UPDATE: Mass Coal Plant Protest Happening Now FOLLOW: @oharjo #summerheat #coalisstupid #CloseBraytonPt @350Mass @efeghali for updates.
UPDATE Brayton Point Coal Plant Protest Live Streaming HERE.
This morning, Sunday, July 28th, there is an action happening in Southeastern Massachusetts. A group of climate activists are going to shut down a coal plant and replace it with solar panels and wind generators.
Obviously the solar panels and wind generators will be mainly symbolic because you can't build a lot of large infrastructure while the police are bearing down on you. Indeed, local police have been depicted in the press as being ready to grab all the protestors and take them to "an undisclosed location." Sounds ominous. Word from the street, by the way, is that the local police and authorities have been having reasonable discussions with the protesters, so while I would expect nearly 50 arrests or so, there won't be a riot and no on is going to Guantanamo. But, an important point will be made. And you need to know the point.
This is a Summer Heat protest against, at the immediate and small scale, the operation of the Brayton Point coal plant, which is the largest fossil fuel burner in the Northeast. The protest calls "or Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and others to immediately close the Brayton Point coal plant and ensure a just transition for workers and host communities towards a healthy and sustainable future."
This is not the first protest activity at this power point. In mid may, a boat was set up to interfere with a large coal delivery. From a piece in The Nation about Ken Ward and Jay O'Hara's earlier activities:
Early on the morning of May 15 ... Ken and Jay motored up to Brayton Point in a thirty-two-foot lobster boat, which they’d acquired and rechristened the Henry David T., flying an American flag and a banner that read #coalisstupid. They were about two hours ahead of the Energy Enterprise, and Jay, skippering, positioned the lobster boat in the ship channel along the pier—right where the 689-foot freighter would have to dock and unload. Intending to stay a while, they proceeded to drop a well-fastened, 200-pound mushroom anchor off the stern of the Henry David T.
Ken called the Somerset police and said they were there to carry out a peaceful protest. Sometime before 11 am, the Energy Enterprise came into view, followed close by multiple high-speed Coast Guard boats. As the freighter bore down on Ken and Jay, the ship’s captain made radio contact, ascertained their intentions, and advised them and the Coast Guard that he had ordered “defensive measures” on deck and was prepared to “protect” his crew. Meanwhile, from somewhere above them on the pier, Ken and Jay heard the distinctive chck-chck of a rifle, chambered and ready. When the freighter finally came to a stop, its prow loomed over the lobster boat. Coast Guard personnel boarded the Henry David T. and ....
The action is going to happen in about 31 minutes as I write this. Keep an eye on the news. Let every one know this is happening/has happened.
Oh, and to the protesters carrying out this action: Thank you for your service.
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Kudos to the climate activists, and to the gov. for listening.
'Kudos to the climate activists, and to the gov. for listening.'
But beyond that it is all BS.
Turn it off immediately?? Who are they kidding? Turn it off and you will have darkness and rioting in 12hrs. Replace it with what??? It would take years to put in Solar & wind or even atomic into place. Why do you think the scientist were screaming to do something 10+year ago, and were told they were crazy. Wind farms in Mass.? Really? they tried that and the phuckin rich schites on the coast screamed bloody murder about ruining their view of the ocean!!!! Solar in MASS? Really? well if you think this will work really well then do it yourself to your own house! Ya thought not.
It is good they are talking, but all of us must get our govmint schite4brains people started on doing it right, just shutting down plants with out a proper replacement will just make things worse.
And yes I do mean schite4brains govmint!! NC for example passing legislation saying you can use current measurements and projections of sea level in reports!! Talk about stupid in deep denial.
" It would take years to put in Solar & wind or even atomic into place"
Are you thinking "atomic" (we call it nuclear) would be faster than solar/wind?
If the coal plant has any sense they will hire Blackwater personell and private militias to see that this nonsense never happens. If the coal hater fruitcakes get their way, I say raise their electric bill to $5,000 per month. Not everyone's bill. Just the troublemakers'.
I have no problem with solar panels or anything, but these wack job commies that think they can just go around shutting down coal plants and any other industry that their false god leaders have brainwashed them into believing is bad should be banished from this country.
I see the climate change deniers have found this blog.
They found it a long time ago, mac! I've just let a few of their comments through recently to remind us that they exist.
Yes atomic is nuclear, but that would take longer because people are scared spitless by RADIATION!!!!! So it would be fought tooth and nail.
It would take a long time because there is no "next generation" technology because the nuclear industry has dropped the ball. They dropped the ball by losing everyone's trust not because people are irrationally afraid of radiation (which they may well be but people also have virtually no knowledge or accurate risk assessment of anything else either, so yada yada) but because they never said a word out loud that wasn't a lie.
Commies? What century is this?
OK, Greg Laden, it had seemed like your commenters were a quiet, reasonable bunch (which was odd for the Internet CQTM).
@ afeman
yes commies. No matter what the century these former soviet type control freaks want to overule everything.
and again, yes, commies. Google Revolutionary Communist Party. You know, the main organizer of most of the trayvon martin "protests".
Kevin, what's it like to be you?
what is it like to be me?
Well ... remember that show Leave it To Beaver?
I live in that world. You know, the world when everything was still normal.
What is it like to be you?
I remember Leave It to Beaver, a benign, simplistic sitcom. But to its credit, the world view it presented didn't include trashy, right-wing tirades or down-scale, evangelical hyperventilations. It didn't troll, and it didn't pretend to be anything other than a brief, entertaining and inoffensive diversion from the real world.
Sad impoverishment of the imagination; to live in a colorless, 2-dimensional fantasy world of yore that never really was.