No New Coal Rally and March: On Sunday third August I took a practice to Rochester in Kent to {photograph} a rally within the city of Rochester from which individuals had been marching to the Local weather Camp was at Kingsnorth on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent the place E.ON had been intending to construct the nation’s first new coal-fired energy station in 30 years.
I wasn’t capable of attend the Local weather Camp itself as I used to be leaving for Glasgow early the next morning so I left the marchers on their solution to the positioning, seven miles away.
There was a big police presence on the rally and for the march, and later at Kingsnorth numerous protesters had been arrested, with others assaulted by police who carried out a repressive motion in opposition to the campers.
Press who had gone to cowl the occasion had been stopped and searchers, some a number of occasions and had been subjected to each apparent and secret filming, in addition to being pushed and shoved by police who demanded pointless private info. Months later Kent Police admitted they’d been flawed to movie journalists, however claimed it was onerous to inform them from the protesters – even though all of them wore or confirmed the police-recognised UK Press Playing cards.
E.ON’s proposals to construct a brand new and extremely polluting energy station at Kingsnorth had gone largely unnoticed within the media till the Local weather Camp introduced the problem to nationwide consideration. The over-reaction by the police helped to lift its profile, as did the path of the Kingsnorth Six, activists arrested for inflicting an alleged £30,000 injury to one of many chimneys of the present coal-fired in October 2007 and charged with felony injury.
The activists claimed they’d “lawful excuse” for his or her actions in that they carried it out to assist forestall the a lot higher injury {that a} new coal-fired energy station would trigger by accelerating local weather change.
Their trial heard evident from 5 defence witnesses, one among them Professor James Hansen, a former local weather change adviser to the US White Home, who said that the social price of emitting a tonne of CO2 was round £50. He estimated {that a} new coal-fired energy station would trigger round £1 million value of harm per day it ran.
In fact the activists had not truly broken the chimney considerably, however had merely painted the phrase ‘Gordon‘ on it, however they had been acquitted in September 2008 as a result of the jury discovered the injury they did to the smokestack was outweighed by the hurt finished to the planet by emissions from the facility station.
E.ON was pressured to desert its plans largely due to the substantial public protests and criticism a lot of it arising from the publicity given to the Local weather Camp and the trial.
The UK institution had been appalled by the decision, and we’ve got not too long ago seen a part of their response to this within the current trial of Simply Cease Oil activists who had been judged to have dedicated contempt of court docket for making an attempt to introduce comparable points of their defence after which given draconian sentences for his or her peaceable protest. The regulation is supposed to guard the pursuits of the wealthy and highly effective not the planet.
You’ll be able to learn extra concerning the rally in Rochester and the march in direction of Kingsnorth on My London Diary. One Local weather Camp Caravan had began from Heathrow per week in the past and one other, the Cease Incineration Local weather Camp Caravan had been travelling from Brighton, each demonstrating at varied associated websites alongside their routes they usually met on Sunday morning in the course of Rochester for a ‘No New Coal’ Rally attended by round 300 folks.
After the rally the protesters set off to march to Kingsnorth and I went with them throughout the Medway and up the lengthy hill in Strood earlier than leaving them and returning to Strood station.
Extra at No New Coal Rally and March.
Flickr – Fb – My London Diary – Hull Images – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Images
All images on this web page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to purchase prints or licence to breed.
Tags: 2008, acquitall, August 2008, Local weather Camp, Local weather Camp Caravan, coal-fired, draconian sentences, E.On, Simply Cease Oil, Kent, Kingsnorth, Kingsnorth Six, lawful excuse, M25, march, Medway, new coal-fired energy station, No New Coal, peter Marshall, police, energy station, protest, Rochester, Strood, trial
You’ll be able to go away a response, or trackback from your individual website.
