Gang of Pesky Scientists Bothers the Jet Setters… Again!
On May 24 (2024) our little gang of gadflies assembled once again to remind private jet users that they are still pissing us off. Why? Because they are the Godzillas of climate change, willing to stomp on the environment for their own vanity. Well, we don’t know for sure that Godzilla was simply vain - in fact sometimes he inexplicably seemed to help humanity, so maybe this metaphor doesn’t work. But wait - maybe it DOES…
Let's take Elon Musk. OK, he’s gotten kind of nutty lately, but if we just examine his actions for now, he has created cars that are preventing a lot of greenhouse gasses from hitting our atmosphere. Good guy points for that. But the next day he gets into a private jet and produces 20-30 times the emissions he would have if he had flown commercial. 60 times the CO2 he would have produced if he had gotten on a typical train to get to his destination. I won’t mention his other externalities like making rocket contrails ad-infinitum and taking down democracy via TwiXter… but I digress.
The point is, wealthy people are taking vanity trips that are way more toxic than they could be. In 2018, just 1% of the world’s population caused 50% of all emissions from flying, while about 80% of humanity has never set foot on a plane. Recreational frequent fliers and most first class fliers present a similar (although somewhat less egregious) situation, taking unnecessary trips that many of us love but turn out to be catastrophe-additive. We just don’t witness the disaster we are causing at the time of our flight. In any case, it’s really way past time that we push back on private jets and frequent fliers. We need to outlaw private jet use as much as possible and tax jet Fuel in proportion to the harm it causes. For human beings, money dominates our decision-making, pure and simple, and the price of an airplane ticket doesn’t reflect the cost to life on Earth. Not even close. But it needs to. It’s looking more and more like money is our current green monster.
In the meantime, how about building fast, clean, electric rail for both humans and cargo as quickly as possible? The technology exists today, and it’s proven to be 90% efficient at turning (renewable) energy into motion. That’s an incredible number. The rest of the world knows this, of course, which is why they are wisely pursuing this transportation avenue. Case-in-point: in 2022 China began construction on 22,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. The U.S. clocked in at 275 km. And while rail travel certainly won’t solve all transportation issues in the U.S., maybe it will fill half the bucket. We’ll take that for starters. So here we go again with the white labcoats and pesky banners.
The bottom line: Unbiased science is our best chance to reveal the next logical steps in saving our own skins. We also need to point out where the Godzillas of the world are flattening our cities needlessly. For now our little rag-tag band of white coated protestors will continue to try and trip-up the Godzillas as best we can. Join us. One little thorn in one big, green toe might just make a critical difference!
