Around midnight three of my colleagues eased themselves off one of the Greenpeace inflatable speedboats, and into the cold water of the river Medway in Kent.
It’s difficult to imagine what must be going through your mind in that situation – in the dark, the cold water, and the looming lights of a coal ship getting closer. But however difficult to imagine it is, it must have been even more difficult to do, because they knew that they were swimming out into the channel to block a coal shipment from docking at the Kingsnorth jetty.
As they made their swim – on one of the shortest nights of the year – more volunteers pulled alongside in speedboats, clambered up the steep metal sides, crossed the deck, and climbed up the mast and funnel, which carries the E.on logo. E.on is the German energy company which operates the power station at Kingsnorth, and wants to build another coal-fired power station on the site.
Despite recent government assurances that any new coal fired power stations will capture the carbon they release into the atmosphere, the devil in the detail means that a new plant at Kingsnorth would still pump three quarters of its carbon into the atmosphere – six million tonnes of CO2 a year, a phenomenal amount.
You don’t need to board a ship to help save the climate. There is still time to stop a new generation of dirty coal-fired power plants, but only if we show the government that there are thousands of people across the country who are willing to take a stand against dirty coal to save the climate.
Please make a pledge to Ed Miliband, the minister in charge of climate and energy, that you will take personal action if the government goes ahead with a new coal plant at Kingsnorth.