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Comment by bArray | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. We're all expected to suffer the inconvenience of soggy straws to offset this guys near daily commute.

And it's not just this. Near all elites have unsustainable lifestyles that we are expected to offset by changing our daily habits.

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Private jets should be required to burn biofuels or purchase carbon offsets.

If you can afford a private jet, you can easily afford to make it carbon neutral.

Taxes on jet fuel for private usage should be 3x higher too.

It's not real money to these folks; I doubt he'd even notice.

If you consider the per seat cost compared to commercial, I don’t think making it a bit more expensive will move the needle.

Exactly. And the old story of "oh well the rich will take their money elsewhere" won't work. They need to stay in the US, that's the whole point.

Maybe there will be a point where it works out cheaper to fly to another country to fuel up though. I'm sure some tax policy folks could figure this out better than I.

Tax the ~~rich~~ ultra-wealthy, and their thoughtless damage to our environment. It's about as close to a victimless tax-rise as could ever exist.

Insanely, the Chicago Convention of 1944 exempts international flights from any fuel tax. https://www.icao.int/publications/pages/doc7300.aspx

Various attempts to work round this without rewriting the convention have been discussed, e.g. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn00... but I don't think they've got anywhere.

The US _might_ be able to tax fuel on domestic flights, but that would result in the California to Seattle flight going via Canada to avoid the tax.

Part of this has a decent reason: If fuel is much cheaper in e.g. Dubai, airlines will chock their planes full of fuel instead of the optimised amount, leading to overburning of fuel due to excessive transportation of it.

And the opposite, they will skimp on fuel going inbound to there. Of course fuel qty is the captain's decision, however a lot of airlines already pressure those. As one example Ryanair had a "list of shame" of captains bringing too much safety fuel in their eyes.

The idea that airlines can pressure captains in to doing _anything_ is terrifying and should be utterly outlawed.

How about this instead: if the company you are a CxO at has ever once spoken about how sustainable/green/environmental it is, you're not allowed private jets. In fact if the trip doesn't require you to cross an ocean, you can take a bike.

Any violators will be held personally liable with a fine up to 150% of said corporation's global profits

Biofuel-fueled jets aren't carbon neutral.

The building of the jets, the material extraction, the maintenance, the work around growing the fuels, the processing, the transportation, most of that is not fully sustainable.

It's only "less bad" for the climate crisis, not better. Definitely not perfect.

Something is better than nothing.

Taylor Swift demands Jack Sweeney stop tracking her jet - The Washington Post - June 2, 2024

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/06/taylor-...

There are so few lords, it doesn't make sense for them to change their livestyles. But we peasants are numerous, so we are the ones who must suffer austerity and reduce our standard of living. That's why it's good for these rich people to fly around in private jets to attend conferences about the virtue of making common folks eat bugs and walk everywhere.

Walking everywhere is great if you are able bodied and live in a place that is even halfway designed for it.

Having to walk limits your employment opportunities, particularly if you're not able to just pick up your life and move homes. It also limits which stores and other businesses you're able to reach; less competition means you end up paying more for goods and services. If you're a yuppy living this lifestyle by choice, able to change apartments on a whim and rent a car whenever you need to go to costco and able to shrug off higher prices in local shops anyway, then it's all good. But for the average member of the working class, quite possibly with a mortgage and kids in school, being forced into this kind of rootless urban pedestrian lifestyle is a raw deal.

This isn't exaggeration either [1], 300+ jets to a climate meeting discussing how they will restrictively control our lives to reduce emissions. The people proposing these rules are unwilling to change their lifestyle to help the environment, meanwhile your neighbour Joe Bloggs drives his car because he has to get to work to pay for all of these green taxes, which he gets more tax for because he can't afford an electric car.

[1] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/dec/opinion-why-are-people-s...

(I think I might be the only one in the world who actually prefers paper straws based on their qualities.)

You may be interested in reading Nicholson Baker's novel The Mezzanine, where he wrote about preferring paper straws.

http://weblibrary.apeiron-uni.eu:8080/webdokumenti/6304-ip.p...

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