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An Airline With A New Idea - Weight Based Fares...Submitted by Peter N. DeWolfe on June 9, 2008 - 6:16pm.
Welcome to Derrie-Air, the world's only carbon-neutral luxury airline, where you don't have to choose between living the high life and saving the planet. Nine out of ten scientists agree—we need to reduce our carbon emissions or perish from the face of the earth. Air travel is one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions and global warming. Derrie-Air will be the only airline that plants trees to offset every pound of carbon that our planes release into the atmosphere. But not only will we do our part to protect the environment, we will expect you, our passengers, to do your part as well. The magic comes from our one of a kind "Sliding Scale"—the more you weigh, the more you'll pay. After all, it takes more fuel—more energy—to get more weight from point A to point B. So we will charge passengers based on how much mass they add to the plane. The heavier you and your luggage are, the more trees we'll plant to make up for the trouble of flying you from place to place.
Our Mission
Derrie-Air is the world's first carbon-neutral luxury airline. We will offer our passengers the finest luxury experience in all the world's skies and the freedom to enjoy it with a clear conscience.
The Story of Dick Derrie and Derrie-Air Dick Derrie was born in Salamander, Missouri, a tiny hamlet on the banks of the Mississippi. (Salamander is small, so small that you won't find it on any map.) His father was a fisherman.
As a child, Dick ate nothing but line-caught Mississippi fish. This unusual diet flooded his brain with Omega-3 fatty acids, to which he credits his remarkable business acumen. As a boy, Dick did whatever he could to save money. He dreamed up rising up from the life of poverty he was born into. He held down all kinds of jobs-building rafts, hunting wild boar, guarding prisoners at the nearby correctional facility. By the time he graduated high school, Dick owned a chain of pinball machines in local juke joints and had a net worth of some $5 million. Over the next ten years he would attend business school, open Missouri's third-largest plant for the bottling of generic cola, and multiply this small fortune one hundred times over. Dick's longing to plunge into Derrie-Air began in 1994, when he sent his first express package. "Heck," he reasoned to himself. "These sons-of-a-gun are making me pay by the pound! Now what if we ran an airline the same way..." The idea lay dormant until 2005, when Dick saw a popular film on global warming. He began to worry that if he didn't do something to cool off the planet, his grandchildren might never know the joy of hunting alligators on his marshy wetlands from the back of a two-ton truck. He called a meeting of Derrie Corp's board of directors the next day, and Derrie-Air was born. Today Dick is 35 years old. He is the richest man in the state of Missouri. He lives with his wife and two sons on a ranch of a thousand acres near Salamander. Dick's father lives in a magnificent castle that Dick had specially imported, block by block, from Scotland. He still likes to hunt boar. It is, after all, his early experiences with the sublimity of wild nature that planted the seeds of his desire to save our planet. "The planet's a lot like life," Dick often says. "We only get one." Frequently Asked Questions How much will your tickets be? It depends on how much you and your luggage weigh. These masses will be combined and then turned into a price with our "Sliding Scale". If you and your luggage have a combined weight of less than 200 pounds, the cost savings is considerable-as high as sixty percent for domestic flights!
How will you help the environment? We will plant trees in deforested acres around the world to absorb all the carbon that our planes release into the atmosphere. We plan on having over 128,000 sycamores in Derrie Forest by 2010. The practice, known as "carbon offsetting" has been adopted by a diverse array of credible entities such as famous Hollywood actors and actresses.
What is the "Sliding Scale"? The "Sliding Scale" comes from the notion that each of us is responsible for the energy we use. There's nothing wrong with toting around a little extra mass-as long as you pay for it.
What is Green Luxury? Green Luxury is the guiding principle of Derrie-Air. At the heart of our company is the belief that consumers in the developed world shouldn't have to choose between doing good and feeling good.
We have no problem with environmentalists who perform hair shirt activities like composting and not flushing. But we maintain that upscale luxury consumers can do their part as well.
What amenities will your jets offer? First of all there will be no class distinctions inside of a Derrie-Air jet. Every passenger will be treated like royalty. Every seat will be first class. There will simply be too many extras and treats on our flights to list here, but highlights will include: gorgeous air hosts and hostesses, golden-age
Rat Pack films, top-shelf vodka Martinis, on-demand video blackjack, spacious private washrooms outfitted with porcelain fixtures and gilded faucets, gourmet snacks, on-board masseuses, loofah scrubs and, of course, digital cable!
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Good one
Good one Peter. But, not a facetious subject at all. Let's all consider the individual cost of our weight to the planet.
The economics of air travel
I took a higher level economics class about the economics of the airline industry, and they have always taken weight into consideration relative to fuel consumption and pricing, for freight and people. People and luggage take up cubic feet of airplane space, which has costs beyond fuel.
I don't see anything wrong with airlines breaking expenses down to measurable components like volume and weight of luggage and passengers, and food and drinks consumed. That would seem to offer real value, and show passengers what they are purchasing.
Same for our weight on the planet - people should know their costs
Disrupt IT
Someone really ought to let
Someone really ought to let Algore in on Dierre-Air's breakthrough.
However, given that the new carrier's fare structure is based on weight and given Algore's current girth, it is estimated that a single-trip across the U.S. would cost him over $6 million WITHOUT his ego. That's over one week's revenue from his Global Warming scam. Put another way, that's enough to pay his Nashville mansion utility bill and buy gas for his new 100' houseboat for a month.
In case you’re wondering why Algore requires such a large aircraft, it’s because he takes his ego with him wherever he goes.
"Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic but will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path to destruction." Thomas Jefferson
1970s lifestyle 'protects planet'
Getting back to the relatively slim, trim days of the 1970s would help to tackle climate change, researchers say.
The rising numbers of people who are overweight and obese in the UK means the nation uses 19% more food than 40 years ago, a study suggests.
That could equate to an extra 60 mega-tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, the team calculated.
Transport costs of a fatter population were also included in the International Journal of Epidemiology study.
Dr Phil Edwards, study leader and researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said they had set out to calculate what the UK energy consumption would be if the weight of the population was put back a few decades.
A "normal" adult population, where only 3.5% are classed as obese, was compared with a population where 40% are obese.
These populations reflect the proportions of overweight and obese people living in the UK in the 1970s - and what is predicted for the UK in 2010, the researchers said.
In addition to calculating the increased food costs of the heavier population, the team worked out how much additional fuel would be needed for transportation of modern-day UK compared with the 1970s version.
Greenhouse gas emissions from food production and car travel in the fatter population would be between 0.4 to 1 giga-tonnes higher per 1bn people, they estimated.
Heavier
And people are generally bigger than they were three decades ago.
Between 1994 and 2004, the average male body mass index (BMI) in England increased from 26 to 27.3, with the average female BMI rising from 25.8 to 26.9 which equates to about 3 kg - or half a stone - heavier.
"This is not really just about obese people, the distribution of the whole population is what's important," said Dr Edwards.
"Everybody is getting a bit fatter."
"Staying slim is good for health and for the environment.
"We need to be doing a lot more to reverse the global trend towards fatness, and recognise it as a key factor in the battle to reduce emissions and slow climate change."
It is not just a UK issue - in nearly every country in the world, the average BMI is rising.
Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the Faculty of Public Health said shifting the population weight distribution back to that of the 1970s would do quite a lot to help the planet.
"In the 1970s we had bigger portions of vegetables and smaller portions of meat and there's been a shift in the amount of exercise we do.
"All these things are combining to hurt the planet and this is a calculation that deserves a bit more attention," he said.
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8004257.stm
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Another proposal
Another way to reduce carbon emissions from travel is to make travel unneccessary. In Japan they have built a national high speed data network that can provide speeds to consumers of around 100mbps allowing video on demand and local services. Building this national network was a hih priority for the government and the businesses of Japan in order to improve their competiveness. A network like that in America could help us reduce the need for travel and allow our older cities to at least survive even if they do not flourish.
Data Centers
Nice to hear a fresh voice here. Ronduck have you read the Big Switch by Nicholas Carr?
Big Switch
No, I have never read nor heard of the Big Switch. You should consier using links to Amazon.com instead of Worldcat, Amazon usually has a summary of the book.
Commerce and Discourse
In my official capacity, I always try to direct traffic towards free access to information via libraries. We can debate the FREE part--but you are right-- Amazon has great summaries and reviews-- and in Worldcat (Amazon option is on the right panel), you will find that the option to buy the book is always there driving more discourse.