The Climate Camp

I suspect we've all harboured thoughts at one time or another of 'sticking it to the man,' whoever the man is! The Climate Camp is one of those such occasions when timidness gets the better of valour and I say Chapeau to those who have given up time, work and money to make a protest against future environmental damage caused by building yet another runway extension and terminal at Heathrow Airport. I don't however say well done to those 'anarchists' who are so rebellious in their ways that they break off from protesting to collect their benefits or cause criminal damage under the disguise of peaceful protest.

Climate Camp appears, judging by media reports at any rate, to be a mixture of Glastonbury, Science Fairs and wannabee crusties. It was interesting to read the disappointment of the Sun reporter who, instead of finding the usual dog on a bit of string, joint smoking, Special Brew drinking tattooed stinky, encountered teachers, lecturers, office workers. Of course in amongst the 'respectable' protestors there will be a group who are intent on causing trouble, those who can't wait for any excuse to burrow their way under the perimeter fence or lob pieces of concrete at the Police. And what of the Police, why such huge numbers, why do we have to go over the top in this country when it comes to policing major demonstrations? I suspect there are two possible reasons, firstly the lessons learned from those far off days of the Poll Tax Riots and the general state of alert over terrorism. Better to throw all your resources at something from the start than be found wanting at a later date.

The two campaigners who glued themselves to the doors of the Department For Transport yesterday look like a couple of bank employees and the general feeling seems to be that more and more young people are getting involved in protests. You can only hope that this 'direct action' style of protesting might actually lead them to become interested in the democratic process at some stage, the Conservative Party faithful have been telling David Cameron for long enough now that young people are the future, perhaps he could harness some of this energy and put it to good use.

Of course there's another side to all this. We are English after all, we love the idea of moaning about something but don't actually like taking action. Well that used to be the case but over the past decade we seem to have taken on board some of our Norman ancestors pleasure at making our voices heard on the streets, I had a client say to me after the French farmers latest port blockade "You might not like what they are doing, but at least they are doing something." Fortunately we haven't reached the stage that the French farmers reached a few years ago when they burned down the regional government offices in Rennes.

Anybody who believes so passionately about something with such conviction that they will give up their future civil liberties - everybody attending the camp is having to give their name, address and are being photographed - gets a thumbs up from me, whether they are the women at Greenham Common or Greenpeace protestors chaining themselves to a Sperm Whale.

Oh, and a little piece of science to end with: The most damaging impact on the environment of aircraft travel isn't the release of carbon dioxide. Everybody seems to have seized upon this fact with all the glee of a mugger kicking Douglas Bader's metal legs away from him. No the point that has been sorely missed is contrails. Next time you start up your car in the morning get out and look at first six inches of the inside of the exhaust, you will see water. In an aircraft exhaust the water that is caused by the burning of kerosene that condenses in particles - you can see the effect in the sky by the production of vapor trails. During the daytime these vapor trails actually reduce the amount of solar radiation that reaches the earths surface and cause a cooling effect, at night however they trap heat which would otherwise be released into space. The second point that hasn't be raised is that of the release of oxides of nitrogen from the exhausts, these produce ozone gas which at high altitude acts as a greenhouse gas. Okay, sceptics can point to the fact that air travel only accounts for about 3.5% of the total increase in global warming by man-made activity but some people are actually saying that enough is enough and the predicted of more than 4.5% per year is unacceptable.