It actually applies to your previous sentence:
> The world economy and society would utterly collapse without airplanes.
Neither the "world economy" nor "society" depend on airplanes.
Planes make some aspects more convenient (for sure) but "depend"? Not so much.
Here in England, we have had two absolutely delightful "collapses" since 2000
as a result of a) the terrorist inspired US flight shutdown in September 2001
and b) the Eyjafjallajökull inspired European flight shutdown in April 2010.
Both caused inconvenience to a small (globally microscopic) subset of the world's population
(mostly through people being stranded and unable to fly *back* to their homes).
Both caused clear & quiet skies of a nature that had simply been unimaginable by many
people prior to the events.
Neither caused the world economy to crash.
Neither caused global society to collapse.
In fact, I'd love a similar "collapse" like that every year.
If you want to introduce it in a gentle way rather than the big bang shutdowns
of the above, simply tax the ******* fuel for planes at the same rate as the
European governments do for car fuel and ramp up the tax annually until the
aircraft industry goes the way of the buggy-whip makers.
That will make for a "soft landing" that should assure even you of the fact that
air travel is, has been, and will always be a luxury, not a necessity (and certainly
not something that is critical to holding up the world economy or society).
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