It’s Getting Hot In Here

Here in the UK, aviation has become the political hot potato it surely should be. Getting on a plane is the single most environmentally damaging thing that you can do and flying is already the fastest growing cause of global warming. The leading British climate scientists at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and the University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research have both published reports recently which highlight the flat contradiction between the British government and aviation industry’s plans for a massive growth in aviation and the imperative requirement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In Britain, the growth in flying has become the public frontline in the fight against rising carbon emissions. Over the last year, activists from Plane Stupid, the group I helped establish, have broken into airports, occupied airline offices and disrupted aviation industry conferences. In the past month, things came to something of a climax as BAA – the company who own and operate almost all of Britain’s airports – took legal action to try and prevent protestors from camping outside London’s Heathrow airport to protest against plans for a new runway. Thousands turned up anyway. Read about it here.

In 2008 Prime Minister Gordon Brown – who holds a cosy relationship with the aviation industry, will have to decide whether or not he is going to ignore the science and the majority of the public who oppose aviation expansion. He knows that if he does he’ll have a fight on his hands.