Originally Posted by
PerPurumTonantes
(quotes trident3A): "It's possible to love aviation and at the same time realise that we cannot continue expanding."
Aviation is fun, challenging, mind broadening, brings cultures together, etc. But most of it is non-essential. What do we need a third runway for? To free up 27L and R so more people can go to Thailand for 2 weeks?
It's pretty clear that we're facing a serious climate problem. We've known about this since the 70s and b***er all's been done really. Yes we've done a few things on power generation. But transport? All we've seen is more cars, more planes. So although I don't think shutting down Heathrow with drones is a good idea, you can see where they're coming from, because no other form of protest seems to be working.
Homo Sapiens struggled for hundreds of thousands of years to gain a foothold -- two steps forward, one (or two) back -- almost dying out countless times, you can bet. Then along came the Industrial Revolution and BOOM. In my wee lifetime the world human population has Tripled.
Science now accepts the Anthropocene (the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment) as an actual geological era, i.e. if homo sapiens were to disappear tomorrow, a future geology-practising species could idenitify it. And guess what: it coincides with the "Anthropocene extinction", one of the most significant extinction events in the history of the Earth. Just coincidence? I think not. And the polar ice caps are melting like crazy and sea levels are rising in corresponding fashion. Coincidence? I think not.
Unbridled Growthism has painted us into quite a corner. But people, being people, are always big into Denial. Any ostrich hole will do. Personally I think it's too late in any case. But it's true, we're in uncharted waters. Nobody
really knows how these things develop. No endeavour is as complex as climatology. So as good little Denialists we seize on that: "They throw figures around as if they knew what they were talking about!" Well, Nobody really knows. But then, anyone 20 years ago who had predicted the scale of polar ice melt we're seeing now would have been hooted down in similar fashion. The news on the ground is
not good.
I don't blame these kids for raising hell. The third runway at LHR is a (no pun intended) concrete example of out-of-control Growthism. It's a symbol. I perfectly understand their anger and their unwillingness to allow "business as usual" to yet again pretend we can carry on this way.