Aviation biofuels protest targets Virgin Atlantic

Activists from Plane Stu­pid and Action Against Agro­fu­els protest­ed at Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 3 out­side the Vir­gin check-in about the pro­posed use of bio­fu­els for avi­a­tion. Mon­day 22nd June was cho­sen as it was the 25th anniver­sary of Vir­gin Atlantic who plan to meet 5% of their 2015 avi­a­tion fuel quo­ta from bio­fu­els. Most of this will inevitably come from palm oil.

Mon­day was the 25th anniver­sary of Vir­gin Atlantic. They cel­e­brat­ed at Gatwick Ter­mi­nal 3 with a repeat of their 1:00pm maid­en flight from Lon­don to Newark in 1984.

The protest con­tin­ued for over 5 hours. At the final count 11 activists were arrest­ed.

News sto­ry here:
http://latestnews.virginmedia.com/news/environment/2009/06/22/anti_airport_protesters_arrested

And press release below:

9 arrest­ed as Plane Stu­pid and Action Against Agro­fu­els (AAA) crash Vir­gin Atlantic 25th birth­day par­ty

9 activists from Plane Stu­pid and AAA (Action Against Agro­fu­els) have been arrest­ed gate crash­ing Vir­gin Atlantic’s 25th birth­day par­ty at Heathrow air­port, to high­light plans to allow the avi­a­tion indus­try to con­tin­ue to expand if it uses bio­fu­els instead of con­ven­tion­al avi­a­tion fuel.

Two men, dressed as stew­ardess­es, are still on top of the entrance to the Vir­gin com­plex at Ter­mi­nal 3 where the cel­e­bra­tion is being held. Out­side more activists, also dressed as stew­ardess­es, unfurled a ban­ner read­ing, “Avi­a­tion Indus­try: no way out” and “Cli­mate Crim­i­nals Inside”. All those out­side have now either been arrest­ed or moved on by the police.

Vir­gin has been an out­spo­ken sup­port­er of bio­fu­els as a solu­tion to the steeply ris­ing emis­sions from air­craft, but sci­en­tists are crit­i­cal of plans to scale up their pro­duc­tion to meet the new demand for replace­ment fuels.

Mary­la Hart, spokesper­son for AAA said, “Vir­gin Atlantic are claim­ing to be “Red Hot after 25 years”, but with bio­fu­els it’s going to be a red hot plan­et we’ll be liv­ing on. Today’s cel­e­bra­tion is all about hav­ing fun but the biggest joke of the par­ty is that the
avi­a­tion indus­try are sell­ing bio­fu­els as a green solu­tion to their prob­lems.”

Josh Moos of Plane Stu­pid said, “Vir­gin are invest­ing mas­sive­ly in try­ing to make bio­fu­els work, but bio­fu­els are no way out for the avi­a­tion indus­try. It’s far­ci­cal to sug­gest that bio­fu­els are the answer when last year it took 150,000 coconuts to pro­vide just 5% of the fuel for a one-way flight from Lon­don to Ams­ter­dam. In real­i­ty it will be oth­er veg­etable oil blends such as palm oil pow­er­ing air­craft, but the soar­ing demand for palm oil is already dri­ving trop­i­cal defor­esta­tion.”

Dee Rughani of AAA added, “The avi­a­tion indus­try is pre­tend­ing that bio­fu­els reduce green­house gas emis­sions when all the peer reviewed sci­ence states that the oppo­site is true. Whether it’s palm oil or 2nd gen­er­a­tion bio­fu­els, both will still com­pete for land, so any growth in this indus­try will add fur­ther to the 100 mil­lion peo­ple
already going hun­gry due to bio­fu­els whilst exac­er­bat­ing trop­i­cal for­est destruc­tion and cli­mate change.”