Enviros have for years been doing everything they can think of, from disrupting meetings to blockading runways and even buying up land, to stymie the growth of Britain's airports. But if there's one group that's been an especially big thorn in the air industry's side, it's Plane Stupid.
It's an umbrella organization of advocacy groups, and since its founding in 2005 it has staged scores of protests and flash mobs to protest any attempt to expand the country's airports. In an interview with Wired.com, Plane Stupid's co-founder Richard George said his group believes that airport expansion will wreak havoc on everything from the environment to public health and subject his countrymen to unacceptable levels of noise pollution.
Topping the groups agenda is stopping plans for a third runway at London's Heathrow Airport, a project the government approved last month despite Plane Stupid's best efforts.
The groups that comprise Plane Stupid can get pretty creative in their protests. In October, Scottish protesters targeted a government minister by setting up a stereo outside his home at 4 a.m. and baring the sound of a jet engine at 110 decibels. That followed an attempt by one dedicated - or crazy, depending upon your point of view - protester attempting to crazy-glue himself to Prime Minister Gordon Brown in hopes of forcing Brown to engage in a conversation. Other groups working under the auspices of Plane Stupid have draped signs from the roof of Parliament, blockaded British Airways' headquarters, camped out under airplanes and inflated a giant elephant at a meeting of transportation ministers.
But George says the Stansted airport runway shutdown was most successful stunt. Fifty-seven protesters camped out on a runway at the London-area airport, shutting it down for more than four hours and forcing airlines to cancel more than 50 flights. "Like Heathrow,
Stansted is trying to expand massively," he says of the protest. "And like Heathrow, an entire community will be devastated if it is allowed to do so."
While it's the high-profile actions like this that garner the most attention, George says Plane Stupid's most important work happens behind the scenes. "We've persuaded local residents who feel abandoned by the government and the political process that they can win the battle," he says. "We've opened their eyes to the use of direction action and to defending their homes from the BAA [British Airports
Authority].
George says that although Plane Stupid's actions are motivated in large part by environmental concenrs, it also is concerned about the impact commercial aviation and its infrastructure has on everything from public health to animal habitat. "Around the country airport expansion threatens ancient woodland, historical buildings and monuments, and will wipe out schools," he told us. "It will also increase asthma rates and other respiratory illnesses. Any one of these effects ought to make a sane person think twice about aviation expansion."
The government hasn't been convinced. Last month it passed legislation authorizing construction of a third runway at Heathrow. George says it has only galvanized
Plane Stupid's resolve. "We're moving to Sipson and we aren't leaving," he says, referring to the village that sits in the path of the proposed third runway. "They [the UK government] have radicalized a generation. The new runway will never, ever get built."
POST UPDATED 1:05 p.m. PDT.
Photo: London Permaculture / Flickr.
See also:
- Heathrow Horror Show
- UK Activists Add to Heathrow Headaches
- Greenpeace Buys Land to Block New Heathrow Runway
Flash mob at opening of Heathrow T5
Protesters chain themselves together at Manchester Airport to protest short-haul flights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJt58_B17tk
