Monday, December 22, 2008

The "kingsnorth" defence

Sometime ago six members of Greenpeace invaded kingsnorth power station. Apparently they shut it down.
If they did so they not only incurred Eon one hell of a lot of costs, but they probably also increased UK CO2 emissions as other power stations were run beyond their efficient design point to compensate for the loss of Kingsnorth.

Of course they claim to have saved UK emissions.

This was the central plank of their defence at their trial.

They successfully defended themselves based upon the fact that they genuinely believed they were protecting property by their actions.
Of course they were not - most of the emissions from Kingsnorth (which I think only accounts for 0.03% of global emissions anyway) ends up dissolved in the sea / absorbed into plants which has no effect upon property.

The government is now planning on taking away this legal defence - and they badly need to.

We need Kingsnorth if we are to stop global warming (the Eon face off explains why).
The camp for climate change have just set asside the neccersary money to rent a property for 6 months very near the kingsnorth site - they say for direct action (interestingly they apologised to members recently when one of their lawyers described them as a peaceful organisation - they want to make it clear they are not).

If we want to stop climate change we need to keep these people out. The law must be changed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While anyone can publish pretty much anything they like on the internet, not everyone is capable of publishing the facts. Your post is fully of inaccuracies which discredit your position. It would be good to check your facts before publishing.

For example... the climate camp have not rented a property near Kingsnorth.

Mark said...

Umm, sorry but:
from climatecamp-owner@lists...:

17/12/2008
"In one article printed today, a spokesperson was quoted as saying "we are a completely peaceful movement", and the media team would like to apologise to those who find this an innapropriate use of language - the
spokesperson did not in fact say this sentence at all, but let the
P-word slip once, and thus got mis-quoted."

09/12/2008
"1. The camp should make available funds for six months worth of renting and bills to the tune of £12,200 and empower the space group to locate and rent a suitable building using whatever name/entity they see fit. (ALREADY AGREED AT BRADFORD GATHERING)"

17/11/2008
"5) Climate camp commits to organise the obstruction of all processes which contribute to the building of a new Kingsnorth power station"

So perhaps the camp hasn't yet rented a building at kingsnorth. I apologise and will ammend my blog. Rather they have ringfenced funding for a property near kingsnorth from where to base their "processes" (which I note will probably neither be legal nor peaceful) which will work against Kingsnorth.

I think this is classic green-group - claiming something when it is completely wrong.

Of course I've only worked as a PhD student at the 5th best university in the world studying this subject for two - three years now which isn't that long I suppose.