[cletus]

The real villain here is coal-powered planes!

Ok, in all seriousness, the efficiency story for air travel is... complicated. So you claim planes account for 2.5% of CO2 emissions but air travel and transport is still a relative luxury enjoyed by a privileged few so that's not necessary accurate.

I found this [1] that shows planes to be much worse than automobiles (per passenger per km) but again, it's complicated.

Personally I don't mind the investment in supersonic travel. After all, it's hard to know what fruit this will ultimately bear. Some people have asked what's the difference between crossing the Atlantic in 4 hours instead of 8? It's the difference between able to go for the day or not.

[1]: https://youmatter.world/en/plane-or-cars-which-means-of-tran...

[perl4ever]

"It's the difference between able to go for the day or not"

Which points to how increases in capability and efficiency can stimulate demand, which could be a bad thing from an environmental perspective.

[melling]

And in the meantime, enough emissions from fossil fuels to generate electricity is emitted every year to cover a couple decades of flying.

[mrpopo]

This comment makes no sense because it doesn't state how many people get electricity and how many people fly.

The carbon footprint of one transatlantic flight is on the same order of magnitude as one person's yearly electricity consumption.

People who fly every year can substantially reduce their carbon footprint by not flying, people who already don't fly every year (the majority of the population) can't.

[choeger]

The climate does not care how many people caused the co2 emissions.

[mrpopo]

The climate system itself doesn't, but the total carbon budget has to be allocated to and split between 7 billion people one way or another.

What is a fair split?

Of course, if you want to keep flying at 800 km/h around the globe AND get power for your home's computers and 4k TV, you will have to advocate for cutting electricity AND blocking air transport of some other people until their coal plants are powered with solar panels. It's your right to decide so, but you have to admit it that it's unethical.

[growlist]

> fair split

And what about the billions extra that the developing world is predicted to add to global population?

[perl4ever]

I think it's obviously absurd to expect people to agree on "fairness" and tying it to doing something about global warming seems like a malicious way to prevent doing anything. You're saying that all ethical problems have to be solved before saving the current imperfect world.

If you like capitalism and fear "socialism" (which I assume anyone needling people about "fairness" this way does) then that is what allocates resources given constraints of the real world. Accepting that one of the constraints is a limitation on burning fossil fuels for the entire globe does not require changes to society beyond normal responses to price signals. Nor decisions by some authority, other than the overall cap.

Figuring out who gives up what from a central command is both impossible and unnecessary, so it shouldn't be part of the discussion. What "socialists" even advocate Soviet style central planning anymore?

[usrusr]

People care. And even if you somehow think they should not you are in no position to decide what they care about.