Ethical question for y'all (yous'ns, all y'all, youse guys) to help with

I was flying in a 747 from Honolulu to the mainland. 20-30 minutes after takeoff the pilot tells us that due to a malfunction in the heater in the cargo area we have to turn back because there's a dog in it and he'll freeze to death.

BUT, 747s have too much mass, until they've flown for an hour or so, to land safely. So to save the dog the plane has to dump a ton or two or three of fuel into the ocean.

Now, I understand that the airline would rather dump the fuel than to risk a hugeass lawsuit from the dog owner, which would probably happen. To escape litigation, it makes sense.

But from an ethical, and especially from an environmental ethics standpoint, is one dog's life worth the pollution caused by dumping a few tons of fuel into the ocean? Should the dog owners have told the airline, "No, it would be sad to see my dog die, but the effect on other life to dump fuel into the ocean is far greater than the life of one dog"?

Or is another couple tons of fuel such a miniscule amount compared to the fuel, oil and other pollutants we've already dumped that it doesn't matter.

And also realizing that it was dumped from high up while moving fast, so it's going to be spread over probably hundreds of square miles of ocean.

I've wondered since then if the life of the dog was worth it. Of course, to the owners, and probably to the airline (because of litigation), but in terms of the earth, was it worth it? (And I'm not even touching on the ethics of using airplanes to begin with).

Discuss.

It went into the air, which is bad enough, but probably a tiny fraction of the hydrocarbons that get released into the air every day from people transferring fuels among containers like gasoline tanks.

As an animal lover I say Hell yes it was worth it to save a dog!

for the animal lovers. the fuel might kill lots of other animals in the ocean. is the dog worth more than those other animals in the ocean.
but i think the first reply was right. the fuel would prolly evaporate, so the dog's life was definitely worth it IMO.

It vaporizes.
What's with the "too much MASS" to land?
It's weight.

To use the terms mass and weight interchangeably.

If the issue is excessive force due to the plane coming down on the tarmac, then mass is the relevant term because that force is equal to the mass times the square of the downward velocity. That plus the force due to gravity bearing down on the plane are what the suspension system will feel.

Or kinetic energy? Also a function of mass, and velocity.

Ah, minutiae. Let us derail the conversation further so as to not think about the doggy or the fishies. :P

The stress on a plane's landing gear occurs because of the sudden upward acceleration when the mass encounters the ground.

Kinetic energy = mass * square of velocity

It's all related and all kind of cosmic. I think I'll crack open a beer and look at my flower garden now.

:D

When coming down the increase in force adds to the weight of the jet causing it to overtax the landing system unless a lot of weight is shed.

molecules. The molecules would not undergo a physical change, 'cepting perhaps a very small and trivial percentage, adn thus it's still polluting whether it goes into the ocean as far separated molecules (or stays in the air and eventually drifts down to land) or if it had poured straight into the ocean in a stream.

As to using "mass", that is more correct term, as it is vectorless and not dependant on knowing the gravity at hand. At least as I see it, mass is more appropriate here. Or else I would have to say "It can land because it's weight, based on its mass and the gravitational pull of the earth through the Honolulu airport runway, is too much.

Easier to just say mass.

But yeah, one could also quibble and say that using the term "mass" requires that I say "Too much mass, because due to the gravitational pull of the earth through the Honolulu airport runway, the mass would create too large of a weight."

Six of one and half a dozen of the other. I think using mass is more appropriate, though.