Skip to content or view screen version

Plane protest at Heathrow

bex | 25.02.2008 11:52 | Climate Chaos | London

Four Greenpeace climate campaigners have just climbed on top of a Manchester to London plane after it parked at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal One. They are now covering the tailfin with a huge protest banner that reads “CLIMATE EMERGENCY – NO 3rd RUNWAY”.



Four Greenpeace volunteers have climbed on top of a plane at Heathrow and are wrapping a banner around the tailfin. The plane - one fo 32 flights every day between London and Manchester - had just arrived in Heathrow and the passengers had disembarked when four volunteers walked through the double doors at Heathrow Terminal One, crossing an area of tarmac and climbing onto the fuselage of the British Airways flight.

100,000 flights a year go between Heathrow and destinations that are easily reachable by train (the most popular destination is Paris - easily reachable by the Eurostar). And, looking at the price of train travel in Britain, it's understandable that some people are still choosing to fly. If the £9 billion tax subsidies the aviation industry receives to make flying cheaper and airports bigger were spent on making trains cheaper and better, we could reduce the environmental impact of Heathrow instead of vastly increasing it.

Full story:

 http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/climate-campaigners-bring-peaceful-protest-to-heathrow-20080225

bex
- Homepage: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Mass rally tonight, 7pm, Central Hall, Westminster

25.02.2008 16:32

 http://www.hacan.org.uk/

*Stop Heathrow Expansion*

End-of-Consultation Rally

(Methodist) Central Hall, Westminster

corner of Tothill St and Storey’s Gate (Westminster and St James’s Park tube stations)
25th February 2008, 7pm

The rally to come to! It is a great chance to show the breadth of opposition there is to the expansion proposals. Bring yourself! No charge! Bring your friends!

Be part of the thousands of voices saying ‘No’!

A wide range of speakers! Live Music! Campaign videos!

We have now arranged for a Lobby of Parliament for the same day – see below

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg will be speaking at the Rally

Speakers already confirmed include:

Mark Lynas, climate change specialist and author of three books on the subject

Peter Ainsworth MP, Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment

Caroline Lucas MEP, Principal Speaker for the Green Party

John McDonnell MP, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington

Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrat candidate for London Mayor

Councillor Barbara Reid, Hounslow Council cabinet member, representing the 2M group of local authorities

Leo Murray, Plane Stupid

Geraldine Nicholson, Chair No Third Runway Action Group

John Stewart, Chair HACAN

Chair of the event: Baroness Jenny Tonge

No Heathrow Expansion
- Homepage: http://www.hacan.org.uk/


Eurostar is powered by nuclear power ...

25.02.2008 16:52

... unfortunately things are not so easy.

someone


Train use has little effect on nuclear power output

26.02.2008 00:27

Nuclear power plants are run continuously to provide base load and whereas Eurostar and other train companies like to claim their electricity is "mostly nuclear", this is as misleading as "green electricity" tariffs, since in both cases you are really (or mostly) displacing other purchasers on to using more fossil fuel electricity, which is where most of the adjustment to match variations in total demand takes place. Someone haul up Stephen Joseph if he again says train electricity is relatively CO2-free.

Strepsil


Congratulations

26.02.2008 19:47

Well done ! That'll certainly inspire more

simon