Alpine sky or motorway ?

Updated October 23, 2006

Relocation and outsourcing champions, sex tourists or just careless consumers of "exotic" holiday products, do the users of mass aviation truly qualify for the plethora of privileges given by our governments ?

• Due to their carbon dioxyde emissions as well as the artificial cirruses they produce, jet aircrafts play a prominent role in the global greenhouse effect, as is firmly established today (see [1], [2], [3], [4], [6], [7], [8]).
• Surviving the mandatory disinfection policies of planes, tropical mosquito species now settle down under our temperate climates. This is the case for Aedes albopictus, responsible for the recent Chikungunya epidemics in the Reunion island, and able to pass on, among at least 22 virii, dengue, japanese encephalitis, yellow fever and West Nile virus. Only found in some Asian jungles 30 years ago, this insect breeds today over the five continents.
• Even in the deepest of the night, away from the urban centers and their constant background rumble, jet noises have put an end to silence. In the most remote areas, like everywhere else, only the deaf may still sleep with an open window nowadays.
• Huge areas surrounding airports don't allow for a normal life anymore. The brain must adapt, and even if the children apparently stand it, it has been shown that the consequences on their cognition and concentration abilities are dramatic (see [9], [11], [12]).

Airlines companies (above all the so-called "low-cost", which would be better called "postponed-cost"), can make profit only through the support of the numerous taxes imposed upon the whole collectivity for the benefit of the happy few. Their discount fares won't be discount any more when our successors will have to go on living on this planet. Jet planes constructors also get huge funding from the collectivity, in a blind competition for prestige.

The environmental cost of this silly game is never included in the ticket's price and wasn't even addressed by the Kyoto protocol!

Tax policies regarding air travel is an amazing though scarcely publicized series of gifts to the rich (see [13] (French case), [14] (German case)).

The following is the situation in France. Figures for other countries are welcome.

• All fossil oils are imposed (TIPP), even for the house heating systems, and often very heavily (almost 80% for lead free regular). But kerosen for jets is NOT. That means 0% !
• VAT rate on plane tickets is 5.5% while it is 19.6% if you take the train !
• VAT is zero rated for buying, maintenance, cleaning and supervision of planes whose activity is for 80% or more towards foreign countries or overseas France.
• Tax on land is 30% less for airports, which also get huge public aids for investment and operation.
• Airlines have all their security issues taken over for free by the state.

At the political level, a certain realization of this insane situation appeared with a proposal of a moderate tax on air tickets set forth by France.

This tax has been adopted, outside France, by Chile, Norway, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Brasil, and a few developing countries. The United Kingdom already applies a tax to air tickets, and will indirectly take part. India, Germany and Belgium representatives declared themselves interested. [15]

While, if one accepts the taxation paradigm, one may think that this action towards developping countries goes in the right direction, the fundamental problem of the environmental cost of this nonsensical game above our heads is in no way addressed.

We must go much further for the sake and health of our children !

This planet is the only one to allow for life billions of miles around, and most probably much further. We simply have no right to make children and jeopardize the only place where they'll ever be able to live.

Some links to start making up your mind:

The exhausts from jet aircrafts and their impact on climate:

1. NASA Scientists Use Empty Skies to Study Climate Change     
2. Tutorial on NASA contrail research.     
3. IPPC report - Aviation and the Global Atmosphere      
4. Huge Resource Page on contrails and associated aspects      
5. Thread between pilots about contrails, with links
6. Actualités - Limiter les émissions engendrées par le trafic aérien - notre-planete.info (in French)     
7. THE JETS & JET FUEL EMISSIONS      
8. Contrails research overview      

Airport noise impact on health:

9. Extension of El Toro airport      
10. Union Francilienne Contre les Nuisances Aériennes (in French)
11. The Adverse Health Impacts of Airport Expansion with Particular Reference to Sea-Tac International Airport      
12. Jet aircraft noise induced stress and cognition      

Taxation:

13. Repères sur la fiscalité pétrolière (in French)     
14. Iniquity of taxes favoring air traffic over rail in Germany     
15. Aide aux pays pauvres: 12 pays d'accord pour une taxe sur les billets d'avion (in French)      

Author: Alexandre Oberlin

These photos were taken mid-january 2006 about seven miles away from the town of Menton (extreme south-east of continental France).

Click on a picture to enlarge it (1136 x 852).

These pictures were taken close to the extreme south east of continental France. It is perfectly clear, in the east/west air traffic lane, that the contrails degenerate into cirruses of considerable extent, which produce a screening effect from the sun during the day and a greenhouse effect during the night.

Click on a picture to enlarge it (1136 x 852).

These pictures were taken in may 2005, three miles away from the village of Larche in the southern Alps, very far away from the closest airport.

Click on a picture to enlarge it (1136 x 852).

Where will this synergy of the greedy and the brainless lead us and our children if we let them do ?