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To: et.letters@telegraph.co.uk
Re: If our airports continue to grow . . . Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 |
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Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing in response to Neil Collins' article, "If our airports don't grow, they will die", in today's Daily Telegraph. My view could hardly be more contrary to his, I hope nevertheless that he will read and consider it. If our airports continue to grow, it is WE ( our children and grandchildren) who will die! Because it is not just a question of OUR airports, but of airports all around the world and of air travel in general. Mr Collins says himself that "as people become more affluent, they want to travel more, and increasingly that means air travel. . . . demand will grow, just as car journeys continue to rise, despite taxation, road congestion and government policy." Please consider, that at the moment only a small fraction (about 1/5) of Earth's population can afford to travel regularly by car or plane - thank goodness! Because even current global levels of motorisation and air travel are placing a non-sustainable burden on our planet's limited resources and finite carrying capacity. What will happen as ever more people are able to afford cars and air travel should not take a great stretch of the imagination. I hope that Mr Collins, and many of your readers, will stretch their imaginations to consider this, because it is very - in fact, vitally - important that they do. The future of our children and coming generations depends on it. It will present a disturbing contradiction to their aspirations and view of the world, which will incline them to dismiss it out of hand, but for the sake of our children and coming generations, they must face up to it, or at least make a start. Who in 1900 would have believed, if they had been told, the horrors that the 20th Century held in store for them? The horrors that the 21st Century has in store for us (our children and grandchildren) will be even worse, if we fail to wake up and face up to the limitations placed on the activities and aspirations of 7- 9 billion human beings living on our large, but nevertheless finite and vulnerable planet, Spaceship Earth. |