Leading
climate science
Dr. James Hansen [search], who heads NASA's noted Goddard
Institute for Space Studies, has called for an
immediate halt in the construction of coal-fired power stations [
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This is something
Ecological Internet has strongly supported for years, and this
political ecology represents climate science that matters. When being
is threatened, it is time for expert academics to come down from their
ivory towers and engage in sufficient ecological policy responses.
Dr Hansen is in England as a defense witness in the trial of six
Greenpeace activists charged with damaging the Kingsnorth coal power
plant in October last year. Energy giant E.on wants to build UK's
first coal-fired plant for more than 30 years, and there have been
major protest and direct action against Kingsnorth this summer.
The trial's defense strategy seeks to establish the important and
worthy precedent that
direct action climate protests are justified [ark]
to prevent 'much larger crimes' being committed against the Earth.
Shall we all sit by peacefully as creation is destroyed, or will we do
what we know is necessary to maintain being?
There is zero chance of achieving global ecological sustainability and
avoiding calamitous global ecological collapse if global plans for
new coal plants [search] move forward, and existing coal plants
are allowed to continue operating. Clean coal is an untested PR line,
with no indication it will be available, dependable and scalable any
time soon. To maintain a habitable Earth, global change scientists
will need to follow Hansen's example and move past studying the issue
to using their expertise within the policy-making environment to
achieve sufficient measures necessary to maintain an atmosphere,
biodiversity, water and oceans. Humanity simply must find a way to
shake the ecocidal coal habit or we all die.