Solarpunk Travel

The Byron Bay Railroad Company runs the world's first 100% solar-powered train. It wouldn't work everywhere - but in the bright sunshine of Australia, it might just be the right tool for the job.

More about the railroad: https://byronbaytrain.com.au/

Though this photo fits the theme kinda nice.

Was in croatia, last summer.

I like travelling by bike, but i am not the biggest fan of doing roundtrips, i much prefer moving further and further away. So on longer trips i will end up way far from home, and since travelling by train across Europe, can be a real ordeal (especially with a bike), i sometimes take a plane back home. I guess busses would be an option too from some locations, i personally absolutely hate travelling by bus though. Weak excuse i know.

I am able to rationalize to myself that it is ok to take that flight, i spent now weeks doing low impact travel and can end it with a boom and still probably had less impact then with my regular life at home (i have not really done the calculation tbh). Of course, if it is reasonably easy to get home by train i will definitely prefer that, and i absolutely don't always end up taking a plane.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you ever take a flight?

Just heard a quick blurb on BBC that another panel fell off a Boeing mid-flight which landed in Oregon. No harm done.. wasn’t noticed until after they landed. United Airlines.

I think it’s important for these stories to continue getting attention because there are Boeing patrons who think “they’ll fix that problem and get it sorted”. They seem to have a lot of loyalty as they proudly claim Boeing is safe to fly on.

Or maybe I should ban myself from posting about Boeing here. My rationale is that Boeing is extra harmful for the environment because amid their #greenwashing they are an #ALEC member who finances #climateDenial. And bashing ecocidal travel is fair game for a sustainable travel community. And I guess this community is low volume enough that it’s good to have a heartbeat of sorts to give a sign of life here.

update

I just heard Boeing still sells t-shirts that say “if it’s not Boeing, I’m not going”. Surely they must be having a hard time selling those now. Someone could probably make a fortune selling a modified version of that at airports with one of the “not”s striken (~~not~~).

If you scroll down to Torleif Stumo there’s a quite interesting story. I was amazed that an aircraft that started to taxi returned to the gate and reconnected to let a passenger exit who discovered he was on a 737 max -- and that the airline rebooked him at no extra cost. Then I realized after my speed-reading what I missed: this guy was the brother of a passenger who was killed in the Ethiopian Airlines flight. I wonder if it was Ethiopian Airlines that he was gave him the extra sympathetic treatment.

The article starts with another passenger demanding to exit after the gate disconnected, upon finding he was on a 737 Max. They omitted how he was treated w.r.t costs. I’m sure all airlines probably have in their contract of carriage a clause that allows them to change aircraft and presumably the passengers have no rights. I say that because you aren’t even guaranteed a layover. E.g. if your ticket is from New York to California via layover in Vegas, and for whatever reason the airline needs to reroute you last minute connecting in Detroit instead, the contract of carriage allows them to make changes is substantial as that and passengers have /no rights/ in that regard so long as the airline reaches the final destination on the correct day.

booking sites withhold aircraft

It always annoys me when a air travel booking site withholds the aircraft info. I used to be able to find the matching flight on matrix itasoftware but that site seems to be getting less reliable (random acts of tor hostility). The article mentions an effort underway to change that.

Relevance

Superficially this article seems unrelated to sustainable travel. But Boycotts on Boeing are actually inherently pro-environment because Boeing is an #ALEC member and ALEC finances the #climateDenial movement. Boycotting all air travel would be as well, but some are forced to choose the lesser of evils in which case avoiding Boeing is at least more sustainable (avoids supporting a green-washing ALEC member).

Not sure if commuting really counts as “travel” related but hopefully it’s interesting enough.

⚠ Link #enshitification warning: #euronews has a forced agreement type of popup in some browsers (TB). I suggest either Ungoogled Chromium or lynx. Lynx warns “bad html” but it renders fine.

This is being cross-posted to several places so I won’t bother to list them here.. but there are a few discussions on this if you look around.

Solarpunk travel is intended for /sustainable/ travel, right? So where can we discuss travel with no sustainability relevance? I only consider proper decentralized non-Cloudflare instances. This is what found as free world venues for travel chatter:

• [email protected] ← sustainable travel focus
• [email protected] ← Europe focus
• [email protected]
• https://lemmy.globe.pub/ ← whole instance devoted to travel (⚠but note there is an instance-wide no politics rule)

The places other than [email protected] are ghost towns but that’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a bit of cross-posting. I suggest putting them in the sidebar as related communities.

(This is good news for people who trust Boeing more than medical workers. You can bring your own screwdriver.)

The serious narrative is shocking:

A Boeing mechanic failed to tighten the bolts on a door-size "cabin plug" that blew out on an Alaska Air 737Max flight. The aircraft had cabin pressure warnings onboard for some time, so instead of investigating/fixing, the airline simply 'restricted' the plane from 'long flights over water' so it could land quickly. No joke.

🍑

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/4750716

Human hibernation has made some strides recently. I think a year or so ago a Wired mag article said the only significant unsolved problem is shivering. They have a cocktail of drugs that makes hibernation possible apart from the fact that people shiver at low temps.

If they solve this, I will gladly prefer to be shipped as cargo on a sail boat or airship so long as someone tends to a heart monitor to ensure a few heartbeats per min or whatever is still happening. No more Gestappo airport security, stresses of delayed flights, screaming babies, people eating Camembert cheese within 5 meters of you. You age at like ⅓ the rate in hibernation (or something like that). I’d gladly trade a week of reduced useful lifetime in exchange for a later death (experiencing more of the future than otherwise possible). The idea of being able to easily flip the middle finger to Boeing would also be a nice perk. (#boycottBoeing)

We have lots of moral options for traveling over land, and even some options for relatively short oceanic trips, like across the Atlantic from W. Europe to/from N. America.

What are the current possibilities for traveling from e.g. USA to Taiwan? I'm willing to entertain options that don't have "mass market" appeal.