Emma Thompson & Greenpeace Fight Airport Expansion

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Emma Thompson & Greenpeace Fight Airport Expansion

by Kelly Leahy (Subscribe to Kelly Leahy's posts)
Jan 13th 2009 @ 11:34AM

Filed under: Cars and Transportation, Celebrities, Climate Change

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When London's Heathrow Airport announced that it was interested in building a third runway to accommodate increased air travel, Greenpeace sprung into action. With the help of Emma Thompson, politician Zac Goldsmith and comedian Alistair McGowan, the environmental group has bought a one acre parcel of land smack-dab in the middle of the proposed site.

Opponents of the expansion worry that the increase from 480,000 to 720,000 flights per year will create an unacceptable level of noise and pollution. Activists claim that for a government committed to curbing climate change, the expansion is hypocritical.

While I agree that increased air travel is no good for the environment, I'm not sure that this one acre lot will actually stop the government from doing what it wants to do. Perhaps the lack of runway space will only fuel sales for flying cars.

Comments [6]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-13-2009 @ 12:33PM

Triangleman said...

720,000 flights PER DAY???

1-13-2009 @ 12:33PM

kelly.leahy said...

Yep, that's what the article said.

1-13-2009 @ 1:53PM

Phil L. said...

The article does *not* say that's a daily figure. Try reading it again.

Sadly, the article doesn't supply units with its numbers - and the numbers appear to be quoted by Greenpeace. Basic journalism skills would suggest using authoritative sources for numeric data, instead of relying on an entity that has bias.

Thankfully, we have Wikipedia (which quotes its sources). Heathrow had 481,476 "aircraft movements" during the year 2007.

And c'mon: Basic math shows that 480,000 flights per *day* would require over 5 flights per *second*, 24 hours a day. Is anyone proofreading out there? It's not that hard to pay attention; it only took me about 30 seconds to track this down. Google is your friend.

1-14-2009 @ 2:00AM

BG said...

It's Greed not Need

When and if Heathrow Gets it's 3rd runway wait and see how many more people look up and say I wasn't expecting that. That's ridiculous, who let that airport do that, not me. I can't sleep as there are so many planes, why is the air around where I live tasting funny. Why is my child not doing better at school? I wasn't expecting this when the wanted the third runway, can you take it away please.
The answer will be NO Ha-Ha you let us build it now live with it. Our shareholders are happy and we've got our bonuses.

This is what will be said by those who say nothing now when it's let go ahead.

DO SOMETHING NOW "PLEASE"

1-13-2009 @ 4:17PM

kelly.leahy said...

Phil and triangleman, ok, I am admittedly asleep at the wheel today. I fixed the post and corrected some other typos. My apologies.

1-13-2009 @ 4:36PM

Phil L. said...

Thanks!

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