HEADTOHEAD:Last week, Garry Cullenand Oisín Coughlandebated the question: Is the growth of air travel sustainable? Here is an edited selection of your comments.
For all his statistics, Garry Cullen talks in percentages and not in emissions levels. There's no mention of reduction targets. Why isn't the airline industry taking any responsibility on climate change? As OisíCoughlan points out, the 2 per cent figure the airline industry claims as its share of greenhouse gas emissions is out of date and a definite underestimation. Every industry needs to do its part to tackle climate change. Shopping trips to New York, for example, are completely decadent and wasteful. - Paul Corbett, Ireland
Sustainability of air travel goes hand-in-hand with national wealth growth. - Liam Lalor, Ireland
It's time the Government started to question the alleged connection between human activity and climate change. I for one, as a meteorologist, don't believe there's any solid evidence for it. I think it's astonishing that extremely damaging economic policies are justified on the basis of some very poor computer models with major known defects. This is a political movement that has nothing to do with science. - Norman Stewart, Ireland
Norman Stewart, your comment is typical of many who pretend some authority on this issue. If you had any notion of "science", you would point us to your peer-reviewed scientific paper stating your evidence and arguments to support your position. But you can't, can you? This is in contrast to the thousands of scientists who have published many thousands of peer-reviewed papers, which form a growing body of facts overwhelmingly indicating that man-made climate change is a serious and urgent global threat to all life on Earth. - Mike Hall, Ireland
There is some truth to the claim that air travel is relatively clean in environmental terms per passenger-kilometre. The problem is the current level of air travel, the vast distances covered and its huge growth. That growth is subsidy-driven: subsidies for regional airports, subsidies for airport construction and operation, which translate into low passenger charges; zero aviation fuel taxes and a failure to internalise the real environmental costs of air travel. - Matt Harley, Ireland
Responsibly planned air transport growth is the way forward. It is totally unrealistic to contemplate an actual reduction in flying in the future. - Kate, Ireland
While everyone wishes to believe that air travel, ie, weekends away, holidays, travel and adventure, are vital and necessary to our 21st century lives, the truth is otherwise. Life will have to change in the near future, and people will have to look at sustainable travel - air and otherwise. - Niamh Collins, Ireland
Errr . . . exactly how can one "sustain" air travel when oil gets scarce? Talk about oxymorons! - David Taylor, Ireland
The question is not whether the growth of air travel can be sustained - that is, can keep growing physically - as those voting yes seem to think. Of course that is possible for the foreseeable future. The question is, are the environmental and human consequences of unchecked growth morally acceptable. That's what sustainable means. And with EU leaders legislating for a 20-30 per cent cut in overall European emissions by 2020 how can aviation continue to grow at more than 4 per cent a year? - Patrick O'Neill, Ireland
It is wishful thinking to believe that we can have a business-as-usual scenario and reduce our CO2. We need to use technology to reduce the need for business travel and change our holiday arrangements so that if we must holiday overseas, it is for more than a weekend! Quoting CO2 per km travelled isn't the point. When is the last time you drove 10,000 miles for a shopping spree? - Quentin Gargan, Ireland
This has little to do with climate change, and much more to do with the depletion of oil reserves. For every barrel of oil we take out of the earth, we use three. Oil is running out, and it is so far, in the quantity we use it, irreplaceable. Air travel is, by definition of sustainability, completely unsustainable. - Conor Coady, Ireland
As discussed by Garry Cullen air travel is sustainable. This notion of humans creating climate change has not been proven. As a scientist, I find it disturbing that science can be thrown around to suit people's agendas. Hard evidence required! - Ann-Marie, Ireland