Sailing away against new coal

Earlier this week, Oxfam's Martin Kirk joined other representatives from the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition - including Greenpeace, Christian Aid, Tearfund and even the Women's Institute - aboard Greenpeace's iconic Rainbow Warrior.

Martin was there to sign a giant declaration calling on E.ON not to go ahead with plans for the first new coal fired power station in the UK in 30 years.

Here he writes about his day aboard the ship, and explains why Oxfam is campaigning against climate change.

I want to run away to sea.

I want to give up my cosy office job and join the crew of Rainbow Warrior. Having just spent half a day on her, and with her crew, I am hooked.

I had the honour of representing Oxfam at a demonstration against the building of a new coal power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. The ship was our wonderful, arresting backdrop.

It matters hugely to poor people around the world that the UK might be about to embark on a new round of coal fired stations. Oxfam wouldn't be involved if it didn't.

Rising global temperatures threaten global development; coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel; the UK is a critical global player, financially and politically. If the UK opts for a high carbon future, in the guise of a new generation of coal-fired power stations, it undermines the politics and the technological potential of the seminal next few years of our planet's history. And it is people in developing countries who will pay first and worst if we get these decisions wrong.

But enough politics, what about the boat!

She's simply wonderful. Everything I wanted her to be. There's an aching romanticism to her, of course. We've all seen the footage of her plowing through enormous seas, in relentless pursuit of whalers, or disrupting nuclear tests; the very stuff of adventure stories.

Well, I'm pleased to report that everything about her echoes that proud history, from pictures in the mess commemorating crew that have lost their lives in various actions, to the holes in the window casings on the bridge from where the crew barricaded themselves against a French boarding party in the South Pacific.

She is scar torn and rugged, yet still graceful and proud. In fact, 50 years of hard sailing, and some pretty fundamental alterations and repairs seem only to have added to her charms (she was elongated to make her fit for her current purpose, and massive great masts added to allow her to sail).

And then there's her clarity of purpose to admire. She is the job she is there to do and she gets right on with it. She isn't a strategy or a spreadsheet, she doesn't sit in meetings or lobby behind the scenes. She gets out there and makes her point without ambiguity. Be it sailing into range of nuclear tests or carrying a load of NGO reps like me to a photo op in the placid Thames, she is campaigning in physical form.

I don't really want to sail away on this well-loved, well-battered old lady. There's loads of land-lubbing campaigning to be done with Oxfam, so I wouldn't trade just now. But I did fall a little in love.