Heathrow protesters

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6943084.stm

How long before the soap dodgers 'peaceful protest' turns into something more dispruptive ?

Have you seen them...

A bloody good wash would'nt harm most of them...

Obviously i sincerely apologise if they have washed..but the smell coming from my TV tells me otherwise..or is that a faulty cable!

oh yawn, what good do they think it will do

What about the security risk too, especially given the current uneasy climate. A potential bomber could pose as a protester and blow a plane out of the sky with a rocket launcher or summat.

That is a tad extreme is it not...? After all your average plane spotter could do that but it doesnt happen!!!

I dony see anything wrong with the protest, personally...based on what I have read...providing there is no criminal damge etc...it is a valid protest..

helencbradshaw wrote:

That is a tad extreme is it not...?

Is it though ? Im not so sure!!

well, depending on what way you view risk...there is more risk from emissions in the atmosphere and climate change compared to a lone marksman, who has infiltrated an environmental lobby group trying to take a plane out....! (when he could have got to the airport any day he liked!)

freaklikeme wrote:

Have you seen them...

A bloody good wash would'nt harm most of them...

Obviously i sincerely apologise if they have washed..but the smell coming from my TV tells me otherwise..or is that a faulty cable!

So anyone who disagrees with you smells.
That's a very mature argument.

I would have thought that all the parents with children would want to see environmental protestors doing their bit to try to ensure there's a decent clean and safe world for their kids to grow up and live in.

Instead of sitting in their comfy homes slagging people off for being willing to take a stand against overdevelopment of airports.

spoilt_little_brat wrote:

oh yawn, what good do they think it will do

That's probably what people said when the suffragettes were chaining themselves to railings and throwing themselves under horses.

Or the civil rights movement in the USA was campaigning to get equal rights for blacks

Or miners were picketing the mines to try to prevent closures and job losses.

Or hundreds of thousands of people marching in London to protest about the war in Iraq (didn't stop it but certainly made sure the government couldn't say they had the nation behind them)

What could be a bigger issue than the continued existence of our planet as a place to sustain human life?

Not every protest is effective in bringing about change but doing nothing never made a difference.

So whilst I won't be pitching my teepee in the grounds of the airport, I'll continue to celebrate the right of ordinary people to stand up and be counted.

koshkha wrote:

spoilt_little_brat wrote:

oh yawn, what good do they think it will do

That's probably what people said when the suffragettes were chaining themselves to railings and throwing themselves under horses.

Or the civil rights movement in the USA was campaigning to get equal rights for blacks

Or miners were picketing the mines to try to prevent closures and job losses.

Or hundreds of thousands of people marching in London to protest about the war in Iraq (didn't stop it but certainly made sure the government couldn't say they had the nation behind them)

What could be a bigger issue than the continued existence of our planet as a place to sustain human life?

Not every protest is effective in bringing about change but doing nothing never made a difference.

So whilst I won't be pitching my teepee in the grounds of the airport, I'll continue to celebrate the right of ordinary people to stand up and be counted.

I'm not sure it will do much good in the short term but that's not the point. People should be allowed to protest and express their views.

In the long run while there is a market for cheap flights then there will be airport expansion and more environmental damage...

Heathrow needs expanding. The airplanes circling around Heathrow every day waiting for a landing slot (sometimes 2 hours) arguably does more damage to the environment than building a new runway/ terminal will do.

If this protest by the soap dodgers turns out to be peaceful then fine. I have a feeling it could get more militant though.

helencbradshaw wrote:

well, depending on what way you view risk...there is more risk from emissions in the atmosphere and climate change compared to a lone marksman, who has infiltrated an environmental lobby group trying to take a plane out....! (when he could have got to the airport any day he liked!)

On a normal day If you were on the perimeter of Heathrow I think youd be arrested and locked up in no time at all. Theres cameras everywhere.

WormThatTurned wrote:

Heathrow needs expanding. The airplanes circling around Heathrow every day waiting for a landing slot (sometimes 2 hours) arguably does more damage to the environment than building a new runway/ terminal will do.

If this protest by the soap dodgers turns out to be peaceful then fine. I have a feeling it could get more militant though.

and here we are...back at overdevelopment, destruction of other areas, more concrete, more flight paths....and all the other reasons why people dont want a runway in their backyard.


It's all a matter of your perspective, and I can see exactly where the Environmental protestors are coming from...

The trouble is Britain's population is growing rapidly and housing (especially in the south east) is at a premium, 6 million to be built over the next few years. As a result, infrastructure is under a huge strain.

What do we do ?

Close the doors ? put a limit on births ? Stop developing and face a housing/ travel crisis ?

Where the heck are we going to squeeze in six million homes? They cannot all go in the South east, there isnt room to swing a cat there as it is!

I dont think we can do anything on births...as I dont think the birth rate is particularly an issue. Albeit the population is creeping slightly...but we cannot overdevelop...or we risk the whole flooding thing again...and then we will be debating why the hell we alllowed the airport to expand and why did we put xx million more homes in the SE !!

we could of course adapt to our environment instead of expecting it to adapt to us. God forbid.

Obviously we have to adapt to our enviroment...but i think the point is to not make it any worse than it already is...if thats at all possible.

I agree....and I think the Environmental beliefs of the individuals at Heathrow Airport would say exactly THAT!

Well personally I'm a realist. An expanding population has expanding requirements. Tree hugging isnt the answer.

WormThatTurned wrote:

Well personally I'm a realist. An expanding population has expanding requirements. Tree hugging isnt the answer.

I am a realist too. funny that...

I am realistic about the problems we are creating ourselves if we dont mend our ways....

Yes me too.

But like I said, given our expanding population, you cannot simply NOT build new houses, NOT invest in infrastructure otherwise the problems you create for yourselves far outweigh environmental ones.

If someone comes up with an alternative to developing Im all ears !!

well there are obvious alternatives to flight...especially in this technological age...given the amount of business customers through Heathrow. Yet the company I work for now, a leading UK brand, hasnt grasped web conferencing yet, and I suspect we are not alone in that..in our industry, to say nothing of hundreds of industries. At one point ten years ago, i had 0.5 million airmiles....accrued through extensive business travel.....I bet that still happens today even with advances in decent conferencing technology which were not available even then. Thankfully, with a shift towards green suppliers, more companies are looking at those kinds of impacts in terms of their carbon footprint.

you cannot not build new houses...but you can be strategic about WHERE and how! There are areas of the country which are not as ram jammed with property as in the south east, and areas which could welcome redevelopment, including for property use and reuse, regeneration and economic growth. Think about what Dublin has done over the last 15-20 years and indeed places like Glasgow. Those areas were the beneficiaries of regional selective assistance RSA grants for job generation, and that in itself was the key reason why they were successful in the call centre boom in the 1990s (Used to work above them in Waterloo Street, Glasgow - so know those tricks...!)

Frankly, if I lived near Heathrow, I would probably have to shoot myself - I couldnt live with that over development, concreting and general ugliness of the landscape. Over development has negative social aspects as well as what might be deemed the positive and convenient ones. If you look at Stansted and there is some beautiful villages and countryside there (even in essex....it is not difficult to see why people protest at expansion..)

Castle Donington, in East Midlands (closer to you and I) is another example...I think there is a beautiful village but there is already noticeable decline, which is a tragedy.

There is FAR too much empahasis on the damn south east of England in the UK.

Stop this London centric view, invest in other parts of the UK (ie expand airports where they can EASLILY be exanded) and business will follow.

Very simple.

I am nowhere near a decent airport actually...as a Northerner, I find it weird that my local airport is now London...Manchester is the other one, but 2hrs to Mcr and approx 2.5 to Heathrow...and at least 2 days to EMA along the A453...

In terms of development, the PFI initiatives seem to do more harm than good, in terms of better regeneration, space utlisation and generally doing the right thing with land use and investment. ( A couple of bridges come to mind, as well as hospital developments which go against the needs of the communities they serve and town centre developments ) But then thats a new thread................................................................................sorry!

WormThatTurned wrote:

The trouble is Britain's population is growing rapidly and housing (especially in the south east) is at a premium, 6 million to be built over the next few years. As a result, infrastructure is under a huge strain.

What do we do ?

Close the doors ? put a limit on births ? Stop developing and face a housing/ travel crisis ?

Looks like the figures are 3 million homes and 13 years to build them - not quite so bad as you suggested but still pretty serious.

http://www.execdigital.co.uk/NewsArticle.aspx?articleid=992

I suspect - and if I had the time I'd go and look for the figures - that the biggest factor in the need for new homes is NOT immigration but is the increase in the number of single-occupancy homes. Divorce and separation and later marriage mean we now have around 1/3 of all properties with only one person living in them and the figures are still rising.

18 polish labourers sharing a 2-up 2-down aren't really making that big an impact just yet.