Air Travel Air Pollution

So why is it that we can put a man on the moon but can’t fly him from Atlanta to Charlotte, N.C., without at least a two-hour delay? This is an extract of an article describing the pains of traveling by plane today. I guess the situation is getting worse with more people traveling, the threat of terrorism increasing and increased pollution. Air travel will become also more expensive with the increase of fuel in years to come. Travelers have now to pay for higher airport taxes, security taxes, fuel surcharges and may be soon a pollution tax. This week the US is not likely to sign the international agreement to cut down on CO2 pollution or the implementation of CO2 tax. The US may be the nation with the largest emission of CO2 and definitely the world biggest user of fossil fuel per capita.

The ecologists have been warning us of the threats of climatic changes and are telling us that we may be reaching the danger point when it will be impossible to balance back the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. The travel industry is surely a very great polluter. In the very near future, I would not be surprised to see a green tax on air travel. The pressure on ecology is increasing. Already corporations are trading their CO2 emissions quota through the emissions trading or similar organisation. I could well imagine that each citizen of the world would be given a quota of environment pollution which could be traded.

Another idea that crossed my mind: would there be ecology-terrorism or ecology-Kamikaze soon?