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Greenpeace take over a coal train in Nottinghamshire

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hiraethified
Here's their press release:

I'm on top of a coal train right now with 49 ordinary people, who believe so passionately that we need to stop climate change, we've stopped a train reaching Cottam power station in Nottinghamshire. We flagged it down at 2.30pm and right now, we’re shovelling coal off the train.

It’s pretty dirty work but I’m here with good friends, and we know it’s the right thing to do.

At this same exact moment, thousands of miles away in New York, global leaders are coming together for a hugely important meeting about the climate.

But while world leaders like David Cameron talk, there’s a plan to give energy companies in the UK millions of pounds of tax-payers' money to keep old coal power plants burning.

See what's happening on top of the train:
https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/people-vs-coal

I'm blocking this coal train today to show our leaders that it’s time for action. David Cameron is at the global leaders meeting. When he gets home, he needs to scrap the plan to give tax-payers' money to keep coal power plants going.

And Ed Miliband needs to set out his plan to get us off coal. That could be enough to persuade energy companies to shut down coal plants instead of patching them up.

Click to see photos and video, and read stories:
https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/people-vs-coal

There are 50 of us on this train in Nottinghamshire, but Greenpeace is millions of people around the world. Together we’re working for a green, peaceful future powered by renewable energy. We want a protected Arctic, and a world of oceans and forests teeming with life.

Back on the train, we’ll hold on for as long as we can – but to truly get our message out we need thousands more to support our call:
https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/people-vs-coal
 
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http://www.itv.com/news/central/update/2014-09-23/in-pictures-greenpeace-activist-halt-coal-train/


 
I have a lot of sympathy for Greenpeace but I think this is wrongheaded. We need coal at least for the next couple of years.

I need coal for more than a few years and imo unless you've got a viable solution this kind of protest is bloody stupid. Do NONE of them use electricity? Run motorised vehicles etc?
I can agree with some of their stuff but not this.
 
Greenpeace stories tend to lead to nothing, they're a waste of everyone's time, just look at the state of the planet.
 
Maybe deforestation of the Brazilian rain forest or China's carbon usage have a lesser current impact than I thought!
Maybe next time they could try to take over a train carrying spent uranium fuel rods.
I am am sure the stuffed polar bear would be doing a facepalm if it could.
 
they're probably committing 20 sep. offences by doing this.

The last bunch of people to blockade a coal train in this way (not greenpeace, just some concerned citizens) were convicted with obstruction of a railway, then subsequently acquitted in light of the fact that evidence pertinent to their trial had been withheld from the defence. The evidence was withheld because revealing it would have exposed an undercover copper embedded in the eco activist movement.
 
so greenpeace position is dole not coal for miners.

Do you know how many people the UK coal mining industry currently employs?

The rump of the privatised British Coal Board, UK coal, now spends most of its time restructuring itself in an attempt to separate its heavily indebted mining operations from its valuable property portfolio. Of the handful of mines they still operate, most are open cast. This means that not only do they tear a vast whole in the landscape, but they employ fewer people than traditional deep mining.

1024px-UK_Coal_Mining_Jobs.png
 
What are they suggesting to replace the coal plants?

If only there were several viable renewable energy sources we could turn to, but there just aren't. Burning stuff is literally the only way to get energy, because we live in the seventeenth century.
 
Just rig some gyms up to the national grid and solve the climate change and obesity problems in one swoop..
 
Just rig some gyms up to the national grid and solve the climate change and obesity problems in one swoop..

But gyms have to draw power from the grid so they can pipe in really terrible music all day long.

And generally speaking the national grid is not designed to deal with large numbers of small generators with variable outputs. Rectifying this, so that we can have a decentralised energy network that supports growth of renewable energy generation, would require investment. Investment with no immediate prospect of financial return, but for the sake of securing our energy future and taking a huge chunk out of our contribution to climate change. But there's no money for that sort of thing, particularly when the chancellor's father-in-law is a fossil fuel tycoon.

Clearly what we really need instead is a yuppies-only train line to Manchester, and some bigger airports.
 
Greenpeace stories tend to lead to nothing, they're a waste of everyone's time, just look at the state of the planet.
Well no, I think they have helped move climate and environmental issues from the fringes to vaguely mainstream.

I think often they are a bit too 'stop doing this' without putting forward a positive 'lets do this instead'. So on coal they just say to use more renewables, but haven't said here what they would immediately replace these power stations with, no why it is essential that they close now and not within a few years time as is planned.

However I think their voice in the debate is very important
 
Physical activity is a great waste of energy, the less we do the less we consume and the more time we have for mental activity which can be used to find even more efficient ways of providing for those around us and protecting our environment. Gym is seriously wrong. Bed is a better option.
 
Do you know how many people the UK coal mining industry currently employs?

The rump of the privatised British Coal Board, UK coal, now spends most of its time restructuring itself in an attempt to separate its heavily indebted mining operations from its valuable property portfolio. Of the handful of mines they still operate, most are open cast. This means that not only do they tear a vast whole in the landscape, but they employ fewer people than traditional deep mining.

1024px-UK_Coal_Mining_Jobs.png
in answer to yr question, yes
 
The last bunch of people to blockade a coal train in this way (not greenpeace, just some concerned citizens) were convicted with obstruction of a railway, then subsequently acquitted in light of the fact that evidence pertinent to their trial had been withheld from the defence. The evidence was withheld because revealing it would have exposed an undercover copper embedded in the eco activist movement.
& you believe situation similar here?
 
& you believe situation similar here?

I highly doubt it. Maybe there are still undercovers in the eco-activist movement, and maybe they've taken the massive PR risk of infiltrating an organisation like Greenpeace with a high public profile and good access to lawyers and the media and stuff.

But even the police have got to learn from their mistakes sometimes. Considering the 40+ convictions overturned as unsafe in light of the revelations about Mark Kennedy, and the resultant suspicion of senior CPS people being involved in perverting the course of justice, I reckon they've had to rethink their tactics.

Just thought I'd mention the previous coal train action (it was back in 2008 I think) for a bit of background. I wouldn't be surprised if the Greenpeace lot used their trial for this action as an opportunity to put the boot in over the Kennedy fiasco.
 
in answer to yr question, yes

But if we were to replace coal as a main energy source, we'd need to build stuff to replace it wouldn't we? Stuff which would be built by people with jobs.

The tories are actually legislating to limit the output of renewables like wind in the UK. In so doing they're reducing the chances of jobs being created in that industry, jobs which won't vanish when a mine dries up or the coal company finally goes bankrupt.

A recently opened UK coal open cast mine in Telford is scheduled to close several years early because the site (already heavily mined back in the days of the industrial revolution) contains a lot less coal than they had predicted. Obviously the coal had been sold years in advance before they even started digging, leaving UK coal in the tricky position of having sold something that doesn't exist. This news is bad for the people working at the mine for obvious reasons, but it's also very bad news for the company's already anaemic pension fund.

A handful of jobs as precarious as these are not really worth the scars on the landscape or the damage to the climate; not when more jobs, with more security, could be created by abandoning coal altogether.
 
i'm sorry i credited people here with a knowledge of industrial relations in the c20 coal mining industry which some simply don't have

I could accuse you of not knowing much about the endocrine physiology of cetaceans but that wouldn't really be relevant either.
 
Back in the 80's a profitable coal industry was artificially dismantled by the government. Now a failing coal industry is being artificially propped up by the government. Resurrecting slogans from the 80's in lieu of actually looking at the current situation is not helpful.
 
Financing coal powered energy was always referred to as 'Subsidies'.
Financing the nuclear powered energy was always referred to as 'Investment'.
When the glass bubble and false returns of the wind turbine scam are revealed where will all the money subsidising or investing have gone?
Oh there won't be any electricity generated, hear all about it from the new town crier industry.
 
well we've got a new nuclear reactor planned for the existing hinkley site, so we'll not need the coal.

a bod in the paper called it a 'nuclear renaissance'
 
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