Boris Island - should it be built? What other alternatives are there?

[Meat Pie]

From this topic's title, I think the first question is more important then the second one: Should it be built? My answer is no, and my main reason for this is that with a huge amounts of verifiable evidence and the agreed consensus of the scientific world, we are undeniably sure that human activities are causing global warming; and aircraft are amongst some of the worst offenders around.

The world's 16,000 commercial jet aircraft generates more then 600 million tonnes of CO2 a year, and the air travel business is growing. That 600 million tonnes generated from aviation is almost as much CO2 that is annually produced from all human activities in Africa. If aviation continues to grow at the current rate then it will account for half of what the government thinks is the most the UK should be emitting by 2050.

The problem of Global Warming is not going away and if not dealt with, it will eventually make the world inhabitable. I know this sounds melodramatic, but it is true. So no, any expansion of the current air travel system would be lunacy. If anything, we need to be curtailing our wasteful use of aeroplanes. We need to promote alternatives like the already increasing practice of international business meetings being conducted through video conferences, and there is no excuse for non-international flights.

Of course air travel is just one problem within the climate crisis, and many other steps also need to be taken, but if we let this slip, this could be a disaster for the environment.

 

[Poisson]

Having already been on a fast catamaran (Not like the Seacat or Condor) but it was the Thames Clipper

^ that is what I went on.

Also I have been on something similar on the river Seine in Paris

 

[BigAl]

From this topic's title, I think the first question is more important then the second one: Should it be built? My answer is no, and my main reason for this is that with a huge amounts of verifiable evidence and the agreed consensus of the scientific world, we are undeniably sure that human activities are causing global warming; and aircraft are amongst some of the worst offenders around.

The world's 16,000 commercial jet aircraft generates more then 600 million tonnes of CO2 a year, and the air travel business is growing. That 600 million tonnes generated from aviation is almost as much CO2 that is annually produced from all human activities in Africa. If aviation continues to grow at the current rate then it will account for half of what the government thinks is the most the UK should be emitting by 2050.

The problem of Global Warming is not going away and if not dealt with, it will eventually make the world inhabitable. I know this sounds melodramatic, but it is true. So no, any expansion of the current air travel system would be lunacy. If anything, we need to be curtailing our wasteful use of aeroplanes. We need to promote alternatives like the already increasing practice of international business meetings being conducted through video conferences, and there is no excuse for non-international flights.

Of course air travel is just one problem within the climate crisis, and many other steps also need to be taken, but if we let this slip, this could be a disaster for the environment.

Modern planes are halving the amounts of CO2 produced though and most of the major companies are in the process of upgrading their fleets to more efficient and safer (yipeeee ) aircraft. The benefit of this is that air travel becomes safer and greener and the companies operating the planes are also saving money in the long run from not having to use as much fuel, etc... If air travel becomes less popular then there'll be less of a demand to upgrade fleets and we'll be stuck with the more polluting planes for longer.


Anyway, I've come across a plan of what this Boris Island will look like:

*runs*

 

[Rupert]

From this topic's title, I think the first question is more important then the second one: Should it be built? My answer is no, and my main reason for this is that with a huge amounts of verifiable evidence and the agreed consensus of the scientific world, we are undeniably sure that human activities are causing global warming; and aircraft are amongst some of the worst offenders around.

Just a couple of things I'd like to pick up on.

a) Human activities are not causing global warming. It is a natural process that has been happening for 4.5 billion years and will continue to happen whether humans are around or not. Humans have certainly been speeding it up, but trying to prevent is a ludicrous ambition. Mitigation and adaptation are necessary, but, alas, the world will become inhabitable. We should accept that.

b) Aircraft is damaging, but not one of the worst offenders around. It is responsible for an estimated 3.5% of anthropogenic climate change (IPCC). If you're going to target anything, livestock production would be a good place to start (responsible for a staggering minimum 51% of greenhouse gases - source). If everyone became vegetarian the world would become, environmentally, a much better place.

A key problem is that industries such as aviation (and livestock production, for now) are economically essential. We live in a somewhat depressing age where economics rules what decisions are made, even if morally and socially necessary. Whilst aviation continues to add huge value to the UK and world economies, it will only continue to grow. Your view that 'expansion of the current air travel system would be lunacy' is a nice sentiment if curtailing it would have any real impact on global warming, or if curtailing it could actually happen. Similarly, we should really be cutting almost all transport methods. Producing cars, especially in the numbers we do, is surely lunacy. So many human activities are, in the context of global warming, 'lunacy', that the idea of trying to stop them, trying to come up with alternatives, trying to slow down the unstoppable juggernaut of global warming, trying to prevent economics once again beating what is socially and morally essential, is farcical.

Society, without a global dictatorship, cannot possibly attempt to control what is happening. If we decide not to build this airport, then Schiphol will expand, CdG will expand, Frankfurt will expand. If we somehow were able to curtail aviation, there would be increased use of other forms of transport, the majority of which are also environmentally damaging. Then, if we are going to curb the use of environmentally damaging industries, do we then try to shut down the environmentally-disastrous global shipping industry? Do we try to replace all livestock production with sustainable, arable alternatives? Do we replace all power sources with inefficient renewables, or just go nuclear and hope for the best? Do we stop producing plastics? Do we stop using and producing computers and phones that need huge amounts of rare earth elements? Do we cull half of the global population?

It's not just aviation. Cutting one damaging industry won't be anywhere close to solving the problem. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but to me it seems just too huge a task, too impossible a task, that it's genuinely not worth even trying. I'm all for planning for where to move Bangladesh's population when it inevitably permanently floods, but trying to prevent it from happening is out of the question, without completely and fundamentally overhauling the way global society works. So we might as well let air travel be.


So, again addressing the original question: Should it be built? There are two answers. Economically, it definitely should. Environmentally, of course not. However, economics will win out, so, in the long run, we're screwed. But, as global warming and sea level rise was going to happen regardless of human activity, we would have been screwed anyway, it just would have taken a few more years.

 

[Meat Pie]

Big Al - I think it is a great thing that modern aircraft are halving their CO2 emissons, but it's crazy and contradictory to say that these will could only get upgraded if demand continues to increase. The very premise cancels out it's environment benefit. I would liken it to the diet advice of the Majorie Dawes character in Little Britain who suggested cutting food in half to make "it half the calories" and because its half the calories it means "you can have twice as much."

We need our government and the collective world governments to force the industry into upgrading their planes whether they want to or not, whilst still reducing dependency on air travel.

Now for Rupert....

a) Human activities are causing global warming, and almost every single reputable scientific establishment agrees with this.

The issue of CO2 emissions is much misunderstood. CO2 works in a cycle, where it is first emitted into the atmosphere and then reabsorbed by the land and ocean which keeps the levels sustainable. However this only works with the natural level of emissions and whilst humans do only provide a tiny fraction of the total emissions it is still too much for the very delicate cycle to handle. With these increasing sources of CO2, the gases struggle to be reabsorbed by the earth so they end up floating eternally in our atmosphere and causing the greenhouse effect. Even though the percentage we contribute to the entire emissions is only small, our CO2 contribution is overwhelming the planet.

It's like getting drunk. Your body can naturally process a certain level of alcohol, but if you are not careful and you go just a bit too far, you will end up overwhelming your bloodstream and give yourself alcohol poisoning. It may be that those last pints which caused the poisioning are only a small percentage of the total alcohol consumption but it was the percentage which tipped the balance. Unfortunately there is no stomach pump for CO2 so we need to stop and we need to do so quite quickly.

b) 3.5% is a huge percentage to be coming from a single industry. As for livestock, correct me if I'm wrong, but a significant portion of the emissions are in the the transportation of the goods which could be curtailed if meat was produced on a much more local basis. However admittedly, there is a problem with unsustainable growth in farming which needs to be tackled, starting with decreasing the dependency on quite so much meat, and focus on more sustainable plant based diets. That doesn't mean you can't have meat, but it needs to be a more tightly controlled commodity which is farmed in moderation. However, this is all beside the point as just because one contributing factor is worse then others, does not make it unreasonable to oppose the expansion of the less impactful contributing factors.

I also very much agree with you that we live in a depressing age where economics are valued higher then what is morally and socially necessary, but that doesn't mean you should accept that and become a simpering defeatist. You either try to save the world, not only for your own future children but for the children of others who are going to suffer the severe consequences for your lethargy.

Capitalism is a driving force for global warming, but you know what else is? The quitters. The giver-upers. The we're all doomed and I don't care anymorers. If everyone has that attitude then we really are screwed. Each and every single person is responsible for getting this right, and if you choose to do nothing then you are an accomplice to the crime, so I say save your pessimism for a better time.

You've brought up many issues in your post, many of which I don't have an answer for, whilst other I do think I know which course of action is necessary but on all of these issues we have to at least try to get things right as if there is one thing I am 100% certain of - If we collectively give up and don't try to achieve positive change to issues we know to be harmful, then the it will never have a chance of getting better.

 

[BigT]

a) Human activities are causing global warming, and almost every single reputable scientific establishment agrees with this.

Not quite true, there is currently growing support against this view.
The earth has natural cycles of warming and cooling hence the last ice age, and we are currently approaching the peak of a warm cycle in something like the next 500 years.
There is common belief that human activity of the last 200 years may have had a slight acceleration effect of this and I tend to agree with this, but it should be remembered the highest emitter of CO2 is volcanos.
Furthermore there is a belief that excess CO2 has nothing to do with global warming anyway, but it is very convenient because it is very easy to tax.

 

[BigAl]

Big Al - I think it is a great thing that modern aircraft are halving their CO2 emissons, but it's crazy and contradictory to say that these will could only get upgraded if demand continues to increase. The very premise cancels out it's environment benefit. I would liken it to the diet advice of the Majorie Dawes character in Little Britain who suggested cutting food in half to make "it half the calories" and because its half the calories it means "you can have twice as much."

We need our government and the collective world governments to force the industry into upgrading their planes whether they want to or not, whilst still reducing dependency on air travel.

You're missing my point. These modern aircraft are capable of flying further for longer at greater speeds on 40% less fuel. But that all comes at a price. If there's no demand for these newer aircraft then they aren't going to spend a fortune on upgrading their fleets. Major companies put money before environment, so they're only going to upgrade to a more environmentally friendly fleet if it's financially viable.

I don't think that forcing companies to upgrade their fleets would work either. If a company can't profit from making newer, more technologically advanced aircraft and other companies that buy them won't benefit in the long run from purchasing them then that could ruin many companies.

 

[Rupert]

Re: The impending doom of human civilisation and our inability to prevent it

a) Human activities are causing global warming, and almost every single reputable scientific establishment agrees with this.

Capitalism is a driving force for global warming, but you know what else is?

OK. I've lumped these two quotes together because I'd also like to address some misconceptions. Your use of the word "causing" suggests that, if humans weren't around, global warming wouldn't be happening. But it would - as I said before, it's been happening for four and a half billion years, and will continue to happen long after humanity is wiped out. Ocean temperatures were 45°C in the Ordovician (450million years ago), 30°C in the Devonian (~400Mya), 37°C in the Cretaceous (~100Mya) and 35°C in the Eocene (~45°C) for example. It's cyclical and it will continue to happen.

I'm sure you know this and sorry for labouring the point, but the reason for my 'quitter' attitude, lethargy, my 'simpering defeatism', my willingness to be an accomplice to this crime as you so eloquently put it - is because, whatever we do, however much we cut back, even if we somehow stopped emitting any greenhouse gases, it's all ultimately futile because it is going to happen regardless. That's tragic and sorry if my attitude depresses you, but I think I'm being realistic. Global warming and cooling are fundamentally natural processes.

Now then. I will completely agree with you if you were to say that humans have influenced these natural processes. What almost every single reputable scientific establishment agrees with, which is perhaps what you meant, is that anthropogenic activities are contributing to global warming, accelerating it, bringing the apocalypse ever closer. Not causing it though. Sorry for labouring this point too, but it's intrinsically linked to the fact that as it was going to happen anyway, our actions are only bringing the inevitable a little closer. So thanks for the CO2 lesson - I will never argue against humans contributing to global warming and hoped it didn't come across like I was, but I will argue against them being the cause.

---

OK, you're right - 3.5% is a staggering amount for aviation to be responsible for. But the global shipping industry also contributes over 3% - more for example, than any country in Europe barring Russia. We've discussed the catastrophic effect of the livestock production industry (that 52% [which is in fact a conservative estimate] contribution does include transportation). And we know the effect of the oil and gas industry, which directly or indirectly fuels most other industries. But without some global unified effort, involving every single country irrespective of political regime, disregarding the unbelievable economic cost it would involve, and accepting humans would have to irreversibly change the way they live - pretty much stop travelling, produce all goods locally, stop using anything that requires damaging/difficult extraction or production - then I'm afraid the task is too mammoth to tackle.

Maybe we are responsible in that we all use products and services that have hugely damaging production histories, but so many of these we rely on. Furthermore, whilst we as a global society are responsible for accelerating climate change, we are not responsible for it happening in the first place. I would very much welcome the entire global population becoming vegetarian, but honestly, I don't think it's defeatist to disregard that as a possibility - I think it's naïve to think it would happen. I think it's naïve to think that we can re-engineer global society to negate our contributions to global warming. I would say that we would simply be delaying the inevitable, and we would be better off preparing for it to happen.

Your very final point - "if we give up then it will never have a chance of getting better": it never had a chance to begin with. We are slipping to oblivion and have tragically steepened the slope upon which we are sliding. Maybe we could shallow it out a little, but there's no stopping it.

 

[BigT]

On a positive note though Rupert we will all be very dead by the time there is anything to worry about.

 

[JB1985]

going back to the topic question, yes i think it should be built.

Simply, to keep up with the future economic powers of the world we need to have a large transport hub with cross country links. If we dont upgrade our infrastructure we will miss out and it will cost the country billions in revenue and jobs.