A Ryanair advert in the Guardian denying the airplanes' responsability in Global warming

international | environment | other press

Thursday March 29, 2007 11:36

by Jacques Dauphin - www.louche.net

jacques.dauphin at gmail dot com

George Monbiot must have been pleased to read the Guardian yesterday!

A very disturbing Ryanair advert published in the Guardian tells us that Gordon Brown's tax on flights is just the state stealing from us. It also says that "aviation accounts for just 2% of CO2 emissions" so the tax has nothing to do with environment.
George Monbiot must have been pleasad to read the Guardian yesterday!

The Ryanair advert pusblished in Wednesday 28th of March 2007 Guardian

I was reading the paper yesterday and I discovered this ad in the pages of the Guardian showing a photograph of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams with bubble text saying they agree against Gordon Brown's APD tax.
The advert was "paid for by Ryanair - fighting for tax free travel". The advert explains this tax is not related to the global warming threat: Gordon Brown "claims this is for environment - this claim is rubbish. Aviation accounts for just 2% of CO2 emissions". For Ryanair, the british state is a thug that steals our money: "This year, Greedy Gordon will nick £1BN from passengers", and they ask us to "send our protest" to the governement treasury email.
Now after tuesday's historical day for Northern Ireland, using the picture of a Paisley and Adams sitting at the same table and agreeing to share power for a Ryanair advert would be bad enough in itself.
But this ad goes far beyond this point: it denies the flight companies' responsability in polluting the planet and contributing to global warming. In a very populist type of way, Ryanair's lobbying emphasizes upon the fact that the state is stealing from us, passengers with the right to consume cheap flights as much as we want. And to make it even more depressing, the ad is published in The Guardian, a newspaper that in the last month signed personalities like George Monbiot and others and made a lot of healines regarding the Global warming threat. So if you're a journalist and you deny gobal warming, you'll be attacked by the Guardian's journalists, but if you pay for your ad, you can just say all the bullshit you want in their pages.
I'm just amazed this ad could actually be published in a serious newspaper like the Guardian.

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Comments (2 of 2)

Iriseoireacht v Fógraíocht

by Duine

Thu Mar 29, 2007 13:25

B'fhéidir go bhfuil difear eatharu, a jacques!

Typical corporate PR spin. Leaves out much like water vapor, NO2 and waste of cheap oil

by Terence

Thu Mar 29, 2007 13:37

This is typical PR spin, but it obviously works otherwise they wouldn't spend money on these adverts.

The figure for airlines responsible for 2% of CO-2 emissions leaves out much, because it leaves other important considerations in relation to airplanes and that is the exhaust from the jet engines produce considerable amounts of water-vapor which is also greenhouse gas and nitrogenous oxides (NOX) into the upper atmosphere. The NOX have the potential to destroy Ozone. The higher an aircraft flies the more damage it can do.

Normally the upper atmosphere is a very dry place with few clouds because it is so cold -hence can't hold the moisture. Airplanes though effectively inject water vapor into this layer which is not good and the water vapor produce contrails/vapor-trails which in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere can cover significant areas of the sky. Depending on the time -whether day or night their effect differs. During the night these clouds help trap heat and during the day reflect away sunlight.

Another point missed or side-stepped around is that airplanes burn copius quantities of precious cheap oil. As the world approaches Peak Oil and then passes it and the realization hits of the true value of this cheap oil, it will be realized what a frivolous waste that much of it has been put to. This topic has been discussed in the article: Aviation and Oil Depletion at: http://europe.theoildrum.com/story/2006/12/11/45514/799 -where the question was posed during the discussion -How many turbines would be required to produce the hydrogen by electrolysis to fuel a daily service from London to New York - One 747 sized jet flying each way each day (i.e. two planes in service)? (URL = http://europe.theoildrum.com/story/2006/12/11/45514/799#15 ) and from the answer the true value and therefore waste of this precious fuel is very evident.

Overall then there are additional factors other than CO-2 that cause damage or modifications that need to be considered in relation to flying that the advert convienently ignores.

Ryanair and all the other airlines could never contenance a plan which says: Lets use whatever remaining oil we have much more slowly and carefully and completely restructure the physical layout of our built environmental so that we can achieve the same things by using much much less so that we waste less, use limited resources wisely and reduce pollution levels overall and make changes to avoid the worst effects of global warming/chaos. Indeed if most people were asked if this should be done, I am confident they would mostly agree it is the most reasonable and prudent plan.

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A Ryanair advert in the Guardian denying the airplanes' responsability in Global warming

Comments (2 of 2)