A Greenpeace activist chains himself to a piece of machinery at the construction site of a coal plant in the Netherlands. (Photo: EPA)Where do you stand on civil disobedience? That hoary question may be taking on new relevance as environmental groups take illegal, but non-violent, measures to highlight what they call the climate crisis.
The latest incident occurred over the weekend in the Netherlands, where Dutch police arrested dozens of Greenpeace activists for trying to stop construction of a new coal plant by the German electricity giant E.ON in Rotterdam.
Many of the arrests at the Maasvlakte station were on trespassing charges, according to news reports. Others in the group attached themselves to equipment and buildings and had to be freed by the police, the reports said.
E.ON said in a statement earlier in the year that the new power station would meet roughly eight percent of Dutch electricity requirements and had been approved in line with national nature conservation laws there. The plant was “state of the art” and would produce almost 20 percent more electricity per ton of coal than the current power stations, the company said.
But that kind of technological progress seems to cut little ice with protesters, whose confidence has been given a boost from high-level support.
Earlier this fall, Al Gore, the former vice president and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for climate change awareness campaign, said he couldn’t “understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power stations.” And in Britain this September, a jury found that six Greenpeace campaigners had a lawful excuse to occupy a coal plant also owned by E.ON, because they were acting to safeguard property elsewhere around the world from the impacts of climate change.
Of course, setting aside questions on the virtues of coal protests — and surely coal producers, miners and others whose livelihoods depend on the comparatively cheap energy source would have a different point of view — there are alternatives to climbing fences and smokestacks.
As my colleague Kate Galbraith wrote on Friday, groups in the United States like the Sierra Club can use the country’s courts to stop new coal plants — even though reaching a clear decision can take time.
And as my colleague, Andrew Revkin, wrote a couple of months ago, there is plenty that young people can do within the law to help bring about the changes they seek — including going into business themselves. Wrote Andy: “My guess is that the next Google-style breakout success is likely to be an energy company.”
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