
16yo activist Greta Thunberg is off to the next UN summit in the US and Chile by sailing boat. The only issue is if she flew on a commercially scheduled flight (which goes anyway) her weight – at presumably 35-40kg – would mean she would add 0.016% to the fuel calculations a Boeing 777 pilot would have to account for . Her impact would be so minuscule as to beggar belief.
280 million trips were made by commercial aircraft last year according to the IATA. Her transatlantic return flight would only be 2 of those meaning she would represent 0.000000714% of all annual flights taken.
Given that airlines, by the IATA’s own stats, annually produce the equivalent to 2% of all man-made emissions or 0.000016% in total, her two flights would make up around 0.0000000000114%. That is slightly unfair as the journey would be longer. So let’s bump it 4-fold. Her weight would penalize the planet 0.0000000000007314%.
Apart from the fact the yacht she will travel on is a byproduct of the fossil fuel industry if she really wants to reduce the footprint she’d be better off swimming. Unfortunately most of the virtue signalers heading to the UN summit will fly. Last year 22,000 went. Including 7300 odd observers to tell us we must do our bit. Why not Skype or teleconference it?
Skipping school for a year might not be the best idea. The chances of dying by sailing are 54 in 1,000,000. By commercial aviation there is a 0.06 chance per 1,000,000 flights. Strictly by the math she has a far better chance of avoiding extinction by flying.
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