© Kristian Buus / Greenpeace.
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In the early hours of this morning, after bailiffs served us a high court injunction from the quayside (presumably the "action" E.on had talked about earlier in the day), we pulled up our lines and left the jetty by Kingsnorth power station. We're heading, slowly, back to London.
It had been a busy evening at Kingsnorth. At around 10pm, the team battling with technical problems while occupying E.on's island came back to the boat to project images of climate change and the slogan 'Gordon bin it' from the bow.
When E.on realised what they were up to, they brought out two bulldozers to try and block the projector beam. Fun and games ensued. For several hours. We briefly managed to project the image onto Kingsnorth's chimney but, for most of the night, E.on's bulldozer had a bright, white "dirty e.on" blazed across its bucket. No matter which way it moved, the message was clear and eventually, E.on resorted to posting a man underneath the bulldozer, shining a torch at the message in an attempt to dim it. All highly symbolic (the lengths E.on will go to to hide the fact they're the UK's single biggest polluter) - or at least so it seemed to me after a very long day.
So, although we had to leave earlier than we'd hoped, we did achieve what we set out to: to communicate to E.on that there's huge opposition to their proposed new plant, and that we will stop it from being built. We have to. The fact that their response to a peaceful commemoration and vigil was to serve a high court injunction suggests that the message was received loud and clear.
We also, of course, wanted to send a message to Gordon Brown and his new climate change secretary Ed Miliband that, by introducing greenhouse gas standards for all new power plants in the UK and sorting out our renewables policy, they could slash carbon emissions, increase energy security and create a million green collar jobs. We'll find out whether that message has been received when they make the decision on Kingsnorth in the next few months.
That's all for now. I'll leave you with this quote from the world's leading climate scientist's letter to Gordon Brown (Jim Hansen - who also gave evidence at the trial of the Kingsnorth Six):
Global climate is near critical tipping points that could lead to loss of all summer sea ice in the Arctic with detrimental effects on wildlife, initiation of ice sheet disintegration in West Antarctica and Greenland with progressive, unstoppable global sea level rise, shifting of climatic zones with extermination of many animal and plant species, reduction of freshwater supplies for hundreds of millions of people, and a more intense hydrologic cycle with stronger droughts and forest fires, but also heavier rains and floods, and stronger storms driven by latent heat, including tropical storms, tornados and thunderstorms.
Prime Minister Brown, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points. We must solve the coal problem now.
We have to succeed in stopping Kingsnorth and kickstarting clean energy. It's that simple. If you want to get involved in the campaign, sign up to Give Coal the Boot.
