And pollute the world with your...your...heinous foreign accent! NEVER!
Empty skies proved that airports cause pollution.
- Thread starter trekkiedane
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And pollute the world with your...your...heinous foreign accent! NEVER!
Who wouldn't? Taxes could however also help with that
Deranged Nasat is also missing the fact that a higher cost of doing business will reduce air travel and thus, reduce pollution. You get taxed for dumping pollutants into the air, you will find a less-polluting way of doing business, or you will get out of that business entirely.
Nobody wants to pay taxes they don't have to.
I'd rather have prevention than cure.
Who wouldn't? Taxes could however also help with that
Deranged Nasat is also missing the fact that a higher cost of doing business will reduce air travel and thus, reduce pollution. You get taxed for dumping pollutants into the air, you will find a less-polluting way of doing business, or you will get out of that business entirely.
Nobody wants to pay taxes they don't have to.
Well I know little of business, but...There is no less polluting way, surely? And they're not going to leave a business that gets them so much wealth and custom. So they'll surely just raise prices to compensate for the tax losses, which won't affect those who regularly jet off (and are the problem), only those who only manage a flight every few years. The poorer flyers- the expendable customers- will drop off, the real productive ones will remain strong as ever, particularly because people feel entitled to travel.
Or am I missing something?
I like living somewhat close to an airport, very convenient. Not only for my many vacations, but for my extensive business travel as well. Who wants to travel another 2 hours by road after they're stuck on a plane for 5 hours? I can see how it would suck for someone in say a third world place like London, I mean it's already aboslutely filthy and something as large as Heathrow certainly can't help.
But if you move airports further away, the pollution will still be there. Indeed, since people will have to drive, take the train, or the bus, to get to and from the airport, there will be pollution no matter where the airport is at. You'll just be moving the problem to another area.
True, but it wouldn't be in your back yard and the pollution created by getting people to and from airports can be managed as trains usually run on electricity which can be generated in a great umber of ways ranging form the enviromentally friendly to ones where you have technology in place to clean the smoke. It would be a great thing if you could put long term parking facilities close to where people live/work and have trains transporting people from there to the airports
(not unlike what a lot of cities do when providing free parking outside the city and low (if any) cost public transportation into the city from there.)
You know, some people view the world in ways other than "what is convenient for me".
I know! What a bunch of morons, eh?
Who wouldn't? Taxes could however also help with that
Deranged Nasat is also missing the fact that a higher cost of doing business will reduce air travel and thus, reduce pollution. You get taxed for dumping pollutants into the air, you will find a less-polluting way of doing business, or you will get out of that business entirely.
Nobody wants to pay taxes they don't have to.
Well I know little of business, but...There is no less polluting way, surely? And they're not going to leave a business that gets them so much wealth and custom. So they'll surely just raise prices to compensate for the tax losses, which won't affect those who regularly jet off (and are the problem), only those who only manage a flight every few years. The poorer flyers- the expendable customers- will drop off, the real productive ones will remain strong as ever, particularly because people feel entitled to travel.
Or am I missing something?
Few businesses will change what they're doing unless external forces compel them to. Since the airlines pay no penalty for their pollution, they have no reason to change their behavior. Depending on how any such regulation was done, it could lead to airports being placed in more rural areas, the design of more efficient aircraft, reconsideration of airline routes, and other changes.
Don't forget that it is the customers who will see the price increases, too. Those who regularly fly may reach a breaking point where taking a train or a car is cheaper.
I don't think your argument justifies airlines being absolved of the environmental damage they cause. Saying we shouldn't hold them accountable because it would hurt their business, well, you could say that about any business. Why should auto manufacturers have to install catalytic converters and oxygen sensors in their cars? Why should they abide by emission standards? Why should coal plants be forced to have smokestack scrubbers? All of those raises costs--and they are all there to reduce environmental impact.
Airlines shouldn't be a special case.
Er...I never made this argument. I'm the one moaning about the damage they cause!
I thought paying taxes did just that.
Only if it's me. Anyone else...eh, it's your call.
But you were also concerned about using taxes to address it!
That doesn't mean I'm opposed to taxing them- only that I don't want to rely on that, because I don't see how it helps in anything other than the hypothetical long-term. Reducing the number of flights immediately, on the other hand, does help people. I doubt civilization will collapse because there isn't a continual stream of planes taking off from/landing at Heathrow all day. Reducing the number of permitted flights helps now- slowly introducing taxes won't do anything to help those choking now. That's what I meant, even if I didn't phrase it right. I see the confusion- I wrote "Taxes don't actually help the people who have to breathe it in every day", which was clumsily put. Sorry about that
That doesn't mean I'm opposed to taxing them- only that I don't want to rely on that, because I don't see how it helps in anything other than the hypothetical long-term. Reducing the number of flights immediately, on the other hand, does help people. I doubt civilization will collapse because there isn't a continual stream of planes taking off from/landing at Heathrow all day. Reducing the number of permitted flights helps now- slowly introducing taxes won't do anything to help those choking now. That's what I meant, even if I didn't phrase it right. I see the confusion- I wrote "Taxes don't actually help the people who have to breathe it in every day", which was clumsily put. Sorry about that
Remove airline subsidies and you'll see aircraft pollution plummet like no tomorrow.
Unless you're living right inside the airport I'm thinking the impact is probably fairly small. How many PPB of pollutants are in the air in your house x miles from the airport? Probably very few.
Well, I can taste the pollutants, as well as "feel" them. I can't give exact scientific measurements of course, but believe me the air is full of them, and the airport's proximity is definitely a large part of the problem.
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