The Federal Government has announced a second airport for Sydney at Badgerys Creek will be built. This has been met with enthusiasm by airlines and business groups. But what a stupid idea it is…… Absolutely nothing I have read about this project so far even mentions Peak Oil, or where the fuel for all those extra planes will come from. Or the money for that matter….
Obviously, the aviation industry hasn’t seen this:
One might even ask, “will QANTAS still exist by the time this airport is finished”, IF it even starts……..?
On CO2 emissions, the impacts from a 5% air traffic growth have been assumed to be lessened by a 2% growth in fuel efficiency. Leaving a 3% growth in CO2 emissions. If aviation emissions really grow by that much, the aviation industry should be called “Flight Path to a Stormy Future”. This is because NASA climatologist James Hansen just published a book “Storms of my Grandchildren” predicting huge storms over the Atlantic in addition to the area of cyclones and hurricanes expanding. That will mean a lot of cancelled flights…… because surely we have reached the stage where Climate Change is starting to become very obvious.
This idea has been contentious for a very long time, but there is no doubt opposition will be real. And likely stronger than ever before. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this in the media…….!
UPDATE:
The federal and New South Wales governments will today (16 April 2014) announce they are spending nearly $3.5 billion on roads to support the construction of Sydney’s second airport. The money will flow over the next decade and the news has been welcomed by some nervous Federal Liberal MPs in Western Sydney, who hope it will dampen community opposition to the Badgerys Creek project.
So there you have it. No rail or even light rail links…. just more roads that won’t be carrying cars to an airport with no planes.. now that’s what I call vision!
Damn the Matrix 
