News and notes from around the interweb:
- Boeing issued a safety bulletin for Boeing 737 MAX operators. Some of the coverage of this has been more than a bit overwrought. We do not yet know the cause of the Lion Air crash.
The operations-manual bulletin was issued Tuesday..and tells crew to use existing guidelines when dealing with erroneous inputs from the so-called angle of attack sensor. That sensor is intended to maintain air flow over a plane’s wings but if it malfunctions can lead to an aerodynamic stall — which can cause aircraft to abruptly dive.
…The bulletin is based on preliminary findings from the Lion Air disaster, a person familiar with the matter earlier told Bloomberg. Under some circumstances, such as when pilots are flying manually, the Max jets will automatically try to push down the nose if they detect that an aerodynamic stall is possible, the person said. One of the critical ways a plane determines if a stall is imminent is the angle of attack measurement.
- The weird things Qantas flight attendants have seen passengers do
- Australians don’t like priority boarding for military veterans they say it’s too American.
- A legislator in Norway wants to limit how many flights each person can take for the environment, natch.
- 15 years of Etihad of course they leave out all the cuts to what had been an amazing product.
- Love when flight attendants have fun with safety announcements.
Before we limit how many flights one can take we need to limit how many children people can have and how many jets they can own and how they can get to work and what sort of car they drive, and about 50 other things. Then maybe we can think about limiting air travel.
I am a huge fan of military folks that serve our country and appreciate their service to our country
Have done fund raising for their families in the past in case a service member doesn’t survive
Having said that I have never understood why they are an an invited group of elite priority travelers that board ahead of First Class & frequent flyers /others
I think that some should be given the opportunity in the right situations but what about
Drs and nurses who save lives.Teachers that teach our children Fire fighters police paramedics all heroes too
As a frequent flyer I’m not fan of What American has done with-its boarding process or United even worse
Perhaps I am missing something
But Military?
Handicapped? ok I get it
People with children?
where does it end?
The Australia article really brings the issues to light on both sides
@Nick
This makes no sense. Air travel is one of the most carbon intensive activities a person can engage in. If you truly believe that climate change is the existential threat that leftists say it is, then why wouldn’t you be in favor of this? Or are you the kind of leftist that just likes to make empty gestures to virtue signal?
@WR. I don’t think targeting air travel without targeting **everything** else is fair. There is no reason why someone who flies ~5000 miles each month should be penalized more than someone who commute 50 miles solo to work each day in a gas car. So each person should get a carbon allowance to use or trade. And we need a recognition that people are the root cause, less people means less carbon. So remove all tax deductions for having kids etc.
@WR
+1 Exactly, they like it as long as someone else pays, sort of like “taxing the rich” to pay for their pet projects that they could easily fund themselves through charitable giving. But unfortunately charitable giving would be anonymous and come out of their pockets.
@WR
Please take an political economy class before you comment on the web about public policy. You might also consider a class on ecology–it would make you sound less like a twit. There is a clear scientific consensus that we must reduce emissions, but not all emissions are created equal. In 2015, global greenhouse emissions looked like this: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-05/global_emissions_sector_2015.png
There are easy substitutes for many greenhouse emission processes. For example, there is very little overhead cost to replacing a coal power plant with a wind turbine field. The technology is mature, and electrical generation emissions are consolidated among a few firms. Firms are tied to sunk costs and market penetration geographically, so maintaining the regulatory environment while preserving the public interest is pretty easy. There are lots of sectors like this which lend themselves easily to an overall reduction of emissions.
Shipping is another good case study. Like power generation, mature technology exists to drastically reduce emissions caused by shipping–yet shipping remains by far the most polluting sector of the transportation industry by volume. This is largely because the international carbon regulatory environment is fragmented. Most pollution occurs in international waters, and the flagging system insulates shipping firms from carbon liability. That makes it very challenging to reduce emissions in real terms, but it’s a political problem–you can solve it by changing the law.
Aviation has the reverse problem. While it’s not as easy for the US to regulate aviation emissions as it is to regulate power emissions, it’s easier than shipping–we produce and consume enough air travel that we have significant market power over global standards. However, the technology to meaningfully reduce aircraft emissions while retaining supply is immature. Most green solutions for aviation are either prohibitively expensive, or prohibitively heavy–affecting the ability of airlines to profit from their assets. It’s just not feasible to reduce aviation emissions at parity to other emissions sources.
It may well be that we will not be able to reduce carbon emission from air travel for some years. However, to suggest that we should do nothing because we cannot preserve cross-sector neutrality, is the most asinine idea I have heard in many years. We should reduce emissions in proportion with our ability to do so.We should demand that our government re-invest the rents generated from polluters to extend that ability.
It is absolutely a moral imperative to reduce emissions, and to address your imputation, buying airline tickets is not hypocrisy. It is abundantly clear that consumer choice is a remarkably poor method by which to reduce emissions.
It’s not virtue signalling–it’s pragmatism and scholarly engagement in public policy.
You should try it some time.
@smarten
-1 Give it a rest dude. Nobody cares.
@Rob
“Exactly, they like it as long as someone else pays, sort of like ‘taxing the rich’ to pay for their pet projects that they could easily fund themselves through charitable giving. But unfortunately charitable giving would be anonymous and come out of their pockets.” – Rob
It sounds an awful lot like you care. If you don’t, that’s fine. Keep your selfish attitude away from the ballot box. Leave the things that matter to the grown ups.
I say we all tax @Rob to pay for our pet projects, seems like he doesn’t really have the intelligence to do anything useful with his time. Bonus for everyone if he happens to be one of those “rich” that are seem to have such a fetish for hoarding outrageous amounts of money that cannot possibly be used by one person in a lifetime.
So, is a $40K Tesla that costs $30K to manufacture more economical than a $20K Prius that uses $1K in fuel annually, for 15 years if it only costs $12K to build?
Or, did we just consume about $30K in oil or oil equivalents (assuming the people that built the Tesla and the parts for the Tesla used carbon creating energy sources either to live, work, or manufacture goods to create a $30K product) to go approximately 25K miles per year for 15 years?
And BTW, the $10K profit made on the Tesla, that can be used to consume more carbon creating energy, like running the heat and air for Elon Musk or whoever made the profit. That is equal to 3,000 gallons of fuel, retail price at 3.33 gallon.
All calculations assume the Tesla will last 10-15 years. Shorter lifespan will drastically affect carbon creation/dollar spent.
Leef33 poses questions of a type that should be considered . There is a need to reduce pollution but what do we actually gain from each intended remedy ? The truth should be objectively determined . Only effective means should be supported . Onerous regulations that provide little or no benefit should be avoided . Otherwise it will invalidate the argument for meaningful change .
Meanwhile , people the world over are not going to stop driving cars , riding on trains , flying on airplanes or turning on the lights . Let’s keep it realistic and let’s keep it true.