FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions:
Even though Eastide Climate Action was not involved in any way with the protest allegedly planned for 13th April 2009 for which 114 people were arrested in Nottingham, we have previously supported direct action to shut down coal fired power stations.
We are receiving many emails asking questions around the subject, and cannot reply to them all individually. Therefore we are aiming to address some of the main questions here in a general context:
- Isn’t it irresponsible to cut off people’s power supplies by aiming to shut down a power station?
- What about hospitals?
- Isn’t renewable energy too unreliable and insufficient to replace fossil and nuclear fuelled power plants?
- What’s wrong with coal?
- What about “clean coal” technology? Doesn’t that solve the problems associated with coal?
- Why take the law into your own hands?
- Why do you want us to give up our way of life and return to the stone age?
Q: Isn’t it irresponsible to cut off people’s power supplies by aiming to shut down a power station?
A: Eastside Climate Action has never aimed to cause power blackouts. The way the national grid is designed is specifically intended to prevent this sort of thing, as multiple redundant lines between points on the network are provided so that power can be routed from any power plant to any load centre through a variety of routes. There is enough spare capacity in the system to ensure uninterrupted supplies, even if the most powerful station in the UK suddenly drops off-line due to technical failure.
Q: What about hospitals?
A: Every hospital has it’s own backup generator, so even in the unlikely event of a shortfall on the national grid (eg. due to the failure of multiple power stations or other more serious problems), vital power supplies are maintained.
Q: Isn’t renewable energy too unreliable and insufficient to replace fossil and nuclear fuelled power plants?
A: It’s not just about replacing polluting sources of power with renewables, but also about a general need for reduction in energy use.
Almost everywhere around us, energy is being wasted. For example, offices leaving computers on all the time, shops leaving the lights on 24/7, heating being on while all the windows are open to compensate, or air conditioning being on while everybody is wrapped up to avoid being too cold.
With businesses producing 40% of the UK’s carbon emissions compared with 27% for households, a lot of power waste could be eliminated at source just by eliminating carelessness, and this would drastically reduce the amount of power we “need” to generate.
Greenpeace has a page which details how renewables could meet double the UK’s power needs.
We could also make more use of grid energy storage systems in combination with renewables to send excess electricity over the transmission grid to temporary energy storage sites that become energy producers when electricity demand is greater. There are loads of emerging technologies being developed in this field and adopted around the world.
Finally, away from large-scale power generation and national grids, microgeneration allows individuals, small businesses and communities to meet their own power needs. Microgenerators can be built cheaply by just about anybody from so-called “waste” materials, and Eastside continues to put on a number of free sessions covering this in our skill share.
George Monbiot’s book “Heat” covers reducing energy consumption, transition to renewables and a whole lot more.
Q: What’s wrong with coal?
A: Coal is the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels. Being nearly pure carbon, it releases nearly pure carbon dioxide when burned. How we produce power has the biggest impact on the climate of any sector, and coal is the worst offender. Read more on The Coal Hole website.
Q: What about “clean coal” technology? Doesn’t that solve the problems associated with coal?
A: The coal industry is touting “carbon capture and storage” (CCS) as a solution, claiming the carbon produced when coal is burned can be captured, then stored safely. However, the industry itself admits the technology to do this does not exist, and will not be ready for at least 15 years even if they can make it work. The scientific consensus is that our emissions must be falling quickly by 2015, so 15 years is too late.
Read more: Carbon Capture and Storage is a Myth and Top Ten Reasons Clean Coal is Dirty at Coal-Is-Dirty.com
Q: Why take the law into your own hands?
A: There is overwhelming scientific evidence that urgent action is required on climate change, yet the government is abjectly failing to act according to the scale of the problem.
Petitions and letters to “representatives” are ignored, while the state uses intimidation and violence to clamp down on peaceful protest. In 2003, a million people marched in London against the Iraq war, and were ignored.
When all other options are exhausted, people taking non-violent direct action to shut down a power station is a direct, appropriate and necessary response to try and keep fossil carbon out of the atmosphere. It is also a symbolic response to show the power companies that new coal is unacceptable.
Q: Why do you want us to give up our way of life and return to the stone age?
A: There is a common myth that people who care about the environment and want to create a sustainable future are all advocates of living in mud huts with zero use of technology, but nothing could be further from the truth.
We are advocates of appropriate, accessible use of technology – plenty of which is innovative, ingenious, and often very simple. Why burn coal or pollute the world in other ways, when you can produce a perpetual supply of electricity and heat for free, merely by using the enormous amounts of natural energy that are all around us?
The following quote is from Thomas A Edison in 1916, inventor of the tungsten light bulb: “You see, we should make use of the forces of nature and should obtain all our power in this way. Sunshine is a form of energy, wind and sea currents are manifestations of this energy. Do we make use of them? Oh no! We burn forests and coal, like tenants burning down our front door for heating. We live like wild settlers and not as though these resources belong to us.”
We are advocates of sharing things like cars, computers, buildings and outdoor spaces – to reduce consumption, while improving quality of life for everybody and creating new opportunities for people and communities who for too long have been denied them.
We are advocates of growing your own food, using design ideas like Permaculture and Forest Gardening to produce food as sustainably and locally as possible, without relying on oil-based fertilisers and pesticides, and using minimal labour. We could meet all our food needs on a perpetual basis, and enjoy a hugely more varied, exciting and healthy diet in this way.
We are advocates of advancing and sharing knowledge, so that the solutions to the problems we face can be tackled by anybody with a bit of determination, using minimal resources, and with their experience passed back into the community for further improvement.
We are advocates of recycling and eliminating all forms of waste, and of changing attitudes to “waste” in general so that it is seen for the valuable resource that it is. Why pollute water systems by flushing our poo down the toilet, when it can be composted and turned into a fantastic, free organic fertiliser which is used to grow food?
In order to preserve any sort of habitable environment for the future, we need to behave a lot more intelligently with our treatment of the Earth and it’s resources.
Not bringing about the necessary societal changes to avert climate disaster will be the fastest path “back to the stone age”. This is the path we are being taken down by corporations and governments, who have vested interests in maintaining power and profits, and are resistant to the vital changes which we need to make now. If nothing is done, there will be the kind of chaos we have seen with the global economy but on a much wider scale. It will be food production, transport, infrastructure – everything. We need to go back to the drawing board, and fast.
Our vision of a different future – and the means to get there – comes from the power of ordinary people working together. Instead of having masses of power in the hands of a few in government and the corporate sector, our vision undermines their control over our lives and their ability to profit from us.
It is a vision of a fairer, safer, happier world based around people and communities, and because of the way in which it respects our environment, it can be sustained forever.