Air travel's carbon footprint

Dear EarthTalk: Are there any efforts underway to green the air travel industry? It seems to me that it must be one dirty business from a pollution standpoint. -- Elias Corey, Seattle, WA

Environmental battles over the siting and expansion of airports are as old as the air travel industry itself, but only in recent years have the airlines themselves been under pressure to go green.

And there’s no time like the present for the industry to take some action: Air pollution from commercial jets is a growing concern among scientists, as is air travel’s role in climate change because of the more acute warming effect of emissions when they are disbursed so much closer to the upper atmosphere.

According to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, an independent group of scientists that advises the British government, emissions from aircraft will likely be one of the major contributors to global warming by the year 2050. According to USA Today, on a flight from New York to Denver, a commercial jet generates between “840 to 1,660 pounds of carbon dioxide per passenger. That’s about what an SUV generates in a month.”

Despite still gloomy times for the industry post-9/11, a few are actually responding to the call. Virgin is blazing new trails as part of a $3 billion investment in energy efficiency. The company is experimenting with biodiesel and ethanol