6 March 2020
Part 1: Up, Up and Away
If you google air pollution, you will find that exhausts from industrial plant, factories and vehicle fumes, are high on the list. If you google kerosene lanterns you will find that 3% of air pollution is caused by their use1.
Kerosene oil lamps, end up in the atmosphere as black carbon. In fact the World Health Organisation discourage the use of the fuel within the home.
Kerosene fuel is also used to produce Jet Fuel2, which contributes 13.4% Europe’s CO2e Emissions3.
“Black carbon is increasingly being cited as a significant factor in global warming, as well as in glacier melting… But once the source of the pollution is removed, the warming it causes, drops rapidly!”
A 747 intercontinental flight flying for 10 hours will burn 36,000 gallons of fuel burning 5 gallons of fuel for every 1 mile4, resulting in the release of more than 344 tonnes of CO2e5. The troubling issue is that the greenhouses gases and water vapour released during flight are deposited much higher up in the atmosphere, resulting in the formation of cirrus clouds and contrails which have an additional net warming effect, not found in other modes of transport6.
In 2018, according to Forbes, there were nearly 45 million flights, transporting 4.5 billion passengers around the globe7. The pollution from air travel is staggering and ever increasing. Currently 70% of flights in the UK are taken by just 15% of the population, this isn’t about stopping you and your family from taking a yearly holiday, this is about stopping the 15% whom are contributing a shocking amount to the climate chaos that we are all now seeing8.
Finding solutions to ‘post-industrial capitalism’, is not easy. We have enjoyed so much, for so long. But the reality is, things will have to change if we are to stop this pollution from warming our climate and compounding the ever increasing number of floods?
The UK’s Independent Fact checking charity stated in 2012. “Aviation is actually subsidised in this country to the tune of £10 billion every single year, because aviation doesn’t pay tax on fuel for example, it doesn’t pay VAT on its tickets”9.
It appears that air flights have been made accessible through heavy government subsidy, with total disregard for the environment, across the world. Given the unprecedented flooding in this country, which is directly linked to climate change, world governments should be held accountable!
Our world politicians, who have failed us time and time again over climate issues, tell us that we should measure the success of our economy, on our ‘Gross Domestic Product’ which should increase, year on year, and in order to maintain this upward trajectory we should keep taking resources from the natural world. The Green Party say ‘NO’ to this seriously outdated economic policy. Climate change is the result of our world’s obsession with GDP increase and the profit driven market.
Based on current practices, reaching the government’s zero carbon target, is ambitious at best, at worst entirely unachievable. How will the government manage without making serious changes to our transport system, which must include the curtailing of business flights which, as we’ve seen, account for a large proportion of all air travel pollution. Holding governments to account is necessary, as consumerism dovetails with capitalism and the climate emergency.
If, as consumers, we don’t change the status quo, how can we guarantee subsequent generations a positive future? The evidence is evident, capitalism is destroying the planet. In 1989 Margaret Thatcher believed that the free market would deliver the tools and technology needed to reverse climate change10 over 30 years later and we are in ever deeper water, witnessing our planet unravel and become inhospitable to human life.
As citizens we have a lot of power and we need to take control of this energy, as we cannot rely on the politicians of the world, to get the politics right. It may not be easy, but we can take control and collectively exert our will by making better choices, voting for change… putting power back in to our own hands and wholeheartedly rejecting exploitative governmental backed capitalism. Together we can stop the downward spiralling, course of environmental world disharmony, forever.
Sonia Hyner
The Green Party PPC for Rochester & Strood
Kate Belmonte
Press Officer
First written 28.02.2020
Edited 05.03.2020
References:
1 https://solar-aid.org/kerosene-paraffin-lamps-africa/
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel
4 https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/question192.htm
5 https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php
8 https://fullfact.org/economy/do-15-people-take-70-flights/
9 https://fullfact.org/news/does-government-subsidise-airlines-10-billion/
10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnAzoDtwCBg
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