zeropointburn's Journal: weird encounter with Jim Starry

So I'm standing outside my workplace smoking a cigarette, minding my own business. Here comes this hobo-looking guy in flannel that just walks up and starts talking about smokers, pollution, and aircraft. He says one flight from coast to cost produces more smokers than all US smokers combined do in a whole year. He claims he has a revolutionary airport design that will cut emissions, but that nobody at the FAA will listen to him. He gives me his name and says to go google him, since he speaks internationally.

My first thought is 'ok, crazy dude... go wander off now'. There's no way in hell someone even remotely famous is going to be in my town unless they flew in for training at my company. I go inside and google him anyway, and guess what... first hit is a USA Today article on the guy.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2004-01-12-starry_x.htm

It looks like he has a pretty good idea, assuming some safety factors can be worked out. He also definitely has the arrogance to keep pushing. Check out this quote from the article:

Starry says the Earth is running out of time. "I say, with total humility, I'm the only person on the planet with simple enough solutions that will make a large enough difference in a short enough period of time to save humanity from total environmental destruction."

Discuss.