Serious Change Blog

So you think you’re green, eh? But I bet you still fly. One return flight to Australia pretty much means that you shouldn’t breathe for the next 2 years, let alone burn any fuel!Ok, so you’re like me, you don’t fly, but you’d really like to. You don’t mind things taking a bit longer, which is why you will still get on the train to go to (fairly) interesting places and take a day rather than 2 hours (ok normally more like 6 hours once you take into account the trip to the airport, the checking in time, the flight, waiting for your luggage at the far end, and the trip from some airport in the middle of nowhere with sheep grazing on the runway). But! You don’t get to go to New York for a surprise trip for your wedding anniversary or a trip somewhere the other side of the world for some winter sun.

So,  you have either given flying up or you probably should. There is an element of sacrifice involved. And what hurts most, no one else seems to be giving it up. The UK seems determined to expand its air traffic business [1]. It’s not inconceivable that people could lose their jobs if they refused to fly when it was deemed necessary. Flying is now part of our way of life, and we’ll only stop flying with the collapse of society.

Let’s just accept this reality and consider how to make the best of an unfortunate situation.

Well, obviously, people could fly less. That is a nice easy glib thing to say. More realistically though, they could fly more efficiently [2]. There are many ways that this can be achieved. Better engines. Higher density of passengers on the planes. Slower. Not planes.

But I just said flying is here to stay!

Well, yes it is. And it is inevitable that it will be. You just need less infrastructure to set up a journey. However there are some wacky ideas that shouldn’t just be ignored. How about a fast train from London to New York

No, I mean faster than a plane. A LOT faster. Yes, even than Concorde (RIP). 4000 mph fast enough for you. Should only cost about $175 billion plus running costs [3].

However, that is still a bit of a red herring, I was talking about airships. Now bear with me a moment. It isn’t what you are thinking. Airships don’t blow up. They almost never did even when people were a bit careless in their construction. They are slow, but slow means up to 200mph. That’s less than a day from London to New York (as the crow flies, and I admit being somewhat naive about trade winds). I’d lose a day of holiday to fly across the Atlantic guilt-free!

You could make getting places part of the experience too. There is talk of airships with tennis courts on board! Seriously, who wouldn’t want to fly in something called a Mega-Airship![4]

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8243922.stm

[2] http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/828/

[3] http://www.impactlab.com/2008/06/27/trans-atlantic-supersonic-maglev-vacuum-tube-train/

[4] http://www.ecogeek.org/automobiles/2885–solar-powered-mega-airship