Grounded: A pilot who quit flying to help tackle climate change works to change aviation, for good

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Todd Smith: I don’t really want to anyone to be grounded in the way that I have. I would love for an aviation worker to come into the industry and have a long term career in an industry that’s compatible with the climate science. But at the moment, obviously that isn’t happening. They’re on a growth trajectory. So what we’re saying is if we do less now, then we might actually have a budget left when in 15 or 20 years time we have a next generation of aircraft if we can scale green hydrogen if there’s enough renewable energy to do that

Mike DiGirolamo (narration): Welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. I’m your cohost, Mike DiGirolamo

Rachel Donald: And I’m your co-host Rachel Donald.

Mike DiGirolamo (narration): Bringing you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists, and activists. Working on the front lines of conservation, shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet and holding people in power to account. This podcast is edited on Gadigal land. Today’s guest on the Newscast is Todd Smith an ex airline, pilot, and co-founder of Safe Landing. An organization of aviation industry workers, advocating for a just transition of the aviation industry to adapt to the realities of climate change. In this exchange Smith details, the moments that led him to leave the airline industry. Partly influenced by a medical grounding and partly from witnessing the impacts of climate change on a glacier in Peru. You may have heard the fact that if aviation were a country, it would be in the top 10 global emitters of CO2. However, Smith explains how a tiny global phew emits the bulk of carbon emissions from flying. And how and why the industry needs to change now to ensure longterm sustainability and employment of aviation workers.

Rachel Donald: Todd, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us on Mongabay.

Todd: Thank you, Rachel. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here.

Rachel: Now you’ve got an absolutely fascinating story, which I hope that you will delight us with in full. And that is how you left the aviation industry after having this moment of coming to awareness of the severity of the climate problem, and obviously the aviation’s involvement in that. And that has led you down the line to create an organization to help aviation workers leave the industry. But before we get there, I would really love if you could tell us that story in full. How was it that you came to have this moment of awareness and leave the industry?

Todd: Thank you, Rachel. Yes. I guess growing up on a council estate in the suburbs of Greater London my dad was a builder and he told me to always do a job that I’d enjoy. So this idea that, what can be tough and I should do something I would enjoy was instilled in me from a very young age. And, I went to watch an air show at the age of five. It was called South End Airshow and the Royal Air Force display their prestigious red arrow aerobatic display team nine aircraft flying in close formation and, in that moment of seeing everyone at the age of five, just stop what they were doing in absolute awe of these jets, flying in formation, it just captured me in such a big way. From such a young age. And I just thought, they look like they’re having fun. And that’s what I want to do. I want to be, I actually wanted to be a fighter pilot and I think I was largely influenced by the military industrial complex, Hollywood, Top Gun type films. And and so, yeah, I set my heart on becoming a pilot and yeah, that, that dream at times in my youth felt like a very distant reality. Like I wasn’t, I had undiagnosed ADHD. I wasn’t really hitting the grades that were required of the Royal Air Force, which was a prestigious, you needed to be the elite in a way you needed six straight A’s. And you probably needed a, I felt like I needed to be from a different family to the one I was born into, which was a little bit like a chip on my shoulder, I suppose. But nonetheless, I tried to pursue that dream. I was in the air cadets at the age of 12, which was a year before I was actually supposed to be there. I was flying with Royal Air Force instructors in the air cadets, doing aerobatics at the age of 14. And for some reason, it just seemed like I was really good at that intuitively. My first ever loop the loop on the way down, I hit, the turbulence I created on the way up and, I was recommended for a flying scholarship by this Royal Air Force instructor and I was elated, but also feeling like, how could I possibly be a Royal Air Force pilot, that sense of not being good enough, not feeling good enough. And and nonetheless, I carried on, I had a flying lesson as well for my 12th birthday, my parents paid for. And as I could see the dream slipping away in my teenage years I looked to the military and see if I could sign up to the army and, work my way up through the air corps to become a helicopter pilot and there wasn’t any vacancies. And, so I think I didn’t take that route in the end, but I did various jobs. I went into becoming an electrician and was bouncing around between jobs in London, feeling like an absolute failure, if I’m honest. And then I started to look at the commercial airline route, which I’d never even considered in the past. And I got a personal loan out and started my private pilot’s license in the UK. And I was about 20–21 then it was just off the back of a 2008 recession. So an interesting time to be taking out loans. And, the interesting thing about becoming a commercial pilot is it’s about 130, 000 pounds. That’s how much debt I got into. to pay to train and unlike a student loan, there’s no help from the government. It’s not considered like a, any form of educational career. You might as well be learning to drive a lorry. So anyway, I embarked on that journey and my family could see how much I wanted to do it. And even though they were very limited in the financial support that they could offer me. My grandma actually moved in with my parents and helped me out. So it’s, my whole family came together. I was working part time for five years and I got through my commercial airline training. I passed all my flight tests first time in minimum hours. The academic stuff was really hard, but I committed myself to it. I gave up my social life and I got it and I did well at it. And, so because there was no jobs in the industry off the back of a 2008 recession, I decided to go straight into becoming a flying instructor because I needed to build hours. I was actually going to get paid to fly for once the first time in my life. So I worked as a flying instructor, giving back to the industry, teaching people to land and take off for the first time. It was great fun. Absolutely no money in it, but I really enjoyed the job and it was no way I’d be able to pay off my flight training debt doing that. So I was desperate to get into the airlines and after a couple years. I finally got a break onto the airbus a320 which is like a almost a 200 seat aircraft And you know very common sort of medium haul /short to medium or aircraft around the world. And and yeah, I started off with a Bulgarian company. I was flying out of Iceland in Keflavik and that was absolutely amazing to be flying that, that sort of technical aircraft and just, yeah, just a feeling of it. And and you go for all the simulator training, then your first flight after that, you do some takeoff and landings with an empty jet. And then the next flight, you’ve got passengers on board. And I landed at Gatwick for the first time with 200 passengers on board. I’d only flown that aircraft twice. And so it was everything about it. I just loved. Everything about it was just amazing. And then I got that, company in West went bust off for the first year. So I’ve managed to get a job with Thomas Cook, which was 178 year old company. And yeah, it just it was just, I felt like the weight of the world was off my shoulders, like to get a job with them, I knew the world was my oyster, so I had everything set up for a long term career in aviation and I was a senior first officer. And what happened was I lost my medical. I had some gut trouble but six months before that I’d gone and taken myself off to Peru for the first time in South America, I’d done a solo backpacking trip and up until that point, Rachel, I’d never really, obviously I knew on some level aviation wasn’t necessarily good for the planet, but I, didn’t understand anything about the climate crisis. And I wasn’t politically engaged in any way either, and I’d never been sort of backpacking and somewhere like South America, but went, off to Peru and went up to Machu Picchu and did this amazing track. I met the Quechua community that had escaped the Spanish colonization of that land up in the mountains and there was an opportunity after Machu Picchu to go into a place which had recently been so called discovered called rainbow Mountain and the reason it had only been discovered recently is because all the snow had melted on top of this mountain and this mountain was 100 meters lower than Everest Base Camp. It was super high, like 17, 000 odd feet. So I decided to go up there for the day and I’m, we’ve got the minibus up and then walk the last summit and I’m up there looking at this beautifully colored Rainbow Mountain. And I couldn’t help but feel how bittersweet it was that yes, I can see this beautifully colored rainbow rock formation, which was underneath the snow, but the snow should still be there. And the guide was telling me, a Peruvian guide was telling me that Peru was one of the first countries to be impacted by the climate crisis. And I, crisis. And I’m just like, what? what’s he talking about? and what I now know in retrospect is that that was the first seed that was planted and I was witnessing in that moment climate change and mass tourism firsthand and I guess after that trip, I went into the Amazon jungle and just had just felt the whole aliveness of, the jungle drifting down the Amazon river one evening and looking up at the Milky way. And I couldn’t really go back from that experience, but I obviously had this job to do and yeah, carried on. And then I had my medical revoked, through this gut trouble. and as I had more time on my hands, as I was trying to get my medical back, I started to research climate science. And just before I had my medical revoked, I’d started to like notice looking down flying over the Alps, for instance, how the freezing level was getting higher and higher. And I was looking at these tiny little glaciers that were left as I was flying over, just thinking how vulnerable they looked and, that they probably won’t exist that much longer. So starting to connect to the earth in a way, which I hadn’t really felt into before like especially whilst doing the job. And what I now know is this eco-anxiety was building in me this sense of conflict about the job that I was doing the impact that job was having on the earth and my love for aviation the, two didn’t seem that compatible. But it took me a while to understand that. And yeah, once I was medically grounded, had a lot more time on my hands I was actually trying to get my medical back. Then I got bitten by a tick in Richmond park in London and got diagnosed with Lyme disease, which has become more prevalent due to milder winters and warmer summers. So it was like mother earth was trying to wake me up to something that I was trying to ignore. And yeah, I couldn’t ignore it in the end because it was just impacting me personally, and I got over Lyme disease, Thomas Cook went bust before the pandemic, and then the pandemic happened. And for me, that was the absolute final straw. I could no longer sort of bury my head in the sand. And I was, I felt compelled to speak up, especially as a worker from a carbon heavy industry that was starting to understand the danger that humanity was in. All life was in on earth. and so, yeah, I, I got asked by extinction rebellion to become a spokesperson and I got involved in climate activism and through that process of actually the very first extinction rebellion, local group meeting, I went to, I went there hesitantly to introduce myself and it transpired that the person sitting next to me was also an easy jet cadet who was a trained to be a pilot of easy jet. So of all the chances of all the places. That was the first time I met another aviation worker, a pilot as well, who had done, he’d done a degree in climate science, and he, was understanding this in the same way that I was, and and so I was quite alone before that point. I was bullied and ostracized by colleagues. I was sharing Guardian articles and no one really wanted to hear. They saw Greta Thunberg as a massive threat to the industry a 16 year old at the time with Asperger’s was a threat to these grown men that I was working with. And and so, yeah, I, for the first time, I think that was really the beginning of what became Safe Landing is just me, and another aviation worker. And I met another aviation worker through activism and he was a former Tuohy pilot and he’s got two young children and he was in the process of leaving as well. And yeah, this group actually formed of aviation workers. From many different roles within the sector who really understood that the future trajectory of aviation was not compatible with a habitable planet. And mainly we were sort of supporting each other with our mental health and like, how do we talk about this to colleagues and managers? And at the same time we were sort of, yeah, seeing what we might be able to do as a group to make a difference. And we sort of got linked up with some other aviation NGOs. And before that point, like if I Googled aviation sustainability, I’d always hit the website, which was paid for by the industry, the lobby website. And it reassured me for a little while temporarily. It was like, Oh yeah, don’t worry. They’ve got it sorted. But the more I looked deeper into it, I could see the layers and layers of greenwash lies, deceit. And this sense of betrayal from both the industry and the government just was growing in me. And I recognized that I could no longer return to the industry. Just because I don’t think my conscience would allow me like the idea of me sitting on the tarmac and throttling up a jet, knowing what was coming out the back of the engines and knowing flying is the most energy intensive activity per hour a human can embark on. Furthermore, the thing that really kept me up at night, I suppose, was that 80 percent of the world’s people have never been on an aircraft, never stepped foot on an aircraft. Of those people, they’re disproportionately going to be affected by the worst of climate and ecological breakdown and so I just started to see the whole industry with a different lens a lens of privilege and luxury and it’s not always the case. It is a Small minority creating most harm, but yeah, I guess. after a year and a half, I guess Safe Landing emerged and is it’s been going more formally for the last three years now and yeah, that’s how we’re trying to create change from within. So that’s a bit of a story

Rachel: Amazing. it’s a wonderful, story. And one that I’d like to, if we had more time, we tease out more than nitty gritty details, but before we go into Safe Landing and even just sort of the imaginative process of how it is that you help airline workers ground themselves before there’s sort of legislation to support them. What I’d like to ask you is how is it that you seem to have tapped into this really profound sense of morality or justice, because the thing that strikes me when you talk about aviation is your absolute love for flying. You adore being in the sky and I’ve seen this on, on your social media and another interviews that you’ve given. You absolutely adore being in the air. And so to give that up personally is such a huge ask and yet you have done it for this sense of a collective good. And when we think about the ways that the world needs to change in order to live sustainably, it’s going to ask a lot of sacrifices that will come with gains and you alluded to some of them, community, better mental health better sense of connection to the earth, but still there, it would be, disingenuous to hide the fact that there will also be sacrifices within there. So you seem to have done, you’ve done what so many people struggle to even think about or do. Even those of us who are really good at banging the table with facts and theories about climate science. So where did this sense of morality and justice come from? And how is it that you managed to tap into it? in a such a way that it led you to take action.

Todd: Yeah, thank you. It’s a deep question. I, think sometimes first I just want to say this thing that I’ve done can be some, sometimes the media portrayed me as a bit of a hero and I don’t know that I am, I don’t think I agree with that. I think what I feel has happened mainly is just I’ve connected to my, feelings and my, inner body and slowed down enough. Because I think what happened in the pandemic is we all just took a pause and that for a lot of people that might have been the first pause, proper pause that they’ve ever taken and, I don’t know who, first said it, but I love that phrase, times are urgent, we must slow down and I know I’ve heard Bayek and Malafi said it before, but it’s I think unless if I hadn’t have actually paradoxically had my medical revoked before the pandemic and had a bit of an opportunity to slow down and to start feeling and I’ve been in therapy for four and a half years. I’ve been doing some inner work on my own traumas and just reconnecting to what it actually means to be a human being, which is for me, feeling. And I think that sense of not being able to fly anymore. I think there’s a rational part of me that would still happily rationalize that feeling away and say, yeah, but you know, I can earn a six figure salary and I could, I’ve worked so hard for this and I do love it. That is also a very valid feeling. So there is, these there are conflicting parts in me, but I just have to be with both of those parts and be in relationship with both of those parts and to find a way through this messy place that we find ourselves in. Because the one thing we know for sure now is it changes. Change is always certain, but the level of change that we’re going to experience in our lifetimes is profound and, we have to be resilient to that. And so a way which I’ve found recently to honor the part in me that loves to fly is to start paragliding because I can run off of a hill in Wales, be up in the thermal energy of the Sun and connected to the wind. And, the earth and know that it doesn’t have to cost the earth to fly. So there are other ways to be in the end to honor that 5-year-old with me that loves to fly and loves to be in the sky.

Mike (narration): Hey there, listener. Thank you as always for listening to the Mongabay Newscast, did you know that we have another podcast at Mongabay? It’s called Mongabay Explores. And for over four years, we’ve been exploring the conservation questions for unique places and species. But for our fifth season, we’re unpacking a topic that is increasingly important as we adjust to the sustainable use of resources and how extraction effects the planet we live on. I’m talking of course about the concept of a circular economy. And what countries are doing to shift towards them. Over several episodes I speak with some of the world’s foremost experts on circularity and what it takes to revamp industries, countries, and economies. Our first episode is out now. So search for Mongabay Explores, wherever you get your podcasts from, or click the link provided here in the show notes. Thanks for listening. Back to the conversation.

Rachel: It seems like this internal work that you’re doing about finding the strength to stay between two conflicting things and hold space for both of them at the same time sounds like what we need to be doing on a, global level. And yet we keep collapsing into the need for certainty and rushing towards decisions. That for the moment don’t seem to be making any profound change in the damage that we’re doing towards the planet.

Todd: Yeah, I was just listening to a, webinar with Gabor Mate and three Indigenous people yesterday, this elder from Greenland. But I was talking about the big ice and the way the water’s alive and all these stories around the ice and, just something that’s quite simple. we have one mouth and two ears for a reason, we really got to listen. And for me, like coming into relationship, I sit with my back to a tree on occasions and I try to be in relationship with nature. And I think in the Western way in which I was educated, I had no relationship with nature. I think that’s been a really important part of reconnecting to who we are and who I am. And yeah, there is no word for nature in a lot of all Indigenous, traditional Indigenous cultures. They are nature. They recognize that,

Rachel: Yeah, I agree with you. There’s so many little actions that were just a fundamental part of Western life that, I mean, listen, it’s fall, it’s autumn now. So I know that in the UK people are going to be like burning the leaves that they rake up. And even something like that, which up until, four years ago, it was totally normal for me. That’s that’s how you get rid of your waste. And now it’s ah, it doesn’t, I don’t, it doesn’t feel good though. Like the, see, there’s another way that we could be doing that. And. It’s a microcosm of this greater problem, and yet still, I would say that, for those of us who really know in our brains, in the depth of our brains, the extent of the problem, I don’t think as many people sort of walk the walk as you do, with regards to knowing it in our hearts and then fundamentally changing our lives orientation. So I do want to hand it to you, Todd. I do think it’s extraordinary what you’ve done. And I think this leads us all nicely into Safe Landing. So how do you do it? How do you help aviation workers ground themselves when there’s no support for them to do so yet in this system?

Todd: Yeah. Thank you, Rachel. I think that just that use of the word ground is quite interesting for me because you’ve got, for me, the physical grounding, like I was physically grounded. By my medical being revoked, but also just being grounded in a sort of emotional sense to the reality of a world in which we live. And ultimately we, my, my ideal for other aviation workers isn’t to have to take the path I’ve taken. And I think when I looked at the climate science and I looked at where the industry was going, and if I saw another group doing something similar to what we’re trying to do at Safe Landing, I probably would have, felt a bit more okay about rationalizing that anxiety away and just sort of bury my head in the sand a bit more, but that was, yeah, it felt really important because there was no representation for works in carbon heavy industry, especially aviation. So what we’re trying to achieve essentially is that, if we go, if we look at one report that came out a month or so ago what they’re saying is by 2037 at the absolute latest, aviation is going to have blown its carbon budget.

Mike (narration): This comes from the international council on clean transportation. Lifetime emissions of aircraft delivered between now and 2042 will exhaust their balance of a net zero carbon budget between 2032 and 2037.

Todd: And what we’re saying in Safe Landing is if we don’t use the things, the tools that we’ve been offered as aviation professionals, firstly, our mantra is that safety is our number one priority as aviation workers, as a pilot, I’m trained to think free from bias, to mitigate risk, to preserve life. And if we use the analogy of flight, when we get on an aircraft. We all want to get to that planned destination. In fact, we might be a bit annoyed if we’re five minutes late from scheduled departure time. But during that flight, if at any point the pilots or the crew encounters severe turbulence or a severe weather or a technical issue that could impact the safety of that flight, then I’m sure that everyone would expect the crew to work diligently to mitigate those risks. And to change trajectory if was required to ensure that a Safe Landing is possible. So that’s the reason why we’re called Safe Landing and we do feel a change of trajectory is absolutely necessary in the industry. We don’t see the industry leaders making that change or the government supporting that change. They’re still trying to double the amount they typically double aviation traffic every 15 years. And in 2019, before the pandemic, we flew 4 billion people in one, 4 billion passengers in one year. Obviously it’s a small amount of people in a given year that actually fly. I think it’s about 5 percent in a given year that actually take a flight globally. So, if we continue to double and actually in real terms, triple our missions in aviation by 2050, then we believe we’re just going to accelerate off of the proverbial cliff edge, and we’re going to run out of this limited aviation carbon budget, and we’ll witness a much bigger crash to the industry than what we had during the pandemic.

Mike (narration): An analysis from Carbon Brief estimates that by 2050 aviation could consume one quarter of the carbon budget for 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Todd: And that when we see enforced imposed regulations, rapid regulations on the industry, that means millions of workers lose their jobs. So I don’t really want to anyone to be grounded in the way that I have. I would love for an aviation worker to come into the industry and have a long term career in an industry that’s compatible with the climate science. But at the moment, obviously that isn’t happening. They’re on a growth trajectory. So what we’re saying is if we do less now, then we might actually have a budget left when in 15 or 20 years time we have a next generation of aircraft if we can scale green hydrogen if there’s enough renewable energy to do that. And we can have some form of basic aviation infrastructure in countries, especially that require that because not all countries have even a basic aviation infrastructure. Then we might actually be able to ensure that there is a longevity to both the industry and the very destinations that we know and love, but remain visitable because that’s ultimately what we’re up against. If we continue on the trajectory we’re on, then by two degrees before. 2050 maybe 2040 if we’re hit two degrees 99 percent of coral reef is bleached. You know, it’s not going to be fun going to these destinations to witness the decimation of the natural world and we’re seeing protests over tourism and in europe and so yeah, there’s, multiple things happening. I think what we really want to do in, in, in Safe Landing is just to be honest about the reality of the world in which we’re in now and the actual technology that we have to solve the problem, which is basically zero right now. The only meaningful thing we can do is fly less. And obviously that’s difficult when we live within a system of limited companies that need to generate profit and they’re doing exactly as they designed to do.

Mike (narration): Electric and hydrogen powered aircraft are in development, but as Todd points out, it’s nowhere near close to being deployed and he’ll extrapolate on this further. Medium to long haul flights in particular are a tough nut to crack as they account for 73% of the industry’s carbon emissions as reported on by CNN. Implementing hydrogen electric engines on long haul aircraft requires redesigning the plane itself and the way the fuel is stored. Experts at Airbus and Boeing have told CNN that they don’t see that happening until at least 2040 or even 2050.

Todd: But at the same time, that will actually mean that at some point the shareholders will have to jump out before they go over the cliff because that cliff’s rapidly approaching. So, and that’s not going to be good for the workers. So one of the key things that we support in Safe Landing is a worker assembly. We’ve had a pilot project of that where we’ve invited workers from Airbus, Rolls Royce, GKN, Bristol Airport to come down and have an independent organization called involved facilitate a workshop with Airbus, giving evidence for Committee of Climate Change, a UK government body, and an aviation NGO Aviation Environment Federation to give aviation workers a chance of slowing down and understanding the, technical issues and challenges that our industry is facing in a long format, not the short format that we get from media and government and essentially lies and greenwash, but an actual chance to digest the issues and then work collectively as a group to understand the industry really well. And to find a way through that in a way that serves their long term careers and the industry as a whole, ultimately, and the earth, of course. So that’s, yeah, what we’re trying to achieve.

Rachel: And what came out of that workers assembly with regards to the future? Are any of the, were there policy ideas generated? And is there an idea of how to implement those things?

Todd: It was only a three hour workshop, so a very small, taste of what could be possible. We’re trying to get there’s a union, a pilot union in the UK that’s looking at scoping one and paying for it. But yeah, what, was interesting is everyone that took part and was chosen by sortition, we had a good mix of different careers, age, genders, socioeconomic background ethnicity. And essentially if what they all said is that they wanted to do more assemblies, they enjoyed the process. they, they want to be involved. They want to be empowered beyond the short term thinking of board members and politicians. To have a say about what direction the industry is going in. So if a government or we could run that on an international scale and look at the aviation industry, it could be really interesting. But there are, of course, many policies like a frequent flight tax levy that could raise 64 billion euros in Europe alone. And would only impact a small minority of people that are flying most, causing most harm. And that money could be ring fenced, and either used. for loss and damage and, to help the transition and to give countries that don’t have basic aviation infrastructure a chance. And also, yeah, aviation fuel is completely tax free. So we also advocate for a tax on jet fuel. Yeah. So if you’ve got a private jet, you’re putting, and board members sit on airlines and oil companies. So, I see the airline industry as just like a pipeline of burning oil tax free subsidized, essentially. By the world governments and it’s all part of their growth and economic strategy.

Mike (narration): When the global aviation industry ground to a halt at the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, two researchers took advantage of the pause to study the distribution and growth of the aviation industry. And they found that just 1% of the global population emits 50% of CO2 from commercial aviation. This accounts for only 10% of fliers. Part of the blame seems to fall on people who use private jets, or as Transport and Environment’s aviation director said, “people who seem to treat planes like taxis.” And because there is no market for the negative externalities from the industry, particularly the non CO2 warming component. This class of wealthy fliers is effectively given a $100 billion subsidy for their actions. But that’s not all a study from Oxfam International just released showed each of the world’s richest 50 billionaires emit as much carbon in 90 minutes as the average human emits over the course of their entire lives. The staggering data shows that these billionaires took 184 flights in a single year spending 425 hours in the air and emitting as much carbon as the average person would in 300 years. Jeff Bezos spent 25 days in the air with his two private jets. It would take the average US Amazon employee to emit to the same amount of carbon 207 years.

Todd: So yeah, I got our work cut out…

Rachel: I didn’t know that the aviation fuel was tax free. That is outrageous. I want to ask you one last thing and I’m aware you’re not an engineer. So this might not be the best question for you, but still, there’s a couple of initiatives now around the world for like electric flights and in the UK, our very own green entrepreneur Dale Vince has launched this, the world’s first quote unquote renewable or carbon zero neutral flight within the United Kingdom. I can’t remember which two airports it is, but it’s a short haul flight. Powered by electricity. And it’s commercial. Is that kind of stuff scalable? What do you, think about that?

Todd: Yeah, it’s quite a lot to unpack there actually, because I think the first year of Dale’s airline operation will be a conventional turbo prop aircraft because he needs to prove the concept and the operation to get what’s called an air operator certificate to then upcycle the aircraft and put I think he’s going for hydroelectric from a zero avia is working with hydroelectric organization in the UK called ZeroAvia.

Mike (narration): Just a small correction here. Hydroelectric is a different technology that uses water to power an engine. When Todd describes hydroelectric, what he actually means is hydrogen electric. As that is the term for an engine that produces electricity from a hydrogen fuel cell via electrolysis.

Todd: And ultimately like that sort of technology for those sorts of ranges. Even if we could do that overnight, that would only cut out about 5 percent of current aviation traffic emissions because most, the 80 percent of emissions come from long haul. Long haul is the most difficult thing to to overcome. And the reality is, that technology is still, yeah, even the short haul technology is still quite a way off. So yeah, I think it’s admirable what Dale is trying to do to use his power and clout in a way that puts pressure on other companies to do the same as well. But I think, it’s a little bit disingenuous in some ways to say that is going to be the solution for aviation, because when we start to move towards like short haul, medium haul. Ranges of normal, Airbus and Boeing 737, A320, Airbus A320 aircraft, like even that’s probably about 15 or 20 years away from having a technological solution. We’ve got a design build. Test certify. And the interesting thing is Airbus and Boeing have a decade’s worth of orders on their books. So there’s no interest for them to even, start producing something else, which is going to cost them billions. And it could be the wrong decision and massive risk involved. So we might see an emergent company come in from China, for instance, that could change the market in a same, in a similar way to what Tesla’s, I suppose, done in the automotive industry, but it’s all a long way off. And yes, it’s nice to know that unlike oil and gas, there probably is a future in aviation, but it’s going to look very different. And unless we do less now, there won’t be a future because we’ve blown the carbon budget.

Rachel: All right, Todd, thank you very much for your time.

Todd: Pleasure. Thank you, Rachel.

Mike: This is a talk about a specific industry, which is one of the, if it were a country, it would be one of the top 10 most polluting countries in terms of CO2 emissions. But underneath this was what I really appreciated was the examination of what happens when something we love dearly comes into conflict with something with another value. And how do we hold space for those two things at the same time? What do we do? And what I found that I really appreciate about what Todd does is that he’s not necessarily saying the airline industry needs to ground to a halt and that people shouldn’t fly. He is asking for a systems change, a reform of it scaling back the industry so that those reforms can take place and so that people can continue to fly in the future. And I just found that to be incredibly refreshing and also practical. The steps and all the information on the website, on the Safe Landing website FAQs that he answers are extremely well explained. So I encourage listeners to go check that out. But yeah, this conversation really got to the heart of that. And I think that you can apply that to a lot of different things.

Rachel: I totally agree. I think what Todd has done is so brave. I understand why the media in the UK called him a hero, to have that sense of moral clarity. That allows you to walk away from something that you love, so that the thing you love may actually thrive in a better, genuinely sustainable way in future and not cause harm to people. Is a testament to what we are capable of when our backs are against the wall or when we need to lead the way into a new future. And what is so important about organizations like Safe Landing, I think is that we do need to learn to speak to incumbent ways of doing things and people in positions of power. And speak to the system as it is in order to then change it. And that doesn’t mean change it from the inside, but it means creating a bridge that invites people. To, into a new way of being or doing rather than cattle prods them there. Because we know that just doesn’t work, especially when the people attempting the cattle prodding have less power than those that they are attempting to push along.

Mike: There’s also something very arresting about the immediacy of the airline industry because it’s problems seem so intractable for the time being. And it’s, very easy to see that it brings, it gives a platform to the problem, which is climate change. It gives it a theater that I think that a lot of other industries don’t make as clear. We don’t see the immediacy of it quite as clearly as we do in this situation. And the way he explains about how we could be blowing past that carbon budget by 2037 with the current fleet of aircraft we have, I thought that just really hits it home for people. It certainly did for me. And I think that it’s. It’s just an example of an industry, I think, where you’re really seeing the climate crisis, full steam ahead in the problems that it entails.

Rachel: And also the inequity that it thrives off of and engenders, like 80 percent of, human beings have not been on a plane and they’re not going to take a flight in life. so it’s a very small number of people that are causing the problem and an even smaller number that are actually the frequent flyers that are really causing the problem annually. So I think that’s another, it’s another amazing image for that as well. And a very clear metaphor for the. The wealth inequities that ensure that some of us have access to huge resources and using up those resources are causing a lot of damage and putting the most vulnerable on the front lines of this crisis first.

Mike: Indeed. I actually found quite some shocking statistics in my, editing of this episode, and I’m going to see if I can list them off the top of my head here. So, It, there’s a report that just came out, I believe three days ago from Oxfam International that shows that just 50 billionaires emit as much carbon in 90 minutes of their lives as the average human emits in their lifetime. That’s not necessarily flying. That’s like their, that’s like all of their assets and everything. But they did find that a small group of billionaires was, traveling over 400 hours in the air per year and emitting as much carbon as one human emit would emit in 300 years. So for example, Jeff Bezos spent 25 days or at least his, two jets did his two jets spent 25 days in the air. Yeah, and that just really blew me away

Rachel: That is shocking. Also, what is really shocking is imagine how rubbish your quality of life must be if you’re spending 25 days in the air. So I know that’s quite a random thing to say, but it’s certainly not how I envision like leading a happy life, like going back and forth wherever he is for meetings and whatever. I mean, just chill out, Jeff, build a train. You have the money.

Mike: It makes me feel horrible because I’m, someone who due to familial obligations, I have to travel between continents. So.

Rachel: Build a train, Mike.

Mike: When I get on a, when I get on a plane, I’m, going from Australia, to North America and it, it takes, 13, 14 hours. I can’t imagine doing that. Like many, multiple times a year. It’s a lot. And I think I, I’ve, I had to examine some of that, the guilt about that. But actually listening to Todd speak about it and the inequity. Yeah. That is in the system made me feel less anxious about it.

Rachel: Good. I’ve had a good cry on planes as well, I have to admit. Like really, sitting with the anxiety that it provokes and the guilt that it provokes about the damage that me taking that flight is doing to the earth and then to my own body. It’s And you can’t run away from it, like you’re sitting on that plane up in the air. You’re right there in it. So actually, if I may, I think I would encourage any listener that is, that does have to take a flight in the future to attempt that exercise to really sit with the action of being Of doing the most carbon intensive activity that you can do as a human being and feel it in your body because it does, I have, after that experience for me, it did impact the flippancy with which previously I had approached flying as a kind of there’s no other way to do it. Now I will always try to find a different way to do it if possible. And just on the billionaire thing, something I just want to throw in is that the billionaire class are very, worried about our attention to their private jets and about the fact that their private jets are trackable and that we can count how much CO2 that they are emitting and how much damage that they’re causing to the extent that bots that tweet out on Twitter, the automatic trackings of certain jets like Elon’s jets or Taylor Swift’s jets have been shut down on social media spaces because they don’t want this information shared publicly, even though the data is public. And. I last understood that Taylor Swift’s team was taking action against the teenager who had coded those bots. So as to ensure that we can just, keep an eye on how much her jet moves around the world because it is astonishing. Hers is one of the most active private jets. So Just to reiterate, as you said at the beginning, like the airline industry being a metaphor of very clear image for the different moving parts of this fight, whether it’s reforming carbon intensive industries, whether it’s reducing the amount of damage that we’re doing, or whether it’s revealing the inequities that are driving this crisis it’s a very easy place to sort of look and get a grasp of the systems. I think at work here.

Mike: Yeah, for sure. I thought it was a great conversation and I hope the audience got a lot out of it.

Rachel: Me too.

Mike: I’ll see you on the next one, Rachel.

Rachel: See on the next one.

Mike (narration): If you want to learn more about the aviation industry, its environmental impact and potential solutions. I encourage you to read Mongabay’s two part series from Sean mowbray. I linked in the episode summary. If you enjoyed this episode of the Mongabay Newscast and you loved it, share it with a friend. Word of mouth is a great way to help us grow our audience, but you can also support us by becoming a monthly sponsor at our Patreon page at pateron.com/mongabay.. Mongabay is a nonprofit news outlet. So even pledging a dollar per month makes a big difference and helps us offset production costs. So if you’re a fan of our audio reports from nature’s frontline, go to pateron.com/mongabay to learn more and support the Mongabay Newscast. You can join the listeners who have downloaded the Mongabay Newscast over half a million times by subscribing to this podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts from, or you can download our app for apple and Android devices to search either app store for the Mongabay Newscast app to gain fingertip access to new shows and all of our previous episodes. But you can also read our news and inspiration from nature’s frontline at mongabay.com or you can follow us on social media, find Mongabay on LinkedIn at Mongabay News, and on Instagram Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook and TikTok. Where our handle is @Mongabay or on YouTube @Mongabay TV. Thank you as always for listening.