protest

From our own correspondent: Bangkok

It's not just the UK that's suffering from unrestrained aviation growth: local residents in Bangkok are up in arms over growing aircraft noise.

In response to complaints from residents, representatives of the Transport Ministry, Airports of Thailand (AoT), the Lawyers Council of Thailand and local homeowners have formed a committee to discuss ways to tackle the growing problems with the airport. Despite warm words, residents have complained that the AoT, who own Bangkok airport, have been desperately trying to evade responsibility.

Women climate activists blockade the Department for Transport

Women's DfT blockade

A group of female climate activists have blockaded the Department for Transport in protest at the Government's transport policies, which are catapulting us towards climate change.

The action came in response to the Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly confirming the government's intentions to build a third runway and a sixth terminal at Heathrow and coincided with the opening of their first 'consultation' exhibition.

Climate march aviation bloc

Climate change costs lives

Coming to the march this Saturday? Think airport expansion is not your cup of tea? Then why not hang out with Plane Stupid and the combined force of Airport Watch and Climate Camp in the anti-aviation bloc.

The march, organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change, is designed to coincide with the international climate party in Bali. Meet 12pm in Victoria Park (near the Houses of Parliament) then stroll about to the US Embassy.

The anti-aviation bloc is easily identified by the presence of large banners extolling the problems with aviation, a series of smaller banners decrying local airport expansion, and a few people in Plane Stupid t-shirts loafing about.

Fuel protests - reactionary rioting

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Duel poster

Back in February of this year I broke off discussing aviation to talk about how extending the congestion charge zone was drawing protest from those affected by the new charge. I said at the time that "If you want to live a lifestyle which relies on excessive consumption of fossil fuels, then expect to pay" - a not unreasonable suggestion, given that our CO2 emissions are causing all sorts of climatalogical problems.

Almost a year later, and rising fuel prices have brought out the spectre of fuel protests and blockades. Last time the hauliers forced the Government to scrap the fuel duty escalator, which deliberately pushed petrol above the rise of inflation to check rising car use and fuel consumption. As the BBC noted in 2003, removing the escalator made sure that, contrary to popular belief, the real costs of driving continued to fall - particularly in relation to public transport costs.

Flights of fancy

Call me a cynic, but I'm willing to bet the upcoming consultations on expanding Heathrow airport don't halt the government's madcap plans to lay tarmac all over west London. It's not that I don't trust the public to make the "right" decision; more that whenever the aviation industry asks the questions it gets the result it wanted, even if it contradicts every other survey.

Pro-expansion lobby group Future Heathrow recently published a Populus survey which shows surprising support for Heathrow expansion. They polled 1,000 residents from the west London boroughs that comprise the 2M group, and discovered 56% supported ending runway alternation (switching the runway used for take-offs at 3pm, to give locals respite from aircraft noise). This contradicted last year's ICM poll by the Mayor of London, which found only 26% supported ending alternation. Begging the question: why did the industry survey get the results it did?

Airport resistance: the story of the Wing revolt

Back in the 1960s our forward-thinking transport planners commissioned a search for the location of London's third airport. Stansted started out as the forerunner, but by 1969 had been ruled out and Wing Airport, a small World War II airfield at Cublington, became the Government's preferred choice.

They hadn't counted on local opposition to their plans. On the eve of the Roskill report's publication, a small group of villagers came together to form the Wing Airport Resistance Association. Funds for the campaign came from numerous sources, from the sale of original fleet street cartoons to beetle drives, and at Stewkley a 'mile of pennies' outside the church raised a considerable sum.

Camp for Climate Action - 1,727 stop and searches

Camp for Climate Action

Anyone visiting the Camp for Climate Action last month might be forgiven for calling the policing a little 'over the top'.

Called to account by the Green Party's Jenny Jones, Sir Ian Blair, head honcho of the Metropolitan Police, wrote a letter which manages to avoid answering any of the difficult questions about police brutality, unlawful detention, or just why 'Operation Hargood' cost £7 million.

He does, however, reveal that the total number of searches during the week was 1,727, of which 230 were conducted under anti-terrorism legislation. Quite what the unlucky 13% were up to that made them so specially terror-istic remains to be seen, as does whether those frisked by over-eager Bobbies felt it was "entirely reasonable" to use such legislation against peaceful protesters...

BAA's Stansted staff paid to protest for expansion

Given these times of heightened security at the nation's airports, you'd expect BAA to be employing as many security as possible to get passengers through check-in and into their shopping centres - sorry, departure terminals.

Not so! Instead, the company has been giving security staff time off to stand around outside the Stansted inquiry, waving pro-expansion banners. To make matters worse, the airport company has been lying to its staff to persuade them to join in.

Activists still have a vital role to play in tackling aviation growth

The relationship between Labour and industry means that parliament won't do enough.

I was pleased that your leader (A different kind of turbulence, August 20) recognised the climate campers' scientific argument that inaction on climate change now will cost lives later. As the leading climate researcher Dr Kevin Anderson said last week, "the government cannot reconcile current aviation growth with its stated position on climate change. Even with the latest more efficient aircraft, the climate-change imperative demands that air-travel growth be severely curtailed." However, I was stunned by the Guardian's notion that because nowadays "nearly all politicians will at least pay lip service to green issues", the merits of "Swampy-style activism" have been undermined. Equally, the idea that there has been a "big political shift ... since 1996" is not reflected by the facts.

My generation: A response to Polly Toynbee

The nature of protest has evolved. Campaigners today have to be far more sophisticated to capture attention and be truly effective.

People try to put us down. Polly Toynbee laments a lack of political passion over the bloody occupation of Iraq and the threat from dangerous climate change. She's absolutely right about the depressingly little active opposition to the war. But there are now real rumblings of a genuine and exciting resurgence in environmental activism.