POLITICIANS in a democracy are, I suppose, inevitably creatures of the short term. I would defend my trade, though, against the charge that we never look beyond the next election.
Late last year this magazine mentioned the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution鈥檚 calculation that by 2050 greenhouse gas pollution from most sources is likely to have fallen, 鈥渓eaving soaring aviation accounting for nearly 75 per cent of the UK鈥檚 greenhouse impact鈥� (13 December 2003, p 3). I showed this to the aviation minister Tony McNulty. He challenged many of the assumptions behind the calculation. For example, it did not include international aviation emissions, and he doubts the claim that up to a billion passengers per year will be using UK airports by 2050.
McNulty added that forecasts by the Department for Transport suggest that by 2030 aviation emissions will amount to about a quarter of the UK鈥檚 total contribution to global warming, which is significant enough. He said that some 97 per cent of these emissions would be from international flights. The Department of Trade and Industry does not expect absolute aviation emissions to increase substantially between 2030 and 2050, but their relative proportion is forecast to rise to one-third, assuming the country meets targets for reducing land-based emissions, detailed in the government鈥檚 2003 white paper on energy.
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Concerned readers should look at the white paper, The Future of Air Transport. It acknowledges that pollution caused by aviation is a cause for concern, and sets out the UK鈥檚 intention to press for the inclusion of flights within the European Union in the forthcoming EU emissions trading scheme.
However, most important is the development of a global emissions trading system for aviation through the International Civil Aviation Organization. And the sooner the better.
ARTIFICIAL blood could be a real life saver, as Sylvia Pag谩n Westphal recently argued (快猫短视频, 24 April, p 20). But Westphal pointed out that efforts to test blood substitutes in clinical trials are dogged by ethical pitfalls in obtaining informed consent. I asked public health minister Melanie Johnson, who has to worry about the decline in blood donations, what the government鈥檚 attitude is.
Johnson agreed that we must ensure that potential recipients in any clinical trials are fully consulted beforehand. The Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004 implement the EU directive on clinical trials in UK law, and spell out conditions for obtaining consent on behalf of unconscious or incapacitated adults.
The regulations allow a person independent of the clinical trial to act as legal representative for a patient incapable of giving informed consent. Johnson said the provisions are designed to protect the interests of patients in an emergency situation, while making it possible for research to take place.
The clinching argument for me is Westphal鈥檚 example that in a trial of an artificial blood in severely injured people, 9 out of 12 patients who had lost blood to levels considered lethal actually survived.
