Heathrow carnival

Next Saturday, 31 May, many thousands of people will be heading for Heathrow. Nothing so unusual in that - Heathrow is the UK's biggest airport. But this Saturday many of these will be there not to catch a flight but to protest against the plans for a third runway. Why is this such a bad idea? Many would argue that the local impact alone should be enough for the plan to be scrapped. At least 150,000 people will be under new flight paths to the new runway, and people under the existing flight paths would have planes going overhead every 90 seconds.

But the real killer is the climate change impact. Forecasts for aviation expansion over the coming decades estimate that the increase in capacity at Heathrow would add more in CO2 emissions than the total current emissions from Gatwick and Stansted put together.(1)

There's more information on http://www.make-a-noise.org/ and http://www.stopheathrowexpansion.com/

(1)http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/environmentalissues/ukairdemandandco2forecasts/ (Table 3.7)