F.A.O. Gabriel: Help me understand this...

[Evan]

I think trucks are a lot more important than jet planes, but I guess living in a red state and loving God and guns and all, that’s incorrect.

Admittedly, a 727 plowing the air with 40 degrees of flaps and 10% bypass air was a cool, loud thing- but mostly for rich people to fly to climate summits as opposed to delivering organic kale to the farmers market and hauling home solar panels in the pickemup.

Well, you clearly don't think climate summits are as important as delivering kale. So that's incorrect.

Trucks: Personal indulgence in most cases. It's a well known fact that most passenger vehicles on the road contain a single person and no kale. This includes pick-up trucks and SUV's. This includes very large pick-up trucks, with dualies and fat exhausts. Most pick-ups are rarely used to pick up anything. Most pick-up trucks are used to provide a sense of strength and security to the most self-centered, insecure members of society. I drove an F-350 pick-up when I did landscaping in college. The bed was never empty. We pulled a Bobcat trailer with it. Yet it didn't have a 450hp engine and massive, fuel-consuming wheels. As a business expense, it was configured for adequate power and maximum fuel efficiency.

Airplanes: Exceedingly efficient machines for what they do. Mass public transportation. Almost never flown with a single person on board. Engines sized precisely to meet the needs and safety requirements of normal operations. If there are not enough passengers expected on average for given route to fill the big airplane, they use a smaller airplane. Also, essential: you can't drive a truck across the Atlantic to a very, very important climate summit. Airplanes are necessary.

I was a total gearhead my in high-school days. I rebuilt a 327 and, later a 454, both for speed, the hell with economy and emission controls. I raced them in the street. Loved that muscle-car era. Then came the grim news that this sort of thing was unsustainable, that it was warming the planet to disastrous levels. The ice caps were melting. The seas were rising and beaches disappearing. Forests were burning. Things like coral reefs and at-risk human beings were dying from the effects of global warming. Entire species were going extinct. The science was proven right. So, naturally, I put those toys away.

The Earth's atmosphere is unique in the known universe, and certainly unique within our possible reach. It is a thin film covering the planet, three-quarters of which is only 36,000ft thick, and only about half of that capable of sustaining life. That is it. That is all we get. Ever. It is the sole reason life exists. So ask yourself, what could possibly be more important than that? Not kale. Not guns. Not even God.

This is why I get so incensed by greenwashing techbros who divert valuable capital and attention to their vain, impractical and environmentally-destructive obsessions (looking at you Elon) when it could be better used to actually save humanity from itself.

[ATLcrew]

Trucks: Personal indulgence in most cases. It's a well known fact that most passenger vehicles on the road contain a single person and no kale. This includes pick-up trucks and SUV's. This includes very large pick-up trucks, with dualies and fat exhausts. Most pick-ups are rarely used to pick up anything. Most pick-up trucks are used to provide a sense of strength and security to the most self-centered, insecure members of society. lf.

Thankfully, mine is not dualie, has no fat exhaust and only has 385hp. I hope I don't come across as too insecure or self-centered.

[ATLcrew]

I was a total gearhead my in high-school days. I rebuilt a 327 and, later a 454, both for speed, the hell with economy and emission controls. I raced them in the street. Loved that muscle-car era. Then came the grim news that this sort of thing was unsustainable, that it was warming the planet to disastrous levels.

Who hurt you? I have a very hard time believing you were ever any kind of fun, let alone THAT much fun!

[Evan]

Who hurt you? I have a very hard time believing you were ever any kind of fun, let alone THAT much fun!

It's not me that's getting hurt ATL. It's all of us. And we see everything around us. I'm sorry if that's no fun.

[Evan]

Thankfully, mine is not dualie, has no fat exhaust and only has 385hp.

"Only..."

You realize that's more than some Freightliners? As I said, I get the appeal, if this were still the naive 1970's. It isn't.

[ATLcrew]

"Only..."

You realize that's more than some Freightliners? As I said, I get the appeal, if this were still the naive 1970's. It isn't.

That's less than some Porsches. Also, less than a 1995 ZR-1 (that one had 405. Aren't non-sequiturs fun?)