Brain-dead climate activists came up with the scathingly brilliant scheme of protesting against airplanes at Heathrow Airport by flying drones in front of passenger planes to prevent them from taking off or landing. I guess the climate activists got it in their heads that making airplanes crash would be an excellent way to reduce the world’s carbon footprint.
Fortunately, British police foiled their plan by jamming drone frequencies. Several nutcases were arrested and, for the moment, plane passengers have been spared the ordeal of being grounded by idiots who think threatening to kill people is a legitimate way of battling global warming.
“We’ve got a little technical glitch. The drone isn’t flying,” an unidentified campaigner says in the video, as another holds a drone in the air.
Determined to avoid disruption, police invoked extra powers to move people away from the area around the airport until Sunday morning.
“The order has been implemented to prevent criminal activity which poses a significant safety and security risk to the airport,” they said in a statement.
On Friday, they arrested five people in the vicinity of the airport, in addition to seven people who had been arrested on Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a public nuisance.
What makes this “protest” so ludicrous is that passenger planes are responsible for only a tiny percentage of carbon emissions.
Heathrow Pause is a splinter group of Extinction Rebellion, which blocked streets in central London this year. It had said it would fly the drones no higher than head height and had no wish to endanger life.
Air travel accounts for just 2.5% of global carbon emissions, but the industry is attempting to reconcile airlines’ growth plans with a pledge to cut carbon emissions.
A study by the International Council on Clean Transportation said in a report on Thursday that the increase in emissions from U.S. airlines was overtaking improvements in fuel efficiency.
Heathrow Pause opposes the expansion of Heathrow, whose proposed third runway was approved by lawmakers last year after decades of delays and policy U-turns.
Heathrow Pause says they don’t want to kill anyone, that they would only fly the drones at “head height” so that planes wouldn’t crash. But these are fanatics. They’re a “splinter group” from Extinction Rebellion, which, in revolutionary parlance, means they weren’t radical enough. What would happen if one of their members decided to “make a statement” that resulted in crashing a passenger plane? The problem with splinter groups is that there’s always someone who wants to be even more radical. The activists could not guarantee against independent action by a rogue operative.
The police apparently have the situation well in hand, but I would suggest Extinction Rebellion and other radical groups dial it back a bit or there will be a tragedy.
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