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Ffos-y-Fran from the air

RESIDENTS AGAINST FFOS-Y-FRAN (RAFF)

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George Monbiot Report Links Page

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Links to the Guardian - George Monbiot articles on Ffos-y-Fran:

Take the time to look at these very well written articles. Very interesting indeed!

e.g. "I am sitting on top of an excavator the size of a house, dressed as a polar bear. In a world that's gone mad this is the only sane thing left to do..."

Guardian - 18th March 2008 - George Monbiot - Carbon capture is turning out to be just another great green scam

Guardian - 9th October 2007 - George Monbiot - The new coal age

Guardian - 5th December 2007 - George Monbiot - Activists stop Welsh coalmine excavation

Guardian - 11th December 2007 - George Monbiot - The real answer to climate change is to leave fossil fuels in the ground

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Guardian - 5th December 2007 - Alison Benjamint - Bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Guardian - Tuesday March 18 2008 - George Monbiot - Carbon capture is turning out to be just another great green scam

George Monbiot - Dec 11th 2007 - Rigged

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...just a taster for those who haven't the time to link out at the moment...

I am sitting on top of an excavator the size of a house, dressed as a polar bear. In a world that's gone mad this is the only sane thing left to do. The excavator is one of two Komatsu 3000s supplying a chain of monster dump trucks removing spoil and coal from what will be the biggest open cast mine in Britain. This is the Ffos-Y-Fran mine on the outskirts of Merthyr Tydfil. It is remarkable in two respects. The first is that the hole, 200 metres deep, will come within 36 metres of the nearest homes. As far I can discover this is unprecedented in Britain in recent times. It has been made possible only because of 10 years of delay in producing the planning guidance for coal-workings in Wales. Local people suspect that it has been deliberately delayed in order to allow schemes like this to be approved. The second respect is that while our government negotiates with others in Bali about stopping runaway climate change, the developers here intend to extract 11m tonnes of coal. When that coal is burnt it will produce 30m tonnes of carbon dioxide. According to the latest science as explained in my last column that equates to the sustainable emissions of nearly 60 million people for one year. We came here at the invitation of the people of Merthyr Tydfil, who have been fighting this scheme for years without success. The town already has some of the worst health statistics in the United Kingdom and people hear fear that the dust and smoke and noise from the mining will exacerbate some of the chronic diseases from which they suffer. They have been ignored by almost everyone and feel betrayed by a Labour party that appears to put the demands of big business above the human rights of one of the poorest communities in Britain. The weather is filthy. We have been blasted by rain and gale force winds for most of the day. We feel that this is the least we can do to try to stop a project which threatens to undermine everything the government claims to be doing to prevent climate change. We will be coming down from the excavators in a couple of hours, filthy, bedraggled but very glad in view of the extreme weather that we have spent the day in polar bear costumes. For the first time in my life I've understood the benefits of fur (fake, of course).

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...or perhaps try this...

The climate talks are a stitch-up, as no one is talking about supply. By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 11th December 2007 Ladies and gentlemen, I have the answer! Incredible as it might seem, I have stumbled across the single technology which will save us from runaway climate change! From the goodness of my heart I offer it to you for free. No patents, no small print, no hidden clauses. Already this technology, a radical new kind of carbon capture and storage, is causing a stir among scientists. It is cheap, it is efficient and it can be deployed straight away. It is called … leaving fossil fuels in the ground. On a filthy day last week, as governments gathered in Bali to prevaricate about climate change, a group of us tried to put this policy into effect. We swarmed into the opencast coal mine being dug at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales and occupied the excavators, shutting down the works for the day. We were motivated by a fact which the wise heads in Bali have somehow missed: if fossil fuels are extracted, they will be used.

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