Salon :: Tech & Business

Ask the pilot: Are the airlines being bashed unfairly for their eco-unfriendliness? What's their real impact on the environment?

I'm greener than most people, I'd guess. I don't own a car, for instance, and much of the furniture in my apartment was scavenged from curbsides and refurbished by hand. I'm low impact, abiding as best I can by the three R's of good stewardship: I reduce; I reuse; I recycle. <P>Then I go to work and expel hundreds of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Yes, flying planes for a living -- big planes -- would seem to negate my efforts on the home front. <P>Commercial aviation has come under increasingly virulent attack for its perceived eco-unfriendliness. In Europe especially, powerful voices have been lobbying for the curtailment of air <a href="http://dir.salon.com/topics/food_and_travel/">travel,</a> proposing heavy taxes and other disincentives to restrict airline growth and discourage people from flying. I was introduced to a new term recently, "binge flier," a name for Europeans who take advantage of cheap airfares and indulge in short-stay leisure junkets. Thanks to ultra-low-cost airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet, it's not only possible but affordable to leave Britain in the morning, fly to a beach in Spain and be home again before dark. Many eco-activists find this appalling. <p>...</p><img src="http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/tech/~4/239149905" height="1" width="1"/>

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