Coal Ship Boarded By GreenPeace

[Havet]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/22/greenpeace-kingsnorth-coal-protests




Six people were arrested when climate change (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change) campaigners boarded a coal freighter and stopped it unloading its cargo at the planned site of the new Kingsnorth (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/kingsnorth) power station today.

Four protesters remain on board the ship, 10 metres up the foremast, and are in a stand-off with police on the deck of the ship.

"The coal hasn't been able to be unloaded – that's what we set out to do here," Sarah Shoraka, one of the activists in the crow's nest on the foremast said.


So these protesters use a fossil fuel powered boat, in order to stop another fossil fuel powered boat from delivering fossil fuels?

And these people are taking themselves seriously

I suppose the videocameras they bought where made using renewable energy aswell, not to mention the chemical flares, rubber speedboats, and polyurethene clothes.

Unbelievable.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

What is this supposed to achieve, exactly?

[Yazman]

Haha those guys are awesome. I'm not sure of the long-term goal though.

I am a Sea Shepherd member and we have long-term goals, not to mention all our actions in the short-term make differences.

[Havet]

What is this supposed to achieve, exactly?

if you're talking about them, then i suppose they want to slow down carbon emissions by assaulting fossil fuel transporters

if you're talking about me, then i'm merely showing how ridiculous some of their actions are, and how hypocritical they are, especially in this case.

EDIT: "don't practice what you preach" instead of hypocritical

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

if you're talking about them, then i suppose they want to slow down carbon emissions by assaulting fossil fuel transporters

But eventually that coal is going to get burned anyway, and the action does nothing to encourage alternatives. It's like those government messages to cut carbon emissions by turning off your bathroom light - it's reactive, not proactive. The only benefit is that it "sounds green" and attracts attention, except for the fact that we've heard it all before.

[Havet]

But eventually that coal is going to get burned anyway, and the action does nothing to encourage alternatives. It's like those government messages to cut carbon emissions by turning off your bathroom light - it's reactive, not proactive. The only benefit is that it "sounds green" and attracts attention, except for the fact that we've heard it all before.

yeah good point. Apparently they were just "trying to send a message".

They themselves don't encourage alternatives in their own endeavors (they used a fossil fuel powered boat)

[*Viva La Revolucion*]

I support the ideas behind Greenpeace and I admire the fact that most of them actually do something. Admittedly their actions don't always achieve anything and they don't always practice what they preach, but I still think even an empty gesture is better than no gesture at all (most of the time, anyway!)

I'm in a minority here though, aren't I?

[ComradeOm]

So hang on, this station has been operational for thirty years and its proposed replacement (which one imagines would be more efficient) is not due to come on line until 2016. It is (AFAIK) not even a construction site right now. So what exactly is the point of disrupting coal shipments?


I'm in a minority here though, aren't I?Hopefully. Action for the sake of action is completely pointless to all but fascists

[Havet]

So hang on, this station has been operational for thirty years and its proposed replacement (which one imagines would be more efficient) is not due to come on line until 2016. It is (AFAIK) not even a construction site right now. So what exactly is the point of disrupting coal shipments?

Straight from Greenpeace:


"In the short term, we are trying to keep the ship from reaching the power station – it's got enough coal to release thousands of CO2 into the atmsophere."


"In the long term, it's about stopping the dirtiest power station for 30 years being built in the UK."


"There's a growing coalition against a coal station, and we're hoping we'll get more supporters."



Apparently, they just want to "send a message"

[TC]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/22/greenpeace-kingsnorth-coal-protests

[/B]


So these protesters use a fossil fuel powered boat, in order to stop another fossil fuel powered boat from delivering fossil fuels?

And these people are taking themselves seriously

I suppose the videocameras they bought where made using renewable energy aswell, not to mention the chemical flares, rubber speedboats, and polyurethene clothes.

Unbelievable.


What its more unbelievable is that you demand a distilled, liberal bourgeois ideological purity that holds that, at least from the left, any deviation from totally abstracted, universialized political preferences (whether to use *no* energy, have no violence, have 'pure' democracy) is sufficient to negate the very real net gain that leftists, as realists, identify as progress.

I'm not an environmentalist but I'm politically mature enough to recognize that there is nothing politically inconsistent about their action. Their aim is to reduce C02 omissions and every hour that power plant is able to operate
it will omit more carbon by orders of magnitude than a tiny speed boat and probably less than a hundred pounds of petrol based plastic materials they used (which would have been manufactured *regardless* of their purchase by the way). The logic is that any drop-in-the-bucket tiny amount of 'damage' inflicted by the greenpeace operation would be of no consequence in proportion to the amount of 'damage' prevented by delaying or limiting the operation of the plant by even minutes if not hours or days given the differences in scale.

Finally and on another note I would urge armchair radicals to restrain themselves from going to absurd lengths to express outrage at the imperfections of those activists who put themselves in true harms way. When those who risk nothing demand perfection from those who do you might wonder about the hypocracy of that major failure on their parts. It seems that you just feel uncomfortable with anyone actually doing anything bold, probably because you know you wont and you don't want to have to explain it.

[ComradeOm]

I'm not an environmentalist but I'm politically mature enough to recognize that there is nothing politically inconsistent about their actionUsually Greenpeace are at least consistently less stupid. I mean, not by much but this is particularly bad (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/8115831.stm) even by their standards

(Really, who thinks that jumping in front of a large cargo vessel is going to work? Its not a fecking Mini Cooper!)


Their aim is to reduce C02 omissions and every hour that power plant is able to operate it will omit more carbon by orders of magnitude than a tiny speed boat and probably less than a hundred pounds of petrol based plastic materials they used (which would have been manufactured *regardless* of their purchase by the way). The logic is that any drop-in-the-bucket tiny amount of 'damage' inflicted by the greenpeace operation would be of no consequence in proportion to the amount of 'damage' prevented by delaying or limiting the operation of the plant by even minutes if not hours or days given the differences in scaleThe logic is deeply flawed and flounders on simple reality - namely the fact that the plant did not stop operating for a single minute. Such a facility would probably have huge stockpiles (coal not being particularly expensive to store) to buffer against any such activity, disaster, or simple upswing in demand. If the purpose of this operation was to halt activity at the site then it was poorly thought through and had zero chance of success

But I doubt that this was the intention. Do Greenpeace have a plan to blockade every coal plant in Britain? Are they secretly preparing to disable even a few coal plants in order to "reduce C02 omissions"? Of course not, this was simply a PR stunt and a chance to indulge some local 'activists' who can now go home feeling like heroes despite having accomplished nothing. Stupid

Incidentally, from a socialist point of view I'd see no reason to applaud these fools even if by some miracle they had managed to halt operations at the site. If worst came to worst (ie, assuming that other plants on the grid were unable to take up the slack) this would have simply led to blackouts for the wider population. But then misery for the working class, in the name of 'saving the planet', is the calling card of environmentalism. This is not progress


Finally and on another note I would urge armchair radicals to restrain themselves from going to absurd lengths to express outrage at the imperfections of those activists who put themselves in true harms way. When those who risk nothing demand perfection from those who do you might wonder about the hypocracy of that major failure on their parts. It seems that you just feel uncomfortable with anyone actually doing anything bold, probably because you know you wont and you don't want to have to explain it.In the first place, levelling criticism at such meaningless and trivial actions can hardly be considered "going to absurd lengths". Perhaps otherwise if a poster from this thread were to criticise Greenpeace's actions by, for example, briefly physically obstructing the postman from reaching their head office

More seriously, this is exactly the sort of sentiment that must be firmly opposed; ie the belief that 'action for the sake of action' is in anyway worthwhile or admirable. Action is not in itself virtuous unless it carried out for the right reasons. The idea that we should all sit down and shut up when someone indulges in a spot of inane "activism" is ridiculous. This is not borne out of any discomfort "with anyone doing anything bold" but a simple understanding that some forms of action, such are the one under discussion, are completely and utterly pointless. At best they are harmless distractions and at worst they can be extremely counterproductive

[Yazman]

Well, one of my main criticisms of Greenpeace is that they don't really encourage action that provides immediate results, because they are "omg non-violent!"

Yet they criticise the hell out of US (Sea Shepherd) and they refuse to even give us logistic data or the location of whalers when we're out on the ocean. Its fucking ridiculous - they actually HELP the whalers out sometimes rather than help us because we want to actually stop them and not just show a sign!

[OneNamedNameLess]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/22/greenpeace-kingsnorth-coal-protests

[/B]


So these protesters use a fossil fuel powered boat, in order to stop another fossil fuel powered boat from delivering fossil fuels?

And these people are taking themselves seriously

I suppose the videocameras they bought where made using renewable energy aswell, not to mention the chemical flares, rubber speedboats, and polyurethene clothes.

Unbelievable.




[/INDENT]

Yeah, maybe they should have swam to the fucking boat eh? Double standards.

And what about those armchair revolutionaries who oppose capitalism and discuss it's overthrow via a laptop produced by Microsoft Corporation? Idiots too don't you agree?

[Havet]

Yeah, maybe they should have swam to the fucking boat eh? Double standards.

And what about those armchair revolutionaries who oppose capitalism and discuss it's overthrow via a laptop produced by Microsoft Corporation? Idiots too don't you agree?

they should've at least used an electrical motor rather than a fossil-fuel motor

and about those revolutionaries, yes they are idiots as well. But that's not the only thing they are idiots at.


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Forum for opposing ideologies and beliefs to be discussed; only forum where right-wingers, capitalists, preachers, primitivists, and other restricted members can post. *No Fascists* nice property rights assertion. "Those who disagree can only talk here".

for the record, i have nothing with this forum restricting other ideologies to a specific place (just imagine all the threads of all things turning into debates. commies here would get tired very quickly..), but the way you do it is really interesting given your arguments..