Kingsnorth Climate Camp

Busy week for green non-violent direct action in Kent...

Tomorrow sees the start of the climate camp in Kingsnorth with an opening march from Rochester to the camp site (although campers started arriving a few says ago to set up the site). Caroline Lucas will be speaking at the start of the march.

Going back even further, a number of 'caravans' started winding their way to Kingsnorth last week. One of these is stopping at incinerator sites to highlight the madness of this way of dealing with waste. Today they are visiting Maidstone, firstly in the town centre to hand out leaflets and then on to Allington to lay a wreath to highlight the health concerns with incineration. They will be joined by Neil Pitcairn of UKWIN and have invited Maidstone Greens along to.

The climate camp itself has already begun to suffer from unfair police intervention. The organisers spent a great deal of time talking to the police (and local residents) when organising the camp to iron out concerns, yet actions taken by the police in the last few days are bizarre.

There are reports that they have entered the site and removed ropes and bicycle locks from bicycles, claiming that these could be used to disrupt the power station! This is a camp attended by lots of people on bicycles...

The protest itself is against EONs plans to build the first coal fired power station since 1974 in the UK. EON claim that the carbon from the coal will be captured using an unproven technology called 'carbon capture and storage'. Notably the power station will emit more CO2 than Ghana... When people talk of the need for other countries to make cuts to, it is worth remembering that!

But the new power station and the new nuclear plant will keep the lights on in the UK. But at what cost? A 250,000 year legacy of nuclear waste and climate change that will kill billions.

Keep the lights on? My mother used to shout at me to 'turn the bloody light off and close the door'. Great advice for reducing our prolific energy consumption.