When the Carter Administration in the late seventies disbanded the Civil Aviation Board as part of a deregulation drive across the US economy, one of the major impacts has been a fluctuation of fortunes for the aviation industry.
Given the high price of jet fuel and its own uncertain fluctuations and particularly the present credit and financial crises the aviation industry will be faced with far greater regulation than it is accustomed to. This will be particularly so if the industry is going to be supported by tax payer supported loans.
One of the regulations that I believe should be instituted is the interconnection regulation. The federal government should demand that airlines that open new air services or cut old ones consider how the change of service connects with the ground transportation services available in a particular area. This would lead to a greater integration of both air and surface transportation, thus improving transportation for both people and freight. Did DHL engage in such considerations when it closed down its international operations in Ohio?
While the federal government will engage in revamping aviation to make the transportation system more efficient, the aviation industry can start thinking in terms of being a transportation provider rather than only be involved in air transportation. Thus, it may start thinking of diversifying its operations and become investors in high-speed or regular rail companies, efficient coach networks, etc., particularly since the latter will increase in importance with the debacle of the US car manufacturing sector. So rather than competing among one another and with other modes of transportation, cooperating together and with present and emerging new transportation companies would contribute more to a better financial (social and ecological) bottom line than operating in a competitive attitude at home and abroad.
The demands of the climate crisis where the aviation industry will be included in the cap-and-trade system to reach 80% or even 90% reduction in GHG emissions is an additional reason to cooperate with an Obama Administration and the other actors in the emerging economic landscape where the private sector will be given the opportunity for productive creativity within limits decided upon in a highly participatory fashion.
Monday, November 17, 2008
A New Governamce Frame Needed
What a difference one and half month made in the fall of 2008 since I started this blog at the end of September! We witnessed a housing mortgage crisis, which led to credit crisis, which lead to a consumer crisis, which lead to an economic crisis the like of which did not happen since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Looking at the future of sustainability in the aviation industry cannot be done in isolation of the above interconnected crisis because they and their policy responses by the new Obama administration will substantially determine that future.
Given these extraordinary economic conditions, particularly the financial situation of the US car manufacturers, transportation is a sector that demands action, given its enormous economic and social impact on the US society. The real challenge is to develop the right policies and the aviation industry should be an essential participant in these policy developments.
SAVIA Associates International at www.susaviation.com has been proposing the IITS Initiative years before the present economic crisis. The Initiative entails a $300 billion infrastructure program over 15 years that would integrate the aviation industry with the various mode of surface transportation. Its website also has proposed an ISATEA legislation and even invited readers to sign its ISATEA petition.
One of the major obstacles to this IITS Initiative and its larger infrastructure programs that are being discussed presently is the ideological constraint that big government is bad. While that may have been true to some extent in normal economic times, it is not true in the extraordinary economic times that we are in. As well described by Robert Kuttner in Obama’s Challenge’s chapter 3 “Audacity versus Undertow” this ideological frame which started to be built during the Carter Administration is to be changed into a new one which would contain statements such as the private sector has its limits, people’s needs and economic recovery are more important than penny pinching, tax cuts have done little to low- and middle-income Americans, “Government can do great things, it particularly needs to do great things in an economic crisis.”
Let’s hope that the Obama Administration is able to develop transformative leadership that makes such change possible by bold solutions in the interest of people and planet, both in the US and abroad.
Looking at the future of sustainability in the aviation industry cannot be done in isolation of the above interconnected crisis because they and their policy responses by the new Obama administration will substantially determine that future.
Given these extraordinary economic conditions, particularly the financial situation of the US car manufacturers, transportation is a sector that demands action, given its enormous economic and social impact on the US society. The real challenge is to develop the right policies and the aviation industry should be an essential participant in these policy developments.
SAVIA Associates International at www.susaviation.com has been proposing the IITS Initiative years before the present economic crisis. The Initiative entails a $300 billion infrastructure program over 15 years that would integrate the aviation industry with the various mode of surface transportation. Its website also has proposed an ISATEA legislation and even invited readers to sign its ISATEA petition.
One of the major obstacles to this IITS Initiative and its larger infrastructure programs that are being discussed presently is the ideological constraint that big government is bad. While that may have been true to some extent in normal economic times, it is not true in the extraordinary economic times that we are in. As well described by Robert Kuttner in Obama’s Challenge’s chapter 3 “Audacity versus Undertow” this ideological frame which started to be built during the Carter Administration is to be changed into a new one which would contain statements such as the private sector has its limits, people’s needs and economic recovery are more important than penny pinching, tax cuts have done little to low- and middle-income Americans, “Government can do great things, it particularly needs to do great things in an economic crisis.”
Let’s hope that the Obama Administration is able to develop transformative leadership that makes such change possible by bold solutions in the interest of people and planet, both in the US and abroad.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Welcome to Revamping Aviation
This blog looks critically at the aviation industry in its necessary transition to sustainability, not only ecological sustainability, but also social and economic sustainability. This integrated sustainability view is based upon the integrated social and ecological values, vision and ethics of the Earth Charter which has the same significance for the 21st century as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had for the 20th century. See http://www.earthcharter.org/ This value system is translated into the contextual sustainability framework, information of which can be found on http://www.fcvnyc.blogspot.com/ and on my contextual sustainability article as chapter 2 in the Wenden anthology which is at www.globalepe.org/documents/contsuschp22fp_000.doc .This blog is part of http://www.susaviation.com/. It is at that website that readers are invited to sign the ISATEA petition, so that grassroots engagement and pressure can lead to a first class US transportation system. This website is an outcome from about 15 years of voluntary engagement with the issue of sustainable aviation, particularly in the metro NY area. http://www.metronyaviation.org/ gives a record of that activity. Since a couple of years that voluntary service has also extended to the national organization http://www.us-caw.org/ My engagement with sustainable aviation also led to the teaching of a course on sustainable aviation at the former College of Aeronautics near LaGuardia airport and now http://www.vaughn.edu/.One of my satisfying experiences in sustainable aviation was my invitation in November 07 by the publisher of the Seattle Port Observer. It was a great pleasure adding to the North West thinking and practice in sustainability by giving my presentation. Part of the satisfaction was also its excellent coverage in http://www.washblog.com/story/2007/11/4/171922/833.
Happy journey into sustainable aviation!Yours for sustaining futures and a sustainable, equitable and accountable aviation industry,
Frans C. Verhagen, M.Div., M.I.A., Ph.D., sustainability sociologist,
Adjunct Associate Professor of Sustainable Aviation at the Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology (formerly the College of Aeronautics at La Guardia Airport), http://www.aero.edu/
President, Citizens Aviation Watch USA, Inc, http://www.us-caw.org/; President, SAFE, Inc., http://www.metronyaviation.org/
Principal, SAVIA Associates International. http://www.susaviation.com/
Sustainability Fellow at the Green Institute, Washington, D.C., http://www.greeninstitute.net/Director, Sustainability Research and Education, Earth and Peace Education Associates International (EPE)97-37 63rd Road, #15E, Rego Park, NY 11374, USAvoice: 1+(718)275-3932; cell: 917-617-6217; fax 1+(718)275-3932http://www.globalepe.org/, gaia1@rcn.com, http://fcvnyc.blogspot.com/ /
“…..the verb sustaining holds open the actively normative questions that the idea of sustainability raises. We are required to probe: What truly sustains us? Why? And how do we know? Conversely, we must ask: What are we to sustain above all else? Why? And how may we do so?" Aidan Davison, Technology and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability, 2001: p.64Posted by Frans Verhagen, M.Div., M.I.A., PhD.
Happy journey into sustainable aviation!Yours for sustaining futures and a sustainable, equitable and accountable aviation industry,
Frans C. Verhagen, M.Div., M.I.A., Ph.D., sustainability sociologist,
Adjunct Associate Professor of Sustainable Aviation at the Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology (formerly the College of Aeronautics at La Guardia Airport), http://www.aero.edu/
President, Citizens Aviation Watch USA, Inc, http://www.us-caw.org/; President, SAFE, Inc., http://www.metronyaviation.org/
Principal, SAVIA Associates International. http://www.susaviation.com/
Sustainability Fellow at the Green Institute, Washington, D.C., http://www.greeninstitute.net/Director, Sustainability Research and Education, Earth and Peace Education Associates International (EPE)97-37 63rd Road, #15E, Rego Park, NY 11374, USAvoice: 1+(718)275-3932; cell: 917-617-6217; fax 1+(718)275-3932http://www.globalepe.org/, gaia1@rcn.com, http://fcvnyc.blogspot.com/ /
“…..the verb sustaining holds open the actively normative questions that the idea of sustainability raises. We are required to probe: What truly sustains us? Why? And how do we know? Conversely, we must ask: What are we to sustain above all else? Why? And how may we do so?" Aidan Davison, Technology and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability, 2001: p.64Posted by Frans Verhagen, M.Div., M.I.A., PhD.
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