HEATROW POLLUTION
REPORT BY MIT
Climate and the environment are major concerns. How the perceived threats to both are approached do have significant ramifications for us all. If you have concerns about global warming you should read Michael Crighton's novel "State of Fear". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear. Particularly so if you have read the most recent news that there is evidence that the climate has been in a period of cooling for the past decade or more. The book demonstrates how industry, politicians and partisan groups on either side of the global warming argument tend to support their interests with selective stats or with scientific studies which they have commissioned.
Predictably in 2004 at the height of the global warming scare when the book was written, many climate change advocates criticised the science in the book. This was despite the fact that the author used a multitude of published papers on the subject from the scientific community. To his credit the author does not come down one side of the global warming debate or the other but leaves conclusions to his readers. He does suggest though that so called independent studies commissioned by third parties tend to obtain conclusions slewed to reflect their sponsors' interests.
The current Government review by Sir Howard Davies on the need for more runway capacity in the South East to meet the commercial challenges of the 21st Century, has until 2015 to publish its findings. Meantime proponents of a third Heathrow runway and other proposed solutions, most notably Mayor Boris Johnson's Thames Estuary project, continue to add more "evidence" to the review process. The most recent offering is that "Premature deaths from Heathrow pollution would treble by 2030if a third runway is built". This is according to an academic study published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology laboratory for aviation and the environment. Viz: a report on the air quality impacts of UK airport capacity expansion.
The key findings from the study are:
UK airport emissions today cause about 110 early deaths per year, of which 50 are due to Heathrow.
·By 2030, this figure
will increase by 170% even without airport capacity expansion.
·An expanded Heathrow
would cause 150 early deaths per year in 2030.
·In comparison, a new Thames Estuary hub airport
(to replace Heathrow) would cause 60-70% fewer early deaths due to the location
of the airport with respect to the population and the prevailing wind
direction.
The fact that the report claims that if Heathrow operations were replaced with a new hub in the Thames estuary it would significantly reduce the number of deaths concerns me slightly. It seems a very convenient and timely contribution to the debate about the accepted need to provide the South East, and London in particular, with increased runway capacity. But - its "scare tactics" approach seems very similar to the Government's 2006 Stern Review on climate change. The dire environmental predictions of this report helped the Government to introduce swingeing increases in Air Passenger duty by presenting the tax to voters as a necessary environmental one. Such was the concerns at the time that the Bishop of London infamously stated: “It is a Sin to Fly!” In fact the Government later admitted that APD was actually a revenue raising tax to address the UK's enormous deficit and had nothing to do with the environment.
Unlike the Stern Review I do not have any reason to doubt the conclusions of the MIT report just published. However, like Michael Crighton I do have a view on the timing and the incidental support for the Thames Estuary solution. After all there are other solutions being put forward besides Boris Island - the reference to that location alone seems more than coincidental at this time.
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