THE MORNING RANT: Delta Airlines Is Backpedaling from Obedience to the Climate Religion’s Commandments

The good news is that Delta Airlines is acknowledging that its previous green energy and net-zero goals cannot be achieved by the deadlines it had committed to.

The bad news is that Delta Airlines is still playing footsie at all with the green energy hustlers, rather than stating the simple truth that the “net zero” objectives cannot be met and will not be met. Most importantly, it’s frustrating that airline executives do not have the backbone to defend their businesses and assertively reject the premise that an airline should aspire to be carbon-free. Airlines fly on petroleum-based jet fuel. There is no shame in that.

But in Delta’s defense, executives at United and American are even bigger cowards, letting Delta take the first public steps toward backing away from the major airlines’ unattainable climate pledges.

“Delta Air Lines Waters Down Net-Zero Target to an ‘Aspiration’” [Bloomberg – 4/14/2026]

Delta Air Lines Inc. quietly scrubbed a pair of key environmental targets from its sustainability web page late last week. The Atlanta-based carrier deleted its pledge to use sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for 10% of its jet fuel by 2030. It also rephrased its quest to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 as an “aspiration,” rather than a “goal.”

Delta had promised to be using 10% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2030. SAF is made from used cooking oil and other non-petroleum sources. Delta’s SAF use has maxed out at 0.5%, or just 1/20th of what it had promised. There just aren’t enough “sustainable” sources of raw materials to make the SAF. Maybe people need to start eating more french fries and chicken fried steaks.

A Delta spokesman is quoted as saying ”While we have successfully increased use of SAF every year, we recognize that the technology has not advanced as rapidly as the industry requires.” In other words, promises were made based on technology that did not even exist at the time. The clean energy pledges were made with the hope that technologies would “advance rapidly.”

The airlines might as well have been making promises based on energy produced by perpetual motion machines. It would be no less speculative. It is a tremendous disgrace to corporate respectability that executives of publicly-traded companies – people making tens of millions of dollars per year – are making childish promises that they cannot fulfill. And I’m not sure which is worse, the public dishonesty of those executives who know they’re lying about their goals, or the maleducated executives who believe the green energy hype. Perhaps their egos allow them to believe that if they command it, it will happen.

The goal of being “net zero” in 24 years is just as dishonestly ludicrous. Changing this from a “goal” to an “aspiration” is just another weaselly way of stating that pledges are being made that won’t ever be fulfilled, but the executives aren’t honest enough to admit it.

It’s way past time for corporations to stop serving as mouthpieces for the left’s political agenda. Until then, corporations in service to the left don’t deserve our principled defense when the communist snakes those corporations have been coddling choose to bite them.

I Don’t Understand Advertising

Normally when I’m ranting about corporations, usually for their woke political activism, I know the subject I am talking about.

Today, just for fun, I want to comment on something I know very little about – advertising. There is so much about it that puzzles me, such as why auto manufacturers have spent a fortune advertising EVs which consumers won’t buy, rather than targeting their advertising toward vehicles that customers would purchase. Or why Gillette had an advertising campaign in which it accused its (soon-to-be-former) customers of being sexual predators. Advertising is weird.

Anyhow, I saw these signs while grabbing some coffee at a Dunkin’ Doughnuts at an airport recently, and I just don’t get it.

One sign says: “SLOW AND STEADY – We craft our donuts slow and steady, hand-finishing them into perfection.”

Is this a re-purposed barbecue advertising campaign? Who equates “slow and steady” as being a way to sell a flash-fried pastry?

The other sign says: ”TRIED AND TRUE – The donuts in our case today are still inspired by our original recipe dating back to 1950.”

“…inspired by”?? The styling of a Chrysler 300 is inspired by Rolls Royce. I saw a watch at Wal-Mart that was inspired by Rolex. What a puzzling admission that Dunkin has altered its recipe. When doughnuts were made fresh in-store, I recall them being much better than the doughnuts now made at a central commissary and shipped in.

To Dunkin’s credit, their coffee is still 100% arabica, and there are still 16 ounces in a pound of Dunkin coffee. And unlike Starbucks, Dunkin has never confronted me about racial injustice when I order a cup of coffee.

I suppose it’s actually a successful ad campaign, since Dunkin hasn’t run me off as an occasional customer. That is more than I can say about certain ad campaigns from Gillette, Anheuser-Busch, Cracker Barrel, and other woke companies who will never receive another dime from me.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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