direct actions

The video of yesterday's protest at Heathrow:

A few pictures from today's plane-top protest at Heathrow:

Hanging the banner on the tailfin
© Greenpeace

Climate emergency - no third runway

As the banner on top of this London - Manchester flight says, we're in the middle of a climate emergency. The fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK is just about to get another boost from Brown's government. On Wednesday, the consultation on whether to nearly double the size of Heathrow by building a new runway will close, and the government looks set to cave in to the aviation industry.

This morning, four of our volunteers have climbed on top of a plane at Heathrow and are wrapping a banner around the tailfin. The plane - one of 32 flights every day between London and Manchester - had just arrived in Heathrow and the passengers had disembarked when four volunteers walked through the double doors at Heathrow Terminal One, crossing an area of tarmac and climbing onto the fuselage of the British Airways flight.

Climate campaigner talks to the coal conference organiser

Update: Now with video.

Well, it's all been going on at our barricade of the government / coal industry shindig. This morning, an interested - and vaguely familiar looking - passer-by stopped to have a chinwag with with the volunteers chained to the barricades. After a 10 minute chat about climate change, coal, and climate change's impacts on disease migration, the passer-by wished everyone luck and wandered off.

Nobel peace prize winner Al Gore would be proud. A few months ago, he said "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power stations." The people of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales have taken him at his word (albeit one step further back in the supply chain) to shut down work on Britain's biggest ever open-cast coal mine.

View from the Rainbow Warrior of the MT Westama, laiden with 30,000 tonnes of palm oil © Greenpeace/Christian Aslund

Events in Indonesia have stepped up apace, and the Rainbow Warrior is currently blockading a tanker in the port of Dumai in Sumatra. The tanker, the MT Westama, is carrying 30,000 tonnes of palm oil and the Warrior is positioned so that tugs can't reach the tanker to assist it out of the port.

Exporting the palm oil is a company called Permata Hijau Sawit - their suppliers are known to be involved in the destruction of rainforests and peatlands in Riau province, temporary home of our Forest Defenders Camp.

I'll post back when I know how it turns out, but in the meantime read the full story on our international site.

Update: After two days, the blockade finally came to an end on Saturday.

This morning, we celebrated the opening of the international terminal at St Pancras - and reminded Gordon Brown that there's no need for that third runway at Heathrow.

Here's the video:

Yesterday, the World Energy Congress opened in Rome. Among the attendees was Italy's prime minister, and one of the main sponsors was ENEL, Italy's biggest energy company whose main shareholder is the government.

The World Energy Congress has a plan that lets global warming emissions keep increasing until 2030, and proposes an expansion of nuclear power. ENEL for its part plans to get around the inconvenient fact that nuclear power was voted out of Italy in a referendum 20 years ago by building a new reactor in nearby Slovakia instead of in Italy.

See all Kingsnorth updates.

Phew, what a couple of days - there are lots of exhausted (not to mention dust covered) faces in the office today.

On Monday morning, we took over Kingsnorth coal fired power plant to say no to a new coal rush in the UK, and yes to a sane, clean energy future. That evening, E.ON served an injunction and the people locked onto the conveyor belt were arrested and taken into custody. Meanwhile, the climbers on the chimney began painting a message to Gordon, going strong until the light failed them.