BAA are already spinning the story they'd won their injunction. Complete nonsense as Enough is enough said: "If the court case had been a football match, the final score would have been 3 goals to BAA and 4,999,997 to The People! 3 is the number of named people BAA managed to injunct out of the 5million people they originally sought to keep away from Heathrow Airport."Photo: Last years peaceful protest against expansion of Staverton airport
More here. What's more is the Judge awarded costs against BAA for all the organisations involved, except for Plane Stupid. That's a funny kind of win.
BAA's case was for an injunction to ban environmental campaigners from the airport, parts of the rail network and sections of the M25 and M4 motorways. The ban aimed to shut down
a planned peaceful protest against the expansion of Heathrow airport from 14-21 August 2007. Were BAA really saying that local members of groups like the National Trust and RSPB shouldn't be allowed free movement in parts of West London for a week? And if that
is what BAA wanted, how did it expect the police to impose these limits?
To me there seems to be more concern with people protesting against climate change than actually tackling climate change. We are seeing this government preside over the biggest expansion of the aviation industry seen in a generation. Curbing the right to peaceful protest against this disastrous policy adds insult to injury - indeed protestors have gone out off their way to meet with police and discuss the protest.
Green Party London Assembly Member Jenny Jones, who hosted a meeting between the police and protestors at City Hall said: "This is a complete over-reaction on the part of BAA. How can the police possibly be expected to restrict the movement around Heathrow of such a massive group of people?"
So we are still at the moment at least free to roam. Why not try the Climate Camp sometime between the 14th and the 21st of August? I can't make it but I know several from Gloucestershire who will be joining the fun.
More here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk
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Camp for Climate Action
From the 14th to the 21st of August 2007 people from all over the UK will come together to form the Camp for Climate Action at Heathrow airport. Described last year as 'Glastonbury, science seminar and protest all in one'1, we clearly have a lot to live up to. Last year this mixture of education, protest and entertainment captured the media imagination with the camp receiving unheard of news coverage for a climate change protest. At that time we focused on dirty coal2, this year the focus has changed to the ever expanding aviation industry.
Deciding to highlight aviation growth with this years climate camp was not an easy decision. But we asked ourselves: 'Where are government policies on climate change weakest and most badly needed?'. The answer is clearly the aviation industry: a heavy polluter that is highly subsidised and growing fast. Just imagine would could be done with the £9 Billion in subsides given to aviation3. That is a lot of hospitals, schools...or tax cuts! The government has climate policies that exclude aviation and aviation policies that exclude any consideration of climate change. According to a cross-party group of MPs who looked at this conflict, growth in aviation emissions are likely to entirely destroy progress made elsewhere4.
Whereas the government has shown it's rhetoric to outshine it's performance the Camp for Climate Action seeks to lead by example. The week long event will have a strong emphasis on learning, both about low carbon living and about communicating climate change. Renewable energy such as Solar and Wind will power the event, including on-site internet access, projectors and lighting5.
Heathrow was chosen as the symbol of aviation due to it's international profile and it's vast carbon footprint—larger than many countries6. It was also important to us that many local people are already strongly resisting the expansion of Heathrow, we felt a strong desire to strengthen there fight.
We have three aims:
1.To highlight government hypocrisy in pursuing both a climate plan and an entirely inconsistent airport expansion plan.
2.To support local communities i there struggle against loosing homes under the ever expanding tarmac of Heathrow.
3.To educate ourselves and all those who join us about low carbon living.
We do all this with a simple philosophy:
Climate change is our generations challenge, it must not be left to burden our children. As governments fail us the realisation is clear, action is our responsibility: we are the ones who we have been waiting for.
References:
1.http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article1359823.ece
2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_for_Climate_Action
3.AEF, Hidden Cost of Flying, 2003
4.Environmental Audit Committee, 2002-2004, 9th Report (Budget 2003 and Aviation)
5.http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/aims.php
6.http://bristlingbadger.blogspot.com/2007/05/heathrow-uks-worst-emitter.html
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