Well there's short term and then there's really short term: I remember something from 9/11, when Bush ordered all airplanes grounded for three days, the skys were clear of sunlight reflecting contrails and the average temperature went up by 3 degrees for the duration.

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"...all airplanes grounded for three days, the skys were clear of sunlight reflecting contrails and the average temperature went up by 3 degrees for the duration."

Oh, my gosh, some people on this site are so stupid... Maybe you can get the moderator to delete your post before more people read it? What better statement to broadcast to all a complete fantasy, and lack of understanding? Yikes! And people like this are trying to pass laws drastically increasing the size and scope of incompetent government bureaucracies, massively increasing taxes, and forcing people into primitive lifestyles in order to please their enviro-god.

Praise be to Crazed Poodle.

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@ Goracle, you used a lot of characters to say absolutely nothing. If you have any relevant statements (I'd prefere somehow supported by evidence), then please tell them, otherwise you might better start informing yourself.

Flying carbon-neutral is actually quite cheap. Simply pay farmers to produce biochar (or in the short run, simply trees. they can easily start planting trees today and than make the preparations to start producing biochar within a few years.)

As an example : a boeing 747 can fly 13500km on 217000 L of fuel, transporting 500 people.
That makes 434 litres per person for 13500 km (which is a much-more-than-average distance)

434 litres of fuel makes 1371 kg of CO2 = 374kg of carbon.

if you pay the very generous price of 200$/ton of agrichar to the farmers, it would only make 75$.
(they can simply mix the agrichar with their own farming-soil to increase productivity of next year)

So, add 75$ to the ticket price (for this long-distance-flight), and pay it to farmers to increase their own soil-quality or to (re)plant forests.

Of course, many farmers can produce agrichar as a by-product of normal farming, and the production of agrichar also can produce valuable by-products. But even if you simply grow biomass-crops and only produce cheap biochar and burn the coproduced gases, 200$/ton is generous.

Considering how many trips of that distance 'normal' people make per year, the price for a green airtravel industry is peanuts compared to electric vehicles.

You could also pay people to collect burnable dead wood in forests and to produce biochar to increase soilquality of nearby farmers. Considering the heat waves of recent history and close future, even without biochar production it would be wise to 'clean' the forests of these biomasses to limit wildfire intensity and probability. (The chance of big wildfires decreases and the intensity decreases (lower heat intensity means that the trees don't die when a forest has burnt)

Flying green is easy, cheap, social, increases soil quality for generations to come, supports local economies, fights unemployment and will be supported by the farming lobby and petrol lobby. What do you need more ?
A smart politician

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Yes, "I hate you" is one of the most often used statements of Global Warming® (since rebranded Climate Change®, since rebranded CO2 Pollution®) "scientists."

Thank you all for that!

Along the line of no air traffic over the US for three days increasing average temperatures by 3 degrees, I helped solve that terrible problem by only walking backward while the planes were grounded (science!). Now I can claim to be in the same league as the rest of you!

Praise be to Crazed ___ Poodle.

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When I made that statement I was going solely by memory (as I said) but Google is your friend;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020808075457.htm
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/contrail.html

What really happened was that the diurnal temperature range increased. Daytime highs went up and nighttime lows went down. So that's a "mea culpa" from me.

"if you pay the very generous price of 200$/ton of agrichar to the farmers , it would only make 75$.
(they can simply mix the agrichar with their own farming-soil to increase productivity of next year)

So, add 75$ to the ticket price (for this long-distance-flight), and pay it to farmers to increase their own soil-quality or to (re)plant forests. "

This is the root of all the Climate change cult it is all about redistribution of capital and wealth from 1st world economies to 3rd world serfs. This has and always will be the goal of Marxists which the greens do a terrible job of hiding the blatant Marxist tactics. its one thing to be a conservationist and nature lover its another thing entirely to be a Marxist masquerading as a environmentalist. most true conservationists are all for green technologies but not at the expense of killing our standards of living and transferring our hard earned wealth to 3rd worlders who wont stop breeding themselves into trouble. I work to hard and spent to much time and money in University to let some marxist-watermellon confiscate my wealth for strangers in the 3rd world.

Wow! I haven't seen someone use the word "Marxist" that many times in one paragraph since I stopped watching FauxNews.

@ TXGeologist,

I was not talking about 3rd world farmers, but about farmers in the same country where the paying traveler lives. Although theoretically, it would be most efficient to pay low-wage farmers, it is very difficult to controll whether they actualy do produce the biochar, and not simply burn the biomass or only say they produce it or sell their biochar production to several 'clients'. Good controll of actual production will be difficult and is impossible to globalize.

This has nothing to do with distributing wealth, but to let the free market - within your own country - decide who can sequester carbon most efficiently. I used the 200$/ton just to calculate that even a rediculously high price for the farmer would be very affordable. In reality, the price to the traveler would certainly be much lower, since the free market should decide which farmer gets the job (of course the cheapest). When demand for carbon sequestration rises, and consequently the price per ton, it would become ever more economical for farmers or even big industries to start producing agrichar on ever bigger industrial scale. It should become an industry that is governed by supply and demand, thus selfregulating to maximal efficiency and productivity. The advantage of jumpstarting such an industry is that other industries can do business as usual while being carbon-neutral at minimal costs, and that eventualy, once the agrichar-industry is mature, it can be expanded cheaply to do cleaning of the air at minimal costs, while dramatically increasing soil quality in the countries that are playing the game.
If in this free market economy soil quality increases and productivity of farming increases, food prices will decrease, or exports will increase.

Anyway, don't fool yourselve. someone will pay the price of climate change if we don't prevent it. Since obviously (as long as you admit the reality of climate change) Americans and Europeans are most responsible for the total CO2-problem, we will have to carry the burden.
Also obviously, the richer you are, the more you can loose. A nice storm in New Orleans destroyed more property value than the value of all the houses of a small african country together.

If you prefer the collectivity (= state) to pay the expenses instead of the people who are responsible for the costs, than that's a vision you can try to defend, but then, who's the marxist here ?

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It's called weather. And this from the same people who shriek "THAT"S WEATHER, NOT CLIMATE" when people claim that heavy snowfalls prove or disprove something related to climate.

You people are SO silly!!!

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Subsequent research undertaken in 2008 suggested that the original research from 2002 was mistaken:

http://www-pm.larc.nasa.gov/sass/pub/journals/Hong.etal.GRL.08.pdf

But contrails do have a significant effect which is currently being evaluated under the EU's QUANTIFY project:

http://www.pa.op.dlr.de/quantify

@ Lucas

"People with closed minds contribute little to discussions here. What they say, and what they will say, is totally predictable."

One could also apply the same as far as HarveyD is concerned.

"Also obviously, the richer you are, the more you can loose."

I'm marking this up because I see it too often and suffer from Distraught English Tutor Syndrome.

Also, who exactly is "Crazed____Poodle?"

The simplest and easiest way of cutting your carbon footprint is to walk, particularly on short journeys. Its excellent exercise, saves money on petrol and of course better for the environment!
http://www.greenliving9.com/travelling-green.html