runawayedge,
well, based on your statement LHR must be stupid, as well. It 'only' took them 5 years to clear the path for T5... and CDG had to pay so much compensation to neighbouring citizens for noise disturbance (although they came in late)... and FRA refused an additional rwy for ecological reasons.
This makes us quite a few thousands stupid people around Europe, especially compared with your bright mind.
I would just say, if ALL parties affected would have sit down together and think together 'out of the box' to find a solution but no, some clever people like you felt like it is sufficient to consider the critically needed airport ops to impose uncontrolled growth on to 'innocent' people like me.
Any well organised & managed business includes change mgt as part of the mission critical functions. Change mgt includes among other identifying the potential issues & risks and put in place plans to address them. Another area is resistance to change and what needs to be done to address it. Was this done in the case of BRU? Hmmmm.....
I am sorry I was even born.