What you can do
There is a great deal you can do if you are concerned about the growth of aviation, or the growth of airports
For dates of what is going on, see the Take Action page:
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Ask your MP to support a strong Climate Bill (easy email action)Last year over 130,000 people asked their MP to support calls for a new law to make annual cuts in carbon dioxide. The Government announced last November that it would introduce a Climate Bill. This should be announced in the Queen's Speech on 6th November. The challenge now is to make sure that the Bill is a tough one. Ask your MP to support a strong Climate Change Bill. More ..... | ||
Please sign the East Midlands Airport petition to the Prime Minister"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to To Restrict Night Flights
at East Midlands Airport using section 78 (Designation) of the 1982 Civil Aviation
Act to restrict the amount of Night Flights".
East Midlands Airport hosts more night flights than any of the big 3 London Airports
(Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted), and local residents are subjected to high levels
of aircraft noise at night. The petition..... | ||
Climate Camp - July/August 2008In late July (Saturday 26th) this year's camp will begin with a one-day event at Heathrow, which will continue the fight against airport expansion and support the people who welcomed us into their communities last year. Next, everyone is invited to travel together over a number of days across London
to Kingsnorth in Kent (around 50 miles in total). Marching through London highlights
the political links between aviation, coal and agrofuels: Central London's investors,
industry lobbyists and PR companies all determine what gets built and what gets
passed off as 'solutions'.
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What you can do about the Stansted expansion application | ||
Please sign the petition against new EU agrofuel targets and incentivesEurope’s biofuel targets are already the cause of massive monoculture expansion
across the world. Two new draft directives will see a massive expansion in agrofuel
production: Both the draft new Fuel Quality Directive and the draft Renewable
Energy Directive will, if agreed in their current form, set even higher post-2010
targets. (Biofuels for aviation are not a sustainable way forward, and the idea
of flying planes on coconut oil beggars belief). Petition on biofuel..... | ||
Sign the petition by the residents of South Cambridgeshire, about NATS proposed new stack and flight pathsOnline petition at the Prime Ministers website petitions.pm.gov.uk/ruralpeace "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to say No to the proposed flightpath changes to Luton and Stansted airports" | ||
If you live near a particular airport:You may be affected by its operations, the noise of planes, air pollution, the road problems associated with the airport, or fear of future expansion plans. If so, there may be a group of concerned residents in your area, with whom we can put you in touch. Below is a list of groups affiliated to AirportWatch | ||
Join other campaigning organisations, also working on climate change or aviation:AirportWatch is an umbrella group, and many other organisations within it are
campaigning against climate change, and for more sustainable means of transport. Below are links to the websites of a number of like-minded organisations. | ||
What can we do to reduce our air travel?AirportWatch wants the growth of air travel in the UK to cease, and to stablise it at its current level. That would not be depriving anyone of anything they have now - merely stopping our addiction to cheap travel from getting any worse. This involves asking ourselves some tricky questions, and making difficult decisions. More ..... | ||
Try train travelFor almost all journeys in England, Wales or Scotland, rail is a very acceptable
alternative to flying. AirportWatch would like to see a big reduction in internal
flights in the UK, where there is a good rail service. Taking the train probably
has around a tenth as much climate changing effect as taking a plane, per passenger.
See below.
Flight-Free Holidays.
See the Guardian's top 100 flight free holidays. Details ..... |
Try reducing CO2 emissions with Video ConferencingIt is highly desirable for businesses to reduce emissions. The BT Video Conferencing
website shows how to reduce CO2, and how avoiding travel to meetings is also more
cost-effective. You can work out the emissions of CO2 saved by replacing face-to-face
meetings with conferencing, using the calculator on their website.
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Complain about misleading air travel advertisementsIf you see misleading adverts by the airline industry, and you wish to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority, here is the website for the on-line complaints form. |
10 Downing Street E-petitions:You will find many e-petitions to 10 Downing Street, on their website. Many
are on aviation topics. The creators of the petitions would be very pleased for
your support of their petitions. The website is at:
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How about carbon off-setting?AirportWatch are not convinced by off-setting. Some of the schemes may be beneficial.
None has the effect of immediately removing the CO2 that your flight has generated
from the atmosphere. And to see a tremendous spoof offsetting website, showing
how daft offsettig can be, see Cheat Neutral |
Try holidaying in BritainBy holidaying in Britain, rather than jetting off, you'll save a huge amount
of fuel and greenhouse gas emissions. You don't have to miss out on fantastic
beaches either - find the best with the Marine Conservation Society's
'Good Beach Guide' at www.goodbeachguide.co.uk and the Blue Flag Campaign at http://www.blueflag.org/ |
Join AirportWatch:Contact us, tell us what you are interested in, or concerned about. If you live
near an airport, let us know which one. We will send you our regular news bulletins
(free) and any other information about campaigns or actions which you might find
useful. There is plenty for aviation campaigners to do in 2008, with constantly
expanding airports and increasing numbers of flights. Join Us |
Plane StupidIf direct action (non-violent) appeals to you, against the growth of airports
and of aviation, see what Plane Stupid are doing.
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If you live near a particular airport:
Local UK groups include:
Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign
East Midlands:
So - what can we do to reduce our air travel?
There may be measures all of us can take to reduce the air travel component of our own carbon footprints. Some of these involve difficult choices. Try thinking about these tricky questions:
- Is my flight really necessary?
- Is buying a second home abroad, and travelling to and fro many times per year really sustainable?
- Could I make the journey by train?
- Could I have my holiday in the UK?
- Could I cut down on my number of foreign holidays?
- Could I have just one holiday abroad each year, and any others in the UK?
- Is my business flight abroad necessary, or could it be replaced by videoconferencing?
- Can we prevent our society becoming plane-dependent, so we are not all so hooked on cheap flights that we find it hard to do without them?
- Can we expect people in developing countries to forego cheap air travel, if we will not cut down on it ourselves?
What else can we do?
Join other campaigning organisations:
Friends of the Earth (England Wales and Northern Ireland)
Campaign to Protect Rural England
The Woodland Trust
Transport 2000
Try train travel
Eurostar connections route map
Rail Europe
The Man in Seat Sixty-One - useful advice about how to travel by train in Europe
The Guardian's Top 100 flight-free holidays
Petitions
If you are concerned about aviation and its environmental effects:
Your main concern may be with the growth of air travel, and the environmental damage it does. This is not only climate change, but also destruction of communities, damage to habitats near airports, noise and local air pollution
Why is air travel uniquely damaging?
Taking into account the x2 multiplier, a return trip for one person by air to New York produces about the same amount of climate changing effect as an average UK car (about 35 mpg) in a whole year's motoring. A return flight to Rome would produce about as much climate changing effect as all of one person's gas and electricity use for a year. The longer your flight, the more CO2 emitted into the atmosphere (though the taking off is the worse component of the flight - for emissions).
This demonstrates how easy it is - when flying - to produce a huge % of a person's CO2 output, without ever really being aware of it. Driving 6,000 miles in a car would take a very long time, and be extremely tiring and boring. You can produce the same emissions of CO2 in a couple of hours on a plane, comfortably sipping a glass of wine and watching a movie.
The amount of CO2 that each person's activities put into the atmosphere (heating, lighting, car use, travel, use of appliances, things we buy, services we use) is called our carbon footprint.
The UK Government has set itself a target of a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions for the country, by 2050. With air travel growing at its current rate, (perhaps 7 - 8% per year) we are on target for aviation to contribute a higher and higher proportion of the UK's total CO2 emissions. Aviation emissions will continue to grow, under current government policies, while all other sectors of the economy have to cut theirs. This is nonsense. The UK's aviation policy, as set out in the 2003 Aviation White Paper (and confirmed at the end of December 2006), is utterly at odds with the Government's policies on climate change. If ever there was a case of a deplorable absence of "joined up thinking" - this is one.
And if all that has left you needing a bit of light relief .........
Copyright AirportWatch, 2004