to fly the aircraft we fly now, would require us to divert one half of the world’s entire agricultural production to aviation fuel … if we’re prepared to sacrifice the entire population of both India and China, we can continue to fly. But if we’re not, aviation biofuel — ‘green’ aviation fuel — is a cynical lie, founded on a preparedness to sacrifice half of the world’s population to starvation on the altar of fast travel for the rich few.

A quote from Simon Brooke’s ‘The potato famine and aviation fuel’ piece looking at the reality of biofuels.

The same story again and again: none of the technological solutions to climate change scale.

The unpalatable truth is that hydrocarbons are very energy dense, and none of the ‘green’ sources of energy come anywhere near. The only energy source available to us that is climate change compatible and sufficiently dense to be practical at the required scale is nuclear, but we are collectively uncomfortable with that one; there are good reasons for that, but we should be at least as uncomfortable with burning hydrocarbons as we are with nuclear, for that we have to stop burning hydrocarbons if we are to survive is no longer in doubt.

So yet again, there is no workable solution to the climate disaster that doesn’t involve a radical degrowth. And yes, aviation is one of the first things that should be got rid off.

The quotes around ‘green’ are because without degrowth it’s all just greenwashing; it’s time we stop kidding ourselves.