Kingsnorth

Thirty climate campaigners today stopped a coal train on its way to Drax power station in Yorkshire, Britain's single largest source of CO2 emissions. Dressed in white overalls and canary outfits, they used safety signals to stop the train at a bridge on a branch line used exclusively by the power station, before jumping aboard and shovelling coal off onto the tracks. Some used climbing ropes to suspend themselves under the bridge from the train, making it impossible to move the train while the protest continues.

Roll up, roll up! The climate circus is in town. Confronted with melting ice caps, unprecedented species extinction, droughts and extreme weather, climate change threatens our very survival. The fools at the head of the fossil fuel empire continue to plunder the earth, with the governments as willing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape climate change with techno-fixes, market mechanisms and offset schemes - all technocratic acrobatics that distract us from the truth: the only real solution to climate change is to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Actions will be happening all over the world. Here in the UK there'll be a protest against new coal-fired power stations. From 8am London World Development Movement groups are co-ordinating a protest outside the Department for Enterprise Business and Regulatory Reform (or Dberr) to laugh at the minister for business, John Hutton. Hutton is currently set to make a right fool of the government's climate policy if he signs off on EON's new Kingsnorth power station.

The anti-coal storm gathering around the head of Business Secretary John Hutton, the government minister championing new coal-fired power stations, is growing daily. Latest to weigh-in on the side of reason are the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). As you can see from the following quote, they are less than impressed with Hutton's stance;

If the UK government must use coal, the dirtiest fuel source there is, then it must also wait until CCS facilities are up and running. There is no rationale for using coal again until its climate damage can be contained.

John Hutton, the man responsible for Britain's energy policy, gave his explicit support this morning for a new generation of coal-fired power stations.

Choosing the stormiest day of the year so far to deliver a speech to members of the right-wing think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, the Secretary of State for Business flew a dangerous kite when he insisted that coal has a "key role" to play in energy provision, and accused anyone who disagreed with him (that's us, folks, along with Prince Charles, Al Gore, the head of NASA, opposition parties and thousands of others) of playing "gesture politics".