What on earth (forgive the pun
) does a politician know about weather systems. It's more harmful for someone such as him to be 'sounding off' about issues relating to the livelihoods of many, many people. As previously stated he probably does own a fuel thirsty car or perhaps even two in the family and makes numerous unnecessary trips here and there. However there have never been a shortage of hypocrits in the political theatre and thank godness O'Leary will give him a good pasting in return.
No matter how high the bar is raised aviation still busts a gut to achieve the demands placed upon it. It appears that the general public interpret the vast complexities of aviation on a par with their everyday lives and don't realise how difficult it still is to conduct air operations and still meet safety and commercial targets.
The current politcal regime is using environment as a rear guard action to keep everyone engaged in the issue so that they don't notice the despair that besets the rest of the country. These politcians can also throw out loose comments and not be accountable for them but we don't have the same luxury afforded to us. The aviation industry can hit back and discretely ban them from travelling with individual airlines. That way the response is behind closed doors and not in the public domain so they can't cry about it.
The environment debate (I use that term very loosely) is an easy topic for the semi-educated masses to take on. It doesn't require much in terms of knowledge, experience or even presentation just pure fear factor. I doubt the same giddy matrons, eco-idiots and other lifetime 'campaigners' would be able to present an equally alarming view on the state of not just the economy but the strategic position of the UK on the global stage. Could they really argue the sever ramifications of our happy-dappy education when applied to the seriousness of the corporate world. We don't need all this crap in our everyday lives; hugs, icecaps, spin, "lessons learnt", minister of farting, look I'm the victim, Marvel comic's Captain Blair to the rescue and of course unaccountable behaviour = vandalism (I do whatever I want, whenever and I'm not responsible for it).