Home > News > 18174564

Tacky protest at air travel

A women has superglued herself to the door of a major travel agent to protest against the rise in air travel.

The 53-year-old mother of two, Penny Eastwood, glued herself to the door of the main office of lastminute.com to protest against how the company continued to promote air travel.

According to reports, Ms Eastwood handed out leaflets which said: "If runway climate change is to be averted, global carbon emissions need to peak this decade, and decline rapidly thereafter. There is no way that this can be achieved without halting the explosion in air travel."

However, a statement from the internet travel agent defended its environmental record, saying: "As well as offering a wide range of travel options, lastminute.com launched its award-winning carbon-offsetting scheme in November 2006 which invites customers who choose to fly, to offset their carbon emissions when booking flights through us.

"In its first six months, this scheme has seen one in ten customers offsetting their flights.

"Money raised through the scheme is used on two sustainable tourism projects in Nicaragua and the Bahamas."

People involved in the airline industry have constantly said that aviation is responsible for a very small percentage of global carbon emissions.

Ryanair's head of communications, Peter Sherrard, recently explained: "Aviation accounts for just two per cent of CO2 emissions."

He added that governments and protestors work to "tackle the real culprits, like power generation and road transport which account for 26 per cent and 18 per cent respectively."


Tony Hill

Published by:
Tony Hill