Direct Action gets results; E.ON Shelves Kingsnorth

[dunk]

If indeed this is an [SIZE="5"]eco war[/SIZE], then this surely is another great win in the battle for (y)our future

Environmentalists are celebrating after plans to build a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent were put on hold for three years.

Energy firm E.On blamed the recession and a fall in electricity demand saying it would not now be needed until 2016.

Protesters who held a Camp for Climate Change at the site last year said it showed how people could take back the power from corporations and government.

So reads BBC article - Kingsnorth plant delay hailed


No new coal - Victory for Climate Camp: E.ON Shelves Kingsnorth

Heres a vid from the days of direct action from 2008 UK CLIMATE CAMP against the massive station at Kingsnorth, why we do what we do, what violence we sometimes meet, where we are trying to get to
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkwpQnR3Pxg&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - Climate Camp 08 - Sky 1620 DOA some violence[/ame]

Another huge factor which surely helped was the direct action by Greenpeace group THE KINGSNORTH 6, where 6 climbers entered the chimney, climbed the massive structure, then absailed down and wrote in massive letters GORDON BI, it was to read Gordon Bin It, referring to ending the plan for UK new coal.

The cops eventually got to them, they let themselves be arrested, then in court, argued "lawful excuse", whereby a crime is commited to prevent a greater tragedy from happening, ie loss of life or property. In court they got top climate scientists to argue and the judge found them not guilty....

That decision, hopefully, has opened the flood gates for more and more direct action for a sustainable future, which is something even Al Gore has called for. [SIZE="1"](I first brought the kingsnorth 6 to peoples attention on p.ie here )[/SIZE]


Direct action gets results: Kingsnorth 6 - A Time Comes

Video of their action can be viewed here
full article about their action; Why six Britons went to eco war

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EGCFr2jLpU"]YouTube - A Time Comes[/ame]
A Time Comes: The story of the Kingsnorth Six

Further coverage:

- Victory for Climate Camp: E.ON Shelves Kingsnorth - climate camp site
- Victory for Climate Camp: E.ON Shelves Kingsnorth - indymedia ireland post
- Kingsnorth power station plans shelved by E.ON (guardian online)
- Eon announces delay on Kingsnorth - indymedia uk


E-on F-off - and they have

This gives further fire to those of us who were in [SIZE="4"]Irelands first climate camp[/SIZE] at Shannonbridge last August

- Irish climate camp website
- Climate Camp: Camp for Social Justice (the videos)
- 'Give Peat a Chance'- Climate Camp Shannonbridge 2009
- For Peat's sake: Ireland joins the CLIMATE CAMP movement, expect NVDA and much craic (p.ie feature)
- Whats all this Climate Camp stuff then?



Climate Camp: saviour of the environmental movement? (the ecologist mag)

Climte Camp - Early inspiration

The Stirling Eco Village at the G8 summit in 2005 was the first in this wave of climate camp protests. Although much more of a formal arrangement than later ones, with the site chosen in agreement with Stirling Council, the camp and related direct action efforts provided the model for future protests.

‘[after Stirling] We had a sense that we were capable of doing much more than just reacting to the calendar of events,’ remembers Climate Camp protester Kevin Smith. ‘We could set our own agenda now.’

It was the following August of 2006 when the camp-and-protest model met its first big test. By all accounts the police were caught by surprise as protestors attempted to break into the UK’s biggest carbon polluter, the Drax coal-fired power station in West Yorkshire.

The decision in 2007 to set up camp next to Heathrow airport in protest at plans to build a third runway was seen as an inspired move. More than 2,000 people joined the week-long protest, and were duly followed by a large contingent of broadcast, online and print media that ensured round-the-clock coverage of the action.

Saludos to all those in struggle for better world.

[dunk]

[SIZE="6"]CLIMATE CAMP - BE PREPARED[/SIZE]

[fiannafailure]

[SIZE="6"]CLIMATE CAMP - BE PREPARED[/SIZE]

Direct action is great craic and thats it.

[Húrin]

Direct action is great craic and thats it.

This is surely the last thread you should post that comment in. The story about Kingsnorth proves that direct action has real effects.

[goosebump]

This is surely the last thread you should post that comment in. The story about Kingsnorth proves that direct action has real effects.

Em, the plant has been delayed for 3 years in the middle of a recession. Correlation does not equal cause.

[Húrin]

Em, the plant has been delayed for 3 years in the middle of a recession. Correlation does not equal cause.

The recession has been on for a year. Energy demand in the UK has been falling for a year. I don't mean to say that the protests are the only reason why they're shelving it, but it is a factor. Also they would hardly admit to cancelling the project. More likely they are "shelving" it now, only to quietly cancel it later.

[goosebump]

The recession has been on for a year. Energy demand in the UK has been falling for a year. I don't mean to say that the protests are the only reason why they're shelving it, but it is a factor. Also they would hardly admit to cancelling the project. More likely they are "shelving" it now, only to quietly cancel it later.

I'm not all together sure of that, but I think the action served some purpose in drawing attention to the issues.

I have no problem with Direct Action provided it doesn't interfere with the rights of others, but ultimately, the most effective form of direct action is trying to convince people to vote for change.

[fiannafailure]

This is surely the last thread you should post that comment in. The story about Kingsnorth proves that direct action has real effects.

I disagree, the main reason this station has been delayed is to wait for the CCS technology, on which its medium and longterm economic future relies, to actually exist and be commercially proven.
In essence it has been delayed by EU carbon directives.

I spoke to a forestry expert recently, who was quite adamant that the damage done to the forest from direct action protesters at Glen of the Downs was a lot bigger than any damage caused by the road.

[dunk]

[SIZE="4"]“I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.” [/SIZE]
Al Gore [SIZE="1"]("I used to be your next president", Mr Bush did some dodgy work to rob his job, lead the world to illegal war, and generaly fu*k up a lot of stuff...) [/SIZE]

An Inconvenient Truth - film trailer
An Inconvenient Truth

[SIZE="5"][COLOR="Red"]350[/COLOR][/SIZE], how many people here are familiar with this number?

350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis--the solutions that science and justice demand.
Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet.

Our focus is on the number 350--as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. But 350 is more than a number--it's a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5kg1oOq9tY&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - 350.org: Because the world needs to know[/ame]

Ok, so back to dirty coal plants and direct action

“E.ON are finally recognising that the days of building new coal-fired power stations are over. Now we have to start shutting down existing power stations, and that’s why we’re going to Ratcliffe-on-Soar next week. And if E.ON try and bring back their plans for Kingsnorth then we’ll be back there too”.

So said Emma Jackson, one of the ever growing number of people that make up this passionate, educated, creative, loving group that make up what George Monbiot called after Heathrow (climate camp 2007) the climate camp movement: Beneath the Pall of Misery, a New Movement Is Born

We did not get everything right. The media strategy was hopeless: sympathetic journalists were excluded; unsympathetic journalists went undercover and stayed in the camp for as long as they wanted. But in other respects it was better organised, more democratic and more disciplined that any I have seen before. It drew on the protests of the 1990s but introduced two new elements: much better logistics and a model of popular democracy imported from Latin America. All the facilities that 1500 people would need - including running water, sanitation, hot food twice a day, banks of computers and walkie-talkies, stage lighting, sound systems, even a cinema - were set up in a few hours on unfamiliar ground, in the teeth of police blockades. A system of affinity groups and neighbourhoods, feeding their decisions upwards to general meetings, permitted a genuine participatory democracy of the kind you will never encounter in British public life. The actions themselves were disciplined and remained non-violent even when the police got heavy. I left the camp on Sunday evening convinced that a new political movement has been born.

Now 2 years on from that hope filled article, the movement has gone from strength to strength, even the mainstream media asks questions like The Sunday Times leading with articles like: Why we are all climate camp followers now

And now with this win we hope, and indeed expect that it will continue to grow.

Remember that for 30+ years us eco heads were "the loopy left", the "mad tree loving hippies" etc.... BUT finally the political bodies realised that there is a problem. They will go to COP 15 in 2 months time, which will probably be one of the most important meetings in the history of our story of existence...

I dont have to much faith in them to sort the worlds problems, but I have huge hope that we, people just like you and me, have the ability to change our world.

In fact we are allready doing it.

Many of us are busy building up resiliance in our communities with the transition movement (which is really well documented The Powerdown crew in Transition Towns and Energy Descent Pathways )

Some of us have taken to growing food in our own communities, re-connecting our communities, learning ourselves, sharing knowledge, building up our collective wisdom... (A history of the South Circular Road Community Garden )

And some of us are taking, what at first might seem a huge scary step: participating in Direct Action. It can be dangerous, police are ordered to defend powerstations and the like, and our job is to shut them down. They are simply doing their job, we are simply doing ours. What gets interesting is when your talking to riot police, once the initial edgy moments have passed and a middle ground is formed, because most of the time they point out that they agree with the basic argument and just have to do their job, its a very strange interesting place for communication exchange.

Anyway, whats been proven is that WE ARE STARTING TO WIN.

My favourite way of describing this wonderful time that we live in, and the wonderfull comunity that we are part of is outlined by US ecologist Paul Hawken. He has referred to it as [SIZE="5"]BLESSED UNREST[/SIZE], check out this short vid to get an idea of what hes on about; [SIZE="5"]the immune system of humanity finally kicking in[/SIZE]



[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1fiubmOqH4&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest and WiserEarth[/ame]

Simply speaking, our numbers are growing, people are waking up. As I pointed out in S21-S22 : A world awakening out of its "age of stupid"

In our hearts we know we will get there.

And, actually, to answer fiannafailure, it is extremely good craic. Personally i have had such profound experiences from all this stuff, hard difficult times, and others of complete joy, others of fear, other of profound feelings of a spiritual nature, sometimes moments of pure love...

Thats what being is all about. Its free, its simple, its open to everyone.

So in saying that, ill finish up in the hope that many readers here will be out in the real world participating with those of us already having the time of our lives and actually helping get ourselves out of the problem that we are in.

See you sometime in a field, in a street, dancing with the riot cops, shutting down the next target, sharing a meal from a garden.

The future is too important to not be moved to do what you can.

The future is (y)ours

[fiannafailure]

[SIZE="5"]participating with those of us already having the time of our lives[/SIZE]


Says it all really.