Sunday, January 28, 2024

Greta Thunberg joins hundreds marching in England to protest airport's expansion for private planes

Associated Press
Sat, January 27, 2024 


In this photo issued by Extinction Rebellion UK, climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in a march to Farnborough Airport in southern England, Saturday Jan. 27, 2024. Greta Thunberg joined the march to protest the use of private jets and the expansion of an airport. Hundreds of local residents and activists holding banners and placards took part. 
(Jonathon Vines/Extinction Rebellion UK via AP)

LONDON (AP) — Climate activist Greta Thunberg joined a march in southern England on Saturday to protest the use of private jets and the expansion of an airport.

Hundreds of local residents and activists holding banners and placards that read “Ban Private Jets" marched to Farnborough Airport, which mostly serves private aircraft. Some beat drums while others lit pink smoke flares.

The airport, located in Hampshire County about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of London, applied last year to increase its maximum number of flights from 50,000 to 70,000 a year.

Groups working to fight climate change, including the organizer of Saturday's protest, Extinction Rebellion, say private jets are much more polluting than commercial passenger airliners. Flights to and from Farnborough Airport carried an average of 2½ passengers per flight in 2022, the group said.

“It is clear that private jets are incompatible with ensuring present and future living conditions on this planet," Thunberg said in a video that Extinction Rebellion posted on social media.

“We’re not going to let this continue. We're not going to let the rich few who are responsible for the majority of aviation emissions get away with sacrificing people and the planet,” she added.

Farnborough Airport said that it was an important hub for business and corporate travel, and that it recognized the importance of reducing its environmental impact.

“The airport’s environmental footprint is a fraction that of a traditional commercial airport, yet it serves as one of the largest employment sites in the region," it said in a statement.

Thunberg, 21, a Swedish environmental campaigner who inspired a global youth movement against climate change, is expected to appear at a court in London next week to face a public order offense charge. She was arrested in October during a demonstration against a major oil and gas industry conference.

Thunberg was among the activists who were charged for seeking to block access to the Energy Intelligence Forum. She denied the charge.

Plymouth: Medics lead die-in protest over fossil fuels


Jonathan Morris - BBC News
Sat, January 27, 2024 

Doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and psychologists took part in the performance in which they tended to the shrouded "dead" and laid flowers


Health professionals led a die-in protest in a call for an end to investment in fossil fuels.

Medics from the South West took their campaign to Plymouth city centre "to highlight the terrible impact of the climate emergency on people's health".

Doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and psychologists took part in the protest in which they tended to the shrouded "dead" and laid flowers.

A mock inquest then heard how climate change had contributed to these.


The action included climate campaigners Extinction Rebellion,

The action by an estimated 60 people including climate campaigners Extinction Rebellion, follows a report in a leading medical publication about how climate change is severely impacting people's health around the world.

Physiotherapist Alice Clevely, from Bristol, said: "We're telling people about how people are dying when they don't need to because of the way fossil fuels are warming the planet.

"Because we are there to look after people for their health and their wellbeing, we feel we have a duty of care to our patients and to the general public to warn about how the climate crisis is interacting and affecting people's health at a population level as well as an individual level."


Medics said they have a "duty of care" to warn about the climate crisis and its effects on health

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