ecostreamjet

Emerging from the clouds

Posted In: the captain's blog

September 7, 2008, 2:57PM

     "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."  I think Mark Twain was right. Travel deepens our knowledge and experience. It enriches our lives and makes us more tolerant. And it fosters good business. Twain had a great mind, but I wonder if even he could have imagined 21st Century travel methods and levels and their deleterious effects on the environment.

     In an April 28, 2008 Time Magazine article entitled “Why Green is the New Red, White and Blue,” writer Bryan Walsh cogently likens the challenges of global warming to those of World War II, the Great Depression, the space race, polio eradication and railroad system construction. He posits that 25 billion tons of carbon emissions “need to be eliminated over the next 50 years to contain warming” and that, so far, Americans have fallen short of the mobil ization that led to our past successes. Put simply, we are losing the war on global warming and risking ruination. Walsh points to the “overnight conversion of the World War II-era industrial sector into a vast machine capable of churning out 60,000 tanks and 300,000 planes, an effort that not only didn’t bankrupt the nation but instead made it rich and powerful beyond its imagining and—oh, yes—won the war in the process.” Walsh then proffers a three-step plan for waging and winning the war on global warming: first, put a national cap-and-trade system into operation and “price the sky;” second create an “epic surge in efficiency;” and, third, create a new energy system, non-carbon based.

     I like Mr. Walsh’s plan, so long as it accommodates, encourages and rewards private-enterprise solutions to the climate crisis. To my mind, capitalists and environmentalists need not, and should not be at perpetual loggerheads, with the government mediating through the vehicle of regulation. To the extent that environmental protection is good and profitable business, the Earth has a fighting chance.  This thinking led to Ecostreamjet.



     Ecostreamjet books its clients on private jets for corporate and personal travel. We commit a portion of profits to the purchase of carbon credits sufficient to offset all jet fuel burned on our flights. We do not charge extra for the offsets and they are not optional.  While our primary focus is on safety and service, environmental stewardship is an essential part of our business model, and we intend to prove that it can be profitable.

     What do you think? Can environmental protection be a good and profitable business model, or is it only through government intervention with taxes and restrictive laws and regulations that the earth can be saved?