Manchester aviation conference & dinner both disrupted on same day

Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid dis­rupt avi­a­tion indus­try con­fer­ence

Cam­paign­ers dis­rupt­ed an air­port indus­try con­fer­ence today using rape alarms tied to heli­um bal­loons . The pro­test­ers from the group Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid entered the Man­ches­ter Cen­tral con­fer­ence venue (for­mer­ly GMEX) and sent five bunch­es of heli­um bal­loons read­ing ‘Hap­py Retire­ment’ to the top of the ceil­ing where they remained with the alarms ring­ing. This occurred at exact­ly the time when the indus­try del­e­gates were pos­ing for a pho­to shoot for the launch of a new car­bon reduc­tion scheme at Euro­pean air­ports which will not include emis­sions from air­craft.

Tues­day 16th June 2009

Out­side, pro­test­ers held a ban­ner out­side the entrance read­ing,
“Avi­a­tion Indus­try Con­fer­ence – Cli­mate Crim­i­nals Inside”.

The group were protest­ing against the avi­a­tion’s grow­ing con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change. Avi­a­tion cur­rent­ly accounts for around 13% of the UK’s green­house gas con­tri­bu­tion.

Megan Sims from Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid said, “The air­port indus­try is reck­less­ly push­ing ahead with expan­sion plans across the UK and Europe despite all the warn­ings about cli­mate change. We can­not pur­sue this growth agen­da if we are seri­ous about tack­ling glob­al warm­ing.”

“Their lat­est back-pat­ting exer­cise is yet more green­wash from the air­port indus­try. They pro­vide the growth of the facil­i­ties for air­craft to oper­ate and encour­age more flights, more emis­sions and more cli­mate change.”

The three day con­fer­ence was being host­ed by Air­ports Coun­cil International.[1] The con­fer­ence was sus­pend­ed whilst house staff strug­gled to remove the float­ing alarms from the ceil­ing.

[1] http://www.aci-europe.org/
[2] http://www.planestupid.com/
[3] http://www.stopmanchesterairport.blogspot.com/

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Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid dis­rupt avi­a­tion indus­try Gala Din­ner

On Tues­day 16th June 2009 cam­paign­ers from the group Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid tar­get­ed the avi­a­tion indus­try’s gala din­ner being held at the town hall tonight. Pro­tes­tors scaled two lam­posts and erect­ed a 15m ban­ner read­ing, “Avi­a­tion Indus­try Con­fer­ence — Cli­mate Crim­i­nals Inside”.

The ban­ner drop cre­at­ed a lot of atten­tion from the pub­lic and con­tin­ued the pres­sure on the avi­a­tion indus­try who are attempt­ing to green­wash the cli­mate issue. The Avi­a­tion con­fer­ence includ­ed the launch of a new ini­tia­tive to make air­ports car­bon neu­tral. How­ev­er, this does not include the emis­sions from flights which cur­rent­ly account for around 13% of the UK’s green­house gas emis­sions.

“It’s time for the avi­a­tion indus­try to wake up and to start a just tran­si­tion to replace avi­a­tion jobs with emerg­ing sus­tain­able indus­tries such as wind tur­bines.’ Vanes­sa Hall, for­mer city coun­cil­lor and Green par­li­men­ta­ry can­di­date for Man­ches­ter Cen­tral.

“There is no such thing as a ‘car­bon neu­tral’ air­port, ‘car­bon neu­tral’ is a term used for off­set­ting projects that rarely result in any real reduc­tion in emis­sions. This project is even more decep­tive as it won’t include the mas­sive emis­sions from planes.” James Alden, Green par­li­men­ta­ry can­di­date.

This was in con­juc­tion with a cli­mate action at the GMEX ear­li­er in the day where pro­tes­tors released rape alarms attached to heli­um baloons, dis­trupt­ing the avi­a­tion indus­try con­fer­ence.

[1] For pic­tures of cli­mate action at the GMEX:

(see above)
http://stopmanchesterairport.blogspot.com/
http://www.planestupid.com/

[2] Infor­ma­tion about the ACI con­fer­ence:

http://www.aci-europe-events.com/annual-general-assembly/
–
http://www.stopmanchesterairport.org.uk

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