Climate Camp | ukwatch.net

We Really Did It – And We’ll Be Back

tim — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:48:13 +0000

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of huge institutions such as energy corporations and governments. But the Climate Camp has shown that we don’t have to feel that way. This weekend, we proved our power.

Today, we learned that – despite E.ON’s bluster that the power station had been running normally all weekend – we most definitely succeeded in disrupting its operations. We learned this from a most unlikely source: the police.

On Saturday, four bold rebel rafters got very close to the power station water intake pipe before being boarded and captured. They were arrested and charged with aggravated trespass and, according to their charge sheets, “they did an act, namely disrupting the running of the power station by causing the water inlet cooling system to be shut down.” That doesn’t sound like E.ON’s claim of “business as usual” to us!

Despite the fact that we had publicly announced what we were going to do months in advance; despite E.ON spending millions on extra security, and the Government spending millions on policing; despite the extra fences, the smear campaigns, the scare stories, and the most repressive and heavy-handed policing of peaceful protest for many years; despite all of this, we got over the fences, disrupted the power station, and massively embarrassed an international energy giant. We outsmarted 26 police forces to run the biggest climate camp ever. We covered the river in boats, filled the streets with people, covered the power station gates with banners and hit at least eight other targets with autonomous actions. We flooded the national, local and independent media with our stories and messages. E.ON and the Government threw everything they could at us, and they still couldn’t hold us back.

We’re just ordinary people with a cause. And we proved our power – not just to the outside world, but to ourselves. Now we know what we can do, and our movement is stronger than ever. If the Government gives Kingsnorth the go-ahead, we will be back to stop it.

Why not join us? The Camp for Climate Action is an open and welcoming network with a group near you.

Evidence Uncovered of Political Policing at Climate Camp

tim — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:02:24 +0000

Ninety percent of the costs of the heavy-handed policing at the Climate Camp are being paid for by the Government, local council sources have admitted this week [1]. Campers are pointing to this revelation as evidence that the government has been directly involved in the decision to police the camp in this fashion.

“The Government claims to care about climate change, but is pressing ahead with new coal fired power stations” said Jessica Glynn, one of the campers. “Now we discover that the Home Office is paying the police to harass and attack people who are peacefully opposing this decision. It’s not hard to put two and two together.”

Meanwhile, at 8.30 on Friday morning, people from the camp superglued themselves to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s oil and gas offices, in protest at the bank’s financing of the expansion of the fossil fuel industry all over the world. A few hours later, twelve naked campaigners superglued themselves to the offices of BERR (the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform), the Government department colluding with E.ON to give the green light to new coal power stations.

Miniature protestors also struck at Legoland (sponsored by E.ON) in Windsor, where a Lego model of Kingsnorth coal power station was scaled by Lego activists, who dodged the Lego police helicopters to drop a banner reading “STOP CLIMATE CHANGE”. [2]

Cambridge Liberal Democrat Councillor, Neale Upstone announced at the camp today that he is prepared to break the law on Saturday’s day of mass action.

Speaking from the camp, Councillor Upstone said, “It has now become impossible for citizens to assert their views against the money and influence of a wealthy few. The only option left is for us to take personal responsibility for the actions where the government is failing us… For the sake of our children, tomorrow, I am willing to peacefully break the law in order to draw a line in the sand. It’s time more politicians joined me.”

Participants at the camp, who now number more than 2,000, are spending the evening busily preparing for the day of mass action on Saturday.

“This is the clearest expression yet of the widespread public disapproval for E.ON’s plans to build new coal plants,” said Shri Gupta. “Despite the police campaign of intimidation and harassment, thousands have turned out to stop this environmental catastrophe. People across the country are showing they are no longer prepared to sit back and watch politicians andcompanies destroy our future. Today the climate movement has come of age.”

Notes
1.Medway Messenger, 08 August 2008
2.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykkJJWgOu8A

E.ON's defences breached following Olympic efforts by protesters

tim — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:58:21 +0000

The main marquee is buzzing with sporadic cheers at the feedback meet-up from the day of action. Celebrations are certainly the order of the day as protesters succeeded in breaching the perimeter fence and inner 10,000 volt electric fence to enter the power station site despite the best efforts of 26 police forces with over 1,500 police.

The day started early with a flotilla of boats – the Blue group – sailing towards Kingsnorth in the sun. Over twenty crafts made their way up the Medway to converge on the coal loading jetty. Three people occupied the ledge above the power station’s water inlet tunnel while a banner proclaiming ‘CO2AL: Starter Gun for Climate Chaos’ was hung from Darnet Fort on an island in the Medway directly opposite the power station.

Kent Police are on form as ever with the lies – claiming that they had to rescue rafters from the Medway. Rafters told quite a different story saying that at no point were they in any danger. “Its a bit cheeky for the police to say that we had to be rescued when for starters we weren’t in any danger, and secondly, they were the ones who had confiscated our safety boat this morning,” said Rebel Rafter Harold Cryer. Interestingly the river police were super professional and courteous, as were the sea-king helicopter search and rescue folks. Pity the land-based cops weren’t more similar.

Talking of unprofessional behaviour, news came in that the number of complaints against Kent police were so many that the Kent Police Professional Standards Authority were out today (yep, a Saturday too), to keep tabs on the police. Talk of the camp is that this year we must fight the police’s unlawful conduct over the coming months, much in the same way that last year we fought sections of the media for their less-than-fair coverage (coverage has been noticeably more accurate this year). So do keep in touch with the camp legal team if you were mis-treated.

Ok, back to the day of action: around 1,000 people from the Orange group headed from the Camp directly to the main gates at Kingsnorth, led by a colourful carnival dragon made by children during the camp. At the gates the Camp’s Christian Cafe crew held a service giving the power station its last rites. The group sat outside the main entrance for an hour, some longer, even after a police helicopter circling above had demanded through a loud-hailer that the marchers disperse, threatening them with ‘horses and dogs’ if they didn’t. Another surreally big-brother moment, and a classic example of the police ‘facilitating lawful protest’, as their mantra says.

The few hundred strong Green group made it to the perimeter fence of the power station. Some used a section of fencing to make a ladder to breach both the outer and the inner electric fence. Others climbed a nearby pylon to hang a banner reading ‘Shut Down Kingsnorth’(1).

Spokeswoman Emily Davies said in a press release this afternon, “It shows how serious we are about stopping climate change that people from all walks of life were prepared, despite blatantly intimidatory policing, to take direct action to disrupt E.ON. This Olympic effort certainly deserves a gold medal.” Which nicely sums it up!

Campers have been signing pledges to return to Kingsnorth if Minister for Business John Hutton gives E.ON the go-ahead to build the first coal-fired power station in the UK for 30 years. The promise is to take action against E.ON and other companies until they abandon all such plans.

More from the camps press release: “It’s been a great today, but a real victory for us will be when we have conclusively scuppered E.ON’s coal-fuelled mania. If Hutton gives the green light to this power plant, E.ON can expect to be seeing a lot more of us in the future,” said Ewa Steckel, who has signed one of the pledges to stop the plant.

Outside the camp, and more bizarrely than taking a home-made raft down the Medway, Malcolm Wicks, Energy Minister stated yesterday that we need Kingsnorth to counter catastrophic climate change!

Campers reacted furiously, “Malcolm Wicks’ claim that building an unabated coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth is necessary to save us from climate change shows him to be delusional and dangerously scientifically illiterate. ” said camper Ania Kemp.

Why Kingsnorth?

Ellie Keen — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:40:40 +0000

Given how much CO2 you get when you burn coal, building a coal fired power station in the middle of a climate crisis would be really stupid. Really, really, stupid. But incredibly, down at Kingsnorth that’s exactly what power company E.ON and the Government plan to do.

Here’s our top 10 reasons for not building Kingsnorth, or burning coal or digging it up or well, doing pretty much anything with it other than leaving it in the ground. You don’t have to read them all. Any one will give you reason enough to join us this summer. A new power station at Kingsnorth really is that daft.

1. Let’s build a coal-fired power station!

If built, Kingsnorth will emit between 6 and 8 million tons of CO2 every year. That’s a hell of a lot of CO2, more even than the proposed third runway at Heathrow would produce. Scientists are usually a fairly reserved bunch but even they are starting to sound frantic about what’s happening with the climate. That’s not surprising given that, if we carry on treating the planet like a cheap boil in the bag dinner, we risk causing catastrophic climate change. That’s probably a bad idea. To avoid it we need to rapidly reduce emissions. So, in a world where we respect the ecology of the planet and the lives of those whose home it is, no Kingsnorth.

2. Kingsnorth is just the beginning. Six other similar power stations are planned.

How do you multiply stupid? We’re not sure, but that’s what the power utilities want to do. Unless there’s a big fight over Kingsnorth these companies, with the backing of Government, want to build six more atmosphere-crunching coal fired power stations in the next few years. Collectively these power stations would emit around 50 million tons of CO2 a year. It’s hard to understand such a callous disregard for your fellow humans but if you want to, start by following the money. Power stations make lots of it and, given the amount of coal around, they’re a ‘safe’ long term investment. It’s an age-old story but the ending isn’t written yet.

What happens at Kingsnorth is vitally important. When people get together determined to make the world a better place there is history-making potential. Look at the Suffragettes, the struggle for workers rights, the anti-roads movement. Kingsnorth can and will be stopped if enough of us get together to make it happen.

3. Because coal is the most polluting fossil fuel.

Coal was a really cool idea for the convenient long term storage of a load rotting prehistoric forests but burning it to make electricity is a monumentally bad one. It might have made sense at the beginning of the industrial revolution but then so did child labour, slavery and woollen swimming trunks. Now we know burning coal is wrecking the climate. Of CO2 in the atmosphere from human activity around 50% has come from the burning of coal. Mainly this is from Western nations who industrialized first.

Today burning coal is responsible for around one quarter of our global CO2 emissions. One of the great challenges for this generation is to find ways of living on this planet whilst leaving fossil fuels (especially coal) in the ground. We are quite literally the Power Generation. We have to change the ways we generate power and we need to find the power to make these changes happen.

4. Because coal is about as clean as an anthrax sandwich.

Proudly brandishing the phrase ‘clean coal’, the coal industry is confidently striding forth into our warming world. It’s a brilliant piece of PR greenwash. However, like ‘friendly’ fire or the ‘great’ war, it sounds kind of good but actually, when you get down to it, it really isn’t. Modern coal fired power stations are slightly more ‘efficient’ than old ones but the bottom line is: coal burning is responsible for one quarter of global emissions and those emissions are causing serious problems.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is an important part of the ‘clean’ coal myth. It’s basically a method of capturing and compressing the waste CO2 from a power station and then pumping it into salt aquifiers and old oil wells for long term storage. There’s a few problems with CCS. The biggest one is that it doesn’t exist, it’s science fiction. Sure there’s the odd experimental trial but at the scale of large coal fired power stations even the industry themselves say it’s 10 years away at best.

E.ON are saying that the power station they plan to build will be CCS ready. But ready for what exactly. We might be ready for the second coming but that isn’t going to help solve climate change that’s happening in reality in the here and now. Given that the next few years are crucial and that other ready-to-go alternatives exist, CCS is just a distraction. E.ON want to talk about CCS because they don’t want to talk about CO2 emissions. They want to obscure the truth: Kingsnorth power station will emit at least 6 million tons of CO2 every year and damn the lot of you.

5. Oh dear we’re running out of oil. Wahey there’s loads of coal!

No need to worry about the coming oil crunch, there’s loads of tar sands and coal – we’ll burn that instead. If you’ve got big investments in fossil fuels or you’ve just bought a villa in Greenland then maybe this ‘solution’ to the oil crunch makes sense. To the rest of us it makes about as much sense as a petrol-filled fire extinguisher.

Most of the geological evidence suggests that there is a lot of coal left, up to 200 years at current rates of consumption. But burning it really isn’t an option if we want a planet to live on (forget Greenland, those villas have sold out and the neighbours would be horrible).

6. But if we don’t burn coal the Chinese will.

Blimey. Where do you start? Yes the Chinese are building coal fired power stations but…

1. Climate change is a global problem and nearly every country is going to have to reduce emissions – the British, the Chinese, the Americans – we all have to get our shit together and change the way our societies make and use energy. If we’re going to do it fairly (which in our view is essential), that means countries like the UK will have to cut a lot more than the Chinese. If you’re burning coal you’re making the problem worse. We’re burning it here in the UK so that’s where we’ve got to stop it.

2. Not only are average emissions for each person significantly lower in China than in Britain, a large percentage of Chinese coal is burnt so that Chinese factories can make the throwaway consumer items that fill the shopping centres and refuse dumps of the west.

3. We’ve got to start somewhere. The very ecological systems we rely on for life are in jeopardy. If someone doesn’t wake up and try to turn off the gas we’ll probably fry sleeping. Arguing about who should set the alarm is as pathetic as it is suicidal.

7. Without these power stations there will be an energy gap.

The old ones are the best ones. Problem: a load of companies want to make big bucks but can only achieve it by doing the rest of us over. Answer: come up with something scary so people are distracted and don’t notice what you’re up to. O’oo the energy gap. A frightener isn’t it. It’s meant to be what happens if we don’t build new coal and nuclear power stations to replace the ones that are being decommissioned. We run out of energy, the Christmas lights go out , rubbish blows in the streets and we’re all transported back into the 70s and forced to listen to crackly Val Doonican records on pedal powered stereos.

But the energy gap is a nonsense.

Check out the Government’s own projections:

• The amount electricity generating capacity reduction by 2027 from closing old coal and nuclear power stations: 35%

• The amount of energy Gordon Brown has said we will generate from renewable sources by 2020: 40%

On these figures there is no energy gap. In fact we’re up five percent seven years early. There are other gaps. A commitment cap, a vision gap, a take the bull by the horns and do something useful for a change gap. But no energy gap.

8. Because there is a growing movement against coal.

It’s not just about Kingsnorth. In Wales and Derbyshire people are trying to stop new open cast mines. And from Bangladesh and the Appalachians to Columbia and Ecuador people are fighting against coal and fossil fuel extraction. This summer there are five other climate camps in other countries all focused on the issue of coal.

This is an essential way of facing the energy and climate change crisis. It’s a call to get together and work for something better in solidarity with people across the globe. It might sound like an old fashioned idea but then these days so does a stable climate and hell, if flares can make a come back anything has to be possible.

9. Because we need to talk about work.

Here’s a crazy idea. Instead of employing people to burn coal how about we build install and run an energy system based on renewables. They’ve started doing it in Germany and the industry already employs 250,000 people which is a lot more than work in our entire power sector. Here’s another one. We know that we need to make a transition from one energy system to another so what about building that transition around the workers in those industries, what about making it a just transition. And one final one. How about instead of working more and being exploited more so we can compete more just to produce more and more stuff, we work less to produce what we need and want, compete less and share more so we have more time and live better. Phew.

10. They don’t have to build Kingsnorth.

There are a load of brilliant alternatives that would solve the energy issue without messing with the planet. If we’re serious about these other options then it’s crucial we stop the building of Kingsnorth and the other five power stations.

We’ve probably already said it so sorry to go on, but if enough of us get together and say no, then Kingsnorth will never get built. Last year a new runway at Heathrow was seen as a done deal. The Climate Camp helped galvanise almost universal opposition to that stupid plan. With enough of us, we can do the same with building new coal-fired power stations. See you at Kingsnorth on August 9th.