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The Coal caravan has arrived in West Yorkshire!

Coal Caravan | 29.04.2009 16:23 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Energy Crisis | Sheffield

The coal caravan is now in West Yorkshire and has visited Fairburn Ings which is threatened with open casting and Ferrbybridge power station which will burn the coal.

The Coal Caravan reaches Ferrybridge

The Coal caravan has arrived in West Yorkshire! After a day of cycling 54 miles in the rain the caravan has set up in Pontefract.

Today activists and locals walked from Pontefract to Fairburn Ings, a site which will be devastated by open cast coal mining if HJ banks and the Ledstone Estate are given the go ahead to remove coal. On the way we passed the monstrosity which is Ferrybridge power station and were able to see exactly where the coal from the Fairburn Ings area will be burned. The coal taken from this area will only power the three local power stations for 11 days, yet it is predicted to take 50 years for the area to recover. The affects on global warming will be felt indefinitely if we don’t move away from a coal based power source, to renewable technology fast.

Last night the Caravan had an evening of discussion around the history of coal and the future of coal. The event was booked to take place at Pontefract New College, but the police leant on the college and then told the public the event had been cancelled. Thankfully we were still able to go ahead with the event in the Town Hall instead! The police have been overly present at some aspects of the caravan, but this has simply increased the public’s curiosity with our events and shown how much the police waste their time.

This evening the Caravan will show the Age of Stupid in Pontefract Library.

Tomorrow we cycle North, towards events in Durham and the North East. If you are interested in the caravan there is still time to come along. We have a full timetable over the bank holiday weekend with the local community and extra hands would be welcome. Please check out our website for details of accommodation and ring the caravan on 07729575582 to let us know you are coming.

Coal Caravan
- e-mail: caravan@climatecamp.org.uk
- Homepage: http://www.coalcaravan.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

photos & blog link

29.04.2009 18:18



for fuller size images, go to  http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22547 and click on the images.

Daily blog during journey -  http://coalcaravan.wordpress.com/

reposter
- Homepage: http://coalcaravan.wordpress.com/


times a-changing

29.04.2009 19:43

Its strange. Back in the 70s people were protesting at the closure of coal mines.
Now they are trying to start coal mining and power stations again, people are protesting that they should stay shut.

Amazing hows things change in given a few years

scott


Not the same

30.04.2009 01:13

Those who campaigned against closing the deep mines in the '80s, including the NUM were always strongly opposed to opencasting, which is half of the issue here. Most of the seams being extracted by opencasting could be drift mined in the old way. This allows the land above to remain in use for farming or whatever and does not impose dust and pollution on the local community in the same way. Opencasting is just a cheap profit-maximising way of working the shallow seams. The issues in the '80s were about the deep coal reserves.

What's new(ish) is the issue of generating power by burning coal. That's just got to stop. Apart from the CO2 and other gasses released in huge quantities, it's a waste of good coal for which there are other important uses. Yes, new coal please. A new type of coal industry, not for power generation. As for CCS, show us it really works and the sums make sense on a large scale, not some benchtop wank, and I might think again. But I don't think they can. As for carrying on trashing the atmosphere for the next 20 years, crossing fingers and whistling a merry tune while CCS pie in the sky is awaited, WE CAN'T LET THEM.

Stroppyoldgit