The first round-the-world solar powered flight has been completed, after the Solar Impulse aircraft touched down in Abu Dhabi.
Bertrand Piccard piloted the plane for a final time, steering it safely from the Egyptian capital Cairo to the UAE.
He has been taking turns at the controls with Swiss compatriot Andre Borschberg, with the mission aiming to promote renewable energy.
(BBC, July 26, 2016)
The entire world seems beset either by the spectacle of politics (like the U.S. presidential campaign) or by the scourge of terrorism (like yet another ISIS-inspired attack in France yesterday). Therefore, even though historic, this solar-powered flight might seem quaint and inconsequential.
But I suspect it will prove an even greater leap for mankind than the moon landing. Not least because its very practical implications for clean energy and a cleaner environment are limitless.
Indeed, I am constrained to distinguish this kind of environmental activism from the environmental evangelism of celebrities like Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio, which I’ve been decrying for years as follows:
To hear these rich folks lamenting about the depletion of the ozone, the increasing gap between haves and have nots, and the almost criminal waste of non-renewable energy, one would think they jet-pooled to Davos on ethanol-fueled airplanes; whereas they all flew in on gas-guzzling, air-polluting private jets.
(“Attendees Emit More CO2 than Solutions at Davos World Economic Forum,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 29, 2007)
In fact:
The number of private jets landing in east Switzerland’s main airports is expected to jump by a third this month as world leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs descend on Davos for the annual World Economic Forum.
Last January, 1,389 private planes flew into Zurich…
(London Telegraph, January 20, 2016)
Am I the only one who thinks this smacks of catholic indulgences?
After all, these celebrities routinely pollute the environment with their profligate carbon footprints. Yet they routinely receive not only public absolution but public adulation because they contribute to or raise funds for environmental causes.
Incidentally, if you don’t know Davos from Timbuktu, suffice it to know that private jets polluting the pristine skies of Davos with carbon toxins is rather like cruise ships polluting the pristine waters of the Caribbean with human waste.
In any event, this first round-the-world flight took 500 hours, covered 25,000 miles, and was completed in 17 stages between March 9, 2015 and July 26, 2016. But it is every bit as pioneering as that famous first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, which took 59 seconds and covered 852 feet.
And the significance of this latest feat increases beyond measure when one considers its implications for transformative uses of solar energy.
Therefore, here’s to Piccard and Borschberg being celebrated alongside other pioneers of both flight and energy. More to the point, so that we may truly “live long and prosper,” I urge you to do all you can to heed Piccard’s admonition (courtesy of yesterday’s edition of the Taipei Times):
We should never accept the world polluted…
The future is clean, the future is you, the future is now, let’s take it further.
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More CO2 than solutions…