Contrails Cause 57% of a Plane's Climate Impact. Can That Be Changed? (cnn.com) 138
Contrails — the wispy ice clouds trailing behind flying jets — "are surprisingly bad for the environment," reports CNN:
A study that looked at aviation's contribution to climate change between 2000 and 2018 concluded that contrails create 57% of the sector's warming impact, significantly more than the CO2 emissions from burning fuel. They do so by trapping heat that would otherwise be released into space.
And yet, the problem may have an apparently straightforward solution. Contrails — short for condensation trails, which form when water vapor condenses into ice crystals around the small particles emitted by jet engines — require cold and humid atmospheric conditions, and don't always stay around for long. Researchers say that by targeting specific flights that have a high chance of producing contrails, and varying their flight path ever so slightly, much of the damage could be prevented.
Adam Durant, a volcanologist and entrepreneur based in the UK, is aiming to do just that. "We could, in theory, solve this problem for aviation within one or two years," he says.... Of contrails' climate impact, "80 or 90% is coming from only maybe five to 10% of all flights," says Durant. "Simply redirecting a small proportion of flights can actually save the majority of the contrail climate impact...."
In 2021, scientists calculated that addressing the contrail problem would cost under $1 billion a year, but provide benefits worth more than 1,000 times as much. And a study from Imperial College London showed that diverting just 1.7% of flights could reduce the climate damage of contrails by as much as 59%.
Durant's company Satavia is now testing its technology with two airlines and "actively looking for more airlines in 2023 to work with, as we start scaling up the service that we offer."
Truly addressing the issue may require some changes to air traffic rules, Durant says — but he's not the only one working on the issue. There's also the task force of a non-profit energy think tank that includes six airlines, plus researchers and academics. "We could seriously reduce, say, 50% of the industry's contrails impact by 2030," Durant tells CNN. "That's totally attainable, because we can do it with software and analytics."
And yet, the problem may have an apparently straightforward solution. Contrails — short for condensation trails, which form when water vapor condenses into ice crystals around the small particles emitted by jet engines — require cold and humid atmospheric conditions, and don't always stay around for long. Researchers say that by targeting specific flights that have a high chance of producing contrails, and varying their flight path ever so slightly, much of the damage could be prevented.
Adam Durant, a volcanologist and entrepreneur based in the UK, is aiming to do just that. "We could, in theory, solve this problem for aviation within one or two years," he says.... Of contrails' climate impact, "80 or 90% is coming from only maybe five to 10% of all flights," says Durant. "Simply redirecting a small proportion of flights can actually save the majority of the contrail climate impact...."
In 2021, scientists calculated that addressing the contrail problem would cost under $1 billion a year, but provide benefits worth more than 1,000 times as much. And a study from Imperial College London showed that diverting just 1.7% of flights could reduce the climate damage of contrails by as much as 59%.
Durant's company Satavia is now testing its technology with two airlines and "actively looking for more airlines in 2023 to work with, as we start scaling up the service that we offer."
Truly addressing the issue may require some changes to air traffic rules, Durant says — but he's not the only one working on the issue. There's also the task force of a non-profit energy think tank that includes six airlines, plus researchers and academics. "We could seriously reduce, say, 50% of the industry's contrails impact by 2030," Durant tells CNN. "That's totally attainable, because we can do it with software and analytics."
Queue the Q!! (Score:5, Funny)
I for one welcome our new *chan stans.
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Yep. It's well known that comtrails have to be dispersed over major cities so there's no way any aircraft will be "diverted".
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"I KNEW IT!! CONTRAILS!! Been telling ya for years.."
No, that crowd calls them chemtrails and think they are various chemicals used for everything from mind control to birth control.
Really? "A bizarre agenda?" [Re:Cue the Damien...] (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how a story saying "we can help address the problem by slightly changing the path of five to ten percent of commercial airliners" gets interpreted as being a "bizarre agenda whereby all human activity is evil and must be stopped."
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Here, let me translate that for you - it's greenwashing.
Do contrails have an impact? Sure - at high altitude it's a POSITIVE impact. They reflect the sun. Same as clouds do. But of course, anything to excuse the greenhouse gas emissions of aircraft.
Effect of clouds [Re:Really? "A bizarre agenda?"] (Score:5, Informative)
Do contrails have an impact? Sure - at high altitude it's a POSITIVE impact. They reflect the sun. Same as clouds do.
It turns out to be more complicated than that. Clouds reflect both visual and infrared. Reflecting visible (solar) radiation has a cooling effect; reflecting infrared radiation has a warming effect. The net effect is dependent on a lot of factors, not just cloud composition (ice or water; particle shape and size) but cloud altitude and time of day. But, yes, clouds can be a net warming effect, particularly high-altitude ice-crystal clouds.
Which brings up an interesting point: the contrail effect will tend toward net cooling during the daytime, and net warming during the night time. So one solution would be to fly more in the early morning when the contrails will persist during the day (when they have cooling effect), and less during the early evening, when the contrails will persist during the night (when they have warming effect)
But of course, anything to excuse the greenhouse gas emissions of aircraft.
I am baffled by people who look at some interesting bit of science and do nothing but say "I don't believe this because I have some political motive."
Re:Effect of clouds [Re:Really? "A bizarre agenda? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Most people don't really like science. It requires testing your ideas, and discarding them if they're crap.
I was talking to a friend once and we were discussing the relationship between philosophy and science. I suggested that there once there once was a philosophical school that thought it might be a good idea to try and critically test their ideas instead of
Whiners [Re:Really? "A bizarre agenda?"] (Score:2)
Because the whiners that DO want to stop all human activity
And I'm baffled how you get that from an article saying "let's change the path of five to ten percent of airline flights."
But you read into things what you choose to read into them.
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This is unfortunately a very common rhetorical technique. You ridicule an extreme argument that maybe might be made by somebody, possibly.
It's kind of a "mashup" between a straw man, ad hominem, and appeals to consequences, emotion and tradition.
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Exactly what I said: you're reading into the article things that aren't there, but are what you choose to reading into them.
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One of the benefits is that sometimes you can figure out what Fox News is telling them to be frightened of without ever having to watch Fox News.
Silver linings and all that.
Re: Whiners [Re:Really? "A bizarre agenda?"] (Score:2)
Re: Whiners [Re:Really? "A bizarre agenda?"] (Score:2)
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Yes, that could never happen.
Well, it didn't in your first article. That was about people personally choosing not to fly, not trying to stop all human activity. What is with you people who can't help conflating other people's personal choices with a pernicious agenda to remove yours? As for the second site, I can't read Swedish, but I can tell that the site is under construction and has no content, so I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove.
I will note that travel without flying has become a real challenge in the modern world. I've
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10% is generous.
Oh this is gonna be good (Score:2)
Just wait 'til the chemtrail goofballs get a hold of this one.
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Just wait 'til the chemtrail goofballs get a hold of this one.
I would get the popcorn ready...gonna be a crazy one.
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Way ahead of you. Here's your bag, pass the soda.
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100% (Score:1)
They create 100% of the government mind control.
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Well, personally I think various news outlets are vastly superior than anything sprayed into the air in that matter.
Temporary issue (Score:1)
This issue should solve itself over time. The frogs can only get so gay.
Re: Temporary issue (Score:2)
Gender is not sexuality! If a frog identifies as a phallo-butch-queer, the contrails will make them desire other phallo-butch-queers.
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I like the tribe that had something like a dozen genders, including square and triangle.
Of course most English speakers don't understand gender, even as they call their car/boat she.
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Gender does not equal biological sex, or do you honestly believe that a ship is biologically female as it has a female gender?
Don't know why whether someone is right or left handed matters but it is a good example of how people develop and how people just want to be themselves with lots of evidence that forcing a left handed person to be right handed fucks them up mentally.
yay! (Score:2)
Yay! Simple affordable and large impact. Do it.
Or just stop flying (Score:3, Insightful)
we can do it with software and analytics.
Maybe maybe not. But the impact of all these people flying all over the place can't be mitigated by fixing contrails with software.
The entire commercial flight industry as a whole is incredibly wasteful. It burns an enormous amount of fossil fuel, all of which has to be extracted and refined, both of which have large carbon footprints. It takes vast computing horsepower to keep the industry working safely which is powered by fossil fuel.
Then you have the literal geographic footprint of it. Giant airports with runways and taxiways and roads and terminals. These things don't last and have to be constantly upgraded or new ones built further away from cities, which consumes huge amounts of resources.
And building a modern commercial airplane is not exactly an environmentally friendly process. Most of the materials that make them up start out underground and have to be mined, processed, refined, and machined in huge factories.
All for what? So you can go to Rome and take a selfie in front of the Coliseum? Go to Yellowstone and take a selfie in front of Old Faithful? So you can get a mango at the grocery store down the street you drive to? Fuck that. Time to stop greenwashing shit like this. Shut the whole fucking thing down.
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And we weren't meant to get medical care we can't afford or get food shipped in from around the world or US people weren't intended to have the protection of 2 huge oceans and we weren't meant to have all this communications tech.
I vote for caves and whatever we can each hunt n gather. The way we were meant to be and we're for most of human history. Current good living is a historical aberration.
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You're trying to use hyperbole to make your point, but it's not working.
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I am sorry you didn't recognize that immediately and instead attacked the guy bringing this entire scam to light.
Well done bringing the entire scam to light. I'm not sure how we got along without you. What a star.
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Try a Zoom meeting.
But how are you going to get the taxpayer to pay for your vacation trip to that nice location... anyone ever noticed how those conferences are always in really awesome places anyone would want to spend a vacation at rather than, say, East St. Louis?
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The entire commercial flight industry as a whole is incredibly wasteful .... Shut the whole fucking thing down.
Or ... stop subsidizing it and let nature take its course.
There's really no need for everybody to spend so many weekends in foreign places and businesses can do most things by video these days. Raise the price of the tickets to their actual cost and the problem will largely solve itself.
Local economies will thank you for it, too.
Maybe there can be some concessions for shipping goods, but not for passengers.
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You think the government should be subsidizing that?
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we can do it with software and analytics.
Maybe maybe not. But the impact of all these people flying all over the place can't be mitigated by fixing contrails with software.
According to this analysis some of the impact can be mitigated. Not all.
For context, the contribution of global aviation to the greenhouse effect was calculated to be about 3.5% of the net anthropogenic radiation forcing. So, no, this isn't going to solve the problem, and your proposed solution "just stop flying" won't either, since aviation just is not the big effect.
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Shut the whole fucking thing down.
Good luck getting elected on that platform.
YGBSM! (Score:1, Insightful)
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What a crock of brown stuff! I'm no climatologist but I do have more than 20 years aviation experience and contrails do not "form when water vapor condenses into ice crystals around the small particles emitted by jet engines".
You're no physicist, but you know better than they do [wisc.edu]. What other amazing powers do you possess?
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Pipe down, Martin
Hush now, coward.
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Red eye flights suck but they're better than day time when you're more likely to have done idiot kid kicking your seat or some drooling moron next to you in the sardine section.
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No you're confusing contrails with wingtip vortices. Different phenomena.
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Re:YGBSM drivel. (Score:2)
Wingtip vortcies are mainly associated with high lift high drag situations, go look at an L/D curve, at low speed induced drag of vortex dominates, where the induced drag and parasitic drag lines cross is best l/d, as speed rises and angle of attack drops, vortexes reduce to a very small part of overall drag, and therefore are at a minimum.
https://aviation.stackexchange... [stackexchange.com]
The turbulence in the engine exhaust causes mixing, which in turn causes condensation where the atmospheric conditions are suitable.
How c
Re: YGBSM! (Score:4, Informative)
Seems like the rest of the world disagrees with where contrails come from. The pictures of them sure do look like they're coming out of the engines. Not sure why 4 contrails would come from two wing tips. I'm going to go as far as calling you a liar.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Contrail sources [Re: YGBSM!] (Score:5, Informative)
Yes and no.
There exist both sources of contrails, both from wingtips and from engine exhaust.
The main source of engine exhaust contrails, though, is not the particulates from the exhaust as (inaccurately stated by the CNN article), but "when hot humid air from jet exhaust mixes with environmental air of low vapor pressure and low temperature. The mixing is a result of turbulence generated by the engine exhaust. Cloud formation by a mixing process is similar to the cloud you see when you exhale and "see your breath" [wisc.edu]"
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We need to do something about all the people in cold places making clouds when they exhale. I'm going to submit my funding proposal.
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No, particulates do play a role in formation of contrails. Part of cloud (and contrail) formation requires there to be sufficient numbers of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice nuclei (IN) present in order for the supersaturated water to condense. The particulate emissions of aeroengines provides this.
There is a fair amount of work going into development of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). One of the goals of SAF development is reduction of particulate emissions, which has been shown to reduce contrail
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Thanks for the link.
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Under some conditions contrails can seed the formation of large areas of cirrus - you can see this yourself when there are broad straight bands of cirrus in the sky - these can cover a very large area.
I don't th
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...Under some conditions contrails can seed the formation of large areas of cirrus - you can see this yourself when there are broad straight bands of cirrus in the sky - these can cover a very large area.
Yep! This occurs when the upper atmosphere is supersaturated with water vapor, so initial seeding by the contrails triggers the phase change from water vapor into ice crystals.
What I don't know is whether the supersaturated water vapor would eventually turn into ice crystals by itself, and hence the contrail stimulus only speeds up a process that would happen anyway, or not.
I don't think this is "pseudo science". There are some real journal articles https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
Not pseudo science at all!
Interestingly, a lot of what we learned comes from the pause in airline traffic immediately following the 9/
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What we learned form the pause in airline traffic after 9/11, and the decrease during COVID is that contrails create more cloud, they don't just speed up formation that would already happen. We had a pretty good idea already though, as well as the effect on heat radiation, from studying temperatures around WWI
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Wow, so much wrong in your post, but will focus on your assertion that ice particles in contrails don't trap heat that would otherwise be released into space. It is well known that unlike liquid clouds, ice clouds (cirrus, contrails, etc.) tend to have an overall warming effect on the earth. This is because while they are optically thin with regard to incoming solar radiation (meaning they let it pass), they are very efficient at blocking outgoing longwave radiation from the Earth. So essentially they allow
Is this a joke? (Score:1)
As well.... I find it very difficult to believe that the wisp of a trail effects on anything would be negligible. On a cloudy night, the heat is trapped anyway. You can't just say, "the contrail accounts for 1% of the sky, so that means that 1% of the heat doesn't radiate out." The heat has all night to radiate out. So if you see contrails in the morning sky, well that air is already as cold as it is going to get. So what the article is really saying is that the CO2 emissions are negligible, and so ar
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1% is being way generous. Its probably closer to 0.01% and absolutely tiny to that other heat reflective formation that occasionally happens that absolutely can cover 100% of the sky... clouds. We need to find a way to ban clouds.
Clouds, it's complicated (Score:2)
What Impact? (Score:3)
TFA doesn't actually list what the impact is. It just says contrails are bad, but never actually explains why they are bad. Does anyone got a ref or cite?
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TFA doesn't actually list what the impact is. It just says contrails are bad, but never actually explains why they are bad. Does anyone got a ref or cite?
Overall, because the heating caused by reflection of infrared downward is a greater effect than the cooling caused by reflecting solar radiation upward. (Do keep in mind that the heating is day and night, while the cooling is day only. That's a factor of two for the day/night, and another factor of 2 for the cosine of the sun angle).
More details, look in the article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
Go to section 3, "Methods".
43% still very problematic (Score:2)
insanity (Score:1)
Again, this is typical of Americans' penchant for monomania. It used to be commies under every bed. Then it was the energy crisis. Then it was recycling. Then climate change.
There is more than one thing going on at the same time. We should not be sacrificing everything at a single altar of the current monomaniacal religion.
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Don't you know? The government can only handle one topic at a time, else people wouldn't always ask whenever they do something "How comes they have time to waste on X instead of doing Y?"
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Again, this is typical of Americans' penchant for monomania. It used to be commies under every bed. Then it was the energy crisis. Then it was recycling. Then climate change.
You don't seem to pay attention to American news. To first order, zero percent of America's monomania is climate change. Number one at the moment seems to be Biden's classified documents, taking over from last week's monomania, which was Elon Musk's handling of Twitter.
Even among political issues, climate change doesn't even make the top ten. (source: https://www.pewresearch.org/po... [pewresearch.org] )
Start w/Private Jets of Legislators and the Rich (Score:2)
Tax and refund (Score:2)
Yes, you do cause damage, and you should be taxed for your flights, as should those who make a lot of flights, especially private jets. This is accordance with the 'polluter pays' principle, where the person causing a mess gets to pay to clear it up. However to reduce the impact on those who make few flights, the money should be returned to the general public via increases in tax disregards for income tax for everyone. This ensures real justice.
Of course it will hurt the rich, so will never happen.
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I don't think my little flight to visit family or take a trip once or twice a year is harming the Earth anywhere close to the frequent, extravagant flights made by legislators, celebs, and the rich every single day.
Absolutely, but they'll take away your car, furnace, stove, and all sorts of other shit before rich people will give up flying.
Wing Shape (Score:2)
Other than Stealth Bombers and Stealth drones ( which still have contrail issues) We're using MOL the same wing architecture thats been around since the 50's. Surely there's a way to tweak that. Before I get any smart ass replies. Yes I do work for the FAA.
Lean burn jet engines will reduce contrails (Score:2)
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Summers during Covid Isolation (Score:2)
Where I live we have much less jet traffic than the US or Europe.
During Covid isolation there was almost no jet traffic and I noticed that those summers were, mercifully, much cooler than the previous decades of constantly getting hotter and hotter. I was able to get through those summers without air conditioning, a first in over a decade and twice in a row.
I'm not saying it's the cause, I don't know and obviously there was less car traffic as well, it's just awfully coincidental.
With the jets in
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after 9/11 happened and all flights were grounded, I remember the skies were the bluest I had ever seen the next day. There was a satellite photo timelapse somewhere that showed Air Force 1 and its escort jets being the only planes in the sky, and seeing the resulting contrails of just those 3 planes basically turning the deep blue sky into a hazy white over the space of several hours. I wish I could find that again.
Well, (Score:2)
You could simply take the train.
A trillion dollars/year of harm? (Score:2)
> In 2021, scientists calculated that addressing the contrail problem would cost under $1 billion a year, but provide benefits worth more than 1,000 times as much.
So, contrails are causing a trillion dollars of harm per year? I would love to see how they came up with that number.
Living in Asia; No contrails here (Score:2)
I live 40 miles from one of the biggest airline hubs in Asia.
At any given moment during the day there are literally +30 planes in the sky according to FlightRadar.
Not a single contrail.
They are just not there.
Coincidence?
Don't think so.
Yale had an article on this in 2019 (Score:2)
Re:Green v Green (Score:5, Interesting)
Flying lower or higher can eliminated condensation trails at the cost of fuel burn and speed over ground. I am going to say lets run the experiment, burn 5%-15% more fuel for a year, take the cost directly from the budgets of the green efforts. I am expected to have another set of greens up in arms about more fuel burn. Greens are not about efficiently, they are about keeping their think tank leaders rolling in the government money and bringing industry that would not have an economic chance forward early. As either group does not zoom in their visit to the world economic forum and davos, we all know what they are, without morals parasites. As for myself, I got to go fill up my speedboat, the chicks are on their way with grass fed steaks and key lime pie for a sunday BBQ. Make sure to have a campfire in sunny Florida.
Just curious... do you equate every person who is concerned with environmental impact of human activity with "greens"? No, seriously. You're being clear that you think "greens" have an dishonest agenda, and that's not a completely baseless argument. But what I'm wondering is... a person... a non-government person whose employment isn't affiliated with environmental industries in any way... what do you think about them if they want reduction of human environmental waste? Say... the Walmart greeter or grocery store shelf-stocker, who agrees with continually-increasing fuel-economy standards? The librarian or teacher or burger-flipper or lawn-care person or doctor or lawyer or video game designer who wants us to find better ways to produce electricity than burning coal? The programmer or advertising artist or musician or store manager or mail delivery person or roofer, plumber, electrician or engineer who wants less smog and for us to find a better way to get around than burning oil?
Or do you just... dismiss those who want everyone to be less wasteful because "everyone" includes you?
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He's the guy who has made a very nice living scamming right-wing idiots in case you're unaware of him.
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I don't fit into your safe space where anyone who doesn't agree with you 100% must be one of those slack jawed no education republicans.
Just for fun, let's jump back a post.
Most of those people believe whatever they're told.
Huh. Turns out not so long ago you were explaining to us that anyone who doesn't agree with you 100% must be one of those slack-jawed no-education something. Republican, Democrat, Pepsi-drinker, Coke-drinker, doesn't matter what the final qualifier is. You've already established yourself as someone who discounts those who disagree with you as a} wrong and b} lesser-abled people.
by iAmWaySmarterThanYou
Quelle surprise.
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Uh ok, nothing you said correlates with reality.
I am always willing to change my mind when presented with evidence, facts, logic superior to my own.
That just doesn't happen often on a mindless echo chamber site like this.
You confuse the sheer idiocy of this site and my refusal to accept it with my inability to learn from others. I do. Just not from here very often. I come here to point n laugh at the stupid people. I go elsewhere to discuss the world with smart people. Very very very few remain here anymore.
Keep shoveling. You haven't run out of depth for the hole to reach yet.
What you're doing is circular logic. You're claiming you can change your mind, but nothing presented here can do it. The whole site is idiotic and an echo-chamber. See, it's just back to dismissing the opinions you don't like. The ones that are contrary to yours. Confirmation bias at its best. The site is idiotic because it disagrees with you, so you don't need to learn or change your opinion, which tells you the site is idiotic
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take the cost directly from the budgets of the green efforts.
Better still: Divert the money into something even greener.
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Trains could so easily take on planes if, and only if, we stop handing cheap fuel to those airlines. The moment we stop that shit, that shit can't compete with trains anymore.
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You want to go back to the 50s when flying was a special luxury thing only rich people could afford? It's not cheap now.
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I would at the very least reconsider short distance flights. Anything under a thousand miles can under most circumstances be done far more comfortably in an overnight train.
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Say what? Trains are expensive as F, and virtually none, outside a rare high population corridor in the US, can support themselves by fares alone. But you're going to replace airplanes in "flyover country" where the most likely passengers are the bugs on the windshields of the locomotives? Gotta see how that's gonna work.
Musk's hyperloop might have had a chance until some smart people figured out that there was just no way one could guarantee the "straightness" of the guide tube that was evacuated of a
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Especially since the US has no interest in leading in this or any other field...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The fact that you don't has nothing to do "can't".
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If you're building trains in the places that are empty you're doing it wrong.
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Must be magic.
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This is because the DOJ refuses to do its' job, allowing rail freight companies to hamstring Amtrak.
https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/wendover-productions-on-amtraks-rail-priority.84069/ [amtraktrains.com]
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This is a weird Internet myth.
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Not so mythical over here in Europe where trains are actually pretty fast and reliable, and not that expensive when you factor in all costs.
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I mean this part: "we stop handing cheap fuel to those airlines."
Ironically, the EU is one of the places where, until recently, there was a little wee bit of truth to the Internet myth about cheap aviation fuel.
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Well, as an avid rail geek and a private pilot, I believe that trains are the WAY better choice. The sad part is that the US lacks the will power (and common sense) to make the somewhat difficult choice and seriously invest in fast, economical, and reliable rail travel. It does not help that Amtrak does not actually own (except in a few cases) the right-of-way they use, and have to act the poor cousin and beg for track rights. Nor does it help any that even if one administration decides to do something a