Oh what a lot of fun the new-agers are having at Heath-stock
“Flanked by Heathrow Airport on one side and west London's outer suburbs on the other, this is an unlikely setting for an impromptu eco-village. Environmental campaigners have assembled here not just to oppose a third runway for the airport. With their compost toilets, wind turbines and leaderless command structure, they are also keen to demonstrate that an alternative, more sustainable way of living is possible. “( BBC)
So what do they want to do they want us to do , return to the age of the wood fire and bodkin ? Do we increase the cost of Air travel, limiting foreign adventures to the middle-classes and taking us back to the 60s when it was seriously suggested that the poor should not have access to cars ( New Statesman). Or are they saying we should all live on local produce. Well there are problems here
EXAMPLE1Lamb raised in New Zealand and transported 11,000 miles causes 688 Kg of carbon emissions per tonne . Domestic lamb causes 2849 kg ( such is the difference in the efficiency)
EXAMPLE 2 Roses transported from the Netherlands to Britain cases 35,000, kg of carbon emissions per 12,000 stems . If we import from Kenya however the comparable figure is 600kg because of the manual nature of the farming .
Bring on that Green runway then...
Most so called alternative technologies only work if most people do not use them. Medieval sanitation would not last long if we did not have modern hospitals or at least a petrochemical and plastics industry to supply to easy to make bins. Now Bush has joined the Global conference China whose emission will overtake the US by 2009 is unlikely to be allowed a continued exemption . But China’s population live at standards vertiginously beneath Western ones and they will rightly argue that per person they are going to remain a long way behind the West as a polluter. How does a "leaderless" commune help sort this out then ?
By reducing international trade we are certainly harming the economies of the poor. How many of them are prepared to accept that the world has risks whichever way you look at it and Nuclear power is the least hazardous way forward ? Do they seriously think that if we returned agrarian communal life that would help anything...
Complex questions, even if you accept the global warning scares at face value .
While they are fantasising about a new Biblical Eden others will have to deal with the difficult reality
62 comments:
I've tried to be a good shopper - by avoiding Spanish or French tomatoes or apples and buying local produce. This is to help reduce my personal carbon footprint.
Also, where possible, I have bought Fair Trade goods - they may be transported from a distance, but they do, as you wisely point out - help impoverished communities across the globe to help themselves.
And while I accept the complaints of local people who are distressed by thought of increasing noise and traffic, I want to know how much pollution the protesters have caused by driving down to the airport, and how much non-biodegradable litter they are creating?
What the eco-warriors forget is that you can't regulate people's freedom of choice - if more people want to fly, then protesting will not stop the new terminal being built. You have to deal with the demand/supply issues at grass roots level.
People demand to leave the UK for holiday, which is unsurprising. If the UK labour government continues to build on flood plains and rip up our green areas, resulting in more of our touristy towns and countryside becoming susceptible to flooding, this will render travel within the UK impracticable. So, people are bound to hop onto the nearest Easyjet flight to Costa del Sol.
Of course, you could argue that air travel augments the effects of global warming, which causes the flooding in the first place, which makes it impossible to visit UK tourist traps, thereby forcing people to travel overseas.
Catch-22? I suggested this to a colleague, who said: "As we are all buggered, we should enjoy life now and screw the future generations. We'll be dead by then anyway so why would we care?" It's a logical theory at least...
I've tried to be a good shopper - by avoiding Spanish or French tomatoes or apples and buying local produce
Which increases pollution and predates on the third world as per post. The answer is technology and nuclear power to start with . Its the only answer ultimately as Carbon trading relies on the third world saying thrird
So what do they want to do they want us to do , return to the age of the wood fire and bodkin ?
No, we don't. The majority of the protestors are people like me, not stereotype New Agers.
I'm an airport expansion protestor and a businesswoman, n, I - and millions like me - don't fit your stereotyped leveller images at all.
We expect the government - as part of a world wide initiative which will be forced upon all of us to conserve our planet's dwindling oil resources. We want the huge taxpayer's tax and VAT subsidy to multi-billionaire airline owners and airport authorities and rich frequent flyers to be cut.
Oil will start running out in 20-30 years, newmania. What are we going do then?
50% of people don't fly in any one year. 12% of UK's pop have never flown. Why should non flying taxpayers subsidise multi-billionaires to the tune of hundreds of pounds extra tax p.a. each non-flying taxpayer?
What possible justification is there for giving the aviation industry the huge and unique priviledge of £billions in subsidies each year?
As for the poor who can't afford to fly. They would be able to afford it if they had more of their pay in their pockets instead of in Gordon B- Ruin's, wouldn't they?
Those subsidies were solely designed to help the industr recover from the damage done to it during WW2.
World War bloody 2 is over, newmania ~ this is the 21st century ~ we can't have the 20th century back ~ it is gone ~ It's as dead as Monty Python's bloody parrot.
So when are you Conservative Luddites going to move into the present century and accept that the time for taxpayers to fund aviation profits is over?
What level of tax and VAT subsidy we talking about here?
ABOUT £20 BILLION A YEAR!
And there was me thinking you believed in tax cuts...I was obviously wrong.
Auntie Flo'
STANSTED PASSENGERS:
1996: 3 million passengers p.a.
2007: 24 million passengers P.a 2030: 50 million forecast
Do you have any idea of thE impact that has on our local community?
I do, because for a year most of them flew over my cottage, one OOR two every minute, sometimes their wheels seemed to almost touch my roof. It's breakdown material.
For someone like me who's very deaf and uses all manner of electronic paraphenalia to hear, it's hell on earth.
We have a temporary reprieve from it at present while the latest court case on expansion proceeds. But thwy'll be back.
The Heathrow Night Flights court case banned night flights between 11pm and 5am because sleep loss studies which wired some of them up during their sleep measured that the people of Heathrow are woken up:
16 TIMES EACH NIGHT.
Do know what s*dding nulab did when the lost this case? They appealed and the got the ban over-ruled.
Of course there are limits on aircraft noise - but do you how the b*stards calculate these?
They average them. So you can get half the flights at 90 decibels - so loud that you can't work, think or even hear your radio when you are in the bath - and half at significantly less that number of dbls and the airlines meet the requirements.
Auntie Flo'
And hundreds of Stansted and Heathrow protestors - Conservative voters - will lose their homes and villages if expansion proceeds.
Auntie Flo'
Expansion of Heathrow would make life intolerable for a huge number of people at and around Heathrow and its villages.
Expansion of Stansted would make life intolerable for many local people of East Anglia: especially Essex, Herts, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
• more aircraft flying overhead would affect vast swathes of the region.
• Night flights would inevitably increase.
• Children at school would suffer even more interruption to their learning, with ever more frequent interruptions – 'jet pauses' – as planes passed overhead.
• The pressure on the road and rail network from millions of extra passengers travelling to and from the airport each year
• Air quality would suffer hugely
. Ancient woodlands Hatfield Forest destroyed.
• Radically alter the character of the region and put pressure on the infrastructure, including water supplies.
. Increased flooding
• The cumulative effect of all these impacts would be a dramatic deterioration in the quality of life a huge number of people.
Auntie Flo'
STANSTED: SECOND RUNWAY LAND GRAB
Enviromentally devastating.
Stansted would be:
BIGGER THAN HEATHROW
Would destroy - as in demolish and concrete over - communities that have developed over centuries and vast swathes of unspoilt countryside and ancient woodlands and prime farmland.
Requiring the bulldozing of:
• 73 homes, including 18 listed buildings
• 4 county wildlife sites
• 21 hectares of woodland
• 386 hectares of special landscape value
• 47 hectares of high quality landscape character area
• 5.2km of rivers
AN ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE – IT'S OFFICIAL
Two Stansted Public Inquiries and a Royal Commission in the course of the last 30 years have ruled against Stansted expanding beyond a single runway, most recently in the 1980S;
The words of the Inspector, Graham Eyre QC (later Sir Graham Eyre) were as follows:
"I would not be debasing the currency if I express my judgement that the development of an airport at Stansted, with a capacity in excess of 25mppa and requiring the construction and operation of a second runway and all the structural and operational paraphernalia of a modern international airport as we know the animal in 1984, would constitute nothing less than:
A CATASTROPHE IN ENVIRONMENTAL TERMS."
Auntie Flo'
And it's exactly the same for Heathrow:
An environmental catastrophe.
If you doubt that, drive to Heathrow, open your car windows and
SNIFF
How would you like to bring up children there with that their massive air pollution?
Auntie Flo'
Hmmm interesting Flo.
In what way is air travel subsidised then ? I mean how actually does the money go into the pockets of BA ?
Have a look at Stop Stansted Expansion's website:
http://www.stopstanstedexpansion.com/photos_r2_location.html
We're the people who marched and stopped the traffic to the airport.
We're the ones who staged sit down protests. Thousands of ordinary family people who's homes and villages and towns are threatened.
We're nothing like New Agers.
Auntie Flo'
Newmania said...
Hmmm interesting Flo.
In what way is air travel subsidised then ? I mean how actually does the money go into the pockets of BA ?
Just quickly as I'm waiting for three bids to come up on ebay...
Tax and VAT exemptions, newmania.
While the rest of us - individuals, businesses - pay through the nose, aviation gets off scot free.
You buy a car spanner, you pay VAT.
Multi-billionaire airline bosses buy x planes for £millions each, they don't pay a penny tax or VAT.
You fill up your car, you pay through the nose in tax.
Airline bosses fill up their hundreds of planes - and don't pay a penny on their fuel
You buy 20 fags, most of the cost goes in Gordon B-Ruin's pocket.
Airport owners buy 20 million fags, and don't pay a penny VAT.
So who pays their share of UK's total massive tax and VAT burden?
YOU PAY IT, I PAY IT, WE ALL PAY IT WHILE THE AIRLINES AND AIRPORTS GET OFF SCOT FREE.
THERE'S NO SUCH THING A S CHEAP FLIGHT - WE ALL PAY THROUGH THE NOSE FOR THESE - EVEN THOSE OF US WHO DON'T FLY.
Auntie Flo
And that's what it's all about, because
A Flo'
And that's just the beginning.
Aviation makes a balance of payments loss for UK on tourism
Flo
Incoming tourists to UK spend £billions less than outgoing UK tourists spend overseas.
Need to check the current figures, but it's a lot - and projected to get substantially worse as airports expand.
So we subsidise aviation to enable it to lose us money!
Auntie Flo
Ah, but, the airlines/ports will argue, we create thousands of jobs.
Who's jobs, newmania?
Nulab says we're so short of workers that we need to migrate millions here.
Take Harlow, biggest town near Stansted. It was promised thousands of jobs at Stansted if it didn't balk at expansion.
The last figures I saw, around 500 Harlow people - 5% of the workforce - work at Stansted. Most in low paid, unskilled work which Harlow could have given them.
Who gets the lion's share of the other 95%
So those called 'cheap flights' which we all, in reality, pay through the nose for are destroying our domestic tourist industry and cutting jobs there.
Auntie Flo'
Auntie Flo'
Its an interesting thought Flo then you are actuially saying that you would like to 'raise tax' on air travel. My suspicion is that this is not possible as it would simply hand the business to another country and I am fairly certain that they subsidise air travel, more now .
I take your point on jobs and Gerorge Walden makes the same poinmt iom "Time to emigrate" I `m, not sure you have answered the question of the developing world suffering badly from the effect on trade
You're thinking that something doesn't add up here, I imagine, and the trick is to see airports for what they really are.
Giant, VAT free - and VAT avoiding - retail emporia which we all subsidise by paying more VAT and tax.
Where some of the airlines get a % of airport retail sales - i.e. a cut of the extra VAT we, their tax paying proxies, pay for them.
Little wonder that some cost cutter airlines can afford to cut prices to a penny a flight, make losses and fly half empty planes.
Because WE ALL SUBSIDISE THEM to damage our environment and squander our oil reserves out of the excess tax and VAT we pay for them.
Auntie Flo'
Your point about the poor not having cars newmania:
Isn't the wheel coming full circle on that? Aren't this government effectively beginning to tax and depark our cars off UK?
One of the main reasons, I think, may be the need for carbon offsets for aviation.
EVERY PASSENGER ON EVERY PLANE IN AND OUT OF UK USES AS MUCH FUEL AS IF THEY'D DRIVEN TO THEIR DESTINATION BY CAR.
So one round long haul uses as much fuel as an average driver uses in a year's motoring.
Which would most people rather have, their car or that long haul flight?
Now think about globe trotting Blair and all the other politicians - and the rich gits. You're paying not just their big fat salaries and pensions BUT a big chunk of their share of tax and VAT AND you might end up losing your car so they can continue to jet around.
DO YOU WANT TO PUKE NOW, OR LATER?
Auntie Flo'
That's telling you, Mr M
(backs out quickly clutching tin helmet over head)
Pretty convincing Flo I must say
Blair claimed:
If we (or did he say nulab?) want to be a big thing in the EU we must have airport facilities which compete with those of the EU's other countries, so it's vital that we expand.
So s*d the fact we have third world roads trains and services, we can afford to go on handing out massive subsidies to aviation?
In order to make a balance of payments loss on toruism?
Ah, but, wow, Blair said, aviation is a big employer.
Wow, indeed, 500 jobs for Harlow it does not need.
Doesn't it make you wonder if someone's creating Mickey Mouse jobs and Alice In Wonderland airports for their own reasons here?
Auntie Flo'
newmania said:
My suspicion is that this is not possible as it would simply hand the business to another country
GOOD. We'd be £billions better off.
Auntie Flo'
And we wouldn't have to offset all that bloody carbon.
You realise too that this would mean the EU's other tax payers subsidising UK just by way of a change :)
Auntie Flo
Did I tell you that we also subsidised half of around £20 million it cost to make the M11 a service road for Stansted Airport?
What about all of the other massive infrastructural costs - water, drainage, housing etc - which airports necessitate?
Auntie Flo'
Re: International trade.
I understand that we went into WW1 as the world's biggest creditor, we came out as one of the World's biggest debtors.
STOP THE WAR, newmania! That's the single most helpful thing we can do for IRAQ.
How much of their oil is needed for aviation?
Cut run away airport expansion, cut one of the main reasons for them - immigration - and then we should have some money to invest in generating forms of international trade which don't involve a huge carbon footprint.
Auntie Flo'
Messed that last one up - sorry, up half the night prowling my garden watching Leonids.
If I can reconnect my brain here, what I meant was, get out of Iraq, stop subsidising the US there, and stop irrational subsidies to aviation...for whatever reason we make them...and we would be in a much better position to give poorer countries a leg up by investing in low carbon footprint industries overseas to replace their high carbon footprint imports.
I've not once mentioned climate change because I think our main concern should be dwindling oil and energy resources. I use carbon footprint as a code for that problem rather than a code for unproven climate change. As you rightly say, we need nuke power - but we still need oil for our cars at present.
And I want to keep driving!
Auntie Flo'
Another problem re Heathrow expansion is how very vulnerable it will make Heathrow in a recession. Airports are among the first areas to suffer in such downturns because holidays are one the first spending cuts we make.
During the last big recession (early 1990s, if I remember correctly) Heathrow Airport sacked 25% of it's workforce.
The effect on Heathrow was devastating. Small shops and airport suppliers went bust and Heathrow stagnated.
Far better for a town to have a good mix of stable SME employers than to be so dependent on one giant corporation.
So why does Gordon B-Ruin keep stamping on SMEs? And Why is he not pressing the EU to introduce VAT for Europe's aviation industry? The EU is dead keen to curtail the massive carbon wasteland of aviation - it's to Mr B-Ruin huge shame that he's not encouraging them.
Auntie Flo'
Flo if you would allow me to have a think about it I`ll come up with a reply .
I think your last point is very good. The green pontificating on all sides is undercut by the increase in air travel.I `m also all in favour of NIMBY attitudes as thats the only time anyone ever asks you.
I still think you have a problem removing travel from the poor which you would have to to make anuy difference and i think your " thne we could do other things .." line is a bit weak by comparison to the rest of it .
Overall its good case though
IMHO
A one-man protest in Parliament Square could not be tolerated and was ended by police en masse, yet the Heathrow protest takes them by surprise (in this age of global terror?) and a very,very restrained approach is adopted....
At the same time, I am not in favour of the further expansion of Heathrow - the destruction of a community (BAA are set upon destroying 800 homes, bulldozing listed buildings, and making life unendurable for an extra 150,000 West Londoners) an increase from 470K to 800k flights per annum, more noise,more pollution.
Complex questions, as you say.
I think Flo makes some good points on the subsidy to air travel and i have no trouible with the not in my back yard arguemnt which I have always thought was a good one.
I just wonder if the global economy can really do without air travel. Is Flo suggesting we stop subsidising car travel by buillding roads ? Same thing .
newmania said:
i have no trouible with the not in my back yard arguemnt which I have always thought was a good one.
We aren't NIMBYs newmania
AirportWatch is an umbrella organisation for airport expansion protest groups across UK and we're linked to groups across Europe and the world.
UK & EU PROTESTORS ARE UNITED
We are not saying not in our back yards,
WE ARE NOT CALLING FOR AN END TO FLING OR AIRORTS
WE ARE CALLING FOR NO MORE EXPANSION
Because this little island cannot take any more
Auntie Flo'
OR
Build offshore airports
That little island Japan do it very successfully
Of course the cost would be huge - but would be greatly offset by removing aviation industry's unique and massive subsidies.
Why doesn't Gordon B-ruin want that?
Because it's nulab policy to migrate huge numbers of nulab voters into the Conservative voting parts of the South East, drive out the Conservative voters and thereby change the voting patterns of the South East for good.
Auntie Flo'
newmania said:
I just wonder if the global economy can really do without air travel. Is Flo suggesting we stop subsidising car travel by buillding roads ? Same thing .
I DON'T KNOW OF ONE AIRPORT EXPANSION PROTESTOR WHO WANTS TO DO WITHOUT AIR TRAVEL. I DON'T WANT THAT.
IT'S A FALLACY THAT UK TAXPAYER SUBSIDISES CAR TRAVEL - DRIVERS PAY THROUGH THE NOSE FOR IT IN FUEL AND ROAD TAX
YET AVIATION GETS OFF SCOT FREE - IT PAYS ZILCH FUEL TAX FOR ITS PLANES AND FOR IT'S MASSIVE PROFITS
Auntie Flo'
And it's not the majority of us who benefit from that
A SMALL MINORITY OF RICH FREQUENT FLYERS AND AVIATION MULTI-BILIONAIRES ARE THE ONES WHO BENEFIT FROM THAT TAX SCAM
while us, poor average beggars are made to PAY for them
Both in taxes and environmentally
Auntie Flo'
All industries in UK must pay for the environmental damage they cause. And that's fair, isn't it?
That's the POLLUTER PAYS PRINCIPLE
Why, in the 21st century, is aviaton practically the only industry which is
EXEMPT FROM THE POLLUTER PAYS PRINCIPLE?
YET ANOTHER TAXPAYER SUBSIDY TO AVIATION WHICH COSTS US £BILLIONS
What's goign on here, newmania??
Why is aviation being given this grossly priviledged existence?
Auntie Flo'
Ok, let's be fair and objective here.
From BATA - the airlines own association
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:qV6rYWMsUL0J:www.bata.uk.com/Web/Sustainability.aspx+aviation+UK+GDP&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=uk
Aviation is a major UK industry in its own right
Contributing £10.2 billion a year to UK GDP
generating 180,000 direct UK jobs
exporting £6.6 billion a year of services
investing £2.5 billion a year in the UK
contributing £2.5 billion a year to the Exchequer.
Aviation Supports UK businesses
generating and supporting 380,000 indirect and induced UK jobs
transporting £35 billion of UK exports
maintaining unrivalled access to global markets.
Aviation underpins UK competitiveness
growing four times faster than the UK economy
producing 2.5 times more output per worker than the national average
acting as a catalyst for growth in tourism and knowledge-based industries
attracting direct foreign investment.
Auntie Flo
However, are BATA being fair and objective? Is Gordon B-ruin? No. They distort the truth by ignoring the cost of the numerous taxpayer subsidies to aviation.
While you expect BATA to emphasise the positives and forget the negatives - why would our government distort the case for expansion, and they have, hugely in their White paper on this.
One reason that stands out like a sore thumb to me is that 3-4 years ago when the White Paper was released it's growth forecasts had to based on assumptions about huge growth in immigration.
Auntie Flo'
In other words, it seems to me that Blair and Gordon B-ruin had clear targets and figures for immigration and could forecast ahead to 2020 at least on this.
Auntie Flo'
Here's our association, AIRPORT WATCH says on the true benefits and cost of aviation:
"The Government’s estimate of aviation’s contribution to the economy is based on a report largely paid for by the aviation industry."
"The report, The Contribution of Aviation to the UK Economy was carried out by consultants Oxford Economic Forecasting in 1999 with an update in 2006."
"THE REPORT IGNORED THE TAX BREAKS THE INDUSTRY RECEIVES THROUGH TAX-FREE FUEL AND BEING ZERO RATED FOR
WORTH AT LEAST £9 billion a year. "
[and double that as growth proceeds]
"Nor did it factor into its calculations the HUGE COST AVIATION IMPOSES ON SOCIETY & THE ENVIRONMENT, which are estimated to be:
AROUND £16 billion a year."
"And it skated over the point that UK air tourists take more money out than foreign visitors bring in –
THERE IS A TOURISM DEFICT TO THE UK ECONOMY ESTMATED AT AROUND
£17 BILLION A YEAR"
[double that as industry size doubles]
"Independent experts argue that the report over-estimates the number of jobs aviation expansion would create. "
And airport watch has not, I believe, included the cost of infrastructural subsidies or of FLOODING - which could be enormous.
So, TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES TO AVIATION ARE NOW ESTIMATED TO COST US TAYPAYERS AROUND £42 BILLION A YEAR.
AND THESE SUBSIDIES WILL BE HUGELY INCREASED IF EXPANSION PROCEEDS.
Weigh that against aviations:
£10.2 billion a year to UK GDP pa
180,000 direct UK jobs
Exports £6.6 billion services pa
Investing £2.5 billion a year in the UK pa
£2.5 billion to the Exchequer pa.
Aviation Supports UK businesses
generating and supporting 380,000 indirect and induced UK jobs
DO YOU CALL THAT IMPRESSIVE?
SO WHY ARE GOVT ENCOURAGING THIS TAX SUBSIDY DEPENDENT INDUSTRY TO DOUBLE IN SIZE AT A COST OF HUGE HUMAN MISERY, HUGE ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE IN UK AND MORE BURDEN ON THE TAXPAYER???
*Brackets and capitalisation are mine.
Auntie Flo'
sorry, I cut off
"THE REPORT IGNORED THE TAX BREAKS THE INDUSTRY RECEIVES THROUGH TAX-FREE FUEL AND BEING ZERO RATED FOR VAT"
Flo'
And why, at the time when the White Paper on airport expansion was published and an unbiased consultation was upposed to be underway, did BAA feel the need to give around a total of a £million worth of freebies to hundreds of MPs, even MPs who's constituencies were threatened by expansion?
Auntie Flo'
A Japanese scientist has published research which found that little children who live near busy airports have raised blood pressure.
Not to levels that are in any sense dangerous. But what will be the long term effects on such children?
What about the long term effects of aircraft noise disrupting their school lessons throughout each school day?
What if it was your child?
Auntie Flo'
Auntie Flo'
FLo please have mercy !!!! I repent I repent
blimey! good points both.
but this is about an individual's choice - if people demand to fly, then the airports will have to meet that demand.
What the govermnet should do is put more £ back into UK tourist regions to regenerate these and make these more attractive and viable options for people concerned about their carbon footprint.
But you can't deny that a lot of people just don't like spending their holidays in the UK when there is so much wonder in the world to see. Unless they are rich enough to afford cruises, people will fly to sunny and exotic places. Until people have a viable, domestic alternative, they will continue to snap up holiday deals to Jamaica or Myanmar.
You have to change government policy and grass-roots thinking. You cannot change corporate exec decision making.
...unless of course you are a shareholder and can use your voting rights to engage with companies on a socially responsible level. THAT is a real way of making companies change their minds.
Do tax rises ever change behaviour?
Would putting VAT on airline fuel do anything other than give our government another few billions to throw down the drain? (certainly Brown's green taxes on flying don't seem to have done much to reduce passenger numbers)
Let's say you increase the tax on domestic flights (actually a very good idea IMO) oh look national road pricing and rail price hikes, integrated transport policy my rrrrs.
Oh and causing disruption to passengers (as if they'd notice much beyond the draconian security measures that ARE a reason why many people might stop flying), great idea - a few hundred aircraft circling Heathrow more even longer then they have to now causing more noise and environmental pollution..
However I do understand, and sympathise with, the NIMBYs (even the ones who fly to Sri Lanka for their holiday when it suits) and the third runway though, and find it rather ironic to read about Mr and Mrs Vegan driving halfway across the country in their range rover to protest...
Newmania said...
FLo please have mercy !!!! I repent I repent
Thank you, newmania! However, I would like to add the following quote from Gordon B-ruin's pre budget report:
“The Government’s policy, as set out in the 2003 White Paper The Future of Air Transport, is to ensure that aviation continues to benefit the UK economy2
[WHAT A LIE!! NO MENTION OF THE £42 BILLION IT COSTS TAXPAYERS FOR P*SS POOR RETURN]
"by enabling the industry to expand in an environmentally sustainable way
[ANOTHER LIE!! EVADING THE FACT THAT OIL RUNS OUT IN 20-30 YEARS AND THE DEVASTAING EXENT TO WHICH IT INCREASE OUR CARBON FOOTPRINT. IF THAT'S YOUR BENT IDEA OF SUSTAINBILITY, YOU'RE OFF YOUR TROLLEY. BUT LET'S BE HONEST, YOU KNOW IT'S NOT SUSTAINABLE YET YOU CONTINUE TO SPOUT THIS CR*P BECAUSE YOU ARE A LIAR]
"and that aviation should pay the external costs it imposes on society at large, in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle
[WHAT A BL**DY THUMPING LIAR YOU ARE MR B-RUIN, AVIATION PAYS NOWHERE NEAR THE £16 BILLION WORTH OF ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE IT CAUSES IN UK, BECAUSE YOU CHOSE TO CONTINUE TO EXEMPT IT FROM THE POLLUTER PAYS PRINCIPLE.]
OF COURSE YOU DON'T GIVE A TOSS ABOUT OUR CHILDREN, DO YOU B-RUIN, SINCE YOUR CHILDREN'S HEALTH ISN'T BEING DAMAGED?].”
The aviation white paper allows for a doubling of air passenger transport between 2002 and 2020, and a doubling of air freight between 2002 and 2010.
“To avoid the economic consequences of constraining aviation growth, further expansion of UK airport capacity is needed
[LIAR!!! YOU CONTINUE TO ARTIFICIALLY GENERATE THAT GROWTH WITH HUGE TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES WHICH YOU FORCE EVEN THE POOREST AND THE 12% WHO FLY TO PAY].
Heathrow plays a unique role in the UK as a hub airport, and demand for capacity already significantly exceeds supply, leading to less competition, greater congestion, reduced choice and higher prices for passengers.
[DEMAND WOULD EXCEED SUPPLY WOULDN'T IT AT THE FALSE PRICES YOU'RE GENERATING WITH ARITFICIAL AND UNSUSTAINABLE SUBSIDIES!]
Where there are net benefits from doing so, the Government supports the expansion of UK airports,
including at Heathrow, and will identify the necessary mitigation measures to allow relevant limits on air quality and noise to be met.”
[LIAR! YOUR ALLEGED 'MITIGATION' CONSISTS OF MANIPULATING THE TRUE LEVEL OF NOISE POLLUTION WITH AN AVERAGE MEASURE WHICH DELIBERATLY CONCEALS THE DAMAGING NOISE LEVELS.
USING YOUR PHONEY AVERAGE MEASURE,MR PHONEY GORDON B-RUIN, IF I PUT ONE FOOT IN A BOWL OF ICE AND THE OTHER IN A BOWL OF SCALDING WATER, I'M COMFORTABLE AND IN NO DANGER OF SCALDING OR FROSTBITE.
LIAR, LIAR LIAR!!
B-ruin's 2003 White Paper was a fix from start to finish - IT WAS yet another DODGY DOCUMENT from nulab and it is high time our PM was nalied for this.
Auntie Flo'
to change the subject completely,
WHERE IS THE HITCH? What's happened to him? Has he been arrested and his hard drive examined...
Travis bickle, re your assumption that we always have a nulab government, words fail me. You said:
find it rather ironic to read about Mr and Mrs Vegan driving halfway across the country in their range rover to protest...
I haven't flown for around 12 years - I have even given up piloting light aircraft (co-piloting actually, too deaf to hear ground control so no license for solo flights) - because of my objections to aviation squandering my children's future. However, I do not seek to impose my objections on anyone else.
I do not fly now despite living near Stansted and having God knows how many people flying over my cottage and my head day and night. And no I didn't move near the airport, it came to me, there were NO planes flying from Stansted when I moved here.
Tell me Travis, what will you say when your children or grandchildren look you in the eye after our oil's run out and our planet is polluted to b*ggery and ask you, "How COULD you have allowed this to happen?"
Travis: "Well, I wanted to fly every week, you see kids and I couldn't allow little things like your future to spoil my fun, now could I?"
Auntie Flo'
Hallo Travis
I don`t think Nimby is an insult , who esles back yard should I care about. Its an astonishing leftist acheivemtn to make people feel bad about vcaring for their locality
Mermaid ...Hitch was caught last night in flagrante delicto with a male prostitute and he has gone to ground to avoid the ignominy..
Now why don`t you and I forget all about Hitch .....mmmm?:)
Flo I really really promise never to argue with you about this ever !
Auntie Flo
Chill........
1) I never mentioned a NuLab government in any context. Bit of an assumption there methinks.
2) Where did I say that I wanted to fly every week? You must be joking, there are better places to stand in line for hours and be treated like excrement.
3) "Mr and Mrs Vegan" are actually real people interviewed from peace camp, as was the NIMBY ex stewardess who admits to going on holiday by air. And NIMBY, in this instance is not in itself an insult, except where people want to fly themselves and put the guilt trip on everybody else.
4) The people in Harmondsworth have every right to protest about third runway. I have less sympathy with other protestors (as in #3) because I fear that over this weekend somebody is going to do something very stupid.
5) You are entitled to your view as I am to mine, and in fact the basic premise of my post (which in your rush to go on the attack was never addressed) was "does tax ever change the behaviour of people".
.... Clearly you think it does, I disagree. I fail to see how that makes me responsible for any future exhaustion of our oil resources....
6) I can look my children and grandchildren in the eye very well thank you.
Travis xx
Flo you are abig bully. You must confess that the "leaderless" "alternative " camp has some sillyness about it at the very least...surely ?
Ok, Travis, I went a bit a over the top there and apologise.
You're right in saying that I haven't answered your point about whether taxation can modify behaviour.
Of course it can. Though I would rather use the term encourage as behaviour modification is all too evocative of Big Brother B-ruin's nasty congtrol freakery.
As an example, take the £50 fines for dropping cigarette ash or ends in the street. Much as I oppose the demonisation of smokers by this government, I nevertheless have to admit that this aspect of the legislation has improved the appearance of the streets whwre I work.
Nulab and LAs would claim that these fines are not yet more taxation - but they would kid no one - that's how many smokers view them.
I would therefore cite the change in the litterholic behaviour of many smokers as verification of my view that financial penalties for specific behaviour, whether known as taxes, fines or price increases, can, and do, modifiy our conduct.
The penalty or price increase has to be large enough, and that's the key issue. Brown's Green taxes are widely accepted as a joke and nowhere near enough to modify conduct.
Those who fly cost the taxpayers of UK £42 billion a year and cause misery for those around airports, the cost of flying must be made to reflect this.
Alternatively, we could give those who don't fly or who fly, say, only once a year or less a tax credit for the lesser amount of pollution they generate.
Auntie Flo'
Newmania said...
Flo you are abig bully. You must confess that the "leaderless" "alternative " camp has some sillyness about it at the very least...surely ?
How can I be a bully newmania when I am a sweet little female? Stop you picking on me!
As for leaderless camps, why not if that's what they want? I'm sure you're right and that there is much silliness in the camp, what I don't understand is why you expect it to be otherwise.
Aren't we humans renowned for our silliness?
Auntie Flo'
No problem, Auntie Flo..
Personally I would impose much higher penalties for littering, which I abhor, and use of mobiles whilst driving. Trouble is there are so few people enforcing this that behaviour is not changing. And if they really wanted to enforce the cigarette butts being dropped in street they only need go outside any pub...
As to taxes changing people's travel plans I just cannot see it, remember the rumoured fuel blockades of 2 years ago when many garages put the price of fuel up as high as £1.20 a litre (from 95p pre rumour) and drivers were falling over themselves to pay it, similar with air travel I'm afraid. Most people just trawl the internet for best prices if that happens to be £100 at some times of year and £300 at others they'll just pay it if they want or need** to travel.
As to your last point on incentives now we're getting there, if you want to take people off the road give them tax breaks to work at home etc etc, IMO the carrot always works better than the stick. Trouble is governments pay lip service to green issues when all they want are the taxes, which going full circle is the major reason why we should never suggest additional taxation as the answer to any problem.....
** don't forget that these days many people need to travel the world to have the opportunity to look into the eyes of their children and grandchildren. Even the most committed climate change activist wouldn't deny them that pleasure would they?
travis bickle said:
don't forget that these days many people need to travel the world to have the opportunity to look into the eyes of their children and grandchildren. Even the most committed climate change activist wouldn't deny them that pleasure would they?
I'm not a climate change activist - or believer, come to that - so I can't speak for them. I can however tell you categorically that no one from Stop Stansted Expansion or any of the protest groups I know of want to stop people flying.
What we aim to do is to stop the government's mindless expansionism and stop large airports from doubling in size and capacity.
Auntie Flo'
Right then Flo...good Lord look at all that information .
XXX
Travis - We might all take the climate chnage lobby a bit more seriousl iof
a They did not keep exaggerating
b It was not spuriously used for tax raising
c If they started thinking about taxbreaks and incentives
Would you clarify the last para of that last last post, please, n? Thanks.
Auntie Flo'
Well like for example tax breaks for green research or VAT exemption on Greener products ( I know there is a bit ). Orstamp duty offset by money spent oninsulation and soon .There are all sorts of things you could do .
Gordon B-ruin and his pal Alistair Darling (the Minister who did B-ruin's dirty work by producing the dodgy aviation industry expansion White Paper) have used their customary discredited smoke screen, 'Predict and Provide' approach on this.
B-ruin's passenger growth forecasts are:
2002: 189 million passengers
2020: 460 million passengers
And freight tonnage is forecast to increase from 2.2 million to 5 million.
Bear in mind that 12% of us never fly and 50% fly only once every 2 years.
Who is going to make all of these extra flights,n? Who is going to consume all of that freight? What if we hit a major recession? There would be an awful lot of empty capacity.
These forecasts are preposterous and hugely risky - unless B-ruin was looking in 2002 at frightening population forecasts for 2020.
B-ruin predicates these forecasts on 3 ERRONEOUS ASSUMPTIONS:
GDP growth averages 2.25% for 25 years!
Air fares decrease 1% in real terms for the next 25 years!
Aviation fuel prices stabilise at $25 a barrel in 2000 prices!
Such forecasts are nothing short of insane.
If there's an economic slow down and/or just one of the elements of this forecast fails, the whole aviation growth forecast and predict and provide approach comes tumbling down.
So why has B-ruin used these bogus forecasts?
I'd say because he has to in order to push through the rest of his agenda.
The aviation policy is a smoke screen for his real agenda of continuous mass migration, partly in order to drive Conservatives out of Conservative constituencies and migrate in nulab voters.
This expansionist aviation policy is not needed by anyone but B-ruin and nulab. It is to be a catalyst and excuse for massive house building projects largely in the SE which will damage Conservative voting areas and drive out and fragment Conservative supporters.
Airport Expansion is to provide some of the employment this will necessitate.
But transport yourself back to Heathrow during the recession of early 1990s and one of the major weaknesses of such a policy is immediatly evident.
One major blip in the oil price, and/ or major blips in oil supply, one major recession and we are in deep trouble. All of those extra people competing for fewer and fewer jobs. In c 1990, 25% of Heathrow's staff were made redundant and the consequences for the town were devastating. How much more devastating if the town's population had been substantially larger?
Auntie Flo'
What do you make of those forecasts, n?
Tell you what they remind me of. In the 1870s the UK government forecast that by the turn of the century there would be so much carriage traffic that there would not be enough workers to pick up the horse and bull sh*t off the roads...
Auntie Flo
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