Environmentalism gone wrong - travel and airplanes

Welcome to this blog, Internet reader. I don’t know what kind of rabbit hole you jumped into to end up here, but I will tell you what kind of content you are going to find in this blog.

I feel like there’s an overwhelming majority of things that certain people get right - like generally leftist, compassionate (that’s the key word) and kind public policies and attitude towards building things work. But there’s a few issues where I feel like nobody is really right and everyone just has stupid opinions. My intent is to be correct on the internet about a very random range of topics which I think I know about a tad more than a commoner, but I think all the so called “experts” are wrong. This is probably because of the continuing enshittification of journalism and media and the internet.

So the topic for today is the ethics of air travel and tourism in general. There’s been a huge push from leftists that travelling by airplanes is bad, travelling for leisure or pleasure is bad, that airplanes pollute, that tourism is an exploitative industry. There are countries in Europe that have banned short airplane trips (recommending trains as an alternative) and many more that are considering similar legislation. Visiting certain places, especially ones where there is a significant wealth disparity between the tourist and place being visited, is taboo in leftist circles. 

Let us consider for a moment, the arguments that make sense.

1. Airplanes pollute. Like, a lot. Airplanes are basically gas guzzlers that can burn like a ton of fuel in a single trip. 

2. There is a certain level of income/ power disparity between the tourist and the locals, with the person from a more powerful country/ passport having a stronger currency, more rights, more respect, and so on.

3. Trains rule. They are a lot safer than planes (which are already incredibly safe, compared to the most dangerous form of transport - cars). Trains don’t need excessive security, each kg doesn’t count so you can get as much luggage as you want, and you can eat something freshly prepared in a real kitchen instead of food that’s microwaved to hell.

Here’s why I think the arguments against planes make no sense - the key misconception environmentalists have is that greenhouse emissions are not bad. Greenhouse emissions were critical in warming earth up, keeping it warm enough for the various flesh bags we call life to live in happily. Without greenhouse gases, we would be in just some other icy rock similar to 180000 other planets in the universe. We have no business having this good climate, considering the place we are in the universe and solar system. The problem with the whole climate change thing is that we are emitting waaaay more carbon into the atmosphere than is naturally captured back (by like trees and stuff) so the earth is gradually heating up (with disastrous consequences). My point is that airplanes are a miracle of technology and have given overwhelmingly positive benefits to humanity. They bring the world closer together. They let people learn about other cultures. They let people visit their family when their family is in another continent in their vacation time. They let a couple in love spend weekends together when they wouldn’t even be able to see, hold, cuddle each other otherwise. I have very mixed (mostly negative) feelings about capitalism, but I am overwhelmingly a huge fan of globalization. Have you ever had a perfect mango, or a perfect lychee? No kind of gastronomic master can create something that parallel 1000 years of artificial selection. Don’t you think you should be able to enjoy art, products, and delicacies from all over the world? I am not a let us all suffer together kind of socialist - I think that kind of socialism has no place in the world. It’s fully automated luxury champagne socialism for me. Without air travel, people have to remain apart, see each other in shitty video calls, not enjoy the best nature and industrialization have to offer.

Anyway, I digress. I will admit we ship way more things over air that needn’t be shipped by air (see Temu and Shein). But, but, but, airplanes emit only 2.5% of greenhouse gases worldwide. The vast overwhelming majority comes from power generation and heating - getting clean, reliable power like nuclear and hydro, as well as figuring out how to count on wind and solar is going to solve that. Using heat pumps that run on that clean, carbon free energy will solve the whole “burning shit to stay warm indoors in cold places” problem. Shifting transport from inefficient gas cars to efficient electric trains and denser cities (and very, very few electric vehicles) will tackle the next biggest contributor, transport. Doing all this will probably be enough to reverse the trend and start cooling the earth. 

Airplanes are a miracle of human ingenuity and engineering excellence. There’s no way hurtling through the air at nearly the speed of sound in what’s at best at a larger pressurized Pringles can should be safe or comfortable, but yet it is, to the extant that people exist who do it as a hobby, for pleasure (aviation enthusiasts). And while accomplishing all this, they ferry people to their loved ones overnight around the planet and deliver fresh tropical fruits to the mostly beautiful frozen wasteland that is Canada. I love trains and I think they are a miracle of human technology too, but I cannot lie and pretend to be that trains can ever be as fast as planes. The only reason that trains are comparable to certain flight timings in places like China/ Japan/ Europe are because flight travel is nerfed by shitty things like security theater (which mostly accomplishes nothing), inefficient boarding (so you will pay more for better seats and higher classes), terrible planning (train stations are typically built the previous century and in the city downtown, whereas airports tend to be in the neighbouring village).

That brings me to one of the consequences of airplanes and what is getting push back from leftists (god, working in corporate has me speaking so weirdly) - leisure travel. I get that there are inequalities. I get that there’s some kind of unfairness that someone can go to another country and spend what’s probably a months income for the average person there on a day of food and hotels and giggles. But banning travel or making it unpopular or taboo isn’t going to make those inequalities go away. It’s just going to be less visible. Cause less outrage. It’s going to reduce empathy for people worldwide. It’s going to reduce cultural exchange, people falling in love with folks from other cultures and countries. It’s going to make something like a war or trade boycott more likely. It’s going to get people to see themselves as more different, instead of the same, if they cannot see, talk to each other, and get to know each other. Only things that make that kind of disparity in wealth go away is reparations, large scale redistribution of wealth, socialism, and the likes. Getting people to stay in their own countries isn’t likely to accomplish any of that. Socialism will have to be a global movement, or the wealthy will just run away to another country, like the rich Cubans moving to the US fleeing socialism, like Ayn Rand, like Vijay Mallya. 

So, that’s what I wanted to say. That leftists and environmentalists are stupid for opposing airplanes. That global travel is one of the best things that can happen for equality and progress. I hope that this movement goes nowhere and air travel and leisure travel aren’t affected. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned here for my next post on electricity generation.