Us

      A caveat: Before I begin, I would like to take a firm stance. I do not believe that humans are a "plague" or a "cancer" on the planet. If you hold a contrary viewpoint, I respect that and largely understand your point of view. I further request that the reader not infer that I view people as a pollutant or trash. I believe people are intrinsically valuable. Debating these points is not the scope of this blog. However, I do agree that humans, by their very nature, cause significant change and damage to the planet.

     I will be speaking primarily about the everyday operations of a major commercial airport, that is one that carries more than 50,000 movements per year (FAA, 2016; Home,n.d.). While airports may directly cause noise, light, emissions and many other types of pollution, the cities around them produce far more. (Moran et al., 2018) If a city has a air carrier hub its population growth may be up to 16 percentage points more than a city without a hub (Green, 2007). For example, New York, with its population of nearly 20 million people, has an annual carbon footprint per capita of roughly 250 metric tons per year. (Moran et al., 2018). While I could not find any numbers on the estimated carbon footprint of JFK International, I did find some numbers on DFW Airport, which is larger than JFK (Sawe, 2018). DFW produced, in 2019, 38,000 tones of emissions (Arnold, 2021).

     What does all these numbers mean? Let us consider a worst-case scenario. The presence of an airport can cause a city to grow by 16% as we have seen. This means that a city of 1,000,000 people (which would likely have a significant airport anyway but work with me) could add 160,000 people with the addition of a major commercial airport. If the carbon emissions are at the high end, like New York’s 250 metric tons, this equates to 40 million tons of extra carbon emissions. On the other hand the Dallas-Fort Worth population is nearly 6.5 million people and its population size no doubt supported by the presence of DFW International (Macrotrends, 2021). According to one article the typical resident of Fort Worth might produce 33 tons of emissions (Fort Worth, 2009). Even at this outdated and low estimate the 38,000 tons produce by the airport is matched by a mere 1152 citizens. If DFW were to disappear overnight I am confident in guessing the population of the area would quickly drop by far, far more than eleven hundred people.

I conclude, therefore, that the presence of a major commercial airport in any given city supports an excess of population who’s added carbon emissions outweighs the airport’s emissions by a factor of nearly 1,000.

 

Arnold, K. (2021, January 2). DFW Airport Wants to Cut Emissions to Zero by 2030, but Can It Do It? And What Does That Mean? https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2021/01/02/dfw-airport-wants-to-cut-emissions-to-zero-by-2030-but-can-it-do-it-and-what-does-that-mean/.

Dallas-Fort Worth Metro Area Population 1950-2021. MacroTrends. (2021). https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22966/dallas-fort-worth/population.

FAA. (2016). Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. U.S. Department of Transportation. https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/phak/.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram. (2009, September 3). Q&A: The carbon footprint. Fort Worth Star-Telegram. https://www.star-telegram.com/latest-news/article3822164.html.

Green, R. K. (2007). Airports and Economic Development. Real Estate Economics, 35(1), 91-112.

http://ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/scholarly-journals/airports-economic-development/docview/211166609/se-2?accountid=27203

Home. (n.d.) Law Insider. https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/major-airport#:~:text=major%20airport%20means%20a%20civil%20airport%20which%20has,light%20aircraft.%20Sample%201%20Based%20on%201%20documents.

Sawe, B. E. (2018, November 30). The Largest Airports in the World. WorldAtlas. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-10-largest-airports-by-size.html#:~:text=The%20World's%2015%20Largest%20Airports%20By%20Size%20,%20%205,383%20%2011%20more%20rows.