We definitely should. Fucking good luck actually getting this across the line though.
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
792 points (99.4% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5186 readers
710 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Would be great to aggressively and progressively tax every wasteful thing rich people do. Yachts. Third homes. Private jets.
If it's something rich people do? Need to tell their lobbyists to STFU and double the tax rate on it.
Let's ban them instead. If they're poisoning our atmosphere so much and it's purely for luxury/convenience then we shouldn't have them at all
Maybe banning is a bit extreme, but we can leverage virtual meetings more for those that need these in person meetings, and maybe permit X amount of personal flights per day/month among all private jet owners or something.
Sadly these things take time, time which I'm not sure we have as a luxury anymore.
Eh, if you can afford a private jet you can more than afford last minute first class flights anywhere. The rich have plenty of other less destructive luxuries at their disposal, I have a hard time feeling sorry for them if they can't fly their private jet whenever and wherever they like. It's time we start treating the wealthy like normal people instead of allowing them to exert their power and privilege to our demise
Not saying this to shill for private jet owners, but to shed some light on this. A big part of why private jets are preferable is that passengers can drive up to the plane and just take off immediately. No check ins, no security, no wait times, no boarding times.
Banning private jets isn't easy to do. A more practical solution might be to eliminate security theater, cut down boarding times, end overbooking, and heavily tax private jets.
If the outcome we want is a reduced carbon footprint, we need to focus on things that are actionable, and getting private jets banned is unlikely to happen.
abolish the TSA
Well said
Wait. We don’t?
We do, just at a lower rate than flying on a commercial flight.
Socialism for the rich. Capitalism for the rest of us
It depends on where they land.
"Tax the rich". This just won't happen.
Yeah it happens all the time. They tax them more, the people go yay, they then use a new loophole. Probably one they introduced in the same bill. When you can buy your policies you're never gonna be caught up in all this tax shit.
*Coughs Taylor Swift Cough
Clarence Thomas says that the constitution doesn't give the government the right to regulate private jets.
Read: rich people are above the law
No, we should ban the usage of them. You do not need a private jet to conduct business, especially in the age of Zoom meetings.
Sure, they don't represent much compared to all flights people take just to go on vacation though...
Heck, your emissions are lower by driving to your destination with four passengers in a full sized truck or SUV than they are by having the same four passengers take a plane.
Consider the time wasted at the airport and if you're traveling a distance that can be covered by car in a day you're better off driving alone in a small car to get there.
Airplane manufacturers invest in anti emissions tech only to look good to authorities, none of it gets implemented in the end, might as well drive a car from the 80s on which the converter has never been changed, you'll probably pollute less for the same distance travelled!
This is what I tell everyone. By the time you arrive at the airport. Go through security. Wait on the plane, then reverse that when you land, there's a lot of added time there.
I'm all for taxing and regulating the hell out of these totally unneeded luxuries, but air travel is 2% of global emissions, and private jets are 2% of that. They are a pure luxury, and so are a good target for emissions reduction, but this would be just one of hundreds of similarly-sized initiatives needed to move the needle at this point. It's also not a "soft target" since we'd have to take something away from the rich that they like, which costs a lot of time and political capital that then can't be used elsewhere, perhaps to greater impact.
Political capital is more like muscle than a one-shot battery: it gets stronger when you use it in ways that have public support.
Point well taken, but I'd say getting the US Congress to agree to things that inconvenience the rich might be an exception. I really wish we could get the ball rolling on that in a self-sustaining, self-amplifying way that compounded to larger and larger changes and more and more public support. But that just isn't how my government has worked in my lifetime in my experience.
Stop posting the same low effort stuff everywhere. Post on one instance/magazine/community and start an actual discussion. Why are you karma farming? This isn't reddit.
Some people aren't subbed to all communities so there's benefit to reposting the same article to multiple communities.
It's about as effective on Lemmy as taxing private jets is effective on climate change.
I.e. As effective as a fart in a blizzard. The irony of the energy for the cause spent on just this and just here.
Why are you angry someone wants to provide a conversation starter to multiple communities where its relevant? If you see something you've already read and you don't want to read it again it takes less than a second to keep scrolling, or to change the sorting algorithm you're using
Go whine to the devs for including a crosspost functionality.
I checked and I only see one cross post of this article from OP?
Time for a capita tax.
air travel for businesses should be made non-deductable on taxes. that will make companies think twice about weather or not that international meeting could have just been a zoom call
Lets tax them $1.00 for their first private flight, $2.00 for their second, $4.00 for their third and so on.