© Jennie Hills/Science Museum

Exhibition Review - Does Flying Cost the Earth? At the Science Museum Antenna Gallery, London until November 2008

“Look Mummy it’s Easyjet.” The girl was around seven years old and she was the second child to identify with a model of the airline’s proposed Ecojet aircraft. The fact young children can identify so easily with low cost airlines demonstrates how ingrained flying is into the British way of life.

The small model was one of the exhibits at the Science Museum’s Antenna Hall. Antenna is a continually updated airing of the latest science and technology news and from May until November 2008 it is asking “Does Flying Cost The Earth?”

Approaching the exhibition it is easy to miss the almost sheepish placement of the EADS logo on the huge introductory wall.

As sponsor of the show and owner of Airbus, one of the world’s leading aircraft manufacturers, independence in the argument may be a little dented. Regardless, the presentations which follow are very informative.

© Jennie Hills/Science Museum

Guilt about your own carbon footprint can start early in the display. It tells you the personal average of 2.2 flights per year makes up 12 per cent of our own emissions (DTI, 2005). Airlines do appear to get a rough deal when you notice heating causes 41 per cent of personal emissions and car travel and other transport puts the boot into the planet by transmitting another 31 per cent.

Information and interaction is used to good effect in the displays. As you try and push thoughts of those cheeky weekend trips to Venice and Barcelona to the back of your mind a digital clock distracts you. Within a flickering second you realise it is not a clock but a counter of today’s global flights. With just over half the day gone, over 40,000 flights have already launched into the air spewing CO2 and nitrogen oxide behind them. The scale of the challenge starts to sink in.

The wake up call to our own responsibility arrives when the DTI predicts UK aviation emissions could increase from 6 per cent now to 21 per cent in 2050. Global emissions could also grow three-fold in this period according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

After a quick lesson on why flying contributes to climate change the bulk of the exhibition is dedicated to the technologies that might tackle the problem. The aviation industry is setting itself targets and wants to reduce CO2 emissions by a half by 2020.

© Jennie Hills/Science Museum

Ten different technologies are reviewed and the solutions are compared on five different criteria such as cost, timescale and level of emission cuts. We learn some of the largest green gains in flying are obtainable only after many years and much expense. The uplifting fact is a range of solutions are being looked at now, such as removing aircraft rivets to make them more streamlined and testing completely new fuels.

Kids love prodding and poking screens. The Science Museum knows this and is extremely clever at balancing education with the playful. They also know adults are big kids and like to engage this way as well. One screen invites you to improve the future of air travel emissions by bashing a finger to turn old planes into new eco-friendly jets as the years tick away. The metaphor of this game is profound. Your finger will hurt long before the demand for air travel fades.

In the final section more interactive stations provide a guide to the ways we can help. Pros and cons for different actions are offered for such things as carbon offsetting or taking greener transport alternatives. An opportunity is even given at the end to make a pledge for one of these actions. One of the pledges ‘buy less air freighted food’ has already caused debate.

Flying Matters is a pro-aviation coalition and in a letter to the museum Director, Professor Chris Rapley, they criticised this approach. Brian Wilson, Chairman of the coalition said in the letter: “The issue of food miles is highly complex and air freighted fresh produce from the developing world is in some cases less damaging to the environment than food grown in Europe.”

© Jennie Hills/Science Museum

This highlights the complexity of the subject. The challenge of balancing economic growth, which takes people out of poverty, and looking after the planet, is a tough one. However, on completing a trip around this exhibition it does produce a feeling the industry and government are gradually addressing the issues.