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Best Video Ever

Posted by Clark Williams-Derry

12/12/2008 12:36 AM

A mesmerizing look at global air travel.

Via Wired, the best YouTube video since Chocolate Rain: an animated look at 24 hours of global air travel, compressed into 72 seconds. Behold:

That's a heck of a lot of flying, no?

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Comments

Posted by eldan 12/15/2008 01:47 PM

That is simultaneously beautiful, impressive and deeply unsettling.

I also found the regional differences interesting (along similar lines to that NASA "earth from the sky" composite that you've probably seen), but hard to separate from the time series. Do you know if anyone's made a still picture that represents the total activity over 24 hours?

Posted by Barry 12/17/2008 09:33 PM

Flying is great.

The carbon from it sadly is killing our future.

As the map shows the wealthy do the spewing while the majority of humanity takes the heat.

Flying is fastest growing source of greenhouse gases. A single flight can be years of sustainable emissions per passenger. Only 5% of humanity will ever fly anywhere. There is no green way to fly.

In the UK, direct action against the oversized pollution of aviation is growing so fast it has police and politicians unsure what to do. Middle class business owners, housewives, retired professionals and young "eco-starlets" are joining together in direct actions to try to limit the damage. They are chaining themselves to barricades and super-gluing their hands to front doors. Even the conservatives are saying no to airport expansion and yes to rail expansion.

Frequent-flyer is quickly becoming a dirty word. Trains are cool again. More and more people are putting the "adventure" back into travel.

The future ain't what it used to be.

Hopefully we choose a good one in time.

Posted by John Russell 12/19/2008 11:35 AM

Too bad we can't just build high-speed rail from NYC or Chicago to London or Frankfurt.