[kumoflow]

I am in Europe. Travel between Porto and Faro (Portugal) by train is 5 hours versus 50 minutes by plane (ok, plus one for security) and 2-5 times as expensive.

During the last 2 years I was doing this flight pretty much twice a week. It was the only way I could spend time with my kid, but still keep my job and work to support him.

I also travel for work longer distances (NY, San Francisco and all over Europe) once or twice a month (which I try to match with my trips to see my son).

Lets instead tax all the iPhone Xr and Pixel whatevers. Laptops as well. They all contribute to the shitty environment (rare materials, plastics, shipping, polluting assembling them).

This is the problem I see with pretty much every cause.

> I don't see why X or Y is needed (because I don't needed it), so everyone else is selfish and ruining the environment, but what they think is essential (new shiny gadgets, brand clothes done by kids in Asia, etc) are always forgotten.

[leetcrew]

first of all, no one is talking about banning air travel or anything like that. the tax being discussed is only 1.5 euros for non-business class flights within the EU. this doesn't actually come close to offsetting the CO2 produced by you flying from Porto to Faro one way (according to this calculator [0]).

you have a special case with your son, but most people don't need to fly outside of work. if you can already afford to fly twice a week, my guess is you can also afford another twelve euros per month to offset a fraction of the damage. if your employer really needs you to travel, I'm sure they will find a way to come up with an extra eighteen euros.

> I don't see why X or Y is needed (because I don't needed it), so everyone else is selfish and ruining the environment, but what they think is essential (new shiny gadgets, brand clothes done by kids in Asia, etc) are always forgotten.

I do agree with you here. what we need is a fair taxation scheme to offset all environmental damage. just make a list: how much does it cost to undo the damage of one flight, one ipad, etc. then you let people buy what they want, but make them pay to fix the environmental damage. when the price reflects the true cost, people will figure out what they actually need and budget accordingly. there will be some things (cars in rural areas are an obvious example) where it will simply be too damaging to the poor to fully tax immediately, but most people will find that there's a lot of stuff they can reduce their consumption of.

[0] https://co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new

[kumoflow]

I'm ok with taxing flights if we also tax pretty much everything else for the environmental externalities of it. My problem is when countries/politicians/ordinary people choose one or two items that don't fully affect them and try to lecture others about it. (not saying it is your case, just in general).

And for my case, it is about 4 flights a week (both ways * 2). It may not be much, but is an extra 25 euros per month. Will this make me stop flying? Not really, but I will be pretty sour about it so I don't see how it offsets anything (but to be fair, us Europeans are already used to be heavily taxed in pretty much everything, and while I won't really feel the cost of the 25 euros, others will, see yellow jackets and the gas tax). And I pay for my work flights since I work for myself ;)

For you to get an idea, I just checked flights for September and I can do a return flight for 36.97 euros and will take me 50 minutes (+ airport time, which is about 1 hour for me). Same trip by train is 5h50 and costs 64 euros (on promotion, regular price is 105 euros.

ps: I hate flying and travelling. I do it because I need to.

[pimmen]

> Will this make me stop flying? Not really, but I will be pretty sour about it so I don't see how it offsets anything

Someone else who flies just as much as you and could make an effort not to will also feel sour about it and maybe make an effort to change the situation. Maybe that person can save up and buy a home someplace else, or wake up earlier to take the train to wherever that person is going.

[kumoflow]

The problem is we are not talking about choosing between a car and public transportation where the time difference will be an extra 10 or so minutes. We are talking time differences between 1 hour and 5 hours, or between 4 hours and days. No one will really stop flying unless you tax it 200 euros per flight or something.

I just see this as the French government adding an extra tax to deal with their own budget issues. (which is ok, but lets call it that, and not an offset or 'incentive' tax, like it will actually change anything for the environment)

[reirob]

> Travel between Porto and Faro (Portugal) by train is 5 hours versus 50 minutes by plane

That's exactly the problem: Porto to Faro for should have a better train connectivity, that will emit 10x less CO2, should take not more than 3 hours and should be much cheaper than taking a plane.

Why can't we have good things?