[A-List] Destructive creation: civil aviation

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Air travel is major factor in global warming, says scientist
JAMES FREEMAN
The Herald, 8 October 2002

Air travel is having a major impact on global warming, a scientist warned
yesterday.

Professor Tim O'Riordan, of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, said
the daily air shuttle from Aberdeen to London emitted as much carbon dioxide
(CO2) and other warming gases as if every passenger travelled to their
destination alone in a car.

If this were multiplied by the number of flights taking off globally each
day, the size of the world environmental challenge was immense, he said.

Professor O'Riordan later voiced his concerns during a lecture at the
Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen.

His view was backed by Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the
Earth, who said: "Air travel is the most polluting and most
resource-intensive form of transport.

"Emissions from aircraft have been specifically exempted from the Kyoto
protocol, which means there is no internationally agreed plan to control the
rapidly growing impacts of aviation."

Friends of the Earth says that in 1999, the world's top climate scientists,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claimed that aircraft release
more than 600 million tonnes of the world's major greenhouse gas, CO2, into
the atmosphere each year, causing about 3.5% of global warming from all
human activities. Aircraft greenhouse emissions will rise and could
contribute up to 15% of global warming from all human activities within 50
years.

The professor said: "Everyone who uses a car or flies regularly should
consider what positives they can put back into the environmental battle.

"Maybe you already cycle to work, or take public transport. The next time
you fly . . . the carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide production from the plane
will cancel out a year of contributions from cycling.

"The answer is for us all to do everything we can on a daily basis to
minimise global warming emissions."