Normalizes flying, in an insufficient response to climate emergency
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This argument is used in the debate Are Air Quotas a good way to reduce air traffic?.
This argument is a “con” argument in the debate Are Air Quotas a good way to reduce air traffic?.Keywords: none
Summary[ edit ]
As a substantial governmental programme that is expected to endure for the long term, Air Quotas commits a substantial portion of the carbon budget (if indeed there is now any carbon budget left) to the most excessive mode of travel. Society's overall carbon & GHG emissions must plummet, and as a largely unnecessary endeavor flying must plummet the most - much steeper than Air Quotas' 6% per year.
“As the scientists discussed several times during [Ireland’s Oireachtas] hearing, the governmental action they are calling for is ‘not easy’ and is ‘politically risky’, because ‘none of it is palatable’ to the public, at least at present. But the climate physics and the now all-too-apparent and rapidly escalating climate impacts show that the only ‘realistic’ course is for politicians, scientists and activists to strive – paraphrasing the words of the four – to make unthinkable policy thinkable, and the unpalatable palatable. There are no easy choices left; the [effective] easy choices evaporated years or decades ago.”
Prof. Barry McMullin said that “the scale and urgency of our predicament” requires consideration of policies “outside our previously self-imposed restrictions on what is thinkable”, because climate change physics “just doesn’t bend … just doesn’t care what we [otherwise] regard as realism.”
(https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-02-11/four-scientists-a-few-small-nations-and-making-unthinkable-climate-action-possible/)
