The rescue of Flybe is wrong.

 

It may have saved the jobs of the staff, for the present, but it is  the complete opposite of what must be done if we are to have any chance of saving civilisation by ceasing to increase the  CO2 content of the atmosphere.

 

Air travel is the biggest carbon releasing of our damaging activities and it is growing exponentially.  It is an industry which must be priced out of the market and allowed to contract.

Flybe had collected air passenger duty from thousands of travellers and was banking it, rather than passing it over to HMRC.  This is sharp practice and the government should penalise the company, rather than rewarding it.

 

Of course it is easy for me to talk; I don’t depend for my income on the air travel industry. That does not alter the validity of my case. The airline employers and the government offer placebos, like fast developing lower-carbon fuels and electric aircraft.  That may come about, but in the long term, and we cannot afford the long term. Many frequent flyers and cheap package holiday users are happy to listen to these false hopes and sod the grandchildren’s future.

 

How do they respond to today’s news that the most recent decade was the warmest on record?

 

Had Thatcher not strangled the coal industry we would now be having to make miners redundant and finding their communities alternative employment, in order to eliminate coal as a source of energy. That is what Australia and other countries should be doing.