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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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chapotraphouse
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No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
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Planes don't spray chemicals. But they do dump jet fuel into the air above cities when they're too heavy to land safely.
Of course if the safer option is available they'll dump it into the nearest body of water, or generally uninhabited terrain such as farmlands or forests.
That said they're flying high above and the fuel is sprayed at a slow enough rate relative to the speed of the plane that they aerosolize and just ride the wind to gently blanket the earth with their cool embrace.
Jet fuel combustion products aren't really produced in a quantity that would be harmful at the ground level, either. There's all sorts of nasty stuff in there, like sulfur dioxide and a ton of VOCs, but they're all produced in such small quantities relative to the volume of the atmosphere that they don't have much of any direct interaction with people or things on the ground.
The greenhouse effect and rain acidification definitely affects people, but they're not directly exposed to the chemicals in question. If you live near an airport runway, you might have an exposure problem from jet fuel.
I live near a flight school, so there's constantly a bunch of prop planes flying around in about a 40km radius around my place. Prop planes run on leaded avgas, and they're constantly spraying tetraethyl lead into the atmosphere. Since the flight school opened here, there's been a recorded year-over-year increase in the water table lead levels and childhood lead exposure. Pb(C₂H₅)₄ is more massive than SO₂ or NO~x~, so it drops out of the sky in the local environment.
Commercial aviation sucks, absolutely, but the overwhelming environmental impact from aviation is from private aviation. This should be a no-brainer, your local dentist's Cessna should be under just as much criticism as Taylor Swift's private jet.
Recreational aviators have had the FAA wrapped around their fingers for decades, and have prevented the removal of TEL from avgas for decades because it would "ruin" their hobby by potentially making the fuel slightly more expensive, potentially having slightly reduced performance with some older engines, and most importantly because it doesn't "smell as good."
Is the smell good really a point of contention for prop plane enthusiasts? They like the smell of leaded gas?
I'll be real, I prefer the smell of big plane jet exhaust. depending on the model it can smell like banana bread. smaller planes just smell like getting hosed down with like turpentine and car exhaust
I have unfortunately had to talk to boomers here who are salty about other airports phasing it out for safety and the EPA finally recognizing 100LL as toxic. They'll just grab onto any reason they can find to stan for the Oil & Gas industry.
I've harped on baby bush blanes so much for being lead-schnuffers so much over the years I figured it was the big boy birds turn for some gentle ribbing
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