More than 1,000 activists descended into a dystopian hellscape on Saturday to shut down one of Europe’s largest sources of carbon pollution, a lignite coal mine owned by RWE, Germany’s biggest power company. The activists, clad in white, faced off with black-suited police officers, and there were reports of multiple arrests. Notice that symbolism? Spooky.
350.org reports that the goal of the action was to halt a mobile strip-mining machine known as the Bagger 288:
As it moves along it can extract 240,000 tons of coal every day (or 240,000 tons of “overburden,” which is fossil fuel industry speak for land, trees and villages). By stopping three of these diggers for the day the participants in this action have potentially prevented over 700,000 tons of dirty lignite coal from being extracted.
The protestors succeeded in shutting down the mine, at least momentarily. Here are pictures from the event, all courtesy 350.org.
350.org
