Coal

Rainbow Warrior impounded; 90 arrested

Posted by bex — 17 November 2008 at 11:19am - Comments

Dutch police board Rainbow Warrior in Rotterdam

Two Greenpeace ships - one of them the Rainbow Warrior - have been impounded and their captains and 90 others arrested after three days of nonviolent direct actions in the Netherlands.

Shutting down construction at Eon's proposed new coal site, Netherlands
Some of the 100 volunteers occupying the construction site of a new E.on coal plant in Rotterdam.

I'll start at the beginning. On Friday evening, nearly 100 Greenpeace volunteers pitched tents next to the construction site of a new E.on coal plant in Rotterdam (one of eight E.on plans to build in Europe), to bear witness to the unfolding climate disaster.

At first light on Saturday, they moved onto the site and occupied it, stopping construction for 10 hours before all being arrested.

US coal development blocked

Posted by bex — 14 November 2008 at 1:14pm - Comments

From WattHead:

The Sierra Club just won a HUGE legal victory in a coal permitting case at the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Appeals Board [in the USA]...

While the Sierra Club's legal team and other lawyers are still determining the full implications of the decision, it appears that this decision will essentially stop all new coal plant permitting dead in it's tracks for at least a year as EPA decides what BACT means in the context of CO2...

In short, with this new regulatory uncertainty, it's highly unlikely anyone will want to invest a dime in a new coal plant for the foreseeable future.

Read the full story on WattHead »

Forest crimes and climate crimes: Greenpeace ships take action

Posted by bex — 10 November 2008 at 3:48pm - Comments

The hoses are turned on a climber, attached to the anchor chain of the Gran Couva. © Greenpeace/Novis

The Esperanza in Indonesia

The small (wet) figure above is a crew member of the Greenpeace ship Esperanza. Darkness has fallen on the port of Dumai (Indonesia) since this photograph was taken several hours ago, but our climber is still there, in the dark, occupying the anchor chain and preventing the tanker from setting off to the Netherlands with its 27,000 tonne cargo of palm oil. As Jamie wrote on the Forests for Climate blog, it takes only one person to stop a giant palm oil tanker.

Farewell to the Rainbow Warriors

Posted by bex — 5 November 2008 at 4:57pm - Comments

See all Rainbow Warrior tour updates.


Sadly, all good things come to an end and, yesterday afternoon, the Rainbow Warrior hauled up her lines and left Canary Wharf, heading for mainland Europe to continue her campaign against coal.

As a thanks to the amazing crew - who've had maybe the busiest two weeks of their Greenpeace ship lives - we've put together a slideshow capturing the quieter moments inbetween the frenetic events, open days and direct actions. The photographs are all by Will Rose (onboard photographer and one of the Kingsnorth Six) and Kajsa Sjolander (Rainbow Warrior deckhand and garbologist, when she's not being a photo journalist).

Keeping track of new coal - interactively

Posted by jossc — 5 November 2008 at 4:31pm - Comments

online map showing every mine and power station that make up the UK coal industry

The good folk at the Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC) recently made an inspired contribution to the anti-coal crusade that's springing up around the country - they've just launched an online map of all the places that the coal industry is planning to dig and build new opencast mines and new power stations. It's interactive, zoomable, and full of information about the sizes of the mines and power stations being planned. Worryingly, there are more than a few.

Video: onboard the Rainbow Warrior

Posted by bex — 1 November 2008 at 2:09pm - Comments

See all Rainbow Warrior tour updates or get them by email.  


Over the past couple of weeks, we've had a huge number of visitors onboard the Rainbow Warrior, from scientists and campaigners to politicians and journalists. Many of the visitors - like The RSPB and Oxfam - have written about their experiences. The Telegraph went one step further and put together this video about their day onboard the Warrior:

Crew blog - life on the high seas (well, the Thames)

Posted by bex — 31 October 2008 at 3:59pm - Comments

The Rainbow Warrior coming through the Thames Barrier

The Rainbow Warrior coming through London's Thames Barrier on Friday afternoon. © Will Rose / Greenpeace.

See all Rainbow Warrior tour updates or get them by email


Pete's blog

Pete - Rainbow Warrior crewPete is a volunteer deckhand on the Rainbow Warrior. He wrote this on Thursday, the day after the vigil.

Having been up since 3.40am the previous day, I slept through the night time antics with the projector and the injunction delivery.

Now we are at anchor just upriver from Tilbury. A quieter day of tidying ship and cleaning away equipment. Dark clouds are gathering and a sudden squall blows in. We are keeling over at an angle to the anchor chains. Icy sleet stings our hands and faces as we bring the inflatables alongside to secure them.

The vigil ends

Posted by bex — 30 October 2008 at 9:50am - Comments
Night on the Rainbow Warrior

© Kristian Buus / Greenpeace.

See all Rainbow Warrior tour updates or get them by email


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.

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