Is the anti-aviation campaign essentially a puritan campaign?

“I’m no hypocrite,” he says. “I’ve never said I’m against airports, just airport expansion. I personally fly to the US, Japan and Europe six times a year and people from my company fly all the time. Sadly, there is no environmentally safe way to fly but I do worry about the impact, which is why we charge the company a double carbon tax for every flight we make and then donate that money – £72,000 so far – to half-a-dozen environmental organisations, one of which is Plane Stupid.”

So let me see – the money taxed from Lush’s obviously vitally important long-haul journeys (no disruption allowed there!) is fed into an extremist organisation committed to preventing ordinary folks like us from travelling from Stansted on budget flights.

“I’m no hypocrite,” he says.

Oh yes you are, matey.

Please contact us if you don’t know what we mean.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6008/

Well worth a look.

How would you respond to opponents of London airport expansion who say “The South-East is already overpopulated – we need to concentrate development on the rest of the UK instead”?

However, let me make one point now. There is almost no wing of, individuals in or action of the environmental movement that I would seek to defend. Frankly, with a few honourable exceptions, now mostly ostracised by their colleagues, I hate the bastards as much as the AGW lobby.

The two are now probably the most powerful agencies FOR the destruction of habitat in Europe, doing a job that the energy utilities would never manage on their own and both have a reactionary perspective for society.

(A parlour game I like to play is to ask an “environmentalist” whether it thinks that the citizens of Baghdad are entitled to the same standard of living as the citizens of California and see how long it takes it to say “No”.)

It was not the fact that you attacked the protest – I agree with that – it was the manner in which you attacked it, which I thought was nihilistic.

Though the Daily Mail is not generally noted for a balanced approach to social issues, I accept that the quip about it was sloppy. I should have known better – to my surprise, it recently covered some research of mine.

We pointed out that the objectives of the PS protest were incoherent, and taken forward knowing that their messages wouldn’t be understood.

If the point of the protest was to highlight ‘Government hypocrisy”, because it is giving way to the “unbridled expansion of aviation”, then why would Daniel have lacked confidence in the protest’s message being understood? Why would Tilly tell the media that the campaign intended “to stop as many tonnes of CO2 as we can”? Why isn’t there one message uniting these 50 protesters?

It could be argued that there can be more than one objective to any single action, but they are equally ill conceived. There are other, better, and more legitimate ways of discouraging emissions than this protest, and there better ways of communicating the message of Government hypocrisy (shock, horror, the Government is full of hypocrites!). The protest fails on its own terms.

We characterised the protest as selfish because it expressed contempt for ordinary people whilst failing to establish itself as a mass movement, or the expression of a genuine grievance.

Demonstrations are intended to show the volume of support for the cause in question. As we explain above, demonstrations are beyond the means of the environmental movement. Climate change marches are characterised as silly, ill-attended, and unfocussed, only managing to bring together a rag bag of misanthropes, disoriented socialists, confused anti-capitalists, new age anarchists, nihilistic trustafarians, and confused middle class people, none of whom ever escape elitism – that they know better than the idiot public who remain unconvinced by the protests, the posturing of political parties, and the total dominance of the Green message in the media.

This is not like a strike by working people who aren’t paid enough, or a protest at rising prices, or any other form of grievance that they wish to address. On the contrary, this is equivalent to surfs demanding ‘less cake’ in reply to Marie Antoinette’s indifference to their plight. Or is it just equivalent to Marie Antoinette’s indifference? It’s hard to tell, because, as we pointed out, the language of the protesters is the same as the Government’s.

Failing the test of legitimacy that would qualify the event as either a demonstration of mass support or a genuine expression of grievance, what is the protest? It’s a bunch of people who cannot reflect on why their message isn’t getting heard, and who want to inflict their will over the rest of the population, in spite of their message not being shared. We think it is fair to characterise that as infantile. Being adult must imply the ability to negotiate your will, and accepting responsibility for its failure, and the emotions that are the consequence of your failure to realise your will. If that point is ‘cheap nonsense’, we must accept that we’ve failed to convince you according to this definition of ‘adult’. We’re not going to inconvenience anyone about it. Maybe we’ll try again if we’ve still not convinced you, and you want to reply.

You say “On the contrary, the group campaigns against a government that encourages the unbridled expansion of aviation while claiming to be fighting “climate change”. It is drawing attention to government hypocrisy.”

What “unbridled expansion of aviation”? The proposed extensions have been years, if not decades, in the planning. Caroline Lucas Green MEP recently quipped that ‘we might as well turn the entire country into a runway, frankly’. A sense of proportion is required. Neither the “unbridled expansion of aviation” nor the paving over of the entire country is underway. Airport planning is the subject of much bridling, not least on environmental grounds. People want to fly, and all big developments creates losers, while generally making things better. The way to negotiate the different interests in that process is to make clear arguments, not exaggerated claims.

You say that you enjoy this site because we avoid “debating at the level of the Daily Mail”.

Would that be the same Daily Mail who published this article last year?

The eco-warriors of Heathrow are right to fight against expansion
If it has taken the Swampies to bring this to a head and make us all take notice then, I say, good luck to them. – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-475634/The-eco-warriors-Heathrow-right-fight-expansion.html

And this one.
New flight paths will ‘threaten rural peace’ as planes are diverted from towns – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-517050/New-flight-paths-threaten-rural-peace-planes-diverted-towns.html

And this one.

Third runway to be built at Heathrow This will cause additional misery for about 500,000 homes across west London – who gain a degree of respite from noise when the landing paths change at 3pm – but increases the number of flights by 60,000 a year. – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-421292/Third-runway-built-Heathrow.html

There are many articles on the subject of airport expansion at the Daily Mail website, which often reflect the argument you’ve put forward here. Be careful about characterising the DM. It has taken a decidedly anti-Heathrow-expansion line, and focussed much of its criticism on the apparent hypocrisy of the Labour Government, naturally.

Climate resistance, despite my continued frustration at all things ‘green’ and the complete bollox that surrounds the green movement, I would say that on this occasion I actually think they (stupid and more stupid) have a point about government hypocrisy. In other words a government that picks CO2 reduction targets out of the thin air whilst trying to expand aiports with the knowledge that 1. they’ll never meet the targets 2. they don’t care because they won’t be in power in 12 years time and 3) when all the recrimisation do start it won’t be them who have failed.

So although I completly disagree with the believers ’cause’ I do rather like someone, even if it is the greens themselves, to point out how riduculous this all is.

I will never understand how we ended up in this place (global carbon hatefest) but if we are going to commit economic suicide for the Gaia then at least we should expect our governments to do it properly.