As the planes return to European skies, campaigner Pat Thomas gives a personal account of what the last five days of peace and quiet, and alternative transport, have meant to her.

The planes returned to the London sky today. I admit to being a little resentful.

As environmentalists go, I’m a weird mixture. My early life was defined by airplanes. My late father was a weekend pilot. We had a little Cessna 150 which we flew everywhere. We called her Juliette after the last letter of her call sign.

I loved to fly; the sense of freedom was spectacular and daddy’s obvious happiness at being in the air was infectious. I got my first passport when I was 13 and graduating to international travel opened up the world to me. Ironically, it was a key factor in my choosing environmentalism as a profession. How can you see this world and not appreciate its uniqueness, its beauty, its depth and its complex web of connections? And how can you appreciate those things without wanting to ensure they remain intact?

When I was little we used to sit with our sandwiches and watch the planes at the local airport for fun. My dad taught me how to identify them on sight – a pastime my own son appreciated as a child. Daddy taught me how to drive propped up on phone books in the big expanse of the airport in California where we kept our plane. And we drove my mother crazy by talking to each other as if over the radio:  “Six-One Juliette, over and out…”

Back in the here and now, and living in London, I’ve been luxuriating in five days of blissful peace, especially during my near daily jaunts to the local park. London’s parks can be wonderful refuges from city noise and stress. The only intrusion is often the booming, groaning and whining of the regular parade of planes overhead. It’s given me pause to think, to try and untangle the complicated emotional relationship I have to air travel (a relationship that also applies to cars, but we’ll leave that for another day).

As a child, and as a young woman whose work took me all over the world, I could look up into the sky and the jet trails, or contrails, held meaning for me. They were exciting reminders of a world waiting to be explored. Joni Mitchell once called them ‘the hexagram of the heavens’; maybe not geometrically correct but indicative of a way of writing our own messages across an empty sky. Today things couldn’t be more different, and as the planes returned to the sky this morning I felt discontented and sad. The jet trails looked like scars or wounds and I wondered how different our approach and enthusiasm for air travel might be if we reframed them as such. And how much more positive our approach to the environment would be if we could admit to and really feel the grief of the passing of lifestyles that no longer serve us or the planet, and then move on from them.

In the EU, aviation accounts for 3% of CO₂ emissions. In the UK, the figure is higher at about 6%. But even these figures are misleading because every country has its own way of collecting data and often this doesn’t include emissions from charter flights or some international routes. The real figures are probably substantially higher.

While the fuel efficiency of planes has increased steadily, at around 1.2% a year, this needs to be viewed in the context of an industry that is growing at a rate of 8% every year, and which is predicted to quadruple in size between by 2050.

The growth of the aviation industry is in direct conflict with the need to reduce CO₂ emissions by 80% by 2050 in order to avoid irreversible climate change.

The UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has said that if we accept this 80% reduction target, and if aviation continues to grow as predicted, it will require the whole of the rest of UK to be zero carbon, simply to allow us to continue flying. It can’t be done, which is one reason why I’ve thrown my support behind the Airplot, Greenpeace’s clever initiative to stop the third runway being built at London’s Heathrow.

Of course this narrow focus on carbon reduction (yet another story for another day) doesn’t even begin to take into the account of the damage caused by contrails which are made up of toxic emissions of soot and sulphur dioxide. In effect contrails are high, thin, man-made clouds that seed other types high, thin clouds known as cirrus clouds which in turn increase the temperature down here on earth.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the climate changing potential of contrails is nearly three times that of CO₂. These facts, as I have pointed out previously, are the trouble with travel. They equate to a wound that can only be healed by a reduction in air travel. And as the flight ban has shown, planes aren’t the only way to get around; trains, boats, ferries and coaches have all come into their own these last few days.

Then there is this issue of the ‘empty’ sky and the arrogance of those who would seek it fill it. Clearly the sky is not empty. Never has been. There is sun, moon, stars and clouds; showers, rainbows and breezes. There are butterflies, dragonflies and bees. And birds. Maybe it’s my imagination, but these last few days the birds seemed to be singing with greater gusto – probably it’s just the absence of plane noise, but maybe at some level they are aware of and appreciating the opportunity to call for a mate in daylight. There was a heartbreaking story a couple of years ago about birds beginning to sing at night because during the day it was so noisy with planes and cars and the general noisy mishegas of city life, that their potential mates couldn’t hear them. For days my street has been positively bursting with a sexy springtime symphony of birdsong. Better than anything currently on stage in the West End.

This notion of an empty sky is intriguing to me. It is a peculiarity of humans that when we see an empty space – that is, one devoid of human input – we feel the need to fill it up. In this case to make clouds, to make an even louder ‘bird’ song, to paint our human designs on any and every ‘blank’ canvas we come across. What are contrails but aviation graffiti? A displaced act of creation that becomes an act of destruction.

Disruption aside, with a volcanic eruption there is the sheer excitement of the Earth giving birth to itself. At the most basic level that’s what volcanoes do. I can recall many years ago, visiting beautiful Hawaii with my 10 year old son, and being moved by the realisation that he was standing on ground that was younger than he was. For me this genuine act of creation, and the pause for thought that it provided, was much more important than any perceived ‘lack’ of pineapple chunks from Ghana or baby sweetcorn from Thailand or cut flowers from Africa  – none of which I would buy anyway. The disruption of this particular economy has shown just how brittle and vulnerable the international food system really is. Perhaps some good will come of that.

Then there is the fact that without the planes the air felt cleaner. The air was cleaner. Even though Eyjafjallajökull has spewed plenty of ash, it was emitting far less greenhouse gas than the grounded planes would have generated.

Researchers at Durham University calculated that carbon dioxide emissions from the Icelandic volcano totalled 150,000 tonnes a day in the early days of the eruption, compared to 510,000 tonnes per day emitted when planes are flying as normal over the continent. That means a cut of 340,000 tonnes a day in Europe. There was even some hint that the ash, should it settle, could give our gardens a boost because it contains a variety of elements and nutrients that can help regenerate the soil.

But all that is over now. From today, friends stranded in New York will return. Friends who might have been at the Bolivian People’s World Conference on Climate Change have by now made their peace with the fact that no matter how fantastic and useful the conference might be, it was probably a happy accident of nature that they didn’t fly there and that video conferencing is both appropriate and effective.

For me, I’ve been grateful for the peace of the last few days. I admit to secretly loving the way nature throws us these curveballs from time to time. Whether they are random or part of some higher ‘plan’, they are a welcome opportunity to reassess so much of what we take for granted. It has been a chance to ‘talk’ to my dad and explain to him why the sound of jet engines isn’t really music to me anymore, why I haven’t flown anywhere in 4 years, why I believe there is work for all of us to do on the homefront before we jet off somewhere exotic, and to remember that the earth is talking to us all the time.

We just need to tune in, in order to hear what she is saying.

Originally posted here.

Pat’s pevious AlterNet post can be found here.

© Pat Thomas 2010

In the run up to the British general election, Pat Thomas says the various party manifestos are starved of sound policies on food security and sustainability.  

Food is a four letter word. Or at least that’s the impression given by the election manifestos of the main political parties. Most of the documents devote a demure handful of paragraphs to the issue of food. Reading them you’d think that Britain was populated with some sort of 61-million-strong super race that had evolved beyond the need to eat every day.

Not long before Barack Obama took office, author and campaigner Michael Pollan wrote a lengthy and impassioned open letter to the President Elect, the ‘Farmer in Chief’, urging him get to grips with the way that food intersects with every area of our lives. Climate change, energy use, pollution, toxic chemicals, health, the global economy, social justice, animal welfare; every issue that is important eventually finds its way back to the food system. He urged the resolarisation and the reregionalisation of the American food supply and recommended a back to basics approach that even included a federal definition of “food” – as distinct from “junk food”. Every politician should read this letter – but a trawl through the manifestos of the UK’s political parties suggests that, with the possible exception of the Green party, none did.

Let’s start with the common ground. All the parties promise to reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – an easy promise since CAP is up for reform by 2013 anyway. Whether any of them really get the better deal for UK farmers as promised remains to be seen. Likewise most talk about reforming the EU Common Fisheries Policy – again a process that is already in place. All the manifestos talk about creating a supermarket ombudsman – another easy promise since earlier this year the Competition Commission, after years of lobbying by food and consumer groups, strongly advised that we needed a body specifically to monitor supermarket behaviour and to enforce the Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSCOP), which came into force in February of this year. At that time the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills finally accepted this recommendation and committed to forming such a body. Likewise nearly all the parties commit to clearer labelling of food, particularly with regards to country of origin. The Liberal Democrat manifesto, in fact, makes no commitment to food beyond these areas.

Labour, the Conservatives and the Green Party also commit to encouraging more ‘grow your own’ schemes and (to varying degrees) to more access to allotments. Labour and the Greens also commit to more nutritious and to free school meals and to encouraging schools to have more vegetable gardens. The Conservatives focus a great deal on schools in general, but the only nod to food is a suggested a ban on vending machines.

From here the parties diverge into a variety of largely half-baked commitments and not terribly innovative ideas.

The incumbent Labour government has put a figure on its sustainable food plan – £1 billion. To those of us struggling to meet our mortgages, that may seem like a lot. But in reality it’s a pretty small investment – less than the cash commitments for education, health, transport and defence – and there is no real detail of how this food money will be spent.

Labour also makes a promise to balance “the multiple uses of land: safeguarding food security at the same time as enriching our natural environment; protecting distinctive landscapes while enabling environmentally sensitive development”, a range of diffuse promises all rooted in the same system of production that has got us into trouble in the first pace. Implicit in the document is the idea that we can somehow balance an equation that has never before been balanced; i.e. we can produce mountains of food cheaply, pay our farmers good profits, keep prices at the till low, and at the same time protect the environment, our soil and biodiversity.

The thrust of the Conservative argument is to ‘Buy British’ – a fantastic example of how to take a good idea and turn it into campaign slogan. They are a little sketchy on the details of what buying British actually means except where meat is concerned. The party want consumers to be assured that “meat labelled as ‘British’ is born and bred in Britain”.  

In all this ‘Buy British’ fervour it’s easy to forget that labels can mislead. A Union Jack on the label can be used to cover all kinds of unacceptable practices such as massive indoor dairy facilities where the cows never see the light of day, battery chicken operations, British scallops obtained by dredging the ocean floor, British livestock fed on food containing GM soya and maize and…well, you get the picture. Likewise, it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility, given our addiction to wasteful transport in the food system, that British born and bred meat will still be sent elsewhere to be processed and packaged before being sent back to the UK for sale.

UKIP get around this by proposing: “…labels that differentiate between ethically-produced and non ethically-produced food products”, though this begs the questions: why would anybody consciously choose non-ethical products and why not just ban them outright? Where meat production is concerned this is exactly what the Green Party proposes: to “phase out all forms of factory farming of animals and enforce strict animal welfare standards generally, including in organic agriculture”.

On the subject of GM and labelling, the Conservatives do make a commitment to better labelling of foods that may contain GM ingredients so that consumers can choose to buy or not. Again fair enough in principle, but what is the implied message here? That GM is inevitable and that we should leave it to market forces decide if people want to eat it? Is a label the biggest muscle a proposed Conservative government has to flex when it comes to genetically modified food? And where is the recognition that once GM is in the marketplace it can never be taken out again – effectively removing our freedom of choice regarding GM or non-GM foods?

Labour and the Liberal Democrats don’t mention GM food at all. UKIP jumps on the labelling bandwagon, but hedges its bets once more. The party vows to: “Continue to oppose the production of GM crops in Britain” whilst remaining “open to evolving scientific advice”. How different this is to the Green Party commitment to “Support GM-free zones and continue to work for a complete ban on genetically modified food in Europe.”

On the basis of the manifestos alone, and not just the information contained in them, but the language used to convey that information, the Green Party distinguishes itself from the others both in terms its understanding of the role of food in our lives, cultures and economies, and in the provision of some more concrete proposals to ensure a better, cleaner, fairer food supply.

Its manifesto acknowledges the role of small, mixed farms in providing the UK with a healthy diet and food security and makes clear commitments to: “Localise the food chain, including assistance for small farms, starting farmers’ markets, farm box schemes and locally owned co-ops”; to “set new targets every five years and a minimum conversion of 10% of UK food production to organic every five years”. It also commits to reducing the dominance of supermarket chains through a range of measures that go beyond the ombudsman to: “vigorously enforcing monopoly legislation against the existing largest chains; prohibiting new out-of-town retailing”, and “requiring parking charges for private car parks with exemption for the disabled” and “insisting that 50% of retail floor space in all new developments is affordable space for local small businesses”.

If only the manifestos of those likely to be in power after May 6th would go this far in their thinking.

Even so, there is more to be done in this area….

For the full version of this article, including some additional thoughts that should be  incorporated in every food manifesto, click here.

Pat’s previous AlterNet post can be found here.

© Pat Thomas 2010.