Gaia strikes back

clear blue sky, no contrails

‘Let’s delete the arrogant “save the planet” motto, and change to “educate the humans”.’ — Paulo Coelho

‘Save the planet? Planet must be saying, “Save yourself idiots, I will be fine”.’ — Paulo Coelho

‘Human destiny is bound to remain a gamble, as at some unpredictable time and in some unforeseeable manner nature will strike back.’ — Rene Dubos

Clear blue skies, no contrails. Peace and quiet.

We are in a privileged position. We are seeing the world as it will be in the near future when no planes fly. When we can hear bird song. We will arrive at this position either when fuel becomes prohibitively expensive or citizen groups occupy and shut down airports.

It would only take a couple of activists from Earth First! to seize the control tower, disable the equipment and shut down Farnborough Airport, a business airport near London. Business aviation with its low occupancy is one of the most obscene forms of transport.

Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases.

No planes fly. Gaia has spoken and shut down the airspace of northern Europe.

We have become overdependent on aviation, especially airfreight. Do we really need to import so-called fresh green beans from Kenya, all of uniform size? Even worse fresh flowers. Each day 500 tonnes of fresh flowers to Europe from Kenya alone. Land in Africa that should be growing food for local people, supplying local markets. The runoff is polluting local water supplies, lakes are shrinking, water tables falling.

Do we really need strawberries all year round? Nothing beats fresh English strawberries at the start of the season. It is only then that you know summer has arrived.

Airlines and airports are now calling for an end to flight restrictions. Profit must come before safety. Some are even calling for the public purse to bail out failing airlines!

Farnborough Airport simply ignores the no fly ban, putting passengers and crew and those on the ground at risk. Business as usual, profit before people and planet.

Eyjafjallajoekull has managed to achieve what no terrorist group has so far managed to achieve, the closure of UK and European airspace.

It is only in our arrogance that we think we can save the planet. Even worse is the hypocrisy of groups like Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network who are supporting the logging of old growth forests.

We may already be at a tipping point. What though we can do is protect old growth forests and other valuable ecosystems, stop the burning of coal, drastically reduce aviation and other fossil fuel forms of transport.

Volcanoes are essential to life. The earth has a molten core. Tectonic plates move around on the surface. Iceland straddles two tectonic plates, the North American and European plates. The volcanoes are on the fault line. Volcanoes provide earth with its atmosphere, the living systems help to maintain that atmosphere.

Mars has no molten core, no volcanoes, no atmosphere. Hence no life.

Gaia has spoken.

also see

‘Tiny’ climate changes may trigger quakes
UK airspace closed!
A world without planes
Iceland volcano: Kenya’s farmers losing $1.3 million a day in flights chaos
How the volcano took out our fruit salad
UK relies on ‘virtual’ water from drought-prone countries, says report
Farnborough Airport breaches no fly ban
Plan B 2.0
Funny Weather
The Gaia Atlas of Planet Management
The Revenge of Gaia

Tags: ash, Aviation, climate, gaia, global warming, volcano