Making sure aviation is not a future insulating bubble

Alice Bell writes in the Guardian "Why we’re all everyday climate change deniers" and worries about the apathy of the general population:

A few years ago I saw a climate scientist glumly sitting on a table in a seminar room, swinging his legs, quietly sketching out the vision of the future that kept him awake at night. His picture wasn’t an all-out dystopia where we’ve destroyed humanity. What scared him was a future where we do take action on climate change, but only some. A few rich people live in a comfortable bubble they’ve managed to insulate themselves in, and everyone else is left to battle the storms. Perhaps those lucky few notice the plight of the people they’ve left behind. Or perhaps they insulate themselves from that too.

A great example of the apathy that Bell is arguing about is the celebration by the ICAO on 7 December of International Civil Aviation Day and its embrace of a goal of 'no country left behind' in civil aviation growth. This is manifestly mad as several mainstream commentators have pointed out for example: "Aviation could consume a quarter of 1.5C carbon budget by 2050".

We have to change this urgently. Bell says "Perhaps those lucky few notice the plight of the people they’ve left behind. Or perhaps they insulate themselves from that too." Flying at 30,000 feet can have that effect.

Bell concludes:

That future is possible. It might even be probable. But it’s not inevitable. We can choose to see climate change, and we can choose to do this before it’s too late. So how can we escape the quagmire of denial? As it turns out, the first step isn’t that hard: just talk about it. To your friends, family, colleagues – even to yourself. By talking about climate change, you’ll make it feel less scary. By talking about it, we’ll unlock solutions. And, crucially, it’s by talking about climate change that we’ll break the silence that allows it to go unnoticed and ignored.

On this theme, Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns recalls an interesting discussion he recently had with millennials in France: "Can we learn to embrace a future of less flying?" He explains it in terms of 5 stages of grief about the changed future ahead of us.

But maybe grief is not correct. I see that Voyagevert is seeking crowd funding for a proposal for trans-atlantic passenger sail ferries as an alternative to long haul flights. What exactly do we think we are losing if this amazing option is the alternative?