Further letter to Sir Howard Davies

Further letter to Sir Howard Davies following his BBC Radio 4 interview were without any remorse or contrition he states that he is dropping his green concerns and will push for an addition runway. How do we reconcile this with our attempts to educate our young people to care for the environment and show altruism to each other?

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Dear Sir Howard,

After listening to you on Radio 4 this morning and having read and responded to your speech last night, it is hard not to feel total rage with your arrogance in the interview.

You said this morning that you are rejecting environmental concerns and “Turning it (your view that aviation can expand and meet climate change targets) up to see if anyone can knock down our argument, on the assumption that we continue to get fuel efficiency of new aircraft and also we see decarbonisation elsewhere in the economy.”

This is fundamentally wrong and an abuse of power. It is not for us to knock down your arguments on climate change. It is for you to demonstrate that your proposals are compatible with UK carbon targets and climate science in general, that aviation will make enormous efficiency improvements, that biofuels can be grown without destroying the environment and the rest of the economy will decarbonise painlessly. You are unable to prove a single one of these. Despite this failure you conclude new runways should be developed.

It beggars belief that you make this arrogant decision little more than a week after the IPCC report has highlighted the deadly state our climatic system is in. It is hard to understand how you can do this. Did you read this report? Are you so arrogant as to think it does not apply? Do you think some knight in shining white armour is going to solve climate change? Are you too frightened to make the right decision? If you can't answer any of these can you at least drop the word 'independent' from the title of your commission and prevent the charade of people thinking that it is worthwhile submitting evidence into it. 

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Lister