插图：Nathalie Lees/《卫报》乔治·蒙比奥（George Monbiot）认为，建设第三条跑道完全违背了理性。如果我们真的要将人类生命置于短期“经济增长”之上，就应该减少飞机的使用，而不是增加。如果希思罗机场真的修建了第三条跑道，会对国家的财富产生什么影响呢？据估计，这项工程的造价将在234亿至625亿英镑之间。这些数据并非由环保组织提供，而是由英国交通部计算得出的。
Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian George Monbiot A third runway would fly in the face of reason. If we are to prioritise human life over short-term ‘growth’, we need to use planes less, not more If a third runway is built at Heathrow, what will be the impact on the wealth of the nation? It will cost us somewhere between £23.4bn and £62.5bn. These are not my figures they weren’t calculated by environmental groups, but by the Department for Transport. For decades, government ministers have told us that airport expansion is essential for “growth”.
几十年来，政府官员一直声称机场扩建对经济增长至关重要。时任财政大臣的雷切尔·里夫斯（Rachel Reeves）曾表示，希思罗机场的第三条跑道将使国内生产总值（GDP）增长0.43%；但后来我们发现这一数据实际上来自机场自己委托的一份报告。英国交通部自己的分析显示，这条跑道对GDP的实际贡献仅为0.03%至0.05%，远远低于最初的预期。
As chancellor, Rachel Reeves claimed that a third runway at Heathrow would add 0.43% to GDP figures we later discovered came from a report commissioned by the airport. The transport department’s own analysis concluded that the real addition to GDP would be between 0.03% and 0.05%: eight to 14 times less. Against this, it weighed the social and environmental costs of the project, to reveal a massive net loss.
相比之下，该项目的社会和环境成本要高得多，因此总体而言会造成巨大的净损失。研究还指出，第三条跑道会对多达300万当地居民的健康和福祉造成严重危害。不过，这些数据仍然未能完全反映问题的严重性——这条跑道所引发的气候问题实际上会影响整个地球，但其他国家因此承受的代价并未被计入评估之中。那么，我们还是得问：为什么政府还要支持这项计划呢？
It found that a third runway would cause major harm to the health and wellbeing of up to 3 million local people But even these figures don’t capture it. The climate breakdown caused by the runway affects the entire planet, yet the costs to other countries aren’t counted. So again we must ask, why does the government support it? Or does it?
不过，情况似乎有所变化。尽管希思罗机场仍坚持将扩建机场作为官方政策，但在周末的记者会上，安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）表示，修建第三条跑道的问题“存在争议”，“主要应由伦敦政府和伦敦的议员们来决定”。这听起来似乎让人感到一丝希望……我们还了解到，这个项目的建设进度再次被推迟了。虽然希思罗机场去年曾宣称其扩建计划已经“万事俱备”，但现在他们承认修建这条跑道所需的时间将比最初预计的更长——预计完工时间已推迟至2039年。
Though Heathrow expansion remains official policy when asked at the weekend, Andy Burnham said the runway was “contested” and “principally it’s a matter for London and London MPs”. That sounds hopeful. We also learned that the project has been delayed yet again. Though Heathrow announced last year that its plans were “shovel-ready”, it now admits the runway would take four years longer to build than it claimed: the estimated completion date is now 2039.
届时，我们只能寄希望于政府已决定认真对待气候影响。若果真如此，新跑道一启用就必须立即关闭。否则，根据政府的气候变化委员会预测，“2050年几乎所有的二氧化碳排放都将来自航空业”。委员会称，仅希思罗机场的扩建，到2054年造成的碳排放量就会超过“经济的任何其他部门”。
By then, or so we must hope, a government might have decided to take the climate impact seriously. If so, the new runway would need to be shuttered the moment it opened. Otherwise, according to the government’s Climate Change Committee“almost all CO emissions in 2050 will be from aviation”. Heathrow’s expansion alone, the committee says, would cause more carbon emissions by 2054 than “any other sector of the economy”.
这还不是全部。委员会仅考虑了飞机产生的二氧化碳，但其他影响甚至更大。发表在《大气环境》期刊上的一篇论文指出，在100年的时间跨度内，飞机在高对流层和低平流层排放或形成的氮氧化物、一氧化碳、烟尘、挥发性有机物、水蒸气及其他化合物，会使飞行导致的升温效应增加115%。在20年的时间跨度内，这一增幅更高达惊人的517%。
And even this is not the end of it. The committee considers only the carbon dioxide planes produce, but the other impacts are even greater. A paper in the journal Atmospheric Environment suggests that, over 100 years, the nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, soot, volatile organic products, water vapour and other compounds released or formed in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere by planes raise the heating caused by flying by 115%. Over 20 years, they raise it by an astonishing 517%.
鉴于关键地球系统可能正逼近其临界点，且当下的升温会触发森林、湿地和永久冻土释放更多温室气体，20年的时间跨度至关重要。然而，这些其他化合物既未被纳入国际条约，也未被纳入英国的《气候变化法案》。飞行的影响在官方层面被大幅低估。
Given that crucial Earth systems may be approaching their tipping points, and heating today triggers further greenhouse gas releases from forests, wetlands and permafrost, the 20-year horizon is crucial. But these other compounds are considered in neither international treaties nor the UK’s Climate Change Act. The impact of flying is officially and massively underestimated.
几乎所有其他行业的升温效应都可通过技术大幅降低，但航空业却根本没有好的解决方案。历届政府都以“可持续航空燃料”为由，为机场扩建计划辩护。这主要是指将生物质转化为煤油，其后果甚至比使用化石燃料更糟。若要让这种替代品达到任何规模，它要么会吞噬现有耕地，导致饥荒；要么会迫使耕地向森林、湿地及其他栖息地扩张，加剧环境危机。
While the heating effects of almost all other sectors can be greatly reduced by technology, there are simply no good solutions for aviation. Successive governments have justified airport expansion plans with the promise of “sustainable aviation fuel”. Mostly they mean turning biomass into kerosene, which is even worse than using fossil fuels. If this substitute is to reach any kind of scale, it will either swallow up existing cropland, driving starvation, or it will cause the expansion of cropland into forests, wetlands and other habitats, accelerating the environmental crisis.
英国皇家学会的一项分析发现，仅用能源作物满足英国现有的航空需求（更别提未来增长），“将需要英国约一半的农业用地”。这与可持续发展背道而驰。
An analysis by the Royal Society found that meeting existing UK aviation demand (never mind future growth) with energy crops “would require around half of UK agricultural land”. That’s the opposite of sustainable.
“可持续航空燃料”也可以指利用捕获的二氧化碳和绿氢制造的合成燃料。但皇家学会发现，仅为现有航空业服务，就需要消耗英国全部可再生电力容量的五到八倍。即便如此，飞机仍会将致命的化学混合物——不仅是二氧化碳，还有其他化合物——排放到高空大气中，因此只能解决一小部分问题。期刊《One Earth》上的一篇论文指出，在全球范围内，即使实施一个极不切实际的技术变革计划，即到2040年完全淘汰化石喷气燃料，由于需求上升，到2070年航空业造成的全球升温仍将翻倍以上。
“Sustainable aviation fuel” can also mean synthetic fuels made from captured CO and green hydrogen. But the Royal Society found that for existing aviation, we’d need to use between five and eight times the UK’s entire renewable electricity capacity. And still, aeroplanes would release a lethal chemical cocktail – not just CO but those other compounds – into the high atmosphere, so only a fraction of the problem would be solved. Worldwide, a paper in the journal One Earth found that even with a wildly unrealistic programme of technological change, in which fossil jet fuels were phased out completely by 2040, the global heating caused by aviation would more than double by 2070, thanks to rising demand.
至于氢动力、氨动力或电池动力的商用飞机，在询问能源来源之前，它们全都在技术或安全层面行不通。航空公司无休止地展示的“原型机”，从未超越艺术构想图阶段，它们只不过是“感知软件”，旨在解决政治问题，而非技术问题。
As for hydrogen-, ammonia- or battery-powered commercial aircraft, they all fail on technical or safety grounds, even before we ask where the power comes from. The “prototypes” endlessly showcased by the airlines, which never get beyond the artist’s impression, are nothing but “perceptionware”, designed to solve political problems, not technical ones.
如果希思罗机场扩建计划推进，预计英国旅客吞吐量将从2025年的2.99亿人次增至2050年的4.91亿人次。随着其他行业实现脱碳，航空业导致气候崩溃的比例将不断攀升，直至航班几乎占据全部份额。
If Heathrow expansion goes ahead, passenger numbers in the UK are forecast to rise from 299 million in 2025 to 491 million in 2050. As other sectors decarbonise, the proportion of climate breakdown caused by flying climbs and climbs, until planes account for almost all of it.
跳过时事通讯推广 跳过时事通讯推广 唯一有效的策略是抑制需求。有一种累进方式可以做到这一点：征收常旅客税财富与航班出行紧密相关。2024年，英格兰48%的人口根本没有乘坐飞机，但5%的人口乘坐了五次或以上的国际航班，这些航班占所有出行的33%。需求增长几乎完全由常旅客驱动，他们高度集中在收入最高的五分位数群体中。该税费不对某人每年的首次航班征收，但会随每增加一次航班而递增。
The only effective strategy is to reduce demand. There’s a progressive means of doing so: the frequent flyer levy Wealth and flights are strongly linked. In 2024, 48% of England’s population did not fly at all But 5% of the population took five or more flights abroad, and these account for 33% of all journeys. Increasing demand has been almost entirely driven by frequent flyers, who are highly concentrated in the highest income quintile. The levy would not be charged on the first flight someone took in any year, but it would escalate with every additional flight.
这公正、合理，且——不同于那些技术废话——可立即实施。否则，我们将继续以我们的金钱、健康、福祉和生态星球的退化为代价，补贴一小撮富有、自私的少数派。这公平吗？
This is just, proportionate and – unlike all the techno-bollocks – immediately dispatchable. Otherwise, we continue to subsidise a wealthy, selfish minority with our money, our health, our wellbeing and the degradation of the living planet. How is that fair?
政府对机场扩建的支持表明，“增长”只是满足强大游说团体诉求的借口。当被问及增长是否比净零排放更重要时，里夫斯回答：“嗯，如果这是头号任务，那显然是最重要的事。”这无异于说金钱比人的生命更重要。但正如数据所示，这从来就不是关于增长。这始终是关于满足机场游说团体和富裕乘客的需求。
What government support for airport expansion shows is that “growth” is simply an excuse for giving powerful lobby groups what they want. When asked whether growth was more important than net zero, Reeves replied“Well, if it’s the No 1 mission, it’s obviously the most important thing.”That’s another way of saying money is more important than human life. But, as the figures show, it was never about growth at all. It was always about meeting the demands of the airport lobby and wealthy passengers.
现在我们等待伯纳姆的表态。理性的飞行将继续吗？抑或人类与星球的福祉最终将压倒游说者？乔治·蒙比奥特是《卫报》专栏作家
Now we wait on Burnham. Will the flight of reason continue? Or will human and planetary welfare at last outweigh the lobbyists? George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist