Spread the Word Heathrow Demonstration Planned (May 31st)

Demonstration at Heathrow.
Saturday May 31st

Called by Campaign against Climate Change, HACAN, NOTRAG , and others…

Put the date in your diary now, tell everyone you know about it !

On Monday 25th February there was an indoor Rally against Heathrow expansion in the Central Hall, Westminster, with around 3,000 attending (a second Hall had to be used). This was after many local meetings around West London up to a thousand strong. The movement against the Third Runway at Heathrow is snowballing exponentially.

The huge expansion in aviation, of which the Heathrow expansion is the flagship component, is totally incompatible with winning the battle against climate catastrophe, totally incompatible in fact, with the Government’s own Climate Bill.

This is a battle we need to win – and a battle we can win ! We want to see people coming from all over the country to join the tens of thousands who will be protesting in West London. We want a massive show of force to make sure we win our first big victory in the war to redirect Britain towards a low carbon future. Come and be part of it – join a Spring Carnival of Resistance to the Third Runway, Airport Expansion and the insanity of government decisions that would lock us into climate catastrophe.

We can stop the third runway, we will stop the third runway!

Related:

• All Climate Change Action posts on Aviation.
• Recent protests and banner drops at Parliament and Heathrow.

Spread the Word Heathrow Demonstration Planned (May 31st)

Demonstration at Heathrow.
Saturday May 31st

Called by Campaign against Climate Change, HACAN, NOTRAG , and others…

Put the date in your diary now, tell everyone you know about it !

On Monday 25th February there was an indoor Rally against Heathrow expansion in the Central Hall, Westminster, with around 3,000 attending (a second Hall had to be used). This was after many local meetings around West London up to a thousand strong. The movement against the Third Runway at Heathrow is snowballing exponentially.

The huge expansion in aviation, of which the Heathrow expansion is the flagship component, is totally incompatible with winning the battle against climate catastrophe, totally incompatible in fact, with the Government’s own Climate Bill.

This is a battle we need to win – and a battle we can win ! We want to see people coming from all over the country to join the tens of thousands who will be protesting in West London. We want a massive show of force to make sure we win our first big victory in the war to redirect Britain towards a low carbon future. Come and be part of it – join a Spring Carnival of Resistance to the Third Runway, Airport Expansion and the insanity of government decisions that would lock us into climate catastrophe.

We can stop the third runway, we will stop the third runway!

Related:

• All Climate Change Action posts on Aviation.
• Recent protests and banner drops at Parliament and Heathrow.

Making The Iraq War More Eco-Friendly

Now some of you are going to be thinking that you can’t green a war. Wrong! BP greened black gold so why can’t the US military green their quest to secure this valuable resourc? The video bellow by ONN presents a pannel discussion on some of the options.

I personally like the balsa wood jet fighters, although car pooling of troop transports is also pretty good!

Inequality: seeing is believing.

My latest interest is economic inequality. A natural next step after reading Herman Daly and his take 
on ecological economics and the need for a steady state economy; in a steady state economy great wealth for a few actually represents impovrishment of the poor. Even without a steady state economy the image bellow forces us to ask some significant questions…

This image is a visual metaphor displayed graphically, the metaphor is here.

Campaign to get the PM to address the nation on climate change.

I just recieved the following email:

A grassroots campaign to get the PM to address the nation on the big issue…

To find out more, visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lets-Talk-Gordon/8027274329 – you don’t have to be a Facebook member to view the page.
To sign up, visit http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/letstalk – just give your details, you’ll get an email back straight away, click the link in the email and you’re done.

We’re aiming to get 100,000 signatories to the petition so please forward details of the campaign on to anyone who you think might be interested. Once we’ve reached our target, we’ll launch a media campaign to ensure that our message doesn’t go unheard.

In my response to the email list i explained my reasons for supporting the effort:

Hi All,

Just to say that i have signed my name on to this, i think that it is a really good idea. I`m hopefull that others will feel the same and that this will take off.

Recently several people have made the case for an emergency agenda on climate change. Moving this whole issue back from 2050 to 2008. The govornment keep wondering why people wont change their behaviour–isnt the rehtoric strong enought!? But that is preciesly the point, thegovornment has done nothing to suggest that the war on climate change is infact even real. Where are the troops, where are the resources for us to take this on together. In short,. where is the leadership that would encourage solidarity?

I would like to see Gordon Brown give this address to start just such a campaign. Please pass on the email bellow and mention it on any websites/blogs/myspace pages that you may have.
Calvin

Re:Why Heathrow is a terminal case

Reading some coverage of the Plane Stupid action at parliament i came accross this. Some may say that the article is misleading, what do you think?

I sent the email bellow as a response…updates here if and when recieved.

–>

Dear Anatole,

I have just been reading your article in the Times and one section in perticular stuck out:

“The arguments for running down Heathrow have nothing to do with the contribution of aircraft to global warming, which is so small as to be completely irrelevant.”

That is an interesting statement. The Tyndall Centre for Global Climate Change have a different take:

“If the aviation industry is allowed to grow at rates even lower than those being experienced today, the EU could see aviation accounting for between 39% and 79% of its total carbon budget by 2050, depending on the stabilisation level chosen. For the UK, the respective figures are between 50% and 100%.”

This is the pre-eminent climate change research centre in the UK and possibly the world, giving a briefing suitable for journalists and the general public (Briefing Paper 84. PDF). I wonder if you would be so good as to clarify these facts in writing?

Regards,
Calvin Jones

Climate Change Action

Re:Why Heathrow is a terminal case

Reading some coverage of the Plane Stupid action at parliament i came accross this. Some may say that the article is misleading, what do you think?

I sent the email bellow as a response…updates here if and when recieved.

–>

Dear Anatole,

I have just been reading your article in the Times and one section in perticular stuck out:

“The arguments for running down Heathrow have nothing to do with the contribution of aircraft to global warming, which is so small as to be completely irrelevant.”

That is an interesting statement. The Tyndall Centre for Global Climate Change have a different take:

“If the aviation industry is allowed to grow at rates even lower than those being experienced today, the EU could see aviation accounting for between 39% and 79% of its total carbon budget by 2050, depending on the stabilisation level chosen. For the UK, the respective figures are between 50% and 100%.”

This is the pre-eminent climate change research centre in the UK and possibly the world, giving a briefing suitable for journalists and the general public (Briefing Paper 84. PDF). I wonder if you would be so good as to clarify these facts in writing?

Regards,
Calvin Jones

Climate Change Action

Biofuel of the Future: Cellulosic Ethanol

I have recently highligted a great number of studies showing problems with biofuels. From competition with food crops for land and water to encouraged deforestation, fertiliser usage and ecological impacts from pesticides. However, there are reasons for optimism that biofuels have potential, this is perticularly true when we talk about vehicles with 100mpg rather than 20-30. Perticulalry cellulosic ethanol seems to be the way to go, this is a process development challenge.

Chris Somerville [Director of the EBI, UC Berkeley]
Abstract:

The earth receives approximately 4000 times as much energy from the sun each year as the total projected human energy use in 2050. Because plants can be deployed on a large scale to capture and store solar energy, I am interested in exploring the degree to which it may become possible to use photosynthesis for sustainable production of renewable carbon-neutral energy. In considering this possibility, the Secretary of Energy of the US has called for the replacement of 30% of the liquid fuels used in the US with biofuels by 2030. I will outline some of the technical issues that must be addressed in order to understand if it is possible to reach this and related goals. I will also discuss some of the areas in which I envision significant technical advances may enable evolution of the biofuels industry.

The video bellow is from CITRIS at UC Berkeley.

Related:

• All Climate Change Action posts on Biofuels.
• Christian Aid talk covering biofuels in Brazil including labour standards and land ownership.

Heathrow Airport Protest: On Runway + On Parliament Roof

The recent govornment consultation on Heathrows’ expansion has been broadly condemed as a fix. The govornment are getting used to this sort of behaviour, a high court ruling overturned the PR stunt that was their first consultation on nuclear power.

In recent days Greenpeace has done what it does best, visually powerful protests that make the point.

The photo bellow shows one of the photos that made news headlines in over 200 publications.

Today a groups called Plane Stupid upped the anti by lowering banners off the roof of Parliament.

One of the demonstrators, Richard George, 27, from London, said: “I am stood on
the roof of parliament because the democratic process had been corrupted. “The aviation industry had taken full advantage of a weak prime minister to get the Heathrow consultation fixed. “It does not even consider global warming despite everything (Prime Minister Gordon) Brown has said about the environment and despite the massive impact aviation has on the climate.”

Video from the roof of the houses of parlaiment.

These visual stunts are an effective way of making headlines, but the voracity of the opposition to expansion can be better judged from the protest organised by two local opposition groups who mobilised 2’500 people to protest at Central Hall in Westminster.

Related:

• Guardian–Plane Stupid lower banners from the roof of parliament.
• Grist–Greenpeace protest at heathrow.
• This is London–2’500 people protest at westminster against heathrow expansion.

Problems with GDP: Joseph Stiglitz at the Asia Society

Joseph Stiglitz, author of ‘Globalisation and It’s Discontents’ spoke recently (full talk)at the Asia Society in New York City.

In the short excerpt bellow some of the problems with GDP are discussed, along with a facinating anicdote about how special interests have worked to protect this measure…because it is defective.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (“Globalization and Its Discontents”) talks about his new concept of economics, “The Economics of Information,” and his latest book, “Making Globalization Work” – Asia Society

Joseph Stiglitz was chief economist at the World Bank until January 2000. Before that he was the chairman of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001. He is currently a finance and economics professor at Columbia University. He is the author of Globalization and Its Discontents and The Roaring Nineties.

Related:

• All Climate Change Action posts on Economics.
• Herman Daly on Ecological Economics.