Say what you like about Sir Richard Branson, but you cannot fault his willingness to suffer in the cause of a photo-opportunity. At the launch of a recent Virgin Atlantic test flight to demonstrate a jet fuel made from coconut and babassu oil, the Virgin boss took a swig of the new biofuel from a coconut shell to drive home his message that aviation could be “truly sustainable” and endured the consequences, burping biofuel, for the rest of the event.

But then desperate times require desperate measures, and aviation is in a fix. First, the airline industry is rightly seen as the cuckoo in the nest of carbon reduction. ... Read full article