Stop That Coal Barge!

The conflict over plans to build a new Kingsorth coal plant in Great Britain continues apace. Despite a policy change on coal-fired power by the British government last April, Greenpeace activists and other groups continue battle the government over the issue. Last month, on June 22, nine activists boarded a cargo ship carrying coal for the controversial coal plant, some of them scaling the foremast of the ship and one mother of three swam in front of the ship as it approached the port. Said Emma Green, the swimmer, in a Greenpeace press release: “Coal is the most climate-wrecking fuel there is. Every tonne of carbon counts, and E.ON's ship is delivering enough coal to pump tens of thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. There's no way we can stop climate change if power companies are allowed to keep on burning so much coal.”

According to Greenpeace, despite Britain making a policy change on coal plants, which now requires much of the carbon released to be captured immediately, the new plant, which would be the first new coal plant built in Britain in more than 30 years, will “still pump three-quarters of its emissions into the atmosphere for years to come - six million tonnes of CO2 every year.”

Via Twitter this week I also received this alert from a youth group of 15- to 19-year-olds in England called “You, Me, and the Climate” asking for signatures on a petition, which says in part: “Scientists predict that by 2015 our global carbon emissions need to stabilise to save the catastrophic two degree temperature rise of our planet. There is just a tiny window to prevent the continuing exacerbation of climate change and we must do all in power to stop it.”