Friday 8th June 2007 — International Day of Direct Action against Climate Change and the G8

Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice — Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines ? the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice — Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines ? the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

We have a ten-year win­dow to act. As the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac G8 lead­ers meet in Ger­many, masked behind a bar­ri­er of fences and sol­diers, intent on lead­ing us fur­ther towards cat­a­stroph­ic and irre­versible cli­mate chaos, we must shout, scream and roar ‘no more’. Now is the time to take direct action and shut them down, them and their cli­mate crim­i­nal indus­try friends!

The 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Cli­mate Change and the G8 has been called by the Inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide Net­work. This is a call for autonomous, decen­tral­ized actions appro­pri­ate for your town, city, or local area. Use this inter­na­tion­al day of action to sup­port local strug­gles against oil refiner­ies, gas pipelines, strip mines and coal-fired pow­er plants. Dis­rupt the finan­cial back­ers of the fos­sil fuel indus­try. Organ­ise work­shops to spread sus­tain­able post-petro­le­um liv­ing skills. Find a weak point in the infra­struc­ture of resource exploita­tion and throw a lit­er­al or sym­bol­ic wrench in the works. It’s time to vis­it your local pol­luters and give ’em hell!

We already know of actions planned across the UK, North Amer­i­ca, Ger­many, Cana­da and Aus­tralia and that’s just the start! By 8th June actions will be planned around the world. Pass this call out on to all envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, cli­mate action, rad­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and relat­ed move­ments in all the G8 coun­tries and the Glob­al South.

Ris­ing Tide will cre­ate a col­lec­tion of out­reach and agit-prop mate­ri­als (includ­ing this call out in five dif­fer­ent lan­guages) that can be used by groups around the world to organ­ise local­ly. These mate­ri­als will be down­load­able from www.risingtide.org.uk and http://risingtidenorthamerica.org.

Direct action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are the ratio­nal response in this time of cri­sis. Sup­port the 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action against Cli­mate Change and the G8! Tell us about planned actions for cli­mate jus­tice being planned in your com­mu­ni­ty. Con­tact us — info@risingtide.org.uk and contact@risingtidenorthamerica.org

In June 2007 the G8 will under­stand the mean­ing of rebel­lion, revolt and rev­o­lu­tion. Their recipe for cat­a­stro­phe will be met with our world­wide resis­tance!