Ask Slashdot: Would Rationing Air Travel Work To Cut Emissions? 347
united_notions writes: Last year, The Guardian ran an opinion article arguing that everyone should be allocated "an air mile allowance -- say enough for one long-haul return flight a year, or three short-haul flights. [...] If you don't want to use your allowance, you could sell it off in a government-regulated online marketplace. If you're keen to do a holiday a month, you'll have to buy your allowance from someone else." But despite continuing concerns over the environmental harm caused by air travel, this idea has not found much subsequent support. Instead, serious air time is given to meager plans like weighing passengers. Do Slashdotters think rationing would work? Could serious coordinated inter-governmental restrictions on air travel change our behavior? Might it just spur corporations into finishing up carbon-neutral passenger planes?
Socialism (Score:5, Insightful)
Requires rationing for everyone except the socialist leaders.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What does rationing have to do with socialism? Lots of non-socialist governments implement it, e.g. in the UK we had rationing during WW2.
If you accept that there is a serious climate emergency then there are plenty of non-socialist reasons for rationing.
Not socialism (Score:3)
They already do that (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a system in place that rations air travel. It's called "money".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem at the moment is that it punishes people who fly occasionally or because they have little choice (e.g. they need to visit family members), while having relatively little effect on people who fly a lot for business reasons and the like.
Business reasons are often pretty weak, a lot of that stuff could be done via video link these days.
It would also help if decent alternatives were available. When high speed rail is done well it can replace a lot of domestic flights, for example, but for some reaso
Re: (Score:2)
This. Price in the carbon somehow. Airlines will already be required to include carbon offsets in the price of tickets within the next few years. It doesn't have to be complicated or draconian.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Cap and Trade does two things: 1) It distributes money from ordinary people to others 2) It increases the wealth gap whereby those with money can still do whatever they desire and those with less are no longer able to do certain things because of the artificial consumption tax. It's a very regressive system that does not help what they say it will help. It makes a small group of people wealthy while also creating a more elitist society.
As with most liberal ideas, it pushes nearly everyone down (it nev
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Cap and Trade does two things: 1) It distributes money from ordinary people to others
Since ordinary people only fly one per decade or so, it would distribute money from wealthier people to ordinary people, who would suddenly find themselves with an annually-renewing, saleable asset that they didn't previously have.
I'm not saying it's a good idea, just that your claim makes no sense.
Re:They already do that (Score:4, Informative)
Since ordinary people only fly one per decade or so
Holy crap have you lost touch with "ordinary" people. For the record I can fly across the continent (one way) for the cost of dinner for one. It actually costs me more to get the train to and from the airport, and it's only a 25min train ride. There were 4.3 billion air travelers in 2018, and while the majority of them may have been work trips, many of those people were "ordinary", and even after they are removed there's still plenty left for even more "ordinary" people.
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Since ordinary people only fly one per decade or so
Holy crap have you lost touch with "ordinary" people.
My yardstick is all of the ordinary people in my family and neighborhood, many of whom have never flown.
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Now ask yourself why that is. I'm surrounded by people who don't speak english right now, so English isn't an "ordinary" language right?
Flying is the cheapest form of transport to get a reasonable distance, even with the comically low gas prices along with the lack of discount airlines in the USA.
Re: They already do that (Score:3)
There were 4.3 billion air travelers in 2018
Bull fucking shit, no. It is wrong, you are mistaken and you have no clue what you are talking about. Less than hundred million people made all the air travel in 2018. Fewer than a billion period have ever made air travel.
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A trip by a single passenger will probably see 4 flights total on average unless that passenger is routinely able to score direct flights. In many cases they'll being flying from departure -> hub -> destination and the a similar path on the way back.
4.3bn passengers flights would be roughly 1bn passenger trips. I think 3 trips per flying passenger per year is a reasonable estimate which would me in the ball park of 300-350 million unique passengers. That would be about 4% of the world population.
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As with most liberal ideas,
Why do you label that idea "liberal"?
What has liberalism to do with it?
Numbers (Score:2)
In 2017 there were approximately 4 billion passenger movements. So a fair share of that split equally among the human race is half a flight per person per year.
How stupid... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How stupid... (Score:4, Insightful)
Electric bullet trains are far more fuel efficient than airplanes, about 300-500 passenger-MPGe versus about 80-100. So if this plan were adopted in the USA, I think we would see bullet train lines criss-crossing the nation. It would be glorious!
Re:How stupid... (Score:4, Informative)
LOL - California tried that, and after coming up with $100 billion cost for LA to SF (and no way to actually ROUTE the train to LA), they gave up. I like my trains, but for long distances, it's hard to beat a plane.
Even when I'm in China, and can take a high speed (300+ kph) train from Shanghai to Shenzhen, I still fly because it's 4 hours (including 1.5 hours before and 30 minutes after the 2 hour flight) versus 9 hours by train. And it's about the same cost (1000 RMB for the flight, ~1000 for the train).
If the US was small and just the size of, say, France, Germany, or Japan, that's an entirely different question. But given it's ~500 km between SF and LA - and that's only about 40% of the length of the State - it's hard to make the case.
In any event, airplane travel is actually quite energy efficient, all things considered. Much better than most other options for most people, especially those who have to fly more than a few hundred km...
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LOL - California tried that, and after coming up with $100 billion cost for LA to SF (and no way to actually ROUTE the train to LA), they gave up.
Which I still don't understand how....
But instead of taking an obviously botched project as baseline for estimations. Munich - Berlin was build for EUR 5 billion for 200 km (LA SF with ~500km should be in the 15 bn rather than 100bn ballpark) and this was already considered expensive. Long distance connections in a straight line across the flat midwest should even be cheaper.
And considering the long distances to be covered, alternative tech may get into the sensible price/performance range.
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$79.1 billion, and part of that is inflation. How much do you think adding a runway to SFO or SJC would cost?
That's 1,600 km by train, too far for HSR to compete with flying. SF to LA is a much more sensible distance for HSR.
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$79.1 billion, and part of that is inflation. How much do you think adding a runway to SFO or SJC would cost?
Heathrow's runway expansion is estimated at about £14bn ($17.78bn). It's adding its third runway which would provide an additional 50% takeoff and landing slots.
SFO operates four runways at the moment but they're not at slot capacity. Not all runways at SFO are long enough (3,618m, 3,469m, 2,637m, and 2,332m) to handle all the planes that fly in and out of the airport. Some planes can takeoff and land at the long and short runways, some can only takeoff and land on the longer ones, and some planes can
Not always (Score:3)
Electric bullet trains are far more fuel efficient than airplanes,
Not when you are crossing an ocean.
Wealth Redistribution (Score:3, Insightful)
Like most plans related to climate change, this is merely another form of wealth redistribution. It would involve wealthy people who can afford foreign holidays giving money to poor people who can't. It's pure socialism and would do absolutely nothing to reduce emissions.
This is the case with most policies related to climate change, and climate change is merely a vehicle used to push socialist policies. We hear all the time about how we have to give money to the third world to "pay for the cost of climate change" or about how we must allow people from the third world to come to Europe because they're "climate refugees." For many on the left, climate change is much more about pushing socialism than it is about the environment.
Re:Wealth Redistribution (Score:4, Insightful)
It would involve wealthy people who can afford foreign holidays giving money to poor people who can't.
Replacing multiple people flying with one person flying -- where that one person isn't going to be flying any more than they would have been anyway.
It's pure socialism and would do absolutely nothing to reduce emissions.
It's pure mathematics, in that one person who would fly that amount anyway will still do so, and the people who sold their credit, won't.
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What should we do about our CO2-emitting, socialized roads?
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Don't Micromanage: Carbon Tax Instead (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a really stupid approach to managing carbon reductions. We could go on and on and on finding different activities that produce CO2, and create rules for each of them, and it would be an ineffective nightmare.
If we're going to get a handle on it, we need to simply tax carbon emissions. In most cases, this can be implemented as a tax on the fuel. The amount of CO2 produced is easy to calculate for any given fuel.
(Very roughly, the carbon from the fuel mixes with oxygen from the air to produce CO2, so most fuels, being primarily carbon by weight, will produce on the order of triple their weight in CO2. But obviously we can do the math correctly for each fuel.)
A carbon tax lets the market shift as appropriate. Instead of regulating air travel directly, a carbon tax builds in the price of the emissions into the cost of the tickets without the need for any fancy regulations. It creates financial incentives to make all travel more efficient and creates incentives for renewable energy.
Re:Don't Micromanage: Carbon Tax Instead (Score:4, Insightful)
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Using it to replace the payroll tax is questionable, especially given that the goal is to change usage such that the tax revenue should decrease over time. That said, I have no objections in principle to the idea of redistributing the revenue in a basic income sort of system such that it is revenue neutral.
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Indeed - seeing planes leaving when actually full, rather than empty "otherwise we'll lose our slot" would probably do more for carbon emissions than rationing.
Airport taxes ought to be per-plane, rather than per-passenger. Since you can't know how much tax to charge until the flight leaves, that does present a billing problem, which could be overcome by estimating (based on previous performance) how full the plane you're booking is likely to be (or else having some sort of complicated pay a bit now to book
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There is one problem with carbon taxes in that they tend to hit the poor a lot harder than the rich, since the energy costs of manufacturing & transporting cheap goods are roughly the same as expensive ones, making for a much greater percentage of the total costs.
However, if you redistribute the carbon tax revenue equally across the population, instead of into government coffers, that problem disappears. Anyone whose carbon consumption is below average comes out ahead, while still maintaining pressure
Re:^ Found the Rothschild BANKER FAGGOT (Score:5, Insightful)
You want every human being exhaling C02 to be taxed for their human rights.
Carbon taxes only make sense on carbon that is dug out of the ground and put into the air, rather than carbon that is recycled from the air, fixed into food, then turned back into CO2. That cyclical process doesn't increase atmospheric CO2.
So, no, no one would be taxed for breathing. That's not only silly, but pointless.
I guess a better question would be (Score:3)
How can I, who never travels by air. make money from this?
The next question is, would controlling ocean shipping and long distance trucking do more to reduce carbon emissions?
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> How can I, who never travels by air. make money from this?
1. Get a job.
2. Work at the job.
3. ???
4. Profit.
Hint: step (3) is stop being a leech on society.
I'm retired, please keep paying into social security so I don't have to take any distributions from my retirement fund or 401K or IRAs...
So already on step 4
Would just encourage more driving (Score:2)
I fly from Portland to San Francisco at least once a month, sometimes more.
If I had a cap of 3 short-hauls/year, I'd just switch to driving (not the bus, not the train, but driving my single-passenger car). Air travel is already more fuel efficient than a typical single-passenger car, so that would just increase my carbon footprint.
And how would you account for business vs personal travel? If my employer sends me on 3 shorthaul trips, then I have to cancel my European vacation plans or purchase a long-haul
Re: (Score:2)
If my employer sends me on 3 shorthaul trips, then I have to cancel my European vacation plans or purchase a long-haul flight allowance from the market place?
Wouldn't the employer have to pay for the flight allowances?
Re:Would just encourage more driving (Score:4, Insightful)
If my employer sends me on 3 shorthaul trips, then I have to cancel my European vacation plans or purchase a long-haul flight allowance from the market place?
Wouldn't the employer have to pay for the flight allowances?
Would they? Who knows. They may want me to use my "free" allowance for business travel, and I'm on my own for personal travel.
Re: (Score:2)
Then sell it to them.
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You'd fly just as much using credits your employer buys. Business flight miles will be limited only by their willingness to pay for for the flight credit taxes.
The tax money will go towards whatever party's politicians decide to earmark it for, like investment tax credits to airlines for studying how to make self-flying electric airplanes.
Individuals will NOT be allowed to sell their credits. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Set up an artificial market (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead of having your People's Commissars wrangle over such minutiae as how much vacation time each plebeian shall be allowed, impose a revenue neutral carbon tax on human activity. Activities that generate carbon net of an activity average would be taxed progressively according to the amount of carbon each usage emitted per taxpayer, while activities of the same category as each carbon producer (transportation, power generation, food production, etc.) that reduce carbon from the activity average would be subsidized from the revenue, again progressively according to the amount of carbon each activity saved per taxpayer.
Such a tax would not only incentivize carbon reduction with a minimum of direct government involvement in the economy, but would be self-liquidating as the net carbon output of each activity type goes to zero.
Re:Set up an artificial market (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
That's why you don't want a carbon tax that just goes to general revenue. That would put the government on the side of generating more carbon.
They don't like it because it solves another probl (Score:2, Flamebait)
Introducing a cost to air travel that goes to people who don't use it is wealth redistribution, the worst and scariest thing people with enough money to buy laws can imagine. Nevermind that the massive supply means your miles would be worth about three cents; any flow in the reverse direction is inexcusable. No wage, only spend.
Obvious answer, is obvious. (Score:2)
Yes, I do understand that we all enjoy our air travel, but there's a rather simple and obvious answer to this.
Raise the price.
Air travel used to be rather luxurious. I don't mean to make it only affordable for the elite, but if your intend is to curb demand, that's the fastest way to do it. Besides, advertising $19 plane tickets only to find another $200 in fees buried in the fine print is the kind of bullshit marketing that needs to be outlawed.
Ridiculous! (Score:4, Informative)
Like a previous poster said already, this is just another artificial wealth redistribution scheme. None of these have proven to make a lot of sense or really change behaviors in significant ways.
A good example are the solar reclamation credits (or SRECS) implemented in some states. If you invest in solar, you can sign up so you earn these SRECs based on how much power you generate. Then, they make their state utilities buy the SRECS from clearing-houses in sufficient quantities to cover penalties they incur if they don't use "Green" energy methods to produce all of their power.
In reality, it gave early adopters of solar some money that helped offset their installation costs, by making the utility companies help pay for them. It was kind of a pyramid scheme too, since the early adopters, showing off their SREC quarterly checks for hundreds of dollars convinced many others to buy solar. And the more people got online with it, the more saturated the market was with more SRECs than the utilities required. So their value plummeted. As far as it making everything more "Green"? Nah, not so much. The utilities are going to keep on using the existing power generation sites they've got, since they were hugely expensive to build initially and need to run for X number of years to break even and become profit centers. They'd rather pay for the SREC offsets and pass some of the costs on to customers than take out huge loans to build new "Green" generation plants that replace good, working natural gas or coal fired plants. In fact, all the individuals and businesses with rooftop solar are using LESS of their billable electricity, so that lack of demand growth makes even MORE of a case for them just keeping their status quo plants in service.
Why pick on air travel? (Score:2)
What's next, bread rations? (Score:3)
Government involvement is never a good idea. Look at the USSR, they had rations on everything from cars to food. It didn't help because people inherently will avoid these artificial barriers, instead they created a black market for food, a black market for cars etc.
The US had the same problem with prohibition and currently with many drugs, you regulate people out of the market so they'll create an unregulated market.
Re:What's next, bread rations? (Score:5, Funny)
Stupid idea. (Score:2)
Unless you allocate fewer miles as a whole than are currently being flown or disallow buying and selling.
If there is excess, it's nothing more than a money distribution system.
It would be more effective to just add a seat tax.
How about fuck you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Restricting travel is a big step down the road to fascism.
You want to live your life, you do just that. When you start telling me how to live mine, we're going to have a problem, in a hurry.
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Restricting travel is a big step down the road to fascism.
That depends. Were we fascist 20 years ago when air travel was "restricted" to the wealthy? Air travel has become comically and disproportionately cheap. I booked a flight from Amsterdam to Vienna for less than the cost of dinner (35eur) recently to go to a birthday party, and not a big one like a 30th.
Cargo Container Ships (Score:2, Informative)
Cargo container ships are the single worst offenders on the planet.
Until you fix them, literally everything else you are doing is, in the words of the minister of Rock Ridge... is "just jerking off".
Generally regulation is a terrible idea. (Score:3)
What you want is a tax on fossil fuels, and then let the market sort out plane size, route selection, fuel efficiency vs travel time, supplementing with bio-fuels or even generating aviation fuel from water with electricity when electricity is very cheap
And all that stuff.
It also keeps other methods of travel in line, and doesn't bias the selection of alternatives to travel.
Regulation isn't as economically efficient as a tax, because it generates complicated systems of gaming it.
Re: (Score:2)
wrong, we don't want that.
adding costs to every working person's life is not a solution.
only making alternative power sources is a solution.
get your fucking hand out of my pocket, you parasite.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it could be made neutral or even progressive with correct adjustments to income tax, but I'm skeptical that would happen. There is a tendency for regulations that are intended as "environmental" to somehow benefit wealthier people. Tesla lanes. Solar credits - for people with enough capital to afford solar, etc etc.
I would support legislation adding a carbon tax and then adjusting income tax to make it on average neutral or progressive.
OTOH I doubt an air travel limit will really be progressive
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To get to "break even" point for Earth means about halving carbon emissions, and still the oceans would be acidified. To get to where carbon was being "sunk away" we need about 75 emission reduction... much more than that 50 percent neutral point.
Sooo, if you want to talk about using income tax to pave about a hundred square miles of desert (which is tiny) with panels and storage, mainly using fossil fuel for those rare stretches of "cloudy days".... then yes that could be a solution. Trillions of dollars
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>"The problem is the combustion of fossil fuels, which is not directly coupled to air travel."
That is part of the problem. The creation of the devices, the infrastructure, and the running of the machines that combust fuels- regardless of the fuel, all that adds to the actual total carbon use. I read some electric cars emit more CO2 over their life than some ICE ones. Why? Because the construction used more CO2 and the electricity the electric car uses still comes mostly from CO2 sources (perhaps bett
Drake on a plane (Score:2)
The epiphany [killyourdarlings.com.au]
The buzz of richiness [refinery29.com]
Stupid (Score:2)
There's an economically sound method for adding the externalities of CO2 emission back into prices. It's called a carbon tax. Yet some whackadoodles came up with this crazy scheme because... they don't like the "tax" part?
It's likely unconstitutional in most western democracies, wouldn't have any effect on the biggest CO2 contributors, would require crazy amounts of tuning to work at all, and would be massively expensive and otherwise nightmarish to actually implement.
Global Cap and Trade Carbon Market (Score:2)
1) Cap emissions at a safe level.
2) Trade credits.
Let the market figure it out. If that means using out carbon allotment... great. If we decide we would rather run server farms and skype. Great.
Why would we tackle carbon emissions on an industry by industry basis.
Easy to cut CO2, trick is doing it efficiently (Score:2)
There are lots of ways to reduce CO2 emissions. Could ban the sale of all fossil fuels for example.
The trick is finding the approach that minimizes the overall cost / economic impact relative to the amount of reduction - including evaluating secondary effects. Finding that requires actual *science*, *engineering* and *economics*. Not just clever ideas.
My guess is that greatly reducing air travel will cause a lot of economic disruption because at least in some countries tourism / business visitors bring
Exemptions for all those private jets... (Score:2)
That get flown to global warming conferences, right?
Airlines already optimize for fuel (Score:2)
Many people can notice that the air travel times have increased. This is due to higher efficiency of slightly slower speeds compared to top speed cruising. This and packing people like lunch meat among others contribute to much higher fuel efficiency in air travel.
Until we can get real zero emission vehicles with long range, and can convince people to take 8 hour trips instead of the regular 2, this would not be carbon saving at all. It will push people to lower efficiency means of travel.
Stop burning things to produce energy (Score:2)
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Well they are not massively inefficient or we wouldn't use them. What they are is inefficient at sea level. The higher you go the more efficient they get. At least when compared to spinning airfoils.
I'm going to disagree with you on the replacing the internal combustion engine. It's not the engine itself, but what you burn in it. Fossil fuels such as gasoline suck. But there are cleaner fuels, natural gas comes to mind. I believe alcohol and biodiesel are also a clean alternative.
The holy grai
Re: (Score:3)
CO2 is CO2 no matter what it is you burn so I agree with him we need to stop burning things.
Well, you can agree with him all you want to but that doesn't make you right. Your entire statement about CO2 that is.
Not all C02 is created equal. In fact CO2 is an important part of our environment, plants use it. What is important is where the CO2 comes from. Burning fossil fuels releases CO2 that has been stored out of the biosphere for millions of years back into the biosphere. This leads to a net increase in the CO2 in the atmosphere. Actually, its the carbon that is the problem, but that is
Hmm, probably not that way (Score:2)
The sane way would be to stop subsidizing the airline industry and simply make them pay for the damage they cause, for example by how much CO2 they emit. That way ticket prices would increase dramatically, in particular for airlines with inefficient planes.
Here's some other ideas (Score:2)
Why single out air travel and leave out everything else?
- Restrict the use of cars for all trips less than 10 km/6 miles. Buy a bike instead.
- Require that everyone lives within 10 km/6 miles of his place of work.
According to this (https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/transport-uses-25-percent-of-world-energy) cars and other small personal vehicles use ~47% of all energy used in transportation. Most of those cars are either moving minimal distances, meaning a less polluting form of transport would hav
Re: (Score:2)
I like this one!
We get to feel good about ourselves while at the same time enslaving the majority of the population - after all, who can afford to change jobs if it requires buying a new house?
Cost of living gradient (Score:2)
- Restrict the use of cars for all trips less than 10 km/6 miles. Buy a bike instead.
Please explain how you would accommodate children not yet old enough to be cycling on public roads.
Please explain how you would accommodate commuting to and from work during a thunderstorm.
Please explain how you would cover the cost of retrofitting all intersections with demand-actuated signal sets to detect bicycles. I've seen traffic signal sets that alternate between the (primary) cross street and a green left turn arrow for oncoming traffic for upwards of eight minutes, not giving my lane a green light
Flying: 1.6 tonnes of 2.1 tonnes budget. (Score:2)
To prevent a 2C increase*, a person's annual CO2e needs to be about 2.1 tonnes. https://iopscience.iop.org/art... [iop.org]
A single roundtrip transatlantic flight is about 1.60 tonnes CO2e https://interactive.guim.co.uk... [guim.co.uk] - more than half your CO2e budget for an entire year.
To prevent making the biosphere uninhabitable for humans and most other species, simply jail for omnicide everyone who exceeds their CO2e budget.
*2C is actually too high, since it doesn't seem to be sustainable - so the target should be less than
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I absolutely love how you leave out having children, which come in at a whopping 58.6 tons of CO2 on your chart. What you are basically saying is that only one person in 28 should have a child - and that child will use the entire CO2 budget, so those 28 people should be using no energy whatsoever for the rest: no planes, no cars, no airco, not even electric lighting or cooking.
Anyway, good luck with jailing everyone who has even one child, or owns a car (it's also on your chart), or does not line-dry their
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You're correct that such laws are unlikely to be voted for, and it's unlikely people will reduce their CO2e emissions to prevent the collapse of the biosphere.
You're not correct about the 100% tho - there are many people who remain child-free, flight-free, car-free, locavore vegan, etc., because they're not omnicidally psychotic.
could be a good idea, (Score:2)
but when you allow the option to buy flights from people who don't use them, the idea falls appart.
crazy stupid idiots all around (Score:2)
Again, the craziest retards, not focusing on cutting back the biggest pollution sources and the biggest polluters first, but concentrating on those who are easily f*cked with lobbied legislation: the common people.
The only good size: I don't see legislators trying this prank staying in power for too long.
Limiting travel? Yeah, I have historic memories of such moronic m
Transferable allowance? (Score:2)
And I'm not opposed to flying - I don't mind it on the rare occasion that I do it - I just don't have any place to fly to that I want to go to and can afford to visit.
Replace a huge portion of domestic flights (Score:2)
with driving. Preferably in a big SUV.
Yup, that will work.
Doesn't matter (Score:2)
Equivalent to basic income (Score:2)
Lots of people almost never fly and would just sell their allowance.
So this is equivalent to basic income to everyone + tax on air travel to finance this basic income.
First it's "congestion" pricing (Score:2)
to drive in cities, then tolls on all the roads, and now rationed air mileage. The 0.1%ers are setting up the world so that they can go wherever they want, whenever they want, without the delays and discomfort caused by the other 99.9% of the world.
Re: Great idea (Score:2)
Re:Great idea, for the serfs (Score:5, Insightful)
Who wants to bet that any law like this has exceptions for Congress critters, executive department heads, 1%ers and Hollywood [dailymail.co.uk] A-listers [dailymail.co.uk]?
Re:Great idea, for the serfs (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Great idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do you hate the old, the infirm, the mentally ill, the young, people with foster / adopted children, and many others incapable of working to the day they die?
Actually, you hate all humans. Why are we not allowed to save up our hard work from our younger years so we can enjoy our older years when we are tired?
You are a cruel and horrible person of the lowest kind.
Re: Great idea (Score:2)
Re:I can haz monies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Air travel has become prohibitively expensive, so letting us peons sell off our "flight carbon credits" (or whatever the hell they want to call it) to the rich sounds fine to me. Sure, it sounds like a token gesture that will accomplish fuck-all to avert climate change, but hey, I could use the money.
You're kidding, right? Air travel has become ludicrously inexpensive. Especially if you have flexible travel dates.
With about 5 minutes of searching, I found a SFO->Paris flight for $370 (round trip)
I looked up a Portland->LA trip by bus (Greyhound), and it's $288 for a round trip.
Re:I can haz monies? (Score:4, Interesting)
You're kidding, right? Air travel has become ludicrously inexpensive. Especially if you have flexible travel dates.
With about 5 minutes of searching, I found a SFO->Paris flight for $370 (round trip)
At the median hourly wage of $18.58, that's roughly half a full-time workweek's pay. Must be nice to earn enough that a $370 plane ticket is "cheap".
On average, Americans spend 10% of their pay on vacations annual.
But since this worker wants to save money, how about this one -- $182 LAX->NYC round trip. Or a bit more than what this worker would pay in gas to drive round trip from LA to San Francsico
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Are you some kind of idiot? $370 for a flight from freaking San Francisco to Paris is ludicrously cheap. It's so cheap, I'm not sure I believe it
I was pretty skeptical, but found it on Orbitz, and clicked all the way through to the page before booking and the flight was still showing as $370:
https://www.orbitz.com/Flights... [orbitz.com]
It's an airline I've never heard of before, XL Airways. Maybe it's a limited time promotion.
But even if that $370 flight is no longer available, flights for $587 are readily available and that's still very inexpensive.
Re: I can haz monies? (Score:2)
I used XL Airways twice from SF to Paris, when their âbusinessâ(TM) class was priced like economy plus at other airlines. Unfortunately they now sell these seats as an upgrade option only 30 days (something in that range) before you fly, meaning you are unlikely to get them. The regular seats have very little leg rooms and I donâ(TM)t see myself sit in them for 11+ hours. Other than that the airline is ok with friendly onboard personnel but their desk personnel (not XL employees) was poorly t
Re: (Score:3)
Air travel has become prohibitively expensive
I just booked a trip from Amsterdam to Vienna for 35 euro. Less money then I spent on dinner last night. Less money than I will spend getting the 25min train to Amsterdam and the 35min train in Vienna to my friend's house. I'm going there for a birthday party. That's how cheap airtravel is. Not a wedding, not a funeral, no major special occasion, no big family do, just a mate's 32nd birthday party.
My sister flew from the UK to Italy recently, it cost her 28 pounds return (Ryan air, special). I was in Spain
Re:I can haz monies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Cheapest I found after my 2 minute search was $199 with United there, and American back. Far from "prohibitively expensive". Some may say "cheaper than it has ever been". Pretty much everyone will say "the cheapest form of transport possible" given that car, bus or train are more expensive.
Re: (Score:2)
On average every human flies once in 2 years. So someone like me would have to buy 7 other people's ration. That seems OK. But in reality i wouldn't, I'd switch to driving for 2 of my flights (assuming the cost of buying air rations was high), thereby INCREASING CO2 emissions.
These one-off ideas are just nibbling at the edges, if not counter productive.
Re: (Score:2)
Trees are far too slow to have a major impact on anthropogenic CO2 release. They can only make a minor contribution to a larger, primarily artificial CO2 sequestration scheme.
Re: (Score:2)
China produces around 50% of emissions of the US
This is incorrect
China's CO2 from energy generation exceeds that of the US and OECD countries in Europe combined today, with projections of a wider spread over time.
Source: https://www.eia.gov/todayinene... [eia.gov]
China's total CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are just under double the US.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/pu... [europa.eu]