Louis Ingenthron @LouisIngenthron@qoto.org

@D_J_Nathanson Your first point is directly contradicted by the article you cited: "it doesn’t matter much whether you release it from the exhaust pipe of your car at sea level or from a jet engine several kilometres high"

As for your second point, the science linking contrails and climate change is shaky at best, as even the article you cited mentioned:
"The science is not as clear cut on how contrails influence the climate"

There's evidence that they reflect light to cool the climate as well, and that's not in the simulations.
Moreover, only like 10% of flights even create contrails. You have to be very high up in very cold and wet conditions, otherwise they just won't form, or they'll dissipate almost immediately.
And even that will be less of a concern as more efficient fuels are created that produce less soot and therefore fewer particles to seed cloud formation... so contrails may, one day soon, be a thing of the past.

I will never understand Linux's exclusion from MAUI. It takes what could be a cool project and just makes it useless. Why have a multi-platform UI and not support the main platforms?

"Heart of Darkness" and "I Am Legend" are such compatible stories that I'm shocked nobody has tried to make a mash-up yet.

@D_J_Nathanson Quote from the first article: "Per passenger, a flight from Auckland to Wellington will put a similar amount of carbon dioxide into the air as driving solo in your car."

The second article doesn't seem to have anything comparing aircraft vs cars, but it does have graphs showing that passenger air traffic has grown by roughly 6% every year, and yet the GHG emission from fuel was *less* in 2016 than it was in 1990.

Finally, check out this United States Department of Energy graph showing that airlines are more fuel-efficient than any non-rail ground travel option: https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10311

@D_J_Nathanson When you're talking about private jets, I totally agree.

But when you split up the climate costs of a commercial jet between all its passengers, and compare that to the carbon produced by enough cars to carry them on the same route, I think the ratio flips.

@D_J_Nathanson What? Why?

When I was younger, I watched the Blade movies and didn't much care for them.

Now I'm giving them another shot and wondering what the hell was wrong with younger me.

Since the Kerbal franchise appears to have been murdered by corporate greed, I'm seriously considering trying to found an "Open Space Program" that would be designed to be open-source and moddable...

@interfluidity You're describing the guiding philosophy of libertarianism.

Or, at least, libertarianism before it was co-opted by bigoted right-wing trolls.

@jvagle I used to be in that same camp. I also hate the term "hallucination".

But, I've come around on the first point. Machines can do math better than I can. That alone is pretty darn intelligent.