I arrest you in the name of E-on
Melanie, one of our climate campaigners, took part in an action against coal as a volunteer last weekend in Rotterdam. She writes...
Camping in November could be considered ill advised. Camping on the coast with the wind whipping in off the North Sea would, in any other circumstance, not be considered at all by any sane person. Nevertheless, that is what I spent my weekend doing. I attended a hippy camp to tell E-on that the Netherlands and the World do not want the new coal-fired power plant that they are trying to build in Maasvlakte, near Rotterdam.
We arrived on Friday, intending to set up a camp on public land for the weekend. We hoped to have some community based activities, such as painting a mural and games based on the climate message. We felt it was vital to demonstrate that this plant was neither wanted, nor necessary. Indeed, the Netherlands are set to become net exporters of electricity next year without this plant. However, after our arrival on Friday, there was widespread panic amongst other factories in the area, one of which was shut down temporarily, making for some angry factory workers who just wanted to go home on a Friday night. Once they had realised that we were not going to occupy their factory, the gates were opened, and the workers allowed to get on with their weekend.
We intended to camp there for the weekend, but the police had other ideas, and they told us that we must be off the site on Saturday morning. Luckily, we were camping right next to the proposed site, so we took the decision to occupy the site instead, and make sure that no further construction could take place. In compliance with the police’s wishes, we left the campsite at 5.30 am. I don’t think they intended us to move onto the construction site, but that is exactly what about 100 people did. Everyone busied themselves in locking themselves to the construction equipment, so that we could be sure that it would not be possible for any construction to go ahead. I went round making sure everyone could keep warm, and found them things to sit on so that they would not lose their body heat to the machinery. As the sun rose, I also took my place on the machinery, and chose to lock myself by the neck to a large digger. Al Gore has recently said that he doesn’t understand why there are not rings of young people blocking bulldozers, and I think he would have been proud of us.
It was a long day, and the wind was still quite high, but all of us there remained in really good spirits, spurred on by the need to show E-on that they cannot continue to build destructive coal fired power plants. To be cold for a day was worth it if we have helped to prevent the dangerous rise in global temperatures that will happen if we continue to burn fossil fuels, and especially coal. The police removed us eventually, and I think that the last of us was removed at about 4.00 pm. The thing that made me laugh though was the fact that it was not initially the police that cautioned me as to what would happen if I did not volunteer to unlock myself, it was actually E-on staff that read me my rights – 4 times. In the UK, the police are often thought to say “I arrest you in the name of the law”, but in this case, I was arrested in the name of E-on!
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