According to the Guardian almost everyone seems to be against the third runway, but they do not mention that 'everyone' is usually wrong about everything.
Here are a few reasons why having a third runway is the only way to go, especially if you care about co2 and the environment.
1. a third runway will stop hundreds of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel being burned over Greater London by circling planes waiting to land, because there is no third runway at the moment.
2. enable domestic 'hub' flights from places like Leeds and Manchester save fuel by going to Heathrow instead of Amsterdam or Frankfurt as they are forced to do now, because there is no third runway at the moment.
3. enable a few hundred people who live in a horrible place near Heathrow airport get reasonable compensation and move some where much nicer for the greater good.
4. prevent the insane Tory nimby 'eco' plan supported by Boris Johnson, which involves destroying the Thames estuary by building not one, but three or more runways in the middle of a nature sanctuary, plus road, rail and helicopter links.
5. stop an unholy alliance of sickeningly self righteous and hysterical and miss informed, science spouting but anti science, eco fascists, led and manipulated like sheep by the likes of Greenpeace and the Tory Party, using obstructionist and anti democratic means, in an attempt to force society to make self harming decisions which do not save the planet in any way what so ever, and would cause more co2 consumption not less.
• air flights cause 3 per cent of co2, eating meat causes 18 per cent.
• flying car could not be answer.
5 comments:
Can't help thinking this is not an *entirely* balanced rundown of the points in favour of the third runway. Anyway, even if London didn't already have *more* than three runways, arguing that the solution for too many planes in the air is more runways and not less planes is like saying that the answer for too many cars is more roads. Despite the fact that the money needed will almost certainly be diverted from other far less controversial projects.
You are right about the lack of balance; but although it does have it's place 'balance' is mostly the escape route for guilty bystanders and cowards; you need some guts to take a position and make decisions. The analogy with air travel and cars and roads does not work. Plane flight is a communal form of transport, and highly efficient in the use of land space. Planes are also far cleaner and safer than cars. The best thing to do for the environment and everyone's health would be to ban all cars from London within two years, and turn part of the M25 into a third runway. In fact then we could have 4 or 5 runways, no problem. If health and the environment were really a national priority that would be a serious proposition. The anti road movement while claiming to be 'eco' mainly campaigned against bypasses which keep pollution to a minimum and out of towns and cities. Todays anti plane lobby seems to have exactly the same ability to miss the point and ignore the facts and realities. The main difference is that now more of these well meaning fools are B list celebs.
'Plane flight is a communal form of transport, and highly efficient in the use of land space.'
Hmm, highly efficient in the use of land space simply means that a plane uses the ground for a mile or so to take off, and then to land, and after that it's free money (apart from the cost of keeping tons of metal and passengers in the sky). If it was efficient overall, it wouldn't be so heavily subsidised. But communal transport sounds like a good idea. Ban cars and invest in buses and trains, maybe canal boats. Everyone wins.
Apoligies if this repeated, by the way. I'm still trying to figure out what goes after username and what goes after password. I should have wrote it down when I got lucky last time...
Thanks joe for your comments and beating the safehouse security system. Glad you agree air flight is highly efficient in the use of land space.
The main subsidy for air travel, no VAT on fuel, is nothing to the subsidies car transport gets. The tax payer has to build and maintain all the roads, not to mention the road cops. Airports are built and maintained almost free by private enterprise. The Japanese and American car manufacturers also get massive subsidies, otherwise they would never agree to employ our hugely expensive and fairly unproductive work force.
Air transport in fact gets the same government fuel subsidy as canal transport, another excellent form of travel as you point out, although it is a bit slower.
But air travel gets proportionally less of a subsidy than canal travel, as the tax payer also has to maintain all the canals.
Likewise if you consider the amount of money spent on cycle lanes, may of which are a huge waste of money and dangerous, bicycles get proportionally similar government subsidies as airplanes.
There are more people killed on the roads every year than the Gaza war and Afghanistan put together. The only way is to drive the invader out of our towns and cities, and end the occupation of the internal combustion engine.
Of course communal transport is good, especially air travel which can be brilliant, especially on Virgin and Ryanair two of the best airlines, but we don't want some eco-stalinist dictatorship on transport, so anarchists as well as normal people should be allowed to walk, run, dance, or even crawl, and independent freedom of movement in hydrogen fueled transportation vehicles, including high speed wheel chairs, should be in the constitution, if we had one.
The use of fair ground technology for mass public transit has been completely over looked. Except perhaps on the London Underground which seems to be using some kind of Helter Skelter designs, especially on the Northern Line. Dodgem Cars should definitely not have to pay the congestion charge. A gravity powered cable car system with lines strung in different directions from the top of tall buildings such as the BT Tower and Canary Wharf is also long over due.
Likewize a roller coaster to central London would be hugely popular and far more practice and cost effective than rebuilding Heathrow Air Port in the middle of the Thames estuary as suggested by Boris Johnson.
'Thanks joe for your comments and beating the safehouse security system. Glad you agree air flight is highly efficient in the use of land space.'
That's a very selective take on a clearly qualified statement. If you're not careful, you'll start sounding like one of those smug apologists for the slaughter of civilians in Gaza.
The medium in which cars and boats and trains, and buses and bicycles, travel clearly need to be maintained, but it's not like the medium of air doesn't also. As I said, keeping all that metal up there isn't cheap, and it isn't clean. You probably dismiss the environmental concerns, though.
Whatever it takes to maintain roads and rails and canals, is going to be simpler than looking after the climate, I'd guess.
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