Calling all Climate Campers..

For this blog entry I will start with a simple extract from the 'Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings' by Gregory Y. Titelman

PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES SHOULDN'T THROW STONES - "Those who are vulnerable should not attack others. The proverb has been traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde' (1385). George Herbert wrote in 1651: 'Whose house is of glass, must not throw stones at another.' This saying is first cited in the United States in 'William & Mary College Quarterly' (1710). Twenty-six later Benjamin Franklin wrote, 'Don't throw stones at your neighbors', if your own windows are glass.' 'To live in a glass house' is used as a figure of speech referring to vulnerability."

I think most of you will probably see where I am going...but in case you don't, I will go on. I have been a staunch supporter of action against climate change since I was a 13 year old putting up 'Boycott Esso' posters outside the petrol station across the road from school. So most people may see it as strange that I am having a go at the Climate Campers at Heathrow who are campaigning for the same thing. However, I believe there is such a thing as believing in the cause but not the means by which it is being promoted.

The fact is that many of the people I know who have run off to join the Climate Campers at Heathrow airport this week (and now extending to many airports around the country) have themselves indulged in one (or more) indulgent holidays themselves this summer. Now, I am not trying to have a go at those people, most people holiday in foreign climbs these days and the experience of travelling is one that I am starting to get a passion for myself and helps you gain perspective and encourages (well...sometimes) more tolerance and understanding of different cultures. However, the above proverb seems to ring loudly in my head when I question whether these people should really be standing up and preaching about the evils of aviation emissions. Perhaps a donation to the climate change project made over the internet whilst hanging one's environmental head in shame at the carbon footprint you have chalked up on your latest foreign retreat would be more appropriate.

The reason I am so bitter is maybe because I am a first time flyer! Yes people, I have been sheltered enough in my short life to have never flown anyway before, and have never ventured further than my family holidays to my beloved Cornwall or school trips to France on the ferry. As a result, I am rather nervous about getting on my first plane at the ripe old age of 20 and having a load of people hanging precariously around the runway from which I will be setting off. I agree that Heathrow should not be extended, and if that was the sole purpose of the demonstration and if it were guaranteed to remain peaceful and undisruptive to a girl whose aviation carbon footprint is ACTUALLY non-existent, then I would quieten down. However, after witnessing an interview with some burk on the TV in an idiotic 'i'm so ironic i like to wear my grandfather's cap and tweed shorts' claiming that 'all airports are going to suffer, you will be seeing more action like today' after another load of idiots lay down on the runways at Farnborough airport to stop the planes leaving, my feelings have been rather accentuated.

The matter of climate change is one that is, and continues to be, greatly highlighted in the media and I believe is now beginning to genuinely enter the consciousness of the British public. My dad, for example, never one to pay particular attention to the environment - although never purposefully harming it - has become a recycling fiend! I find people at work comparing how they are becoming more energy friendly by turning the lights off, people turning down bags at the checkout left, right and centre, and the rise in the number of green gas and electricity options are now showing that there is an increasing demand from the public to do more to prevent further damage. I know it is not yet enough. And I don't agree with the expansion of Heathrow, but I just can't believe that pissing off a load of holidaymakers by sitting on your arse in some camp for a week, or chaining yourselves to railings is going to make BA, Easyjet and all the other companies who, let's face it, run the show stand up and listen. They are only going to be more angry and is it affecting their profits? Of course it's not, and if we learnt anything from Rosa Parks back in 1955, it was that the way to get what we want is to hit profits.

So, campaign about the expansion of Heathrow, lobby important politicians, get people's support!! This move just seems to be one that is going to cause antagonism towards the movement and, as cynical as it sounds, seems to be yet another platform for snotty nosed teenagers/young adults to stand up and say 'Oh I'm such an environmentalist you know, when I got back from my holiday in the Maldives, to get to and from which I took four flights in total, I totally went to that Climate Camp to meet my other environmentalist buddies who also wear their grandad's hat as an ironic statement against globalisation and capitalism...' and this makes me angry. Have the bloody courage of your convictions and either holiday in Skegness or stop preaching to everyone else. I mean isn't this the whole argument? We are preaching to the developing world not to develop like us because they're going to do more to harm the planet - but that is the way we evolved and the developing world is not doing enough to change it, so how can we order less developed countries to do what we wouldn't and still now won't.

So I will pray that when I get on my flight to Heathrow, I will not be faced with a load of protestors lying on the runway while I take off on my first ever trip on an aeroplane. I am not a serial flyer, I am not a denier of climate change, I am just a person asking that it is ensured in future that these protests are actually hitting the people at the top, and not the people who will provide your greatest strength and support in the battles ahead.