A - I n f o s

a multi-lingual news service by, for, and about anarchists **
News in all languages
Last 40 posts (Homepage) Last two weeks' posts Our archives of old posts

The last 100 posts, according to language
Greek_ 中文 Chinese_ Castellano_ Catalan_ Deutsch_ Nederlands_ English_ Français_ Italiano_ Polski_ Português_ Russkyi_ Suomi_ Svenska_ Türkçe_ _The.Supplement

The First Few Lines of The Last 10 posts in:
Castellano_ Deutsch_ Nederlands_ English_ Français_ Italiano_ Polski_ Português_ Russkyi_ Suomi_ Svenska_ Türkçe_
First few lines of all posts of last 24 hours | of past 30 days | of 2002 | of 2003 | of 2004 | of 2005 | of 2006 | of 2007 | of 2008 | of 2009 | of 2010 | of 2011 | of 2012 | of 2013 | of 2014 | of 2015 | of 2016 | of 2017 | of 2018 | of 2019 | of 2020 | of 2021 | of 2022 | of 2023 | of 2024 | of 2025

Syndication Of A-Infos - including RDF - How to Syndicate A-Infos
Subscribe to the a-infos newsgroups

(en) UK, ACG, Jackdaw 22 - Resist Labour Government's Anti-Environment Policies (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

Date Tue, 22 Jul 2025 07:55:46 +0300


Labour have already approved the expansion of City Airport in London, and are now approving further airport expansion including most controversially a third runway at Heathrow, a white elephant which has been successfully resisted for over 20 years. ---- Heathrow is one of many infrastructure projects that Labour is promoting: HS2, small and large nukiller and wood burning power stations, new and wider roads, new oilfields such as Rosebank, Artificial Intelligence, and the chocolate teapot of Carbon-Capture technology. These projects are all justified by saying they will stimulate economic growth, providing jobs and tax income, meaning more money can be spent on the NHS and other public services. They all: cost a huge amount and will take years to complete - and often overrun and overspend. For example, HS2 was estimated to cost £30 billion at the start and is now £100 billion and counting. Hinkley C nuclear power station was to be 'ready 2017' and now 2031.
These projects only benefit the few, such as oil and construction companies, roadbuilders, the aviation industry. They all get massive subsidies (e.g. aviation fuel is untaxed) and government funding, whereas the working class get few jobs, faster climate change, and more pollution. The big appeal of Artificial Intelligence for the bosses is that it has the potential to make millions of workers jobless, saving them money. However, A.I. is also a climate change booster. Data centres, which is where much of the capacity for running the computer systems of companies is based, use huge amounts of electricity. Those planned will need 500MW which would power 2 million homes. Data farms in Ireland consume 21% of Irish electricity and west London is also suffering from an electricity shortage thanks to the data centres that are based there. 1
Before the election, Chancellor Rachel Reeves promised to be 'the greenest chancellor ever' with a £28 billion Biden-style Green Growth plan. That has been binned for 'growth' at all costs and stuff the 'environment' (that's clean air and water, tackling climate change), and the working class. To support Heathrow's expansion Reeves cited research on the 'benefits' of a third runway, dodgy because it was commissioned by the Heathrow owners! It alleged that more flights would result in less pollution (!) because new fuels were less polluting. A new runway would also mean that planes didn't need to circle to wait for space to land (although there would be more of them!). Airport engines emit carbon dioxide, nitrogen and sulphur oxides, water vapour, hydrocarbons, sulphur particles and soot. These pollutants cause global warming (e.g. one person's return flight to Florida creates more Carbon Dioxide than a year's car driving), increase the risk of skin cancer, and reduce air quality. Flying is mostly for the well-off: the transport footprint of the top 0.1% of the population is 22 times that of a low earner. 30% of the population are responsible for most flights (and 10% of people don't fly at all).
Not forgetting the noise from more flights, round-the-clock (including empty ones). The last estimate of the cost of a third runway was £14 billion. If it is built it will cost far more and would cause more noise, pollution and disruption. Hundreds of homes would be demolished, the M25 lowered, rivers re-routed, and car parks built for nearly 50,000 cars. It would need new electric railways into Heathrow.
Heathrow's owners want taxpayers to pay the lion's share of upgrading this and other surface transport e.g. they were only prepared to pay £150 million of the estimated cost of £673 million of a projected rail link from Staines in 2011. These are the government corporate welfare handouts which right wingers never condemn when they are railing against money-for-nothing welfare scroungers!
Join with others to resist the third runway!

And all of Labour's anti-environment, anti-working class policies!

https://www.no3rdrunwaycoalition.co.uk/ and https://stopheathrowexpansion.co.uk/home

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/jackdaw_D.pdf
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en
A-Infos Information Center