February 2010

We always thought that the government's economic case for the third runway at Heathrow was flawed. Particularly so given their plan to only allow use of half of the runway's capacity if environmental targets weren't met.

UPDATE: Thursday - Day 3

The third and final day in the high court turned out to be the best one so far.

The government's barristers continued to try to defend the statistics that the Department for Transport had used to support the case for a third runway, and it turned out to be a bit of a minefield for them. (Perhaps because the statistics were basically pretty shoddy.)

For those of you who missed Saturday's edition of one of Radio 4's most popular programmes, 'From Our Own Correspondent', you missed a great piece on the desperate plight of Pacific tuna. Focusing on overfishing by EU and Asian nations around the Cook Islands, it covered the story of our very own ship Esperanza busting a Japanese purse seining vessel which was fishing illegally in Cook Island waters.

You can listen to it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fooc.

This time we're making arguments in court, rather than on top of a plane.

Just over a year ago, at the start of 2009, transport secretary Geoff Hoon gave the government's approval for a third runway at Heathrow airport. It would be accompanied, he said, by "the toughest climate change regime for aviation of any country in the world".

Cleaner planes, tougher regulation, green slots for takeoff and landing - the secretary of state was keen to broadcast the runway's green credentials. But it didn't make a lot of sense to me then - and it still doesn't.

Anyway, I'll get to spend a whole lot more time thinking about it this week, because tomorrow I'm off to court to report on a legal challenge to the controversial third runway decision.

Greenpeace is part of a coalition mounting a legal challenge to the government's Heathrow decision. Twelve other groups are also backing the challenge, including local councils, other NGOs, residents' groups - altogether, millions of people are represented.

In front of Lord Justice Carnwath, our lawyers will claim that the consultation the government held over the plans for Heathrow expansion was fundamentally flawed. They'll argue that the decision to expand Heathrow is at odds with the UK's overall climate change targets, and they'll also contend that the government hasn't made good enough plans to ensure there's enough public transport to serve an expanded airport.

It's a trio of challenges to the way the decision was made - and if the ruling goes in our favour on any one of the three points, the government's decision to proceed with the runway will be overturned, which is obviously going to lead to a pretty major rethink in transport policy.

We'll see what happens, but it's sure to be a comprehensive thrashing-through for the issues around the third runway, and I'm lucky enough to get to sit through the whole thing, in order to report back to you all.

Wish me luck... (And look out for updates from the court, or just outside the court, through the week.)

We called for strong climate action from the US. But support for the proposed climate bill is being undermined by BP.

It's not perhaps the most surprising of news, but it is worth noting. BP USA has quit a leading business coalition that's been lobbying for a climate bill to cut carbon emissions in the states.

You can be sure that what goes on in the States will have been approved from the London office, where over the past few years BP have been working hard to create the impression of a company that has moved away from fossil fuels. So does this move mark an admission of oily business-as-usual from the company that claims it is "beyond petroleum"?

What would you build on our piece of land to stop the third runway?

Lordy. When we launched the Airplot fortress competition a few weeks ago, I don't think we were prepared for the sheer range of ideas we'd receive. We've had plenty of suggestions for forts of some kind, while others have trod an underground pathway with tunnels and bunkers, and others have gone fully 'outside the box', proposing bold and outlandish new design concepts.

It's worth stopping to think about the true price of the salmon you eat. And there's quite a lot to think about.

Salmon is one of the biggest international seafood commodities, and in the UK it's easily one of the most consumed and most conspicuous species in our supermarkets and restaurants. But the vast majority of the salmon you'll find on shelves or plates these days has been farmed rather than fished. Partly that’s because there's hardly any wild Atlantic salmon left, but it's also because salmon's popularity has grown and it has gone from being a delicacy to become more of an everyday food in the past few decades.

The trial of Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, the brave anti-whaling activists who exposed corruption within the Japanese whaling industry in 2008, finally begins today in the whaling city of Aomori. 

There's little doubt that this is a politically motivated prosecution designed to silence the Toyko Two, as they've become better known, and to crush all opposition against whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.