Green protesters get nowhere, and rightly so

YESTERDAY'S news serves those green protesters right for annoying a lot of people. Secret plans revealed for second Gatwick runway, wrote The Times. I am glad their foolish acts got them nowhere.

I don't really know where I stand on the 'green issue', but I certainly know where I stand on the action taken by green protesters two weeks ago this Monday.

Protesters at Heathrow delayed thousands of people flying, for what I think are selfish, self-publicising reasons.

The stupidity of the protesters actions is that, although passive themselves, they tend to cause the opposite in others. They certainly will not be gaining much support from the people they have delayed or the people they delay in future. If they are going to succeed in their aims to prevent the expansion of airports, they need to get others on-side and this is not the way to do that.

I do tend to agree with what they stand for, but the way they are going about trying to make themselves heard disgusts me. Imagine how many of the flights they delayed for people were vital trips. Some would have been more needy to travel than others, but imagine some of the worst-case scenarios: Someone traveling to a funeral will now miss it; someone going to visit someone in dire need of them will not see them; someone attempting to get to see the birth of their child may not be there to see it.

Any of these examples are more worthy of the need to fly than the need of the protesters to stop flights. I hope the news yesterday makes the protesters realise that all the delaying of flights has done is be ineffective and annoy some people with bigger immediate priorities than rallying around the green argument and changes the way they protest in future.

I do fear that plans for another protest will not have been weakened, though.

Another thing that the protesters should consider is, what are people going to do in future if they cannot fly? Perhaps drive more cars around, which, lest they forget, also emit harmful fumes into the atmosphere. I am waiting to see protesters block off the M1 to persuade people to get buses.