TOO MANY OSTRICHES…NOT ENOUGH FLYING PIGS

29-12-2006

George Bush's White House has finally recognised that climate change is a reality, by admitting that polar bears are in danger of losing their habitat. Maybe global warming also accounts for the airborne swine which have just been spotted flying over Washington DC. Meanwhile, here in the West Midlands, it's ostriches who are in vogue.

Ostrich number one - the chief executive of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Jerry Blackett who has called for the expansion of Birmingham Airport in time to take advantage of the 2012 Olympics.

Ostrich number two - the government, which may not sanction such a speedy development, but which recently confirmed that it plans to press ahead with a second runway at Birmingham by 2020.

Ostrich number three - West Bromwich West MP Adrian Bailey who has warned that the cost of implementing the Stern Report, commissioned by Gordon Brown, will fall disproportionately on the engineering firms of the Black Country.

Bailey is of course right; but as an MP, his job is both to lead his electorate and lobby for them in parliament. That means prising additional grants from the government and Europe to help the Black Country move away from the old technologies that made it great towards to the innovative industries on which its future must be built.

What's the alternative? A West Brom farce called Carry On Regardless, knowing that the joke will be on developing countries who stand to bear the brunt of the word's weird weather.

Climate change already bears an unfortunate "Made In The West Midlands" stamp, but the innovators of the Industrial Revolution at least have the excuse that they didn't know what they were doing.

We, on the other hand, are only too well aware of the consequences of refusing to change.Surelyit is far better to embrace the new realitynow rather than wait until circumstances force it upon us.

Jerry Blackett's stance is equally retro. Birmingham has never had the capacity for direct long-haul flights so to seek to build a future which relies on them now seems to be futile. By the time a second runway is due to come on stream, global travel will be unrecognisable.

If there's money to be had, let's be investing it in new engine and fuel technologies to make flying greener. That will create more jobs and over a longer term than simply laying down more tarmac.

The government of course knows this - it recently had the report to prove it. Yet it still remains officially locked into the same “predict and provide” madness for airports that the Tories of the 1990's were wedded to for roads.

What we need both nationally and locally is the kind of leadership which not only recognises that climate change is a reality, but also decides to do something about it.

That needn't mean withdrawing into a cave-dweller mentality; it can involve building on our traditional strengths in this area of making and inventing things.

Only this time we havetofocus on stuff which makes the world better and not the skies blacker.