If instead of flying somewhere I traveled there by foot, I would surely use a lot of energy as well. Not just food and breathing, but also cooking, heating of the BnB I am staying in.
Surely you could say that this would be much less than a typing continental flight on a jet (you are probably right) and at that point the human CO2 can be considered a 0. But what exactly is that 0?
If you assume human produces exactly 0 CO2 all relative comparisons become basically infinities. It's infinitely better to walk than to cycle, it's infinitely better to walk than to fly, etc. But it's not really true. It may be several orders of magnitude better, even - but how many exactly?
I literally never saw this in the research in regards to CO2 produced.
For all of the days that you are alive you need to eat, breath, cook and heat the room that you are living in. The continental flight just allows you to eat, breath, cook, and heat in different city. You cannot account for the carbon cost of the time that you spent travelling, as flying-self will still have a carbon cost sitting around a pool waiting for walking-self to arrive.
>> It may be several orders of magnitude better, even - but how many exactly?
It's not an easy question to answer. I suspect it would be fun to try. Perhaps more for you than for me. But, aside from the pleasure of working this problem, there remains the other problem. And an answer to your question is almost entirely immaterial to that one.
I think the difference between our approaches is that you are focused on relative amounts - how exactly to account? My concern is with absolutes: a metric fuck-tonne is coming from (effectively) nowhere and going into the atmosphere in almost zero time.
It'll surely be more efficient to account for the future emission at the point of fossil extraction, with special consideration for reliable CCS.
Surely you could say that this would be much less than a typing continental flight on a jet (you are probably right) and at that point the human CO2 can be considered a 0. But what exactly is that 0?
If you assume human produces exactly 0 CO2 all relative comparisons become basically infinities. It's infinitely better to walk than to cycle, it's infinitely better to walk than to fly, etc. But it's not really true. It may be several orders of magnitude better, even - but how many exactly?
I literally never saw this in the research in regards to CO2 produced.