[ToucanLoucan]

I struggle to conceive of a green future for aviation. I'm not saying we can't have planes, we absolutely should and for many applications they are the only answer: but high speed rail could offer a lot of what airlines currently do at significantly lower cost to both passengers and to the environment, and with less need for such extensive and radical safety features as are required for aircraft.

But just like, reading this comments about everything from batteries to from-ground power sources for ascent to dragging dead batteries after use... like, what if we just flew less? Yes for international travel that needs to happen at speed, a plane is basically the best option. But for... basically everything else, what if we just sacrificed some convenience to not be dumping industrial amounts of waste into the atmosphere?

I'm reminded of how much air quality improved almost worldwide when covid first hit and offices were shut down, offices that, I remind you, continued to function largely just fine after a period of adjustment to remote work. I'm obviously extremely for making all transportation tech more efficient, but an under-discussed element I feel in this is just... doing less shit? Moving fewer people when moving said people isn't really needed? Maybe not growing all the pineapple in one country and shipping it over to a different country to be packaged in plastic and then shipping those all over the world so everyone on the planet has ready access to pineapple, a ton of which is just going to go straight in the garbage because we don't actually need all that damn pineapple?