Green v growth

Just some of the comment from this morning's newspapers following yesterday's confirmation of the new Heathrow runway

in the end, Britain's courageous, world-leading and scientifically rational response to climate change lived and died within the space of a few weeks. Born, with great hopes, in late 2008, when a new department was created and the Climate Change Act was passed, forcing aviation emissions to fall along with everything else, it was killed off yesterday when the transport secretary handed the aviation lobby what it wanted, a third runway at Heathrow

says the Guardian

In the same paper Martin Kettle writes that it will be a shrine to Labour's congenital frailty

No government in its right mind is ever going to stop people from flying. But the Heathrow decision was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to say something very big, very brave and very difficult about the fact that the permissive proliferation of aviation is not merely a symptom of what Desmond Morris has called the human infestation of the planet but also, at least as seriously, about the damage our lifestyles and consumption are doing both to ourselves as individuals and to the biosphere.

The Times thinks the decision a good one

The Government's proposal to build a third runway at Heathrow remains the most viable option for easing Britain's airport congestion

it says adding that

If building a high-speed rail link, as the Conservatives propose, would solve the problem, then we would champion it. But it is hard to see how better rail links alone would suffice.

In the Independent Steve Richards argues that

Better trains should be the overwhelming priority in a country with an unreliable railway system and adds that

The politics of the decision are toxic. The Government is placed on the wrong side of the important and fashionable environmental debate, allowing the Conservatives to look more forward looking as the next election moves into view. The environmentalists rage and are joined by a growing number of supposedly Labour-supporting celebrities. Business leaders are not universal in their support.

The paper's leading article agrees

the argument that the British economy will benefit from a third runway for Heathrow has always been – and remains – unconvincing. Bolstering the airport's status as a plane-changing "hub" would certainlybenefit Heathrow's owners, but it is hard to see how it would provide a significant boost to the national economy.