Joe's blog

Wednesdays announcement that the government will consider building a new airport in the Thames Estuary, dubbed 'Boris Island' sparked a long day of media hysteria.

Boris Johnson's voice echoed out over our TVs, Radios and newspapers the next day and Plane Stupid came under pressure to get a representative to appear on Sky News and Newsnight in response. 

We are totally baffled by it all. 'Boris Island' airport is to be built on an artificial island and would result in 150 million more passengers a year which is serious bad news for the climate. We can't allow airport expansion on this scale and meet our climate change reduction targets at the same time – the two government policies are mutually incompatible and cannot both succeed.

The other little problem is the fact that the Thames Estuary is basically a bird sanctuary. Birds and planes don't match – simple as that.

Here are some other useful facts that need to be included in the debate:

• The UK fly on average twice as much than any other country in the world already.
• The most popular destination out of Heathrow is Paris and 3^rd is Manchester. If we reduced these unnecessary flights there would be plenty of capacity at Heathrow Airport  
• Aviation is the fasting growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.
• If aviation grows at its projected annual rates then aviation will take up 100% or more of our national carbon budget some time between 2030 and 2050.
• Between Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, London City and Luton; London already has 6 runways and 10 terminals.

Only Boris could come up with an idea as daft as this, building an airport in a tidal estuary when we are facing a future of rising sea levels due in part to emissions from aviation.

For now we will just be keeping a close eye on it but if given the go ahead the Thames Estuary Airport could represent an activists dream. Building an airport on an artificial island is such an enormous logistical project that it would be child's play to disrupt it!

This brings back some warm memories. This five minute film, produced by the Media Trust for UK-based charity the Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK), aims to inspire people to get involved in campaigning.

Every day, ordinary people campaign to right wrongs. Anyone can campaign.

A fine example of people Power against economic polluting giants. The video includes old footage of Plane Stupid, NOTRAG, HACAN, Transition Heathrow and all who organised the ceilidh (2nd half of the video).

SMK is the only registered charity in the UK dedicated to connecting, informing and supporting campaigners. For more information visit smk.org.uk.

How is it that after 17 years of negotiations the UN climate change conferences have utterly failed to adequately address the issues at hand and have instead overseen decades of rising carbon emissions and worsening climate injustice?

Most people are now well aware of the vested financial interests that have engineered and perpetuated a global system that’s predicated on widening social injustice, impoverishment and indebtedness of the masses. The same financial, corporate and government bodies responsible for the global financial crisis have also seized control of the environment, commodifying the atmosphere, land and waterways to trade and profit from. It’s no surprise that emissions continue to rise when you know that carbon is a commodity with a tradable value, with dedicated carbon markets and accompanying corrupt schemes such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Without climate change continuing to worsen the markets created around it wouldn’t exist, hence nothing proactive is done by the architects and gatekeepers of the system who have taken power. Realising this, people all over the world are claiming back the legitimate and urgent concerns around climate change from the corporate clowns and Occupy COP17 was part of that reclamation of power.

Although small in number, we were strong in spirit. Every day during the conference we sat and talked under the trees, the way millions of people meet and work out problems all over the world. We had no air conditioned conference halls or PA systems, instead we had the hum of traffic going round our small island of grass (directly outside the fortified UN compound) and the human microphone to amplify our voices. Our rallying cry was Climate Justice, Not Carbon Markets. We had poetry from Nigerian activist Nnimmo Bassey. Live art from South African performer Ewok (who also provided us with a soundtrack). Guerrilla gardening from AmBush. Actions to get the World Bank out of climate finance and Canada out of the tar sands. Five hundred women from throughout Africa forming the Rural Women’s Assembly joined with us and hundreds of civil society delegates from the Democratic Left for a spirited march which was full of song and dance, power and passion, things that were curiously curtailed in the officially designed march the next day.

There were many who came out of the conference to join and speak with us, including Bolivian activist Pablo Salon, South African Commissioner for Gender Equality Yvette Abrahams and the UN Ambassadors from the small island states of Seychelles, Grenada and Nauru. Our aim was to create a safe space where everyone could come and speak, using non-hierarchical organising and consensus decision-making. Most of those who came were not invited to attend COP17, yet they were the people who needed to be heard most, those who are at the front line of climate change and crying out for Climate Justice.

We connected with a group of people who had faced repeated evictions from their dwellings in nearby KwaMashu, deemed unsightly reminders of the government’s failure to meet the needs of ordinary people. They had been evicted ahead of the World Cup a few years previously, and now had been evicted ahead of COP17. This time not only were their shacks demolished but, to make sure they stayed away, all their belongings, including food and clothes, were taken from them. Still they fought back, taking over a community hall and becoming Occupy KwaMashu. Their plight exemplified the enormous gulf between what many of the insulated negotiators on the inside were discussing and the real problems that were being laid bare by those outside.

So what are the solutions? As with many problems of this nature they are not easy to summarise or solve. But we do have a roadmap to work with and a popular mandate from the people, and that is the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba. It lays out a just and fair plan to avert catastrophic climate change and create a more equitable and harmonious world. It’s our job to make sure this is the route followed, rather than the suicidal path that is currently being pursued by those calling themselves leaders.

It was the tour the authorities tried to stop. Dan Glass, the Plane Stupid activist who had superglued himself to Gordon Brown in protest against a third runway at Heathrow, never got a visa to visit America. His fellow speaker, John Stewart, who had chaired the coalition against the third runway, was sent packing back to London when he landed at JFK Airport.

Dan and John had been asked by American campaigners to come to the US to talk about the successful third runway campaign. The Aviation Justice Express tour had been months in the planning. Dan and John were to spend a month visiting climate activists and local airport campaign groups across the US.

The American authorities, possibly prompted by the UK aviation industry, were determined it was never going to happen. But it did – thanks to the new media. John, from his modest office in South London and Dan, from Canada, were skyped into all the events. And new events were added when the campaigners realized that the barrier of physical travel had been removed – courtesy of the American authorities. As John put it: “We left the students of Harvard in Boston at midnight and five minutes later we were talking with activists in Pittsburgh.”

And that wasn’t the only favour the American authorities did. The banning of Dan and John generated more media on both sides of the Atlantic than the tour on its own would ever have got. From reports in the London Evening Standard to in-depth interviews on the Canadian-based Radio Eco-Shock. And it enabled Dan to do a parallel tour of Canada meeting with climate activists and airport communities.

The outcome of the skype tour was just the one the American authorities didn’t want. A new network has been set up bringing together climate activists and local airport campaigners committed to stopping new runways, cutting short-distance flights and promoting rail using conventional and direct action tactics. Bringing the American aviation industry down to earth!

We don't need any more airports! In truth, more airport expansion would be a disaster. We cannot expand our airports and reach our climate change reduction targets at the same time – this is a fact that we have been shouting off roofs, on runways etc for years. But Boris Johnson just doesn't seem to get it.

On Monday 22nd November, Boris issued a report which said building a new airport in the Thames Estuary, 'dubbed Boris Island', would allow Britain to tap into billions of pounds of foreign investment and would provide more airport capacity. However campaigners are challenging these statistics. AirportWatch, the umbrella organisation representing aviation campaigning groups, has produced figures which show that London already has a greater number of flights to the world’s main business destinations than any of its European rivals. In total, London’s airports have over 1000 departure flights each week to the key business destinations compared with Paris’s 499, Frankfurt’s 443, and Amsterdam’s 282. The full figures are published HERE.

What is even more concerning is that Boris has refused to even acknowledge the threat of climate change. The Heathrow 3rd runway plans were partly grounded because of climate change arguments so when Boris doesn't even mention climate change you have to start worrying. The reality remains that if the aviation industry were to keep to their promises to get its emissions down to 2000 levels, they will not need any extra runways at all as they would have to cut flying by 35%.

In terms of location there is also the small issue of the Liquefied Natural Gas facility which lies in the way. The Isle of Grain, where Boris wants to build his silly airport, is home to one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas terminals, which sees a fifth of the UK’s gas supply offloaded by container ships and stored there. Lethal liquid gas for the area comes via the container port at the Isle of Grain which surely rules out these bizarre airport plans in the first place.

Boris Island is now right up there on our radar and Plane Stupid will be keeping an eye out for any new developments to the story. Kent County Council and Medway Council, along with the RSPB, will all fight the scheme. You can add Plane Stupid to that list too.

From the Press Release: 16 protesters arrested at Southend Airport.

16 protestors, who occupied the runway at Southend Airport, have been arrested by Essex Police.  It is believed they are being held at Southend Police Station. Campaigners from Plane Stupid and Climate Rush entered the airport shortly after 9am this morning.  The protest is against the planned expansion of Southend Airport.

Plane Stupid installed solar panels on the runway.  Campaigners from Climate Rush, dressed as pilots and cabin crew, were on a nearby footpath performing a dance routine.

A spokeswoman for the protestors said:

“Southend Council say the expansion will bring jobs.  But investment in renewable energy would create many more jobs without damaging the climate.  What we need is solar power not plane power.  The bigger runway is bad for climate change, bad for local residents under the flight path and is not needed to help the local economy.” 

Southend Airport has been bought by Stobarts, the logistics firm.  Easyjet has announced that it plans to start operating commercial flights from the airport in spring 2012.

There has been a major local campaign.  It has focused on the impact the airport would have on the thousands of people who will live under the flight paths.

Today defendants Tilly Gifford and Dan Glass from the Climate 9 had their appeal heard at Edinburgh Appeal Court against the conviction they received last summer for a breach of the peace.

The conviction related to direct action taken in March 2009 where the Climate 9 shut down Aberdeen airport and directly stopped 107 tonnes of emissions from contributing to man-made climate change. They played golf in a cage on the taxiway to highlight the fact that the airport's expansion will serve to deliver Donald Trump's super-rich golfer pals to his contentios course at Balmedie Estate.

Following a two week long trial in August 2010, which was the first jury-led climate change trial in Scotland, all 9 defendants were convicted of Breach of the Peace for their role in the protest. Dan and Tilly made the decision to appeal against the conviction as they hold firm to the belief that the action they took was justified, proportionate and necessary in the face of catastrophic climate change.

Appellant Dan Glass said:

"The Scottish legal system defines breach of the peace as an activity "causing fear and alarm to the ordinary and reasonable person, and which threatens serious disturbance to the community". I can't think of a better way to describe climate change. Sometimes, we believe, the law must be challenged to protect our fundamental freedom of expression and to disrupt lawful activities that are harming the prospects of future generations. Furthermore, it's the role of a democracy to protect the voices of the minority as well as the majority".

The appeal has reached its final stages after months of anticipation and against the backdrop of severe climate change, as recent estimates suggest an unthinkable 4 degree temperature rise by 2080. During the 4 hour hearing this morning the court heard a strong case from the defence, who argued that the jury wasn't given any sense of this grave context regarding both the importance and urgency of the protest.

Appellant Tilly Gifford said:

"The judge presented a choice to the jury between 'breach of the peace' and 'freedom of expression' without any context. This is simply not good enough. The jury should be given the serious climate change context of the situation relating to the case, otherwise the inference is completely abstract from the reality."

The appeal verdict will be heard within the next 6 weeks in a final court hearing. A date is not set yet. If it is successful it will set an important precedent for future protest cases, through actively defending freedom of expression and supporting the legitimacy of the right to protest given the governments inaction to effectively tackle climate change. It would be the first legal case in Scotland to engage with the severity of climate change that we face and challenge the 'business as usual' attitude that the aviation industry is taking in its expansion plans.

Plane Stupid spokesperson, Joe Ryle said:

"Aviation remains the fastest growing source of CO2 emissions in the UK and we cannot let this go unchallenged. However the heart of this debate is about our fundamental right to protest and whether we are prepared to tolerate greater disruption to business as usual in the face of climate change."

Here is a resource for new groups springing up in the anti cuts movement. Having a media strategy is always important, even if doing NO mainsteam media is your strategy. This guide gives you the "skills, resources and mindset for communicating with the public, talking to the press and building a grassroots movement that kicks butt on the streets and on air". Download it from HERE