heathrow

Welcome to our very first Greenpeace podcast! It's going to be a fortnightly affair, so make sure you subscribe.

In this episode, we head down to Aldermaston's nuclear weapons factory on the 50th anniversary of the first legendary march - and meet a few of the folks who were there the first time around. Greenpeace's James Turner joins hundreds of flash mobbers at Heathrow's Terminal 5 on its opening day to find out why so many people are saying "enough's enough" when it comes to airport expansion. And climate change writer and campaigner Mark Lynas tells Joss Garman what he thinks of new runways, new coal, new mayors and the need for mass action. The podcast is presented by our very own James Turner.

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Aldermaston, 50 years on »
Terminal 5 flash mob »
The new coal rush »
Mark Lynas »
Stop Heathrow expansion »
Say no to new coal »
Take action for peace with CND »

Flashmob at Heathrow's Terminal 5 this morning

This morning saw the opening of Heathrow's new Terminal 5 to the public. Unfortunately for the aviation industry and government - who wanted this to be a chance to promote their case for airport expansion - a large section of that public is vehemently opposed to unsustainable aviation growth, and not afraid to show it.

So at exactly 11am this morning, hundreds of people stripped down to reveal identical "Stop Airport Expansion T-shirts", and to highlight the problems caused by airport expansion and unsustainable aviation growth. Pictures of the flashmob are coming in to our Moblog thick and fast. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see video footage of the event.

Image reproduced with kind permission of Private Eye Magazine and Clive Goddard.

Luckily for BAA, the Queen doesn't seem to have taken offence at apparently being banned from Heathrow in the run up to climate camp last year. This morning, she tootled off to Hounslow to officially open Heathrow's new Terminal 5 (although the public opening won't happen 'til the 27th).

Following last week's direct action maelstrom at Heathrow and the Houses of Parliament, the media has been courting the people involved with features popping up all over the place about the so-called new generation of eco-activists.

A particularly interesting piece went out last night on Radio 4: Graham Thompson (described by the Evening Standard as the "daddy" of the parliament protest group) appeared on The Moral Maze to argue the case that civil disobedience is an acceptable part of protest in the democratic process. Listen again for the inevitable seven days.

Meanwhile on the Guardian's Environment Weekly podcast, our own climate campaigner Joss Garman was in the studio to talk about the 'new breed' of activist. Listen again for... well, forever probably.

But if I come across one more reference to Swampy...

From Plane Stupid:

Out and about on our Heathrow Voices tour last year.

If you're one of the many, many thousands of people involved in the opposition to Heathrow expansion, you may want to give yourself a pat on the back. The day after the 'consultation' closed, there's news that we're getting the message through to 'the highest levels of Labour'.

In one of two Heathrow stories in today's Evening Standard, the paper's chief political correspondent wrote:

Ministers are under increasing pressure to rethink plans for Heathrow expansion after 18,000 people lodged objections to the plans.

The scale of the protest is understood to have taken the government by surprise and is causing concern at the highest levels of Labour at the political fall-out if plans for a third runway are given the go-ahead.

Two audacious and well executed climate actions have deservedly grabbed headlines this week - Plane Stupid's 'No third runway' banner drop on the House of Commons yesterday perfectly complimenting our own Heathrow Airport plane protest on Monday. Both sets of activists involved spoke eloquently to the media about why they were there: to expose the government's 'public consultation' as a sham, and to remind us all that climate change is the greatest threat that we face, and we have little time to start getting serious about it.

We've formally submitted our main concerns about Heathrow expansion to the government (almost as if this was a real consultation and the government was genuinely seeking views on airport expansion...).

You can read the full submission, but this is the introduction:

Greenpeace believes that if the government is serious about tackling climate change, there should be no question of increasing the number of flights coming in and out of Heathrow Airport. Instead the Government should be radically rethinking its out-of-date policy on aviation, implementing strategies to cap the number of flights at current levels with a view to reducing them in the future and move towards a sustainable, low-carbon transport system.

Greenpeace also considers this consultation process to be seriously flawed: designed to push through a decision that has already been made and without properly taking into account the effect on the environment, or seriously considering alternatives.