20 December 2006

EU Aviation Emissions Scheme

Radio 4's Today Programme had interviews this morning with both Caroline Lucas, MEP for the Green Party, and David Miliband, Sec of State for the Environment, on the subject of the proposed EU aviation carbon trading scheme.

George Monbiot pointed out yesterday that it's very odd to have "bold plans" to make new homes more energy efficient whilst Labour allow airports to keep growing:

The only certain means by which the growth of flights can be curtailed is by restricting the capacity of our airports. Aviation expands to fill the available landing space. Unless the government’s decision to double the size of the UK’s airports is reversed, the rest of its climate change programme is a waste of time.
Finally, the New Statesman had a recent article that profiled the people involved with Plane Stupid, a direct action protest group against the short-haul flight, cheap flights, budget flights industry.

Ellen Rickford, one of the group's youngest members, spent her early teenage years campaigning against the war in Iraq. "The big anti-war march was one of my first political experiences. I saw all those people take to the streets against the war and they were ignored," she says. "This is a bigger, more important issue, and I'm not going to allow that to happen again. The only thing left to do is take direct action."

"I was never interested in party politics or adopting an ideology," says Theo Middleton, a 20-year-old student and Plane Stupid activist. "I realised that the only thing that matters, in the final analysis, is the destruction of the earth. The environmental movement is a complete cross-section of people from different backgrounds and political perspectives, and that is how it should be."

No comments: