SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the everybody-should-pay-their-fair-share dept.
On Saturday, November 16th, around 282,000 people blocked roads and highways all over France. The protesters, nicknamed the gillets jaunes after the yellow warning vests they wore, had organized through Facebook. Their beef: the increase in environmental taxes on gasoline, on top of a number of other tax increases.
We don't disagree with having to pay more to help act for the environment and fight climate change, was the general opinion, but why should it be only the little folks who have to pay while the elite can easily grin and bear it -- why not tax also all that heavy fuel burned by aeroplanes and tanker ships?
The action, which persisted throughout the day, resulted in over 100 wounded and one tragic death when a mother driving her child to hospital panicked.
The protesters do have a point. While media and politics rightly, if very, very much belatedly, are warning about climate change, the alternatives proposed clearly are not to be taken seriously.
The hard choices we need to face apparently come down to cities investing in smart cameras to fine visitors based on production year and type of their automobile. Public transport investing will come, but not to the countryside where car/ride sharing, Uber and similar services simply are not viable; Tesla and relatives are on another price planet for ordinary people.
As to the EU's emission trading system (ETS) that should drive industry to climate change action: news broke on the same day as the gillets jaunes actions that Britain -- on the verge of leaving the EU -- is one of the biggest net exporters of such credits: Britain had 900 million of these credits too much, for the years 2013-2015 alone.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:08PM
> The physics of aircraft separate them from other vehicles -- they require enormous power to take off and then have much lower power requirements at cruise.
How so? That is how pretty much every single vehicle works. They require far more power to accelerate then they do to keep going at a steady state. If you don't believe me, set the consumption display on your vehicle. I've done in on mine. Under acceleration onto the motorway I've seen my consumption go up to 45l/100km (5.2MPG), but when I reach the cruise speed it drops to ~8l/100km (~29mpg).
A change in velocity requires energy input, in a steady state you only need energy input to overcome frictional losses (hence, in a perfect vacuum, you would not need any extra energy input unless you want to change velocity).
As for the rest of your idea, it sounds over-complicated and error prone, not to mention a maintenance headache. Aircraft carriers have to have such catapults to overcome the lack of runway length, and they are a massive PITA they would not bother with if it wasn't for the length restriction.