In the Summer 2025 edition of Michigan Alum, Natalia Holtzman reported on the research of Paige Greenberg and Molly Russell who analyzed carbon emissions from air travel during Michigan’s 2024 regular football season. The researchers point out that team travel produced 400 tons of carbon dioxide. Not surprisingly, there are many who believe that air travel is a major contributor to global warming. Some consider this belief in deciding on holiday plans making extra efforts to avoid the airport.
An optimistic note for air traveling Michigan football fans is made by Steven Pinker in his book Enlightenment Now. Though one of Pinker’s students suggested that a pledge should be made “to never fly in airplanes except in dire emergencies, because airplanes burn so much fuel,” Pinker notes that aviation accounts for 1.5% of the world’s emission of greenhouse gases.
Pinker also points out that decreasing greenhouse gas emissions will not be our successful strategy because “Even if greenhouse gas emissions are halved by 2050 and zeroed by 2075, the world would still be on a course for risky warming, because the CO2 already emitted will remain in the atmosphere for a very long time. It’s not enough to stop thickening the greenhouse; at some point we have to dismantle it.”
Science and technology are the secret ingredients for putting CO2 back into the soil. Scholarly articles published by reputable sources like the National Institutes of Health explore solutions to global warming and include direct air capture of CO2 and ocean fertilization (phytoplankton absorb CO2). We can enjoy the fall football season, embrace air travel, and take comfort in the message from Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth.
https://www.twildersociety.org/works/the-skin-of-our-teeth/
Go Blue.
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