Time Flies

but reindeer and Santa don't. That was just a story first read to kids 200 years ago.

Then there was Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1903, for real.

And so on as flight technology improved over a century, for real.

In 2019 (pre-pandemic) there were
4.46 billion flight passengers worldwide, for real.

This note is about how fantasy can be made real if there is time and we have the will.

I don't remember what I was thinking about Santa and reindeer back in 1945. I presume I was a typical juvenile sponge soaking up stories and experience without worrying about what was real, just because it was fun. Ron and I would jump off Gram and Poppy's porch into the snow all afternoon pretending we could fly. Reality would catch up the next morning, but a brief moment in the air during each jump was magically worth all of the pain and stiffness the next day. So we were back at it the next afternoon. We didn't give a thought to the biology of repairing strained muscles.

Time flew. I grew a PFC, became more risk averse, stopped jumping off the porch, learned some science; and now I am more interested in solving problems like climate change. 

Confession. We flew to England for fun to be with family a couple of times in the new century. Between Dorothy and I, those flights added about 2.344 tonnes* of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and that will contribute to global warming for years to come. Back then global warming wasn't on my mind.

Here is the problem. I have direct personal experience of the consequences of jumping off a porch. I have little direct experience of climate change except for a few hot spells in summer and shorter winters. Through the media, I am aware of problems elsewhere: wildfires, floods, droughts, more frequent and powerful storms, bleaching of coral reefs, melting glaciers and permafrost. I am also aware that life on earth is on track for disaster; but none of that is urgent for me personally. I'm having fun with family here in my temperate bubble in southern Ontario. No worries. I'll be gone before the crash. 

On second thought, my family is going to feel the pain. I am worried. How about you?

My individual contribution to the climate emergency seems insignificant. So does yours and each of the other 8,192,074,686 persons on the planet, and the dozen more that were born while I was typing this sentence. Because we think of ourselves more as individuals and less as part of a global community, even if we can imagine a better future, we can't see how to make it happen. Furthermore, when we feel threatened, we withdraw from the global community into nations or tribes to protect ourselves, which is exactly the opposite of what is needed. We need to fix this one person at a time joining the growing crowd of those trying to make things better.

Powered flight began with an idea and some tinkering by the Wright brothers. It continued with the work of many and took more than a century to make flying a fairly painless experience. Now we need to imagine a future for the planet that will fly. We have just a few years of tinkering to avoid the crash. Although we aren't sure what we are doing, we should try, even if it hurts. Maybe we can make the fun last a bit longer.

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* This is an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) estimate based on today's more efficient flights, two economy passengers making two round trips Toronto to London. You can use this tool to evaluate emissions for your own flights.

Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions. But it has contributed around 4% to global warming to date: Our World in Data

Flying is Worse For the Climate Than You Think: ClimateAdam, 2022

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Total 7 Trillion: IMF

UN Climate Summit Settles for 300 Billion in Support For Developing Nations: CBC What On Earth