Sian Berry

20 comments from readers

John75
30 July 2007 at 18:07

What a nasty bunch of people BAA are. Unfortunately there's too much of this preventing peaceful protests going on at the moment, and in a broader sense, I can't help but worry about where this is leading us as a society. Part of me hopes that BAA get their own way, as this will show them up for what they are.

Weggis
31 July 2007 at 13:33

Let 'em do it, I say.

If all these people are banned from Heathrow it will cut down the numbers of people flying and they won't need another runway!

rhodie
31 July 2007 at 16:30

Thanks BAA.

I had no idea of the Climate Camp and will now do my best to attend. The estimate of 5,000 protesters should now be greatly and deservedly increased.

The best publicity you could have wished for.

davef
01 August 2007 at 15:24

Yes, John75 - What a nasty bunch of people BAA are. But, then, in these 'end of days' times an increasingly arrogant overclass will care nothing for what we think of them. Personally I think we need a bit of climate catastrophy (not too much, mind) to get rid of these people and start at year zero. Trouble is, they are the ones likely to survive by stomping on and over the innocent. Back to the drawing board.

Cybertiger
01 August 2007 at 18:13

davef , 01 August 2007

"But, then, in these 'end of days' times ... "

How are we going to stay in the air when the oil runs out? I predict that the last plane in the air will be an American F16 fighter bomber.

davef
01 August 2007 at 18:47

Yes, Cybertiger. It's a toss up between oil running out and the CO2 heat-death. I think though there will be all hands to the pumps and righteous wars etc to get the last drop out so the show can go on and keep us flying for a good while yet. So I think it'll have to be the CO2. But in the medium to long term, it is 'end of days' thank God. Sorry, I'm beginning to sound even more 'Book of Revelations'. Spooky.

kusasi
01 August 2007 at 21:32

I couldn't agree more that this is the best way for BAA to bring the Climate Camp to wide public attention - great work. It will also inspire spelling and grammar Nazis into action as well, as the following sentence from http://www.baa.com demonstrates (though it's buried in a search engine and not accessible from the home page, surprise, surprise)

"Various environmental activists and environmental groups, under the umbrella of climate camp have stated in their publicity materials, websites and through the media that it is their intention to disrupt and blockade Heathrow through en-mass direct action during their proposed week-long camp and/or during the summer at the airport. "

taghioff.info
02 August 2007 at 11:14

Hey Sian

Mark Lynas let his green party membership lapse. Sounds like a warning to me.

Here is my little open letter:

Dear Greens

You guys really need to think about outcomes and not get too hung up on process right now.

We have ten years to bring about change to reduce the likelihood of massive starvation and displacement to the world's poorest.

That is a for more important moral imperative, right now, than complex discussions of how to institute democracy. That currently stands as a 2000 year experiment with little sign of ever being fully resolved.

In short, my feeling is: get on with it, get out there and win, because we all need green politics now.

Right now.

gnuneo
02 August 2007 at 23:09

taghioff, may i tell a little story? In malawi, under the dictator banda, there were extremely strict conservation laws on the cutting down of trees, and thus the forests were preserved. However once banda was removed, the people have chopped down the malawian forests for charcoaling and firewood, causing large scale deforestation and the largely inevitable soil erosion, with the definitely inevitable tragic consequences on the malawian environment..

what is the moral of this? No, it is not that environmental legislation should be backed *permanently* by machine guns, but that when action is required it is infinitely better to have a population who is educated and versed in the needs for change, and the means necessary, else not only have you destroyed democracy, you will have ensured that any anti-environmental act will be seen as a subversive act... a subversive act against an authoritarian regime.

no my angry friend, it is only through the medium of democracy - which is universal high education leading to social discourse and understanding on the policies and issues, leading to the majority changing their ways voluntarily and rapidly - and honestly.

i understand your frustration, but such great changes can only come after democracy, democracy is an intrinsic part of the process if it is to be maintained.

our current crop of lieing megalomaniacs have shown how easy it is to use media bombardment of spin and outright lies to achieve 'collective beliefs', to push through their own nefarious agendas, how much more powerful such a tool could be to actually tell the truth, educate, and create real discussions.

you should not despise democracy, it is quite likely the only thing that can get us out of this mess we've created.

Cybertiger
03 August 2007 at 12:42

To gnuneo

If democracy brings toxic dolts like Goerge Dubya to superpower, then I'd prefer exert my freedom to vote for characters like Ngwazi, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, former life president of Malawi.

chris37uk
03 August 2007 at 15:13

We need to be psuhing for solutions too, im all for less flying but we should support the efforts to find clean sources of fuel for air travel.

Society needs to techonlogically progress and flight will always be a part of that.

I would be curious to know if all the ecologist readers have given up their trendy eco trips to far flung places?

gnuneo
03 August 2007 at 15:25

2 cybertiger:

as most politically active people are aware, it is certain that democracy, even in the extremely limited 2 party system of the US, did not bring chimpy to power.

but i was not limiting 'democracy' to the largely meaningless results from voting every few years, i was using it in its proper political science sense, which is a system whereby the people are engaged in their own societies, not at the whims of the rulers and owners.

an example of this is the iraq war - there is not a main party in the UK to vote for who are and have been clearly against the war, yet the bulk of the british people do not buy into this catastrophe and have organised, and marched, and demonstrated, and some may even have written to their MPs!

this is *real* democracy, not the ritualised BS that emanates from westminster palace in lieu of real parliamentary oversight of the executive, but the simple fact that the british people are willing to get involved, become educated, politically organise and ultimately hope to change policies.

and despite centuries of propaganda and misinformation about the benefits of having a ruling class, it is this democracy that has propelled european, and most especially English, civilisation out of the groveling dung-heaps of the dark ages into the societies we have today.

tell me, if you beleive that it is correct that environmental policies be enforced without the agreement of the people, then surely you can also see the logic of the corrupt centralists who wish to enforce the building of nuclear stations even on bitterly opposed communities?

after all, the Elite Knows Best, right?

Cybertiger
03 August 2007 at 20:40

@gnuneo 2

This week I was tempted by an 89 pence Ryanair ticket from Luton to Dublin. The rabble proletariat will always vote to fly cheaply and yet democracy and the power of the people can surely be trusted to destroy this planet. What the world needs is firm, benign autocrats (like Hastings Banda) to shake some sense into our sham democracies - rather than toxic, democratic idiots like George Bush or yapping, sycophantic poodles like Tony Blair, the democrat.

kusasi
03 August 2007 at 21:51

It seems now that BAA are sheepishly backtracking ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/aug/02/travelandt... althogh it doesn't seem much of a denial to me.

gnuneo
04 August 2007 at 00:54

2 cybertiger:

and how pray do you ensure these autocrats actually follow policies that are beneficial, and do not either start or end up like blair and bush?

what you describe above is a classic case of *lack* of democracy - were the people aware properly of the damage that low-distance jet flights cause, they would be more willing to push for cleaner alternatives, such as airships for short distances. Your attitude is that as people will not do as you want them to, they must lose all choices.

you have far more in common with bush and blair then, as they also did not believe 'we' would understand the need to invade and occupy iraq so our elites could plunder the resources, you seem to be under the misapprehension that those who seek power over others, especially when it is entirely unaccountable, will for some strange reason use that power for the benefit of the people.

no, the best way to ensure a future for our planet, is through education and discussion, leading to democratic movements and agreements. It is a simple fact, easily observed by even a brief look through recorded history, that despite plato's 'shroom inspired belief in aristocracy, that the % of benevolent dictators to non-benevolent ones is less than inspiring for any society to look to that for salvation.

you may dream of being a heroic figure striding above the 'pond-slime' of 'common humanity', GAIA's Holy Warrior come to save mankind from itself - or the planet from mankind - but as the example i gave of banda was intended to show, all you will achieve is the opposite of what you want to, because you will be hated and rejected. Exactly like bush himself, in fact.

and please - to even wave the label "democrat" near blair or bush is to reveal a depth of ignorance about what the word actually means - it is not 'democracy' when the people are fed a line of lies to get their support, that is in fact a stage-managed populist autocracy - exactly what you yourself are proposing!

except without the "popular" aspect, apparently.

Cybertiger
05 August 2007 at 16:51

@gnuneo

Where were you on 15 February 2003? I was marching peacefully in London in the company of near a million people. Did our peaceful protest make any difference? No, it didn't. Did we prevent a great humanitarian catastrophe? No, we didn't. Democracy has failed. Democracy is dead: Long Live Ngwazi, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda. We need to try something different.

PS. By the way, I don't think you appreciate the depth of the cynicism for the political process in this country - or for the facetiouness it engenders in me. Once upon a time I was a member of the Labour Party. I jacked in my membership on learning that our military forces had dumped cluster bombs on Iraq. I voted for Tony Blair on two electoral occasions but at the last election voted 1,2,3 for the STV, the single transferable vote. What choice did I really have?

gnuneo
05 August 2007 at 22:18

actually, i was marching in copenhagen. You say this did not affect anything? You are entirely wrong. It showed the muslim world, and our own populations that we in the west are not entirely conscienceless, that despite the oft repeated claims of our 'democratic political systems' we are in fact in far less than democratic countries.

is this meaningless? No, it is not. The current political dissatisfaction you mention is to a large degree a result of people coming together freely to express their opinions, it is unlikely there would even be considerations of pulling out without this basic and essential democratic force showing there are limits to what our undemocratic and autocratic leaders can get away with.

so it did not stop the war - well, that is a tragedy, but that was only part of the goal, the other is to demonstrate this democratic will to our leaders, that despite the Goebbels inspired media blitz and outright lies, there were enough people across the west (and the world) who are aware enough of reality that they were willing to organise democratically.

did the suffragettes expect to win the vote after a single march? So did that mean that their efforts to increase democratic participation were a failure?

in fact, the failure of the anti-war marches is not indicative that democracy is a failure, it is indicative that we in the west do not have *enough* democracy, that it is again time for a political evolution to regain the democratic focus, and the belief that our societies should be run for the benefit of *us*, and not just the elites with a few scraps thrown down to keep the peasants happy.

it is important IMHO not to mix up the label of democracy that is often attached to what is anything but, and the meaning of the term itself.

and once again, if you want to go for an autocratic political system, for what reason do you believe that such a political system will actually do what you wish? It is the autocratic mentality that is pushing the ID cards, it is the autocratic mentality that pushed through the iraq holocaust, it is the autocratic mentality that completely ignored the directly expressed wishes of the people when they took to the streets to protest.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? In a democratic system it is the people themselves, in an autocracy it is to rely entirely upon the conscience of the rulers - i know myself which one is likely to produce better results.

WyvernCrusader
17 August 2007 at 10:40

Perhaps you would like us all to go back to the dark ages then and not use transport at all. Simple there are too many people on the planet. If you

cure all diseases and stop all wars and extend life, Then what do u expect.

I dont see why england should be used as some kind of test bed for the rest of the world to laugh at . I am pro Nuclear power stations and yes i live near one reactor at Winfrith in dorset and no i dont work there im in IT. I dont mind them being built in my back yard

WyvernCrusader
17 August 2007 at 10:46

And please dont spout on about how Islam has been oppressed

I suppose the spanish kingdoms and its people thanked the moors for invading . Islamic kingdoms had slavery as much as anyone else (heard of the mamelukes - look it up). Jeruslam was captured by islamic kindgoms from the Byzantines BEFORE THE crusades, Mohammed actually led an army in the arab conquests. I can list as many examples of attrocities committed by Islamic kingdoms in history as you might about western history. So please before you expect the Anglo Saxon english to whip themselves like medieval flaggelants try and research what you say . Before you whine about the so called oppression of the east by the west

WyvernCrusader
17 August 2007 at 10:50

It seems to me these self same supporters against the run wayt

Would be the same self righteous people who would suppress people marching against immigration in the UK or who are pro Iraq war . They are nothing but a Bunch of self opiniated hypocrates if u ask me