Airports around the United States are greenwashing their images with disingenuous marketing strategies about the sustainability of plane travel.
CBS News highlighted Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, which claims it's the world's largest carbon-neutral airport.
The aviation industry accounts for 2.5% of global carbon dioxide pollution, Our World in Data reported. That figure has been at least 2% for decades, but it began rising rapidly 10 years ago. The warming effect is also greater, as contrails and other pollutants do more to trap heat in the atmosphere than the notorious CO2.
Also, just 1% of the global population is responsible for 50% of aviation emissions, according to Transport and Environment.
At DFW, a $230 million utility plant funded in part by federal grants is being built to lessen the airport's impact on the environment. "It will heat and cool the sprawling terminals using less energy," CBS correspondent David Schechter said. DFW also buys 100% renewable energy and uses buses that burn cleaner fuels.
But less than 10% of heat-trapping pollution associated with aviation comes from airport operations, DFW executive vice president of operations Chris McLaughlin said. The rest comes from flying the planes that are the sole reason for the airport to exist. The Federal Aviation Administration says the number is as low as just 2%, with airplanes themselves being so polluting that they are responsible for the other 98%.
"But to be designated as carbon-neutral, airports don't have to count the planes," Schechter said.
It may be a global standard, and surely improving airport sustainability is important, but some say the marketing of these efforts as a "carbon-neutral airport" is misleading.
"I think they're essentially saying: 'We've got this covered. You're worried about carbon emissions and global warming. Don't worry. You can keep flying. You don't have to change your behavior at all,'" sustainability and aviation expert Chuck Collins told CBS. "To me, that's greenwashing."
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CBS reported "there are no scalable solutions" because electric planes are too small, and producing enough sustainable fuel would require all the land in the United States that is used to grow corn plus 40%.
CBS Saturday Morning co-host Michelle Miller called for an investment in rail, an industry that is getting off the ground in the U.S. but still has a long way to go.
"It's magical thinking," Collins said. "We are not going to scale alternative aviation fuel at the speed of climate change. They need to be talking about the planes — the activity that is their reason for existing."
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