Originally Posted by
Excargodog
And SAF is still buying indulgences from the church of the envirowackoes. It makes more sense to continue to pump Jet-A and offset it by producing non-carbon power on the ground, through geothermal, hydroelectric (rare and inconsequential minnows be damned), and nuclear until we can get working fusion power plants. That’s still buying indulgences, but at least you are buying them at a cheaper rate.
I think we're stuck with indulgences, baring some massive societal upset which gives people something else to worry about.
Offsets have lost traction lately, partly due to shady accounting that led environmentalists to consider them unreliable at best, fraudulent at worst. Perception will probably preclude the airline industry from simply doing legit offsets... at this point I think we have to suffer pain and change our actual operations. Offsets are the indulgences, but now we need wool shirts and flagellation, which will take the form of expensive SAF and possible radical aircraft re-designs.
Also... the extreme activists actually consider travel itself to be somehow unjust. So reducing air travel is feature and maybe an ulterior motive for the eco-freaks. Presumably those people live in nice locales and just want it pristine and all to themselves.