Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Signing the pledge

Anti-airport expansion pledge: The no-fly movement is here... sort of. You can make an 'airport pledge' online. This anti-airport expansion pledge is being backed by Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, People and Planet, Rising Tide and Transport 2000, together with local protest group HACAN ClearSkies.

I've signed up. You can see my pledge (and another 3770) here. This was the comment I added (as you can):
"It's the planet, stupid! This mantra (or something like it) should be on display at all airports, all travel booking websites and travel agents... rather like the health warnings on cigarette packets. Frivolous fliers should have pariah status but first, they have to understand what they're doing. Most people don't get it... yet. Education through campaigns like this is one of our best hopes for getting the message across."

More please: But we need more than this, nationally and internationally. We need to have a responsible citizens group drawn from anywhere in which individuals can 'sign up' and make their pledge not to fly except in emergencies. There is a website of this sort, called the Flight Pledge Union which tells you almost nothing about itself. I envisage something much more interactive than this and it's clearly critically important that a list of real people - like the 'airport pledge' site (above) displays. And besides, I'm not too keen on 'anti' anything; it's too negative. If anyone has ideas, links or knows of organisations which are potentially relevant, please leave a comment.

By the way, 6 out of 10 to the Flight Pledge Union for trying but I think they have much work to do.

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