27 Apr 2004 Notice They Don’t Recommend Taxing Private Planes

A script for a radio broadcast I ran across in the course of my work:

Air Traffic Contributes to Global Warming

January 14, 1999

You’ve heard that cars add to global warming — they burn fossil fuels, so they pump out carbon dioxide. Well, there’s another carbon dioxide culprit. Look to the sky on today’s EnvironMinute. [:11]

That’s right, airplanes are another major player in the global warming game. Planes pump about 660 million tons of carbon dioxide into your friendly skies each year. And thanks to increasing air traffic, that figure is going up by about 40 million tons annually. At that rate, you could see airplane emissions triple in the next two decades! Rather than add more heat-trapping gases to our global green house, let’s just ‘plane’ cut back on carbon dioxide pollution. A tax on airplane fuel could encourage airlines to conserve fuel. Plus it could fuel the development of new, more energy-efficient planes. [:36]

The EnvironMinute is produced in cooperation with the National Safety Council and made possible by the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation. [:10]