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Environmentalists Angry at Daily Post and Echo’s ‘Fight for a Flight’ Campaign.

Echowatcher | 21.08.2003 20:45 | Ecology | Liverpool

Environmentalists were today expressing concern at the Daily Post and Echo’s latest campaign. The campaign, named ‘Fight for a Flight’ asks readers to ‘vote ‘ to show support for government tax cuts to the airline industry in order that a cheap direct flight link may be established between Liverpool and London.

An aeroplane
An aeroplane


Daily post reporter Tony McDonough suggests that a direct flight link from Liverpool to London’s major airports would encourage tourism and business investment in the area.
However local environmental campaigners think that little, if any of this money would trickle down to the local communities who live in the vicinity of Liverpool John Lennon Airport and who would have to deal with the increased noise and air pollution.
“Childhood asthma is on the increase in Liverpool,” says local resident Catherine Phillips, “ We should be encouraging more sustainable forms of transport which cause less damage such as rail. We could be developing strategies for business enterprises in Liverpool, which reflect a forward thinking respect for the environment. The world wide web has enabled local businesses to operate in a global market place without the need for 1980’s style yuppy jetsetting.”

There are wider implications too from the high emissions of carbon dioxide from air travel. Carbon dioxide is one of the main greenhouse gases, which contributes to climate change. Scientists have warned that this could cause unpredictable weather, including floods and heatwaves, which will affect crop yields and businesses in the future.
A spokesperson for Liverpool Earth First added, “Increasing our dependence on oil also increases our dependence on giant oil companies whose explorations destroy local ecosystems and whose lust for profit can cause political unrest and even war.”

Contact the Daily Post and Echo and tell them what you think,  http://www.icliverpool.co.uk/

For more information on climate change contact  http://www.risingtide.org.uk/

Echowatcher

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

more flights

22.08.2003 19:43

The Echo and Daily Post talk about a london - liverpool flight as if its something liverpool can't do without, and is being outrageously denied us. With air travel rapidly increasing, carbon dioxide emissions out of control and the climate going down the pan we need to be looking at ways of REMOVING subsidies from the air industry, not 'campaigning' for even more expansion. Britain is a small island - it doesn't NEED internal flights. The train to london only takes about 3 hours, whats the big deal?
This has nothing to do with the good of the people of liverpool and everything to do with the greed of the big business, big money, capital of culture heads who don't give shit about anything except more profits.

Paul Teebay


The fact is...

22.08.2003 22:01

The railways are in a mess. The motorways are clogging up. All this means that people who can afford it want to take to the air - a luxury only the elite can afford, while the rest of us are at the mercy of the congested roads, or what I recently described as the least value for money company in the whole of the UK - Virgin Trains. The previous commentor say it takes about 3 hours, yeah with a favourable wind prehaps - and that is the problem, the train services need drastic improvement if people are going to be convinced.

Oh, and another thing that makes this Liverpool-London air link even more silly, is that Manchester is only half an hour away, which is complete with a perfectly good airport with a regular sevice to and from London.

Not that it will satisfy the yuppies who are moving into the "regenerated" parts of the city...

Thomas J


Country being run for the benefit of one class of people.

13.09.2003 05:01

Quite simple explanation for this is that it is a symptom of the same illness that infects the rest of the UK.The whole country is being run for the benefit of one class of people ie corporations.Blair gained office with the sole intention of paying back his large corporate backers.The airline industry being one of these.The ordinairy person and the vast majority of people do not count in Blairs politics.Liverpool will soon be run by these same selfish class of people.

Redkop