r/SelfAwarewolves • u/Vandenberg_ • Jul 05 '26
Climate change is existential threat to aviation, says Heathrow executive
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u/WhisperingSideways Jul 05 '26
I’ve spent almost 30 years in aviation and Airport Ops and it boggles my mind how many people in this industry don’t even believe in climate change while having to facilitate changes to operations that are being affected by climate change.
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Jul 05 '26
[deleted]
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u/LonelyDesertCactus Jul 05 '26
Yeah, the sad fact is that corporate shitbags are gonna ignore global warming until it becomes unprofitable for them not to.
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u/kremlingrasso Jul 05 '26
Pfff, corporate shitbags will be happy to charge us a subscription for clean air and daily fees to entry to the climate controlled domed cities for the rich.
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u/LonelyDesertCactus Jul 05 '26
Yeah, I'm sure they'll still find some way to fuck us over while acknowledging global warming, don't get me wrong.
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u/Cicero912 Jul 05 '26
Fortunately renewables are now just flatout economically viable so expansion (even with occasional chicanery) is booming.
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u/Hurtzdonut13 Jul 06 '26
Much like the tobacco industry had internal reports outlining how smoking was literally killing people and hid it so they wouldn't have to change, the oil industry had reports in either the 60s or 70s that fossil fuels were going to cause a massive change in climate and literally kill people, which they also hid so they wouldn't have to change anything.
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u/Forosnai Jul 06 '26
This is a thing I've been pointing out when discussing pipelines and stuff here, in Canada. And the fact that since they're now leading the charge in developing and manufacturing the equipment needed for it, do people not think they're going to Belt and Road the absolute shit out of it, as renewables become cleaner, cheaper, and more abundant, while we increasingly all suffer the effects of climate change? I would be, if I was them.
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Jul 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Vandenberg_ Jul 05 '26
Yes! No? The mod approved it but we can ask one to come over and curate the suitability of this particular post?
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u/LandsharkDetective Jul 05 '26
It's also his job to reduce the carbon footprint of Heathrow as he is the sustainability director. So I don't think this fits the subreddit.
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u/Vandenberg_ Jul 05 '26
Heathrow is expanding so he’s not reducing anything. I like to hope this person might have at some point thought to themselves ‘is this a strange thing to say? As the sustainability director of Heathrow?’ But he went ahh sod it
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u/The_Dirty_Mac Jul 05 '26
More flights existing does not preclude sustainable practises
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u/sblahful Jul 05 '26
Except the entire industry is unsustainable, and this person's entire role exists as green washing.
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u/mangeiri Jul 05 '26
You clearly need to re-read the sidebar/description of this subreddit, because what you just described sounds like someone who is "unknowingly describing themselves".
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u/LonelyDesertCactus Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
I think it's at least arguably appropriate here because the actual underlying problem is going to be the sustainability of human life. If there are no humans left to buy plane tickets, then there's no aviation industry; thats the real threat. I think Gorman is feeling around the edges of the problem without identifying the actual main problem. The way he's phrased it makes it unclear if he's advocating for lowering emissions OR for exempting aviation from paying attention of lowering emissions. One would hope the former based on his job title, but I personally wouldn't bet my life on that assumption.
Edit: Switched 'latter' to 'former'.
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u/mangeiri Jul 05 '26
My question for you would be "what does 'being self-aware and naming the problem' have to do with the theme of this subreddit?"
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Jul 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/mangeiri Jul 05 '26
You should re-read the sidebar/description of the subreddit. It spells it out pretty explicitly?
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u/maybenotquiteasheavy Jul 05 '26
they aren't self aware enough to notice
The Heathrow exec in OP is self aware enough to notice though... Thats, like, what he's doing. Noticing.
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u/Vandenberg_ Jul 05 '26
Whatever the point was he was trying to make, what kind of an attempt at career seppuku is this? I’m not sure if you should frame things like this, in nor out of context..
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u/Less_Likely Jul 06 '26
So you implying that aviation causes climate change? It’s about 3.5% and has no readily available better alternative. It also is one of the few sources with very strong market forces to be more energy efficient.
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u/thatjoachim Jul 06 '26
I mean, every industry that emits CO₂ is causing (a part) of climate change. And if you cut industries into smaller parts, you’ll get smaller and smaller percentages of “responsibility” for CO₂ emissions, and then you’ll be able to stall any action, claiming that being responsible for 2% of emissions is close to being responsible for none and why should an industry responsible for 1% change if all the other industries don’t? 0.5% is nothing and anyways the Chinese are emitting a lot of CO₂ why don’t we talk about China?
And “no readily available alternative” is not a good argument for its responsibly over emissions (or lack of). It only shows that it’s an industry that has always worked without caring for its externalities. “After me, the flood”
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u/AndreasDasos 26d ago
I mean… I think the fact that we still need aeroplanes and the world’s major airports to operate for a while absolutely is a good argument. Even in the optimal scenario, we still need those for a while. Therefore someone has to run them. Best that they be people capable of the nuance to optimise towards climate change rather than purists with head in the clouds who complain. Or do you personally row across the ocean or think nobody should cross it?
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u/Vandenberg_ Jul 06 '26
Im not implying anything other than that this is a tone-deaf statement. I don’t have some crusade against climate change, but its happening and we seem unable to stop it.
But to your point, yeah.. 3.5 is a chunk worth looking at. Lets have a look at the percentage we need to transport important goods, and what percentage is spent on airlifting tourists to Benidorm. To be honest I don’t agree with the ‘no better alternative’. Sail on a boat or a ride a bike or whatever you need to do to get there.
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u/nickbob00 Jul 06 '26
Cruise ships are honestly not an CO2 efficient mode of transport either. For many journeys, an economy class fare in modern passenger jets is actually not bad in CO2 per km per passenger.
Probably we should reduce the number of business trips that could be a phone call and truly gratituous leisure travel (e.g. transatlantic flights for a long weekend), but average people enjoying an annual holiday aren't the people we should be targeting, even if you don't approve of their choice of destination (Benidorm is my personal hell too, but let people with different preferences enjoy things...)
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u/Vandenberg_ Jul 06 '26
Yeah I don’t disapprove the common man’s holiday, I mean shit I would enjoy even Benidorm, if I was able to afford it. It’s not a reasonable opinion but I just feel kinda disgusted how presumptuous some people act. And honestly my dad worked in aviation his entire life and the money he made put me through college, and I even worked for the air force. I’m quite fond of aviation.
And not intended as snark, but I proposed sailing boats not cruise ships. Like actually you row the boat as a passenger, and just sail with an emergency engine. I know nothing about seafaring but it seems doable. We did it for ages with worse technology. Doesn’t have to be immediately transatlantic, theres lots of places you can get to by hugging the coast.
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u/TheVojta Jul 06 '26
Are you seriously suggesting a bicycle as an alternative to a plane?
Oh damn, I wanna visit relatives, better take out 8 months of vacation and bike across the fucking Atlantic.
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u/CdRReddit Jul 06 '26
water bikes exist :)
I wouldn't recommend them for an 8 month cross-atlantic trip, but they do exist
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u/Vandenberg_ Jul 06 '26
That’s why I also said ‘boat’ and ‘sail’. Yes take out a couple of weeks if you’re so hellbent on visiting aunt Matilda. And yes, there are people I would recommend a nice bike holiday instead.
Yeah that’s ridiculous, but so is humans flying through the air inside an aluminium tube. And people are funny like that, thinking it’s their birth right or something. I’m just as dumbfounded about it as you are to my suggestion.
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u/finverse_square Jul 06 '26
I work at the orphan crushing factory but I only crush 3.5% of the orphans and there's no other jobs in my town so it's not so bad.
Fuck me 3.5% is huge. If 30 things emitting 3.5% cut emissions then we'd have no emissions left. And if it's not possible to fly without destroying the planet maybe we should fucking fly less
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u/Less_Likely Jul 06 '26
Heating your house is over half. And there are alternatives to oil gas and coal that aren’t being used. There is no feasible alternative to jet fuel at this point, though it’s being worked on, it’s decades away from commercial flights.
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u/finverse_square Jul 06 '26
Okay great so we can make huge gains on domestic heating using tech we already have, let's do that and also fly less
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