[eru]

> The faster the plane goes, the more fuel it consumes due to the drag increase by the square of the speed. In a world where fossil fuel is needed to fly airplanes and where oil is causing a destruction of the world we inhabit, it's dangerous to suggest we should make the flying industry polluting more than they already are.

Just tax fuel to price in the externality and let people decide how much they want to spend?

> Flying faster than mach-1 to save time will be reserved to a small elite. How does it benefit the masses?

The elite are also people.

[geysersam]

We're soo far from this though. Air fuel is taxed very little due to the Chicago convention.

How much should it be taxed to factor in the external cost?

[eru]

> How much should it be taxed to factor in the external cost?

I don't know. But that can be treated as a technical problem to figure out. (Problems being technical is good! Much more tractable than political or social problems.)

> Air fuel is taxed very little due to the Chicago convention.

I'm not quite sure how much the Chicago convention would hinder a clever law drafter. Judging by what I can see at Wikipedia on it, I would imagine you could technically tax not kerosene itself, but the burning of kerosene inside your airspace.