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illustration by Chris Lee

Grounded

Imagining a world without flight

by David Beers

illustration by Chris Lee

Published in the Escape: Summer 2008 issue.  » BUY ISSUE     

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“Commercial airlines will probably fail within the next five years,” Kunstler declares. Spiking fuel costs are already causing carriers to cut other operating costs to the bone. “Look, we saw four small airlines go out of business in just the past ten days.”

If Kunstler isn’t buying what Branson is selling, many of us do yearn for it. Sir Richard, with his boyish enthusiasm for balloons and jets and private rocket ships, is the latest in a long line of public figures who’ve exploited the obvious metaphor of flight as human ascent, progress. He bids us not to lose faith in the heavens and our dominion over them.

The airplane was the streamlined shape of the twentieth century, a war-spawned creation that, as Le Corbusier wrote, “mobilized invention, intelligence and daring, imagination and cold reason. It is the same spirit that built the Parthenon.” If so, what new shapes, born of a similar spirit, might replace it?

On the Internet, I find images of helium-filled Zeppelins with exotic curves, luxurious staterooms, haughty observation decks. Their designers expect them to be propelled by combinations of fuel-efficient diesel motors, small jet turbines, the sun, and the wind. The Manned Cloud, designed by Jean-Marie Massaud with the French national aerospace research body onera, is intended to carry forty guests across 5,000 kilometres in about thirty hours, and is shaped like a beautiful white whale. There are also the sleek, electric-driven 250-kilometre-an-hour bullet trains already in operation in Europe and Asia; and, nearly twice as fast, the world’s first superconducting magnetic levitation train, purchased for $1.2 billion (US) from German engineers to ferry travellers between Shanghai and its airport. Japan is planning to pour $100 billion (US) into an even faster maglev train to run between Tokyo and Osaka. Technically it will fly, if just a few inches above the ground.

But this is not the future envisioned by Kunstler, who I begin to think enjoys picking the wings off humans. “It’s a mistake to imagine that the years ahead are all about leisure and recreation and we can just substitute one form for another. We are going to be living in a far less affluent society.” By then, one imagines, what’s left of the legions of business warriors striding through airports today will instead be cooped up watching video screens in teleconferencing centres. But for must of us, the business at hand will be working the land. The way we produce and transport food now is extremely fossil fuel intensive. As peak oil makes air travel a remote luxury, says Kunstler, our eyes must revert downward, toward the soil.

To this child of the jet age, it all seems a terribly hard landing. I phone my father, who retired from his aerospace engineering career long ago but still pilots a propeller-driven airplane he shares with a flying club. Can you imagine a world without air travel? I ask him. Do you think about it?

“Yes, I think about it often. And I can imagine you may see it in your lifetime. What made the airplane and jet travel possible was oil, pure and simple. And now, as our oil supply inevitably diminishes, we are entering the end of a natural cycle. Right now, those people in those aluminum tubes at 30,000 feet are there because they can be, not because they need to be.

“We will adapt,” he says, after a pause, “or not, I guess.” And he laughs.

David Beers is the founding editor of the Tyee and author of Blue Sky Dream: A Memoir of America's Fall from Grace.

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Comments (4 comments)

Anonymous: Let's talk about our eating habits - a much higher percentage of the problem than air travel. Eat less or no meat. Eat locally as much as possible. We have to pick and choose our punishments. I'll drive less, I'll eat no meat and I'll buy as little "Made in China' etc products as I can. In short buy less and pay more. I will vote for the party that is most likely to do the least damage to our environment.Make it very expensive for companies to fly their employees all over the world just to make clients feel 'cared for'. But don't stop me from ocasionally visiting Europe for a long stays once I finally retire, or visiting my son if he lives in another city. June 16, 2008 21:07 EST

Patrick Smith:
An interesting article, but I'll remind readers that commercial aviation accounts for less than TWO PERCENT of all transportation emissions. The percentage of flack it receives is way out of proportion with its contributions to the problem. This is partly because it is so damn easy these days to hate and bash the airlines. Here are a couple of articles I published on aircraft and the environment for Salon:

The facts and fallacy of aircraft emissions... http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2008/02/22/askthepilot265/

Onboard trash, and how airlines are tackling emissions...
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2008/02/29/askthepilot266/

I can't imagine even a very serious global crisis eliminating air travel altogether. However, the era of easily affordable global travel for the masses may indeed be coming to an end.

- Patrick Smith
June 17, 2008 13:31 EST

Anonymous:
share our story:

A insomnia frog:A insomnia frog
A Joyful party:A Joyful party
Bear in eggs:Bear in eggs
Big alligator:Big alligator
Birds and bear:Birds and bear
Carving and desert:Carving and desert
Chickens and ducks:Chickens and ducks
Clever crow:Clever crow
Crystal ball's dream:Crystal ball's dream
Hungry fox:Hungry fox
Mom's birthday:Mom's birthday
Only one goal:Only one goal
Piglets temper:Piglets temper
Small white and black pig:Small white and black pig
The camel is angry:The camel is angry
The old dog:The old dog
The poor and the rich:The poor and the rich
Broken dreams:Broken dreams
The little princess:The little princess
Dance bear:Dance bear
spring:spring
The little princess:The little princess
Three rats:Three rats
A selfish giant:A selfish giant

December 31, 2008 02:07 EST

nike dunk sb:


What do you
have in your closet?



How long ago
was it when shoes were just footwear?  You threw them on to go play out in the
back yard, or down on the playground.  Today, however, having a pair of sneakers
has taken on a whole new meaning, especially when dealing with sports shoes. 
What has really made the sneaker culture huge is the sport shoe industry, with
Nike and Adidas pulling up the front.  These sports icons have been worn and
styled by not only top athletes, but by people in the music industry. 




They say that it was the Nike Dunk
that started it all off.  In 1985, Nike brought out the
Nike Dunk. 
Originally these sneakers meant for the college community of basketball
players.  Instead, this style of sports shoes started the sneaker sub-culture. 
 Although this style of sneaker was designed to be used during high intensity
basketball games, the spotlight quickly turned to the fashion of wearing them,
what they looked like, and which ones you owned.  Twenty years later, Nike has
brought the Nike Dunk back on
the courts with all its retro style and performance.
But why stop
with basketball shoes?  In 2000, Nike decided to jump into the skateboarding
scene with the new Nike Skateboarding product line. 



With
Nike SB has come the
Nike Dunk SB.  For years, before
skateboarding came out from the underground scene, skateboarders utilized the
rugged design of basketball shoes.  Nike decided to capitalize on what Vans and
DC shoes had been monopolizing for years, and take what was already an amazing
sneaker, and fit it into the needs of skateboarders.  What the
Nike Dunk
SB brought in the way of performance was extra-padded tongue and their
patented Zoom Air insole. In the way of style, this sneaker has already come out
with six series, and names for them like Grip, Forbes, and Vipers.



Another blast
from the past would be the Nike Air
Force 1.  These sneakers first came out in the early 80’s.  And like the
hip hop culture, their popularity grew.  However, this band did not reach their
full fashion peek until 2002 when Nelly released the song “Air
Force Ones”. 



The other major
sports shoe brand is the Adicolor
Shoes, an Adidas Original.  The design became so popular because the
plain white canvas was adaptable by painting, drawing, and spraying on your own
personal design, and even accessories were sold to help you in your creativity. 
In 2006 they pushed the envelope further with a new color series using artists
and designers from all over the world.




Another huge sneaker that was popular with the hip hop world was the
Adidas Superstar.  A very raw
and controversial Hip Hop group that helped skyrocket the
Adidas
Superstar to stardom was Run-D.M.C. This cutting edge group was known for
wearing their Superstars out on stage, and even wrote a song dedicated to them
called “My Adidas”.  Whether its Nike or Adidas, clean out that closet, dust off
your old sneakers, and get into the game. 



December 31, 2008 02:12 EST

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