Letters to the Editor
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Or they could change their centralized hub system.
That should save about .5 billion gallons of fuel right there. This is a company that picks up a package in Seattle and then moves it by jet to Atlanta to sort it before delivering it over night, again by jet, to Portland. Total distance flown to move a package 255 miles: 6500 miles. Only in the age of cheap fuel could such a system survive. It's gotta be on the way out with $120 a barrel crude.
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Carbon Price
What will FedEx do? They'll raise prices. (And hopefully also become more efficient, as the previous poster suggested.) The problem with the current "voluntary" carbon offset policy is that FedEx has to compete with UPS and USPS and so forth. They can send out "niceness vibes" by putting up solar panels and buying carbon offsets, but when it comes down to it, most people and companies buy by price, not warm fuzzies. And if their competitors don't want to do those things, they don't have to.
If it's mandatory, then at that point FedEx and UPS and the USPS will have to take the cost into account and price accordingly.
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slightly off-topic...
Is there a reason why the victory garden post keeps ending up at the top of HTWW?
Just wondering. Carry on.
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De-hubifying may not save that much
I don't know anything in particular about FedEx, but it does seem like having *one* destination for all your planes to go to when picking up packages will maximize efficency in terms of the load carried per plane.
For example, say I have 3 packages to deliver from San Jose to Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York. With regional hubs, these three packages would likely go to separate destinations: a northwest location for Seattle, a southwest location for LA, and the "main" central hub for NY. This will require 3 separate planes. Now say that, currently, all packages from the San Jose airport going to the single Atlanta hub take up 1.5 planeloads per day, on average. With a regional-hub system, my packages are going to take at least 3 separate planes. And there may be even more planes needed, if there are additional hubs.
This will mean that *every* plane will be flying with considerable empty cargo space, and more planes will be flying to carry the same number of packages. There may be no gas savings in this, even if the total miles the average package flies decreases.
Not to mention the extra traffic-control headaches, maintenance costs, etc. required for the additional planes. Even if the planes can be smaller on average, there may be no total cost savings.
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The cap-and-trade discussion delays acceptance of climate change implications with bargaining
Andrew Leonard's comparison highlights the fact that we are still in denial about the implications of climate change. The 69,240 gallons saved by solar installations is a token acknowledgement of the need to cut back. By focusing on this token positive news, we gleefully ignore the more significant figure of 1,300,000,000 gallons consumed.
Carbon cap-and-trade works in theory. In practice, it lets us discuss our response to climate change in abstract, economic terms. This is dangerous because it opens up our climate change response to all of the entrepreneurial shenanigans that are used so successfully in business.
The climate crisis is a tragedy. Psychologists describe a five stage process of dealing with tragedy. Carbon cap-and-trade is the the bargaining step, which only delays acceptance. Until we fully accept the implications, we will be reluctant to pay higher gas taxes, carpool more, and participate honestly and effectively in a cap-and-trade system.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to a working cap-and-trade system. I'm just concerned that the cap-and-trade discussion is allowing us to avoid discussing the real sacrifices that will have to be made. Like higher-cost FedEx shipments.
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@dcmeserve - Business-as-usual will continue to consume 1.3 billion gallons
dcmeserve - Your assertion that direct routes may result in wasteful, empty flights is absolutely correct, from an economic perspective. When we frame our climate change response in economic terms, we avoid making sacrifices and justify business-as-usual. The problem is, business-as-usual will continue to consume 1.3 billion gallons a year.
The reality is, we have to reduce that 1.3 billion gallons a year to a much smaller number.
Is it absolutely necessary to provide overnight air transport service from Seattle to Portland? If we relax guaranteed shipping times, Seattle-to-Portland shipments can be allowed to accumulate until there's enough to fill a FedEx cargo plane. A full plane from Seattle to Portland, with delayed shipping, will use much less fuel than a two-leg cross-country, overnight shipment.
Is it absolutely necessary to ship by air? A cargo train service, perhaps powered by clean electricity, will have a much smaller carbon footprint than a petroleum fuel powered airplane flight. The land area occupied by the rail lines should provide plenty of space for wind and solar power installations.
Is it necessary (or even good) to ship things as far as we do? The organic food movement has already recognized the environmental benefits of consuming locally grown food. Not only are shipping costs (both economic and environmental) reduced, but the risk of transporting invasive non-native species also declines. Once the actual environmental costs are included in the cost of shipping, local production will become competitive again, reinvigorating a domestic manufacturing job market.
Is it necessary to ship at all? The software industry has made first steps to replacing physical product distribution with electronic distribution. The book industry has made baby steps in the same direction. What can we do to accelerate the move to electronic product distribution?
My concern about the carbon cap-and-trade discussion is that we can easily waste our time wrangling over how the system works and how the credits are initially allocated. This postpones the direct actions required to deal with climate change.
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It may happen
It will require people not feeling they need every last little thing early the next morning. FedEx exists to fill a demand for fast shipment of solid objects, from paper to machine parts. Be content with a day or two in transit and things can change greatly. Demand "before 9 AM delivery" and things continue as they are.
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What about UPS?
All the uproar over Fed Ex and no one is looking at UPS. They are huge, what are they doing?