Thomas+Malthus

= Malthus & The Airline Bailout = Who is Malthus, and what did he believe in? ** Malthus lived until 1832, and was an economist. His main concerns were the size of the population,and resources that the Earth had to sustain the population. He believed that the population would eventually get so great that there would not be enough resources for everyone. Because of this, he saw a grim future for the human population.


 * What exactly is the airline bailout? **

After the terroist attacks on September 11, 2001, the airline industry lost a lot of business. To help compensate them for their losses President Bush signed the Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act. By doing this he allocated money to airlines to help bail them out because of the low number of flyers.

Although Malthus would be in favor of bailing out public transportation, he also would have believed that the money used to bail out the airline industry could have been allocated in a better way to other industries of transportation. For example, the Mass Transit.
 * What We Think: **

Exactly how much money was allocated to bail out the airline industry? []

**​ Airline Consumption ** On average an airline company will use 18.85 BILLION gallons of oil per year. The United States will emit 1.5 BILLION tons of CO2 per year. The European Union emits a total of 3.1 BILLION tons of CO2 per year.

In 2001 using a Boeing 747 jet aircraft while it is 80% full, the fuel consumption is more than a bus and a private car put together. On a flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, a distance of 6,035 km, the fuel used is 109,774 liters. On the same flight but from Detroit to Los Angeles, the distance of 3663 km, the fuel used is 60,775 liters.

**Airline Pollution**
British scientists have predicted that aircraft emissions will be the largest contributor to global warming by 2050. All the pollution from aircrafts has been drawing concerns to governments across the world and particularly in Europe. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicts that U.S. airline passengers will double from 739 million to 1.4 billion in the year 2025. They also predict that air traffic control will handle 95 million flights in 2025 and right now they handle 63 million flights. With passengers increasing, there will have to be more air traffic control and as a result CO2 emission will grow. CO2 emissions are already at a maximum and the airline industry will be wasting them away faster than ever in the near future.

Our Consumption
According to the economist Immanuel Wallerstein, the consumption factor of the average United States citizen is 32. This number means that we consume about 32 times more than the average person living in Kenya, the place where the consumption factor is based to be one. Now you may be thinking that in comparison to Kenya of course we consume more; however, China's consumption factor is still about 11 times lower than ours. Their quality of living is not 11 times lower than our own. As a country we are consuming too much. One market which uses a lot of resources is the airline industry. This brings us to the question, is bailing out the airlines really helping our country? [] --> page 46 Eventually we will run out of resources that are essential to our everyday lives. We must stray away from this because it will have a great effect on the population. By using these resources wastefully, we are only speeding up this process that Malthus believed would lead us to our doom.
 * What will happen to our non-renewable resources?**

"British Airways has concluded talks with its trade unions about the future benefits of its defined pension plans, but still has to finalize an agreement with the pension's trustees and with the U.K. pensions regulators." Wall Street Journal by Enza Tedesco and Kaveri Niththyananthan Malthus would recognize creating a new pension plan as a difficult task because of the growing population.
 * How do airlines deal with mergers? **

"History of U.S. Gov't Bailouts." //ProPublica//. 15 Apr. 2009. Web. 12 Apr. 2010. [].
 * Works Cited**

Diamond, Jared. "What’s Your Consumption Factor?" //New York Times// 2 Jan. 2008. Print.

"Concern Grows over Pollution from Jets - USATODAY.com." //News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com//. Web. 13 Apr. 2010. .

"File:Thomas Malthus.jpg - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia." //Main Page - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Web. 10 Apr. 2010. . Heilbroner, Robert L. //The Worldly Philosophers: the Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers//. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. Print.