Post AWuuPkEeFkA892e4sS by jgoerzen@floss.social
(DIR) More posts by jgoerzen@floss.social
(DIR) Post #AWuuPjN7SlLPT1bKRU by FalkAppel@digitalcourage.social
2023-06-21T09:48:18Z
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I avoid #flying completely and had no need since the decision to do so years ago. Neither private or for business.With the background of #climatecrisis, which should be quite obvious to most people I get more and more annoyed by people flying for fun (vacation, nice business retreat, conference visit, ...)How do you handle that?
(DIR) Post #AWuuPkEeFkA892e4sS by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:19:54Z
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@FalkAppel Well I'll bite. I am quite concerned about climate change and take a number of steps already, and plan on more, including EV and solar for my house, in the future once I have the funds. I live in rural Kansas, USA. I work remotely, which is nice because the nearest mid-size city (population 300,000) is 45mi/72km away. The nearest paved road is several miles away, and the nearest small town is 6 miles away. 1/
(DIR) Post #AWuuPl1DLB0iZfMrZo by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:21:58Z
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@FalkAppel 2/ My colleagues are in San Francisco, 1700mi/2700km away. I visit them twice a year. Flying commercial, I can get there in half a day. That distance would take 2-3 days to drive; too much for me. The only train available departs 2:45AM on one day and arrives 10:45PM the next. A coach ticket is reasonably priced, but would leave me ill-rested and quite sore after 1.5 nights in a chair. Round trip in a sleeper on the train would be $2700 or more.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPm6vHRAfxf2w76 by mike@micro.mkp.ca
2023-06-21T12:30:41.134376Z
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@jgoerzen @FalkAppel Where you live isn’t some accident you couldn’t have controlled, it’s an intentional choice. You are blessed with tremendous adjacency and personal power compared to anyone I know in my personal life. You’ve designed your life around certain goals and values which prioritize certain things over having physical access to people in places without spending a lot of communal resources. I get that you have financial and time incentives that affect your choices to fly, but those are consequences of your other choices, not something that just happens you have no control over.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPnOgUsyNx2MdRA by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:23:11Z
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@FalkAppel 3/ But actually I rarely fly commercial. I prefer trains and small planes. I flew commercial once this year (business) and once last year (took our kids on their first trip to Europe, visiting Germany, where we got around everywhere using public transit). There is no public transit where I am, and only one train through all of Kansas, which goes through in the middle of the night, once in each direction.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPniXJ4quwbeUNc by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:47:30Z
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@mike @FalkAppel I begin by acknowledging I do have privilege in some areas of my life, this is true. However, you dramatically overstate my agency in where I live. That said, even if I did have the agency you presume I do, I would still live where I do because this is where my family is, they are not going to move to Europe or something, and I tremendously value being close to family.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPpJ5OfgPsFlBzM by FalkAppel@digitalcourage.social
2023-06-21T12:52:19Z
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@jgoerzen @mike I mean that's fine but your decisions on flying around, especially for fun or vacation are at least questionable. And since this annoys me because of the inherit ignorance of #climatecrisis I raise questions because people tend to ignore that aspect.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPpwR2N9tqIAcK0 by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:26:42Z
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@FalkAppel 4/ I own a small piston-powered propellor plane. With it, I volunteer for two charities (Young Eagles and Angel Flight). With Angel Flight, I transport patients needing distant medical treatments. Young Eagles gives free flights to kids - often the first (and maybe only) flight of their lives.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPq26hHhC7sp9A8 by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:58:04Z
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@FalkAppel @mike I didn't expect you'd agree. However, I want to again stress that I am not "exchanging the future of the planet" for giving someone a "memory of a lifetime". Let's be real; my small plane, which has the rough fuel economy of an old car, is not going to itself change the climate. Neither is your flying-aversion.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPr7SerZZUmKw9A by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T13:00:46Z
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@FalkAppel @mike I work from home, which gives me a much smaller carbon footprint than most in the USA. I haven't run the numbers, but I strongly suspect that this more than balances out my occasional small plane flights.You could just as easily yell at people that drive cars powered by gasoline or electricity that produces emissions. The issues are roughly the same.
(DIR) Post #AWuuProi44AReuZTYe by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T13:02:12Z
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@FalkAppel @mike What would you say to my friend that wants to see family on another continent once every few years? Choose among never seeing his wife or never seeing his brother again? What would you say to all the people that live in poverty and have no choice but to drive to a job in order to afford an apartment and food?
(DIR) Post #AWuuPrwrZkgo4CNzGa by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:29:26Z
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@FalkAppel 5/ I have the rare privilege of being able to make someone's day and give them a memory of a lifetime. They get to ride in the co-pilot's seat next to me. In a number of cases, I can tell it is a rare break from an otherwise painful time of life for them.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPsXjMgBDuXdQjQ by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T13:04:01Z
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@FalkAppel @mike The answer is that shaming on an individual level isn't an answer, and neither is absolutist elimination of aviation and cars.The answer is putting in place systemic fixes that provide better options. Better options meaning public transit that is cheaper and faster, clean power that is cheaper and plentiful, etc. I don't see any government (except maybe France?) taking this seriously.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPu4NgltKe5v1GK by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:32:09Z
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@FalkAppel 6/ I do also fly my family for fun - vacations and the like. It is usually too expensive for me to land at the biggest airports. That suits me fine, because the USA is unique in that there are tens of thousands of small airports all over the place. Most of them in locations remote enough that they are rarely visited.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPw32Kk0KmVIyRc by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:33:47Z
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@FalkAppel 7/ I do not buy the argument that we must eliminate aircraft, or cars, or whatever from this world. We are in a situation in which government action is sorely needed and sorely lacking. For instance, the USA needs to heavily invest in better rail transit, Germany to end its mysterious aversion to nuclear, etc.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPxtXT1ayVcsPuy by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:35:13Z
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@FalkAppel 8/ Blaming individuals for systemic failures and regulatory capture is wrong. It's wrong in imposing a guilt trip and wrong as a way to solve the problem. People in the USA will continue to drive a lot and people in Europe will continue to use electricity produced from carbon-emitting sources because it is impossible for most individuals to do otherwise.
(DIR) Post #AWuuPzoeKAsAT2bXZg by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:38:25Z
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@FalkAppel 9/ It is like plastics. The companies started a campaign to shame people that didn't recycle -- after creating and promoting things that created tons of trash, which is turns out wasn't ever very recyclable anyhow and plastics recycling was mostly a sham.Their scheme worked. People didn't blame the producers of waste, but individuals that didn't carefully recycle. (To be sure, I do recycle, but recognize plastics recycling has been a sham mostly)
(DIR) Post #AWuuQ1ZpmED5vfgjlA by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T12:43:42Z
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@FalkAppel 10/ To shame people that drive, or fly, or use electricy from carbon-emitting sources, is, in most cases, unethical and unhelpful. This is not how you will get change.I know some people that are great about going about it the other way: setting a positive example, spearheading off-the-grid living, for instance. This is powerful and helps!But we should not kid ourselves that those solutions are in reach of many at this point.
(DIR) Post #AWuyxDfIFpYSnCKGiO by FalkAppel@digitalcourage.social
2023-06-21T13:05:28Z
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@jgoerzen @mike Exactly I would tell your friends to deal with it, humanity fucked it up, do a video call.And for the rest, we have to aim for system change that this is e.g. replaced by proper public transport.
(DIR) Post #AWuyxEGs07c2fjuHHk by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T13:08:40Z
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@FalkAppel @mike Even if you are correct that "everyone should never see their family that lives on a different continent again", that message is going to hurt, not help, the climate cause. It will go exactly nowhere. There is no practical alternative to aviation for intercontinental travel anymore.What we can do is make a bigger difference by, eg, imposing carbon taxes and using it to building rail networks, reducing the least-efficient short-haul air & car routes.
(DIR) Post #AWuyxEx3THMAmZdy2S by FalkAppel@digitalcourage.social
2023-06-21T13:28:50Z
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@jgoerzen @mike Please be precise I never said aviation should be completely banned or "everyone should never see their family that lives on a different continent again"Also claiming "why are you so fixated on individual action and so opposed to government action?" is just wrong, I want both.If you start to interpret my statements so far and present them as a quote, then I will break off the communication here because this incorrectness is wasting my time.
(DIR) Post #AWuyxFiYcfM19tru52 by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T13:39:57Z
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@FalkAppel @mike If I misunderstood, I do apologize and please correct me. In response to my comment about my friend visiting his family on another continent periodically, you wrote, "I would tell your friends to deal with it, humanity fucked it up, do a video call." You also wrote, in response to my comment that "if you ban private flying, you ban aviation" - "totally fine for me".Please help me understand how those comments lead to people still visiting their family on other continents.
(DIR) Post #AWuyxG855llqR3oHrc by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T13:14:32Z
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@FalkAppel @mike Let me flip the tables a bit and ask: why are you so fixated on individual action and so opposed to government action?I can venture a guess: perhaps it is because our governments have failed us on this for decades, and you are out of hope for meaningful action.That's an understandable position. And yet, it is the best (only?) realistic path forward.There are signs of improvement all around. Too slow, to be sure. Don't squander it by generating ill will!
(DIR) Post #AWuyxGUPkjdRYKG7fs by FalkAppel@digitalcourage.social
2023-06-21T13:45:00Z
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@jgoerzen @mike That's easy "never see their family" is sth completely different than "visiting their family".I can feel very connected and have talks to people and seeing them without visiting. And putting it as a pseudo quote just makes it worse.
(DIR) Post #AWuyxHGyqAU1ywyuNE by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T13:50:01Z
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@FalkAppel @mike Maybe we are having a language problem, because around here "see their family" means "visit their family", not a more literal "look at photos of of have a video call with". And, as noted, you did call for the elimination of aviation. So, let's just rephrase: "everyone should never VISIT their family that lives on a different continent again" is a message that is going to hurt.
(DIR) Post #AWuyxI2pyElSNNN7y4 by jgoerzen@floss.social
2023-06-21T13:19:37Z
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@FalkAppel @mike I think the best chance of success is not by separating families but by making it possible for people to achieve most of their goals with cleaner means. Can they heat and cool their home, get to and from work, visit friends and family, etc., without emissions?I believe this is often possible. But it is not within reach of most of us individually. Work towards that goal, rather than telling people to give up the ones they love and their dreams, and success is more likely.
(DIR) Post #AWuyxIJ8zboBBx09Nw by FalkAppel@digitalcourage.social
2023-06-21T13:49:14Z
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@jgoerzen @mike And putting that implication back on me "if you ban private flying, you ban aviation" is also not too nice. I 'm pro banning private flying but important things like e.g. rescue services shouldn't be banned