What you can do
- Tell world leaders Copenhagen wasn't good enough for the climate
- Call for an end to investment in Trident
- Design an activist stronghold to stop the third runway at Heathrow
- Tell your MP to change the politics and save the climate
- Become a member of Airplot and stand in the way of a third runway
- Make a donation - we can't do it without your help
Business trashes runway as BAA profits tank
Posted by christian on 5 May 2009.

Terminal decline? Photo: CC James Cridland
"I think the chances of a third runway being built are extremely remote now - I wouldn't want to say it's impossible, but really the fashion, the people, the feet are voting in the direction of no third runway."
That was said this morning on the Today programme by a senior aviation strategist at brokerage firm BGC Partners, who with the tagline "people and technology powering markets" can justifiably be called 'the voice of big business'.
Read more »A Risky Business: Government spin plan over Heathrow revealed
Posted by christian on 27 March 2009.
Given that Heathrow's third runway is by many (fairly reasonable) standards a hugely unpopular and environmentally damaging project which would flatten a community, significantly contribute to rising UK carbon emissions, and be campaigned against by those bloody NGOs, it's fair to say that it must have been a bit of a headache for the person project managing the task of getting it approved.
If you're a project management type, a risk register (and I had no idea about this before last week), is a document where you have to list everything that could go wrong with the project, how likely it is to happen and how much of a problem it would be. You also have to say what you're going to do about it.
Read more »Your choice: 22 million trees, or a bloody huge runway
Posted by christian on 24 March 2009.
Heathrow: about as grey as it gets. Photo: CC from Sharkbait@Flickr
"There's too much grey in Britain, and not enough green." After a long, wet winter, that statement might not seem that surprising. But according to landscape watchdogs Natural England and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, it's not just a general assessment of the nation's weather, it's an official judgement of what the government spends our money on.
Read more »Out standing in his field
Posted by christian on 5 February 2009.
Alastair McGowan is not only a renowned impressionist and comedian, he's also an Airplotter - and as one of the co-signatories of the deed on the land, he took the BBC down to have a look at the plot and have a chat about whether protest can make a difference.
Read more »Video: Rap the Heathrow vote
Posted by christian on 26 January 2009.
Brilliant. (And also a pretty comprehensive run through of where we're at with the Heathrow decision.)
Read more »'Green' planes and broken promises
Posted by christian on 23 January 2009.
Not green, and not strictly regulated
Last Thursday, while approving the construction of a third runway at Heathrow, Geoff Hoon claimed he was accompanying it with what he called "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.
You can understand why it's important for Geoff to make a lot of noise about green planes and strict regulation while cheerleading for a third runway. Pursuing a policy of aviation expansion while committing to an 80 per cent cut in UK emissions by 2050 might seem like a strange thing to be doing, particularly as Lord Turner of the Committee on Climate Change ruled that there must be "clear strategies" in place to cut emissions from aviation, otherwise any cuts made in other sectors will be wiped out.
Read more »BAA: We're going to 'modernise' your village
Posted by christian on 21 January 2009.
Colin Matthews, BAA Chief Executive, has a dream. It is a dream of "modernisation" - a dream of "responsible development" - a dream of a third runway being built at Heathrow. Unluckily for Colin, given the broad coalition of opposition to the third runway, it's likely to remain just a dream, rather than becoming a full-blown environmental nightmare.
Read more »Does the economic case for a third runway stack up?
Posted by christian on 15 January 2009.
In the next few hours we're expecting the government to annouce they're going ahead with the third runway. The aviation industry likes to suggest that building a third runway at Heathrow has become vital to Britain's future economic wellbeing and the government may use this as a justifcation. To listen to some of the more enthusiastic cheerleaders for aviation expansion, you might think that the entire UK economy is about to collapse, and only laying an enormous strip of tarmac through Sipson village will save it. But is it really that simple? We know aviation expansion is a sure-fire way to wreck the climate, but do we really have to choose between the climate and "jobs and prosperity"?
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Sun: Operation Baldrick
Alastair McGowan, Emma Thompson, Zac Goldsmith and Greenpeace buy 'Airplot' - a patch of land on the site of the proposed third runway at Heathrow.
The Climate Rush heads for Heathrow
Posted by jossc on 6 January 2009.
With the government's long-delayed decision on a third runway at Heathrow rumoured to be imminent, the
intrepid women and men of the Climate Rush will be making their suffragette-inspired opposition felt at the airport next week.
MPs return from their winter holiday on Monday 12 January, so that evening at 7pm the Climate Rushers will hit Heathrow Terminal 1 for a peaceful picnic. Terminal 1, for those not familiar with the airport, deals principally with domestic flights, the sort of short-haul journeys which could easily be made by other, less climate-wrecking forms of transport. And they are inviting all of us who are fed up with the obvious lack of action on this most serious of issues to join them.
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