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Plane truth
I'm not against all flights. Planes can be very useful, but I don't believe expanding airports makes sense environmentally nor is it money well spent.
Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. Aircraft blight the lives of thousands of people living under flight paths and anywhere near airports. They cause local air pollution and water pollution, and the noise causes problems for many miles around.
Expanding airports would add to all this and of course, devastate even more of our countryside. Unfortunately, we can't have it both ways here. We can't increase air travel and meet our targets for CO2 reductions at the same time. So if we want a world that's still beautiful enough to be worth visiting in the first place, we have to manage air transport instead of letting it mushroom without our consent.
Instead of airport expansion we need better ground transport: we need to make it easier – and cheaper – to choose a high speed train instead of a plane, especially for those short hops. I know this is an issue that polarises people.
Cheap flights have opened the world up to many more than the privileged few who originally took to flying. But I think most reasonable people will be happy to fly a little less if we provide good sustainable transport alternatives that don't come with so much damage to people's health and the environment.
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