News wrap
Paul Allen, Wed 04 Jun 2008
The big green stories of the week and how they were reported in the press
Air rage
Should there be a third runway at Heathrow? In the week that the airport’s service was labelled an “international embarrassment” by the International Air Transport Association (Iata), an estimated 3000 people protested against further expansion plans.
The protest, of course, had nothing to do with this year’s mayhem at Terminal 5. The Make a Noise marchers were instead highlighting the environmental impact of another runway at the world’s busiest international airport.
Writing in the Mirror, John Joseph surmises both sides of the argument:
“The government, business leaders and airport operator BAA say that [Heathrow] must expand or lose out to continental rivals,” he explains. “But campaigners say expansion of British aviation makes a mockery of government plans to cut carbon emissions.”
BBC News showed video footage of the protestors gathering to form the word “No”, after walking from Hatton Cross to Sipson, the village that would be destroyed if the planned runway goes ahead.
What happens next? The public consultation period over the proposals ended on 27 February and final policy decisions are expected to be taken some time next year.
But the sky-high, and rising, price of oil could swing the debate towards the environmentalists, say anti-airport expansion campaign group Plane Stupid.
“With prices rising demand for flights will fall, and that kind of negates the need to turn an ancient village into a runway,” writes Plane Stupid co-founder Richard George.
Ultimately, writes columnist and Make a Noise marcher Bibi van der Zee in the Guardian, the decision will come down to government:
“I try to envisage this government being bold enough to do a U-turn on the runway, facing down the corporate powers, coming out in favour of our planet instead,” she says. “I'm afraid it's not coming to me. It may have been a wonderful march, a lovely day, but will it be enough? Will this government find a sudden dose of backbone?”
Tribal trouble
Grainy photos appeared this week of one of the last uncontacted tribes in the world. Painted red and aiming their arrows at the aircraft photographing them, the Amazon tribes people didn’t look happy about being papped and publicised via the world’s media.
But a few newspaper snaps may be the least of their worries. The tribespeople live in Brazil in a region near the Peruvian border, which has been ravaged by illegal logging. This is damaging the local wildlife, the rainforest and the tribe’s habitat.
The Brazilian government's National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), which took the photos, says it has been observing the tribe for many years with alarm.
FUNAI's Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles told AFP news agency the tribe is being pushed out of Peruvian territory into Brazil by loggers cutting down their Amazon basin habitat. “The pace of the illegal deforestation [is] now accelerating,” he said.
For Stephen Corry, the director of Survival International, which supports tribal people, this was further evidence that more needs to be done to protect indigenous people.
“The world needs to wake up to this and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct,” he said.
According to news agency Reuters, there are more than 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, over half of whom live in Brazil or Peru. All are in danger of being forced off their land, killed or ravaged by disease.
Power to the people?
A report shows that the government could avoid building nuclear reactors by “encouraging families to fit solar panels and other renewable energy equipment to their homes”, reveals Geoffrey Lean in the Independent.
That may be good news for the anti-nuclear lobby. The bad news is that we are lagging behind our European neighbours when it comes to solar panels, wind turbines and other home renewables.
According to the government-backed report, Britain is almost bottom of the European league for exploiting renewable energy – above only Luxembourg and Malta – despite having the best resources in the entire continent.
“Though ministers claim their efforts have been ‘highly successful’ in boosting these clean sources of energy [in the UK],” says Lean, “they now account for only about 4 per cent of electricity – compared, for example, with 14 per cent in Germany.”
So are we about to see a shift towards greater support for households to create their own renewable energy? Don’t hold your breath. Lean describes Gordon Brown’s most recent support for increasing the number of atomic power stations in Britain as “his most pro-nuclear announcement to date”.
And there could be more tough decisions to come. The UK still has to meet a European Union target of 15 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020. But the Guardian’s Mark Milner reports that one of Britain's leading energy providers has warned that the UK will need “substantial fossil fuel generation” to plug the gap when the renewable energy supplies are not available.
Speaking to Milner, German utility giant E.ON's chief executive Paul Golby said the solution to our energy needs isn’t being addressed by single-issue campaigners. "It is easy to say 'no' to coal, easy to say 'no' to nuclear. I'm quite interested in what they are going to say 'yes' to."
And finally...
Many of the UK’s major landmarks have been given a bizarre green makeover in aid of Recycle Week. BBC News reports that a 6m (20ft) high sculpture of Big Ben made from Coca-Cola cans has been unveiled in London's South Bank to inspire more people to recycle.
Elsewhere in the UK, artists have created a replica Angel of the North sculpture, made out of 10,000 miniature Coke cans in Gateshead, as well as models of Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Birmingham Bull statue.
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