• ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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    8 days ago

    Most people lost several children in infancy as well. Appealing to how things were to justify how they should be falls flat.

    Why should we return to a world where the people you know as a child are the only ones you ever meet? Why is that better?

    We were once less mobile. We also decided that was awful and have consistently found ways to be more mobile. If we’re looking to history, we’d be forgiven for taking the lesson as “always find a way to go further, faster”. Hell, we invented water vessels so we could travel more than a few hours from drinking water. It used to be that people didn’t rip apart the earth to get metal and lay pipes, they just never went more than a few hours from a water source.
    The concept of moving water to the people was then an unimaginable luxury and privilege available only to a small minority.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      The difference is that tourism is not an essential need, healthcare is. Tourism via air travel is extremely wasteful, in a week of vacation people have the environmental impact equivalent to months of their regular lives.

      But hey, guess visiting the world is more important than saving the world!

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          8 days ago

          I’m not interested in people who can’t admit that they’re defending the destruction of the environment.

          “We can do it with more environmentally friendly alternatives!”

          Alright, so in the meantime it’s still not environmentally friendly so we should stop until it is instead of increasing the demand for air travel (which is what is currently happening).

          It sucks that people aren’t able to travel wherever they want without crazy emissions, it doesn’t mean they get to dodge their responsibilities, they need to make a choice, either they assume the fact that they’re part of the environmental problem and stop blaming others or they stop taking airplanes and spend their time closer to home… You know… Just like the vast majority of the world’s population!

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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            8 days ago

            When did I defend the destruction of the environment?

            You’re reading a lot of “pro-airplane” sentiment in “we should have more trains” and “I’m more upset with the destruction of American passenger rail than I am with people who want to enjoy our world”.

            Do you maybe see the difference between “travel at all costs” and “differently directed anger”?

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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              8 days ago

              You’re defending people’s mobility and saying we need more alternative means to do it, no problem with that, the alternatives don’t exist at the moment so unless you’re against mobility as it’s done now until we find better solutions then you’re in favor of the destruction of the environment in order to not disrupt the status quo.

              People don’t get to “enjoy the world” without a thought about the environmental impact that comes with it at the moment. For there to be a world to enjoy, people need to stop taking planes and as long as they take planes then alternatives won’t be developed.

              • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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                8 days ago

                I mean, trains exist, they’re just not the best in the US.
                You also seemed to be okay with driving, which startled me but is definitively a viable alternative in almost all cases.

                Given some of your other comments, I think I’m gonna take it as a “no” on the “telling the difference between travel at any cost and being more mad at systems and those who control them than individuals” question.

                • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                  8 days ago

                  When you look at fuel economy per passenger a small car with two passengers and a huge truck with four passengers both beat air travel in a plane full of passengers (about 4L/100km/passenger for the plane, which is easy to beat in a car). Add to that the fact that planes don’t have the equivalent of a catalytic converter and that emissions at altitude are about twice as damaging… Well, traveling by car is the environmental decision when the alternative is taking a plane, especially for shorter trips as planes waste a ton of fuel for takeoff and landing.

                  Some people want to travel at any cost, I’m saying they should learn to travel close to home because traveling around the world has a huge environmental impact.