Is aviation one of the biggest contributor to global warming?

Question

how much does aviation contribute to the greenhouse effect?

should we limit aviation industry to prevent it?

any article about it pls?

im doing my school HW

Answer 1

Transportation only makes up 15% of GW gasses.

Answer 2

I'm no expert, but I will say check the Source of the information used to make the claims stated above. If they are using faulty globally recognized collection sources at ground level how can they be correct at 30,000 ft.?

Answer 3

It is a problem but not a large one.  Actually, believe it or not, buildings contribute to more than half of greenhouse gas.  But there are ways to stop it.  Like in big cities people could have a garden on top of buildings instead of just black rooftop.  Watch the Science Channel sometime this or next week and learn more.

Answer 4

Only if the Sun flying through the sky is classified as "aviation".  As another member answered, aviation contributes maybe 5% of man's CO2 emissions, which has little to no effect on global climate change.

Answer 5

It doesn't.

Al Gore is a snake oil salesman.

Answer 6

You need to tell your teacher that the sun is the biggest contributor to "global warming".  We humans are insignificant to the power of the universe. This phenomenon has been happening since the beginning of the earth itself and there's nothing we can do about it. This farce came about after the end of the cold war as a way to keep the communists in control of the youth just as they were before.

Answer 7

Aviation is a big part of the problem, but not the only one.  The biggest contributer by far is coal power plants.  Most of the world's electricity comes from coal because it is cheap and very abundant.  But oil is another huge contributer, and aviation fuel is made out of oil.  But we really can't stop aviation--it is very important to many people.  We just need to start using things like biofuels in our planes.

Answer 8

I don't usually post links to newspaper articles but this one seems quite good.  Some facts and figures and analysis of what this aviation industry spokesman hopes can be achieved.  http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/20/n...  He is probably somewhat optimistic about what can be achieved in the foreseeable future though.

Answer 9

No.

The myth that tropospheric temps over the US went down by 3 degrees when the planes were grounded after 9/11 has long-since been debunked.

Answer 10

The consensus among the best and brightest experts in the field (I've talked to some) have agreed that human activity involving greenhouse gas emissions has been a major contributor to the increase in global temperatures over the past 100 years.

The previous poster is correct in saying that global warming  is a natural phenomenon. However, (not including the comet strike events) over the past 650 million years, global warming has caused massive species extinctions three times (90% species extinct). The consequence of the current global warming trend (that is accelerating due to human activity) is very clear. Longer term consequences are less clear.

Ther impact of the airline industry appears to be about 5% of the total. There are trade-offs because the vapor trails are white and reflect a substantial amount of light energy. However, the greenhouse gases are also released at higher altitudes. A NOVA program described a controlled study involving the lack of vapor trails days after aircraft were grounded due to events on 9/11/2001.

Jet airliners burn a very light distillate of oil that is about the same as kerosine. (: I'm sure that it's better than burning coal :)

As far as cost per mile... The fuel cost is about $.10 per passenger mile (depending on loading) but of course those passengers are travelling great distances.

I included a link to one source, but I'm sure that there are many more. Here are some facts listed by this link:

"* Aviation emissions are 0.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually (World Resources Institute 2005) -- 1.6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. "

"* Aviation's contribution to climate change is two to four times greater than these CO2 numbers suggest, because greenhouses gases are more potent when released higher up. "