If you had to decide which of two developments to support – wind turbines on the nearby hills or an additional runway at the local airport – my experience suggests the turbines would win hands down.

I recall visiting the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, in the shadow of Heathrow, and feeling assaulted by the constant noise and looming menace of huge planes that lumbered over every 40 seconds or so. They were so low you could count the rivets. It’s just a pity we couldn’t see the CO2 they produce.

The questions are quite simple – do we as a nation need another runway at Heathrow, or the extension of one of the current ones to allow more flights? Or should development be restricted to regional airports? How strong is the case for adding extra capacity? What is the impact on our national carbon dioxide emissions? And, interestingly, why won’t the decisions be made until the autumn of 2015, after the General Election?

I start from the fact that all flights produce exceptional amounts of carbon dioxide, which alone would be reason enough for saying not only is enough enough, but possibly that flying needs restricting. Alarmingly, all the CO2 emitted at altitude is three times as effective in preventing heat escaping as lower down, so we should be planning to reduce flying rather than encouraging it.

This has been picked up by the Climate Change Committee, which will report on the proposals this summer. They point out that we are committed to an 80 percent reduction in our carbon emissions by 2050, and this means cutting the emissions to 50 per cent of the 1990 level by 2025 – in just 11 years’ time. Building new runways is therefore not an option.

They also suggest that to reduce demand, the cost of long-haul flights will have to rise by more than £200, so we could well have enough capacity, even in the long term. Apparently Heathrow still has some spare room, as does Gatwick, with fewer folk flying.

Indeed the forecast for future numbers has been cut by a third. And the regional airports, such as Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds/Bradford – the fastest growing airport in the top 20 – still have some spare capacity, and that should be sufficient.

The argument that our economy will suffer without airport expansion is a nonsense these days, when video conferencing, and modern technology make international communication so simple. One group of major companies has cut flying by 38 per cent this way, saving money, and CO2, in the process. We should also remember that the private airport companies put their share holders’ interests first, with CO2 reduction a distant second.