aviation | ukwatch.net

Aviation's fossil-fuelled fantasies

tim — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:56:06 +0000

Today, as UN World Tourism Day focuses on climate change, new research says economic case for airport expansion is unfounded, and international tourism is more of a risk than a benefit for developing nations.

A new report from nef (the new economics foundation) and the World Development Movement released today, Saturday 27 September, UN World Tourism Day, reveals that increased air travel and tourism leaves UK taxpayers out of pocket, and benefits multinational tour operators and hotel chains, rather than poor people. And, as the fastest-rising source of emissions in the UK, aviation is a significant contributor to climate change that threatens the survival of some of the world’s poorest communities least responsible for causing the problem, but living on its front line.

The new nef/WDM report, Plane Truths exposes the ‘fossil-fuelled fantasies’ behind airline bosses and government ministers’ claims that continued growth of the aviation industry strengthens the UK economy, does not undermine the emissions reductions needed to avert catastrophic climate change and can play a positive role in the fight against global poverty.

Fossil-fuelled fantasy 1: Airlines claim that cheap air fares ‘democratise’ foreign travel. The reality is that highest earners still travel most frequently.
People on low incomes who make up 32 per cent of the UK population, account for less than 8 per cent of all passengers on low-cost flights from the UK, while 40 per cent of all budget flights are taken by the wealthiest people in the UK.

Fossil-fuelled fantasy 2: Airlines claim that tourism is developing countries boost economic development. The reality is the benefits from UK tourism to communities in far-flung destinations are minimal because:

* the vast majority of British tourists travel to short haul destinations like Spain or France, or industrialised countries such as the United States, while only nine per cent of UK tourists go to the developing world.
* When tourists do visit the developing world, up to 75 pence in every £1 spent goes straight into the pockets of multinational hotel chains and tour operators, not to the local economy.
* Evidence from Kenya, Thailand and the Dominican Republic suggests that if the growth in UK aviation was halted, the impact of lost revenue would represent less than one per cent of GDP.
* And, for the Maldives, where the contribution of tourism to the economy has been more significant, the Islands very survival is under threat from rising sea-levels

Fossil-fuelled fantasy 3: Airlines and the government claim that the aviation industry strengthens the UK economy. The reality is that, in 2007 the aviation industry left UK taxpayers 10.4 billion in the red.

* The World Development Movement has calculated £10.4 billion was lost to the Exchequer in 2007 as the result of tax exemptions for the airline industry. This is more than twice the £5 billion needed to ensure that every home in Britain is properly insulated, helping to combat both climate change and fuel poverty – going far beyond recent government announcements.

“As people world-wide feel the impact of the credit crunch, the UK government is sleep-walking into a climate-crunch, riding high on the fossil-fuel fantasies of the aviation industry. It is time for the government to wake up. Time is short. There could be less than one hundred months to prevent catastrophic, runaway climate change. Conventional economists claim that a rising tide lifts all boats, but the plain truth is that long before the minimal benefits of economic growth, particularly from air-based tourism bring any improvement to the lives of people living in some of the world’s poorest countries, they will be sunk by the floodwaters of runaway climate change.” says Dr Victoria Johnson, nef climate change researcher and the report’s co-author.

Benedict Southworth, director of the World Development Movement said: “Poor people in the developing world will be hit first and worst by climate change and international tourism does little, if anything, to alleviate poverty – so the myths peddled by the government and the aviation industry are simply a fig leaf to justify aviation expansion. Exposing and opposing these myths is essential if we are to help to prevent hundreds of millions of people around the world from losing their lives and livelihoods.”

And, as Plane Truths reveals, the majority of tourism takes place within, rather than between regions. This means that investment in better regional transport infrastructure will play a critical role in reducing emissions while maintaining the many cultural, and local economic benefits that tourism can deliver.

The report finds that policy measures to date, such as Air Passenger Duty (APD) in the UK and the European Union (EU)‘s emissions trading scheme, will have little impact on the strong and environmentally destructive growth trend in aviation. The report argues that government must also show leadership, by taking action to reduce emissions from aviation, and include them in the climate change bill; halting planned airport expansion; and ensuring that proposed taxes on flights is set at a high enough rate to reduce demand for short-haul flights:

* The Climate Change Bill currently passing through parliament must be amended to include emissions from shipping and aircraft. The emissions reduction target should also be increased to 80-90 per cent below 1990 levels, in line with the most recent scientific evidence.
* When Airline Passenger Duty is replaced by a flight tax next year, it must be set at a proportionately higher for short-haul flights than long-haul, since aircraft burn most fuel during taxi, take-off and landing, and alternative methods of transport are often available
* The funds generated from this tax should be earmarked for investment in better rail connections, and to funds to help people in developing countries adapt to the degree of climate change that is already happening.

Travelling Light

tim — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:43:32 +0000

Of all the charges levelled against environmentalists, perhaps the most unfair is the accusation that we are opposed to technological change. Most of the greens I know are fascinated by gadgets (sometimes to the exclusion of better solutions), while some of the people we confront seem terrified by new technologies, and react to them – witness the campaigns against windfarms – with irrational hostility.

But because environmentalists tend to have a feeling for material constraints, we recognise that solutions cannot be conjured out of thin air. In some cases they just don’t appear to exist. There are two reasons why we make such a fuss about flying. The first is that, even as governments promise to cut emissions, everywhere airports are expanding. In the UK, the government expects the number of airline passengers to rise from 228 million in 2005 to 480 million in 2030(1). Before long, there will scarcely be a patch of sky without a jet in it. The other is that there are no alternative means of propelling people through the air which are not more destructive than burning ordinary aviation fuel. Or so we think.

The airline companies prescribe two cures that are even worse than the disease. Even before they are deployed commercially in jets, biofuels are spreading hunger and deforestation. At first sight, hydrogen seems more promising. If it is produced by electrolysis using renewable electricity, it’s almost carbon-free. The prohibitive issue is storage. Hydrogen contains just a quarter of the energy as the same volume of jet fuel (kerosene), which means that planes could fly long distances only if they were filled with gas rather than passengers or cargo.

This means that if hydrogen planes are to fly commercially, they need much wider bodies than ordinary jetliners. According to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution “the combination of larger drag and lower weight would require flight at higher altitudes” than planes fuelled by kerosene(2). A technology that is green at ground level becomes an environmental disaster in the stratosphere. Hydrogen’s great advantage – that it produces only water when it burns – turns into a major liability: in the stratosphere, water vapour is a powerful greenhouse gas. The royal commission estimates that hydrogen planes would exert a climate changing effect “some 13 times larger than for a standard kerosene fuelled subsonic aircraft.”(3)

But there is another use for this gas, though I am aware that it will go down like a lead balloon with most of my readers. The word airship elicits a fixed reaction in almost everyone who hears it: “what about the Hindenburg?”. It’s as if, every time someone proposed travelling on a cruise ship, you were to ask, “but what about the Titanic?”. Yes, there was a spectacular disaster – 71 years ago. It has lodged in our minds because, like the Titanic, the Hindenburg was bigger and plusher than any craft built before it, and it was carrying rich and prominent people. The conflagration was witnessed by journalists and broadcast all over the world. It also become the technology’s funeral pyre: the Hindenburg was doomed long before it burnt, as airships were already being displaced by aeroplanes.

Though the designs have changed, their disadvantages have not disappeared. While a large commercial airliner cruises at about 900 kilometres per hour, the maximum speed of an airship is roughly 150kph. At an average speed of 130kph, the journey from London to New York would take 43 hours. Airships are more sensitive to wind than aeroplanes, which means that flights are more likely to be delayed. But they have one major advantage: the environmental cost could be reduced almost to zero.

Even when burning fossil fuels, the total climate-changing impact of an airship, according to researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, is 80-90% smaller than that of ordinary aircraft(4). But the airship is also the only form of transport which can easily store hydrogen: you could inflate a hydrogen bladder inside the helium balloon. There might be a neat synergy here: one of the problems with airships is that they become lighter – and therefore harder to control – as the fuel is consumed. In this case they become heavier. Michael Stewart of the company World SkyCat suggests burning both gaseous and liquid hydrogen to keep the weight of the craft constant(5).

Airships fly much lower than planes – typically at about 4000 feet – which means that their emissions of water vapour have very little effect on temperature. If they were powered by hydrogen fuel cells, they would be almost silent, greatly reducing the effects for people on the ground. Though they are slower than jets, the cabin can be built much wider, which means that travelling by airship would be rather like travelling by cruise ship, but at twice the speed and using a fraction of the fuel.

There are four small companies trying to get airships off the ground(6). Most of the new designs make use of aerodynamic lift as well as buoyancy (they are shaped like fat planes with stubby wings or tails) which means that they are heavier and more stable than the old dirigibles, and can land without help on the ground. They can alight on and take off from almost any flattish surface, including water. But all of them have a problem with flotation: of the financial rather than the physical kind. While the price of carbon stays low, companies have no financial incentive to switch to a different form of transport.

The only help governments are prepared to provide is some development funds for military applications (raising money for killing people is always easier than raising money to save them). For a few years the Pentagon took an interest in craft which could land anywhere and carry several hundred tonnes of equipment(7). Otherwise, like so many other promising green technologies, this proposal is losing height in a hostile market. All the companies promoting large commercial airships are concentrating on freight, especially in places which are poorly served by roads. The danger here is that, if they take off, they could displace not jet transport but freight shipping, in which case, if they burn diesel, they are likely to cause a net increase in carbon pollution.

Paradoxically, the other major constraint could be an environmental one. Airships are one of several green technologies which might be killed by a shortage of materials. A new generation of solar panels relies on gallium and indium, whose global supplies appear close to exhaustion(8). The price of platinum, which is used in catalytic converters, has tripled over the past five years(9). Beyond a few natural gas fields in Texas, economically viable supplies of helium are rare; even there they might be exhausted in 50 years at current rates of use, or much faster if airships take off(10,11). If there is a God, he isn’t green.

Is this proposal just a flight of fancy? Because airships feature in no official document, because they have not been considered by either government or major industry, I have no way of knowing. But like most greens I’m prepared to try almost anything, as long as it works. Can the same be said of our opponents?

References:

1. Department for Transport, November 2007. UK Air Passenger Demand
and CO2 Forecasts. http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/environmentalissues/ukairdemandandco2…

2. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, , 29th November 2002. The Environmental Effects of Civil Aircraft in Flight: special report, para 4.27. http://www.rcep.org.uk/aviation/av12-txt.pdf

3. ibid, para 3.47.

4. Alice Bows, Kevin Anderson and Paul Upham, February 2006. Contraction & Convergence: UK carbon emissions and the implications for UK air traffic, p23. Technical Report 40. Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. www.tyndall.ac.uk/research/ theme2/final_reports/t3_23.pdf

5. Michael Stewart, pers comm.

6. World SkyCat Ltd, 21st Century Airships Team Inc, Aeroscraft and Ohio Airships.

7. See http://www.defensetech.org/archives/Draft_Solicitation_Walrus.pdf

8. David Cohen, 23rd May 2007. Earth’s natural wealth: an audit. New Scientist.

9. See http://www.platinum.matthey.com/prices/price_charts.html

10. Nicola Jones, 21st December 2002. Under Pressure. New Scientist.

11. No author given, 5th January 2008. Helium Supplies Endangered, Threatening Science And Technology. ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080102093943.htm

Plane Stupid expose mole

The Staff — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:32:31 +0000

Anti-aviation action group Plane Stupid are obviously doing something right. BAA apparently regard them as a significant enough threat to warrant a professional spying operation, as the group reveals today.

Here’s the latest from their website:

INTERNATIONAL ESPIONAGE AGENCY TARGETED HEATHROW PROTESTERS

Aviation industry in the frame as Plane Stupid investigation exposes mole

Climate action group Plane Stupid has been targeted by a professional espionage agency.

Oxford-educated Toby Kendall, 24, an employee of aerospace security consultants C2i International (1), infiltrated and spied on Heathrow campaign groups across London for a year. He was immediately suspected and following a Plane Stupid investigation he was last week confronted and exposed in a Japanese restaurant by the Plane Stupid activist Tamsin Omond – one of those who recently scaled Parliament (2).

Heathrow owner BAA admitted to this morning’s Times newspaper that it has been in contact with C2i, having previously claimed it had no involvement in the spying operation.

C2i International states on its website that its team is “hand-picked from Special Operations at New Scotland Yard” (3). It is run by self-proclaimed Special Forces Veteran Justin King and says it “delivers tailored advice and solutions to companies in a wide range of industries including Aerospace.” C2i lists its “key services” as “Counter Espionage & Debugging” and “Executive Profiling and Investigation” (4).

Piecing together evidence including photographs, reports from fellow students at Oxford and website profiles, Plane Stupid discovered the agent who was going by the name of “Ken Tobias” is in fact “Toby Kendall” who was captain of the athletics team at Wadham College, Oxford.

Kendall – who lists Top Gun as his favourite film on his Bebo social networking profile (5) – went undercover in London Plane Stupid following last year’s Climate Camp at Heathrow. He made elementary errors as his career as a secret agent faltered at the first hurdle – due to his poorly constructed back-story and appalling acting skills. When Plane Stupid fed Kendall false information it was just 48 hours before sources in the aviation industry confirmed that the plans had been reported back to them.

The day after he was confronted, Kendall emailed Plane Stupid saying, “I came into the group with a pure heart wanting to make a difference. I still of course hold my principles.” (6)

Tamsin Omond, 23, said today:

“The aviation industry brought its special brand of bumbling incompetence to the task of spying on us. Their secret agent was more Austin Powers than James Bond though the question still remains, who paid the espionage agency?”

Plane Stupid is publishing a full dossier of evidence against the spy including web links, photographs and more at www.planestupid.com and you can read the article on The Times website at http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transpor…

(1) http://www.c2i-international.com and http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/b37/418
(2) http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scales-parliament-27th-february-2008
(3) http://www.c2i-international.com/Newservices/counteresp.htm
(4) http://www.c2i-international.com/Newservices/Busprotection.htm
(5) http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3859423
(6) Email available to view at www.planestupid.com

Britain is Stealing the US Crown of No 1 Climate Villain

Ellie Keen — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:06:01 +0000

This is a truly shaming moment for Gordon Brown’s government. On Monday ministers were once more accused of failing to fully assess the environmental impact of a third runway at Heathrow. The Conservative MP for Putney, Justine Greening, argued that the airport operator, BAA, had been too closely involved with the expansion plans, alleging that government collusion had resulted in environmental concerns being ignored. With Ruth Kelly and the Department for Transport seemingly determined to bust the UK’s climate-change targets, it now falls to the likes of Greenpeace and Plane Stupid to try to defend them.

The environmental activists who dropped banners at Heathrow and the House of Commons protesting against the planned third runway may have been breaking the law by taking direct action, but in a wider sense they were simply trying to uphold it. They were arrested for an unusual reason: trying to enforce government policy against the wishes of the government. The case is simple: the government is committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Expanding Heathrow will increase them.

Ministers have acknowledged repeatedly that climate change is the greatest threat facing the globe. Gordon Brown himself gave a speech on November 19 last year in which he stated clearly that the ongoing rise in global temperatures should be kept to less than two degrees, and that, in order to achieve this, global emissions would need to start falling within 10 to 15 years. Yet Brown seems to see no inconsistency in demanding global action on climate change while simultaneously expanding the most polluting form of mass transport known to humanity.

While government may be committed to achieving its climate-change targets, it is clearly not committed to the means of achieving them. Quite the opposite. Billions are being poured into motorway-widening schemes. As the Guardian has reported in recent weeks, government grants for domestic solar panels and other renewable technologies have been slashed, killing off a promising new sector of power generation. Instead, ministers seem minded to support E.ON’s plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. Instead of supporting the cleanest electricity-generating technology, Brown sides with the dirtiest.

Aviation is the final straw. At a time when millions of people are clearly expressing urgent concerns about climate change, the government is about to embark on a public relations suicide mission, gearing up for a titanic battle with climate campaigners which is guaranteed to drag the UK’s international environmental reputation through the mud. At the same time as ministers jet off to UN conferences to make long-winded speeches about global warming, black-clad police will be dragging climate change protesters out of the way of BAA’s bulldozers in the full glare of the world’s media.

Imagine the ironic laughter that the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, will face from Chinese, Indian and other delegates at the 2009 UN climate conference in Copenhagen, when he lectures them about cutting their emissions as the tarmac is laid at Heathrow. No longer will the US be the world’s primary global warming villain, particularly if the new American president re-engages with the Kyoto process. Instead the country that everyone loves to hate will be Britain. It will be a deeply humiliating experience for those in government – and there are many – who are truly committed to tackling climate change. If Ruth Kelly keeps on down this insane path, she will not be lightly forgiven – by her colleagues, let alone by the rest of the country.

But Brown’s government may yet be saved from its own stupidity – by the very people whose lives it is determined to destroy. Seven hundred homes will be flattened if the plans go ahead, including the entire community of Sipson. But these residents are not going to go without a fight. A thousand people turned up to a public meeting in Chiswick last month. More than 700 packed a small hall in Putney, and 600 mobbed a public meeting in Richmond. Thousands more arrived at a protest meeting in Westminster on February 25 – so many that security staff had to close the doors on safety grounds. More than 10,000 people are expected to join a rally on May 31 at Heathrow itself.

These campaigners are backed by a formidable political coalition. Every London mayoral candidate opposes the expansion of Heathrow. The Tories’ Peter Ainsworth addressed the Westminster meeting, as did Nick Clegg and Vince Cable for the Liberal Democrats. MPs from across the political spectrum lined up to condemn Ruth Kelly and the government. Virtually all the speakers highlighted climate change as the main reason why they opposed the new runway. And direct-action campaigners have promised a sustained scorched-earth campaign unless the government backs down. This will be the iconic climate change battle of the decade – with Gordon Brown’s government cast as the enemy. That is, unless Ruth Kelly can summon up the courage to stand up to BAA before it is too late.

Plane Stupid Protest

Ellie Keen — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:02:51 +0000

Richard George, co-founder of Plane Stupid, dictated the following statement from the roof of the Houses of Parliament

“We’ve come to this symbolic home of democracy to make clear that the consultation process of the third runway at Heathrow has, from the beginning, been a sham. We’re making paper airplanes out of documents that Greenpeace obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Department for Transport, which proved that the British Airports Authority wrote sections of the consultation and that there has been a BAA official within the consultation committee pushing their forward their agenda – at the expense of the 70% of Londoners who don’t want the runway.

We’re taking direct action as a last resort because we don’t believe that the consultation has been a democratic process. This is the beginning of a campaign of direct action that will not cease until we feel we’re being listened to and until we’re satisfied that it’s Londoners’ views, rather than BAA’s, that the government paying attention to.”

Protest Taking Off

Ellie Keen — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:59:35 +0000

In 1971, the United States government proposed testing its nuclear arsenal near the tiny island of Amchitka – a wildlife paradise off the west coast of Alaska. A number of protest groups sprang up. One particular group of people came together with the idea to charter a boat – the Phyllis Cormack – and sail it into the nuclear testing site. Through placing themselves in the area of the bomb blast, they wanted to draw a line in the sand, and to make sure that the whole world would bear witness to what their government was doing. Later, the US government called off its tests. Greenpeace was born.

Today, some 30 years later, Greenpeace activists have today once more drawn a line in the sand. By climbing on top of an A320 aircraft at Heathrow airport to bear witness to the threat to the climate from Brown’s plan for a third runway, they’ve taken the climate campaign to a new level. Climate change is the greatest danger to the world today. The crossroads where we stand now is similar in some ways to the threat from a nuclear winter during the cold war. In years to come, like the early nuclear campaigners, I’m sure people will look back to understand the sense of dread these inspirational activists hold. Runway 3 is a litmus test of the government’s commitment to truly tackling climate change.

It isn’t difficult to understand why. Aviation already accounts for 13% of the UK’s climate impacts and we fly more than any other country in the world. Greenpeace carefully chose to demonstrate on top of a plane that had flown from Manchester to illustrate that so many of these destinations are reachable more quickly and in greater comfort by train – which is over ten times less polluting. But the government’s aviation policy follows no logic. It follows the profit-led whims of BAA.

While Greenpeace is far from alone in opposing Runway 3, today’s action signifies a serious ratcheting-up of the direct action campaign. Even the protesters at last summer’s Climate Camp didn’t cross the perimeter fence at Heathrow, but this was an inevitable next step and is indicative of people’s frustration at the failure of democratic processes.

The proposed runway is hated by Londoners, contested by climate scientists and would destroy the communities our politicians are meant to serve. The fact that these plans have come this far is testament to the government’s undemocratic, cosy relationship with BAA. On Wednesday, the government’s consultation will end but it has been a fix from the start. Freedom of Information documents reveal that BAA actually wrote some of the consultation papers and helped the government draw up a “risk register” of threats to its construction.

In the past fortnight, all of London’s mayoral candidates have come out against the third runway, as have over 100 local west London politicians representing some two million people. Tonight Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, will add his name, when he speaks at a major rally at Westminster Central Hall. Today’s Greenpeace action adds the voice of people committed to taking direct action to stop climate change.

It’s time Gordon Brown got beyond rhetorical support and started believing his own hype. Brown could be the first prime minister to take climate change seriously. Or the last prime minister not to.

Flying in the Face of Their Future

Merrick Godhaven — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:49:11 +0000

One of the curious aspects of the media response to the Camp For Climate Action was the involvement – or lack of it – from Heathrow’s operators BAA.

Several times they were scheduled for debates with people from the Camp, and every time they withdrew. Reports came in later that BAA’s owners, Spanish-based Grupo Ferrovial, had issued a gagging order. But if that were so, why did BAA repeatedly put themselves forward? On Saturday 18th August, a week into the Camp’s coverage, BAA said they’d take part in an extended interview and debate programme on Radio 5 Live, but pulled out when they heard a Camp person would also be on the show.

During the week, several others stepped into the breach left by BAA. The industry lobby group Flying Matters popped up a couple of times (though they also pulled out of one), the Airport Operators Association, some Living Marxism/Spiked front groups, and a handful of rentagob newspaper columnists.

The most curious, though, was the airline pilots’ union BALPA. In June they issued a report claiming that aviation wasn’t as bad for the climate as commonly portrayed. It ‘proved’ this with a number of exaggerated assumptions and scientific omissions that are so wildly inaccurate that it can only be considered to be deliberate. Even a basic understanding of climate science undermined their conclusions.

On Saturday 18th August BALPA’s General Secretary Jim McAuslan took part in that extended debate on Radio 5 Live [streamed in segments on YouTube starting here, downloadable as a single MP3 here].

Firstly they tried to pull a fast one by saying the Camp’s day of mass action should be cancelled in favour of talks with BALPA. As if BALPA don’t already know the science or couldn’t talk another day.

The debate’s presenter put this as a challenge to Camp representative Alan Gill, asking why the Camp wouldn’t debate. ‘Happy to do it,’ said Gill eagerly. Channel 4 News were keen to follow this up and wanted to host it on the Monday. Alan Gill was up for it. BALPA didn’t do it.

During the 5 Live debate Jim McAuslan made a variety of false claims. He said the report had been ‘drawn together based on a number of other scientists including the IPCC’, yet it clearly contravenes basic understanding and certainly the IPCC’s assertions. It presumes all passenger ships have the emissions of the QE2, and doesn’t even take into account the radiative forcing of aircraft (the amount by which emitting at altitude is worse than emitting at ground level).

He said ‘we haven’t had a comeback from the campaigning groups at Heathrow or indeed from groups like FoE and Greenpeace’. Greenpeace issued a press release on the day of the report’s release, dismissing it as ‘pure propaganda. Frankly the aviation industry should be embarrassed by this nonsense,’ going on to describe the flaws in the methodology. The story was picked up by mainstream media including the BBC, as BALPA surely know.

Tom Robbins from the Guardian was another person who found the BALPA report’s conclusions a bit too unlikely

Launching the 82-page report, [BALPA Chairman Captain Mervyn] Granshaw pulled out one key point: ‘Passengers going by high speed train to the south of France would be responsible for emitting more carbon dioxide than if they had flown there.’

I rang the union to check the figures and was directed to a section of the report quoting Roger Kemp, professor of engineering at Lancaster University. I then rang him. ‘No, actually that’s completely untrue,’ he said.

Richard George highlighted further twists in BALPA’s methods and then comes up with more accurate numbers, showing it’s no small error

In a more recent paper Prof Kemp reveals that on a London-Edinburgh route an Airbus A321 would actually emit 210gms CO2e/passenger km – more that five times as much as the 40gms emitted by a conventional GNER train on the same route

So, that BALPA are obscuring the truth is clear. But what really puzzles me is the principle of them doing so. Not because I expect any wide-ranging integrity from them, but because I expect them to be true to their primary responsibility as trade unionists.

There is a lot of talk of global solidarity in trade unions, but time and again it’s shown to be just that. Whether it’s the militantly lefty Liverpool dockers importing scab coal to help break the miners strike or the trade unionists running Workers Beer Company flogging Bacardi and Coor’s products, we see the self-interest of protecting their own jobs.

So the fact that BALPA are happy to keep killing Bangladeshis for a living saddens and sickens me, but it doesn’t surprise me. Noble as it would be, I don’t realistically expect them to defend those under threat from climate change by doing themselves out of a job.

But nor do I expect them to be the stand-in for BAA. They are not there to defend the aviation industry, they are there to defend their members’ interests. The two are not the same thing.

The Met Office hosted a conference called Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. Experts in many areas described the threats and what would happen with varying levels of response. Time and again, it was clear that a carbon tax of $100 a tonne would be insufficient. Yet such a tax would slap around $1m a week on a jumbo jet doing the London-Miami route. Imagine what that would do to mass aviation.

Even without carbon taxes, peak oil is coming some time in the next couple of decades. Totally reliant on colossal quantities of cheap oil with no alternative fuel, no industry will be hit as swiftly and completely as mass aviation.

Today’s mass aviation pilots are the last generation of their profession. The employers they so stoutly defend will drop them like the proverbial hot bricks.

Rather than denying the threat aviation poses they should be accepting the fact. Not just out of conscience, solidarity, compassion or commitment to truth, but out of their very reason for existing, to protect the welfare of their members. Producing a report full of distortions and lying to the media about aviation’s climate impact is a betrayal of the people who pay their subscriptions.

Sustainability is about more than ecological interests, it’s about social sustainability. If they don’t want their members to suffer like Yorkshire’s mining communities have since the 1980s then BALPA, along with other aviation lobbyist unions like Amicus and the GMB, should be looking at a just transition. They should be calling for a scaling back of aviation and the retraining of their members into new jobs that have a long-term future and that are meaningful, worthwhile and hopefully socially beneficial.

Greenwashing the skies

Ellie Keen — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:23:47 +0000

We’re slowly becoming more aware that the forecasted growth rates for aviation threaten all our efforts to stop climate change wiping us off the planet. While the aviation industry has some insightful arguments in this debate – such as people generally liking flying and wanting to fly more – this “end of the world” effect is a bit of a problem for their marketing departments.

Generally they just avoid addressing the issue, talking instead about all the wonderful McJobs they’re creating in Slough and Staines. But if you push them, and let them know you won’t be falling for their usual 2% lie (the government says that aviation is responsible for 13% of the UK’s climate change impact), then they eventually fall back on efficiency gains. More people will be able to fly more often to more places, and that’s OK because the new planes will be more efficient, and so the emissions won’t rise accordingly. Everyone’s a winner.

Not so I’m afraid. The IPCC‘s special report on aviation predicts the efficiency gains as around 1% a year, while growth is at 4.5% globally, and 7% in the UK.

But climate arguments are full of predictions – how about something we can see now? And then here it comes, looming over all of our horizons – the Airbus A380. This behemoth of the skies can carry more than 800 people and, according to the marketing blurb, is as efficient as a “normal” family car, per passenger mile. Well, overlooking the fact that driving a “normal” family car from here to Bangkok for a fortnight wouldn’t be the greenest thing you’ve ever done, are they on to something here?

John Stewart, the noted anti-aviation campaigner conceded that they could be:

“If – and of course, this remains to be seen – this new larger plane means you could keep the number of flights the same, or even bring them down, then it would be a good thing.”

The caveat is telling. These new planes are unlikely to be “instead of”, but rather “in addition to” existing fleets.

More technically, the standard configuration of these planes is not to have 800 economy passengers, but rather 555 passengers, with a mix of economy, business and first class. Boeing claims that the old 747 jumbo, with 467 passengers, is 10% more efficient per passenger than a 555 seat A380.

So, it looks as though this huge leap forward is actually a small shuffle back.

But then my attention was drawn to an article that claimed “Singapore’s A380 has no first class”. Perhaps the airline industry was right all along, I thought.

Alas no. It turns out they have replaced first class with “suite class” (don’t ask) and this particular A380 carries a less-than-whopping 471 passengers when full. Watch the greenwash.

Robbie Gillett is a third-year politics and modern history undergraduate at Manchester University. He a member of Plane Stupid and Climate Camp and is involved with other on-campus environmental groups.