Head in the contrails

In case you're tired of the portgate blogathon, I present to you below an article about global warming, just for a change. Heh. (can I say that?)



Fly much? Then you are now considered a global warming villain, contributing to the biosphere's demise everytime you walk down the jetway. That's part of the world according to Monbiot—George Monbiot, to be exact. Sidebar--some believe him to be the source of the popular right wing slur “moonbat”.

In his view airliners cause more damage than SUVs, barbeque grills or even cigarettes. Yes it's true, in order to maintain flight they do tend to pump out various amounsts of CO, CO2 and other particulates, which contribute to the formation of those whitish trailing streaks of cloud matter commonly known as contrails.

These cloud streaks are highly discriminatory, to the point of needing diversity training classes. Apparently they have a nasty habit of not bothering to stop much solar radiation (from the sun) from reaching the ground, while at the same time bouncing most of the outgoing radiation from the planet back to the planet. In this manner they are greenhouse effect enablers. Of course, this same thing happens with regular white wispy clouds not produced by airliners.

At least Monbiot chose to ignore the plethora of conspiracy theories involving contrails, one of which will be presented here for entertainment value.

Seriously, his point was that aviation cannot be significantly changed to make it cleaner without sacrificing, well, flight. Additionally, 12,000 foot runways tend to take up space and will become increasingly harder to build as land becomes more scarce, leading to eminent domain battles. And he’s correct, there are few if any visionary designs on the drawing board to replace what's up there now, at least from a propulsion standpoint.

The article is pretty short on conclusive proof, though. Sure, there is undoubtedly some climate change caused by airplanes, but hey--when you're trying to save the planet, who needs any stinkin data:

Flying kills. We all know it, and we all do it. And we won't stop doing it until the government reverses its policy and starts closing the runways

Ah the solution--just shut it down. Back to camels and canoes, I reckon. I think the man is suffereing from a form of journalistic hypoxia:

When I challenge my friends about their planned weekend in Rome or their holiday in Florida, they respond with a strange, distant smile and avert their eyes. They just want to enjoy themselves. Who am I to spoil their fun? The moral dissonance is deafening.

Well, if YOU are tired of the numbing guilt of spoiling the planet everytime you catch a plane, do your part--take a container ship on your trip to London. The ports are safe now!