“Flying produces a fraction of global greenhouse gases” says the reassuring sticker on the seat in front of me. “Ah, well that’s nice. Now that I don’t feel guilty about flying I think I’ll book another holiday!”

But, just for fun, lets look at those stats a little closer…

The first thing you’ll notice is that it isn’t to scale. The 10% arrow is much thicker than 5 of the 2% arrows and the 32% one is only a little wider than the 10% arrow.

The numbers from the six categories add up to 100% implying that those six icons represent all greenhouse gas emissions. So the car presumably means all road transport (what about trains & boats?) The factory must represent industry? The trees are deforestation and forest fires and the like (does that include farming?). The plug is power generation. And the cloud is… fuck knows. Miscellaneous? The weather? Bad thoughts? In that context, 2% of global emissions coming from a single industry suddenly seems like quite a lot. Indeed, it is about as much as that generated by all human activity in Africa!

It appears that the 2% figure quoted comes from an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which is undeniably a reliable source. However that report is from 16 years ago during which time the volume of flights has skyrocketed (no pun intended).

Also very importantly it doesn’t take into account the fact that because the greenhouse gases from flying are released high in the atmosphere, they are 2 to 4 times more damaging than the same gases released at ground level. Nor does it consider that the water vapour produced by aircraft leads to the formation of cirrus clouds that also contribute to global warming. Indeed, carbon dioxide accounts for only a third of aviation’s impact on the atmosphere.

But in the end, even if aviation’s impact on global warming really was that small, why is that a reason not to try and reduce it?