Eon

Power company E.ON is hoping to build the first new coal-fired power station in the UK for a generation on the site of its present station at Kingsnorth in Kent. At a time of climate crisis, it's an obscenity.

They've been the targets of all kinds of action, from last summer's Camp for Climate Action, to a series of smaller action on April 1st (Fossil Fools Day), to a wave of recruitment fair actions, with more action coming up at the end of this month.

One easy, comfy action can happen from this computer you're looking at. The tactic is called google-bombing.

The more links to a site, the higher it climbs in Google rankings. So, if enough people make the word 'Eon' link to the No New Coal site, pretty soon it'll top the list of anyone searching for Eon. (This tactic was successfully used a few years ago to make 'swivel-eyed loons' link to UKIP).

Two weeks ago www.nonewcoal.org.uk wasn't in the top 50 sites when searching for Eon. As I write this it's already number 13.

So a simple online action can help us get our electronic placards in their face without getting out on the cold winter streets.

If you have a website, blog, myspace, bebo, forum account, etc then please place a link to http://www.nonewcoal.org.uk.

Ideally you write 'eon' and place a hyperlink to http://www.nonewcoal.org.uk from that text.

Anyone can do this! Blog comments/forums are easiest. Good websites are most effective.

If you're wondering what else to write, you could copy or edit this.

To get a top 10 google ranking probably won't be to hard, but to pip E.ON to the top will require a lot of effort so tell your friends, consider putting this simple action in your newsletters, spread the word online...

Notes:

* 1. It works best if you mention Eon several times in an article. The correct poncy spelling is E.ON so include that a few times too, but most people will probably just search for Eon.

* 2. If you are posting the link in a blog post then put Eon in the title and the tags.

* 3.The more important the site the more kick nonewcoal.org.uk gets from the link.

* 4. If you are really determined then consider setting up a fake site like the EON Corporate Social Responsibility blog that way you can link loads of times to nonewcoal.org.uk from a site that is very relevent!

* 5. Why not take this is seriously as a real world action and forward it to people with green blogs/campaign groups etc?

This Might Actually Work

Time for a short personal update.

Looking ahead at the looming recession, with uncertain and turbulent financial times ahead, there was clearly only one sensible thing to do.

I've quit my job.

This is because those uncertain and turbulent financial times will be as nothing to the disastrous and terrifying climatic times ahead if we don't all get our act together and sort out climate change. So I've decided to leave my job and spend more time campaigning. Also, I was getting a little tired of spreadsheets and wanted to give the performance poetry a proper go.

This was pretty nerve-wracking at first - I can live very happily on little disposable income but there are still bills to pay. It all seems to be working out OK so far though. In fact, I'm as busy as ever, even if I'm only being paid for a small amount of all that busyness...

I've written a piece for the January issue of New Internationalist about what the Copenhagen talks mean for climate justice - if anyone wants the lowdown on what's being discussed at the international climate talks, drop me a line coz I've been up to my eyeballs in it for weeks. Then on Monday I ran a series of workshops and did a presentation and a poem at a schools climate change conference in Hampshire, which was brilliant - loads of enthusiastic young people up for taking action. I'm definitely going to do more of this kind of thing.

I'm waiting to hear back from a couple of funding bids that might set some other projects in motion, working on a long-overdue poetry CD, mucking in with various bits of campaigning and planning a possible fundraising tour for People & Planet - I'll post details here if it comes together.

It's bloody hard work, this not-having-a-job thing.

In other news, researching a company's environmental credentials apparently makes you an eco-terrorist, and coal-burning climate-wreckers E.ON have been scared away from careers fairs by student protesters. Excellent.