Another of the delights of our walk has been the number of coal (and one nuclear) power stations we have passed. So far we have got close to: Killroot, Longleet, Cockenzie, Torness, Lynemouth and now Drax, Eggham and Ferrybridge all in one day.
The south of Selby and over to Castleford in Yorkshire is 'Megawatt Valley', with three power stations dominating the landscape. Last year's climate camp was held in the area due to the high concentration of emissions, particularly from Drax, the largest and biggest emitting power station in the UK. This year the camp has moved to Heathrow, after it was pointed out that planes taking off from Heathrow make an even larger contribution to climate change than Drax does.
In talks I use the statistic: "Drax emits more carbon dioxide than Kenya ... and Uganda ... and Tanzania ... and Zambia ... and Malawi ... and Mozambique ... all put together." Last night we made some placards to say that as we walked through Megawatt Valley.
It is a shocking statistic which tries to get accross the scale on which we in the UK emit compared to the poorest countries in the world, and hence the injustice of climate change. Like the scale-model of the solar system yesterday, it is an attempt to make something which is too big to comprehend, comprehensible. Hopefully it works.
Distance covered so far: 392 miles
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hey Tim, hope you're well. Its a shame you're missing this year's climate camp - I'm sure you'd have gone down well with the workshops crowd! Still, the whole thing's going well, with as much media coverage as you could wish for, which hopefully means the government will be forced to do more to curb the growth in aviation...
Post a Comment