Most Huggable: The Dreamliner Flies, Misplaced Intentions at Live Earth, and Black Widows Attack Romania

Boeing’s Dreamliner saves 20% on carbon emissions, but does it mean more flying?

This is the same kind of empty objection one hears about hybrids. For aircraft manufacturers, it's damned if they do, damned if they don't -- and this is why treehuggers maginalize themselves.

Wait a minute, what's wrong with more people flying? Would we prefer they all drive themselves to their destinations in their personal automobiles? If people are going to travel, and they are, wouldn't we prefer they do so in a plane where we can achieve some economy of scale in reducing emissions and saving fuel consumption?

I know we'd all rather have some real high speed rail options, but even if we start building now, it's going to take a decade or two to achieve that in the United States, and even then, some distances in this vast country of ours will be too far for rail travel to be practical, even at 300 mph. Let's cheer Boeing for making some real advances in efficiency for air travel, so that when air travel is necessary, it can at least be the greenest it can possibly be.

The Snackwell Effect! The lower-calorie the cookie, the more people eat, so no net savings.

People will undoubtedly fly less anyway. Ticket prices are way up in the last month, some tickets I've looked at are up 75%. The higher fuel prices are, the less flying, one imagines.

Err...I think it's called the rebound effect