synchronised sniffles

[abendgules]

...that's my sweetie and me.
I've got a mild-to-medium head cold, and he's fighting it off, or at least trying to put it off till the weekend. His next big work engagement is next Tuesday, and the last thing he wants is to be sneezing on his clients.
Because Robert works from the living room, I can't even bewail the poor quality of daytime TV. I've read my latest whodunnit and am fresh out of sookie stackhouse books (6 down 3 to go, I think).
Knitting and scribing take up too much energy today.
I can't even revel in the beautifully clear and crisp spring days we've had.
I find it astonishing how good the weather has been during the flying ban, and can't help but wonder what effect ridding the skies of their biggest pollution-injectors for almost a week had on our local micro-climate.
London has had air pollution since people started burning wood for fire - it's just changed in qualty and quantity over centuries. Now that we don't have (local) coal-burning, and cars run on unleaded, it would be fascinating to know if removing the fuel burned by one plane a minute taking off (plus the cumulative effect of thousands of people travelling through Heathrow) made a measureable difference to air quality.
Yes, I know - the flight ban cost our economy squillions in lost labour, and untold aggravation for people ready to end their holidays. Frankly, I think it just shows how fragile the air travel & freight sector economy is - one weeks lost income is so damaging that some companies may not survive. I also have limited sympathy for folks 'trapped' in Tuscany, Crete, Spain or other holiday locations.
If you wanted to open a corner store and relied on constant trade, could not absorb unexpected losses, had to hit up the goverment for subsidies and tax breaks, and were only six weeks from bankruptcy all the time...your bank manager would laugh you out of the branch.

Comments

[suelet.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, after 9/11 the agencies that have permanent air testing equipment set up in north america checked their readings. For the two days that flights were completely grounded, the air quality was some of the best since they've started recording these things.

A pretty graphic example of how much airline fuel really does pollute the planet....

[maryf.livejournal.com]

Airlines generate less than 2% of the CO2 so I'm not sure that's true......May be it's dominated by the weatehr conditions

[suelet.livejournal.com]

I just remember reading the report and being somewhat flabbergasted by it.

Of course, in the days following 9/11, a lot of people weren't going anywhere by car either.

[ethnowoman.livejournal.com]

I'm not following the whole flight ban situation, but I know that if I were trapped in Spain or Tuscany or anywhere I would be pretty pissed off, having very likely travelled there on a tight budget, with work obligations piling up at home.

[maryf.livejournal.com]

Not just people on holiday - 2 of my department have been stuck in Bangalore. They were due to fly back on Saturday, but coudln't - they couldn't even get as far as Dubhai where they were supposed to be changing flights cos the airline wouldn't take them. They returned to a hotel in Bangalore which turned out to be next to the cricket ground that was later bombed! The airline told them no flights until 27th April, and then kept moving it out. We've (well one of the admin assistants) have been trying all week to find a route home, or at least back to mainland Europe for them. Today was the earliest, and they are now (hopefully - take-off in 4hrs) flying Banglaore-Dubhai-Malta-Brussels-East Midlands, then driving from there. One of them has young children at home who are so upset they can't even talk to him on the phone without bursting in to tears, the other is struggling with medical problems. It's been a huge effect for some people.....

[exmoor-cat.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's my inner steampunk, but I've been hankering after certain modes of transport for years - e.g. Zeppelins or the grand flying boats of the 1930s. A more relaxing flying experience.