Ninth Trip Through The Pipe

Leaving the 28th for Vienna. My ninth trip there...

The other night, amidst the noise of the machines at The Plant, my mind ever drifting towards Vienna and the woman waiting there, I thought:

This flying back and forth is not really sustainable, long term.

Consider the prodigious amount of fuel a Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce, or General Electric jet engine burns. Consider the many, many thousands of such engines stuck beneath the wings or in the tail sections of the many thousands of passenger jets scattered throughout the world.

Consider the many thousands of flights occurring each and every day, these planes screaming here and there like giant birds, their asses afire.

While it's possible to power our homes and businesses and ground-based transport with alternative energy sources, I don't really see how we can rig a passenger jet to run on solar or wind or nuclear or steam. Do you?

Which means the future of transoceanic travel may look a lot like its past, with people climbing gangplanks of huge ships, instead of being crammed like sardines into large metal flying tubes. This means you'll have to allow lots of time getting to and fro, and for the total time away. The pace will be slower. But I bet they still run you through a metal detector and make you take your shoes off. And maybe even whip out the proctoscope.

There will probably still be passenger jets, sure, but only the very rich will be using them. The number and frequency of routes will diminish to a trickle of present-day levels.

I guess I'm part of the problem, flying back and forth like this. Same with my girlfriend, when she flies here and back. But the fucking planes fly with or without us aboard, so what's a guy to do but fiddle & diddle while Rome burns all its petroleum?