Household carbon must be reduced to allow more flights??????

[snapdragon]

I couldn't beliieve what I heard on radio news.

Households and businesses will have to reduce their carbon use by 90% so that 30 times more flights can be made!!!! ?did I hear that right?

I'm just gobsmacked - I, like everyone here I guess, am trying to reduce my use of carboniferous products to save resources and the planet for myself, my family and future generations - NOT so the airlines can use up all the earth's resources

I am Furious

[Annpan]

I heard this too.... I can't put into words how I feel about this... it makes me livid (BTW, I have never flown )

[Smooth Hound]

i heard it too, and its infuriating, we are made to use low wattage bulbs, which although im quite happy about, it does anoy me that im being told i must, whilst others are flying all over the world, undoing all the good im doing its beyond a joke

[Annpan]

Went to Largs viking festival a few weeks back and stood on the shore watching a display from the RAF typhoon.... as amazing and strangely beautiful it was (while also absolutely petrifying and horrific)
I was standing there thinking... "Well I'm so Glad I didn't take that extra f*%$ing carrier bag in Morrisons"
So glad that my efforts are worth it...


BTW - a typhoon being a mach2 fighter capable of both air to air and air to ground combat... what an RAF typhoon has to do with Vikings, I don't know...

[Flo]

BTW - a typhoon being a mach2 fighter capable of both air to air and air to ground combat... what an RAF typhoon has to do with Vikings, I don't know...

Just a way of reminding said Vikings not to return. Bigger and better weapons are supposed to deter. Which is part of the reason we need to keep the aircraft flying says the cynic in me.

[Rosendula]

We have the Red Arrows here today. Anyone else not see the point in them? I feel like a bit of a boring old fart, but I've never seen the point in them, not even back in the days where we weren't thinking about carbon footprints. We also had thousands of pounds worth of fireworks let off last night, and are meant to be having an even bigger display tonight. I was angry enough about it all, and then I come on here and read this! FFS!

[Green Aura]

amazing and strangely beautiful it was (while also absolutely petrifying and horrific)

I know exactly what you mean Ann.

We live next to a live bombing range (Cape Wrath). The planes are strangely beautiful and you can't help but watch them while being - I can't think of the word (distressed/appalled?) - at what and why they doing it.

I've only flown a handful of times, and have been really grateful that it's given me the opportunity to see far flung family and friends who I wouldn't have been able to see otherwise.

But at the same time I find it appalling that people fly all over the world to conduct business that could easily be done by conference call, or have 3-4 foreign holidays a year.

I've been amazed at the number of people who've visited us this year (the Highlands), who've never been to Scotland on holiday before and they've only come because the exchange rates have prohibited their overseas trips. Hopefully some of them will decide to come again - although I think the weather may have put some of them off

[eccentric_emma]

ARGH that is nuts. Surely we should be using the remaining oil to build a society where we won't have to rely on it anymore? i.e. to make PV panels etc instead of frittering it away on frivolities!!

Has anyone got a link to a news story about this so I can see details?

[Annpan]

amazing and strangely beautiful it was (while also absolutely petrifying and horrific)

I know exactly what you mean Ann.

We live next to a live bombing range (Cape Wrath). The planes are strangely beautiful and you can't help but watch them while being - I can't think of the word (distressed/appalled?) - at what and why they doing it.

I have spent a lot of time in the west highlands and the do flight training around there for the supersonic planes - they boom over head and disappear and I grew up with it so never really though much of it... but this was different...

We had just arrived, I was trying to get organised, get everyone ready, get our picnic and jumpers, etc out of the car and I had this horrid sense of panic... I just kept thinking that there are Mummies out there, somewhere in the world who hear that sound and it means their house might be bombed (and no doubt grabbing essentials and getting their children to safety) ... and I just cried.... so absolutely horrific.

The sound of these things wooshing back and forward over your head (they don't woosh, they scream and boom and roar all at once) is the scariest noise on earth, puts the fear of God in you.


But watching the way they defy gravity and speed up and slow down, fly vertically right up through the clouds, and all these amazing twisting and turning manouvers... well that is an amazing piece of engineering a triumph of science, and an awe inspiring example of what the human brain can achieve.
Just down right awful what it is used for.

[Millymollymandy]

We have military jets screaming overhead most days here. I think I'd rather live under the flightpath for Heathrow. Well OK, maybe not, but I literally have to stick my fingers in my ears when I hear these dreadful planes coming. Sometimes they are really low. I have no idea where they come from but I hate them and don't admire them or think anything about their engineering. I just think how my quiet life in the country is being disturbed! but they also give me horrible visions rather like Annpan mentions in her posting. It's not a nice feeling quite aside from the noise.

[Brod]

Going back on topic. This is the logic of the madhouse, its like saying we should own more pocessions so that burglars have more to steal!
The sooner the government bites the bullet and introduces fuel duty on aviation fuel the better.
a) More tax income so they don't have to play the cuts game.
b) Less carbon/ climate change
c) If foreign holidays cost more than people might appreciate them more. At the moment they're so (comparitively) cheap thet people treat them like fast food, 2 hours later they want another one
d) Oil stocks will last longer.

However the cynical side of me says that polititions (of any hue) are so scared of voter backlash that the odds of winning the lottery are better than that ever happening.

[dave45]

but why single out aviation? didn't I read that the CO2 emissions of the world's webservers exceeds that of all aviation and is growing even faster.. and that shipping likewise beats aviation (love those iPods and cheap flat-screen TVs from China!)
Globalisation means everything is interlinked now, and cheap transport is at the heart of it, not just aviation.

But lets face it, no-one is going to do diddly in terms of CO2 reduction on any meaningful scale... all the commitments and pledges are beyond the political horizon, and will not be met. The recession is the biggest CO2 saver. And population growth will defeat any successful efforts. The IPCC reckon there's a 20-1 chance they are wrong about AGW anyway :-)

And where is the logic in this stunt?

http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news ... wered_bus/

compared with not doing it? emmm - biodiesel emits as much CO2 as fossil diesel. If you want to reduce CO2 you need to reduce ALL powered travel miles. Is your journey really necessary? Live nearer work, stay at home. But who wants to live that way?

[The Honk]

but why single out aviation?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 ... 718276.htm

9.9 million tonnes a year and we worry about stand by LEDS

[Marc]

Yep. I agree with what most of you are saying - I think aviation needs to be heavily curtailed. But hey, we're in the minority and it's not going to happen.
I'm afraid if Co2 is really causing the damage that it appears to be, then the planet is doomed. Or at least most life as we know it on the planet.
Very few people are going to be prepared to do what's needed in time. (that's even assuming it's not too late already)
I would ban all non-essential flights tomorrow!!!!!

[MuddyWitch]

Well, we could start by pricing internal British flight to reflect their damage.

If our government really wants to do it's bit it could help the 1,000,000 homes that are suitable to install photovoltaic panels and all the equipment needed. If they did this to 100% of the cost this would cost about £1 billion.....or 1/10 of the cost of one nuclear power station. Incidentally if these houses were so equiped they would feed the equivilant of 5 power stations' worth of electric into the national grid. Let me simplify:

£1 billion = 5 stations (photovoltaics)
£10 billion = 1 station (nuclear)

Hummmmmm

MW