[mrshadowgoose]

I don't even think that these people need to "justify" their energy use.

It seems that the vast majority of people have an innate need to hate on other groups of people. Not only that, but it seems that when presented with a cross-cutting societal problem (like carbon neutrality), "hating on others" seems to be a substitute for actually doing something intelligent about the problem.

Our society is fundamentally based on energy use, and if we actually collectively cared about carbon-neutrality, we have an immense amount of potential clean energy available to us in the form of solar and nuclear. There's no need to play this silly hate game.

[lxgr]

I wouldn't call it hate (or at least not all of it) – I would call it an understandable desire for some measure of fairness.

I'd even say this has little to do with carbon emissions, and much to do with the price of economy tickets for many routes having doubled over the past months, and it'll likely only go up from here in the foreseeable future as we (hopefully) shift to synthetic aviation fuels. Taking a private flight for a very driveable distance, or a connection that has excellent and frequent first-class services available, just isn't the best look right now between sustained high inflation and the common narrative of individualizing the responsibility for carbon emissions.

But yes, I agree that symbolic regulations and prohibitions without a viable alternative won't get us anywhere. Only setting effective regulatory incentives that properly account for the externalities of all forms of energy use will.

[johnnyworker]

> It seems that the vast majority of people have an innate need to hate on other groups of people.

That seems like nonsense to me. And if it wasn't, if they had an actual need for that, who are you to criticize it?