We have /c/fuckcars but no /c/fuckplanes. Yet a lot of the same arguments apply. They cause air pollution (roughly double the amount per km traveled), noise pollution and they (airports) take up a lot of space near dense living areas. Sure, some places can practically only be visited by plane, just like some places can practically only be visited by car. But people don’t consider not having your holiday that far away or giving pushback on a busines trip that should have been an online meeting. Besides work-from-home being encouraged, work-from-home-country should be too.
Cars need to be discouraged in favor of busses, trams and trains. Planes nees to be discouraged in favor of high-speed trains, staycations and hopefully new alternatives like modern sailboats or electric planes.
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If you make that community we will gladly join
I would gladly take high speed rail if it was as available as Asian countries.
I get where you’re coming from, and I do agree to an extent, but on the very rare occasion I want to and am able to travel to another continent I don’t want to have to spend months travelling by boat to spend a week or two at my destination. I love trains. The US has shitty train infrastructure but I still kinda want to take a train on my next vacation.
While I agree that plane travel needs to be reduced, and trains should be prioritized, most people typically take a plane less than once a year. The problem isn’t Joe Schmoe taking a vacation overseas with his family every once in a while, it’s the millionaires and billionaires taking flights every other day on their private jets.
There is aot of people so yes everyone taking a vacation one a year is a problem when everyone does it. Then you have the people who go two or three times a year. It all adds up.
Both are a problem. Private jets are much more wasteful but only a small portion of total kms traveled
If people stop commuting by plane to do a meeting I think the bulk of airplane travel would stop.
At least the morning and afternoon planes are usually full of people in suits where I live.
How have you gathered apparently representative data on morning and afternoon flights? Do you work at an airport or airline?
only a small portion of total kms traveled
Thats doesnt really prove anything, the fuel burn is at its peak during take off and landing since it requires a lot of force to actually lift up. On the contrary, sustain flight is very efficient.
Shorter distances isnt a valid excuse - in fact, it is the direct problem you’re seemingly defending.
How do planes compare to travel by boat? Then what about a car ferry if you go on as a foot passenger or only take a bike, are you really taking up any space on it?
So if you’re talking freight, ships are unparalleled in their energy efficiency, even when you look at the disgusting dirty fuel they use. They’re SLOW, which reduces friction with water, and have economies of scale.
However, planes are more efficient for passengers due to the volume (of people). People take up a lot of space, much moreso than cargo, which makes giant boats really not the most efficient choice for human transport because you end up using a giant hull with tons of overhead to move all these lightweight people across the ocean. Once planes get up to cruising altitude they hit a sweet spot where their fuel efficiency improves drastically, but it’s still not nearly as good as trains… But I have no idea how to calculate how expensive or environmentally damaging it would be to build and maintain a set of trans-continental railways. I can only imagine the insane amounts of marine destruction needed for any amount of transport bandwidth…
And none of this is taking into account time, which is another important factor. A container ship takes 10-14 days to get from New York to London; a direct flight takes about seven hours.
Suppose the route is important too. I live in Portsmouth, so the ferry to France is right here and I think it is better than flying to France. But that is also a short flight.
Plus its a car ferry, so its mainly transporting cars with people as a bit of an extra. I suspect there is much more variation with sea travel compared to flight.
I’m not saying private jets aren’t a problem. Both are a problem
I don’t think people going on holiday are the problem. Its the power users, a small percent that just fly too much like its taking the train. I have a rich family member that has three houses around the US and they split their time between them all. Often flying 3 times a month, perpetually. Its a horrific and wasteful lifestyle.
Power users make a bigger difference. But that doesn’t mean others shouldn’t be conscious of their impact.
On the flip side i worry everyday folks, who aren’t the real problem, shame themselves everyday for living just because they’re self aware, when the actuall problem makers are oblivious to their own behaviors and won’t change.
Imo people should strive to be better than average for where they live. Leads to continuous improvement. Never make the mistake of trying to be the end goal society needs to reach while everyone else is still far away, the mass of changes is important, so you’ll just make yourself miserable and not save the world anyway.
Yeah… I wish for people to feel proud that they are contributing and wanting to contribute more because it makes them feel good. Instead of debilitating shame for thinking they aren’t doing enough.
Just a quick DuckDuckGo AI response.
FurtherActual research can be done on your own.
So, cars are worse. But sure, planes aren’t “great” either. It’s just that the amount of cars on the roads of the world is so significantly much higher than planes, as well as number of trips per day, that plane travel fades in the shadow of cars. There’s so much driving compared to flying.
So when I did my own research I came to the conclusion that… it depends… There is more going on that just the amount of CO2 being put in the air. It’s being put in a different space, from a different fuel type with different byproducts. Either way, it’s pretty bad for the environment, just like cars are. And we don’t have hybrid or electric large planes yet.
Very interesting findings! So I guess the question then is, are the total byproducts left in the air by air travel “equally” “bad” (by some measure), compared to the total left by car travel, based on the altitude, chemistry, effects on the atmosphere and ozone layer, ecosystems, individuals, etc. Very complex. 😅
You don’t know enough about boat building if you think a modern sailboat is a good idea ecologically. Boat building uses nasty chemicals, very harsh solvents and produce ginormous waste. A modern sailboat has a gigantic environmental footprint. I have a 50 year old sailboat (with a modern outboard) but I never try to fool myself into thinking I’m making a recreational choice that’s good for the environment. I’m just out enjoying the day and trying not to think about the bottom paint poisoning the lake, the microplastics sloughing off the oxidized gelcoat, and the impact of the fire retardant the textile industry dumps into all the fabric I’m relaxing on, to name a few. Nice way to spend the day though!
Fair. I’m not a maritime expert. I just get excited about new energy harvesting and propulsion tech.
Sails are quite good at energy harvesting and propulsion but you won’t find any certified organic growers of fibres for sail cloth.
Well the materials matter a bit. But for example wind mill vanes are also made out of horrible, hard to recycle materials. Yet over their lifespan the amount of oil and gas that doesn’t have to get burned makes up for it.
Isn’t the same true for cars, planes, trains and even bicycles?
No.
Agreed. Although “flying” is fun, traveling by plane is not by any means. Trains are a far better option where you can walk around and there isn’t so much security theater.
I’m just sick of listening to rich people whine that they can’t afford first class plane travel and lecture me about how I’m a planet destroying asshole for driving an ICE on the weekends and I need to buy a 60K EV.
And also it’s ‘not travel’ unless you’re going to another continent.
Planes are similar to income inequality in that a (relatively) small percentage overwhelmingly use services wastefully
Almost 90% of the world’s population doesn’t fly at all in any given year. In the USA 12% of the population takes almost 70% of flights. In France 2% take 50%.
American Airlines report 87% of its customers fly 1 time per year which accounts for 50% of its income. The other 50% is accounted by the remaining 13%. There is a small contingency of the population that basically flies almost every single day
To put it more simply roughly 1% of people taking frequent flights account for about 50% of aviation emissions
Normal people should continue to be allowed to have their once every decade trip to change the endlessly drudgery of their working class lives for a week (even if much of that is not an actual vacation as much as stuff like visiting a home they’ve had to move far away from for employment). Once again blame the greedy selfish people that hedonistically overindulge at the expense of everyone around them.
If you want to get angry at an entire industry that is extremely destructive and genuinely has no point other than excess look at cruises. Just go to a fucking hotel/casino on land, 99% of the experience and like 5% (if that) of the emissions
Question is, would the airlines still be around if we suddenly cut that 50% of income from frequent fliers? 😅
I mean, I guess I could fuck a plane, but helicopters are so much sexier.
Plus you’ve got all those folks sexually identifying as attack helicopters to choose from!
When Covid hit, I was astonished to see so many people complain, how they could not fly to have holidays anymore. I had not realized, it has become common fun, to be able to fly for fun at least once a year. It is incredibly wasteful, and I cannot understand people defending that shit. There is no other reason to fly somewhere faraway just for a holiday, than being selfish - it is a luxury expense, not something you cannot live without - and pretending it is okay “just once a year” is creating A LOT of environmental impact, when hundreds of thousands think the same.
Are the rich people making most of the flights more guilty? Well obviously! We should ban that shit too! Someone else doing something even worse, does not justify making bad choices. It is hypocritical to complain about the planet dying, while actively contributing to the problem, just because you want to conveniently visit the other side of the world.
Hearing so many people in the UK say they want to go somewhere hot like Spain for summer. Its too fucking hot here! Why do you want to go somewhere worse! I would want to go to Finland.
Yeah, I do not understand either?! And in Europe you can travel relatively easily around by train, bus, or ship. You do not even have to fly! It is just for convenience!
UK train prices are terrible, it’s cheaper to fly to Germany, drink as much as you can, throw up all over your hotel room and then fly to Scotland the next day than it is to take a train from southern England to Scotland.
And that is asinine as well! Here in Finland it is often way cheaper to drive across the country by car, than taking the train. It should not be like that! Mass transit should be heavily supported so people can make more environmentally friendly choices. And flying should be heavily taxed, the filthy rich especially can fucking pay for their convenience.
My wife and I were on holiday last year in Europe. We spent a few days in Vienna and then a few more in Paris. To get between the two, we chose a night train (nightjet I think?).
It would have been a little cheaper to fly, but we thought the train would be fun to experience.
Looking back…IDK whether I’d take the night train again. It was more comfortable than a flight…but the flight is only 2 hours. Even with time to check bags, that’s quite the time sink.
I live near a small airport and I would gladly join /c/fuckplanes
I cannot fucking stand it. These little private planes the rich folks fly, just for fun, are so loud and distruptive.
The propeller planes also burn leaded fuel.
I read that the other day. Fucked.
busses
Buses?
I believe the correct plural form is actually “Bussy.”
Made me look it up. We’re both right. You might be more right, even if I don’t agree with that spelling 🥲 https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/plural-of-bus
Another unpopular opinion, in reply some of the sentiment in the comments: You don’t have to be a heavy polluter to be conscious of your impact on the planet. The biggest polluters care the least anyway. Laws can make a difference there but also normalizing eco-consciousness and marginalizing those that aren’t.
the biggest polluters are the wealthy, and you can’t really marginalize them, when everyone wants to be them.
the poor have the least ecological footprint. everyone being locked indoors for covid was amazing for the environment.
but nobody wants to be poor and live like they did during covid, they HATE that. They are desperate to do the opposite.
100%
It’s so awful.
I would rather burn an extra day of PTO and drive, if I can, than take a plane fucking anywhere. If trains were a more viable option I’d pick that every time, but that just isn’t the case here in the US.
This is distraction.
People don’t hate on billionaires and capitalism enough.
No war but the class war.
I can hate on multiple things at the same time
the millionaires have more in common with the billionaires and support them more than they do the working-class.
I live in a town of the top 10%. They think they are ‘ordinary folks’, and it’s the top 1% who are to blame. The top 1% blame the top .1%, and so on and so on.
Nobody is rich or upper class, everyone is working-class because someone else has more money than them. If you only own 3 homes and a boat and 5 luxury cars, well that’s just normal, because rich folks are the one with 12 homes, 2 yachts, and 50 cars…
My favorite is the celebrity class who love to tell you how they are ‘normal working people’ when they have 100s of millions, and their parents were ‘only doctors and lawyers and business owners’. And you do some digging and the vast majority of them come from family money and had insider connections in the industry, but they don’t advertise that fact because that would make them look bad!
