The aims of this blog have been to investigate aviation in the context of global climate change. In this final post, I aim to review and reflect on what I have learnt. It doesn't take much research to know that aviation has large impacts on the environment - you can hear planes, see contrails and watch YouTube videos of planes dumping fuel mid-flight! I tried to vary the topics I covered within the umbrella of aviation and environmental change, in order to try and build a larger picture and put it into context without only considering the scientific and measurable effects.
The first set of posts looked at aircraft emissions, focusing on contrails. Following on from that I explored what people understood and thought of the environmental impacts of flying, where the responsibility should lie, and what measures should be taken to working towards making it sustainable. The last few posts have considered how the aviation industry is currently responding to environmental challenges and goals.
Despite knowing that there is no easy fix for making aviation greener, in conducting research for the blog, I got to understand more the different perspectives and motives people have and what flying means to them (academics, policy makers, ordinary people, manufacturers). Scientific knowledge and insights of the effects of planes on the environment has not translated to more environmentally conscious flyers, as they continue to benefit from the opportunities and connectivity flying has enabled.
Looking to the future, I will continue to follow how commercial aviation adapts to or is under increasing pressure to diversify from using liquid based carbon fuels, from a technological perspective - until then, I'm still saving up for my first class ticket, on the longest route possible on the world's-only-fully-double-decker-aircraft-the-practically-carbon-neutral-airbus-a380!
![]() |
Thanks for reading! |