Greenpeace take over a coal train in Nottinghamshire
- Thread starter editor
- Start date
geminisnake
a complex mass of conflicting ideas
What are they suggesting to replace the coal plants?
ddraig
kicking against the pricks...
tbtommyb
Well-Known Member
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.
geminisnake
a complex mass of conflicting ideas
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.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
they're probably committing 20 sep. offences by doing this.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
so greenpeace position is dole not coal for miners.
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.
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.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
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.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
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.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
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.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
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.
tbtommyb
Well-Known Member
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
tbtommyb
Well-Known Member
Yeah and abolishing the death penalty put all the hangmen on the dole.
Silly point.
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.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Greenpeace should set fire to the train, that would show 'em.
Last edited:
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
the reference to a popular slogan of the 80s and early 90s passed you by then.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
in answer to yr question, yesDo 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.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
& you believe situation similar here?
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
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.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Which decade are we in now? Is it one of those two? Or have the parameters maybe shifted a little since then?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
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
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
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.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
I could accuse you of not knowing much about the endocrine physiology of cetaceans but that wouldn't really be relevant either.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
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.
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.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
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'
a bod in the paper called it a 'nuclear renaissance'
Similar threads
