Airline flights should be taxed much higher than they already are

1) First of all, the USA is not a democracy, it is a Republic meaning we have rule by representatives. The majority does NOT rule. The popular vote isn't even the deciding factor in presidential elections so that statement is absolutely false. Let me clarify: the concept of global warming as a man driven catastrophic phenomena is not wildly accepted. Also, since most Americans find the concept to be exaggerated means it is likely that they would be less receptive to a tax increase to combat something not an immediate danger. In 2010 only 28% of people said global warming was a "top priority" [1]By 2011, global warming didn't even make the polling list. [2] Out of all the public priority polls referenced in the source global warming isn't specifically mentioned even once. Right now the economy dominates the public priority and higher taxes on airline flights falls under the economy and would be damaging, therefore would be extremely unpopular. 2) You're saying to replace reasonable flight distance with train rides. By your own rough calculations (which aren't sourced by the way so I shouldn't even be addressing it, you also broke your own rules here) train takes 3x longer than airline flights. Now, as I pointed out before in my previous argument, an argument you dropped I might add, sometimes flights are needed for immediate travel and this demand will never go away. Many people don't have three days to leisurely travel by train. People have deadlines, need to get back to school, back to work etc. In today's world scrapping flight for a three day train ride makes no logistical sense. 3)The United States' Interstate System is the largest highway system in the world and since the mid 20th century the car has dominated American travel. [3] Transport by train has diminished to almost nothing save for subway travel in a few key cities. Long distance train travel only has "a few trains a day" [3]. Train travel is cumbersome, slow, non-personal (meaning you can't stop for McDonald's when you want) and inefficient. For train travel to work in the US there would have to be a major rehaul of the transportation system including the addition of high speed rail. But Americans are unresponsive to the idea. The state of Florida proposed a high speed rail between Orlando and Tampa but was popularly vetoed by the governor. [4] It was unanimous within the state government. 4) Math for my ClaimI did a calculation, a simple flight from Jacksonville, FL to Houston, TX for a total distance of 2,632 km. According to this emissions calculator this flight will produce 282.67 Kg of CO2 for one single person. [5] Now, this source says the ideal car emissions would be 120g CO2/km. [6] Since we don't all drive the ideal car I bumped it up reasonably to 200g CO2/km which is reasonable. Now if we do the math. 200g * 2,632km = 526.4 kg CO2. 526>282As we can see driving increases CO2 emissions per person. Even if we use the "ideal benchmark for car emissions" of 120g/km we get this:120g * 2,632km = 315 kg CO2. 315>282Now, if we go back to the original number both 526kg and 315kg are larger than 282kg. If we multiply this out by 250 we see the difference grow larger and larger so that the ecological impact of 250 people driving this average flight distance of 2600km is vastly more drastic than one flight. Also, if you see this graphic --> [7] you can see that aviation only accounts for 2% of CO2 emissions opposed to the 25% by "Transportation" which is mostly cars. Even if we bump that 25% down to say 10% (highly unlikely, the majority of that 25 is car emissions) it is still vastly higher than 2% attributed to aviation emission. Cars are simply dirtier for the environment. 5) Like I said in my last argument: people need to fly.Very few people needlessly fly. Flying is essential to a lot of functions of our economy. Businessmen travel a lot and to conduct business and attend business meetings they are required to fly. A father who is on leave from the military and wants to see his family will usually fly from his place of duty. Families traveling to funerals in other states or areas of the country will have to fly to save time and make deadlines. Flying is essential and taxing it more will not reduce demand because people really only fly if they have to. Instead of reducing demand all you will do is put strain on the economy. People who would have a little extra money in their pocket to buy a book or magazine or cool gizmo will now be gone. Savings will be drawn upon to pay the extra price for air tickets. You will be damaging the economy. The price of goods and services will rise because businesses will have to pay more for goods to be shipped and for their business agents to travel. The economy would suffer a huge blow in a similar way that a rise in the price of gas effects it. Reread my argument, you did very little to refute it. The demand for flying in today's world can only go down so much. The rest of the people that need to fly will feel the strain of unneeded financial burden. [1] http://www.people-press.org... [2] http://www.pollingreport.com... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://knowledgebase.findlaw.com... [5] http://www2.icao.int...