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Climate Campaigners Lock Down At Airport to Protest Runway Expansion

#1

Climate Campaigners Lock Down At Airport to Protest Runway Expansion

Sarah Lazare, staff writer

Climate justice campaigners—including one dressed as a polar bear—chained themselves together on the runway of London's Heathrow Airport early Monday morning, forcing flight cancellations and delays to creatively protest the proposed expansion of the facility.

"No third runway! No ifs, no buts!" chanted the 13 protesters, who hail from the direct action organization Plane Stupid, a network of grassroots groups that opposes aviation expansion out of concern for the environment.

#3

A quick glance (time seemed to grind to a halt in that short duration) at your posts reveals you to be a right wing troll.

Welcome to the forum.

These people should be congratulated not derided, as they are actually fighting for you too even though you can't grasp that fact.

#4

Oh, you are behind it. Way behind. Your self-imposed blinders assure you will never lead anything, not even your miserable little self.

Too bad. There is a divine self inside trying to get your attention. Why are you so deaf?

#6

I took your post to be ironic and pointing out that if 13 people can shut down an airport, then there's little excuse for claiming that 'nothing can be done,' and "nothing I do can change anything." Your comment only makes sense to me the way I see it but from the replies, it seems I am supporting a minority interpretation. Oh well, won't be the first time....

#7

His post history clearly shows the intent behind his words.

#8

What is it we want Daddy?

#9

Yes, yes, a thousand times, YES.

More of this. At every airport project, every fossil fuel extraction, every new superhighway.

More people next time. Join your local nonviolent resistance.

Mass resistance, multiply. Cause real difficulty for the dominators. Interfere with business as usual, toss wrenches into their strategic plans to "develop" and "own" and sell everything.

Thanks to the organizers and activists!

#10

Very Interesting.

But this is noting compared to the rice farmers in Tokyo. I showed up for work one day, in uniform, at Narita International, after the big fight with them, and a large security team pulled us out of the crew van and pulled up the carpets and scanned the whole thing and went through every thing in our bags right on the side of the road. Then they waved us on to our 747. Stunned, I asked what that was all about. The Captain said "Last week, to protest the new runway, the rice farmers invaded the airport in crew vans followed by a tank and put a hole through the control tower!

That land for the cross runway, had been in their families for generations, and they were not having a runway going through it! Eventually, three more runways were built, so I guess they locked up all the farmers.

A couple of thoughts. This was an incredibly dangerous stunt. When pilots are landing at 140 some knots on jets, they are NOT looking at the runway at all, until the last second. We CANNOT see bodies laying on the runway, since we drive with instruments into the roundout and flare, only occasionally glancing up to see if the geometric shape of the pavement makes sense. We've landed on top of other airplanes sometimes since shapes at that speed look more like just smeared paint or rubber smears that are common on ends of runways. Don't try this at home!

I question the logic of opposing air travel when it's only responsible for ten percent of the global carbon footprint. You CAR is the main reason we are dying. Let's start booting all private autos since everyone in the West has or aspires to have an auto, and few people fly.

#11

Hello, Mr. Jefferson.
It makes a difference at what altitude a pollutant is released. For example (you may have noticed in your car's emission tests) ozone, precious though it is in the stratosphere, is pollutant at ground level. I have been curious about this (one of the reasons for checking out the article), and it seems there is some debate about pollution from jets being significantly worse than from other sources.
P.S. Didn't the article say that the protesters use a place that would affect only take-offs, for safety sake ?

#12

Hello Kurt,

I am sorry, I think you are wrong. Are you familiar with term specific gravity? Molecules don't stay at one altitude. It doesn't matter where you release them, they seek their specific gravity. Any freeway internal combustion engine that releases greenhouse gasses on the ground like Co2, methane or Ozone, as examples, will get sucked up by convective weather (like thunderstorms; which are nothing but huge vacuum cleaners that spit road smog out at 40,000 feet.)

wiki says:

Ozone is a powerful oxidant (far more so than dioxygen) and has many industrial and consumer applications related to oxidation. This same high oxidising potential, however, causes ozone to damage mucous and respiratory tissues in animals, and also tissues in plants, above concentrations of about 100 ppb. This makes ozone a potent respiratory hazard and pollutant near ground level. However, the ozone layer (a portion of the stratosphere with a higher concentration of ozone, from two to eight ppm) is beneficial, preventing damaging ultraviolet light from reaching the Earth's surface, to the benefit of both plants and animals.

However, there is no "Safe Place" on the runway when heavy jets are taking off or landing. Jet blast on takeoff can seriously injure you 1000 feet behind the aircraft. Even on taxi with big fan machines maneuvering on taxiway turns. Recently this just happened at two international airports through the chain-link fence. At an airline I worked at, two of our flight attendants were sent to the hospital after being blown down the alleyway near gate 1 United at LAX. So the airplane doesn't have to hit you. Just the downwash from the wings is enough to send you flying from a B-747.

Only in Hollywood do people fool around under big jets on runways. In real life, that doesn't work. This is the reason that flights were cancelled by airport officials.

#13

WOW ! I'll take your word about the exhaust and safety. It make sense, too. No need to apologize for disagreeing.

You should look up "specific gravity" . It's a property of materials. They don't seek it. But this doesn't say you're wrong. Maybe it's a matter of degree: how much of the total ground area permeated with CO2 do the thunderheads evacuate ? And wouldn't it make sense if CO2 is more effective at high altitude than on the ground? Anyway, I've inquired with the protester's organization.

#14

"Funny" how the right derides efforts to stop climate change, when its sheep will be the ones bleating the loudest for their "right" to clean water when the proverbial really starts to hit the fan.