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AS BOTH its opponents and, unintentionally, its supporters have demonstrated, the economic case for a Heathrow third runway is weak. But though today's announcement does not represent much of a boost for the London economy, it does throw a vital lifeline to another troubled cause: the British green movement.
Until now, this had not been a good few months for environmentalists. Recessions seldom are. Sales of organic food, for instance, have dived as shoppers turn back to cheaper, factory-processed stuff. Now there is less money around, it will be harder for policymakers to pursue higher green taxes.
Green ideas have often flourished in times of plenty, when consumers have the so-called "luxury" of worrying about the environment, and dwindled at times of hardship, when immediate personal survival seems more urgent. In 1989, the height of the Thatcher boom, the Green Party got nearly 15 per cent in a British Euro-election. Three years later, in recession, green issues had dropped off the agenda.
Even though economic activity, production, consumption, and thus damage to the environment will fall over the next few years, the risk is that the system's underlying unsustainability will not be addressed, with environmental destruction ready to roar right back when the economy picks up again.
Aside from the recession, the past few weeks have also seen challenges to some of British greenery's holiest totems. With incandescent lightbulbs soon to be banned, there's been a consumer revolt against their low-energy replacements. And we've learned that much of the time we spend sorting our rubbish for recycling is essentially wasted: the market for recycled paper has collapsed, and our painstakingly collected old boxes are being stored in warehouses instead.
I am an absolutely convinced environmentalist, and I do my best to live sustainably - no car, brick in the cistern, loft insulation, woolly jumpers. But I still think the green movement has been in danger of losing its way.
At its worst the recycling fetish shows the almost religious nature of some environmentalism. Even when the recycling market was healthier, the carbon footprint of transporting, sorting and recycling waste was high; a lot of recycled materials weren't and aren't much use for making things anyway; and a great deal of "recycling" still ended up in landfill.
So an irritating superstructure of council nagging and fines for putting your crisp packet in the wrong bin has been erected, but the actual benefits to the planet are often minimal or nil. Many greens concede this, if pressed, but say that's not the point - the point is to "raise awareness". Ritualism, phoney atonement for your sins, the principal beneficiary your own sense of righteousness - it has all too uncomfortably much in common with the Catholicism of my youth.
The same awareness argument was used to defend Ken Livingstone's £25 charge on a few thousand gas-guzzling vehicles in two London boroughs, that absurd piece of gesture politics which would have made precisely no impact on C02. Carbon emissions and particulate pollution from London's traffic actually rose on Ken's watch (think of all those thousands of extra three-quarters-empty buses belching out fumes from their eight-litre diesel engines, or all those cars accelerating away from all those extra red traffic lights).
The C02 charge, the recycling, lightbulb and other fetishes exemplify that other problematic strain of environmentalism - the puritanical belief among some that it has necessarily to entail compulsion and sacrifice (of brightness, in the bulbs' case). So often, greens talk about strategies and targets, means rather than outcomes. Our awareness of the environmental crisis facing us is, I'd suggest, quite high already. And far from "raising" it, the recycling, the lightbulbs and the rest are in danger of causing a backlash.
This is a problem, because recession or not, backlash or not, saving the environment is no "luxury". Without action, environmental degradation will soon show us that there are worse crises, and greater threats to our wellbeing, than unemployment.
The idea that being green always has to cost you more and has to be dreary in a low-energy bulb sort of way is rubbish, too. Most of the green things I've done, like taking up cycling and insulating my loft, have either saved me money, or massively improved my life, or both.
The green movement needs a cause to show all that: a cause that is popular, that mounts a tangible defence of our quality of life against things that tangibly threaten it, and that is of real, not merely symbolic, importance. Today, with the fight against Heathrow that now begins in earnest, the green movement should give thanks that it has been handed such a cause.
Little is more tangible than a shrieking aeroplane, trailing great clouds of exhaust a few thousand feet above your head. Little is more tangible than the destruction of an entire village. Few single projects have the environmental impact of this runway, famously claimed to create as much C02 as Kenya.
And for greens, not many great causes can have so few downsides. In the other big environmental battle to come, over the expansion of power stations, the other side can claim that the opponents of development want to turn off the lights. But unlike electricity, ever-cheaper air travel is essentially a luxury we can live without. The business and economic case for it is, at best, marginal. Heathrow is being expanded to fulfil what is largely a discretionary, rather than an absolute, need.
We should, therefore, be grateful, if rather surprised, that the Government has chosen such weak ground for its first big green fight. Because one way or another, this cause could be a defining one. This could be the moment when we decide what is more important, the economy or the environment. This could be the moment when we choose as a country whether we are going to carry on down the old road of growth at any cost, or take a new road towards a more sustainable way of life.
Reader views (15)
"But unlike electricity, ever-cheaper air travel is essentially a luxury we can live without"
Luddite: The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the early nineteenth century who protested - often by destroying mechanized looms - against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution.
Quad erat demonstrandum.
- Blaggarde, Lower Middle Class
What is Ralph on about? Unhealthy amount of left wing types. Is this a poor attempt to undermine the green movement Ralph? Given the views of the Left, workers rights, even if there are no workers or environment and the views of the Right we can do what we like, which has led to environmental and social destruction. There is not much difference. I am not sure which lefties Ralph is trying to introduce but the green movement is about values, corporate and social responsibility, caring about the planet we live on - all on the basis that the planet earth has lived for billions of years without humans and it is the reason we are alive today. The earth now needs the assistance of human beings to stop the destruction and make it a better place after what some companies led by certain types of human beings have done to it. Misinformation will not stop people who care Ralph. Peddle that pathetic spin to the likes of New Labour or New Tories or whatever they call themselves.
- Ms H, London UK
If every nation adhered to the crazy, expensive Kyoto accord then the difference in temperature by 2030 would be 0.075 degrees. A minuscule, worthless amount yet it would end up costing TRILLIONS. This whole co2 scam will be exposed soon as the biggest con trick in history.
Politicians have embraced it though because it allows then to dictate and control the public and it also allows them to raise taxes all in the name of saving the planet.
We are constantly told the glaciers are melting. Glaciers have always grown and melted. What these eco Nazis are not telling you is 90% of the worlds glaciers are growing, they only tell you of the 10% that are melting, and we have had some of the coldest weather in history this decade. Take a look at www.iceagenow.com and decide for yourselves.
As Vanessa says over 45,000 scientists have signed a petition saying they do not believe that co2 causes warming.
Al Gore has made over $10 million, and counting, from carbon credits yet still flies around the world in his private jet telling us we can't fly or drive. YEAH RIGHT
- Duncan Walker, Lucky to live in Thailand
Sorry, what? Has anyone actually ever heard someone arguing for recycling because it "raises awareness"? What rot.
It's true that some in the green movement throw embrace quite hairshirt-wearing ideas, like "we must all grow our own food," for reasons that are more to do with their concerns about capitalism than those about the environment. But this is a case of, OK point, terrible examples. The energy savings of recycling are far from marginal, if it's done correctly. And don't forget that making plastic, for example, doesn't just use energy but also our precious oil reserves for materials.
The problems with recycling need to be fixed. Simply giving up on it isn't an option.
More generally, the Heathrow struggle happens to unite local people concerned about noise with people concerned about carbon emissions. But it's not always this way: see for example the struggle of local people every time a wind farm is planned. This'll make a poor rallying cry if it makes people think NIMBYism and environmentalism can be combined. In the long run, they're probably mostly opposed.
Similarly, with his dislike of the "irritating superstructure" of recycling requirements, Andrew reveals he wants to have it both ways: a green society without the regulations needed to make it happen. It's not possible. Andrew, like the Tories, isn't really an environmentalist at all in the climate change sense, just an old-fashioned conservationist.
- Rav, London
Dear Andrew
I am, usually, a great fan of yours but am appalled that you seriously believe CO2 drives climate. Have a look at www.co2science.co.uk and Watts Up with That to see some real climate science and what they are saying. There must be at least 45,000 scientists who do not agree with the IPPC. Also there is one called EU Referendum written by Christopher Booker who is a very good writer and researcher on "global warming".
- Vanessa, London
A sound assessment by one of ES's best journalists. The vocal green movement has an unhealthily large number of left-wing reactionaries, often with a near religious zeal and disregard for reasoned scientific and economic analysis (let alone the law). This undermines in the public consiousness the fact that the economic case for a third runway is nevertheless weak and the potential damage considerable, never mind the shabby way in which HMG has pushed through its decision.
- Ralph Vf, London
Why bother about the tiny percentage of pollution caused by planes above west London when Boris wants to bring back mass pollution by cars and vans etc by abolishing Western C-Charge. What a load of fools!!
As for empty buses What would Andrew know as he says he dont use them any more.
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
Stop perpetuating the common misconception that environment and economy are poles apart. A sustainable society relies upon a sustainable economy. Consumerist led economies are exposed as unsustainable as are any gains made from more runways. Check out the Green New Deal: providing jobs and making homes and businesses carbon efficient. There is no future in increased flight emissions and the resulting climate change.
- Matt, Leicester, UK
Better to leave all those aircraft circling overhead endlessly (wasting thousands upon thousands of gallons of fuel) waiting for slots to land at Heathrow with it's paltry two runways. Same goes for taxi and take-off thousands of gallons of fuel wasted. Why don't you all look up how many runways Frankfurt has? How about Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Madrid.
- Nick, Cheltenham, ex of Hornsey
This is indeed a gift to the green movement. For years they have needed an iconic site of struggle - a physical space around which they can mobilise resistance and Heathrow will be perfect. Protest groups are being started by the month and they are no longer characterised by down and out lawbreakers. This decision will unite an extraordinary coalition and the government will have a fight on their hands.
- Tamsin, London
The first action, for those who still have to fly, should be a boycott of BA, as they have, along with BAA, been instrumental in the admittedly easy task of getting Brown's disaster of a Government to give this runway the green light.
- Jon Kent, Hertford. UK
I'm not sure we always have to choose between the economy and the environment. Years ago the aviation industry decided to use PR to reduce the complaints rather than actually reducing the noise. (I'm not saying planes haven't got quieter, just that they have not got quiet enough to make much difference to those on the ground given the huge increase in numbers.) This has never worked, if anything it infuriates people even more, but they will keep on doing it anyway.
If they had taken environmental concerns seriously all those years ago or more importantly if governments had imposed tough regulations, might we not be a lot closer to having planes that really are quiet and would the industry be facing such huge opposition now? Car manufacturers fought tooth and nail against tougher pollution standards, but in the end they got on with it and found an answer, we would be choking to death otherwise. What many people don't understand is that constraints can be creative, they should be welcomed not feared, because they bring new ideas, new solutions, the life blood of any successful economy. Hanging on for dear life to business as usual doesn't get you anywhere or at least only very very slowly.
I don't think environmentalists are aviation's worst enemy, but the aviation industry itself and it's supporters. Not getting their way on Heathrow could be just the salutary shock to the system they need to get their heads out of the 20th century and into the 21st.
- Moira, London
I think that you might be thinking of the old Ecology Party getting 15% of the vote in 1984, Andrew?
Did you know that Greenpeace founder Dr Patrick Moore (not the Sky at Night one) exposed how the green movement had been infiltrated by extreme leftwing elements who had lost a spiritual base after the Berlin Wall came down? That might explain some of the anti-business and tax hungry policies that have since filtered through?
- Jools, London
Right on. Well said.
- Phil Jones, London UK
Well put, Andrew. We are in danger of environmental tokenism. Why is it that we allow the importation of manufactured goods from environmentally-unregulated factories in other countries, notably China - the world's worst polluter ? Maybe the economic slowdown in China, the world's worst polluter, might have its environmental advantages.
- Richard Shaw, Pinner UK (London Borough of Hillngdon)
