The jeremy vine show takes a look at the action by Plane Stupid that shut down Stansted airport.

One issue picked up by the media and now, looking like a handle for BAA to grab on to is class. Some members of plane stupid are from privaliged backgrounds, and that interests journalists for some reason. I`m not sure that this would be the worst thing in the world in normal times but in a receesion it really isnt what you want. It’s easy to drive a wedge between those supposedly with the luxury of protest and those who need cheap air fairs and a strong economy.

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From the Guardian (link)

Plane Stupid’s activists train in protest techniques, such as padlocking themselves to things, so as she sat on the ground near Stansted’s runway, Rosie Slay was not overly concerned for her safety, despite the bicycle D-lock attaching her to a fence by the throat. Safety is always a big consideration during the group’s actions, she says.

The police had arrived shortly after the protesters, and were removing them one by one from their makeshift barricade, cutting some loose with bolt cutters. It still took more than two hours, to the demonstrators’ delight, though Slay didn’t delay the officers for as long as she had hoped – the police found the key to her lock on the grass.

Five days after the daring 3am action that shut down one of London’s airports, cancelled 52 flights, disrupted thousands of passengers, amassed huge international publicity and prevented the equivalent damage, by Greenpeace’s estimate, of 2,162 tonnes of CO2, the young activists of Plane Stupid have been reflecting on what they consider as the enormous success of their intervention.

“We were really, really happy as we were getting arrested,” says Slay, 20, a student originally from Hackney, east London. “We had people on the phones talking to the media and as we got more and more information about the amount of coverage, we were really elated.”

Coverage of Monday’s protest, and the curiously polite radicals who staged it, has focused on their backgrounds as “toffee-nosed youngsters”, a collection of supposedly spoiled rich kids with more time than insight.

Still essentially a student movement, there is no question that like most university campuses, Plane Stupid is more white and more middle class than the national demographic.

But the most striking common characteristic of those who took part in the protest is their unwavering conviction, which is compelling.

Josh Moos, who like Slay is a student at Sussex University, is at 21 almost an elder statesman of the group, having been involved with the campaign since shortly after it was set up three years ago. He used to be “an armchair environmentalist”, he says, but “I realised from further reading that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time. All further issues are of course important but they all become subjugated to the issue of climate change.”

His unofficial role during the runway occupation was to reassure the newer campaigners. The group also provides training in techniques for resisting arrest, media skills and advice on how to deal with your parents.

In total, 54 people were arrested on the taxiway at Stansted, along with a further three as they attempted to leave. Dan Glass, one of the group’s leading figures in Scotland, came south to participate with 14 other “affiliates” in Monday’s action, but only two chose to get arrested on the runway. The rest preferred to keep their noses clean in anticipation of potential future protests at Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.

Last summer Glass, 25, hit the headlines after supergluing himself to Gordon Brown. He rejects the middle class tag, particularly when applied to those living in the poor Glasgow suburbs campaigning against the expansion of the city’s airport: “Fifteen percent of the population never even fly, and many of them live in Clydebank, where they are really affected by Glasgow airport. In Scotland the demographic of people involved includes a lot of people who are really economically marginalised,” he says.

While some have characterised the action as that of “militant environmentalists”, the group argues that what is seen today as dangerously radical will one day be accepted. “We are definitely on the radical end of the spectrum and that is where we wish to be,” says Moos. “Visionaries are initially seen as radical before the mainstream catches up with them and accepts their policies.”

For various legal reasons taxing aviation isn’t an easy thing to do. Thats a shame as even the British govornment acknowledge the importance of the polluter pays principal.

Now, it looks like climate change activists are getting around the problems of official taxation by levying a de facto security tax.

Tarmac incursions are particularly difficult to police because airports have huge surface areas. “The amount of time and money you would have to put into perimeter security is enormous,” an expert said. “Some airports are spending 40 percent of their entire budget on security, and that number is going to go up.” The additional cost would “undoubtedly” be paid for by the traveling public, he said. Source: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/12/09/ap5799498.html

With the continuing gulf between govornment goals on climate change and govornment actions the time for direct action has come–things are hotting up in the UK.

After participating and a direct action against aviation organised by Plane Stupid I ended up in a police cell being charged with agrevated tresspass. Then I returned home to find that eight police officers had searched my room and the comunal areas of the house. Apparently they left at 2:50am!

In my absence they decided to take my printer, my mobile phone, all of the leaflets on my wall, my notes for a report i`m writing, my camcorder, all my credit cards, my membership of Kew gardens and a few other things. If my laptop where in my room it sure as hell wouldnt be here for me to post this with.

The action at Stansted was inevitably going to lead to arrests and we where prepared for that: this was my first time in a police cell. The experiance in custody was actually pretty good, and it was great fun listening to the Jeremy Vine show on bbc radio 2 (the uk’s most popular radio station) which lated around 20 minutes and was overall a very good discussion of why we risked personal arrest and upsetting the public. I must say right now I feel like i have been robbed. What does a camcorder or a printer have to do with a direct action against Stansted: preciesly nothing.

However, i shouldnt dwell to much on what the police where doing while I was out the building as I was doing something far more important. It’s great not to have to look back rosy eyed on the sixties and the civil rights movement. We have something of similar importance, arguably greater, and this fight against catastrophic climate change is happening now. Such movements are never recognised as the moral forces that they are untill after the change they are pushing for has been achieved. The militant Suffragettes where not politically acceptable at the time and where widel derided but now you will be hard pushed to find someone willing to criticise them. Well, that thought helps when sitting in police cells or in a room with half it’s contents gone.

Video:

Stories:

Politics.co.uk Analysis
Independent
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Environmental News Service

From the BBC

Ed Miliband is the first climate change and energy secretary

The government has committed the UK to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by middle of this century.

Climate change and energy secretary Ed Miliband said the current 60% target would be replaced by a higher goal.

He told MPs the government would not “row back” on green issues in the light of the current economic crisis.

He also warned the big energy companies they face legislation if they did not end “unfair” pricing policies in his first statement to MPs in his new job.

Mr Miliband told MPs the government accepted all the recommendations of the report from Lord Turner’s Committee on Climate Change.

The target does not include aviation or shipping emissions.

It’s odd that Milliband ‘accepted all of the reccomendations’ but failed to include aviation or shipping. I say odd because one of the reccomendations was that:

“The CCC also advised that the UK’s climate change strategy, and the 80% target, should include international aviation and shipping.” (press release, pdf)

Yesterday i trekked across London to Newham town hall in East Ham. We held a rather disorganised flash mob all wearing red STOP AIRPORT EXPANSION t-shirts. After this and a brief photo-opp we headed inside.

Overall democracy works in a very interesting way. It starts off by getting a free ticket to the event, walking past perhaps 15 police officers and heading for the rubbish bins. Once you are past the rubbish bins you notice that you are in a dank back alley with little light but a small door is open as your way ‘out’ or in fact in-to the public galleries. Once you go through this door its just a matter of trying out the first door you come to, which reassuringly opens, rather un-reasuringly it opens onto breeze blocks. The next door is more successful, this leads you into the gallery where you can look over–but not interact with–the planning session. A sign notes that silence is requested from the galleries, it doesn’t say anything about not filming but the Chair of the meeting does! Isn’t there meant to be something about a free media, or transparency in how democracy works? From the vantage point you can now look down unhindered by use of recording equipment and enjoy acting as a bystander in proceeding–as soon as you finish being insinuated against as an anarchist element that is. It’s quite a heady experience, looking down on these clowns–or more appropriately jesters–if you are ever down at Newham town hall then please to check out the coat of arms which has the colours of a jesters hat!

The good bit is when the council spokespeople get started,some nice ideas some hilarious non-secateurs and diversions. A couple of my favourite arguments where, firstly, that air pollution models aren’t accurate but from current modeling a couple of roads looked likely to be impacted in an unacceptable manner. Not good, you would think, however the boroughs already poor air quality comes to the rescue. We are told that since this level of air pollution isn’t anomalous it is nothing to be worried about! However the pice de resistance was a consultant brought in to talk about the carbon management plant the airport where working on. There was talk of the fact city businessmen who mainly use the airport where coming in by tube–so that’s green, the airport operators where doing ISO14001, which i`m sure you all know is a sustainable management code, and at one point i expected him to tell us about the aerating faucets they used to save energy and water. Come on people get real! Flying is the most environmentally destructive thing you can do–unless you own a forest which you can burn down. The oddest bit of this testimony was the talk of fiscal measures and–wait for this–carbon capture and storage! What in gods name does possible government responses to climate change have to do with this hugely polluting plan. He could have just shouted–look over there nothing of interest going on here. It was a joke.

By this time it was getting late and i had to leave despite no objectors or proponents having spoken. I hear that democracy only got better…

It was clear what the council position was, and it wasn’t going to be easy to shift as the widely criticised aviation white paper was there to help them, as was the support of London mayor Boris Johnson. So the council position focused the issues narrowly, looked farcical on sustainability, relied to a terrible white paper and advice from the deputy prime ministers office. It is clear that a generally pro-aviation stance exists within government and that local democracy has very little to do with how events proceed.

Lord Turner of the Climate Change Committee has just written to Ed Milliband of the newly formed Department for Energy and Climate Change. This letter–reccomending 80% cuts in emissions by 2050 along with inclusion of international aviation and shipping–has made waves in the news.

Read the letter: (PDF)

This bit on aviation and shipping is interesting:

“The 80% target should apply to the sum of all sectors of the UK economy, including international aviation and shipping. To the extent that international aviation and shipping emissions are not reduced by 80%, either these sectors would have to purchase credits, or more effort would have to be made in other sectors. We therefore recommend that the emissions reduction target for those sectors covered by the Climate Change Bill should be at least 80%.”

As part of the climate change bill the government set up and advisory committee, which Gordon Brown tasked with finding a suitable target. Well, they have, and the target is 80% reduction by 2050 including aviation and shipping.

That sort of demand is 10 a penny from the likes of the sustainable development commission, environmental audit committee and various NGO’s but this is coming from the very organisation setup to offer advice on the climate bill…it would be odd if the advice where ignored.

• Press Association

The UK govornment are fighting all plans to restrict aviation expansion including the use of the EU ETS , not content with blocking sane climate policies they are also trying to block evidence of the counterarguments to there policies. For example, the SDC and IPPR produced a report calling for a halt to aviation expansion untill the contested evidence was settled and a concencus found, now, thanks to the govornments apparent intransigence they have published a summary report in an attemp to force the issue.

A whole slice of civil society are saying that aviations costs are grossly underestimated and its benefits exagerated; the govornment and aviation say this isn’t the case. According to the govornment this dosent constitute controversy.