I don’t think it would ever be possible to 100% ban flying, because islands exist and so do the Atlantic and Pacific oceans - and ships are too slow to fit with modern lifestyles and the demands of employers. There’s always going to be people who need to travel between distant islands and the mainland (eg Hawaii and the US) or between continents (eg Europe, North America, Australia).
However, I think there are some great options for reducing flying down to the minimum necessary. Public transport should be good enough to serve people’s needs within their own country, and between their country and their nearest neighbours. Speaking for my own country (UK), the non-flying options to France and Spain are actually pretty good - they take a bit longer than a plane, but not so much longer that they’re unrealistic for people to do. The problem is the lack of decent public transport options within the country.
I think one thing that could realistically reduce flying is making it much more expensive. Of course that would exacerbate what this article calls the global justice gap. But sometimes you have to accept a trade-off and I think that could work
It’s not like our current state of affairs is equitable either though. Flying is specifically cheap today because of a combination of subsidization, lobbying, and big business demands. It’s not built to be fair to the little guy either, and if it ever is it’s just a convenient side-effect.
As much as big oil, airlines, automakers, et al are subsidized, if we could round up even 50% of that money, we could easily accomplish low-cost mass transit and reliable long distance rail. Even high-speed rail between major cities in some cases. Combined with cutting out taxpayer subsidized air, thay would go a long way to make things more equitable
My guess is that approach would do relatively little to mitigate the overall environmental impact. If you raise fees enough then private airplanes, with much higher CO2 per passenger, become more desirable. To make air travel “worth it” airlines - who have fleets of aircraft with 35-50 year useful lifespans - would dial back to business and first class only.
Spitballing it, I’d say we could reduce flying passenger count by 80% but only see a 10-20% reduction in net CO2 generation. And then, to offset the loss in 80% travel, you would need to find an alternative travel source that is only 12-20% of the use of an aircraft per passenger mile for actual traveled miles just to break even on net passenger travel. 20% seems to be the marker for national rail vs most air travel, so we’re at best break even. And for passenger ocean ships, the net cost per passenger in CO2 is higher than flying, so it’s a lose-lose for any trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific travel (not to mention the week travel time each way).
I don’t think it would ever be possible to 100% ban flying, because islands exist and so do the Atlantic and Pacific oceans - and ships are too slow to fit with modern lifestyles and the demands of employers. There’s always going to be people who need to travel between distant islands and the mainland (eg Hawaii and the US) or between continents (eg Europe, North America, Australia).
However, I think there are some great options for reducing flying down to the minimum necessary. Public transport should be good enough to serve people’s needs within their own country, and between their country and their nearest neighbours. Speaking for my own country (UK), the non-flying options to France and Spain are actually pretty good - they take a bit longer than a plane, but not so much longer that they’re unrealistic for people to do. The problem is the lack of decent public transport options within the country.
I think one thing that could realistically reduce flying is making it much more expensive. Of course that would exacerbate what this article calls the global justice gap. But sometimes you have to accept a trade-off and I think that could work
It’s not like our current state of affairs is equitable either though. Flying is specifically cheap today because of a combination of subsidization, lobbying, and big business demands. It’s not built to be fair to the little guy either, and if it ever is it’s just a convenient side-effect.
As much as big oil, airlines, automakers, et al are subsidized, if we could round up even 50% of that money, we could easily accomplish low-cost mass transit and reliable long distance rail. Even high-speed rail between major cities in some cases. Combined with cutting out taxpayer subsidized air, thay would go a long way to make things more equitable
My guess is that approach would do relatively little to mitigate the overall environmental impact. If you raise fees enough then private airplanes, with much higher CO2 per passenger, become more desirable. To make air travel “worth it” airlines - who have fleets of aircraft with 35-50 year useful lifespans - would dial back to business and first class only.
Spitballing it, I’d say we could reduce flying passenger count by 80% but only see a 10-20% reduction in net CO2 generation. And then, to offset the loss in 80% travel, you would need to find an alternative travel source that is only 12-20% of the use of an aircraft per passenger mile for actual traveled miles just to break even on net passenger travel. 20% seems to be the marker for national rail vs most air travel, so we’re at best break even. And for passenger ocean ships, the net cost per passenger in CO2 is higher than flying, so it’s a lose-lose for any trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific travel (not to mention the week travel time each way).