By Thursday evening, airport operator Fraport said 270 flights had been canceled out of 1,400 scheduled for the day, German news agency dpa reported.
Police said seven people damaged the perimeter fence and entered the airport premises at 5 a.m., then attached themselves to the tarmac in various places. An eighth person attached themself to the fence. All were detained.
%20(1)%20(3).jpg "Climate Change Map USA")
Previously:
Tree Sitters Protest Tesla & Lignite Coal Mine in Germany - LATEST: Activists Thwart Tesla’s German Gigafactory Expansion Plans With Tree Houses
Last week, in a non-binding vote, residents of a town near Tesla’s sole European assembly plant in Germany overwhelmingly rejected the company’s proposed expansion plans. Now, environmental activists are setting up camps high in the pine trees surrounding that same plant in Germany. Their goal is to thwart the American automaker’s efforts to complete the 420-acre expansion intended to boost production.
The activists started arriving in the forest near Berlin on Wednesday night, and have set up temporary structures high up in the forest’s trees. By doing so, they hope to prevent the automaker’s crews from cutting the trees down, while making it harder for authorities to expel them from the area.
[April 4th 2024]
Climate activists from Ende Gelände have been blockading the Scholven coal-fired power plant in Gelsenkirchen
Climate activists from Ende Gelände have been blockading the Scholven coal-fired power plant in Gelsenkirchen since around 6 a.m. this morning. A group of almost 30 people are on the power plant site. They are blocking the access road with a tripod and thus obstructing operations. Around 70 other activists are on the tracks in front of the power plant so that no more coal can be delivered. The tracks were painted blood red. In addition, a large banner was lowered from a bridge during a climbing action and attached there. The tracks are also blocked here. Ende Gelände is fighting for an immediate coal phase-out.
Jule Fink, spokesperson for Ende Gelände, comments:
“For decades, German coal companies have been making fat profits by destroying our living conditions. The Scholven power plant in Gelsenkirchen produces around 20,000 tons of CO2 every day. The operator Uniper is thus making a significant contribution to heating up the planet to such an extreme that entire regions are devastated by floods, droughts or fires and become uninhabitable. Hundreds of thousands of people are already dying or having to leave their homes as a result of the climate crisis. We are stopping CO2 emissions from the dirty Scholven coal-fired power plant today and taking the coal phase-out into our own hands.”
“For decades, German coal companies have been making fat profits by destroying our living conditions. The Scholven power plant in Gelsenkirchen produces around 20,000 tons of CO2 every day. The operator Uniper is thus making a significant contribution to heating up the planet to such an extreme that entire regions are devastated by floods, droughts or fires and become uninhabitable. Hundreds of thousands of people are already dying or having to leave their homes as a result of the climate crisis. We are stopping CO2 emissions from the dirty Scholven coal-fired power plant today and taking the coal phase-out into our own hands.”
Earlier News:
German finance minister rejects 2030 coal exit without affordable and secure alternatives...
Germany's finance minister Christian Lindner has rejected a coal phase out by 2030 if the country lacks affordable energy, newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reported. "As long as it is not clear that energy will be available and affordable, we should end the dreams of phasing out coal power in 2030," the leader of the pro-business Free Democrats told the newspaper in an interview.
Germany approves bringing Lignite coal-fired power plants back online this winter. Updated 10/4/2023
BERLIN, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Germany's cabinet on Wednesday approved putting on-reserve lignite-fired power plants back online from October until the end of March 2024, the economy ministry said, as a step to replace scarce natural gas this winter and avoid shortages.
In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a sudden drop in Russian gas imports to Germany, Berlin reactivated coal-fired power plants and extended their lifespans, with a total output of 1.9 gigawatt hours generated last winter.
In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a sudden drop in Russian gas imports to Germany, Berlin reactivated coal-fired power plants and extended their lifespans, with a total output of 1.9 gigawatt hours generated last winter.
German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia. Updated: 8/29/2023
Headline: Germany begins dismantling wind farm for coal...
Greta Thunberg Forcibly Removed From Anti-Coal Protest in Lützerath by German Cops. (Update 8/6/2023)
Greta Thunberg:
Today The Climate Book is finally released in many parts of the world!https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/709837/the-climate-book-by-greta-thunberg/I want to use my platform to share the reality of the climate crisis – to communicate a holistic picture of how the world is changing and what we need to do about it. That is why I created this book.With over 100 incredible contributors – experts, activists and authors – it highlights many of the different faces of the crises we face, and aims to connect the dots between them.I want to send a massive thank you to all the contributors for your invaluable expertise and stories, as well as to everyone who made this possible! And a special thanks to my fantastic editors Chloe Currens and Cristopher Richards.
Today The Climate Book is finally released in many parts of the world!
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/709837/the-climate-book-by-greta-thunberg/
I want to use my platform to share the reality of the climate crisis – to communicate a holistic picture of how the world is changing and what we need to do about it. That is why I created this book.
With over 100 incredible contributors – experts, activists and authors – it highlights many of the different faces of the crises we face, and aims to connect the dots between them.
I want to send a massive thank you to all the contributors for your invaluable expertise and stories, as well as to everyone who made this possible! And a special thanks to my fantastic editors Chloe Currens and Cristopher Richards.
Lützerath: German police oust climate activists after clashes near coal mine.
German police say they have removed almost all climate activists from a German village that will be destroyed to allow the expansion of a coal mine.
Hundreds of officers cleared around 300 activists from Lützerath in an operation that began on Wednesday.
Police say they removed activists waiting in treehouses, a day after clashes broke out between both sides.
Hundreds of officers cleared around 300 activists from Lützerath in an operation that began on Wednesday.
Police say they removed activists waiting in treehouses, a day after clashes broke out between both sides.
Greta Thunberg, the 20-year-old Swedish climate activist, joined thousands of demonstrators in Germany on Saturday, marching through mud and rain to protest the razing of a village to expand a coal mine. Before being physically escorted away by riot police after failing to comply with an order to leave the site at Luetzerath, the tiny hamlet that activists have been occupying for more than two years, Thunberg addressed the crowd. “The carbon is still in the ground. We are still here. Luetzerath is still there,” she said. “And as long as the carbon is in the ground, this struggle is not over.” A total of nine activists were hospitalized after officers reportedly used water cannons and batons in a bid to evict and disperse the protesters, according to German news agencies. The protest camp was erected as a challenge to the planned expansion of a nearby Garzweiler opencast lignite mine, a compromise made by the German government and energy giant RWE. Authorities have called the plan vital to Germany’s energy security, but researchers have suggested a number of alternatives, including the use of other coal fields—at greater cost to RWE—or the increase of renewable power production.
Amid an energy crisis, Germany returns to COAL, the world's dirtiest fossil fuel... to Replace Russian Gas...
Climate activists are fuming as Germany turns to coal to replace Russian gas...
 |
| Bucket Excavator at a Lignite Coal Mine |
RWE readying three brown coal plants for restart from early October.
DORTMUND, Germany — Power Plant Manager Bernard Vendt stands on a platform jutting out from a smokestack, 20 stories above his company's chemical park. Past the park's menagerie of twisting pipes, scaffolding and chimneys below him is a waterway that connects these factories to their energy source.
"Over there, that's our harbor," Vendt says, pointing with one hand while the other keeps his hard hat steady in the gusting wind. "You see the yellow crane moving there? That's where the coal has landed by ship."
The coal's destination lies underneath Vendt in a massive furnace whose heat will spin turbines and generate enough energy to keep this chemical park running through the winter, maintaining more than 10,000 jobs.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. This coal-fired power plant is one of several nationwide that were scheduled to be shut down by the end of the year, to maintain Germany's commitment to phasing out coal by the end of this decade. But with Russia cutting natural gas deliveries to Europe, and with no quick options to replace that energy, Germany is warily turning to its most reliable — and environmentally polluting — fossil fuel. At least 20 coal-fired power plants nationwide are being resurrected or extended past their closing dates to ensure Germany has enough energy to get through the winter.
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1124448463/germany-coal-energy-crisis
~~~~~~ (Update 4/23/2022) ~~~~~~
In the Village of Lützerath - The village has long been doomed to disappear to allow the gigantic Garzweiler open-pit lignite mine to expand further.
Headline: Thousands protest plan to raze German village for coal mine.
Thousands of people are protesting against plans to bulldoze a village in western Germany for a coal mine that environmental activists say should be shut down, not expanded... ByThe Associated Press - April 23, 2022
Latest News: https://news.google.com/search?q=coal%20mine%20protests%20Germany&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
Germany: Climate activists protest against coal mine expansion...
As the energy debate rages on in Germany, thousands of demonstrators gathered in the northwestern village of Lützerath to protest against the expansion of a coal mine.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-climate-activists-protest-against-coal-mine-expansion/a-61570306
Thousands of demonstrators gathered on Saturday in the northwest German village of Lützerath to protest against the planned expansion of a nearby coal mine.
The village has long been doomed to disappear to allow the gigantic Garzweiler open-pit lignite mine to expand further.
The protest was organized by environmental organizations such as BUND, Greenpeace and Fridays for Future, as well as by local groups. Organizers said around 3,500 people demonstrated peacefully at Lützerath.
About a hundred activists decided to protest directly at the edge of the mine, which regional police said can be "extremely dangerous."
As the energy debate rages on in Germany, thousands of demonstrators gathered in the northwestern village of Lützerath to protest against the expansion of a coal mine.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-climate-activists-protest-against-coal-mine-expansion/a-61570306
Thousands of demonstrators gathered on Saturday in the northwest German village of Lützerath to protest against the planned expansion of a nearby coal mine.
The village has long been doomed to disappear to allow the gigantic Garzweiler open-pit lignite mine to expand further.
The protest was organized by environmental organizations such as BUND, Greenpeace and Fridays for Future, as well as by local groups. Organizers said around 3,500 people demonstrated peacefully at Lützerath.
About a hundred activists decided to protest directly at the edge of the mine, which regional police said can be "extremely dangerous."
Energy debate in Germany
Germany is planning to abandon coal by 2030 as part of the transition away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner energy sources.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, however, the energy debate has intensified in the country, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies, especially gas.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/germany-to-demolish-village-for-coal-despite-phaseout-plans/
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Protest at Hambach Forest [Updated 11/8/2021] - Activism Continues at the Garzweiler open cast mine.
The coal war: the battle to close Germany's lignite mines... https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/22/the-coal-war-the-battle-to-close-germany-s-lignite-mines
Germany is planning to abandon coal by 2030 as part of the transition away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner energy sources.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, however, the energy debate has intensified in the country, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies, especially gas.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/germany-to-demolish-village-for-coal-despite-phaseout-plans/
From blockages to weekly protests, environmental campaigners in Germany are angry at the continued extraction of coal. Euronews' Hans von der Brelie heads to one of the world’s largest opencast pits, Garzweiler II, to witness for himself the battle to close the country's lignite mines.
I arrive at sunrise, overwhelmed by the beauty of the industrial landscape, which stretches as far as the eye can see. An abstract pattern of earth and lignite layers bathed in the early morning light.
But it’s a deadly beauty: if all those hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal actually do get excavated and burnt, Germany can say goodbye to its climate targets. In recent years the country has started waking up to what climate catastrophe might actually look like: blisteringly hot summers and apocalyptic rainfall that has the ability to sweep both towns and lives away.
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
German climate activists call for faster exit from coal production... https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/10/22/german-climate-activists-call-for-faster-exit-from-coal-productionAhead of the international climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow, German climate activists have been pressuring Berlin to exit coal earlier than scheduled.
At the Garzweiler opencast lignite pit, they took things a step further, blocking the movement of giant bucketwheel excavators.
Also at a nearby forest, they built tree houses to try to stop the expansion of the pit.
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Germany portrays itself as a climate leader. But it’s still razing villages for coal mines... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/23/germany-coal-climate-cop26/ LÜTZERATH, Germany — The yawning black-brown scar in the earth that is Germany’s Garzweiler coal mine has already swallowed more than a dozen villages.Centuries-old churches and family homes have been razed and the land they were built on torn away. Farmland has disappeared, graveyards have been emptied.
“All destroyed for coal,” said Eckhardt Heukamp, surveying the vast pit that drops away from the edge of his fields, 20 miles west of Cologne.
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
I arrive at sunrise, overwhelmed by the beauty of the industrial landscape, which stretches as far as the eye can see. An abstract pattern of earth and lignite layers bathed in the early morning light.
But it’s a deadly beauty: if all those hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal actually do get excavated and burnt, Germany can say goodbye to its climate targets. In recent years the country has started waking up to what climate catastrophe might actually look like: blisteringly hot summers and apocalyptic rainfall that has the ability to sweep both towns and lives away.
Ahead of the international climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow, German climate activists have been pressuring Berlin to exit coal earlier than scheduled.
At the Garzweiler opencast lignite pit, they took things a step further, blocking the movement of giant bucketwheel excavators.
Also at a nearby forest, they built tree houses to try to stop the expansion of the pit.
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Germany portrays itself as a climate leader. But it’s still razing villages for coal mines... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/23/germany-coal-climate-cop26/
LÜTZERATH, Germany — The yawning black-brown scar in the earth that is Germany’s Garzweiler coal mine has already swallowed more than a dozen villages.Centuries-old churches and family homes have been razed and the land they were built on torn away. Farmland has disappeared, graveyards have been emptied.
“All destroyed for coal,” said Eckhardt Heukamp, surveying the vast pit that drops away from the edge of his fields, 20 miles west of Cologne.
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Hambach Forest: Police again tackle anti-coal activists' eight-year blockade... 23.06.2020 - The wood in western Germany where activists set up tree houses and barricades in 2012 has become a symbol of the environmental movement. Police have launched a fresh attempt to clear forest roads, citing safety concerns. Police descended on the Hambach Forest in western Germany on Tuesday in a fresh effort to clear barricades set up by environmental activists to prevent the development of an open-pit coal mine.
Activists have been living in tree houses in the forest since 2012, where they also set up structures to block forest roads. With some of the structures up to 15 meters high and blocking entire roads, police said they need to be cleared under law to allow emergency vehicles access.
https://www.dw.com/en/hambach-forest-police-again-tackle-anti-coal-activists-eight-year-blockade/a-53904915
(10 Aug 2019) Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Saturday visited an ancient forest in western Germany that's at risk of being destroyed for a nearby mine.
Hambach Forest sits next to a massive open-cast lignite pit operated by utility giant, RWE.
An expert proposal to end the use of coal in Germany by 2038, approved by the government, was meant to save the forest, but activists say RWE is endangering what's left of the woods by pumping out precious groundwater.
Thunberg on Saturday visited the pit and then went on into the forest, where she met with environmentalist protesters working to save it.
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Anti Coal Activism Continues Opposing the Garzweiler open cast mine. It's where Germany digs up lignite...
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
This hole is better known as the Garzweiler open cast mine. It's where Germany digs up lignite, a particularly grubby and polluting form of coal.
And at a time when the world is working out how to get rid of fossil fuels, Germany – the richest country in Europe – is demolishing villages to allow the Garzweiler mine to get bigger.
Most of the homes are empty, having been bought by RWE from residents who didn’t fancy a protracted fight to save their village from destruction.
But as residents have moved out, protesters have come the other way, imbued with a determination to stop the demolition. Or, at least, to make its progress as difficult and embarrassing as possible.
Their base is focused around a house loaned to the protest by a long-standing local resident, a farmer with no desire to leave his home. A sign is hung saying "Lutzerath lebt" - Lutzerath lives.
Human chain against lignite at the Garzweiler opencast mine... https://www.mccourier.com/human-chain-against-lignite-at-the-garzweiler-opencast-mine-free-press/
Erkelenz (dpa) – Several thousand people demonstrated at the Garzweiler opencast mine for a faster escape from lignite mining. During the protest, participants linked the four kilometers apart villages of Lützerath and Keyenberg with a human chain.
This should also symbolically indicate the mining boundary with which the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement can be achieved.
The Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND) and local organizations such as All Villages Stay, among others, called for the protest. The BUND said the number of demonstrators was 2,500. The police spoke of a “vigorous, peaceful protest”. 3000 participants were registered.
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (Swedish: [ˈɡrêːta ˈtʉ̂ːnbærj] (
listen); born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation.[4] Thunberg initially gained notice for her youth and her straightforward speaking manner,[5] both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticises world leaders for their failure to take what she considers sufficient action to address the climate crisis.[6]
listen); born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation.[4] Thunberg initially gained notice for her youth and her straightforward speaking manner,[5] both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticises world leaders for their failure to take what she considers sufficient action to address the climate crisis.[6]~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Despite Climate Concerns, Germany Bulldozes Land To Expand Coal Mines... June 29, 2021
A small farming town which lies in the path of an expanding open-pit coal mine is hoping German climate policy will eliminate the use of dirty coal before their village is consumed by the pit. Ten years ago, Germany promised to phase out nuclear power. And Chancellor Angela Merkel got the nickname the climate chancellor. But Germany is the largest miner of lignite coal, one of the dirtiest and cheapest fossil fuels. It's responsible for a fifth of Germany's carbon emissions. And as NPR's Rob Schmitz found out, old villages are still being bulldozed to make way for expanding coal mines.
...the machine looms just a few football fields behind his family farm, closer than it's ever been, digging into sugar beet fields to find more coal. This is the Garzweiler mine, and it keeps getting bigger. It's one of three massive open-pit coal mines in Germany's state of North Rhine-Westphalia along the Dutch border where lignite coal is mined, a dirty coal responsible for a fifth of Germany's carbon emissions. Nearly 50 villages in this region have been evacuated and destroyed for the ever-expanding mines. And Winzen's village of Keyenberg, more than a thousand years old, is set to be next...
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
Everything Below this Line was Published Before 2/20/2020
~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~
HEADLINE:
Activists Occupy German Coal Plant in Protest, Police Say....
Energiewende = Plan to Transition to Low Carbon Energy...
The Hambach forest is an old growth forest in the west of Germany. Everything that has evolved here over thousands of years is now being destroyed to make space for a continually expanding lignite coal mine. For decades people have been resisting this profit driven destruction and for five years the forest is occupied with treehouses.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LATEST NEWS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HEADLINE: Climate protesters storm Garzweiler coalmine in Germany...
Activists Occupy German Coal Plant in Protest, Police Say.
A large group of protesters broke through a gate at the Datteln-4 power station and gained access to the site, local police said Sunday in a tweet.
More than 120 people illegally entered the premises, Polizei NRW RE said. The operator of the power plant outside Dortmund in western Germany’s industrial heartland has filed criminal charges against the protesters, the police said in another tweet Sunday.
 |
| Diese Wirtschaft Totet |
Police in western Germany are removing climate change protesters from an open-cast coalmine after hundreds of them stormed the site.
Activists broke through a police cordon on Saturday to get into the Garzweiler mine, in a campaign against fossil fuel use.
Many protesters are resisting attempts by police to clear the huge site.
Police have warned that the mine is not safe, and said some officers were hurt as they tried to hold back protesters.
Germany has vowed to go carbon neutral by 2050 but activists say this is not soon enough.
Recent surveys have shown that climate change tops a list of concerns in Germany, with the Green party polling alongside the governing Christian Democrats. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48734321
~~~~~~~
Headline: Greta Thunberg, on German coal mine visit, questions 2038 fuel exit date.
Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, on a visit to a German anti-coal protest camp, questioned whether the country should continue to use the fuel to generate power for another 20 years as the government plans. Thunberg, the most visible spokeswoman of the Fridays for Future movement of students striking to demand climate action, was talking to reporters at the western German Hambach forest near Cologne. The area has become a symbol of protest against the coal industry, prompting utility RWE to give assurances it would not touch the forest until late 2020, although it had hoped to clear it for brown coal mining and burning activities.
“If we are to stay below 1.5 degrees of temperature rise, then science says that Germany can probably not continue to burn coal. I mean, another 20 years,” Thunberg said.
Headline: Greta Thunberg takes climate fight to Germany’s threatened Hambach Forest.
The felling of ancient woodland to make way for a giant coal mine brings together two linked battles for the activist.
Greta Thunberg started her long journey to climate summits in the Americas by joining a treetop protest in Germany’s Hambach forest, where environmentalists have been fighting for years to stop the ancient woodland being torn up for open-cast coal mining.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/10/greta-thunberg-climate-change-fight-germany-hambach-forest
Headline: Church near Hambach Forest prepared for demolition to make room for coal mine.
A church in the town of Kerpen-Manheim, in the western German Rhenish coal mining region, has been prepared for demolition to expand a nearby coal mine, the Rheinische Post reports. About 400 people gathered for the last mass in the St. Albanus and Leonhardus church in the town near the embattled Hambach Forest, which became a symbolic place for climate activists who want to prevent the forest’s clearing for coal mine expansion. The church is now cleared for demolition and the entire village should be vacated by 2022, the article says. About 150 protesters, including representatives of the Fridays for Future student climate movement, had gathered in front of the church to oppose coal mine expansion.
Headline: German village to be demolished for lignite mine despite coal exit.
A 200-inhabitant German village will be demolished to make way for a lignite coal mine, after many years of uncertainty related to the future of coal power in Germany, Kathleen Weser and Christian Köhler write in the Lausitzer Rundschau. The villagers of Mühlrose, in the eastern German mining region Lusatia, will be relocated so that the nearby lignite mine Nochten can be expanded, mine operator Leag told the villagers at a municipal assembly. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-village-be-demolished-lignite-mine-despite-coal-exit
House occupied in Morschenich...
UPDATE April 24th
18:03 All who were imprisoned on April 23rd and 24th are free.
UPDATE April 23rd
14:08 Spontaneous demo at the Oberstrasse, entrance of Morschenich, we’re looking forward for support! #HambiBleibt #HambacherForst #AlleDörferBleiben #morschenichlebt #Solidarity #Kohleausstieg
14:08 Spontaneous demo at the Oberstrasse, entrance of Morschenich, we’re looking forward for support! #HambiBleibt #HambacherForst #AlleDörferBleiben #morschenichlebt #Solidarity #Kohleausstieg
https://hambachforest.org/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ende Gelände,which in English means “here and no further,” is a broad coalition that has spent the better part of four years playing a significant role in the German climate resistance. They have organized annual takeovers of a lignite coal mine. Last fall, Ende Gelände was part of a mass mobilization of 50,000 people who came to defend over 80 tree-sit occupations in the Hambach forest, which is regularly encroached upon to clear land for mining.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Headline: German Energy Giant RWE Agrees to Halt Logging in Hambach Forest...
2/22/2019 - North Rhine-Westphalia’s (NRW) State Premier Armin Laschet announced a moratorium on logging at the contentious Hambach Forest on Wednesday. Speaking to the state parliament, Laschet said that he had received written confirmation that energy giant RWE would not move forward with plans to deforest the site.
Laschet told parliamentarians, “This means that there will not be any felling of trees until the autumn of 2020.” Laschet had asked for the moratorium as a way to calm a tense standoff between environmentalists and RWE.
Ende Gelände,which in English means “here and no further,” is a broad coalition that has spent the better part of four years playing a significant role in the German climate resistance. They have organized annual takeovers of a lignite coal mine. Last fall, Ende Gelände was part of a mass mobilization of 50,000 people who came to defend over 80 tree-sit occupations in the Hambach forest, which is regularly encroached upon to clear land for mining.
~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~
Older Newspaper Articles Below...
~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~
https://hambachforest.org/join-in/forest-walk/
Hambach Forest – or what’s left of it – urgently needs saving! A guided tour every Sunday with Michael Zobel (nature guide) and Eva Töller.
It starts at 11:30 from the train station Buir.
The energy company RWE intends to destroy the last remnants of Hambach Forest between October 2018 and February 2019 so that it can continue extracting coal from Hambach open-cast mine.
https://www.autoblog.com/2018/12/13/green-energy-electricity-coal-germany/
Green energy on track to overtake coal in Germany by year end. Power industry wants the automotive sector to do its part
http://www.spacedaily.com/afp/181202155338.uggftsma.htmlhttps://www.autoblog.com/2018/12/13/green-energy-electricity-coal-germany/
Green energy on track to overtake coal in Germany by year end. Power industry wants the automotive sector to do its part
 |
| Hambach Forest Protest Germany After the Journalist Dies |
Greenpeace dozen denied bail over Slovak coal mine demo...
Bratislava, Dec 2 (AFP) Dec 02, 2018A court on Sunday denied bail to 12 Greenpeace activists who staged an anti-coal protest at Slovakia's largest and oldest brown coal mine, a move that the global environmental group called a "disgrace".
The activists were detained after hoisting a banner saying "End coal age!" on the tower of a lignite mine in Novaky, central Slovakia, on Wednesday.
https://www.dw.com/en/6-years-of-coal-protest-coming-to-an-end-at-germanys-hambach-forest/g-45382780
|
| Bucket Excavator at a Lignite Coal Mine |
Germany Bulldozes Old Villages For Coal.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/11/27/greenpeace-energy-plans-takeover-bid-for-rwes-coal-business-to-replace-with-renewables/
Germany electric utility Greenpeace Energy has proposed a takeover bid for the lignite open-cast mines and power plants currently belonging to German electric utilities company RWE, to shut them down by 2025, and replace them with renewable energy projects such as wind and solar boasting a total output of 8.2 gigawatts.
Greenpeace Energy was founded in 1999 as a legal cooperative, independent of banks and major shareholders, and financially and legally independent of Greenpeace itself. Currently, Greenpeace Energy boasts 24,000 members and 130,000 customers and generated 100% of its electricity from wind and water power.
The Hambach Forest has become Germany’s poster child for a coal exit.
 |
| Hambach Forest Protest Germany - Lignite Coal Mine |
Published 10/5/2018: A German court on Friday temporarily blocked mining company RWE from razing further sections of an ancient forest near Cologne in what environmental campaigners have hailed as rare good news.
For decades, RWE has been slowly razing the forest and surrounding towns to expand its adjacent coal mine, which is among Europe’s largest producers of lignite coal and greatest sources of carbon dioxide pollution. And earlier this fall, the company moved to start cutting a new section that protesters have been occupying.
The activists had been living in homemade treehouses in an effort to block RWE from clear-cutting, and after a yearslong standoff, things came to a head when RWE called in federal police to evict the tree-sitters and destroy their camps. Activists were arrested, and in the melee a journalist fell from a tree and died.
The events sparked a public outcry here, in part because Germany has officially decided that coal’s days are numbered. |
| System Change Not Climate Change |
In recent years, Germany has staked much of its national identity and reputation on its Energiewende or national transition to cleaner energy sources as part of its effort to fight climate change. But Burning Lignite coal
is the OPPOSITE of Cleaner Energy.
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We can see where this will eventually end... View this TV Show: Mysteries of the Abandoned: Bagger 258. It is a bucket wheel excavator, or “schaufelradbagger.” It was was abandoned in 2002 because it ran out of coal to dig. Now it sits rusting in a field... too large to move... too expensive to recycle.
German police clear Hambach Forest
In western Germany, protesters have vowed to protect a forest that's due to be chopped down to make way for a coal mine. Police moved in to clear the forest ahead of the cutting next month, but activists have announced "massive civil disobedience."
Living Planet: Hambach — Germany's coal stand-off
For the last six years, activists have been living amongst the trees of Germany's Hambach Forest in a bid to stop energy company RWE from mining the land for brown coal. Plans to clear the area have already been approved and police are enforcing the eviction of protesters. The DW Environment team went to find out more about what this means for fossil fuels in Germany
Opinion: Hambach Forest a battlefield for the planet's future It is sacred ground. German Tree Sitters Protest Lignite Coal Mine.
What’s all this about?
The Hambach Forest, which one could call the last “primeval” forest in Central Europe, is being stubbed for Europe’s biggest climate pollutant – the Rhenish lignite mining area of RWE (Rheinisches Braunkohlerevier), in which RWE mines brown coal. Whole villages and the health of human beings are destroyed in this process.
To prevent all of this we squatted the Hambacher Forest and take part in other effective and direct Actions. Join us!
To prevent all of this we squatted the Hambacher Forest and take part in other effective and direct Actions. Join us!
It must be left standing as a monument to our folly — and our ability to shift course and do the right thing, says author and environmental activist Bill McKibben. Nearly a half-century ago, a young American army officer named John Kerry returned from his tour of duty in Vietnam to testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. After detailing the atrocities, the injustice and the pointlessness of the war, he said: "We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
The activists who have been occupying the remaining hectares of Germany's Hambach Forest, it seems to me, are asking a similar question that should shake consciences in our time. What will be the last pieces of European nature destroyed in pursuit of what we now recognize to be a monumental error — in this case not a colonial war, but the pursuit of cheap energy even at the cost of destroying the planet's climate?
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| Hambach Forest Protest Germany - Lignite Coal Mine |
The Hambach mine, the largest of its kind in Europe, is ground zero for the German climate movement. Activists have resorted to civil disobedience. TreeHouses.
The Hambach mine produces 44 million tons of lignite per year. In terms of carbon emissions, lignite is one the dirtiest fossil fuels. Germany is well known for its “energy transition” to renewables, but still burns 188 million tons of lignite per year to generate power. In 2017, burning lignite produced nearly a quarter of electricity in Germany. That number rises to 37 percent if you include black coal.
A short hike across a wasteland of tree stumps and churned mud to the south is Hambach Forest. Or what's left of it. Unlike pit mining, open-cast lignite extraction means removing everything on the surface of the earth—trees, villages, fields, highways—and then a thousand more feet of earth and rock to reach a layer of lignite. Before RWE began mining here in 1978, the forest stretched over more than 4,000 acres. Now just 500 acres are left. Clearcutting those remaining 500 is essential to RWE's plan to expand its mine—one of three in the region—southward. Tens of millions of tons of valuable coal lie far beneath the trees. Activists have resorted to civil disobedience in response to the lack of government climate action. In 2012, a few young Germans built tree houses high up in the beeches and oaks of the forest and lived in them year-round. Police periodically evicted the squatters, but they kept returning in greater numbers. By summer 2018, occupiers had built about 80 dwellings, some as high as 80 feet from the ground.
As Germany hosts green summit, an energy firm is razing a nearby forest.
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| Lignite Coal Mine Removes Topsoil, Trees, Everything from Surface of the Earth. |
Take A Trip To This Horrifying Mine, One Of The Largest Man-Made Holes In The World. The largest hole in Europe is an open-pit coal mine in Germany, and everything inside is just enormous, including machines that are the length of two soccer fields and the height of a 30-story building.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3031997/take-a-trip-to-this-horrifying-mine-one-of-the-largest-man-made-holes-in-the-world
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| Lignite, a Super Polluting type of Coal. |
ACT OUT! [179] FROM APPALACHIA TO GERMANY: ANTI-CAPITALIST TREES, PEOPLE POWER & SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION
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Free Coloring Book - "Connect the Dots at the Sanders Institute". Bernie Publishes Great Ideas, Informs Voters and Changes Minds. It Has A WEALTH of Interesting Information.
https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/12/bernie-sanders-has-built-sanders.html <--- Click on the link for more than 20 Free Pictures... Print them out and Color with Felt Pens, Crayons, Pencils or if you're Digital, use POTATOSHOP...
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| A Page From a Coloring Book... Connect the Dots at the Sanders Institute |
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| Raise the Minimum Wage to $15 per Hour Coloring Book Page |
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| Let's Cut Defense Spending in Half and Spend the Money on Schools |
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| Medicare For All coloring book page Bernie Sanders Institute |
KATOWICE, Poland — The Latest on the U.N. climate talks taking place in Katowice, Poland...
The World Bank Group says it is doubling funding for poor countries preparing for climate change to $200 billion over five years.
The Washington-based organization said Monday that about half would come from the World Bank itself, while the rest would be sourced from other institutions within the group and private capital.
The bank said some $50 billion will be earmarked for climate adaptation, a recognition that some adverse effects of global warming can’t be avoided anymore but require a change in practice.
This includes building homes that can withstand more extreme weather and finding new sources of freshwater as rising seas contaminate existing supplies.
The announcement comes as leaders are meeting in Poland for U.N. talks on tackling global warming.
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OTHER CLIMATE CHANGE MATERIAL
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Great Book: Drawdown - describes the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming. by Paul Hawken... and... Lynn Fitz Hugh: Food and Climate - A Talk on Pirate Television out of Seattle...
https://www.drawdown.org/the-book
For each Global Warming solution, we describe its history, the carbon impact it provides, the relative cost and savings, the path to adoption, and how it works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tuyedq4-AQ
All of us are consumers of food and make food choices that impact our carbon foot print. Learn about how eating an organic, local, plant-based diet and wasting less food can help stop climate change.
Lynn Fitz-Hugh founded https://350seattle.org/ as well as Faith Action Climate Team (FACT).
Recorded at the 2019 South Sound Climate Convention in Olympia Washington 4/13/19
See also: https://southsoundclimateconvention.org/
For each Global Warming solution, we describe its history, the carbon impact it provides, the relative cost and savings, the path to adoption, and how it works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tuyedq4-AQ
Lynn Fitz Hugh: Food and Climate - A Talk on Pirate Television out of Seattle...
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OTHER CLIMATE CHANGE MATERIAL
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Trump wants to expand fracking in California causing drinking water to be polluted... Trump=Evil... Please Share this Post with your Republican Friends as Their Own Children Drink Water... A Vote for Trump is a Vote For Death... and it's NOT Just California... Trump Wants to Frack ALL OVER THE WEST...
The Trump administration last Thursday released a plan to open up more than a million acres of public and private land to hydraulic fracturing in California. The lands being targeted cover several Central California counties including eastern Fresno, western Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura.
California has had a 5-year fracking moratorium on federal land after a judge ruled for a pause in operations to better study the health and environmental impacts. As it already stands California's central valley has some of the worst air quality in the state. The plan is expected to be blocked by lawsuits that environmental groups are already readying.
Source: Nayamin Martinez of the Central California Environmental Justice Network.
https://freespeech.org/stories/trump-wants-to-expand-fracking-in-california/
FRACKING CAUSES DRINKING WATER POLLUTION. Trump wants to Trade Your Children's Health for Increased Corporate Profits...
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-fracking-oil-gas-california-20190425-story.html
EPA Says Roundup does not cause Cancer... Once Again, Trump's EPA rules IN FAVOR of Corporate Profits and AGAINST People's Health... https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/441535-epa-says-weed-killing-chemical-does-not-cause-cancer-despite-jury
California has had a 5-year fracking moratorium on federal land after a judge ruled for a pause in operations to better study the health and environmental impacts. As it already stands California's central valley has some of the worst air quality in the state. The plan is expected to be blocked by lawsuits that environmental groups are already readying.
Source: Nayamin Martinez of the Central California Environmental Justice Network.
https://freespeech.org/stories/trump-wants-to-expand-fracking-in-california/
FRACKING CAUSES DRINKING WATER POLLUTION. Trump wants to Trade Your Children's Health for Increased Corporate Profits...
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-fracking-oil-gas-california-20190425-story.html
EPA Says Roundup does not cause Cancer... Once Again, Trump's EPA rules IN FAVOR of Corporate Profits and AGAINST People's Health... https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/441535-epa-says-weed-killing-chemical-does-not-cause-cancer-despite-jury
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