Fossil fool's day frolics

Posted by jossc — 31 March 2008 at 5:06pm - Comments

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.

What are you doing for Fossil Fool's Day? 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.

Next up is a protest in Parliament Square - where from 11am WDM will be building a coal-fired power staiton, complete with 12ft cooling towers, while people dressed in jesters hats and Gordon Brown masks will 'burn' a mock Climate Change Bill. Lobbying starts at 2pm.

It's necessary because, despite introducing the Climate Change Bill, the government is still considering whether to build a new coal power station in Kingsnorth. If this plant is allowed to be built, seven more will follow and we can wave goodbye to any hope that the UK will be a world leader on climate change.

WDM's asking as many people as possible join them for the action and even better to make a meeting with your MP for that day. You can ask for a meeting with your MP through the Parliamentary Switchboard on 020 7219 3000 or find them here.

Bit confused as to why you've got so much faith in nuclear coming to the rescue. Nuclear currently supplies just under 20% of our electricity requirements (that's just 4% of our total energy needs at present), and by 2020 or so just one nuclear plant will remain in operation (Sizewell B in Suffolk). Even if we embarked on nuclear replacements for those plants that are shutting down over the next few years, they would only be contributing a small percentage of our power use. And to consider returning to coal economy (without any practical carbon capture capabilities) which was a root cause of the problem in the first place beggars belief - the phrase "when you're in a hole, stop digging". You can find out more about why we think nuclear is not the answer here.

Our best option at this point is to conserve energy (we are still incredibly profligate with both heat and electricity), use the energy we do use far more efficiently (using combined heat and power plants that are 85% efficient, unlike centralised power staitons which have only a 35% operating efficiency level), and generate as much power as possible from renewable sources - wind, solar, tidal and wave.

Bit confused as to why you've got so much faith in nuclear coming to the rescue. Nuclear currently supplies just under 20% of our electricity requirements (that's just 4% of our total energy needs at present), and by 2020 or so just one nuclear plant will remain in operation (Sizewell B in Suffolk). Even if we embarked on nuclear replacements for those plants that are shutting down over the next few years, they would only be contributing a small percentage of our power use. And to consider returning to coal economy (without any practical carbon capture capabilities) which was a root cause of the problem in the first place beggars belief - the phrase "when you're in a hole, stop digging". You can find out more about why we think nuclear is not the answer here. Our best option at this point is to conserve energy (we are still incredibly profligate with both heat and electricity), use the energy we do use far more efficiently (using combined heat and power plants that are 85% efficient, unlike centralised power staitons which have only a 35% operating efficiency level), and generate as much power as possible from renewable sources - wind, solar, tidal and wave.

About Joss

Bass player and backing vox in the four piece beat combo that is the UK Greenpeace Web Experience. In my 6 years here I've worked on almost every campaign and been fascinated by them all to varying degrees. Just now I'm working on Peace and Oceans - which means getting rid of our Trident nuclear weapons system and creating large marine reserves so that marine life can get some protection from overfishing.

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