Government, at least in democratic societies, follows from the will of the people. So it does matter what people believe. If nobody believes that carbon emissio

Government, at least in democratic societies, follows from the will of the people. So it does matter what people believe. If nobody believes that carbon emissions are a problem or that we should actually do something about the problem, then it’s odd to expect that government would somehow step in and work against the believe of people. The way the people in the thread react to the attempt to resurge a technology associated with huge emissions is worrying in this context. I guess a bit of handwaving around sustainability is enough to make people ignore the issue, while the aviation industry in real life has made close to zero progress in replacing fossil fuels. United, as part of their announcement on Twitter, suggested that a weekend trip from sf to Tokyo would be possible with this. Even if the emissions per km weren’t higher (which is a stretch at best), it’s still trying to encourage people to burn through a huge chunk of their personal lifetime carbon budget in a single weekend for fun.