Aviation is responsible for 2% of carbon emissions but was growing at 4% per year.
Aviation is responsible for the mass tourism that drives people out of cities to make way for airbnb's. This increases their commute. It also increases real estate speculation, i.e. more construction of houses (cement alone accounts for another 2% of emissions).
We cannot take a reductionist view of the problem. Mass tourism was one of the biggest environmental problems and was based on aviation.
Travelling by air is a privilege that only a small percentage of the population has access to. If everyone did that we would quickly exhaust our carbon budget.
It is funny that people in the aviation business don't treat it as if it was a growth business. That is why Boeing feels entitled to keep making a 50 year old airframe forever. You couldn't do that if you were making cars.
When it comes to environmental consequences aviation is a growth business, the most important thing we can do is address the 737-class airplanes that people ride in, not the widebody airplanes that are advertised in magazines. Too often ideas like blended wing body, hybrid, and hydrogen are used as excuses to delay a 737 replacement. We've been watching this movie for decades but these is enough $$$ going to the media and politicians and nothing will replace the 737 until the Chinese do it with to the C919 and then all the people who brought you this disaster will say they were blindsided. They get blindsided every time because that's what they do.
