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Earth Transportation

How Aviation Emissions Could Be Halved Without Cutting Journeys (theguardian.com) 118

Posted by msmash from the first-class-climate-problem dept.
Climate-heating emissions from aviation could be slashed in half -- without reducing passenger journeys -- by getting rid of premium seats, ensuring flights are near full and using the most efficient aircraft, according to analysis. The Guardian: These efficiency measures could be far more effective in tackling the fast-growing carbon footprint of flying than pledges to use "sustainable" fuels or controversial carbon offsets, the researchers said. They believe their study, which analysed more than 27m commercial flights out of approximately 35m in 2023, is the first to assess the variation in operational efficiency of flights across the globe. The study, led by Prof Stefan Gossling at Sweden's Linnaeus University, examined flights between 26,000 city pairs carrying 3.5 billion passengers across 6.8 trillion kilometers. First and business class passengers are responsible for more than three times the emissions of economy travelers, and up to 13 times more in the most spacious premium cabins.

The average seat occupancy across all flights in 2023 was almost 80%. US airports accounted for a quarter of all aviation emissions and ran 14% more polluting than the global average. Atlanta and New York ranked among the least efficient airports overall, nearly 50% worse than top performers like Abu Dhabi and Madrid.
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How Aviation Emissions Could Be Halved Without Cutting Journeys

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  • Hello, Private (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mhocker ( 607466 ) on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @02:07PM (#65908193)

    If you get rid of all the premium seats, 100% of those people aren't going to be jammed into crappy economy seats. They'll look for other, likely more inefficient, ways to travel and they will all land on private aviation. The trend is going that way already.

    Plus consider the economics, most airlines make a significant amount of their money from premium passengers. No way they'll go for this either.

    Also, and highly relevant from an ancient @GSElevator Twitter joke:

    Junior: Have you seen that new all-business-class airline thatâ(TM)s launching? It looks pretty great.

    MD: Why would I want to fly that?

    Junior: Well, everyone on the plane is in Business Class, so it's a better experience.

    MD: Exactly. If everyone is in Business Class, then I'm in Coach. Where do I sit to show I'm better than you?

    • Exactly. Pipe dream delusions. I can fix this one thing without affecting anything else.

      • It is the sort of plan that the sort of person who has no skin in the game and won't be personally affected by any of the undesirable side effects that they failed to consider. As the OP pointed out there's little chance it will be implemented for the reasons illustrated among others. Private air travel will become more popular over time anyway. Before anyone thinks that some politicians might push for this, they'll never give up the luxury that they enjoy at the taxpayers expense and them trying to carve o
    • Private charters cost an order of magnitude more than first class seats. I suppose not if you rent a 172, but that's much slower.

      You can also get first class upgrades for free just for having elite status, if space is available.
      • There are options in between popping up already, often cheaper than 1st class but limited schedule or departing/arriving airports (which isn't always a negative to fly in-out of smaller airports). I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but from people who tried it, it's a jet with 20-30 passengers. As for elite status upgrades, I might as well play the lottery to buy my own plane. I had a high elite status with an airline for a while before COVID, was on the upgrade list for every flight, flew over 30 times
        • Getting upgraded takes strategy. You pick flights during off days times like Saturday night or mid-week, when fewer business travelers are flying. Pick a season when the airline has more flights going your way. You check seat maps to see which flights still have a lot of seats open in First a few days before departure, and be willing to change (on airlines where it's free). On some airlines you can see where you fall on the upgrade waitlist. You DON'T switch flights too close to departure. Upgrades are easi

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      private aircraft is in nooo way comparable to a first class or any other "premium" seat, are you dumb?

      • No, if you're talking "Learjet" it is much better. Even a turboprop King Air, and not putting up with the various abuses of dignity administered by TSA as well as "the rulz" for TSA that they themselves violate anyway (personal experience, so yes, it happens, and was moderately expensive) will be a probably unsuspected driver for people to abandon scheduled airlines altogether in search of some comfort and tranquility undisrupted by "the authorities."

        I'm not in the same stratosphere of those that fly 1st

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by BranMan ( 29917 )

          Don't know if you've considered this, but you an take a cruise ship from SF to Hawaii. Neatly dodges that "flying" bullet! Plenty of luggage space, and you can carry your camera equipment on and off.

          • Thanks. Am now considering it. It's looking good, maybe affordable, a much longer vacation with the 10 days just at sea, maybe 5 - 6 in the islands, more than I need actually. Haven't found an actual ride yet, but will be researching it this weekend.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      Midwest Express tried this formula and until 9/11, and did quite well with it. The entire aircraft was 2 leather seats on each side of the isle and tons of leg room. It was more or less the classic airline experience, not the "let's pack them in as tightly as we can" experience. Midwest express had a hard time making a comeback because of 9/11 and the overall decline in air travel. As far as my general experiences, when I head to Europe, I'll always go Business or First traveling there. The flights are alwa

    • Flying private starts at about 2x the cost of a first-class seat. I suspect most of the people who could fly private are already doing so, and if there were no business class a lot of those people would fly coach.

      The profitability issue is a bigger problem: premium seats have the least people per square meter but generate the most dollars per square meter because they're disproportionately expensive. At a lot of airlines, coach tickets are effectively subsidized by rich idiots:

      https://kerinmarketing.com/201 [kerinmarketing.com]

    • Re: Hello, Private (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      Don't forget spite. If they get rid of first class for carbon reasons I will personally find a way to add 10x more carbon than whatever their estimated percapita carbon savings is, even if it takes burning a barrel of oil in some fireproof place. These people can cram all this performative bullshit up their asses. You want to reduce carbon, make it so that if I buy furniture it wasn't grown in Canada shipped to China processed into furniture pieces shipped to somewhere to be clicked together and qualify

    • Generally agree, but there are some valid reasons for flying business that are not just about having "better" seats. Ever try to work on a laptop on a budget economy seat? Even with a small laptop its almost impossible. On a round trip from CA to Europe or Asia, that's ~20 hours of lost work time, and for professionals who cost the company $500/hour that adds up. Since the high profit business seats allow airlines to charge less for economy seats, there is some advantage all around.

      In general though w

      • The main reason to fly business is so that you can function the next day.

        When someone is being flown in for 3 days, the last thing you want is for one day to be lost there and another at their other location so that they can recover.

    • Also, where do I sit as a fat person? Itâ(TM)s generally considered pretty impolite for me to take an economy seat and then overflow into neighbours space, so I get business seats to have enough space for a more ⦠uhh⦠generously proportioned human.

      Where do I sit as someone who has severe restless leg thatâ(TM)s badly exacerbated by sitting in the exact same position for hours, and results in me repeatedly kicking the person in front of me?

      Where do I sit as an old person who

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rta ( 559125 )

        if that's not hypothetical:
        keto. then some IF, then some weekly fasts will take care of at least the first one.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (she's a bit "energetic" in presentation... but Dr. Boz has a pretty decent modern take on the on-ramp... esp for people who are older and larger. her book is pretty good too. )

      • You can go to your local gym and work on yourself until you're at a state where you can interact with other humans again.

    • Just get rid of the seats completely. SRO flights.

  • You are not understanding the problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @02:08PM (#65908201)

    ....by getting rid of premium seats, ensuring flights are near full

    So, you think that airlines are going to get rid of "premium" seats, which generate more profit. Are you really that stupid and clueless?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      ....by getting rid of premium seats, ensuring flights are near full

      So, you think that airlines are going to get rid of "premium" seats, which generate more profit. Are you really that stupid and clueless?

      You've heard of "low cost carriers", right... A.K.A. budget airlines.

      This is the budget airline business model. Shove in as many seats as you can legally get away with and fill them all. A load factor below 98 is unacceptable on a 200 seat A320/B737 (that's 4 empty seats for those struggling).

      I suspect there is a lot that is questionable about the authors conclusions beginning with most of the emissions savings coming from "Ban all private aviation"... because Tay-tay is really going to rub shoulders

  • They say it out loud (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PackMan97 ( 244419 ) on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @02:13PM (#65908221)
    "Instead, he said, it could run fewer, fuller flights with higher ticket prices. He said many flights were only taken because they were so cheap: “We know that a lot of air transport demand is induced. If you increase the cost, people would just choose a different type of holiday.”

    The goal is to make it so only the wealthy can enjoy the world and we are all kept in our little corner.
    • It seems like letting the peasants enjoy the world is causing them to destroy the world.

    • Yep. This is part of "You will own nothing and be happy."

    • That's not how I read it. What follows might be difficult to relate to for a US citizen.

      I find it absurd that air travel is cheaper than rail travel. I also know that it's only possible because of choices that have been made without consideration for what we currently understand as the common good. For long distance, flying makes sense. For example to go from East to West coast of the US. But under say 1200 km, fast rail is as fast and more comfortable. But also often more expensive, or simply not existing.

  • For the auto industry, it's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Targon ( 17348 ) on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @02:41PM (#65908299)

    Here in the USA, many people are obsessed with SUVs and trucks, yet they never go offroad, they don't use these vehicles for work, they just want BIG vehicles for a really stupid reason, all the other stupid people around them that insist on having a large vehicle. Sure, there is a good use for having ONE larger vehicle in a family for when you need it, but the actual NEED for these huge vehicles is pretty low.

    • Re:For the auto industry, it's even worse (Score:4, Funny)

      by dbialac ( 320955 ) on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @03:18PM (#65908429)

      they just want BIG vehicles for a really stupid reason

      The reason is simple: it's fun. You should look up that word ("fun") in the dictionary sometime.

      • I know what fun is, and the inconvenience and ill handling of a huge ungainly vehicle isn't it.

        Americans mostly want huge vehicles because they're afraid - of the consequences of a wreck. They want to be some distance from, and ideally "upstairs from" where the wreck happens, which is what drives the ridiculous safety arms race we've been trapped in since the '90s.

        • If people were afraid, they would be looking up safety stats, but they don't.

          As long as you don't have to park in small places, large cars are fun to drive, especially at a dealership.

          • Their fear isn't perfectly rational, they just look for a vehicle with lots of material to put distance between the cabin and the edges of the vehicle and ground.

            I've never before this thread heard a person say that driving a large vehicle is fun. In my experience it's inoffensive at best when cruising the highway with lots of space, and a stressful annoyance when there isn't a lot of space and you have to deal with the awful visibility near the vehicle and huge turning radius. Dealership lots tend to be cr

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        It's also safer in an accident. The more mass your vehicle has, the more the impact is absorbed as you run down the tiny little shoebox that pulled out in front of you.

        • Physics not your strong point is it. Its crumple zone size and structural strength that matter. Stick the driver of some bloated pickup at the front like in a bus and hes as good as dead in a collision with anything larger than a motorbike and the extra mass will help him on his way.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by taustin ( 171655 )

            100% of the peer reviewed science [nih.gov]* on the subject says you're a fucking idiot. Are you claiming (and do you actually believe) that larger vehicles do not, or cannot, have crumple zones and structural strength equal to or better than smaller vehicles? Is there something about a larger vehicle that makes it inherent that the driver will somehow be at the front, where in a smaller vehicle they would not, despite there being a lot more room behind "in the front" in a larger vehicle? There's nothing about a larg

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Viol8 ( 599362 )

              Thanks for proving you don't know the difference between size and mass. And you call me stupid :) ROTFL!

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by taustin ( 171655 )

                So now you're claiming that size and mass are unrelated? Yes. You're stupid.

                Ask Mummy for a cookie and some milk. It's beddy-bye time, and the grown ups are having a conversation.

          • Quite fucking wrong, chief.

            The force the bus driver feels is directly proportional to how much transferring that force into the object he's accelerating slows him down.

            Now, in the case of talking about a human? Ya, it doesn't matter much to them whether they're hit by a bus or hit by a Mazda Miata.
            They're going to accelerate at almost nearly the same rate, and the momentum they're going to be able to impart on the vehicle that hit them is nearly nil.

            More massive vehicles are simply safer- as long as
            • The minivan form factor is safer than the SUV form factor.

              If people primarily cared about safety, there are a LOT of things they would change before switching to SUV.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dbialac ( 320955 )
            Uhm, you know how buses don't have seat belts? Even school busses, as far as sitting students? And poles for on public passengers to hold on to? They're not there because they're not needed. Growing up, I was on a city bus when it was in an accident. Nobody on the bus felt a thing and nobody even knew we'd been in one. We were just wondering why the bus driver suddenly got out of the bus. Somebody got up, looked out of the front and saw that the bus driver had hit a car. We felt nothing because weight trans

        • Re: For the auto industry, it's even worse (Score:4, Interesting)

          by jabuzz ( 182671 ) on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @06:19PM (#65908969) Homepage

          If you really cared about being in an accident then you would not drive black and other dark coloured cars. A white car is ~25% less likely to be involved in an accident between dusk and dawn than a dark coloured car.

        • An SUV is not safer in an accident. If people cared about safety, they would look up the safety records of the cars.

          If people wanted safety, they would buy a car in the form factor more like a minivan than an SUV.

          An SUV is not a car to buy for safety, or for sports, or for utility.

      • Re:For the auto industry, it's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @03:37PM (#65908493) Journal

        they just want BIG vehicles for a really stupid reason

        The reason is simple: it's fun.

        And that's a stupid reason.

        For some people, burning down forests is fun. That doesn't mean we're okay with it.

        If you want to drive a large vehicle for fun, then pay for it with a carbon tax.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbialac ( 320955 )

          they just want BIG vehicles for a really stupid reason

          The reason is simple: it's fun.

          And I think that's a stupid reason.

          ....

          That doesn't mean I'm okay with it.

          FTFY. Whether it's fun or "stupid" is subjective. Big trucks aren't something I find fun, but I appreciate and respect the fact that others do. I personally drive a V8 powered supercar because I find it fun to drive. That's why you need to go back and have a reading session with Webster's Dictionary or dictionary.com. I'm curious if you can name something that you do and that you would call "fun". I'm sure you can come up with things that you find "interesting", but what about "fun"?

          If you want to drive a large vehicle for fun, then pay for it with a carbon tax.

          They already do (as do I

      • If you want to go rock climbing, go rock climbing. There's no reason to turn your car into a half arsed climbing wall on wheels. It's more fun when you use multiple legs to get your exercise rather than relying on a single step to get into the cabin.

        I looked up the word fun in the dictionary, seems like there's nothing fun about big trucks. You want real fun, get yourself a hot-hatch and do burnouts around those idiots who think the definition of fun is to burn the most fuel per mile travelled.

        Or are you sa

    • The need is low, but this all goes back to the revised standard for MPG requirements based on vehicle footprint in 2011/2012 CAFE standards. Larger vehicles (Long/Wide) get more leeway on MPG. The current version was implemented back in 2012 under the Obama administration and was later revised by Biden. The current standards the industry has been using do not incentivize small vehicles as the MPG requirements are too high to generally achieve with budget focused internal combustion engines.

      Trump's administr

    • See at first I would have agreed with you, but we are well past the stage where people want them. Now you must have them because to not have one is to be an aunt trying to navigate a sea of giants.

      They can't see you, they don't care about your safety, you can't properly see around them, and their lights are exactly eye level.

      I don't want a SUV, I still have one.

    • Here in the USA, many people are obsessed with SUVs and trucks, yet they never go offroad, they don't use these vehicles for work, they just want BIG vehicles for a really stupid reason, all the other stupid people around them that insist on having a large vehicle. Sure, there is a good use for having ONE larger vehicle in a family for when you need it, but the actual NEED for these huge vehicles is pretty low.

      Lots of us have trucks, and all of us haul things in it: wood, purchased goods, trash, lawn stuff, you name it. Many of us also tow things with our trucks. The larger SUV's are overwhelmingly owned by families that haul kids around (and all that entails), or older folks with grandkids. Smaller SUV's are car-platform based, and are actually owned more by younger females, who find them more useful than sedans.

      "Need" on transportation is like "voting your best interests". That's for us to decide, thanks. Not o

    • Here in the USA, many people are obsessed with SUVs and trucks, yet they never go offroad, they don't use these vehicles for work, they just want BIG vehicles for a really stupid reason, all the other stupid people around them that insist on having a large vehicle.

      Well, let me help you understand the 'stupid'...

      As others in the thread noted, the fuel economy standards introduced back in 2012 meant that cars *had* to increase their fuel efficiency. Now, this had some positive effects - I'm a fan of the fact that my 2021 Elantra gets 42MPG on a bad day, and over 50 on a good one.

      The first problem is that it made certain classes of car impossible - namely, the station wagon. I used to own a 1999 Volvo V70. The thing sat up to 7 people and got 29MPG mixed with 200,000 mi

      • This doesn't make any sense to me.
        My vehicle (2 door convertible) doesn't get anywhere near the mileage of that V70... and yet, I purchased it.

        Are you implying that fuel inefficient cars can't be sold in the US?

        • This doesn't make any sense to me.
          My vehicle (2 door convertible) doesn't get anywhere near the mileage of that V70... and yet, I purchased it.
          Are you implying that fuel inefficient cars can't be sold in the US?

          You're vague on the details, so it's impossible to tell conclusively the exact reason why your particular vehicle was allowed to be sold, but here are a few guesses.

          For starters, low-volume sales are treated differently - Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and Bugatti don't have to meet fuel economy requirements because they're in an exemption category pretty much created for high end vehicles that sell 10,000 units or less per model year. It's an easier ask for automakers who don't have the volume of sales Volvo d

    • many people are obsessed with SUVs and trucks, yet they never go offroad, they don't use these vehicles for work,

      Most modern SUVs do not handle a hilly dirt road very well, let alone offroading.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Here in the USA, many people are obsessed with SUVs and trucks, yet they never go offroad, they don't use these vehicles for work, they just want BIG vehicles for a really stupid reason, all the other stupid people around them that insist on having a large vehicle. Sure, there is a good use for having ONE larger vehicle in a family for when you need it, but the actual NEED for these huge vehicles is pretty low.

      That is a good thing, the overwhelming majority of SUVs and "trucks" are not suitable for going off road. They lack a low range gearbox/transfer case, locking differentials and sufficient underbody protection. Most "4 wheel drive" SUVs will be defeated by a slightly damp grassy slope and if they make it over that, they'll probably spear their oil sump on the first rock. Top Gear, who famously tried to kill a Toyota Hilux and failed nearly destroyed an F150 by driving it through the gently undulating field.

    • ... they just want BIG vehicles for a really stupid reason, all the other stupid people around them that insist on having a large vehicle.

      My sister-in-law just traded in her Fiat 500 for a Hyundai Tucson. Because she and my brother were in an accident (not their fault) in my brother's bigger car, and is still recovering from her injuries. I fully understand. But I'll be driving my 2200 lb convertible as soon as the snow and salt is gone.

  • premium seats (Score:3, Informative)

    by Paradise Pete ( 33184 ) on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @02:42PM (#65908301) Journal
    Hard to convince airlines to eliminate premium seats. They're too profitable.
    • They can eliminate them, but then they would surely raise the price of coach seats to compensate. No, thank you! I'm perfectly OK with deep-pocketed fliers subsidizing us hoi polloi.

    • Plus I pay about 3X more for 1st class and apparently that causes 3x more pollution. So I'm paying my share.

    • Also why would you want to? Most people complain the most about the cramped economy seats. Not all of use are small enough to be appealing to Trump and the rest of Epstein's clientele. Some of us actually *need* the extra legroom.

  • Left out of the article is the emissions cost of manufacturing a new aircraft. Yes, per mile, the older ones are less efficient. But making new airplanes is far from emissions-free. And the article acknowledges there's a serious backlog in orders; companies who want planes are having to wait for them. So unless there are serious proposals for how to expand the airline manufacturing industry, the article is not going to lead to any change in emissions.

  • HI! No. (Score:2, Troll)

    by trelanexiph ( 605826 )

    If you want to sell people on your "save the world through misery" bull***t, it has not worked, and it will not work. It has been rejected by normal people every time it has been proposed, if not at the point of proposal, at the point where people realized the damage that those policies were going to do.

    Even the EU is rolling back the ban on ICE powered cars in 2035. Why? First people can't afford them, and the infrastructure to charge them is lagging far behind. Second, China is passing even Tesla in e

    • No one will deliberately choose to be miserable.

      You're right in that there's a choice to be made here. You're wrong in the assumption that the choice is between misery and not-misery.

      We can choose to be more miserable in the short term, or we can reject that and foist a much greater level of misery on our future selves, kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. TANSTAAFL.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      Among the things I did like in the EU were the bamboo forks. They seemed wasteful to a degree, but they are biodegradable and they were a lot more rigid than some of the plastic silverware given to you in a to-go box or fast food restaurant that you end up having to throw away anyway because they're so flimsy they're useless.

  • First, I haven't read the article.

    Second, my first response is, "It's more complicated than putting more people on a plane."

    -- More people = more weight = more fuel = more cost for all passengers
    -- Currently, coach and business class tickets pay for their extra amenities and subsidize coach/economy classes. Like toll lanes subsidizing local transit by bleeding the people willing to pay for extra convenience, they're a net benefit.

    Lastly, making airline travel less GHG-intense per passenger is a good goal, b

  • Or we could just start riding unicorns, it has about the same chance of happening.

  • So, we the masses are justifiably miffed when we learn that the rich snobs in first class are responsible for higher fuel consumption per square foot. However, we are also miffed when we are crammed into ever smaller economy cabin seats, even though those smaller and more tightly packed seats are fantastic for cutting fuel consumption and emissions.

    Even more important is not the ratio of fuel consumption or emissions per seat. The only thing that matters is the total absolute fuel consumption and emission

    • While also failing to grasp the basic economics that made it so they could afford to fly on the plane to begin with, and still lining up in front of the fucking first class lavatory.

  • 1) Tax the hell out of private luxury planes.
    1a. They pollute far more than the airlines.
    1b. They are incredibly expensive - both in carbon and cash. Usually not worth it even for multi-millionaires. Airplanes need upkeep even when not in use, and if the plane is not full, it basically costs the same as if it were full.
    1c. The people that own it can afford them - or sell them.

    2) Put in speed limits for the large aircraft. Right now airline flights fly fast to reduce total travel time. But the wait to get

    • ut in speed limits for the large aircraft. Right now airline flights fly fast to reduce total travel time. But the wait to get onto the flight is so long, not even counting the wait to get your luggage and/or rent a car means the actual percentage gain in time is not meaningful

      Depends on the airport, time of day, route, etc - for much shorter routes , for much longer flights that seems absurdly impossible though.

      Why would you include waiting at the airport though in the travel time (boarding and baggage retrieval, which also assumes someone has to be checking on bags too (another potential assumption error))? I mean, if the measure is getting between two points, why not just compare the travel between two points (which can include taxiing to the runway, to the gate, at the airp

      • Why would you include waiting at the airport though in the travel time

        Unless you go hang at the airport for fun, then the time spent waiting there is part of the travel time because you're only doing it because it's a mandatory part of the journey.

  • We have a consistent problem of telling individuals to do better, when that's mostly just a distraction from the majority if the problem. We tell people to turn down thermostats instead of improving energy efficiency codes. Now we're saying blame business class seating when private jets are the biggest inefficiency in the airline industry.

    Yes, we can and should look at the small things, but we should really focus our energies on the major culprits.

    • We tell people to turn down thermostats instead of improving energy efficiency codes. ... we should really focus our energies on the major culprits.

      Exactly this. Every winter I see news articles about people complaining about their high energy bills and demanding assistance, as if it's a complete surprise that it gets cold in the winter. These people probably never do anything to improve the efficiency of their house, yet they have no trouble spending money on fancy electronics, the latest iPhone, nice cars, name brand everything, etc.

      One of the best things I ever did was add extra insulation to my attic. Lots of it. It paid for itself in just a co

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by crow ( 16139 )

        Yup. And in many places there are government programs that will subsidize home energy inspections and recommended insulation improvements.

        But if you try to improve the building codes to increase energy efficiency for new construction, builders will be up in arms, and it's a tough battle. And that's where you make a huge difference, fixing hundreds or thousands of new buildings at once. And they could also require homes to pass energy inspections to be sold (here we already have septic and smoke detector

  • Take it a step further (Score:3)

    by Ogive17 ( 691899 ) on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @05:22PM (#65908827)
    Get rid of the seats and make it standing room only. I've experienced the rush hour subway in Japan... same thing. You'll really be able to improve passenger efficiency. Tight enough and people could sleep standing up.

  • then I won't be flying anymore (Score:3)

    by cjonslashdot ( 904508 ) on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @06:27PM (#65909001)
    No premium seats for cross-country or international flights? Then I won't be flying anymore. No thanks to the MISERY of being stuck sitting upright in a seat, often late at night, unable to recline or sleep, for 5+ hours at a time. And no thanks to the MISERABLE gate waiting area, which also has no place to recline. Economy flying is an AWFUL experience. NO THANKS.

  • Jet engines are not too picky about what they burn. Biodiesel would make air travel carbon neutral.

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