Kingsnorth Power Station

O Brother: The Coen Brothers target the coal industry

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In the month that James Hansen asked for a total moratorium on coal-burning, the Coen Brothers have completed their first advert for The Reality Coalition , a campaign targeting the US coal industry. The coal-based energy industry is one of world’s most significant producers of greenhouse gasses. The Coen’s mock the coal industry’s as yet unproven claims that it can produce “clean coal” power through carbon capture – the untried technology to be used at the new Kingsnorth power station planned by EON. “Clean coal,” goes the ad’s slogan cynically, “harnesses the awesome power of the word ‘clean‘.”

 

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The new Banksy?

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I’m drawn to any news item that lurks in that Venn diagram space between art and activism, but I’m totally baffled as to why John Vidal of The Guardian is calling the mystery person who broke in an dshut down the Kingsnorth Power station yesterday – apparently cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions by 2% for four hours – “the new Banksy”.  Does that make anyone with a pair of wire cutters an artist? This would, of course, open the door to the Michael Stone defence becoming widespread. Michael Stone is, as you will recall, the convicted paramilitary murderer who was arrested trying to burst into Stormont armed with a gun and pipe bombs to murder Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, but justified his act by claiming it was “performance art”. And, as several performance artists from Northern Ireland pointed out last year, such designation would not be a Good Thing.

Photo: CEOs from RSPB, WI, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, WWF,
Tearfund, Greenpeace and Ashok from the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition
get together at Kingsnorth to protest the building of a new coal power
station, Oct 6 2008. Thanks to Stop Climate Chaos Coaltion for the picture.