Campaign Against Climate Change (Scotland)

Campaign Against Climate Change (Scotland)

Thanks to everybody who came to our airport expansion protest in Aberdeen - including all the drummers! We spent two hours in the city centre, with an information stall, leaflets, postcards to the Scottish Minister of Transport, climate disaster pictures, placards, a large banner, and enough coal to demonstrate the amount of carbon emitted by one passenger on a return flight Aberdeen to London. The drummers were great and got lots of people to our stall.

We naively thought we could get enough coal to represent a return flight to Florida...not realising that's so much we would have needed to hire a truck! The London flight took 80kgs - and that's just the carbon, never mind the additional greenhouse warming effect!

And now back to getting all those letters sent... (see post below)!

Campaign Against Climate Change (Scotland)

Campaign Against Climate Change (Scotland)

It is very important that people opposed to Aberdeen airport expansion (particularly those from Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire) write to their political representatives now and let them know their views!

Please have a look at the draft letter below, copy it into an email to your Councillor, MSPs and MP, and email it to them. It will have greater impact if you edit the letter first and speak of your own personal concerns.

You can find details of your Councillor here: http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/ACCI/web/site/Councillors/RM/cde_YourCouncillor.asp OR here for Aberdeenshire:
http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/online/services.asp

You can find details of your MP here:
http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/ and here for your MSPs: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/msp/index.htm

Draft letter:

Dear ….

I am very concerned about plans to double the size of Aberdeen airport – i.e. to double the length of the runway and plan for twice the number of flight passengers by 2030.

Air travel is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. One return flight to New York emits far more greenhouse gases per passenger than all the activities by an average world citizen in a year. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution have warned that the UK cannot reduce its emissions enough to help and avoid catastrophic climate change if UK aviation grows as planned. And the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research have shown that the entire UK economy other than aviation would need to achieve zero emissions by 2050 if aviation growth continued unabated and we were to still meet the official climate change target.

Scientists are warning that the world may have less than a decade to avoid catastrophic global warming, which could include the melting of Greenland and West Antarctica, raising sea-levels by 15 meters or more, and the release of enormous amounts of carbon dioxide and methane from the earth, including from the melting permafrost. Many scientists now believe that the survival of many of us, and particularly the younger generation is at stake. It is in our interest to do all we can to avoid such catastrophic effects.

The UK already has very high per capita emissions of greenhouse gases – 2.5 higher than the global average. It would be irresponsible for us to increase our emissions even further in order to facilitate more short- and long-distance flights from Aberdeen.

Additionally, there are nearly 10,000 people living under the flight path who will be exposed to even more flight noise, including at night. Flight noise has been associated with sleep deprivation, higher tranquiliser use, and with various mental and physical health problems. Children studying under a flight path have been shown to gain lower reading scores at age 14.

There is strong evidence that airport expansion harms regional economies throughout the UK, because it leads to far more people taking money out of the local economy than visit us as incoming tourists. You might wish to read this report about the economic impacts of airport expansion http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/regional_tourism_deficit.pdf

Yours sincerely,