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Scottish Executive air transport conference: Environment issues not even on their radar! Commenting on today's launch (at the SECC in Glasgow) of the Scottish Executive's consultation on the future of air transport, TRANSform Scotland and Friends of the Earth Scotland expressed their "profound disappointment" at the absence of any discussion of environmental issues from the entire conference programme. Air transport is widely recognised as the single most environmentally damaging mode of transport. (1) Colin Howden, TRANSform Scotland Campaign Manager, said: "The Scottish Executive appear to have excluded any public discussion of environmental issues from today's conference. This process is meant to be about sustainable air transport yet the environment is apparently not even a blip on the Executive's radar." Richard Dixon, Friends of the Earth Scotland Head of Research, said: "The Executive's consultation document is remarkable for its failure to even attempt to reduce, let alone control, the environmental problems that uncontrolled growth in air transport brings. 'Predict and provide' is no longer accepted as a basis for planning for road transport so why is air transport, the most polluting, most energy-intensive form there is, allowed to retain such a privileged position?" ENDS Notes to Editors: [1] The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has said that: "An unquestioning attitude towards future growth in air travel, and an acceptance that the projected demand for additional facilities and services must be met, are incompatible with the aim of sustainable developmentÉ" and that "The demand for air travel might not be growing at the present rate if airlines and their customers had to face the costs of the damage they are causing to the environment". END OF NEWS RELEASE |