UK Climate Campers taking their message to E.ON's Munich headquarters
I hope you remember this year's Climate Camp in the shadow of Kingsnorth coal plant in Kent. All the police intimidation, direct actions and ultimately the acquittal of our Kingsnorth six. The events in the past few months should have been enough for E.ON to see the level of public unease at their plans for Kingsnorth. But the giant energy utility is still insisting on building Britain's first coal-fired power station in over 30 years there. So, this time climate campers decided to take their message to E.ON on its own turf in Munich, Germany.
One of the joys of environmental activism is that you can mix and match direct action styles. This time the climate campers mixed a Heathrow style flashmob with a symbolic gesture, giving E.ON the finger on it's own front doorstep. The aim of the protest was to take the 'no new coal' message directly to the building which houses E.ON's senior management, where the company's top-level decisions are made.
Building a coal-fired power station that will wipe out several plant and animal species off the face of the planet isn't a local problem but a global one. But the lure of profit seems too much to resist, both for E.ON bosses and our own government.
Meanwhile back in the UK, protests against new coal continue to spring up around the country. New groups in Yorkshire, Telford, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and South Wales are voicing their opposition to proposals for both new coal plants and opencast mine sites in their areas.
And right now our flagship the Rainbow Warrior is in London, acting as a focus for Greenpeace's opposition to all new coal plants in the UK and promoting the message "Kick Start Clean Energy" on its side in low-energy LEDs. Soon she'll be heading down to the Kent coast to take that message directly to Kingsnorth.
You can help pile up the pressure on Gordon Brown by signing up to our Give Coal the Boot campaign. Place your own boot print and comment on our map and tell Mr Brown that we need a renewable, energy efficient future if we're going to escape the worst effects of climate change, not more dirty, polluting fossil-fuel power.
