jb casino I Won’t Feel Good About Flying Until the Airlines Solve This

The airlines are magicians.

They’ve positioned flying as a minor part of the environmental crisis using distraction, manipulation and psychology. And we want to believe in their fantasy of air travel that doesn’t roast the planet.

The industry is responsible for about 4 percent of human-made climate change, an enormous amount given that only about 10 percent of the global population flies regularly. New technology and efficiency gains, the airlines say, will allow them to expand their number of frequent fliers, and reach the 7 billion people who don’t fly, without additional harm to the environment.

My Ph.D. dissertation was on jet engines, and I don’t see a credible path for the aviation industry to make flying sustainable in the near term. Once I realized this 13 years ago, I stopped flying for leisure. It seemed the least I could do to help people who are most affected by climate change.

In Europe, where you can reach many places by train, the European Commission has taken the airlines to court for greenwashing. Nearly one-fifth of Germans claim to have flown less because of environmental concerns, and France recently banned domestic flights between cities where a rail alternative under 2.5 hours exists.

My children, ages 11 and 13, have never flown. They agree it’s best we take trains and boats to vacation at the seaside and in the mountains and it cuts our family’s carbon emissions in half. It means we have to turn down invitations to join friends and family in places reachable only by flying. But my children have also never experienced delayed flights, airport security pat-downs or the stressful game of “where’s my luggage gone?” That everyone accepts these aspects of flying as totally normal is, by the way, part of the magic trick.

You might be wondering why planes can’t just go electric like cars and trucks. Many companies are developing short-haul electric planes, and they believe that electric planes could one day compete with commercial jets in terms of cost, safety and reliability. The challenge is that airplanes have to carry all their fuel with them, and the weight of that fuel dictates the size and range of the plane, and therefore the cost per person. Because aviation fuel delivers much more energy for its weight than a battery, we would need to increase energy density in batteries by more than 10 times for them to truly compete. That achievement appears to be more than a decade away. And so for now, boarding a commercial electric nonstop flight from London to New York is just a daydream.

Ms. Harris may give remarks about border issues during the visit, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a trip that has not yet been made public. The people said final details about exactly where Ms. Harris would visit or what else she might do on the trip have not been decided. The Harris campaign did not immediately provide a comment.

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