Well, there's some unnecessary carbon footprint.
As I've read about the history of US transportation regulations, I really think we took a wrong conceptual turn at the beginning of the century, although it's understandable in retrospect. Because the rail companies were so dominant and rapacious, we started micromanaging the hell out of them - where they could run, what their routes could be, etc. Changes in anything required lengthy approval processes. We established similar regs for air travel, at first. We could have nationalized like much of Europe did, or regulated for outcomes, but instead we demanded rigid compliance and regulated processes, and that tends to work poorly.
(One example of how this rigidity hurt: as a political compromise, freight shipping charges were set at roughly a percent of value, rather than based on cost to ship. This was fine when rail was the only long-distance option, but then when trucking came along without the same regulations it snatched away all the higher-value stuff and left rail withering on the vine. And it took ages for regulators to react and let the fare structure change.)
We've mostly gotten away from that kind of regulation, which was probably good; pure deregulation isn't a good direction either, but we do at least regulate air safety pretty decently compared to other industries. Airlines having long-term use-or-lose slots at airports (as opposed to, say, bidding for the scarce resource) seems like one remaining example of the micromanagey type.
Slots aren't regulation, though. Or, at least, not government regulation.
Most major airports are governmental entities in the US. Also I have no idea how much FAA or international regulations affect the distribution of slots.
Slots are allocated to airlines globally following IATA's Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines (WASG). The regulatory body has been managing slot allocation since 1970. Any available slots are allocated through the WASG, which aim to balance airport access opportunities for new and existing carriers.
OK, so IATA is the airlines rather than the airports. But they're pretty hand in glove with the regulators if I understand correctly.
I don't know how airlines work, but that is indeed how gloves work.
This shit makes me crazy. It also makes me unwilling to do any personal green frugalities. Fuck that shit.
Crazy that there isn't a system that says "instead of flying an empty plane to keep your spot reserved, just write a check for $XX,000 to the airport improvement fund."
2. That's a concise explanation that ties a lot together, thanks!
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NMM Henry Kissinger. Where is apo? He must be happy.
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I suspect that if you need to be told NMM to Kissinger, this probably isn't going to change your outlook.
I remember reading that last link in the Guardian a while back. It seems to be a specific-to-Australia situation, though I guess an instance of something that could happen anywhere if it helped skirt a regulation.
That is, there may be different specific reasons for each ghost flight situation.
These were printed and ready to go when sunshine hit the vampire:
https://jacobin.com/store/product/kissinger-book
10 what delightful news to wake up to
https://youtu.be/EfGDvDGE7zk?si=mqJVZ50mDNxjWM9v
7: compared to like normal operations this isn't going to change shit, and the choice of a month when travelling was effectively banned as a comparator is incredibly shonky. Yes, it's silly but it's yet another thing on the list of "climate stories that are not electricity generation, space heating, or road transport, and are therefore a waste of time if they're not actually hostile propaganda like that time BP invented carbon footprints"
Dammit, couldn't you have held off a moment
Actual conversation today:
COLLEAGUE: Oh, I see the guy who wrote 'Fairytale of New York' has died
OTHER COLLEAGUE, NOT REALLY LISTENING: Henry Kissinger wrote 'Fairytale of New York'???
2 If you're in the mood for a rabbit hole of US rail history, take a look at Presidential Proclamation 1419 (Dec 26, 1917) and the Esch-Cummins Act. I've probably mentioned before that in the early 1990s, I worked on some matters where portions of the latter were still relevant.
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Completely OT, I happened to look up this Making Light thread, and I'd forgotten _just_ how impressive the puns/parody are
"In my youth," Mr. Clarke replied to the lass,
"Our flamewars used genuine fires.
I still carve my zeroes; my ones are hand-cast.
They barely fit through the wires."
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21: "No no no no! that was Alistair Darling!" (in the spirit of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGTRKy--Iyk&pp=ygUaYmxhY2sgZ3JhcGUga2VsbHkncyBoZXJvZXM%3D and of course our also dead and extremely STOLID ex-finance minister)
24: So much brilliance in that blog's archives.
This post went up before Kissinger's death, but the title made me thing of how the junta in Argentina would throw dissents out of airplanes into the ocean. But I don't know if Kissinger had much to do with Argentina like he did with Chile.
"Then it don' matter. Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be everywhere -- wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can't eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a security force beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. Why I'll be in the way guys talk when they're lyin' an' -- I'll be in the way kids scream when they're hungry an' they know the bombs are comin'. An' when rich folks eat the stuff others raise an' live in the grand houses they had build-why, I'll be there. See?"
25: A much better world all round.
PRES NIXON: In terms of what it means for Cambodia and Laos, and so forth, I think it's a--Let me say this at this point, since this is a subject that will come up with the [Congressional] leaders' meeting, in other words we'll probably have to answer, I think it would be well for Shane to take just a moment on Cambodia and Laos, because the Vietnam thing is all I'm really going to talk about. But, I don't think there's--this various understanding that this covers Vietnam, and has an understanding, with regard to Cambodia and Laos. Now, negotiating the understanding with Cambodia and Laos are not all that specific, but they're vitally important. Go ahead, Shane, that a minute on that.
SECSTATE MCGOWAN: [unintelligible]
WHCOS HAIG: Uh, what I think the uh the President would like to know, Shane, is --
SECSTATE MCGOWAN: [agitated incoherent shouting]
PRES NIXON: Well, now, Shane, I don't think --
SECSTATE MCGOWAN: [intoxicated scream]
SECDEF LAIRD: All of this negotiation, all of this dispute over that whole area, the whole Pacific region, is --
SECSTATE MCGOWAN: [multiple expletives deleted]
[unidentifiable liquid noises]
[loud concussive noises]
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: [quiet groan]
2: I have bad news for you about when "the beginning of the century" is.
21 is absolutely incredible.
Kissinger-McGowan-O'Connor has got to be one of the all time triples.
Now that there are fully adult humans who unironically refer to "the late 20th century", I've accepted the new reality.
Semi-related: I swear I'm seeing more references to the '00s as the aughts, but it's most often misspelled. Alas.
Haven't we been saying "the late 20th century" since we were in that era? What throws me is "the late 1900s."