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Carry on flying, says Blair – science will save the planet
Nicholas Watt, Guardian
· Personal sacrifices to cut emissions ‘impractical’
· Green groups accuse PM of failing to set example
Tony Blair today wades into the growing controversy over how individuals can help to tackle global warming by declaring that he has no intention of abandoning long-haul holiday flights to reduce his carbon footprint.
Days after his environment minister branded Ryanair the “irresponsible face of capitalism” for opposing an EU carbon emissions scheme, the prime minister says it is impractical to expect people to make personal sacrifices by taking holidays closer to home.
“I personally think these things are a bit impractical actually to expect people to do that,” Mr Blair says in an interview.
The prime minister, who recently had a family holiday in Miami, adds that it would be wrong to impose “unrealistic targets” on travellers. “You know, I’m still waiting for the first politician who’s actually running for office who’s going to come out and say it – and they’re not,” Mr Blair says. “It’s like telling people you shouldn’t drive anywhere.”
(9 Jan 2007)
Related at the Guardian:
Monbiot: An open letter to the prime minister
Transcript of Tony Blair’s interview
Going against the consensus (audio – short commentary and analysis)
An open letter to the prime minister
George Monbiot, Guardian
Dear Tony Blair,
Last year, you launched the Stern review on climate change with these words: “Unless we act now, not some time distant but now, these consequences, disastrous as they are, will be irreversible. So there is nothing more serious, more urgent or more demanding of leadership.” Ten weeks later, you appear to have recanted.
On Sky News last night, you claimed that it is “a bit impractical actually” to expect people fly less. Instead, we should rely on science to save us, by means that remain mysterious. As for you, you will not be setting an example, by reducing the number of holidays you take at your friends’ houses in Florida and the Caribbean. This, too, apparently, would be “unrealistic”.
You say that we need to “look at how you make air travel more energy-efficient, how you develop the new fuels that will allow us to burn less energy and emit less. How – for example – in the new frames for the aircraft, they are far more energy-efficient.” The trouble is that none of these measures exist yet, or not to the extent that they can offset the growth in emissions from aircraft.
…You say that flying less is a sacrifice too great for the people of this country to bear. But the last time the world was faced with an existential crisis – the rise of the Axis powers – millions of people were asked to sacrifice their lives to prevent it. Now, we are being asked to sacrifice our holidays in Florida and Thailand. Have we – have you – become so soft and so selfish that this is considered too high a price to pay?
Let me remind you of something else you said last year, at the launch of the Clinton Climate Initiative: “If we do not regard this issue with the gravity it demands, if we do not motivate ourselves to take the decisions commensurate with the gravity of the threat that we face, we will betray in the most irresponsible way the generations to come. That is not something I want on my conscience as a political leader.”
Can we hold you to that, Mr Blair?
(9 Jan 2007)
Cities rediscover allure of streetcars
Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
The streetcars that rumbled and clanged through many American cities from the late 1800s until World War II helped shape neighborhoods. More than a half-century later, streetcars are coming back and reviving the same neighborhoods they helped create.
Several cities have resurrected the streetcar tradition and about three dozen others plan to – from Tucson, and Birmingham, Ala., to Miami and Trenton, N.J.
This return to the past is less about satisfying a sense of nostalgia than about enticing developers and people to old industrial areas and faded neighborhoods. As cities experience a much-publicized urban renaissance, streetcars have become another draw for investment in housing, stores and restaurants.
Cities hope that streetcars can do in this century what they did in the last: Connect neighborhoods and provide a relatively cheap alternative to walking and driving.
(8 Jan 2007)
