> Is flying inherently bad even if carbon-free? I certainly don't think so!
No plane is ever going to be carbon-free. The energy source doesn't even matter—producing and transporting the constituent parts and involved people has its own, big, footprint. If a single employee drives to the factory, it's no longer carbon-free; you've just externalized the cost.
If your house is burning, you don't use an induction stove instead of gas and say "everything is fine, this thing doesn't ignite as easily, and I'm really hungry"—you focus on extinguishing the fire first.
So instead of decomissioning planes and radically cutting emissions that destroy the biosphere, apparently we'd rather build new planes so more people can fly and destroy it even faster. Marvellous creatures we are indeed.
> If a single employee drives to the factory, it's no longer carbon-free
I'm actively really trying to understand your perspective here, and how you do... anything? at all? Ever? Do you not leave the house?
If I drive to the factory with my EV and work on a hydrogen airplane using electric tools charged with solar panels, this seems perfectly reasonable. What does not seem reasonable is your complete anti-human anti-anything attitude.
Our house is not on fire. If it were, I would invest in putting the fire out. I would not just stop doing anything at all and say oh gosh anything I do will make the fire worse.
Im very comfortable with the thought of being unable to make the situation better, but at least I can try to avoid making it actively worse: for example by avoiding unnecessary luxuries like private jets. That is hardly anti-human.
> If I drive to the factory with my EV and work on a hydrogen airplane using electric tools charged with solar panels, this seems perfectly reasonable.
Again: just because you don’t burn gasoline doesn’t mean you’re not causing CO2 emissions (or generate toxic waste etc.). What I am arguing against is unnecessary production of technology—such as personal aviation machines.
Our house is definitely on fire, as a mindbogglingly huge number of scientists has been announcing for quite a while now. People in North America and Europe just don’t get to enjoy the flames yet.
And there is a clear category of things that would be worthwhile: less flights; less concrete and steel; less driving; more local production. It just requires the will to accept painful changes to our way of life.
No plane is ever going to be carbon-free. The energy source doesn't even matter—producing and transporting the constituent parts and involved people has its own, big, footprint. If a single employee drives to the factory, it's no longer carbon-free; you've just externalized the cost.
If your house is burning, you don't use an induction stove instead of gas and say "everything is fine, this thing doesn't ignite as easily, and I'm really hungry"—you focus on extinguishing the fire first.
So instead of decomissioning planes and radically cutting emissions that destroy the biosphere, apparently we'd rather build new planes so more people can fly and destroy it even faster. Marvellous creatures we are indeed.