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<H3 class=storytitle id=post-977><FONT size=2>[This is primarily about the
effect of flying on the atmosphere but is important background for anyone
interested in Peak Oil. Jenny]</FONT></H3>
<H3 class=storytitle><A title="Permanent Link: We Are All Killers" href=""
rel=bookmark>We Are All Killers</A>...</H3>
<DIV class=storytitle>until we stop flying.</DIV>
<DIV class=storytitle> </DIV>
<DIV class=meta>By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 28th February
2006</DIV>
<DIV class=storycontent>
<P>At last the battlelines have been drawn, and the first major fight over
climate change is about to begin. All over the country, a coalition of
homeowners and anarchists, <SPAN class=caps>NIMB</SPAN>Ys and internationalists
is mustering to fight the greatest future cause of global warming: the growth of
aviation(1).</P>
<P>Not all these people care about the biosphere. Some are concerned merely that
their homes are due to be bulldozed, or that, living under the new flight paths,
they will never get a good night’s sleep again. But anyone who has joined a
broad-based coalition understands the power of this compound of idealism and
dogged self-interest.</P>
<P>The industry has seen it, and is getting its revenge in first. Last week the
Guardian obtained a leaked copy of a draft treaty between the European Union and
the United States which would prevent us from taking any measure to reduce the
airlines’ environmental impact without the approval of the US government(2).
This, though it might be the widest-ranging, is not the first such agreement.
The 1944 Chicago Convention, now supported by 4,000 bilateral treaties(3), rules
that no government may levy tax on aviation fuel. The airlines have been
bottle-fed throughout their lives.</P>
<P>The British government admits that the only area in which it is “free to make
policy in isolation from other countries” is airport development(4): it could
contain or reverse the growth of flights by restricting airport capacity.
Instead it is softening us up for a third runway at Heathrow, and similar
extensions at Stansted, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow(5). Twelve other
airports have already announced expansion plans(6). According to the House of
Commons Environmental Audit Committee, the growth the government foresees will
require “the equivalent of another Heathrow every 5 years”(7). Orwell’s most
accurate prediction in 1984 was the mutation of Britain into Airstrip One.</P>
<P>Already, one fifth of all the world’s international air passengers fly to or
from an airport in the UK(8). The numbers have risen five-fold in the past 30
years(9), and the government envisages that they will more than double by 2030,
to 476 million a year(10). Perhaps “envisages” is the wrong word. By providing
the capacity, the government ensures that the growth takes place.</P>
<P>As far as climate change is concerned, this is an utter, unparalleled
disaster. It’s not just that aviation represents the world’s fastest growing
source of carbon dioxide emissions. The burning of aircraft fuel has a
“radiative forcing ratio” of around 2.7(11). What this means is that the total
warming effect of aircraft emissions is 2.7 times as great as the effect of the
carbon dioxide alone. The water vapour they produce forms ice crystals in the
upper troposphere (vapour trails and cirrus clouds) which trap the earth’s heat.
According to calculations by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, if
you added the two effects together (it urges some caution as they are not
directly comparable), aviation’s emissions alone would exceed the government’s
target for the country’s entire output of greenhouse gases in 2050 by around
134%(12). The government has an effective means of dealing with this. It
excludes international aircraft emissions from the target.</P>
<P>It won’t engage in honest debate because there is simply no means of
reconciling its plans with its claims about sustainability. In researching my
book about how we might achieve a 90% cut in carbon emissions by 2030, I have
been discovering, greatly to my surprise, that every other source of global
warming can be reduced or replaced to that degree without a serious reduction in
our freedoms. But there is no means of sustaining long-distance, high-speed
travel.</P>
<P>The industry claims it can reduce its emissions by means of new technological
developments. But as the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution points out,
its targets “are clearly aspirations rather than projections”(13). There are
some basic technological constraints which make major improvements impossible to
envisage.</P>
<P>The first problem is that our planes have a remarkably long design life. The
Boeing 747 is still in the air 36 years after it left the drawing board. The
Tyndall Centre predicts that the new Airbus <SPAN class=caps>A380</SPAN> will be
flying, “in gradually modified form”, in 2070(14). Switching to more efficient
models would mean scrapping the existing fleet.</P>
<P>Some designers have been playing with the idea of “blended wing bodies”:
planes with hollow wings in which the passengers sit. In principle they could
reduce the use of fuel by up to 30%. But the idea, and its safety and stability,
is far from proven(15). Yet this is as good as it gets. As the Advisory Council
for Aeronautics Research in Europe says, “the consensus view is that the rate of
progress for conventional engines will slow down significantly in the next 10
years.”(16) And if the efficiency of aircraft engines does improve, this doesn’t
necessarily solve the problem. More efficient engines tend to be noisier(17) (so
even less acceptable to local people) and to produce more water vapour(18)
(which means that their total climate impact could in fact be higher). Even if
the outermost promise of a 30% cut could be met, it would offset only a fraction
of the extra fuel use caused by rising demand.</P>
<P>The airline companies keep talking about hydrogen planes, but if ever the
technological problems were overcome, they would be an even bigger disaster than
the current models. “Switching from kerosene to hydrogen,” the Royal Commission
says, “would replace carbon dioxide from aircraft with a three-fold increase in
emissions of water vapour.”(19) Biofuels for aeroplanes would need more arable
land than the planet possesses(20). The British government admits that “there is
no viable alternative currently visible to kerosene as an aviation
fuel.”(21)</P>
<P>New fuel consumption figures for both fast passenger ships and ultra
high-speed trains suggest that their carbon emissions are comparable to those of
planes(22). What all this means is that if we want to stop the planet from
cooking, we will simply have to stop travelling at the kind of speeds that
planes permit.</P>
<P>This is now broadly understood by almost everyone I meet. But it has had no
impact whatever on their behaviour. When I challenge my friends about their
planned weekend in Rome or their holiday in Florida, they respond with a
strange, distant smile and avert their eyes. They just want to enjoy themselves.
Who am I to spoil their fun? The moral dissonance is deafening.</P>
<P>Despite the claims the companies make for the democratising effects of cheap
travel, 75% of those who use budget airlines are in social classes A, B and
C(23). People with second homes abroad take an average of six return flights a
year(24), while people in classes D and E hardly fly at all: because they can’t
afford the holidays, they are responsible for just 6% of flights(25). Most of
the growth, the government envisages, will take place among the wealthiest
10%(26). But the people who are being hit first and will be hit hardest by
climate change are among the poorest on earth. Already the droughts in Ethiopia,
putting millions at risk of starvation, are being linked by climate scientists
to the warming of the Indian Ocean(27). Some 92 million Bangladeshis could be
driven out of their homes this century(28), in order that we can still go
shopping in New York.</P>
<P>Flying kills. We all know it, and we all do it. And we won’t stop doing it
until the government reverses its policy and starts closing the runways.</P>
<P>www.monbiot.com</P></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV><!-- |**|begin egp html banner|**| --><A
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