Greens against Aviation

[ShotOne]

Just read in the local rag that the UK Green party are claimingthat the UK airline industry gets £9.2 billion pounds in tax breaks from the government. They also state that Manchester airport alone gets £807 million.

I wonder where this money comes from since I saw no mention of this massive sum in the budget...and where does it go . Certainly none of it has been given to the company I work for.

Oh yes, and they are still trying to get VAT on air tickets and aviation fuel. Isn't it about time we launched a concerted anti green campaign. They are trying to wipe out our jobs

[WorkingHard]

ShotOne - VAT on aviation fuel, what next, duty? Unfortunately SO you have clearly no idea what ACTUALLY happens in the aviation world. Many of us still use piston engined a/c and guess what - we pay duty and VAT. You're not an ill informed journo by any chance? Your remarks suggest as much.

[AiryFairy]

If you have ten pounds in your back pocket which I can see, and if I do NOT take it; have you received a 'subsidy' of ten pounds?

If you go into a room containing ten people and none of them steal (sorry, I mean tax) your ten pounds, then have you received a subsidy of £100?

Perhaps I am naive and simple.

[Genghis the Engineer]

The airline industry, since it is a huge employer, gets not to be taxed out of existence (or grossly overcharged by the CAA).

I'm sure that if either the "environmentalist" industry, or for that matter any part of light aviation was a huge employer on the same scale, it would get reduced VAT and duty on fuel, buildings, etc. etc. etc.

Ah, except that light aviation is a major UK employer, and has it's fuel taxed out of existence, ludicrously expensive business rates on hangars, £151/hr CAA charges to gain company approval, VAT charged on flying training, etc. etc. Bu**er, there goes that argument.

And environmentalists make very little for the country (okay, they do keep it looking and smelling nice I'll grant them that), are largely unproductive and the activity employs very few people - yet they get huge government tax breaks for virtually everything they do, protection by charity rules for their organisations, large government grants for all sorts of things. Damn, I've shot that argument down too.


Nope, it all makes no sense whatsoever.

G

[MPH]

And all that money, will probably go to, amongst other things, into maintaining a bunch of jobless, ‘greens’ that, are nothing more than rebels lacking a plausible cause!!! It amazes me how certain groups that merely for political reasons, look for arguments and reasons to bring down any industry. That, all in all contributes to the livelihood of an enormous amount of families and individuals.
Modern day technology does not have an answer to all their claims. Maybe they have the answer?

[Frangible]

Being a large employer doesn't exempt haulage industry or company car fleets from VAT and fuel duty, as well as GA as noted. What are the arguments as to why the tax exemptions on fuel for commercial aviation should continue, aside from its present poor financial condition? (Genuine question).
The original reasons were in the Chicago convention which then thought aviation in need of a leg-up in the world, similar to the cap on insurance claims under the Warsaw convention, things which don't apply any longer.

[FlyboyBen]

Surely, if VAT is placed on aviation fuel then the costs will just be passed on to the passengers. This will hit hardest the low cost operators since they will have a higher percentage price rise overall on their tickets.
I think in these current times when the industry is trying to attract new customers and return to previous levels it would be unwise to knock it back further.

[Dr Dave]

For those who are interested, the Green Party report is available in full here:

Aviation's Economic Downside (http://www.greenparty.org.uk/campaigns/2003/Aviation's%20Economic%20Downside.htm)

Selected elements of the summary (pertinent to the posts above) are:

S1 Aviation is the most highly-polluting transport mode on earth, and its pollution constitutes a major hidden cost to the economy. Aviation is also subsidised directly and indirectly by the taxpayer, and is a major drain on the UK balance of payments.

S2 The health costs of air pollution from the UK aviation sector are estimated at more than £1.3 billion pounds a year.

S3 The economic costs of aircraft noise in the UK are estimated at £313 million a year.

S4 The costs of UK aviation's contribution to climate change are estimated at well over £2 billion a year in 2001. And unless the government radically changes its policy on the matter, aviation's CO2 emissions will have increased by 588% between 1992 and 2050, and its NOx pollution by 411%. By 2050, aviation could be contributing up to 15% of the overall global warming effect produced by human activities - with staggering economic costs.

S5 The overall hidden economic costs of the European Union's aviation sector are currently estimated at £14.3 billion a year - of which the UK alone accounts for £3.782 billion, or 26%. This doesn't include the costs of aviation accidents, accident services, and direct subsidies like the £500 million given to BAe to help it develop a new airbus.

S6 Hidden subsidies to the aviation sector also include the costs of building and maintaining the surface transport infrastructure which serves airports - costs which are growing fast in parallel with the growth of aviation.

S7 Aviation is under-taxed compared to most sectors. Flight tickets, aircraft and aviation fuel are zero-rated for VAT. HM Treasury collects £1 billion in air passenger duty per year, but forgoes £3 billion due to VAT zero-rating of aviation products and loss of excise revenue. Aviation fuel pays no tax at all, although if it were taxed at the same rate as unleaded petrol, this would raise some £5 billion a year. Effectively, society is subsidising the aviation industry through a colossal tax-break of £7 billion a year.

Dr Dave

[Moses Mashomba]

If the UK government were to unilaterally place duty / tax on jet fuel, and much dependent upon the level of taxation, the airlines will simply tanker fuel in from countries where the fuel is cheaper and / or not taxed.

Nb. Many airlines already tanker fuel as a viable method of reducing the uplift required from airports where fuel is expensive - indeed at my airline we do a "should we tanker ?" analysis before every flight.

That said, tankering fuel increases the weight of the aircraft and this in turn causes more fuel to be consumed, however the additional burn required to lift the tanked fuel is more than offset by the fuel price differential.

Accordingly, and somewhat ironically, the overall effect of a tax on aviation fuel is likely to cause more fuel to be consumed - which is probably not quite what the 'Greens' intend any such a tax achieve.

[timzsta]

The Green Party document is typical sensationalism and figures plucked out at random. It uses terms like "estimated" (which means they dont know) and "hidden" (which means they dont know).

If aviation is contributing 15% of the global warming gasses, who is contributing the other 85% and how does aviation compare to them?

The modern long range airliner (say A330), in terms of miles/per pax/per gallon is more efficient than a family saloon car.

Accidents?(touch wood). When did we last have a major aviation accident in the UK? Over a decade ago. The UK has an excellent safety record.

I fly privately. I pay plenty of VAT on fuel thanks very much. The government makes plenty of money out of VAT on GA fuel.

Aviation results in more transport links having to be built which costs money. Well if we scrap the plane we will have to build more roads and railways to replace them with wont we? So the point is what exactly?

The government give BAe £500m to help with A380. But how many jobs will the create/protect. And how much will the government raise in tax revenue from those people employed on the A380 at BAe over the lifespan of the aircraft (ie tax on earnings, tax on petrol to get to work, airport taxes on business and leisure flights, VAT on things bought with earnings). Probably more than £500m I would say, so isnt that actually a good investment? That money will contribute to environmentally friendly projects like wind farms, cleaning up the countryside. At the end of the day it all goes in one pot and comes out of the same pot.

[Dr Dave]

A couple of corrections:

1. According to IPCC, aviation is responsible for 2-3% of total ahthropognic emissions of carbon dioxide (not 15%)

2. Transportation across all classes is responsible for 15% of anthropogenic CO2

3. If we take radiative forcing, the contribution from aviation is estimated at 3.5% (effects of contrails, other greenhouse gases, etc.)

4. Isn't the British Government contribution to the A380 (at least in theory) a commercial loan, repayable on royalties. Surely therefore this should not be considered here?

DrDave

[Gainesy]

S3 The economic costs of aircraft noise in the UK are estimated at £313 million a year.

Anybody explain that? The noise is free here.

[Field In Sight]

It must be the cost of ear plugs and double glazing.

[Iron City]

And the claims from the farmers for reduced milk production from the cows that would have given more if not for the noise and less egg production from the poor stressed out chickens.

When was the last time a company that got a huge pile of cash from the government as a loan actually paid it back (Chrysler and Lockeed are the exceptions)? Got to do somethingto compete with those nasty Americans.

[Dr Dave]

Iron City

Errr - Airbus in fact!

The last figures for the A320 that I heard were for the year 2000.

The UK government provided a loan of $369 million (in 2000 dollars) to BAE Systems for A320 launch aid.

By 2000, BAE/Airbus had repaid $459.2 million, giving the U.K. government a profit of $126 million on this program. Given that payments occur on a per aircraft sold basis, and the A320 is selling well, I guess this is somewhat higher now.

Figures for the A330/A340 are a little less impressive though I believe.

Dr Dave

[Genghis the Engineer]

There was a debate about this on Radio 4 the other day. In the time honoured fashion they put a greenie (nothing should be built anywhere, ever) against somebody I think from BAA (we should be able to build runways everywhere, and only heavy metal should be allowed to use them), with the inevitable argument.

Then, they hauled in from some UK university a chap who was a "Professor of Sustainable Aviation". He told them both, very politely that they were talking complete airbollox, and explained how you need a certain amount of additional runway capacity, a constant improvement in noise and efficiency, and only build on a handful of occasional nature reserves if absolutely necessary to the economy. Apart from spoiling a good argument, he sounded thoroughly good value for money - anybody know who he was and whether he can be persuaded to join Pprune.

G

[billovitch]

Once calculated that 250 pax on a DC-10 used less gas than 250 drivers, each in a separate car, doing the same distance.

So why aviation should be the most polluting travel I don't know.

As for noise, the only annoying aviation noise comes at the beginning and end of the flight. Road traffic noise never gets away from the surly bonds - and is nation wide.

[Airbubba]

A lot of these guys are the ones in Europe who will presume to lecture on air quality while blowing smoke in your face...

[Paterbrat]

The fact that Greens act in part as a natural brake on society is not a complete loss. There exists a need for some caution in any field of human endevour, and they provide it. The a**hole is not a very elegent or beautiful part of the body however we would all concede that it does perform some neccesary functions. That the Greens are a**holes does not detract from their essential nature in the scheme of things though they do come up with a load of sh*t a lot of the time.:hmm:

[SailorOrion]

<rant>

Just to throw in a number of figures:

1) Lufthansa consumes about 4.5 liters/100 passenger kilometers flow, Hapag Lloyd does it even with under 3 liters (thanks to 3-3-3 layout on their A310 :p ), while an average mid-sized car guzzles around 7.5 liters/100PKM. Now for the greens, most of who have profound lack-of-knowledge in elementary arithmetics: Thats 40% less fuel for LH or 60% less fuel for HF. (sorry I don't have figures for other airliners).

2) Commercial aviation uses less land aera per RPK and emits less noise per RPK than ANY OTHER known means of transportation, apart space transportation systems.

Facts about subsidies:
3) The german government wastes 10 billion EUR every year in wind power plants, a form of power generation which is completely unsable on the large scale, unless we discover a means to store vast amounts of electircal energy, all in order to fight "evil" nuclear power plants, in order to make "enviromentally friendly" power. However, if you provided 100% of the worlds primary engery needs with solar power plants by 2050, the albedo (reflection coefficient of Earth) would change enough that the climatic consequences would be unpredictable. However, it is not possible for this fact to penetrate the thick green skulls because of lack-of-scientific-knowledge.

4) The very same government wastes 3-5 billion EUR every year in SUBSIDIZING mineral coal, which is then to be converted into electric energy, ignoring the fact that Germany has over 25% of the world's known brown-coal supplies and the best brown-coal powerplants (the only power plant that produces energy at a cost simlar to nuclears)

5) The very same green government keeps ranting about "subsidizing" commercial aviation, however, they try to make life hell-on-earth for the airlines, by imposing airport curfews, making them pay for the neighbours noise-surpessing windows and other things. I live near a busy railway line. Why don't we shut it down at 2200 every night and make the people pay for MY windows?! No, we're throwing billions of EUR into the German Railway because they don't get their act together, and drive rotten trains around the country which are filled under 20% on the average.

Not taxing someone or something does NOT equal subsidizing.

6) Commercial Aviation is not only the backbone of globalization and international trade, but also an ambassador for peace and mutual understanding of cultures.

Things in Europe are getting ridiculous.

I think it is time to bomb the greens back to the stone age for their own safety and finally bring Disney World to Vladivostok

"I wish to warn you about the highly dangerous 'green movement', that threatens to stop progess of human knowledge"

</rant>

SailorOrion

[Genghis the Engineer]

When criticising others, it's important to be fair - it strengthens one's case.

The German government clearly spends the money - whether it's wasted, is of-course a matter of perspective.


2) Commercial aviation uses less land aera per RPK and emits less noise per RPK than ANY OTHER known means of transportation, apart space transportation systems.

Except I suspect many forms of marine transportation.



I'm clearly very pro-aviation, but as an Engineer I find much of the technology behind "green" issues fascinating. There are occasions when wind, solar (and even more so wave) power can be economic and a very good idea [and if I lost my medical and couldn't fly the machines I work on, I might switch my professional interests in that direction]. We should give credit to green technology when this is appropriate, maybe we can even use it ourselves.

That said, I do agree with the vast majority of your points.

G

[SailorOrion]

Genghis:

Er ... yeah I forgot the marine means of transportation, mainly because of the fact that they don't carry that many passengers these days anymore.

I perfectly agree that technologies like Wind and Solar power, as well as geothermic energy are facinating technologies and very good sources for niche markets, however as an engineer which has specialized not only in aerospace but in power plants as well, I daresay that these technologies are totally unsuitable for providing the power quality and amount need for large industrialized societies.

SailorOrion

[Genghis the Engineer]

For large towns and cities, absolutely. For desert airports, island communities (Mull !), remote villages, etc. - some of the "alternative" power generation methods make huge sense. And for all of us, "green" methods to minimise noise, pollution, power consumption, etc. make enormous sense.

It's the fascism of those who think we should either completely ignore environmental issues, or become utterly obsessed about them to the complete detrement of the economy that annoys me. I suppose I'm basically an agnostic at heart!

Oh yes, and as an Engineer I get seriously irritated by a particular brand of greenie who goes on constantly about the benefits of "green technology" but can't be bothered to properly understand the technology, how it works, and it's strengths and limitations - or as you said earlier, obtains a basic grasp of that essential tool - maths.

G

N.B. I think if you check you'll find many times more total tonnage are transported by sea than our industry does. The costs of air travel are generally reserved for items that want to get there quickly or they lose value - whether that's people, post, or fresh flowers.

[GeneralMelchet]

Forgive me if I'm missing the point , but don't we the passengers already pay a tax on the tickets we buy for air travel. The last time I travelled it was £10 each way.

The following statements were in the Guardian in October.

Friends of the Earth said a higher rate of tax would help curb the growth in air travel, warning that increased carbon dioxide emissions would prevent the government meeting international obligations to reduce pollution.

Roger Higman, FoE chief aviation campaigner, said: "Increasing air passenger duty has an unstoppable logic and we would fully support it as an effective way to reduce the demand for flying."

So if these guys get their way there could be a few more redundancies in the airline industry and your cheap Easyjet fare to Paris could be a thing of the past.

[Nerik]

For anyone interested I wrote a thesis about Aviation and the Environment last year. Link to download it in PDF format can be found here:
http://www.areco.org/studies.htm

5th item:

Cordina, Eric. “Aviation and the Environment,” London City University, July 2002. The thesis generally supports the conclusions that air transportation is a significant and growing environmental problem, with difficult associated governmental and industry decisions needed to be made in order to put long term solutions in motion. It points out that the air and oil industry has resisted moving forward on these solutions in the past, for profit motive reasons, but that the future oil shortages are generally now accepted world-wide and that this acceptance will shift solution perspectives over the next 10-20 years.

[jumpseater]

Genghis, Loughborough used/may still do a Aviation and Environment course, I have helped them on occasion with that, it may have been someone from there.

There are plenty of sensible 'green' orientated aviation people out here, however the press usually gives precedence to either the green tax and restrict approach :yuk:, or the aviation 'dont live near an airport, bloody NIMBY' view :hmm:, because I suspect like reality TV shows, it all gets a little dull when sensible debates get involved! :E

Nerik, interesting theseis, just had a quick skim through it, hope it does/did well for you!

[Nerik]

Thanks jumpseater. The thesis went well thanks. My personal opinion is that it is only new technologies i.e. hydrogen that will help find a balance between traffic growth, environmental problems and fossil fuel shortages in the future.

[G-Foxtrot Oscar 69]

I have developed an aircraft the emits nothing but hot air. I took the green party and strappen them nice and safe inside a gas turbine casing after removing the fan unit.

Exactly the same thing came out the back end as when it was a gas turbine. Yep you got it Hot Air!!!!

But being serious. I have a debate with a greenie once and you can throw facts at them like there is no tomorrow but they wont listen.

I started a thread about 1 month ago on aircraft pollution on go the same stats as above.

PAX miles etc.

I used the bus analagy once. A bus is better then a car because.......blah blah blah.

Same person flew on an A320 to go on hols mind:ok:

[Daysleeper]

Well if one considers that some of the low cost carriers sell tickets for a quid and APD is £10 , then they are being taxed 1000% which must make flying as a pax the most highly taxed activity in the UK. :p

[LatviaCalling]

As regards to fuel, mostly diesel for trucks is painted pink or red so that if anyone looks at it at the border, it should not be contraband. Some times the suppier does not do this. **** happens, however. Sometimes VAT is charged, but rarely.

[cortilla]

Before i start this, i hate nimby's and the like and i would love to stuff an exhaust pipe down most greenie's neck. However i'm gonna play devil's advocate here.

There are some serious issues in the green side of things. If expansion stays the same then in 2-3 years time Heathrow will exceed uk and european directives around pollution. The airport may have to become limited in it's capacity, not because of runway space and so forth but because of actual pollution. A large portion of this pollution comes from cars/busses etc. travelling to and from the airport. The M4/M25 junction is the busiest stretch of road in europe and a high polluter.

LAX in 1994 (i think) became the first airport in the world to be limited in capacity not by a/c movements but by the sheer weight of road traffic going to and from the airport. Congestion is also a form of pollution. The planners in and around heathrow are seriously considering some form of road pricing scheme (like good 'ol ken in london) to reduce this form of pollution. They will try to force people onto busses and onto the heathrow express etc. They will also try to get employees to use car sharing and so forth.

Something does have to be done about it. People usually don't associate other costs to their travel apart from their own personal costs. There is also a heavy social cost involved which includes pollution and time. Economists have several fancy formulae to work out what this noise and other pollution works out as a monetary value. I suspect this is where the greens get their figures from.

Like i said, i hate your average green as much as the next guy, but something does have to be looked at in terms of pollution and so forth.

[Paterbrat]

Thats a very verdant way of looking at the situation Cortilla:rolleyes:

[cortilla]

had to look up verdant there. Ahh a dictionary still has a use. I know it was, but like i said in the post i was playing devil's advocate. Evironmental economics is a large part of one of my modules in my degree.

[Paterbrat]

Aaah I see. By the way with that hosepipe poking down your collar you won't get the top button done:D Oh, and Nick's lawyer generaly doesn't take a stand on either side.:ok:

[Coconuts]

Well a major part of my degree & the subject I'm hoping to major in is Environmental Studies & coincidentally we're getting the head of the Green Party in to head one lecture after Xmas (& a fine thing he is too). :D

My lecturer is Indian & returning home soon for a while is always harping on about CO2 transmissions & the Greenhouse Efffect. I get a great kick in winding him up, starting off with

"If you wants to do your bit to reduce the greenhouse effect & provide a good example how about firstly leaving your swanky sports car at home & cycling to college & instead of flying to India I sincerely hope that your going to row". (No I haven't been thrown out of the class yet)!

Incidentally I do remember where some major environmental event was being held abroad & participants were encouraged not to fly to it but try to use some other means of transport that was less fuel guzzling & more environmental friendly.

Looks like I'm destined to be a hypocrite for the rest of my life, an environmentalist (not a wacky one, they do more to turn people off environmental issues more than anything), an aviation enthusiast & fairly regular flyer. Shucks :(

[bugg smasher]

The essential argument of the Greens is correct; at the present rate of consumption we will not only run out of fossil fuels sooner rather than later, but pollute the planetary ecosystem beyond reasonable hope of repair. The short-term economic consequences of addressing the problem, however, are so severe that they do not bear thinking about for the common citizen. Civil aviation is not the only sector that would fail.

It is a juggernaut of our own making that we ride.

[DoctorA300]

There is abosolutly nothing wrong with trying to make the world just a bit cleaner. I have two kids, who I hope will never have to eat 3 eyed fish ( think ´Simpsons`). The newer generation of Aeroplanes and engines are much cleaner, queiter and more efficient than lets say DC8/B707 etc, why, because fuel got very un-cheap, lets make another quantum leap, and leave the fossil fuels where we found them, on the ground. Let the greenies scream and shout, Hitler did that, and look what happend to him.
Doc

[JoyDivision]

I too have 2 kids and would like them to have a cleaner environment to live in. However aviation is not the main culprit for mucking the environment up.

If aviation does get tax breaks I doubt they are enough to offset the huge cost of re-equipping with newer more fuel efficient and quieter aircraft.

Then what do we get - you cannot run your APU between the following hours..........hmmmm I know, lets plug in a dirty great diesel generator called a GPU instead - yep makes sense!

OK but I want to do some base training on Saturday and Sunday while the airfield is fairly quiet............ No sorry thats out of the question you have to do in the week when you are competing with the schedules for irritating the neighbors, but my shiny new jet is ultra quiet........ hmmmm makes no difference might as well be a 707 for all I care!

I could go on at great risk of boring everyone to death but I think the point is made.

[Paterbrat]

Since the very fact that one exists is an irritant to another of our species, is in itself an indication of just how hard we are to please. The fact is, that whatever anyone does is going to be getting up someones elses nose. The general idea is for us to get a consesensus of informed, logical and reasonable opinion, on how best to proceed with our lives on this planet with the least disruption and adverse impact on the bulk of its inhabitants.
Whatever is chosen is not going to please everyone, never can, and never will. What we do have to try to do is weed out the more extreme and the minority fringe ideas, not that some of those could have been life saving, deep insightful, and possibly planet saving ideas, rather than we have to move forward together or not at all; otherwise we have a dictatorship, be it of political correctness, facism, racism, secularism, or any other minority agenda. For in general the human race in their precarious position of present pre-eminance have decided that dicatatorships are not the way to go...although having said that, they are still somewhat divided on that issue???:uhoh: :ooh: :bored: :hmm: :confused: :} :) :* :8



Wow!! "Eats shoots and leaves." might be my required reading for Xmas.

[MPH]

Bang goes this posting. I suppose we will have to wait till the advent of the solar powered airliner?:{

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Bring back the cold war I say. 3 minute warnings kept everybodys minds off Green issues and the loonies were all in one place securely strapped to Greenham Commons fence...

Cheers

WWW

[cyrano_de_bergerac]

IMHO an essential point has been missed in the fuel-efficiency comparisons between air travel and other various modes of transport. You can't compare them directly because they aren't substitutably equivalent choices... one does not climb into a car for the drive to Hawaii if one feels that the cost of a flight is too expensive. You simply cancel the vacation, and in so doing provide a net environmental benefit to the planet, by saving the cost in fuel in entirety.

By taxing petrol, there are two important benefits... you reap funds that can be used to counteract the cost to the environment, do research into alternative energy sources, whatever. But at the same time the higher cost of the product provides incentive for the populace to drive more efficient vehicles, hybrids, or electric cars, or simply drive less.

If one chooses to not tax certain industries such as aviation, that that is an implied subsidy, because they are being relieved of a cost that taxation-fairness should demand be applied equally to all people and industries alike. That's purely a political decision, done out of out of sympathy for airlines' ability to compete economically. Hurting industry and causing job losses, or airline bankrupcies in one's own marketplace is not good politics. And politics, as usual, will throw out-of-whack what should naturally occur out of sense and logic

From global benefit standpoint, it makes sense that higher petrol costs, passed onto passengers, would cause less travel as the public and businesses forgo trips that are less essential.

Naturally, those that are employed in the industry will argue against this green argument, but that is purely out of self-interest.

The question remains, when world population is mathematically on course to be 134 trillion by the year 2300 (OK, reality says as we overwhelm the planet, it might stabilize at around 9 billion), do we really want the downward trend in air travel cost to continue? Do we really want the bulk of the planet jet-setting across the globe whimsically as tax burdens are forgiven to the industry?

Unless you're an airline stock holder or employee, I'd say probably not.

[MPH]

Cyrno de B
The same applies to aviation! By the years you mentioned, aircraft will also be fuel efficient . They probably will have even lower contaminating emissions than a car.
There is one point you’re missing…the aviation industry in itself, generates and pays for its own costs. The development of technology is funded by all those companies that make their money from the airlines. On top of this you should add the tax passengers pay to most airports every time they buy a ticket. So, it’s not a case that the ‘airlines’ and their passengers, don’t pay any tax to the contrary, they do! What about all those people who works for the industry…don’t they pay tax? Balancing the problem to suffice all parties, that will be the juggling act politicians, will have work on.
:hmm:

[Ignition Override]

The British magazine, "the Economist" has had articles about the Green Party, which I know almost nothing about. Besides the members who might be sincere, does the Green Party in certain countries not include certain factions of anarchists and (former)communists, who must find a mainstream party to belong to, otherwise having little chance of being part of a coalition government? Read about the background of Mr. Joschka Fischer (Frankfurt street riots in the 60s-70s: policeman savagely beaten by 'someone', another seriously burned by a 'Molotov cocktail', thrown by 'someone'), who is the Foreign Minister in the German government. According to a book, he went many years ago to a conference of either the PLO or PFLP in Algiers...never mind some friends among the Baader-Meinhof 'social club'.:uhoh: I gave a copy of the local newspaper article about this guy, to a Lufthansa gate agent working her flight in Chicago.

But, in their favor, there are articles on the Internet which claim that the German Green Party tolerated the use of German bases last spring for military transport aircraft to operate in support of the invasion of Iraq. There were reportedly some major problems inside the Italian govt.

[SLF3]

I think the bottom line is that sooner (rather than later) people are going to have to stop doing things they would like to do because the environment cannot support the demand. Since the only efficient form of rationing is price, taxes on air transportation will increase.

Do you really want to see the air you breathe? You could in west London last night.

[Jordan D]

Are there any organisations that I (a humble SLF), can join against the like of Stop-Stansted Expansion/HACAN/etc?

Cheers,

Jordan

[jabird]

Jordan,

I despise nimbys just as much as anyone else.

CVT has its own supporters' forum, formed principally to counteract the local version of HACAN. There must be others around the country?

On the overall taxation issue, I don't see why I should be taxed at 80% if I were to drive to Edinburgh, but virtually nothing if I fly - yet Gordon Brown reduced APD to £5. Surely with the long term trends in leisure time, the industry can continue to grow, whilst still paying a reasonable rate of taxation to offset the environmental damage which it causes. Easyjet (and I think others) have argued for a long time that APD is unfair because it is a flat rate across all flights - hence the x000% argument on the £1 flights. So if APD was got rid of, what would be the fairest way of replacing it? VAT on (at least domestic) flights - but not necessarily at 17.5%?

[WHBM]

Aviation fuel pays no tax at all, although if it were taxed at the same rate as unleaded petrol, this would raise some £5 billion a year.I always love statements like this because they are saying that if the cost of aviation fuel were tripled or whatever by tax, exactly the same quantity would be consumed as before ! So they expect no environmental benefit at all, just a tax grab.

The Greens cocked it up similarly with the London Congestion Charge, saying it was to aid the environment but calculating the expected revenue as if the same traffic levels continued as before. As the traffic fell, they are now way below their own budgets for charge income, and having to think about putting public transport fares up to bridge the gap ! Of course if they put the charge for cars up even more cars will be deterred and income fall further.