There are too many politicians who are protagonists. When there is a conflict, as there often is, between appearing to solve problems and actually helping to solve those problems, politicians can almost always be counted on to put appearance over substance. Unfortunately, politicians succumb to this bias even when their theatrics make real problems worse.
Consider French President Emmanuel Macron’s conceit that his government banned many flights between cities less than 2.5 hours apart by rail. Nothing is more fashionable today than climate theater, sometimes at the expense of realistic and useful policies. Macron obviously relishes the opportunity to pose as a brave hero riding a white horse helping to save humanity from its self-destructive addiction to fossil fuels.
As many observers have pointed out, France’s ban on short-haul flights is riddled with so many exceptions that the resulting reduction in carbon emissions will fall well short of what Macron wants the world to believe. However, some flights may be banned and less aviation fuel will be burned.
Hooray! At least it’s something!
But before you get too excited, let me tell you about another French figure: Frederic Bastiat, an economist and statesman who was active in the mid-19th century. Bastiat’s most famous writing is a wonderful essay titled “What is seen and what is not seen.” In it, he urged people to look beyond the immediate effects of government intervention. When you do that, and when you think about more than what government officials triumphantly trumpet, you’ll often discover additional consequences that no one wants to take credit for.
In the case of the ban on short-haul flights, it’s easy to see what Macron sees and wants: more people traveling by train. Let’s grant that this effect is good and then look beyond the initial claims about aviation fuel savings.
What about more people traveling by car? After all, rail travel is not the only alternative to air travel, especially in France where train strikes are common. Denied the much greater speed of air travel, many people will choose to skip the inconvenience of buying a ticket altogether and travel by car.
One of the undesirable effects is a longer time to travel. Because people’s time is valuable and could otherwise be spent working, studying or with family and friends, it will increase the cost of traveling what the French government considers short distances. Did Mr Macron carefully weigh this cost against the benefits of the ban? I’m pretty sure he didn’t. He just assumed that people’s time has a low enough value to justify a no-fly. Three arrogant!
Looking even further “what is seen”, you will see why any reduction in fossil fuel burning will almost certainly be less than the French government hopes. Automobiles, like airplanes, not only burn fossil fuels, but the amount automobiles burn can be greater per passenger kilometer.
On average today for commercial aircraft, one gallon of fuel carries each passenger about 67.1 miles. The typical French automobile sold in 2019 gets about 42.8 miles per gallon. These facts mean that if someone in France decides to drive alone in one of these cars, for example, from Paris to Nantes, instead of traveling by train, they will burn 57% more fuel than they would while flying. And even if there are two people on that car trip, the amount of fossil fuel burned per person will be only 22% less than if those two travelers had flown.
This math may still lead many readers to the conclusion that, at the very least, it will be desirable to cram three or more people into a car for this very trip. But looking a step further than meets the eye advises against this. Here we finally see the scariest “not seen” consequence of the ban on short-haul flights: the likelihood of more road deaths.
A recent study by Harvard University found that for people traveling in the United States, Europe and Australia, the chance of dying while flying is 1 in 11 million, while the chance of dying while driving is d ‘1 in 5,000. In other words, you are 2,200 times more likely to die when traveling by car than by plane. By diverting some travelers from the air to the roads, the French government will almost certainly cause more travelers to die.
It turns out that political theater can be deadly.
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