1 May Day of Climate Action ‑only one week to go!

1 MAY: DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION
Inva­sion of the cli­mate snatch­ers!

Only one week to go!
We’ll keep it short: con­tacts, resources and ideas for action, and pub­lic actions.

If you need any info or sup­port email us!
E: mayday@daysofclimateaction.org.uk
W: http://www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk/mayday.html

For more info and back­ground about the day of action please see the bot­tom of the post­ing.

TELL US WHAT YOU GET UP TO — email us or phone us on the day (07880 937511) as soon as your action is under­way so we can list it on the web­site include it in the nation­al press release about the day, and the actions round-up the next day. Our actions are so much more pow­er­ful when they are seen on masse!

RESOURCES
Lots of infor­ma­tion for action/explaining the issues has gone up on our web­site in the last few days. Check it out and pick your favourite cli­mate red her­ring: from agro­fu­els to nuclear pow­er, car­bon-trad­ing to hydro­gen fuel cells, car­bon cap­ture and stor­age, genet­ic engi­neer­ing to nan­otech­nol­o­gy. Uncov­er these tech­no-fix­es for what they are: a dis­trac­tion from the root cause of cli­mate change and a means to car­ry on the sta­tus quo of end­less eco­nom­ic growth and the exploita­tion of peo­ple and plan­et.
http://daysofclimateaction.org.uk/mayday.html

There’s also a local press release that you can adapt
http://daysofclimateaction.org.uk/mayday_actionresources.html

15 ideas for action for last-minute action plan­ners! At
http://www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday/resources

IDEAS FOR ACTION

There are many pos­si­bil­i­ties, from direct action, pub­lic­i­ty stunts, talks and work­shops to stalls. Whether you’re in a group or whether there’s just one or two of you, there are lots of things you can do to raise the vital issues.

Some ideas to get you start­ed!

TAKE DIRECT ACTION. Occu­py the offices of you local car­bon off­set­ting com­pa­ny; Block­ade your local bio­fu­els refin­ery; Vis­it your local nuclear pow­er sta­tion or take your cows and veg to a car­bon trad­er and set up a real mar­ket ; Protest at your local Uni­ver­si­ty’s GM and Nano-tech depart­ments; Protest at your local Tesco petrol sta­tion against bio­fu­els

SPREAD THE WORD. Hang ban­ners in pub­lic places; Hold talks, work­shops and film nights about the issues; Leaflet town on your cho­sen issue; Free Give­away stalls; Pro­duce and dis­trib­ute local-based guide on alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal­ism, co-ops, alter­na­tive economies, free shops etc. Co-organ­ise events with union mem­bers to dis­cuss the issues around employ­ment and cli­mate change; Write arti­cles and let­ters for papers and web­sites.

For inspi­ra­tion check out the write-up of the actions on Fos­sil Fools Day
— Tru­ly amaz­ing!
http://www.fossilfoolsdayofaction.org/category/front-page/

PUBLIC ACTIONS
Although lots of peo­ple are keep­ing their plans under wraps, this pub­lic demos have been announced (If you know of a pub­licly announced action, let us know and we’ll list it on the web­site):

Crit­i­cal Mass and Demo at Sizewell Nuclear Pow­er Sta­tion
Sat­ur­day 3rd May, meet at 12 noon at Sax­mund­ham train sta­tion for a Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride to Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion.
If you don’t have a bike, get to Sax­mund­ham sta­tion any­way and we’ll get you to the pow­er sta­tion.
Why Sizewell on this day?

See also the Camp for Cli­mate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk), Net­work for
Cli­mate Action (www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk) and Cli­mate Indy­media
(www.climateimc.org)

http://www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk/mayday.html

Why take action on 1 May?

May 1st, inter­na­tion­al work­ers day, has tra­di­tion­al­ly been a day to chal­lenge the cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem and a cel­e­bra­tion of sol­i­dar­i­ty and work­ers’ strug­gle for a more just social sys­tem.

On this day we are call­ing on peo­ple to make the link between cap­i­tal­ism, eco­nom­ic growth, cli­mate change and social strug­gle.

As cli­mate change is start­ing to hit peo­ple around the world, a huge num­ber of tech­no-fix­es are form­ing a new eco­nom­ic sec­tor: from bio­fu­els to nuclear pow­er, car­bon-trad­ing to hydro­gen fuel cells, car­bon cap­ture and stor­age. Every­where cor­po­ra­tions are seek­ing the elu­sive elixir which allows us to con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al. All this whilst our plan­et is burn­ing and peo­ple are loos­ing their homes, their live­ly­hoods and their lives to cli­mate chaos.

All of these tech­nolo­gies are a dis­trac­tion from the root cause of cli­mate change: an eco­nom­ic sys­tem based on end­less eco­nom­ic growth not only at the cost of the envi­ron­ment we live in but also based on an exploita­tive social sys­tem.

Many of these tech­nofix­es are also direct­ly coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to stop­ping cli­mate chaos and pose new threats to peo­ple’s live­ly­hoods and the sur­vival of the plan­et.

Agro­fu­els expan­sion is dire­cly respon­si­ble for sub­sis­tence farm­ers being cleared of their land, food short­ages and enor­mous price ris­es, whilst doing noth­ing to reduce green­house gas emis­sions.

Nuclear pow­er is her­ald­ed as a green fuel, but the envi­ron­men­tal haz­ards of ura­ni­um extrac­tion, radi­a­tion leaks dur­ing use and stor­age, the dan­ger of melt-down and fatal appli­ca­tions in war­fare are as dan­ger­ous as they have always been.

Sci­en­tists promise genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered won­der plants to cope with cli­mate changes, but peo­ple in third world coun­tries have yet to see any ben­e­fits and fight against the patent­ing of the genes of tra­di­tion­al­ly used plants, whilst multi­na­tion­als are lin­ing their pock­ets.

The real solu­tion to cli­mate change must be a mas­sive reduc­tion in our con­sump­tion, the end to eco­nom­ic growth and a soci­ety based on equal­i­ty and mutu­al aid.

Tech­nofix­es are not the answer to cli­mate change — what we need is far reach­ing social and eco­nom­ic change!