HAVANA TIMES – Hundreds of activists entered and occupied an open-pit coal mine in the western Rhineland region of Germany Saturday to protest Europe’s dependency on fossil fuels amid the mounting climate crisis. The protest ended on Sunday after police repeatedly ordered them to leave, citing life-threatening danger. Some of the protesters were pulled out by authorities.
The group was part of a larger gathering of an estimated 6,000 people who held several actions as part of the protest effort. Another group camped out on rail tracks leading to a coal-fired power station, blocking trains from entering or leaving the area. This is Kathrin Henneberger, a member of the environmental justice group Ende Gelände, which coordinated the actions.
Kathrin Henneberger: “More than 6,000 climate activists from across Europe were here in the Rhineland this weekend. We shut down the entire Rhineland region’s lignite production. … We are fighting for the immediate stop of coal production, but we have to do a lot more. We demand a different economic system, one that is socially fair and respects our planet’s limits.”
2 thoughts on “Thousands of Climate Activists Block German Coal Mining Operation”
The UK can thank Margaret Thatcher a Conservative Prime Minister for virtually ending coal mining as a major industry in the UK – with the miners union led by Arthur Scargill on strike for over a year and resorting to violence.
The massive lignite open cast mining just west of Cologne (Koln) provided electricity which fueled the industries of the Ruhr (Essen, Dortmund, Bochum, Iserlohn, Wuppertal et al) for decades. The scale was such that when land was taken from farmers to enable expansion of the mine, they were re-established on the level of the base of the mine with the soil being liquified and pumped down to form new farmland.
The Stone Age did not end when we ran out of Stones.
On 3 January 2018 I wrote to President Jean-Claude Juncker of The European Union pointing out that we could slash CO2 emissions with the passive control of buildings using something like Starlite, and reiterating my near-zero CO2 plan in brief. Nearly a year later we have the headline: “European Union legislators reached agreement in the early hours of Wednesday (19 December 2018) over a proposed reform of electricity market rules that includes a 2025 cut-off date for coal subsidies, and a special clause for Poland.” The headline could have been: “What climate crisis?”
The UK Conservative Government spends £10.5bn of our money on subsiding fossil fuels, meanwhile cuts to subsidies for homeowners to install solar panels and a “hostile planning approach” that has in effect banned new wind turbines are behind the “wholesale decline”, Community Energy England (CEE) said in its 2018 State of the Sector report.
In recent weeks I have had to write to the local council at Dewley Hill, UK, who have just agreed to start a coal mine when we have only 12 years to leave it in the ground saying: “We have a government declaration of climate crisis, and there is no room for coal in the answer.”
How much would you have to pay to push the Earth over the target of 1.5 degrees C? Knowing politicians £50 and a prostitute.
‘The Guardian’ reports: Environmental activist Greta Thunberg said in April the UK’s “active, current support of new exploitation of fossil fuels” was “absurd”. The audit committee report found that UK Export Finance (UKEF), which provides lines of credit and insurance to help companies win business overseas, spent £2.6bn in recent years to support the UK’s global energy exports, of which £2.5bn was handed to fossil fuel projects. Only 4% of its funding, or £104m, was used to support renewable energy projects.
Earlier this year, former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon called on the UK to stop funding fossil fuel projects in the developing world.
The UK can thank Margaret Thatcher a Conservative Prime Minister for virtually ending coal mining as a major industry in the UK – with the miners union led by Arthur Scargill on strike for over a year and resorting to violence.
The massive lignite open cast mining just west of Cologne (Koln) provided electricity which fueled the industries of the Ruhr (Essen, Dortmund, Bochum, Iserlohn, Wuppertal et al) for decades. The scale was such that when land was taken from farmers to enable expansion of the mine, they were re-established on the level of the base of the mine with the soil being liquified and pumped down to form new farmland.
The Stone Age did not end when we ran out of Stones.
On 3 January 2018 I wrote to President Jean-Claude Juncker of The European Union pointing out that we could slash CO2 emissions with the passive control of buildings using something like Starlite, and reiterating my near-zero CO2 plan in brief. Nearly a year later we have the headline: “European Union legislators reached agreement in the early hours of Wednesday (19 December 2018) over a proposed reform of electricity market rules that includes a 2025 cut-off date for coal subsidies, and a special clause for Poland.” The headline could have been: “What climate crisis?”
The UK Conservative Government spends £10.5bn of our money on subsiding fossil fuels, meanwhile cuts to subsidies for homeowners to install solar panels and a “hostile planning approach” that has in effect banned new wind turbines are behind the “wholesale decline”, Community Energy England (CEE) said in its 2018 State of the Sector report.
In recent weeks I have had to write to the local council at Dewley Hill, UK, who have just agreed to start a coal mine when we have only 12 years to leave it in the ground saying: “We have a government declaration of climate crisis, and there is no room for coal in the answer.”
How much would you have to pay to push the Earth over the target of 1.5 degrees C? Knowing politicians £50 and a prostitute.
‘The Guardian’ reports: Environmental activist Greta Thunberg said in April the UK’s “active, current support of new exploitation of fossil fuels” was “absurd”. The audit committee report found that UK Export Finance (UKEF), which provides lines of credit and insurance to help companies win business overseas, spent £2.6bn in recent years to support the UK’s global energy exports, of which £2.5bn was handed to fossil fuel projects. Only 4% of its funding, or £104m, was used to support renewable energy projects.
Earlier this year, former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon called on the UK to stop funding fossil fuel projects in the developing world.