The Brighter Planet Blog

We were pleased to see the NY Times reporting this morning that the Phillies rolled into NY on a train for their series there, for the first time in decades.  Granted, they seem to have opted for the train for reasons of practicality, but it’s always nice to see high profile figures going the green route, whatever the reason.  And it’s also nice to see the green route becoming the practical one — fingers crossed that the train will continue to gain ground as the logical option, for environmental and practical reasons, as the administration negotiates the rollout of its high speed rail initiative in coming months.

Just how much carbon did the Phillies save taking the train this week rather than flying?  A lot.  If you assume the traveling team is comprised of the active roster of 25 players plus another 10 support staff, their round trip jaunt from Philly to NYC totals to 7,000 person-miles of travel.  On the train, that weighs in at 2,900 pounds of CO2e.  Had they opted for the plane instead, the climate impact would have been around 22,200 pounds CO2e, nearly ten times as great.  The difference between planes and trains is especially acute over short distances like this, because planes use a huge amount of fuel just to get off the ground.

–Matt K