It’s merely 50 years since commercial aviation truly took off, as only one-fifth of Americans had ever flown in a plane by 1965. Now, of course, flying is a routine transportation, one we can’t imagine living without. But that’s what the latest edition of Gizmodo’s Meanwhile in the Future does, wondering how life would transform if environmental damage made it so that in 2061 we were in a “world without commercial air travel,” except for special cases of urgent individual need (e.g., transport to a funeral or humanitarian mission). Host Rose Eveleth questions sci-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson and University of Kentucky geography professor Matthew Zook about what this new normal would look like. The latter guest is the one who compares a flightless tomorrow to postwar America if that place and time had been wired. Robinson, meanwhile, wonders if gigantic ships would become itinerant cities.

It’s an interesting thought experiment, in part because it’s such an unlikely scenario that we would try to ward off the Sixth Extinction in this manner. Eveleth quotes 5% as the amount of the carbon footprint caused by aviation (though that’s all flying and not just the commercial kind). Since meat production is responsible for about three-and-a-half times that amount of carbon, it would be a lot simpler to just create in vitro substitutes. Especially since less flying would mean more travel by other environmentally unfriendly vehicles.

Still, a very fun show. Listen here.