Profile
Subscribe
An interesting and very creative PR stunt recently by Green peace and actress Emma Thompson, Comedian Alistair Mcgowan and Zac Goldsmith who bought a plot of land right in the middle of the proposed site for Heathrow’s third runway expansion. Not only that, but they have invited as many people as possible legally to jointly own the land with them, thus making it very hard for the government to server all the co - owners, especially if some of them don’t live in London, but in Bora Bora, for example.
Kori Brus from Conscious Earth brings up an interesting point:
Environmental responsibility is a global value requiring each person to not only act responsibly towards all other human beings, but also to extend that awareness beyond people to the broader world that we all rely on. That requires looking past narrow interests into ever expanding circles of value, and one of the most powerful ways to engender that awareness is to enable others to witness, first hand, the full scope of the world and the diversity of its people.
Airlines should be accountable for their emissions and efficiency like every other sector of society, but moving to restrict or reduce air travel per se is not part of the answer. For without witnessing the world beyond their own shore, why would a person on a beach in Bora Bora care enough about a mile of tarmac in London to play an active role in stopping it?
Although this is a very sexy pr stunt, Kori words are very wise as well. Although I do think that less air travel would mean less emissions, maybe, instead of curtailing humans traveling from place to place, less products should be flown around, and people should by local products, while still being able to go far and be involved with the rest of the world.
Protests need not only to be sexy, they need to be smart as well.
And in this case, with all due respect to Green Peace (and respect is due) I think they are slightly missing the point.
