Climate activists glued to doors at airport

16.06.2007

Cli­mate cam­paign­ers this after­noon glued them­selves to the doors of the short-haul East Mid­lands air­port to draw atten­tion to the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of fly­ing as part of a Euro­pean day of action on short-haul flights called by pres­sure group Air­port Watch.

Two men from cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid, have caused dis­rup­tion by super­glu­ing them­selves to the pas­sen­ger entrances to the air­port. Sup­port­ers are there hand­ing out leaflets to air­port cus­tomers encour­ag­ing them not to fly next time, and a ban­ner car­ried by heli­um-filled bal­loons was also been released in the depar­ture lounge bear­ing the slo­gan ‘Let’s fry’.

Last week anoth­er activist from Plane Stu­pid, Pen­ny East­wood, a moth­er of two from York­shire, glued her­self both to the doors of Lastminute.com HQ in Lon­don in protest at the ever grow­ing green­house gas emis­sions from avi­a­tion.

Today’s day of action was called to illus­trate that short-haul flights are unnec­es­sary and unsus­tain­able and that short haul jour­neys can eas­i­ly be tak­en by train or bus which are both over ten times less pol­lut­ing. Demon­stra­tions and protests have been hap­pen­ing through­out the day at air­ports across the UK and Europe, includ­ing Heathrow, Gatwick, Bris­tol, Southamp­ton, Edin­burgh, Aberdeen, Paris, Brus­sels, Ams­ter­dam and oth­ers.

Avi­a­tion is the fastest-grow­ing source of green­house-gas emis­sions world­wide. In the UK, emis­sions from avi­a­tion more than dou­bled in ten years. In May the gov­ern­ment quot­ed the fig­ure of 13% as aviation’s con­tri­bu­tion to UK cli­mate impacts. If you include flights to and from the UK by UK cit­i­zens (the gov­ern­ment excludes the for­mer), the sec­tor now con­tributes about 18.5% of the cli­mate-chang­ing emis­sions for which this coun­try is respon­si­ble.

Not­ting­ham pro­tes­tor, Alex Har­vey, said, “Binge-fly­ing is chok­ing the plan­et. Air­port expan­sion would lock us into increased green­house gas emis­sions and undo all our oth­er efforts to reduce emis­sions. It’s just not an option. Yet that’s exact­ly what is planned for air­ports like East Mid­lands which only serve des­ti­na­tions eas­i­ly reach­able by more sus­tain­able pub­lic trans­port alter­na­tives.’

Last year twen­ty-five activists from Plane Stu­pid block­ad­ed a taxi-run­way at the same air­port.

- ENDS -

nottingham@planestupid.com
http://www.planestupid.com


For more pho­tos of passers­by, reac­tions etc, see https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/373813.html and https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/373834.html