Virginia Allport
On Friday 4 June, I went to a protest that Extinction Rebellion (XR) had organised at Didcot B Power Station. The photos are of the green-painted cardboard washing machine that the XR activists used, along with banners and green-washing line, to block the power station’s access road. I enjoy taking part in XR actions because we try to use humorous creations and drama. My friends who were ‘locking-on’ were there at 07:00 and stayed cross-legged till after 14:00.
The power station is operated by RWE AG, a German energy company that is still using fossil fuels while presenting itself as being ‘committed to renewable energy’. XR claims that in 2017 RWE was ranked Europe’s biggest emitter of CO2. In 2020 the company is still generating 80% of its energy from non-renewable sources. Its persistent mining of brown coal – with three open-cast mines ravaging swathes of countryside and forest in the German Rhenish region – needs to stop.
The XR team and band from Charlbury, Wallingford, Witney, and Oxford were watched by numerous police, journalists and photographers from the BBC and ITV. We got onto the BBC local news at 13:30, 18:30 and 22:30. The TV teams obviously enjoyed the sight of men and women, dressed in head scarves and aprons, brushing the clothes off the road!
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 507 • July 2021
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