The single biggest contribution to CO2 emissions comes from fossil-fuel-fired power stations, while fossil fuel burning for the heating of buildings (which cogeneration would remove the need for) is responsible for CO2 emissions that are almost as high as those from cars, and more than those from trains, planes and ships put together?

No – environmentalism isn’t about the environment, it’s about middle class control-freak so-called “leftists” (who actually despise the working class).

http://www.postrecession.wordpress.com

“You are a hideously sad and irresponsible group of people. I can only hope views such as yours die out when our government finally wakes up to the need to take real action to stop the destruction of our planet.

So how does that move on the argument on this site ?.

SHAME ON YOU CHRIS.

Keep up the good work editors .
mat

John doesn’t know what our ‘philosophy of life’ is. All he can see is that we seem to be in favour of the Heathrow development.

The problem is, John, that we aren’t convinced by the premises of the arguments that environmentalists put forward in their objections to the development. Therefore, you could only truly call us ‘irresponsible’ if we agreed that a third runway would send ‘the future of the earth and our grandchildren’ to hell.

We don’t buy the catastrophism, you see. And there are plenty of good reasons not to.

For instance, if you’d taken the trouble to investigate the site properly – which you clearly haven’t – you would have found us criticising the idea that science produces moral imperatives. And you would see that we explain the need for apocalyptic and catastrophic scenarios to generate legitimacy for political ideas. And you would find many cases where we demonstrate disparity between ‘the science’ and what people say ‘the science’ says.

That is not to say that climate change isn’t a problem. Nor even that the proposal to build the new runway doesn’t have problems which need addressing and debating. What it is to say is that your measure of what the terms of the debate are is polarised by some unhelpful binary categories and axioms (eg, ’sides’, and Stuart’s ‘with us or against us rhetoric).

In fact, we started this blog because we were concerned that environmentalism and anxieties about ’sustainability’ threatened to deprive this generation and future generations of the possibilities that development can create. We saw a deeply retrogressive tendency within the arguments being made by environmentalists and politicians. We thought that they were dangerous and ill-conceived.

It would be irresponsible not to challenge what we perceived as dangerous, wouldn’t it?

I for one am open to the possibility of such a scenario. I do believe that “s**t happens” and we only need to look to human history for many many instances of massive disasters of all kinds. If a planet-killing asteroid hit the planet next year, or a new killer plague appeared, or nuclear war broke out in the next 10 years, I for one would NOT be surprised. Quite simply, s**t happens. Always has, always will. And climate change may indeed be one of those things.

However, I have tried and tried and I have not as yet found anything convincing in a practical way to support the view that we WILL kill our children through CO2 emissions. I am not a scientist by training, but I am technically minded, and I can follow logical arguments and question assumptions. I am also very interested in social dynamics, therapy, and unconscious motivations. I take a general interest in science and culture. And most of what I see about AGW is a cultural movement, with not enough science to justify it. The computer models have never been proven right. They can’t even be shown to be vaguely trustable. Only those scientists who are in love with their models will claim that they are the very best on offer. And if you read carefully what they themselves say about the models, there is a subtle distinction between “suing what we know” and basing policy on them.

Well, using what we know, most models about anything and everything are most likely wrong. That much we know from looking at the history of what does and does not work in modeling. But if the climate scientists took that on board, they would be left with NOTHING. They certainly would not enjoy the attention and importance bestowed on them by caring people like you. I mean that seriously. You care, they model scenarios, but your trust in them is not warranted. Really, you need to question whom you trust.

I expect in years to come we will see other scientific fields clamor for attention. Geneticists and epidemiologists will start asking for more research, warming that infections diseases are on the rise, and we could be facing major plague outbreaks. Astronomers will warn that risks from asteroids are far greater than previously thought, and will need to form groups to get the funding to put massive defenses into place, with massive engineering projects required to build means of diverting planet killing asteroids. And that is just the stuff that we can think of.

Much bigger s**t can happen than we could possibly imagine, and we as humans do well to not let our arrogance get the better of us. We have to think beyond one simple issue or problem. Climate change, one runway? That’s a tiny thing in the big scheme of planetary threats.

You say it’s Bush who is our friend, but it’s his rhetoric that you are using.

We often point to parallels between the War on Terror and demands for political action to mitigate climate change. Both are expressions of the ‘politics of fear’.

You may be climate change sceptics (and you are totally mistaken in your views in my opinion) but your support for Heathrow Expansion is misguided and cruel.

As your friend George Bush would say: if your not with us your agin’ us!

My point of view is probably similar to Ian Wilson’s re the 3rd runway. To remain a thriving, modern economy I accept we need good airports, as well as good rail networks and good roads. Yes, it’s possible to expand Heathrow and there would be some benefits to a new runway. Less stacking, for example, and queuing on the runways (which will save many tonnes of CO2, for those people concerned about this.) Also we have Geoff Hoon’s commitments re “green slots” and limits to noise and emissions (whether or not these will be – or can be – enforced is another question.) But I think that at some point this century we are likely to outgrow Heathrow.

I also take on board George Carty’s comments re the difficulties of building a large airport to the east of London. Yes, the area is prone to flooding, although the situation could be improved with better defences and the effective management of wetlands. However, we are already committed to developing the East End, in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, so eventually a new airport (with good transport links) might be a fitting extension of these current works.

An island airport would definitely bring its own engineering challenges with it, though, as they have found when building the Kansai International Airport in Osaka Bay, Japan. Reclaimed land can sink, also there’s the fact that south-eastern England is descending by a few millimetres a year due to post-glacial rebound. Add to that, a continuation of the slow rise of the oceans, which has been taking place over the last few millennia. I think it would be a tough but interesting proposition, and we could learn from the successes and mistakes made at KIX.

No easy answers, really. But that’s also the fun of it. Without challenges, life would be dull indeed.

Also it would be dull if we all thought alike on these issues! I hope some of the new visitors to this site stick around for some lively debates to come.