Gaunty - I'm somewhat puzzled as to why yourself joining the greenies in a crusade against aviation is "lifting the debate beyond the here's a few jobs for the boys". First of all - do you seriously believe that OzJet is started in order to provide "jobs for the boys"??
Secondly if this is an "irresponsible use of non-renewable resources" - where exactly do you draw the line between what constitutes responisible vs. irresponsible use of our natural wealth. You seem to share the "cock-suredness" approach of Greenpeace and others that YOUR definition is the one and only quantification of where to draw the line. (think burning massive amounts of petrol in your rubber dingie while protesting in an attempt to prevent resupplies to an oil exploration platform). You alluded in an earlier post that it was morally wrong to fly an aircraft the size of a 737 with only 60 people in it, but somehow fail to realise that the logical progression of your moral definition, is that it is indeed "immoral" to have a business class (with ample legroom) at all! Indeed - following on, it is positively wrong to even contemplate taking off with an empty seat in an all-economy lay-out, so lets just keep 'er at the gate until every last cattle-class seat is filled - bugger them if they're in a hurry, they should have driven their ox-cart along the Hume highway between SYD and MLB anyways. Oh, and once the A380 is operational with capacity for 880 economy seat passengers, it would be "immoral" to fly anything else wouldn't it, as any other aircraft than this is less efficient with fuel burned per seat/kilometre??
I suppose it may not surprise you by now that I happen to believe that NOT signing the Kyoto agreement is of the few "gutsy" decisions our esteemed government has made in recent years.
With respect and regards
