The usual cocktail of nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide and hydrocarbons swirling around Britain's airports has just been augmented by a strong whiff of indignation.
Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, used a conference in Ireland earlier this month to fire off a bullish defense of his industry.
"While it is crucial that aviation takes action on emissions, the notion that flying is a selfish, antisocial activity that single-handedly threatens planetary catastrophe bears no relation to the evidence," he said.
He is not the only airline boss to have challenged the claims of the environmental lobby in recent weeks. Flybe's chief commercial officer tore into "misinformed environmentalists" who peddle the "myth" that aviation is a major polluter, and easyJet's chief executive, Andy Harrison, shared his outrage.
"Aviation is not the environment's biggest enemy -- not today and not tomorrow," he said.
What triggered these outbursts was a report by the European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) examining how a European Commission proposal for an emissions trading scheme would affect EU economies.
It concluded that aviation is being unfairly blamed for carbon dioxide emissions and that penalizing airlines for them would harm both EU integration and the European economy.
British Airways is not a member of ELFAA, and Walsh said he did want to see a "working international system of emissions trading for aviation" to be introduced as soon as possible.
"This is not a painless option for airlines," he said. "If we increase our emissions, we will have to pick up the bill."
Nonetheless, he added, UK planes only contributed around 0.1 percent of global emissions and it was wrong to imagine that banning flying tomorrow would halt the damage.
Figures like these are a comfort to anyone who flies on business, particularly if they are beginning to wonder whether they ought to make an effort to avoid taking the plane. But are they reliable?
But had environmentalists really overestimated the damage aviation was doing?
On the contrary, said Peter Lockley of the Aviation Environment Foundation, Walsh was grossly underestimating it. The percentage he gave "willfully ignores the non-CO2 effects of aviation" and the fact that carbon dioxide causes more damage when it is released at high altitudes.
Lockley estimates that the "uplift" factor makes emissions 2.7 times more damaging and said his own calculations suggest that aviation accounts for around 13 percent of all the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, for all the improvements in fuel efficiency, the boom in cheap flying means that aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases.
Walsh wants any emissions trading scheme to discount this "uplift" effect because, he argues, "there is little scientific consensus" about it (another expert put the figure at 2.4). He believes that a simpler scheme would be easier to administer. But Flybe and easyJet are furious at the idea that their newer and cleaner fleets should pay the same penalty as the older jets flown by their rivals.
"We fly brand-new aircraft with some of the highest load factors in the business," Harrison said. "We have always argued for bankrupt inefficient airlines to leave the sector and eliminate the unprofitable flying that is usually done on older, dirtier aircraft."
He has a point. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), some of whose business customers now add up "their" emissions to calculate how much to donate to carbon offset programs, recently introduced an emissions calculator on its Web site.
Even a tool as simplistic as this one reveals just how difficult it is to quantify the effect of a particular journey. The proportion of seats occupied, the temperature, the wind direction and the presence of cargo all play a part. But the aging McDonnell Douglas planes in the SAS fleet do emit significantly more pollution than the more modern Airbuses.
It gets more complicated. Do you take into account the carbon load involved in traveling to and from airports? Do you consider the altitude at which the plane flies?
Internal flights, for example, are more likely to use turbo-props, which fly lower than jets and are less likely to produce contrails (the chemical trail that follows an aircraft) that are thought to exacerbate the effects of their emissions. The calculations are fraught with pitfalls. Is it really possible to make a meaningful comparison between journeys by plane, train and car?
Paul Upham, a research fellow at the Tyndall Centre, which studies sustainable ways of tackling climate change, believes it is. He has used the European Environment Agency's preferred measure of fuel consumption, "Corinair," to compare the journey from Manchester in the northwest of England to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. A fully-loaded Saab 200 turbo-prop on this route produces 103kg of carbon dioxide per passenger, while a Nissan Micra carrying one emits 226kg.
Obviously, that figure is cut dramatically if two or more people are sharing the car. But Upham admits he was "very surprised" at the finding.
"Planes aren't the evil things relative to cars that people imagine," he said.
Trains are still the least polluting form of transport for longer journeys. But even trains have their own carbon load, and not all trains are equal: diesels are more polluting than electric trains, for example.
"This is what people need to accept. We need to travel less by plane. But we need to travel less per se," he said.
Lockley agrees. Later this year the AEF will launch a Web site called Flyless.org, which will suggest practical alternatives to business travel, such as video conferencing. He thinks it unlikely that the proposed emissions trading scheme will make a significant difference.
"The aviation industry knows the only meaningful way it can moderate its emissions is to reduce its growth rates, something it isn't prepared to do. Instead, it touts emissions trading as a solution that will allow the market to decide where reductions can be made at least cost," he said.
Quite probably, he said, the industry will swap emissions for renewable energy projects in the developing world.
"The cheapest way for carbon permits to leak into an emissions trading scheme is to ensure that those covered by it don't have to make any real reductions," he said.
But Upham believes carbon offset schemes of the kind offered by Climate Care can be useful as long as the projects are of a good quality and do not simply involve planting trees.
Renewable energy projects can be worthwhile, he said, and the Tyndall Centre is hoping to receive funding to research what makes a good one. He is keen on the prospect of biofuels derived from plant waste -- which Virgin Atlantic is investigating -- although these are still some way off.
And he points out that airlines have a constant incentive to improve fuel efficiency because of rising oil prices.
"They've made amazing strides and they will make amazing strides in the future," he said.
We will find out this summer whether the European Commission -- which started the low-fares revolution in the first place by opening up the EU's airspace to new carriers -- will force the airlines to pay a little more to pollute. Many hope that the Single European Skies program will make the EU's fragmented air traffic control networks more efficient and cut down on emissions.
In the meantime, the message for business travelers with an environmental conscience is this: if you must travel and the trains are unworkable, then at least don't take the car.
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