Copy of complaint to the BBC (submit your complaint at http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/):
Today’s BBC Breakfast publicised the new programme the “Hidden Life of Airports.” This is another example of the BBC’s subliminal advertising for the aviation industry. The interviewees presented an exiting and glamorous image of aviation and airports. They talked about the baggage handling systems and the shopping malls. The marketing department of BAA would be delighted with this free coverage, especially as BAA faces the real risk of administration.
Not once did your advert talk about the local or global environmental destruction airports cause, or airports use of anti terrorist legislation to try and stop protestors, or airports attempts to infiltrate protest movements with spies, or airports attempts to subvert the science of climate change, or airports lobbying of politicians at local and national levels. This is true hidden life of airports, which no doubt the BBC 4 programme will ensure remains hidden and your advert on this morning’s BBC Breakfast certainly kept hidden.
The BBC have already used Blue Peter to advertise for the aviation industry and I complained then, see
http://kevsclimatecolumn.blogspot.com/2008/11/complaint-to-bbc-about-blue-peter.html
In the subsequent exchange of emails, the editor of Blue Peter (Tim Levell) assured me “It was wrong not to include a section on the environmental impact of flying, the growth of air travel, or the concerns of people, such as local residents.”
If it was wrong then, it is wrong now. I am angry and frustrated that the effort I previously went to in highlighting your discrepancies has been wilfully ignored. Thus the BBC which I am forced to fund, through my licence fee, is continuing to serve as the mouth piece for organisations intent on the destruction of our planet. Can you confirm when the BBC will be the impartial organisation it is supposed to be?
Monday, June 15, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Letter to Gordon Brown
Dear Gordon,
I am sending this letter to you first class. Despite your reprieve from the backbenchers last night, I think that it is still important that this arrives as quickly as possible as there is still a high chance that you get deposed in the next couple of days.
In your isolated towers you have been divorced from the chaos and uncertainty that everyone else in this country has experienced for too long. Marriages are breaking up under financial stress and home repossessions; the education system is falling apart under budget cuts, social breakdown and excessive regulation; companies are going bankrupt and the redundant employees have no chance of fulfilment in a society whose main values are consumption and production; good people around the country are facing criminal charges for protesting against the injustices that they see, pregnant women get stabbed to death on the street – the list goes on.
I am a mathematician and am particularly fascinated by fractals. This is the idea of self replicating patterns that expand to infinity or contract to the infinitesimal. Go to You Tube and search on fractals to see what I mean– you should be able to find them as I understand that you are a proficient user of You Tube. The chaos that we small people are experiencing is now being replicated on you big people. They bring us no pleasure and you should not expect any either.
The only light relief that many of us have is the schadenfreude of seeing you descend into a sea of chaos of your own making.
So what are these forces that drive us all to chaos? They are the collapsing economy in the face of looming energy shortages and environmental catastrophe and the inability of governments to recognise the enormity the emerging crisis. Put simply, we are entering a phase of contraction for which we have no precedent and of which we are only in the foot hills. We have no vision of how an economy based around growth will respond when faced with permanent contraction and now we have no government to provide leadership in these difficult times.
Despite the inevitability of the crisis your approach is to ignore, to fudge and to lie. You are now experiencing the result of this, examples are many:
You and your government will still not withdraw support for the 3rd runway at Heathrow. This is despite the accumulating reports that BAA is facing administration and an appalling set of interim results that were recently released. This expansion has never been about benefiting London or the UK. It has always been about BAA expanding to reduce its debt ratio. Despite the illogical arguments of BAA you have continued to support them and ignore the local and global environmental damage that this will cause.
You have ignored the warnings from last year when oil price rose to $145 per barrel wiping out much UK’s industry. You continue to support an unsustainable economic model that is centred on automobiles and aviation despite oil prices rising again and the IEA warning of oil shortages in three years.
You and your government have continued to push for biofuels as a substitute to fossil fuel, safe in the knowledge that those who are hungry and impoverished as a result will be confined to the third world and you will still be fed.
You have failed to provide any vision or discussion on the sort of future we will have that is not dependent on fossil fuel. We should not even be debating a third runway at Heathrow. We should be debating how we use the second runway and infrastructure at Heathrow as a benefit to the local community. Can the terminal buildings be used as a local college; can the runway be used as a solar and wind power farm, etc?
Whilst you continue to push for economic growth around an unsustainable model, you will continue to drive us into a chaotic state, from which you will not be able to escape. In the circumstances, to hear you claim you are the person to bring unity to your party simply demonstrates how out of touch you are with reality.
I would like you to confirm that if you are lucky enough to stay in power you will put the environment and sustainability at the forefront of your policies to avoid plunging us small people into further chaos, such that our only pleasure will be in watching further chaos unfolding around you.
I will publish this letter on my blog and will copy it to my MP (David Drew), who is not a supporter of you.
Regards,
Kevin Lister
I am sending this letter to you first class. Despite your reprieve from the backbenchers last night, I think that it is still important that this arrives as quickly as possible as there is still a high chance that you get deposed in the next couple of days.
In your isolated towers you have been divorced from the chaos and uncertainty that everyone else in this country has experienced for too long. Marriages are breaking up under financial stress and home repossessions; the education system is falling apart under budget cuts, social breakdown and excessive regulation; companies are going bankrupt and the redundant employees have no chance of fulfilment in a society whose main values are consumption and production; good people around the country are facing criminal charges for protesting against the injustices that they see, pregnant women get stabbed to death on the street – the list goes on.
I am a mathematician and am particularly fascinated by fractals. This is the idea of self replicating patterns that expand to infinity or contract to the infinitesimal. Go to You Tube and search on fractals to see what I mean– you should be able to find them as I understand that you are a proficient user of You Tube. The chaos that we small people are experiencing is now being replicated on you big people. They bring us no pleasure and you should not expect any either.
The only light relief that many of us have is the schadenfreude of seeing you descend into a sea of chaos of your own making.
So what are these forces that drive us all to chaos? They are the collapsing economy in the face of looming energy shortages and environmental catastrophe and the inability of governments to recognise the enormity the emerging crisis. Put simply, we are entering a phase of contraction for which we have no precedent and of which we are only in the foot hills. We have no vision of how an economy based around growth will respond when faced with permanent contraction and now we have no government to provide leadership in these difficult times.
Despite the inevitability of the crisis your approach is to ignore, to fudge and to lie. You are now experiencing the result of this, examples are many:
You and your government will still not withdraw support for the 3rd runway at Heathrow. This is despite the accumulating reports that BAA is facing administration and an appalling set of interim results that were recently released. This expansion has never been about benefiting London or the UK. It has always been about BAA expanding to reduce its debt ratio. Despite the illogical arguments of BAA you have continued to support them and ignore the local and global environmental damage that this will cause.
You have ignored the warnings from last year when oil price rose to $145 per barrel wiping out much UK’s industry. You continue to support an unsustainable economic model that is centred on automobiles and aviation despite oil prices rising again and the IEA warning of oil shortages in three years.
You and your government have continued to push for biofuels as a substitute to fossil fuel, safe in the knowledge that those who are hungry and impoverished as a result will be confined to the third world and you will still be fed.
You have failed to provide any vision or discussion on the sort of future we will have that is not dependent on fossil fuel. We should not even be debating a third runway at Heathrow. We should be debating how we use the second runway and infrastructure at Heathrow as a benefit to the local community. Can the terminal buildings be used as a local college; can the runway be used as a solar and wind power farm, etc?
Whilst you continue to push for economic growth around an unsustainable model, you will continue to drive us into a chaotic state, from which you will not be able to escape. In the circumstances, to hear you claim you are the person to bring unity to your party simply demonstrates how out of touch you are with reality.
I would like you to confirm that if you are lucky enough to stay in power you will put the environment and sustainability at the forefront of your policies to avoid plunging us small people into further chaos, such that our only pleasure will be in watching further chaos unfolding around you.
I will publish this letter on my blog and will copy it to my MP (David Drew), who is not a supporter of you.
Regards,
Kevin Lister
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)