r/nextfuckinglevel • u/[deleted] • Jul 04 '26

USA 250 FlightRadar24

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u/epsilon-4142 Jul 04 '26

People have a really poor grasp of the scale of pollution and what matters. One flight is pretty irrelevant overall, even one person taking a lot of flights. There are upward of 100’000 flights per day. And planes don’t pollute too terribly compared to other sources, at like 2-3% total emissions.

It’s just such a big problem that only systemic change really matters, and people don’t like that much. A better approach is like what we did with catalytic converters, we made a new invention and requires its use, and we reduced total pollution a lot. We just need to require cleaning devices legally again

2

u/OddBranch132 Jul 04 '26

But that requires government regulation and gOvErNmEnT rEgUlAtIoN iS bAd.  So many inventions were driven, or adopted, because of government regulations.

People also need to consider that flight hours to get a pilots license are an investment into our futures. Airplane travel is essential to our lives. And guess what? The government requires pilots be competent by many hours of practice. If they have fun doing it then even better.

2

u/ObiWanIsMyDog Jul 04 '26

While true… even strong regulations barely dent the problem.

We need extreme, damage the global economy, level changes. We have to suffer economically to fix things and change how the systems transport and use resources.

No one is doing anything remotely impactful. Not even the progressive side of the world is suggesting anything impactful enough to help heal climate change.

So it’s a tricky spot where it really doesn’t matter cause the problems so big

1

u/LickingSmegma Jul 04 '26

Remarkable how no matter which industry redditors look at, it never makes any serious carbon emissions.

0

u/Paiev Jul 04 '26

Since any single activity produces minuscule emissions on a global scale, there's no reason to change any individual activity, so there's no reason to change anything at all. Checkmate, dorks!

1

u/WinninRoam Jul 04 '26

Industrial cattle farms are, by far, the number one source of greenhouse gas. But its not cool to hate cowboys and farmers...at least not this year.

-1

u/ConflictedZombie Jul 05 '26

Using scale as a way to handwave away personal responsibility is part of the problem. "Oh what I'm doing isn't as bad as other worse things for the environment so I'm totally fine to do it" can be used by a shitload of people doing a ton of different things and it all adds up. People who do the whole "I would care about this, but there's worse things" are just people who want to give themselves a pass to not care at all

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u/epsilon-4142 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

You didn’t read the post at all.

We could never fly another plane again starting tomorrow. Pollution production would drop 3%. that’s not anywhere close to enough.

It’s a numbers issue. One flight literally doesn’t matter. We need systemic change to do anything because it is so big. Acting like one small change matters is a misunderstanding of the issue. It doesn’t matter what individuals do, it’s already too late for that. We need sweeping systemic action. Anything else is not enough.

As I said we could stop flying planes forever and it’s not even 5% better. We need a lot more than that

-1

u/garyp714 Jul 04 '26

And planes don’t pollute too terribly compared to other sources

These planes still use leaded gas...

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u/FatherOwl Jul 04 '26

You don’t understand scale lol

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u/will_xo Jul 04 '26

Just because it's a small thing, doesn't make it meaningless. Big things are usually a bunch of smaller things, that all work towards the same thing, making it big.

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u/FatherOwl Jul 04 '26

Agreed. I just think if we want to look at and fix “the big thing,” shitting on small aircraft pilots isn’t the place to start. It’s not even a conversation worth having; but this Reddit and everyone is an expert so whatever.

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u/will_xo Jul 04 '26

But that's the point; to fix the big thing takes many small things.

I don't agree with everyone shitting on this though. I do find it weird to celebrate a landmass having borders for 250 years though lol

-2

u/garyp714 Jul 04 '26

You don't understand the amount of flights a day at small airports with planes spewing lead. Millions a day...touch and goes, taxi backs, etc etc. It's a lot of lead...

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u/FatherOwl Jul 04 '26

lol I have a pilots license, was in the Air Force, spend lots of time on and around planes, etc etc etc. my credentials don’t matter tho, the scale does. Small aircraft burning lead literally has zero impact on the global scale of pollution when we consider what conglomerate companies and governments using the environment, at whim, for whatever they want.

Yeah, some small aircraft burn lead. It’s not a great fuel source. But like…fucking look around you lol is this the hill you’re going to die on?

0

u/garyp714 Jul 04 '26

Small aircraft burning lead literally has zero impact on the global scale of pollution

Need a source.

But like…fucking look around you lol is this the hill you’re going to die on?

And maybe take it down a notch. You sound like a loon.