This is a very European opinion. Which is not to say that it's wrong, just that it's not really as easily done in the US. US passenger trains are slow and are actually forced to run around the...
This is a very European opinion. Which is not to say that it's wrong, just that it's not really as easily done in the US. US passenger trains are slow and are actually forced to run around the schedules and movements of commercial (freight) trains, and even then they are extremely expensive.
Also the US is so big that basically every trip is a long trip. Taking a train from one end to the other will literally take 4-5 days. That's not acceptable for business trips, and since Americans don't get many paid vacation days, that can actually take up almost the entire paid vacation time budget for a full year just going one way.
Of course, we could simply give up these kinds of trips altogether. I'd venture to say that most business trips aren't actually necessary in the modern age. But vacation is one of those untangible benefits, so I'm not really sure how much of that we should sacrifice.
It should also be said that 'relatively' short trips do tend to be driven in the US. Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas tends to get congested with traffic on weekends. And that's a 200+ mile journey.
Globally, I don't think most Europeans realize how small the continent is. It's a shorter drive from Paris, France to London, UK, than it is from Los Angeles, California, to San Francisco,...
Globally, I don't think most Europeans realize how small the continent is. It's a shorter drive from Paris, France to London, UK, than it is from Los Angeles, California, to San Francisco, California. Similarly if you wanted to travel by land all the way from Madrid to Moscow, it's about 10% shorter than traveling from New York City to LA.
I always like to use https://thetruesize.com to show people different comparisons on just how huge the US actually is. The distance from Seattle to Miami is roughly the same as London to Tehran.
I always like to use https://thetruesize.com to show people different comparisons on just how huge the US actually is. The distance from Seattle to Miami is roughly the same as London to Tehran.
That makes me wonder how Europe can continue to be so culturally diverse when it’s so small. Granted, I’ve never been there so maybe my idea of Europe is delusional and it’s all actually very uniform.
That makes me wonder how Europe can continue to be so culturally diverse when it’s so small. Granted, I’ve never been there so maybe my idea of Europe is delusional and it’s all actually very uniform.
The language barrier probably plays a big bit part there. Cultural protection regulations/laws likely do as well. E.g. Even here in Canada we have several rather strict "Canadian Content"...
The language barrier probably plays a big bit part there. Cultural protection regulations/laws likely do as well. E.g. Even here in Canada we have several rather strict "Canadian Content" regulations/laws designed to prevent us from becoming completely Americanized. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content
Radio:
For music, the requirements are referred to as the "MAPL system". Following an extensive public hearing process organized by the CRTC, the MAPL system, created by Stan Klees (co-creator of the Juno Award), was adopted in 1971 to define and identify Canadian content in pieces of music for the purposes of increasing exposure of Canadian music on Canadian radio through content regulations governing a percentage (25%) of airplay to be devoted to Canadian music. The percentage was increased to 30% in the 1980s, and to 35% effective January 3, 1999. However, most new commercial radio stations licensed since 1999 have been licensed at 40%.
Television:
For broadcast stations, the CRTC presently requires that 60% yearly, and at least 50% of programming aired daily from 6:00 pm to midnight must be of Canadian origin. In May 2011 the CanCon requirement for private television broadcasters was lowered to 55% yearly. Canada's public broadcaster, CBC, must still maintain 60% CanCon quota. However, historically, much of these requirements have been fulfilled by lower-cost non-scripted programming, including networked talk shows (including daytime lifestyle shows such as CityLine and The Marilyn Denis Show) and entertainment news programs (such as ET Canada and eTalk), local news and public affairs programming, and reruns of Canadian-produced library programs. As described above, often the remaining domestic content are scripted co-productions produced in partnership with a foreign broadcaster or streaming service such as Netflix.
...
In 2011, as part of its new "group-based" approach to licensing of television services owned by these groups (such as Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, and Rogers Media), the CRTC instituted new policies with a stronger focus on expenditures made into high-quality Canadian content (especially within genres considered more costly and difficult to produce), as opposed to quantity and scheduling. At least 30% of a group's revenue (which is officially aggregated across all of a group's television services, based on their individual revenue and historical expenditure mandates) must be spent on Canadian programming expenditures (CPE). These expenditures can be reallocated between a group's individual discretionary services, and up to 25% of expenditures for local stations can be allocated from a discretionary service.
I think this is a bit difficult even in Europe, because air travel (at least before coronavirus, who knows if it will get back to that stage again) is so cheap. If you're flying Ryanair or...
I think this is a bit difficult even in Europe, because air travel (at least before coronavirus, who knows if it will get back to that stage again) is so cheap. If you're flying Ryanair or something you can get flights across Europe for under €50 return, and often as little as €20 return. That's insane! Trains within a single country rarely cost that little. International buses are often comparably expensive, and take so much more of your time to get anywhere. As someone who finds it hard to stand being on a plane, it's a bit galling that usually there's absolutely no competition between air fare and any other travel option.
For some reason everyone thinks of trains first, but bus travel between cities is efficient and requires no additional infrastructure, a major advantage. There is a social reputation problem since...
For some reason everyone thinks of trains first, but bus travel between cities is efficient and requires no additional infrastructure, a major advantage. There is a social reputation problem since we lack upscale busses, but it seems like the right company could solve that. (Why don't they, though?) And many people do like bus tours.
It doesn't make sense for business travel, but then again there are few situations where videoconferencing wouldn't be more efficient.
In many areas of the US, there are lots of good vacation spots closer by, and more could be built. It's not strictly necessary to go far for vacation.
The place where you are really stuck is living far away from family. This is a choice, but one with long-term consequences and one that I underestimated.
Buses are subject to the same delays as cars, unlike grade-separated trains which can be built to travel at speeds that put the idiots on the NJTP to shame. America is very spread out, so train...
For some reason everyone thinks of trains first, but bus travel between cities is efficient
Buses are subject to the same delays as cars, unlike grade-separated trains which can be built to travel at speeds that put the idiots on the NJTP to shame. America is very spread out, so train service could be faster than both buses and planes for many regional trips if it was built.
In rural areas, sharing highways with cars isn't an issue. In urban areas, there are various technical fixes like dedicated lanes. If the money is there, you can add grade-separated infrastructure...
In rural areas, sharing highways with cars isn't an issue. In urban areas, there are various technical fixes like dedicated lanes. If the money is there, you can add grade-separated infrastructure for busses just as easily as for trains where it's really needed, plus you can use the roads too.
For long-distance travel, there is the possibility of high-speed trains and busses can't really compete with that, but we hardly have any high-speed trains anyway.
But another factor, at least in the US, comes from not wanting to ride the same transportation as poor people, and there is also a fraught racial history there. Hence the need for "upscale" busses if you want them to be as popular as trains.
People do like a bit of space and many would be willing to pay for it. Particularly in times like this.
There's also an issue of practicality for busses that have been solved in trains, specifically when it comes to long-duration trips. If I take an overnight bus ride, I'm stuck in a seat that may...
There's also an issue of practicality for busses that have been solved in trains, specifically when it comes to long-duration trips. If I take an overnight bus ride, I'm stuck in a seat that may slightly recline. It's not a very comfortable way to sleep, especially if you've already been sitting there for hours. Wheras on trains, you can usually get upgraded to a lay-flat bed, plus you can usually get up and walk to the dining car and get a meal. While I can see how it's possible to get something like this on a bus, I haven't seen anyone try to implement anything like it.
I have heard that Japan has companies who offer luxury bus services, but typically the nice part of them is that they have privacy curtains and eye covers to help you sleep on their regular reclining chairs. They may or may not have also offered snacks, but this is a fragment of a memory at this point.
I don't have any problem with riding "the same way as poor people" but if I have a 2 week vacation that I want to spend in Vancouver, and I drive or take the bus, then my whole vacation will be...
I don't have any problem with riding "the same way as poor people" but if I have a 2 week vacation that I want to spend in Vancouver, and I drive or take the bus, then my whole vacation will be spent sitting in a bus seat. If I drive myself, it's in a slightly more comfortable van seat. Realistically, if we don't fly, then most of the continent that we are on is not really an option.
We need better ways to move around that are ecologically and economically feasible.
We take that for granted, but maybe we need to give it up? There are interesting places to go that are closer than Vancouver. Although, an even more striking example would be Hawaii tourism,...
We take that for granted, but maybe we need to give it up? There are interesting places to go that are closer than Vancouver.
Although, an even more striking example would be Hawaii tourism, nearly all of which is critically dependent on air travel. (There are cruise ships, but that's even worse.)
I don't think we can realistically convince everybody to give up significant frivolous travel. We've had it for a long time, and it is now culturally imprinted on us all - if we want to fly...
We take that for granted, but maybe we need to give it up?
I don't think we can realistically convince everybody to give up significant frivolous travel. We've had it for a long time, and it is now culturally imprinted on us all - if we want to fly somewhere, we can. We can likely convince eco minded people to refrain from this type of travel, but consider that we can't even convince half of people to wear masks to prevent a deadly virus from spreading; we absolutely will not be able to sell those same people "just stay relatively local".
It's probably going to be much easier to invent a new and fantastic way of eco-friendly travel than to convince the bulk of western culture to act responsibly.
Isn't travelling outside of your own general area a good way to reduce prejudice though? I knew people who didn't leave the area they grew up in for years. They did not seem better off for it....
Isn't travelling outside of your own general area a good way to reduce prejudice though? I knew people who didn't leave the area they grew up in for years. They did not seem better off for it.
Edit: of course, thinking about this a little more, we ideally need a good way to travel long distances that is eco friendly.
I'm not sure that staying in hotels and seeing the sights does a whole lot? It's not until you stay somewhere longer, for work or education, that you get to know people more.
I'm not sure that staying in hotels and seeing the sights does a whole lot? It's not until you stay somewhere longer, for work or education, that you get to know people more.
I did do some digging and the research does seem to back up what you are saying. From The Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination (3rd Edition): So I definitely had it wrong that tourism has a...
I did do some digging and the research does seem to back up what you are saying.
From The Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination (3rd Edition):
In addition, contact has more effect on prejudice in some settings than in others (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011). For example, contact is least likely to reduce prejudice in tourist settings and most likely to reduce prejudice in recreational settings; the relationships found in work and educational settings fall in between. Although the reasons for these differences are not clear, recreational settings provide more opportunity for inter-group cooperation, especially if team sports are involved (Brown et al., 2003) and so may produce stronger effects than when contact is more superficial, such as tourism. Furthermore, inter-group contact early in life is important. Pettigrew and Tropp found that contact was most likely to reduce prejudice for children under the age of 12, adolescents, and college students, than for adults. Inter-group contact at a younger age may have long-lasting effects: White adults who had more childhood contacts with African Americans have more positive racial attitudes (Wood & Sonleitner, 1996). Moreover, early contact with African Americans is associated with stronger motivation to control prejudice among White college students (Towles-Schwen & Fazio, 2001); as we saw earlier, such motivation can lead to self-generated prejudice reduction. Finally, in a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of “real-world” interventions aimed at reducing prejudice, Gunnar Lemmer and Ulrich Wagner (2015) found that such interventions were effective in both high-conflict and low-conflict situations, and reduced prejudice in the long term as well as the short term.
So I definitely had it wrong that tourism has a significant impact.
The idea would be to go after people who feel guilty about carbon emissions. I guess you're right, though, it's a niche considering current public opinion. People will buy electric cars instead.
The idea would be to go after people who feel guilty about carbon emissions. I guess you're right, though, it's a niche considering current public opinion. People will buy electric cars instead.
There's RideCabin: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965861 https://www.ridecabin.com/# I've never used them. I wonder if they're any good?
There is a social reputation problem since we lack upscale busses, but it seems like the right company could solve that. (Why don't they, though?) And many people do like bus tours.
Given that they advertise a "luxury" experience with full sleeping room, I wonder what the per-capita carbon emissions are like for something like Cabin. I don't see it listed on their site, but...
Given that they advertise a "luxury" experience with full sleeping room, I wonder what the per-capita carbon emissions are like for something like Cabin. I don't see it listed on their site, but it looks like they fit maybe 14 or 16 passengers into the bus (given the 1:7 ratio and each bed being 6.5 feet long)? Though, it could be as high as 20 or even 25. Still, this would be much less than a typical coach bus that can fit, which ranges anywhere from 50 to almost 90.1 But, even if they are half as efficient as a typical coach bus, Cabin should still be much more efficient than a domestic flight.2 Perhaps on par with three or four people carpooling?
I've done a decent amount of coach travel, and I've done the SF-LA route (Cabin's only route) by both car and plane, and I can honestly say that I would not be opposed to a decent sleep coach experience for that journey. Driving for that long is really taxing, even if you have someone along who can split the load with you. Sleeping in a normal coach seat is just awful, even though it's so cheap. I have never tried Cabin, so I have no idea if they are actually any good, but I do personally see the market appeal.
Hopefully either this service or one like it can become both environmentally efficient and popular. As @skybrian says,3 it seems like strong bus/coach networks might be more practical (at least politically) in the U.S. than high-speed rail.
Yeah, I long for a better train system in the US (though I doubt it'll ever happen). I live a good distance from my family and would actually love to travel by train if it were feasible, but...
Yeah, I long for a better train system in the US (though I doubt it'll ever happen). I live a good distance from my family and would actually love to travel by train if it were feasible, but costs, time, and impracticality make flying pretty much the only option that works for me.
I've just been waiting for the California High Speed Rail system to start up, but so far that has just been a very expensive failure. If Musk's Boring Company has luck with their contract in Las...
I've just been waiting for the California High Speed Rail system to start up, but so far that has just been a very expensive failure. If Musk's Boring Company has luck with their contract in Las Vegas, we might actually end up getting somewhere, but we're talking about very long term solutions.
I actually do this (or did, before COVID-19), for some trips. I was travelling once a quarter for a work meeting about 500 miles away (short hop for flying, but home > airport > security > waiting...
I actually do this (or did, before COVID-19), for some trips. I was travelling once a quarter for a work meeting about 500 miles away (short hop for flying, but home > airport > security > waiting > boarding > takeoff > flight > landing > waiting > travel to rental car or to hotel via uber was about 4ish hours total). It's about a 9 hour drive with a Tesla, charging twice on the way, and it does most of the driving. It's been my greener work travel method the past year. Work was happy to pay the government rate of 58 cents a mile (around $550 round trip) in lieu of paying for the flight + taxi or rental car prices. Everyone kind of wins. Work pays less travel costs, so they're happy. I get extra money directly for travel (an extra $2200 a year is nothing to scoff at). Travel is greener than flying (or driving an ICE vehicle). I'd love to take a train for this trip but sadly it isn't an option.
As for me personally, I've taken half a dozen plane trips in my life and they were all to visit one of my grandmas so now that she's dead I guess I can contribute :p Yes, that's pretty crass....
As for me personally, I've taken half a dozen plane trips in my life and they were all to visit one of my grandmas so now that she's dead I guess I can contribute :p Yes, that's pretty crass.
Perhaps, but in most places there isn't really any viable alternative to flight that isn't driving (which is probably worse than flying, especially in a long trip) or just not going anywhere. In Europe, where this whole thing seems to be most powerful, they have a pretty expansive high-speed rail network and an open borders policy with Schengen. The only place that's reasonably comparable is China, but it's a massive country with 1.4 billion inhabitants (277 per square kilometer excluding the 5 'autonomous regions') and the countries in the Schengen area have 420 million people (97 per square kilometer, though this also varies a lot).
The US in comparison has 320 million people (5 states match the density of China, 11 that of Schengen) so while a large network can be built spanning from the northeastern 'megalopolis' through Ohio though the midwest to Missouri which also expands into the trinity cities in Texas and reasonably extend through the Southern states into Florida and back to the 'megalopolis' along with a separate rail network spanning the cities of 3 pacific states (and maybe Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson) could be built, that would require the US overton window to shift to be like Europe's for a few decades and unless you live in the Indian subcontinent, the rest of East Asia or some of the larger islands in Indonesia it only goes down from here.
And this doesn't mention the actual circumstances of the people who would ficticiously take those rails, as mentioned in Akir's comment.
tl;dr The infrastructure to replace planes can't really be built without european-like leadership and even with said leadership, not all that many places have the population density to do so.
This would mean visiting my parents on the other side of the country would require more than half of my annual PTO. So my answer is no. We should be aggressively replacing fossil fuels in areas...
This would mean visiting my parents on the other side of the country would require more than half of my annual PTO.
So my answer is no.
We should be aggressively replacing fossil fuels in areas where renewable alternatives exist (automobiles, electricity, etc). There just isn't a renewable alternative to jet fuel powered commercial airliners yet. Replacing my ICE car will probably reduce my carbon footprint significantly more than eliminating my ~2-4 flights per year.
I think visiting family is definitely a justified use of air travel. I'm more curious what people think about international flights (particularly trans-oceanic ones) for the purpose of...
I think visiting family is definitely a justified use of air travel. I'm more curious what people think about international flights (particularly trans-oceanic ones) for the purpose of vacationing, as is semi-common or even frequent among the middle and upper-middle class in developed countries. Supposedly seeing other countries is good for personal development (although I am somewhat skeptical of this), but is it worth the environmental cost? I also think it's problematic how such tourism commodifies/commercializes the culture of local people groups, but that's a different issue. Of course billionaires taking their private jets to escape city traffic and what not are likely a much bigger problem.
I think this is absolutely true. Seeing first hand how other people live, especially when you're younger, can help you appreciate and tolerate different cultures. It's like a smaller version of...
Supposedly seeing other countries is good for personal development (although I am somewhat skeptical of this)
I think this is absolutely true. Seeing first hand how other people live, especially when you're younger, can help you appreciate and tolerate different cultures. It's like a smaller version of the Overview Effect. I know this is anecdotal, but getting to see Italy and Germany at a relatively young age completely changed my own attitude towards other cultures that exist right in my own back yard.
I'm not saying you can't gain anything by traveling to another country, but in my experience most cultures are only different in very superficial ways (language, food, architecture, etc.),...
I'm not saying you can't gain anything by traveling to another country, but in my experience most cultures are only different in very superficial ways (language, food, architecture, etc.), especially those that Americans tend to visit, i.e. Western Europe (not to mention how "Americanized" the world is nowadays). Even my grandparents from the ROC (back when that included mainland China) don't seem very different to me than your typical white person here. Also, it's not like your average tourist actually interacts with locals that much, as most vacations are spent checking off boxes on a travel guide. You'd probably gain more value spending time volunteering in Appalachia or some other poor rural area.
I get where you’re coming from, how often do you visit? I ask because many of my east-coast Canadian classmates who got jobs on the west coast USA think nothing of taking a flight over for a...
I get where you’re coming from, how often do you visit?
I ask because many of my east-coast Canadian classmates who got jobs on the west coast USA think nothing of taking a flight over for a weekend. They’ll do this 6-10 times a year. I find this excessive.
I feel if flights cost more (via a carbon tax or some other consumption tax) this behaviour would naturally be curbed. What do you think?
No. My time is too valuable to waste sitting on a train just to be eco friendly. My carbon footprint is already very small (work from home, sold extraneous car, bike everywhere) that I can justify it
No. My time is too valuable to waste sitting on a train just to be eco friendly. My carbon footprint is already very small (work from home, sold extraneous car, bike everywhere) that I can justify it
Once you factor in the time spent arriving at an airport, navigating your way around the terminal, proceeding through security, boarding, and taxiing, trains—especially high speed rail—are often...
My time is too valuable to waste sitting on a train just to be eco friendly.
Once you factor in the time spent arriving at an airport, navigating your way around the terminal, proceeding through security, boarding, and taxiing, trains—especially high speed rail—are often quicker for shorter trips of 2-3 hours.
Granted, this isn't always the case, as some countries like the U.S. have miserably failing rail/land infrastructure.
Yeah, but living in flyover country means rail is rarely an option. I rode a train to get from DC to NJ when I visited the east coast once and loved it.
Yeah, but living in flyover country means rail is rarely an option. I rode a train to get from DC to NJ when I visited the east coast once and loved it.
Well, if it's not an option, it's not an option. I'm just pointing out the "time is too valuable" argument is often logically fallacious, because when it is an option, high speed rail is often...
Well, if it's not an option, it's not an option. I'm just pointing out the "time is too valuable" argument is often logically fallacious, because when it is an option, high speed rail is often quicker on trips of less than a few hundred kilometres.
I traveled a lot before in work - but after a massive burnout I simply can't anymore (agoraphobia and specifically for boarding flights). IF I could fly I would travel some more now, but obviously...
I traveled a lot before in work - but after a massive burnout I simply can't anymore (agoraphobia and specifically for boarding flights). IF I could fly I would travel some more now, but obviously I don't travel any longer distances with train.
When the EU train system gets done properly I will most probably.
One thing that I think people miss is for shorter distances - like 4-6 hour high speed train rides are quicker in total than flying.
Another thing that I've realized is how much I lose when travelling far with a plane. Like 10 hour flights, to some random big city and passing all the things that I actually want to see. (Next time I can go to the US I want to take a car for a month or two and go to the "flyoverstates". I long for them and can't handle the bigger cities)
This is a very European opinion. Which is not to say that it's wrong, just that it's not really as easily done in the US. US passenger trains are slow and are actually forced to run around the schedules and movements of commercial (freight) trains, and even then they are extremely expensive.
Also the US is so big that basically every trip is a long trip. Taking a train from one end to the other will literally take 4-5 days. That's not acceptable for business trips, and since Americans don't get many paid vacation days, that can actually take up almost the entire paid vacation time budget for a full year just going one way.
Of course, we could simply give up these kinds of trips altogether. I'd venture to say that most business trips aren't actually necessary in the modern age. But vacation is one of those untangible benefits, so I'm not really sure how much of that we should sacrifice.
It should also be said that 'relatively' short trips do tend to be driven in the US. Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas tends to get congested with traffic on weekends. And that's a 200+ mile journey.
Globally, I don't think most Europeans realize how small the continent is. It's a shorter drive from Paris, France to London, UK, than it is from Los Angeles, California, to San Francisco, California. Similarly if you wanted to travel by land all the way from Madrid to Moscow, it's about 10% shorter than traveling from New York City to LA.
Those are some beautiful comparisons.
I always like to use https://thetruesize.com to show people different comparisons on just how huge the US actually is. The distance from Seattle to Miami is roughly the same as London to Tehran.
That makes me wonder how Europe can continue to be so culturally diverse when it’s so small. Granted, I’ve never been there so maybe my idea of Europe is delusional and it’s all actually very uniform.
The language barrier probably plays a big bit part there. Cultural protection regulations/laws likely do as well. E.g. Even here in Canada we have several rather strict "Canadian Content" regulations/laws designed to prevent us from becoming completely Americanized. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content
Radio:
Television:
I think this is a bit difficult even in Europe, because air travel (at least before coronavirus, who knows if it will get back to that stage again) is so cheap. If you're flying Ryanair or something you can get flights across Europe for under €50 return, and often as little as €20 return. That's insane! Trains within a single country rarely cost that little. International buses are often comparably expensive, and take so much more of your time to get anywhere. As someone who finds it hard to stand being on a plane, it's a bit galling that usually there's absolutely no competition between air fare and any other travel option.
Can confirm. I paid more for the 60km train ride to get me to the airport, than I paid for the 1,500km flight.
For some reason everyone thinks of trains first, but bus travel between cities is efficient and requires no additional infrastructure, a major advantage. There is a social reputation problem since we lack upscale busses, but it seems like the right company could solve that. (Why don't they, though?) And many people do like bus tours.
It doesn't make sense for business travel, but then again there are few situations where videoconferencing wouldn't be more efficient.
In many areas of the US, there are lots of good vacation spots closer by, and more could be built. It's not strictly necessary to go far for vacation.
The place where you are really stuck is living far away from family. This is a choice, but one with long-term consequences and one that I underestimated.
Buses are subject to the same delays as cars, unlike grade-separated trains which can be built to travel at speeds that put the idiots on the NJTP to shame. America is very spread out, so train service could be faster than both buses and planes for many regional trips if it was built.
In rural areas, sharing highways with cars isn't an issue. In urban areas, there are various technical fixes like dedicated lanes. If the money is there, you can add grade-separated infrastructure for busses just as easily as for trains where it's really needed, plus you can use the roads too.
For long-distance travel, there is the possibility of high-speed trains and busses can't really compete with that, but we hardly have any high-speed trains anyway.
But another factor, at least in the US, comes from not wanting to ride the same transportation as poor people, and there is also a fraught racial history there. Hence the need for "upscale" busses if you want them to be as popular as trains.
People do like a bit of space and many would be willing to pay for it. Particularly in times like this.
There's also an issue of practicality for busses that have been solved in trains, specifically when it comes to long-duration trips. If I take an overnight bus ride, I'm stuck in a seat that may slightly recline. It's not a very comfortable way to sleep, especially if you've already been sitting there for hours. Wheras on trains, you can usually get upgraded to a lay-flat bed, plus you can usually get up and walk to the dining car and get a meal. While I can see how it's possible to get something like this on a bus, I haven't seen anyone try to implement anything like it.
I have heard that Japan has companies who offer luxury bus services, but typically the nice part of them is that they have privacy curtains and eye covers to help you sleep on their regular reclining chairs. They may or may not have also offered snacks, but this is a fragment of a memory at this point.
I don't have any problem with riding "the same way as poor people" but if I have a 2 week vacation that I want to spend in Vancouver, and I drive or take the bus, then my whole vacation will be spent sitting in a bus seat. If I drive myself, it's in a slightly more comfortable van seat. Realistically, if we don't fly, then most of the continent that we are on is not really an option.
We need better ways to move around that are ecologically and economically feasible.
We take that for granted, but maybe we need to give it up? There are interesting places to go that are closer than Vancouver.
Although, an even more striking example would be Hawaii tourism, nearly all of which is critically dependent on air travel. (There are cruise ships, but that's even worse.)
I don't think we can realistically convince everybody to give up significant frivolous travel. We've had it for a long time, and it is now culturally imprinted on us all - if we want to fly somewhere, we can. We can likely convince eco minded people to refrain from this type of travel, but consider that we can't even convince half of people to wear masks to prevent a deadly virus from spreading; we absolutely will not be able to sell those same people "just stay relatively local".
It's probably going to be much easier to invent a new and fantastic way of eco-friendly travel than to convince the bulk of western culture to act responsibly.
Prices do make a difference, so carbon taxes would help.
Isn't travelling outside of your own general area a good way to reduce prejudice though? I knew people who didn't leave the area they grew up in for years. They did not seem better off for it.
Edit: of course, thinking about this a little more, we ideally need a good way to travel long distances that is eco friendly.
I'm not sure that staying in hotels and seeing the sights does a whole lot? It's not until you stay somewhere longer, for work or education, that you get to know people more.
I did do some digging and the research does seem to back up what you are saying.
From The Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination (3rd Edition):
So I definitely had it wrong that tourism has a significant impact.
The idea would be to go after people who feel guilty about carbon emissions. I guess you're right, though, it's a niche considering current public opinion. People will buy electric cars instead.
There's RideCabin: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965861
https://www.ridecabin.com/#
I've never used them. I wonder if they're any good?
Given that they advertise a "luxury" experience with full sleeping room, I wonder what the per-capita carbon emissions are like for something like Cabin. I don't see it listed on their site, but it looks like they fit maybe 14 or 16 passengers into the bus (given the 1:7 ratio and each bed being 6.5 feet long)? Though, it could be as high as 20 or even 25. Still, this would be much less than a typical coach bus that can fit, which ranges anywhere from 50 to almost 90.1 But, even if they are half as efficient as a typical coach bus, Cabin should still be much more efficient than a domestic flight.2 Perhaps on par with three or four people carpooling?
I've done a decent amount of coach travel, and I've done the SF-LA route (Cabin's only route) by both car and plane, and I can honestly say that I would not be opposed to a decent sleep coach experience for that journey. Driving for that long is really taxing, even if you have someone along who can split the load with you. Sleeping in a normal coach seat is just awful, even though it's so cheap. I have never tried Cabin, so I have no idea if they are actually any good, but I do personally see the market appeal.
Hopefully either this service or one like it can become both environmentally efficient and popular. As @skybrian says,3 it seems like strong bus/coach networks might be more practical (at least politically) in the U.S. than high-speed rail.
1: https://www.quora.com/How-many-seats-are-on-a-standard-private-coach-bus?share=1
2: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566
3: https://tildes.net/~enviro/pw5/would_you_give_up_flying_to_lower_your_environmental_impact#comment-580u
Yeah, I long for a better train system in the US (though I doubt it'll ever happen). I live a good distance from my family and would actually love to travel by train if it were feasible, but costs, time, and impracticality make flying pretty much the only option that works for me.
I've just been waiting for the California High Speed Rail system to start up, but so far that has just been a very expensive failure. If Musk's Boring Company has luck with their contract in Las Vegas, we might actually end up getting somewhere, but we're talking about very long term solutions.
That has been such a disappointment. I remember voting for it in 2008. 2008!
No, but I think hard about whether a trip is worth it. Short trips usually aren't.
Carbon taxes would make the tradeoffs clearer.
I actually do this (or did, before COVID-19), for some trips. I was travelling once a quarter for a work meeting about 500 miles away (short hop for flying, but home > airport > security > waiting > boarding > takeoff > flight > landing > waiting > travel to rental car or to hotel via uber was about 4ish hours total). It's about a 9 hour drive with a Tesla, charging twice on the way, and it does most of the driving. It's been my greener work travel method the past year. Work was happy to pay the government rate of 58 cents a mile (around $550 round trip) in lieu of paying for the flight + taxi or rental car prices. Everyone kind of wins. Work pays less travel costs, so they're happy. I get extra money directly for travel (an extra $2200 a year is nothing to scoff at). Travel is greener than flying (or driving an ICE vehicle). I'd love to take a train for this trip but sadly it isn't an option.
As for me personally, I've taken half a dozen plane trips in my life and they were all to visit one of my grandmas so now that she's dead I guess I can contribute :p Yes, that's pretty crass.
Perhaps, but in most places there isn't really any viable alternative to flight that isn't driving (which is probably worse than flying, especially in a long trip) or just not going anywhere. In Europe, where this whole thing seems to be most powerful, they have a pretty expansive high-speed rail network and an open borders policy with Schengen. The only place that's reasonably comparable is China, but it's a massive country with 1.4 billion inhabitants (277 per square kilometer excluding the 5 'autonomous regions') and the countries in the Schengen area have 420 million people (97 per square kilometer, though this also varies a lot).
The US in comparison has 320 million people (5 states match the density of China, 11 that of Schengen) so while a large network can be built spanning from the northeastern 'megalopolis' through Ohio though the midwest to Missouri which also expands into the trinity cities in Texas and reasonably extend through the Southern states into Florida and back to the 'megalopolis' along with a separate rail network spanning the cities of 3 pacific states (and maybe Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson) could be built, that would require the US overton window to shift to be like Europe's for a few decades and unless you live in the Indian subcontinent, the rest of East Asia or some of the larger islands in Indonesia it only goes down from here.
And this doesn't mention the actual circumstances of the people who would ficticiously take those rails, as mentioned in Akir's comment.
tl;dr The infrastructure to replace planes can't really be built without european-like leadership and even with said leadership, not all that many places have the population density to do so.
This would mean visiting my parents on the other side of the country would require more than half of my annual PTO.
So my answer is no.
We should be aggressively replacing fossil fuels in areas where renewable alternatives exist (automobiles, electricity, etc). There just isn't a renewable alternative to jet fuel powered commercial airliners yet. Replacing my ICE car will probably reduce my carbon footprint significantly more than eliminating my ~2-4 flights per year.
I think visiting family is definitely a justified use of air travel. I'm more curious what people think about international flights (particularly trans-oceanic ones) for the purpose of vacationing, as is semi-common or even frequent among the middle and upper-middle class in developed countries. Supposedly seeing other countries is good for personal development (although I am somewhat skeptical of this), but is it worth the environmental cost? I also think it's problematic how such tourism commodifies/commercializes the culture of local people groups, but that's a different issue. Of course billionaires taking their private jets to escape city traffic and what not are likely a much bigger problem.
I think this is absolutely true. Seeing first hand how other people live, especially when you're younger, can help you appreciate and tolerate different cultures. It's like a smaller version of the Overview Effect. I know this is anecdotal, but getting to see Italy and Germany at a relatively young age completely changed my own attitude towards other cultures that exist right in my own back yard.
I'm not saying you can't gain anything by traveling to another country, but in my experience most cultures are only different in very superficial ways (language, food, architecture, etc.), especially those that Americans tend to visit, i.e. Western Europe (not to mention how "Americanized" the world is nowadays). Even my grandparents from the ROC (back when that included mainland China) don't seem very different to me than your typical white person here. Also, it's not like your average tourist actually interacts with locals that much, as most vacations are spent checking off boxes on a travel guide. You'd probably gain more value spending time volunteering in Appalachia or some other poor rural area.
I get where you’re coming from, how often do you visit?
I ask because many of my east-coast Canadian classmates who got jobs on the west coast USA think nothing of taking a flight over for a weekend. They’ll do this 6-10 times a year. I find this excessive.
I feel if flights cost more (via a carbon tax or some other consumption tax) this behaviour would naturally be curbed. What do you think?
No. My time is too valuable to waste sitting on a train just to be eco friendly. My carbon footprint is already very small (work from home, sold extraneous car, bike everywhere) that I can justify it
Once you factor in the time spent arriving at an airport, navigating your way around the terminal, proceeding through security, boarding, and taxiing, trains—especially high speed rail—are often quicker for shorter trips of 2-3 hours.
Granted, this isn't always the case, as some countries like the U.S. have miserably failing rail/land infrastructure.
Yeah, but living in flyover country means rail is rarely an option. I rode a train to get from DC to NJ when I visited the east coast once and loved it.
Well, if it's not an option, it's not an option. I'm just pointing out the "time is too valuable" argument is often logically fallacious, because when it is an option, high speed rail is often quicker on trips of less than a few hundred kilometres.
I traveled a lot before in work - but after a massive burnout I simply can't anymore (agoraphobia and specifically for boarding flights). IF I could fly I would travel some more now, but obviously I don't travel any longer distances with train.
When the EU train system gets done properly I will most probably.
One thing that I think people miss is for shorter distances - like 4-6 hour high speed train rides are quicker in total than flying.
Another thing that I've realized is how much I lose when travelling far with a plane. Like 10 hour flights, to some random big city and passing all the things that I actually want to see. (Next time I can go to the US I want to take a car for a month or two and go to the "flyoverstates". I long for them and can't handle the bigger cities)