Dear readers,

this past week, the Green party in Hamburg voted in favour of supporting a decision to build a coal-fired power plant in Moorburg. THE HAMBURG EXPRESS has covered the ongoing debate about Vattrenfall's Moorburg plant for quite some time now.

With so many alternatives, coal is not an option. I recognise the need for electricity, and for energy companies to invest in new power plants. But coal power plants? There are just too many other possibilities- nuclear power is one, but so is solar power, wind energy, geothermal energy, and many other sources of electricity - to convincingly say that Moorburg's power plant has to be coal-fired.

But in addition to the options we have in terms of technology, there is the urgent need to reduce CO2 emissions.

in the year 2008, when climate change is a scientifically proven fact and CO2 emissions are to blame, the go-ahead given to Vattenfall is a slap in the face of this entire planet's inhabitants.

I don't believe we should all give up our cars today, and stop flying to our holiday destinations, and radically change our lives with immediate effect. Or use considerably less electricity (and only 45% of you believe this, as our THE HAMBURG EXPRESS weekly poll shows).

There is a step-by-step process that is manageable (and tolerable) to seriously reduce CO2 emissions gradually but steadily. The process includes interim solutions, like having hybrid cars before switching entirely to electric cars (excuse the pun). It includes raising the consciousness about CO2 emissions and registering, in our collective mind, the levels and CO2 signatures.

And many other little steps that take us closer to the goal of meeting our energy, transportation, food, and other needs while doing so sustainably, in a way that the climate (and the whole environment) can handle us.

But this process does not, I repeat emphatically: this process does not include building new coal-fired power plants.

Therefore I hereby distance myself, my publishing company EXPRESS NEWS MEDIA, and its newspaper THE HAMBURG EXPRESS from the decision to allow the coal power plant in Moorburg to be built.

The Green party may be in power, we may be in a democracy, but that decision is made by a few powerful people in  the city's government and Vattenfall alone. Certainly not by me, and I doubt that anyone in the future will concur with the Moorburg decision.

So let's breathe this air while we still can in Hamburg.

Happy reading,

Patrick Tästensen

editor in chief

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