
Heathrow third runway plans ruled illegal: not consistent with Paris agreement - perfunctory
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/27/heathrow-third-runway-ruled-illegal-over-climate-change
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goodcanadian
The title is a bit misleading. The court ruled that the government failed to
take their climate change commitments into account in approving the third
runway. They can go ahead with the third runway if they redo their approval
taking climate change commitments into account (unlikely to happen as I
understand the Prime Minister is against the third runway).

~~~
toyg
The PM was against it when doing that brought him votes. He’s long since
wiggled out of any commitment. He could have scrapped it already if he wanted
to. This is a PM who likes big infrastructure projects, he just needs to find
half-decent political cover.

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smashah
I live right next to Heathrow and am starting a micromobility company to
tackle air pollution in this end of town, and hold an (albeit expired) PPL.

Air quality is bad here for humans on the ground due to the dilapidated 10
year old diesel buses that tfl allow in West London, and the vast amount of
Single occupancy vehicles that commute to and from Heathrow every single day.

With the disaster that is Brexit on the horizon it's definitely not a good
idea to scrap the expansion of LHR. I more than anyone want to clean up the
environment in West London, but all things considered, it's not worth it to
shoot ourselves in the foot and not expand Heathrow and a scrapping of the
expansion is a hollow victory if all other issues impacting the West London
environment are not addressed.

Cleaner buses, better incentives against SOV use, better alternatives to SOVs,
steeper landing slope and other landing policies, properly maintained and
seperated bike lanes, expedited and expanding plans for CS9, revised electric
micromobility legislation (>500w & upto 20mph), more funding for local
offsetting initiatives.

These make a difference for people on the ground, not not expanding Heathrow.

Edit: also right under the flight path. As most everyone else, got used to the
noise.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
You can clean up buses, trains, cars etc. It doesn't look like we will ever be
able to make air travel carbon neutral.

~~~
Retric
You can get carbon neutral hydrocarbon based fuels from either direct
synthesis or biofuels. Hydrogen is theoretically more efficient, but has
significant hurdles.

Interestingly commercial aircraft are surprisingly efficient per passenger
mile. Norwegian Air Shuttle is sitting at the top with 104 mpg‑US per
passenger, _thanks to its fuel-efficient Boeing 787-8, a high 85% passenger
load factor and a high density of 1.36 seat /m2 due to a low 9% premium
seating._
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft)
And that’s on top of generally being able to take more direct routes than land
based transportation.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Meanwhile any efficiency savings are eaten up by huge increases in air travel.
See Jevons paradox.

I'm also very sceptical that we can synthesise enough fuel to power even a
fraction of the current fleet. We need to fix this problem now and that means
relying on technology we have now.

~~~
Retric
As flying is frequently better for the environment than driving, increased
flights might not be a bad thing for the environment. It really comes down to
if their replacing existing travel or adding more travel.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_As flying is frequently better for the environment than driving_

You can't drive across the Atlantic or Pacific, this a rather silly argument.

~~~
Retric
Which is why I said: _It really comes down to if their replacing existing
travel or adding more travel._

The majority of flights are between locations you can drive to. Even long haul
flights often have at least one leg within driving distance ie: DC > NYC >
Hawaii rather than a direct flight.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_The majority of flights are between locations you can drive to._

Not out of Heathrow they aren't.

~~~
Retric
Most people don’t live near Heathrow but even then the number of direct
flights is limited. You can fly direct from Heathrow to a tiny number of
airports in China, but from those airports you can then get to most cities in
China.

Basically, you can fly from almost any airport to almost any other airport.
But, you can only directly fly between a tiny subset of those pairs.

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supernova87a
I for one have never understood (aside from the network effect and lack of
choice) why anyone actively chooses to connect through LHR. The taxes on
airfare are extortionate just because they can, you have to pay (!) for on-
airport hotel shuttle buses, the facilities are dilapidated and designed with,
um, British sensibilities, and transferring / security is an ordeal given how
cheaply they choose to (under)staff the services.

It is pretty nearly the opposite of a SIN, MUC, or DXB, in my mind.

~~~
Moto7451
I’ve only ever flown into Gatwick and it surprises me that they haven’t
expanded it with the aim of taking more business from Heathrow. If you’re
operating as a transit hub, it doesn’t matter that you’re a train ride away
from London. The network effect must be really strong.

~~~
pjc50
Gatwick have their own plan for this:
[https://www.gatwickairport.com/globalassets/publicationfiles...](https://www.gatwickairport.com/globalassets/publicationfiles/business_and_community/all_public_publications/second_runway/airports_commission/gatwick_sd3_engineering_plans_final.pdf)

But effectively it's centrally planned and only one of them is going to get
the permission. Transport links between the two aren't as great as you'd like
either.

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mech1234
On the margin, compared to the alternative, this will: 1\. Make flights to and
from, and connecting flights through, Heathrow more expensive. 2\. Move more
flights to other neighboring airports. 3\. Reduce the volume of people flying
to/from/through the Heathrow and the UK in general.

I am not sure how much of each effect is needed to absorb the change.

~~~
deugtniet
If you make things more expensive, less people will buy that thing. It will
reduce emissions in the UK by reducing the airtraffic through the UK. Exactly
the intended consequence.

~~~
smashah
Yeah no. LHR has one of the highest airport tax, yet still is a leading world
hub and annual pax numbers keep going up.

~~~
toyg
That simply means, from a “prohibitionist” point of view, that the tax is not
high enough.

~~~
smashah
Lol can't wait for 400% beef tax to save the planet /s

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VBprogrammer
"Runways don't cause climate change; airplanes do."

I applaud the ingenuity of whomever managed to come up with and press home
this argument but it feels like a stretch to me.

As someone who lives under the flight path of Heathrow I can't say I'll shed
any tears if the third runway is permanently blocked by it though.

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spodek
People have gotten so used to flying they can't see how dependent and entitled
they've become. When I share that I'm about to start my fifth year without
flying, everyone tells me how impossible it is for them but they never try.

If they tried, they'd realize how much flying is spreading their lives and
communities thin, undermining community.

A flight will bring you to a distant loved one. Flying in general disperses
communities so you have to fly. Meanwhile we let our communities get covered
with litter and garbage dreaming of escape enabled by flying.

~~~
mansoor_
Please tell me you're not driving the same journey?

~~~
ppf
Indeed. The mpg per person for a modern passenger plane is better than the
average US car (assuming a single-person journey by car). The most important
factor here is miles travelled, not the mode of transport used.

~~~
keanzu
The fatality per mile rate is also wildly lower for commercial flight, so
driving instead of flying is 750x [1] more likely to result in you never
making it to your destination.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States)

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LessDmesg
Self-destructing greenie idiocy in action. The UK should get out of the Paris
Agreement and watch the EU go back to windmill and horse carriage.

