Plane Truth: Aviation’s Real Impact on People and the Environment by Rose Bridger (review)

Rose Bridger’s Plane Truth examines and critiques the environmental and social impacts of the aviation industry. This topic is timely and relevant, given the industry’s recent surge in growth globally and its energy-intensive nature. Although filled with information, Plane Truth ultimately disappoints, due to a lack of substantive analysis and structure. This missed opportunity is unfortunate, given that the full impacts of global aviation are complex and interwoven with many other factors that beg for a comprehensive and cohesive analysis.

Plane Truth covers a lot of ground, including the growth and future of aviation, energy demands and sources, local and regional impacts of airports, air cargo and global trade, and economic issues and policies. The book’sstrength lies in its abundance of information, which may make it a useful reference for some readers. It is particularly effective at highlighting the many social and environmental injustices linked to airport construction and expansion, mainly through land seizures, local pollution, and/or altered hydrology. Examples from around the world reveal local impacts that are largely invisible to the travelers and global consumers who are often the main beneficiaries of these projects. However, excessive information without a strong analytical framework often becomes a drawback. This may stem from the author’s approach, stated in the opening paragraph: “When I began writing about aviation it was obvious that visiting airports would not be enlightening. So I didn’t go anywhere. Instead, I used the internet to research operations and expansion plans all over the world” (p. 1). Indeed, Bridger draws heavily from Internet news sites and press releases to populate the book with facts, events, and statistics.

Such dense detail sometimes becomes questionable and distracting. For example, Bridger discusses a single overturned jet fuel tanker truck that leaked its contents as evidence of the environmental effect of aviation. Yet one could probably find the environmental equivalent of an overturned tanker truck linked to almost any activity, regardless of its overall impact. While some aviation-related fuel spills have indeed been quite large, several pages on the subject fail to reveal a clear sense of the relative magnitude of the overall impact, giving the impression that the author was mining for anything negative to report. This issue recurs throughout the book, often leaving readers without a sense of scale or the relative/cumulative impacts of individual events. As another example, while reporting that a takeoff by a DC-10 emits “the same amount of nitrogen oxides as 21,530 cars” (p. 44) may sound impressive, without more information it does not convey a useful metric, such as the local or global fractional contribution to emissions from aviation. Also, the DC-10 is now a rare and largely irrelevant aircraft.

An exception is Bridger’s discussion of the potential for biofuels in aviation, which forms a more cohesive narrative. Given the substantial fuel demands of aircraft, the experimental trials thus far, and the environmental consequences of biofuel production itself, she argues that biofuels are unlikely to be a viable alternative any time soon. However, the author portrays any attempt by airlines or airports to use alternative energy as disingenuous greenwashing. Plane Truth certainly presents examples of clear greenwashing, but it is hard to understand why the impressive 1 megawatt (MW) solar installation at the Chattanooga airport (now 2.1 MW) was used as a leading example in the chapter entitled “Green Garnish.” The unsurprising fact that the solar array does not offset the energy of the airport’s jet fuel consumption should not reduce it to a cynical attempt to create a “green image.” If Bridger truly wishes for change in the industry, she should highlight and encourage positive steps. (Even a display of Dutch masters’ paintings at the Amsterdam airport is portrayed as part of a ploy to distract travelers from the environmental effects of aviation.)

Much of Plane Truth documents impacts that are tightly coupled with complex systems and institutions, such as global trade...