Planes, poles and putting

Despite all the recent discussion about the future of aviation and the restrictions to which it will become subject in the name of the environment, Caroline Lucas (Green MEP in South England) argues in the Guardian that the future is far from stormy for the airlines. The full story is here, but the overview is that the industry is trying desperately to avoid cutting their emissions, whilst the flying accounts for an ever-increasing proportion of Europe's carbon dioxide output. The Association of European Airlines (AEA) has been busy lobbying the European Parliament over the decision as to how to legislate on CO2 emissions. As other industries are forced to reduce their emissions or pay the price, major airlines are happy to buy up their excess allowances. Although Tony Blair has shown no commitment whatsoever to encouraging the reduction of this most damaging industry (despite his rhetoric) and has continually sanctioned construction of secondary runways at airports and resisted taxing aviation fuel, th EU is mercifully slightly stricter on such matters. They seek to bring air travel under the jurisdiction of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Whilst this is better news, there are nonetheless reservations, since this will still allow large companies 'emissions trade'. This will not see any reduction in emissions, and in fact their damage will be more significant as they are more problematic in the troposphere than they are at ground level, where most are released. This will also neglect the fact that there are other dangerous emissions associated with air travel, which will be increased as they buy up allowances from other sectors. The obvious solution would seem to be capping air travel emissions directly rather than allowing them to trade and be incorporated into the current framework. And, Lucas does not fail to debunk the myth that economy airlines are evening a playing field and allowing those from lower social classes to fly more: over three quarters of economy flight seats are filled by the higher classes and the Civil Aviation Authority's passenger survey in 2003 found that the average passenger salary at low-fare airline airport Stansted in the UK was £46,000.

According to this BBC report, the UK's UK Natural Environment Research Council is to fund a project with Stirling University to sponsor exerts to travel to the Arctic and Antartic in order to undertake studies on carbon found in earth. It is known that Carbon is stored in the Earth, and there are concerns that it too may end up in our atmosphere as the poles undergo chage induced by global warming. I only hope that they will be travelling ecologically, or at least offestting their flights...

It's good news that golf courses are looking to start being more environmental. They have traditionally been hated by environmentalists (me included) for their negative impact on their surrounding areas, the areas they develop and the wildlife whose habitats they steal, not to mention those who campaign against pesticide use... This report discusses the movement amongs golf courses to be more 'green' by going less green. They are discouraging overwatering as well as pesticide and fertiliser use.

Here are 'Listen Again' features from 'You and Yours' on BBC Radio 4. There are two articles of particular interest to those with environmental concerns: firstly the section on the timber trade in Africa and our lack of success in sustainably managing it. The other is about Ryanair, who face potential investigations, having misled their customers on just how reasonable their prices are. They have implied that the taxes they are subject to are much higher than is actually the case, in an effort to convince consumers that their profit margins are smaller than they are in reality. Here's the link, though it won't last long.