Video Documentary of Kingsnorth Six Climate Change Protests

The historic Kingsnorth protests in the United Kingdom, in which six Greenpeace activists in October 2007 climbed a coal-fired power plant in a protest over the climate change impacts of the possible construction of similar coal plants there and elsewhere in England, is now documented in an excellent 20-minute video released last month (see video below).

The so-called “Kingsnorth Six" were arrested, but their trial turned into a historic event, credited in part for helping change U.K. government policy on coal plants.

The legal defense team for the Kingsnorth Six set about to prove that by shutting down the Kingsnorth coal plant for a day, the Greenpeace activists had prevented damage to an even more valuable property. They brought in a host of environmental experts to testify, presenting compelling details on how the carbon emitted by the plant was a serious contributor to climate change. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and one of the first scientists to warn the world about climate change, told the jury that every ton of carbon from the Kingsnorth coal plant was significant and that over time the plant could ultimately lead to the extinction of 400 species. Some Conservative Party critics of the Gordon Brown government also gave their support, such as Zach Goldsmith, former editor of The Ecologist magazine.

Here’s the entire video:

Photo from Flickr.