As this year's Camp gets ready to set up near the UK's largest airport - to throw a spotlight on the impact relationship between aviation and climate change - we offer you a chance to discover how last year's camp was run on sustainable pri
Programme produced by Phil England for Climate Radio. http://climateradio.co.uk Please drop me an email to let me know if you rebroadcast this programme: phil [at] switch-online.co.uk
This week we travel back in time to August 2006 and bring you a set of interviews originally recorded for The Two Degrees Show at last year̢̮??s Camp for Climate Action. As this year's Camp gets ready to set up near Heathrow airport, to throw a spotlight on the impact relationship between aviation and climate change, we offer you a chance to discover how last year's camp was run on sustainable principles - using principles of low-energy use, renewable energy production, sustainable food, composting toilets and grey water systems for returning water safely to the land.
As regular listeners will know, if you are looking to reduce the size of your impact on climate change, the single most significant thing you can do is to limit the amount of flights you take. As our carbon guru, Chris Goodall told us in an earlier programme: that̢̮??s the thing that really makes the difference to your carbon footprint. And if you are looking to make a difference at a wider level, you might consider going to this year̢̮??s climate camp, where there will be over 100 workshops and a lively community operating on principles of self-management, consensus decision-making and direct democracy. This year̢̮??s Camp which runs from the 14-21st August. Check out their website for full details of their extensive workshop programmes and other details at: www.climatecamp.org.uk
The Camp has already received a good deal of media attention as a result of the application for a wide-ranging injunction by the Spanish owned airport operator, BAA. The application to the High Court for a broad-based ban on protest around the airport, would have covered around five million people including the Queen and Prince Charles! In the end, the British Aviation Authority came out of court with a very limited civil injunction that seems to cover little - if anything - that is not already covered by criminal law.
BAA̢̮??s High Court application would appear to have been nothing more than an own goal serving to highlight the wide-ranging opposition by civil society organisations to airport expansion. The umbrella group AirportWatch, for example, includes the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the National Trust, the Woodland Trust, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Transport 2000, the World Development Movement, the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. The groups have a combined membership of five million people ̢̮?? that̢̮??s one in 12 of the population and 25 times more than the membership of the Labour Party! Then there̢̮??s the scientific community - the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has concluded that the UK̢̮??s policy of aviation expansion is incompatible with our stated commitment to playing a fair role in avoiding dangerous climate change. That̢̮??s a view supported by the UK̢̮??s leading climate policy research establishment, The Tyndall Centre, as well as the House of Commons Envrionmental Audit Committee.
If the government continues to ignore the recommendations of the likes of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, one has to ask why. After leaving office, the former aviation minister, Chris Mullins, said, "I learnt two things. First, that the demands of the aviation industry are insatiable. Second, that successive governments have usually given way to them."
Perhaps that̢̮??s why, as local campaigns up and down the country have started to win some of the battles, Gordon Brown̢̮??s government has decided that airport expansion plans should be railroaded through as a matter of national strategic importance. Out go the consultative regional assemblies to be replaced by business-led regional development authorities. Out goes local planning, in comes central dictats. The government, it seems, wants to shut down all democratic avenues for influencing policy.
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