This article originally appeared in our Sustainability in the Air Newsletter.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Assembly is currently taking place in Montreal, with a key focus being on sustainability.  As part of that, controversies around the industry’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) programme are emerging, with one group accusing it of being a “climate fraud.”

CORSIA is seen by the industry as a key tool in the journey to netzero. Under the scheme, emissions were originally meant to be capped at 2020 levels, with carbon offsets accounting for any increase.

Of course, 2020 turned out to be an abnormal year due to COVID travel restrictions. And so, IATA had suggested to ICAO that the baseline be set at full 2019 levels. The compromise that looks to be adopted is that the boundary will lie at 85% of 2019 levels.

Quoted by

November 29, 2022

IS IT JUST ME, or is the entire air travel experience broken right now?

Security lines are endless, terminals are noisier and more crowded than ever, airport lounges have become overcrowded feeding troughs, onboard service isn’t half of what it was pre-pandemic, delays and cancellations are rampant. And so on; it’s across the board.

Initially, as the COVID-19 fiasco wound down, most of the trouble could be blamed on a lack of staffing. Passengers came back faster than expected, and the industry wasn’t ready. The resulting chaos was unpleasant, but was expected to be temporary. Yet here we are on the cusp of 2023, and although things aren’t as dysfunctional as they were six or eight months ago, they still feel badly off-kilter.

What troubles me most is that we seem to be resigning ourselves to it. I fear that we’re plateauing at a sort of “new

The Velvet Underground in Gerard Malanga’s famous photograph:
Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker, Lou Reed and John Cale

October 27, 2013

LOU REED, founding member of the Velvet Underground and one of rock’s most influential musicians, died Sunday on Long Island at age 71. Reed had been ill for some time, and had undergone a liver transplant earlier this year.

This is the saddest news in music since the death of the great Joe Strummer in 2002.

Lou Reed’s career spanned close to five decades. Debating what was or wasn’t his most important work is of course a subjective and perhaps pointless exercise, but in my opinion Reed was responsible for three of the best rock songs of all time. Those would be “Sweet Jane,” “Rock & Roll,” and the seven-minute ode, “Oh! Sweet Nuthin!”

Remarkably, all three of these songs appear on the same album, 1970’s Loaded. The first