Posted by bex — 7 October 2008 at 11:12am
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The Independent Climate
Change Commission has warned
the government that it should cut all greenhouse emissions by 80 per cent by
2050 to tackle climate change.
In itself, this isn't
particularly surprising; scientists have been recommending this for some time.
More interesting - and very welcome - is that the commission wants to include
aviation and shipping in the target. That means, for once, that 'all greenhouse
gas emissions' pretty much means 'all greenhouse gas emissions'.
Posted by jamie — 1 October 2008 at 12:05pm
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While the preservation of civil liberties is an ongoing struggle (the government's ID database plan is one I think is definitely worth challenging), we've still come a long way in the last 100 years.
Back then in the days of empire, Britain might have straddled the world but women had no voting rights and it was only thanks to a group of determined women waging a persistent (and sometimes violent) campaign of direct action that, in 1928, the government finally passed a bill granting equal voting rights to both sexes.
Posted by bex — 26 September 2008 at 11:12am
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There are a few interesting stories about Kingsnorth on the web today:
The Independent reveals that the cabinet is split over the Kingsnorth decision: "John Hutton, the Business Secretary, wants to approve the project
even if it is not chosen for an experiment in which its carbon
emissions would be "captured" and stored under the sea. But his
position is strongly opposed by Hilary Benn, the environment secretary,
and his predecessor David Miliband, now the foreign secretary."
Across the pond meanwhile, Al Gore has renewed his call for young people to engage in civil disobedience over new coal plants, saying: "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration".
Last but by no means least, the Kingsnorth Six have made it into the New York Times. Happy reading.
Posted by bex — 26 September 2008 at 10:06am
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Just under a year ago, we revealed that Gordon Brown was planning to scupper the vital, and binding, European climate change deal to generate 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020.
A brouhaha ensued; EU leaders were so furious at the UK's underhanded shenanigans that a red-faced Brown had to explicitly re-commit to the target soon afterwards.
Posted by bex — 24 September 2008 at 10:21am
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In this special edition of our podcast, we take a behind the scenes look at the
extraordinary events that have already gone down in legend here at the
Greenpeace office. This month, six Greenpeace activists were acquitted of causing criminal damage to
Kingsnorth coal-fired power station, because they were acting to
prevent greater damage caused by climate change. The verdict has been hailed by some of the world's more hysterical media pundits as the official start of a state of anarchy in the UK.
I spent ten days with the defendants, finding out what was really happening, and how they were coping with the emotion, stress and drama of being at the centre of it all.
"No coal plus no
nuclear equals no lights," said Business
Secretary John Hutton (pictured above, proving he really has heard of climate
change, honest) today.
Bearing in mind the findings
of leading energy consultants Pöyry (pdf) that we don't need new nuclear or
new coal to keep the lights on - we just
need the government to meet its own, existing targets for energy efficiency and
renewables - he might better have said "no vision plus no guts
equals no chance of averting catastrophic climate change". Which at least
has some basis in fact.
Posted by jossc — 15 September 2008 at 4:27pm
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YANC launch their campaign on the steps of Leeds City Hall
Hot on the heels of the successful Kingsnorth trial outcome in Kent comes more good news for those of us committed to preventing new coal projects gaining a foothold across Britain. Yorkshire Against New Coal announced itself on the national stage at the end of last week with a launch event at Leeds Civic Hall.
Obviously, these don't include verbal answers the witnesses gave while they were on the stand - check out the daily blogs from the trial for some of those.
If you don't want to read through the whole thing, here are the summary facts (known, as Hansen writes, "by the UK government, by the utility
EON, by the fossil fuel industry, and by the defendants at the time of
their actions in 2007"):