“Boris Island” – Thunderbirds are go!
Well, I waxed lyrical the other day about Boris Johnson and the proposed competition he is setting up to recognise those companies in the City who are saving money by improving their environmental performance (read it here).
This is the man who came into power with the mantra to make London:
“Leaner, greener and safer”
So, let’s talk about the new proposed Estuary Airport.
Well, the arguments against (and for) a third runway at Heathrow are well known; the arguments for and against a third London Airport to support Heathrow are less well known.
For: added employment in the capital, good PR for the 2012 Olympic (though, of course, the airport would not be approved, never mind built, by then)… mmm, that’s it, I think.
Against: added CO2 emissions, massive impact on wildlife, disruption to the shipping and fishery businesses on the Estuary and, finally, ecologically no better or worse than dumping another strip of tarmac down at Heathrow – it would still provide added employment around the capital.
Appearing to backtrack somewhat a couple of days after his stormy riverboat trip (both meteorologically as well as publicity-wise!) for a photo opportunity, Boris was quick to state during the transport Q&A session of the Assembly “I want to make it clear to you and everybody there might be other solutions, and it would be remiss of us to ignore them”.
Well, what’s it to be? Are you going to be the sustainability champion for London or not? I ask only because I have attended way too many seminars, workshops, conferences, etc. where a sizeable percentage of the corporate attendees voice an unwillingness to do anything that is not lead by the powers that be (“I think we should wait for Govt. to act”). Now, I don’t hold with this sort of ambivalence and my views on sustainability are well versed throughout these scribblings, but if we are going to persuade these individuals to get off the fence and actually doing something, it’d be nice to know if the official line is just more ‘greenwash’ (and goodness knows, we’ve had enough of that).
If it is, then at least we know we have to do this ourselves (and I’m all in favour of that since I believe strongly that we got ourselves into this environmentally irresponsible mess in the first place).
If it isn’t, then let’s have some clear, unambiguous statement(s)… preferably followed by some actions.
We are all getting a little tired of hearing the official lines and seeing them followed through either as a means of hitting us financially as it’s politically convenient to do so or, worse, replaced by some other do-gooding, vote-catching slogan when the heat’s died down a little (I refer my honourable colleagues to the Zac Goldsmith ‘green’ noise, which seems to have died down somewhat over the past 6 months).
Well, I think I’ve pretty much upset everyone so this seems like a good time to bow out of this particular argument and hand the baton over. Boris?
