Our most basic needs are under threat
 Anti-airport poster in Church Lawford
|  | Local resident and agricultural consultant, Michael Barker, questions the government's airport proposals and the loss to the countryside it could cause.
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 | | Article by Michael Barker, agricultural consultant
The idea of Rugby, Coventry and Leamington being joined together in one sprawling mass of slip roads, departure lounges, check-in desks, carousels and tarmac is surely an anathema to even the most ardent of philistines.
Our government's recent proposal to turn green belt, ancient woodland and rural communities into a regional airport the size of Heathrow is symptomatic of its total disregard for not only countryside dwellers, farmers and rural people across the country but for our urban counterparts too.
 ...only when the last tree has been removed, the last river polluted and the last fish caught will we realise we can't eat money.
 | 听 | Michael Barker
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Forget for a moment the constant roar of jumbo jets, the loss of irreplaceable nature or the emptiness of miles and miles of drab concrete construction.
Instead, turn your attention to what is equally important; what we have inherited and in turn will pass on to future generations: our culture.
Are our lives to become so far removed from our 'agri-cultural' roots? Should all the irreplaceable knowledge and wisdom that has been built up since time immemorial just be swept aside in the name of spurious economic progress?
This is not some whimsy of a bygone era but a reality. Our most basic needs are under threat.
In the words of the Inuit Indians, only when the last tree has been removed and the last river polluted and the last fish caught will we then realise we can't eat money.
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