need to answer them because its happening. Well, so what? My two questions ask basic questions concerning the anthropogenic source of GW. If the scientists and the politicans cannot answer those two basic questions there is little point to spending trillions to ‘reduce CO2 emissions.’

    It might be a good idea to reduce CO2 emissions along with everything else, but the idea of ‘reversing GW” or ‘Doing Something About GW” is meaningless without a goal. It is akin to getting to the airport, and not knowing where you are going. You made all the effort to pack, get the time off, park or wrestle with public transport, and you don’t know where you are going so you have no idea what clothes to pack, but, you packed anyway.

    How about you Josh, at least tell me, since you think mankind as caused GW, what it our temperature goal and why?

  • Karly M.

    Whatever your view on the issue, is it not inarguably important to bring information to the people? We are a society that values freedom of thought, speech, and action. It would appear to me that this website makes available information previously difficult or impossible to find. I am in favor of educated decisions, regardless of the issue. The more (varied) information we have the more likely we are to make the “right” decision. The funny thing about politicized science is that facts can be and are easily manipulated. It is therefore of vital importance to expose yourself to every side of the issue in order to glean valuable information that would have otherwise been inaccessible. Plus, regardless of your take on the issue, is it not important to do whatever we can to sustain the livability of planet earth? As this website shows, reducing carbon emissions is not difficult. I also have yet to see any sort of scientific information that says that putting this much (or any) CO2 into the air is a good thing. Until then, I encourage the (relatively) morally neutral stance of cleaning up after ourselves, with or without the threat of rapid Global Climate Change.

  • V. F.

    I live in a fast pace world and I travel often by plane and car for business and personal reasons. To be honest with you, I’m one to look at the fastest time and convenience of luxury when traveling than I do the impact on the environment. However, if it is really that important to forcast the future and the deteriating environment and if my decisions today can impact, then I suppose I can make a good educated consumer effort to choose travel avenues with the lowest carbon emmissions based on your site to determine what mode of transportation or company I will embark. Are others doing the same?

  • Joe Farrell

    I would like to point out to Chris and the others who were worked up over ‘pollution’ instead of CO2 and other GW gasses – this blog began with a reference to http://enpalo.com/flight.php – which – if you go to it – ONLY measures CO2 emissions – it does NOT tell you about any other gasses or pollution created by your flight. It is CO2 only, and only CO2 – hence my comments about GW.

    Honestly, if you to comment about my idea on GW and CO2 as being ‘pollution,’ please feel free to do so, however, that would change the topic from the one reported on my our erstwhile blogger. CO2 is NOT ‘pollution’ as that term is generally accepted in mitigation circles. Don’t attack me by changing the subject because you have no answer to the two simple questions I ask.

    Science and logic are important, at least to me.

  • WT

    We are a market economy…that’s what stopping them. And I do not blame them. This planet has a history of correcting itself. Let’s let it do it’s job, rather than being so concerned about personal liability. I’d rather take a cheap flight vs. worrying about a supposed envirnomental issue.

    PS: I don’t recycle either!

  • CT

    This flight calculator claims to be better than others, but they won’t show anything about the calculations. With zero transparency it does not seem promising. Furthermore, while they claim to be making airline specific calculations, it looks like it is using factors related to the airlines fleet at large, but not properly taking into account the route flown. As far as I can tell, this calculator is not as good as the top-tier existing calculators out there.

    Furthermore, the fact that they are selling offsets at the same time makes their black box calculator questionable – their incentive is surely to get visitors to their site to calculate a higher number so that if they make offset purchases on the sight, they buy more.

    Finally, their choice to sell forward offsets calls into question their knowledge about the science and the market. Not only is this a highly questionable practice with respect to the science of offsets (emission reductions occurring in the future are not equal to emissions occurring today) but many savvy buyers in the market know this and will question the overall integrity of a seller who tries to pass off these forward credits as being equivalent to (or better than) verified emission reductions that have already occurred.

  • Joe Farrell

    If you wish to alleviate your concern over global warming and greenhouse gases, I am able to offer you the special program called ‘SI Concern.”

    For the price of 1 cent per gram of excess carbon dioxide you emit, I will guarantee that in 10 years the global temperature will not exceed what it is today. For the price of 2 cents per gram of excess methane [from beans and similar foods you may consume] we shall offer additional guarantees that this greenhouse gas will not cause global temperature to exceed what they are today.

    You ask how we can do this? We simply ignore what so called experts are saying about global climate change because, honestly, the Earth simply cannot get much warmer than it is today given the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The amount of energy staying in the atmosphere cannot exceed the amount coming in from the sun, since the ONLY source of energy for the Earth IS the sun.

    We GUARANTEE that the year 2017 will not be warmer across the globe than 2007 was, using our scientific skills and abilities, you can rest assured that you will not be contributing to the warming of the planet. The price will be less than $250 pp per year.

    For further information, or to send your $250 to protect the environment, contact . . . ..

    Would you believe the above? No? Well thats what these companies are selling. Think about it – even if only 1 million people sent me their $250. And think about what I’m selling? The promise that temps will be what the average is today 10 years from now, after a decade of cooling. Go google ‘global warming delay’ and everyone ‘in charge’ now admits the next 10 years will be cooler than the last 10.

    I’m not sure how the global warming models used by Al Gore work, but I’m pretty sure that 10 years of cooling were not forecast. . . .

  • http://americaonline barbie45

    joe i agree with you a thousand percent ; we are living with the green taliban now; when i lived in ma we had reclying tax 5cents for deposit; well the streets were not that much cleaner; now i live in florida, no mandatory emissin control for cars; no for deposi returns ; gee as i look around cannot spot any litter ,cans bottles etc in delray beach ; not even in my local shoppin g center; hmm this whole eco movement smells of money going down a rathole.

  • http://gse-compliance.blogspot.com Craig Wright

    As a statistician who worked on some of the Varve datasets, I have to state that the way that the results are reported has nothing to do with the calculations we did.

    Carbon from human sources is less than 2% of the global emissions.

    Most critically, 83% (+/-4% at a 95% CI) of the model is attributable to water (H2O) vapor. At present, we can not model water vapor. The result is that the models are highly non-robust.

    The real issue lies with water. Deforestation is impacting rainfall patterns, but we can not as yet quantify the effect. The carbon issue is drowning the issues that actually occur in a quasi-religious and definitely non-scientific paradigm. The problem is that this is actually damaging things more as we are failing to focus on the actual issue.

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