Climate change and anti-airport expansion protest at Heathrow - are you with the protesters or BAA?

[Callisto]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6943549.stm

Ah but then you take the example of France which is very pro-nuclear but which also has a very high incidence of thyroid cancer which is linked to radiation leakage.

fusion would be wonderful, nuclear power as it now stands is pretty disastrous. We do not know how to store it safely, we just don't. We are like monkeys playing with a shotgun I'm afraid.

I'm going to stop farting to do my bit for climate change. Will you all join me? We could have an international NO FART day!

Cold nuclear fusion occurs when water is split by electrolysis to release an enormous amount of energy. Therefore it is safe and clean unlike traditional nuclear fusion.

Unfortunately, nobody has managed to perfect the science behind it.

yes i'm hoping they do it soon, they've been talking about being on the brink for the last ten years, i don't know if the funding is there.

There has been very little funding available after the initial furore because of doubts surrounding the initial results.

Also, the sceptic in me says that traditional energy companies and oil producing nations would hate to see something like this come to fruition.

I'm actually pinning my faith on the production of a perpetual motion machine that only requires a small amount of energy to get started but once in motion, it keeps going. There is just the small issue of getting the first law of thermodynamics to comply!

Definitely with the protesters. A guy on the radio was ranting about how the economy needed the extra runway but isnt that stacking deckchairs on the titanic? If we dont have a viable planet because we have wrecked it the UK economy will be the least of our problems.

I used to fly with work - to places really far away like the Far East. It was rarely worth it imo and would all have been possible via video link. Think the men (and it was usually men) just loved the "Im so important Im needed in Tokyo" feelings it gave them.

Rhubarb - I couldn't possibly, it just wouldn't happen

I am totally under utterly with the protesters. I'm surprised and a little alarmed that so few of you are too as mothers bringing up children.

In fact I'm in regular contact with the camp and am planning to get up their myself at some point tomorrow.

The fact is that the government, governemnts around the world, are failing to act fast enough on climate change despite conclusive research which points to the fact we only have ten years if we have any hope of turning this mess around. We know aviation is a massive offender when it comes to carbon emissions and yet people are still saying, 'Yeah, but I like a quick visit to Alicante or wherever'.

When are people going to wake up? When they're watching TV footage of floods killing hundreds of thousands? When more and more species become extinct? When all sorts of strange things start happening?

...get up there obviously, not their.

Unsurprisingly, I'm with them too.

Love a good protest, me. And yes, some of them may change their views as they get older; but others won't. Some of the people I did CND stuff with back in the early 1980s are now pillars of New Labour; another is a prominent anti-CNDer. But others aren't.

Oh, and non-violent direct action got the British out of India. Happy Indian Independence day, everyone

Has anyone mentioned the suffragettes yet?
Thank God for these people with enough passion to pursue what they know is right.

I speak as an ex road protester and OK the roads we were protesting about got built but these days anyone planning a road has to factor in the cost of possible protests on their project. Every little helps. As they say. (ahem!)

spidermama...i possibly know you!

btw:

www.climatecamp.org.uk

if you want to check out directions or more info...

Maebee do you reckon? From where?

my dad used to go and spend time with the Greenham common women in support. Not sure how much they wanted a leftie male vicar there tho. My mum used to go grudgingly with him, bless her.

Governments, especially the UK, USA and Japan are spending far more on finding alternative energy resources than their ranting critics will ever acknowledge.

spidermama - just from the eco activist scene, it being quite an intimate one. would Leeds EF! mean anything to you? were you familiar with the EF! network at all? I got involved at the end of Newbury...

EatFish! ?

not quite eatfish! EF! is Earth First! (not an organisation but a network of individuals taking direct action to confront, stop and eventually reverse those that are destroying the earth and its inhabitants...or something like that....)

bump

i'm not with either really, but have to say they're sort of annoying me.

it's great people become passionate about things, but i can think of other more worthy causes. seems 'trendy' which puts me off.

it has indeed become trendy,but the eco-movement has been yelling about climate change for many many years. ive been bored silly by people going on about it in tedious meetings for at least a decade now! a big part of me wishes i was there, but im already in my pyjamas which isn't the most suitable attire...

i'm 38 and it must be about 15 years!