Sun 30 Nov 2008
Husband and I are in London for a long weekend, thanks to the confluence of a work trip and a visit from my parents, who are the babysitters. Almost straight off the plane, we caught a West End matinee of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land, with Michael Gambon and David Bradley (Dumbledore II and Filch to you Harry Potter fans).
I don’t think it will spoil the plot of the play for you if I reveal that Mr. Gambon’s character, uncharacteristically, survives until the final curtain. Actually, I don’t think it would spoil the plot if I reproduced the entire text on screen. It’s that kind of play. My listening comprehension wasn’t helped by the jet lag. I’m still not sure what was a plot element and what was a dream.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I know this shouldn’t be the place to criticize and I love traveling too. But sorry, with the husband for a weekend to London? Please, think about the impact to the environment. I know flying is cheap because there is no tax on the fuel but something like 7 tons CO2 equivalent have been emitted.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Lara,
I appreciate your point of view and your concerns regarding the environment, but there’s some things to be made clear.
1. It wasn’t a weekend, it was a long weekend (4 days).
1.1 Out of curiosity, how long does one have to spend at one’s destination in order to justify 7 tons of CO2 being dumped into the atmosphere? A week, ten days, 2 years?
2. It was also our 10th wedding anniversary.
3. Most importantly, you’re taking the wrong tack in your approach to limiting the environmental impact of human activity, though you have the basis of it.
Rather than rail against people who board airplanes. You need to make it so that boarding an airplane reflects the true cost of that flight. For one thing, as you’ve noted, the fuel needs to be taxed higher such that the world is compensated for any damage done by burning that fuel (and that includes not just CO2 but NO as well). Furthermore, there are external costs all the way down the line that are not being accounted for; during extraction, transporting, and refining.
But air pollution is just one aspect. What about noise pollution? What about the pollutants created in constructing the airplane? What about the de-icing chemicals dumped on the ground? What about the environmental damage of the airport itself? And all those cars and buses driving back and forth to the airport? And the roads they drive on?
Being carbon-neutral doesn’t help (we would also need to be mercury-neutral, lead-neutral, noise-neutral, etc.), because in the end you’re just neutral. What would help is if the environmental damage caused by industry and ordinary folks were to be reflected in the price, and those dollars returned to the afflicted. In other words, apply a tax on all these external costs and use the resulting revenue to make reparations by planting trees, cleaning up existing pollution sites, funding public transportation, and so on.
This would strongly encourage producers and consumers to be sensitive to environmental issues. If burning jet fuel is taxed, then airlines will come up with ways to burn less of it. If driving is taxed, people will find a way to drive less. And those who choose to drive or fly anyway, will know that the planet has been justly compensated for the impact of their decisions.
Anyway, berating people for flying is not a good way to win friends and influence people, nor will it help the environment. If you really want to help, talk to your congress-critters. Yes, raising awareness of the issue may have an impact on the problem (in as much as it may get others to talk to their representatives). But if your strategy does not ultimately involve making sure that consumers and producers pay for these external costs, then it is doomed to failure.