8 ms·
Why would anybody wonder such a thing? I don't understand.
by MockObject 4y ago
Why would anybody wonder such a thing? I don't understand.
- aliqot 4y ago
- bbor 4y agoIt’s rhetorical I believe. I’m not the original poster but “workers commute via plane so we can test our war machines in the desert during a worsening climate crisis” is a practice many would take issue with.
- krono 4y agoQuite a difference between this and, say, Bezos taking his private jet halfway across the world to see how his mega-yacht construction is progressing, while his other private jet is hopping between airports empty so it won't lose its time slots.
- deadbolt 4y agoNot everything is a competition. You can believe both are wrong.
- krono 4y agoFair point, thank you
- numpad0 4y agoAnd to needlessly complicate the discussion: I would argue that the reason why climate and environmentalism are issues in the first place is because of us refusing to expand into, thus offloading potentially contaminating activities to, orbital settlements fabricated and operated in space. Make silicons, do nuke tests, operate heavy machineries, indulge in vehicle races, in satellite scale cylinders up there in heliocentric orbits, and if anything goes wrong in one of them, just throw it out of the system or into the Sun, to whichever preferred. That was the future that the humanity envisioned in the 60s-70s, that we stopped following almost altogether(due to radiation hazard and lift capacity problems with assumed manufacturing on Earth surface). We should get back to that.
- wholinator2 4y agoRemoving such a huge mass from the solar system is a larger endeavor than most believe. Believe it or not, even Pluto at a mass of 10^22 kilograms and a distance between 4 and 7 billion kilometers is still bound by the sun's gravitational well. To just "throw something out of the solar system" without the potential for it to disintegrate and come back at us in the future is an incredibly difficult feat. To have the mass of some kind of life sustaining cylinder capable of supporting the activities you've listed coming at us at solar orbital speeds would be a catastrophe our local nuclear wars could only hope to emulate. There seems to be a pervasive belief that we can just eject huge quantities of mass from the very strong, very isolated gravitational well we are bound to. To say nothing of the possibility of building such a cylinder, the realities and consequences of the situation are far more dangerous than people yet consider.
- Diesel555 4y agoI feel like most counter arguments generally fall into the category of X is okay because Y is worse. I find myself more and more stating that the two points are not mutually exclusive and that they can overlap. Both can be bad. I make this point while recognizing that I agree national security has acceptable carbon footprint costs, while at the same time not liking arguments in support of that cost based not the premise that other policies are worse.
- chrisseaton 4y agoThe worsening climate crisis is likely to cause war so it’s good to stay prepared.
- markstos 4y agoThe worsening climate crisis is likely to cause war so it’s good to take actions which reduce the severity of the climate crisis which is likely to cause war. For example, by reducing the carbon footprint of the military.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- MichaelCollins 4y agoAnother major war will be far worse for the climate than a few additional airliner flights a day. Investing in the development of technology that makes a challenge to American global hegemony untenable is a very efficient method of preventing that outcome. If you really want to cut back on flights, it would be more efficient to cut back on luxury travel. Tax flights to tropical islands at 1000%. That wouldn't be very popular, but Janet airlines is utterly inconsequential compared to casual vacation travel.
- tanseydavid 4y ago>> but Janet airlines is utterly inconsequential compared to casual vacation travel But, Janet Airlines also exists solely for the convenience of a very small number of people.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoJanet airlines exists to support the defense of American global hegemony, which is convenient for a very large number of people (particularly Americans and American allies.)
- 4y ago
- risyachka 4y agoIt all depends on the person being on the jet. For many great workers, the result of them saving some time greatly offsets the carbon footprint. Without these details, this is just an excuse to point fingers.
- deadbolt 4y agoSource on the carbon footprint offset from "great workers" by the use of private jets? This sounds incredibly speculative.
- chrisseaton 4y agoWhat's the carbon impact of a war compared to the carbon impact of commuting to work on technology to discourage war? I'm sure the former is much worse.
- omniglottal 4y agoWhat's the value of rhetoric which imposes a false dichotomy?
- chrisseaton 4y agoI'm responding to the false dichotomy, not posing it.
- omniglottal 4y agoIt's a losing side to thus remain trapped in that dichotomy. Better to not validate that pretense as existant, I think. Trying to make things better (outside the solutions provided by the dichotomy) is a conversation closed down in this thread. Let's not diminish the voices which speak of something better than either of two evils. I understand that the selection should never be just between "bad" and "worse", and seeing such rhetoric decries of misdirection away from more fruitful topics at hand.
- nonameiguess 4y agoThen the issue is seemingly with having a large military that stays well-trained at all. There isn't any way to do that without expending enormous amounts of energy. Keeping a flight rating, along with all the unit-level qualifications necessary of ground armored combat forces burns far more fuel than commuting, even commuting by plane. I would even say it's conceivable that having permanent housing in the middle of the desert might be worse than flying them in from elsewhere, but considering they're flying in from Vegas, living there probably isn't much better.
- bonestamp2 4y agoDue to the private nature of these projects, some parts of the projects have to be developed and tested in a secure area. They need the best talent for these programs. To attract the best talent, they can't require a whole family to live in a secure facility. So, they have to bring in the talent from a non-secure area. The most sensible way to do that is by air. The carbon footprint is not something that is ever going to factor into this arrangement, at least not until there is a very green plane available. I'm all for reducing carbon footprint, but there are about 100,000 flights/day so these two flights (there/back) make up 0.002% of daily air traffic -- it's a drop in the bucket from a carbon footprint standpoint.
- jupp0r 4y agoI agree 100%. It's the same as public outcries about world leaders flying government planes to climate summits. It's not controversial at all to me, but it seems to be to a vast number of people out there for some reason.
- actionfromafar 4y agoJennifer Government has a hilarious example of what can happen if someone were to try to “fix” this problem.
- prepend 4y agoI think it’s different because there are other options for world leader climate summits (eg, make them virtual) where as there is not a replacement for physically needing to be in a secure test location in the middle of the desert. I’ve read more about celebrity attendance and private jets and the replacement for those photo ops seems similarly not relatable to this example.
- jupp0r 4y agoThe overarching point is that it doesn't matter in the scheme of things. It's outrageous as an example but it misses the point that industrial regulation and society wide incentives are needed to tackle climate change, not individual behavior changes of an extremely small group of people.
- ibejoeb 4y agoAt some point, I would love to have a level-headed conversation with someone to articulate to me exactly what constitutes this "worsening climate crisis."
- the_other 4y agoOr you could look at the news..? Extensive flooding in multiple countries that didn't have such extremes before; sea level rising around smaller island nations (ok, maybe this one isn't so obvious yet but many nations are vocally concerned); wildfires across unprecedented range in time and area in multiple countries. In my own country (UK), we've had a noticeable shift over the past 10 years from four defined seasons to a smear of weather conditions across the traditional boundaries (particularly spring and autumn), significantly higher peak temperatures and the lows moving later through the year, shifted rain patterns (and worsening flooding).
- Diesel555 4y agoNews and anecdotal data are terrible sources. Point him to well-researched articles that do their best to show causation. But please don't just claim that extreme flooding must be caused by global warming without any evidence of causation when there are many variables in our world. I did a data science project to show that the earth was warming (no cause implied) to counteract arguments that it wasn't. There is good research out there - use it.
- stonogo 4y agoWhy would anyone bother? What does the world stand to gain from convincing you of the obvious?
- ibejoeb 4y agoI'm in a position to effect behavior, set policy, and generally advance things, so I'd be a useful ally. But don't worry about it; I don't mean to bother you.
- 4y ago
- prepend 4y agoIs there an alternative? People can’t live in the desert or they would do that. Or at least the people they need to accomplish that task. Climate change is significant, but “considering the carbon footprint” of commuter airplanes for a multi-billion dollar project that creates world ending weapons is kind of missing to point, I think.
- alistairSH 4y agoIs there an alternative? People can’t live in the desert or they would do that. People have lived in the desert for millennia. These people don't want to live in the desert.
- prepend 4y agoI don’t mean can’t as in impossible. I mean can’t as in they can’t find people willing to live there. And the work is required. Thus the plane commute.
- omniglottal 4y agoMaybe it'd just be multimillion if there weren't blanket exceptions to dialogue about how to keep it from becoming multi-billion, profitting just a few by turning out products like the F-35
- implements 4y agoWell, it’s not an entirely unreasonable thing to ponder about. No expert, but chartering a 737 looks to be about $200k per month. Capacity’s about 200, so it’s not a tremendous extravagance. I wonder if the staff have to pay a fare?
- whywhywhywhy 4y agoBecause advertising works https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...
- actionfromafar 4y agoHaha great! From now on I will work “what is your stabbing footprint?” into the conversation as often as possible.