CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 86, February 2009

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UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
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1. ARTIVISM, Smash EDO’s week of anti-war cre­ativ­i­ty — Brighton – 24.02.09–01.03.09
2. Cli­mate Rush – Lon­don and Man­ches­ter – 26.02.09
3. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing – Not­ting­ham – 7–8.03.09

————————————
UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————————

1. ARTIVISM, Smash EDO’s week of anti-war cre­ativ­i­ty — Brighton – 24.02.09–01.03.09
2. Cli­mate Rush – Lon­don and Man­ches­ter – 26.02.09
3. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing – Not­ting­ham – 7–8.03.09
4. Earth First! & Treespon­si­bil­i­ty Tree Plant­i­ng week­end – Heb­den Bridge – 13–15.03.09
5. Peo­ple’s Block­ade of the World’s Biggest Coal Port – New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia — 21.03.09
6. Direct action and car­bon trad­ing edu­ca­tion week­end – Lon­don and Brighton – 21–22.03.09
7. Fos­sil Fools Day – all over – 01.04.09
8. Coal Car­a­van – Mid­lands, York­shire and North East – 24.04.09–04.05.09

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
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1. Bio­fu­elled attacks in Suma­tra, Indone­sia – 18.12.08
2. Plane Stu­pid turns Southamp­ton air­port into a refugee camp — 17.01.09
3. Cli­mate Rush activists lock on to Par­lia­ment — 20.01.01
4. E.On Ref Off! – 24.01.09
5. A not-so-Roy­al wel­come for the nuclear indus­try — 09.02.09
6. Man­ches­ter RBS branch roof occu­pa­tion — 11.02.09
7. Occu­pa­tion of Kel­ster­back For­est, Frank­furt Air­port, Ger­many — Ongo­ing
8. New report – Cater­ing for the Coal Indus­try

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UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————————

1. ARTIVISM, Smash EDO’s week of anti-war cre­ativ­i­ty — Brighton – 24.02.09–01.03.09
Includ­ing an Art Exhi­bi­tion, Music & Voic­es in Exile, Peace Choir, Images from the Smash EDO cam­paign and the world events that inspired the resis­tance to Brighton’s local bomb builders. Events include Guy Small­man, inter­na­tion­al pho­to-jour­nal­ist; on the ground pho­tog­ra­phy from Israel’s inva­sion of Lebanon in 2006; the clas­sic draw­ings of John Catt, vet­er­an anti-war activist; pho­tog­ra­phy by Medyan Dairieh, Al-Jazeera jour­nal­ist; ‘On the Verge’ the film they tried to ban; Clan­des­tine Rebel Clown Train­ing; Rad­i­cal Cheer­lead­ing: make pom-poms, write cheers and prac­tice your moves; car­ni­val cre­ations and mask mak­ing; and Ben­e­fit Finale at the Albert Pub.
www.smashedo.org.uk

2. Cli­mate Rush – Lon­don and Man­ches­ter – 26.02.09
Cli­mate Rush cor­dial­ly invites you to an awards cer­e­mo­ny for the coal indus­try, to hon­our the world’s great­est emit­ters of CO2, on THURSDAY 26TH FEBRUARY at THE LANDMARK HOTEL. Dress for­mal­ly for cock­tails in the Win­ter Gar­den at 6.30 prompt.
www.climaterush.co.uk

And in Man­ches­ter, North­ern Cli­mate Rush will be pay­ing a vis­it to the UK’s largest coal com­pa­ny – UK Coal. Meet in front of the Stu­dent Union build­ing at 1pm.
www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com

3. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing – Not­ting­ham – 7–8.03.09
With the G20, cli­mate crim­i­nals and COP 15 in mind, be part of the gath­er­ing – inspi­ra­tion, action and sol­i­dar­i­ty guar­an­teed.
www.climatecamp.org.uk/?q=node/468

4. Earth First & Treespon­si­bil­i­ty Tree Plant­i­ng week­end – Heb­den Bridge – 13–15.03.09
The annu­al and socia­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First! activists in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Calderdale com­mu­ni­ty group Treespon­si­bil­i­ty. Based in Heb­den Bridge in Calderdale. A week­end of hard but sat­is­fy­ing work plant­i­ng native wood­land com­bined with good food and social­is­ing.
More info: treesponsibility@yahoo.co.uk or 07983743894

5. Peo­ple’s Block­ade of the World’s Biggest Coal Port – New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia — 21.03.09
Coal exports are Aus­trali­a’s sin­gle biggest con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al cli­mate change, and the fastest grow­ing. In New­cas­tle, the world’s biggest coal port, com­mu­ni­ty groups have been cam­paign­ing against the dou­bling of coal exports from New­cas­tle Har­bour. There have been three com­mu­ni­ty block­ades of New­cas­tle Har­bour now, and each of them has man­aged to keep coal ships from enter­ing or leav­ing for most of the day. The next one is on Sat­ur­day 21 March 2009.
www.risingtide.org.au

6. Direct action and car­bon trad­ing edu­ca­tion week­end – Lon­don and Brighton – 21–22.03.09
Cli­mate Camp Car­bon Trad­ing Edu­ca­tion Week­end, Lon­don. With Cli­mate Camp tar­get­ing car­bon mar­kets this year, find out every­thing you ever want­ed to know about car­bon trad­ing and more but were afraid to ask! More info:international@climatecamp.org.uk

Also this week­end, a two-day direct action train­ing at the Cow­ley Club, Brighton. 10 AM start.
www.cowleyclub.org.uk

7. Fos­sil Fools Day – all over – 01.04.09
Cli­mate Camp at the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, fol­lowed by a “cel­e­bra­tion” of BP’s cen­te­nary at the British Muse­um; inter­spersed with local actions all over the coun­try and the world!

Cli­mate camp hits the city: stop­ping car­bon mar­kets // because nature doesn’t do bailouts
On April 1st the G20 lead­ers arrive in Lon­don. At a time of cli­mate cri­sis their response to the mar­ket melt­down is emer­gency loans to car man­u­fac­tur­ers, increased spend­ing to encour­age con­sump­tion, and bailouts for the very peo­ple who got us into this mess — just the thing that will make the cli­mate cri­sis worse. Don’t let them get away with it: join our camp in the Square Mile! Gath­er at noon, April 1st, at the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, Hasil­wood House, 62 Bish­ops­gate, EC2N 4AW.
www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

“Cel­e­brate” BP’s cen­te­nary: Tell them the party’s over!
For rea­sons unfath­omable yet deeply pleas­ing, BP has cho­sen Fos­sil Fools to cel­e­brate its cen­te­nary. This will take place at the British Muse­um, where the not-so-great and the far-from-good will quaff cock­tails, snaf­fle canapes and watch a cel­e­bra­to­ry film. Join us between 6–7pm, to say ‘Your party’s over!’ Bring ban­ners, musi­cal instru­ments, a sense of cli­mate jus­tice and a non­sense of fool­ery. Meet at 6pm at the British Museum’s Gt. Rus­sell St. gate.
www.fossilfoolsday.org
www.artnotoil.org.uk

8. Coal Car­a­van – Mid­lands, York­shire and North East – 24.04.09–04.05.09
The fab­u­lous cli­mate car­a­van lives on, as the COAL CARAVAN, walk­ing and cycling between the sites for pro­posed open cast mines and new pow­er sta­tions in the Mid­lands, York­shire and North East. On our route we’ll be talk­ing to local peo­ple, organ­is­ing bicy­cled pow­er films and events, hold­ing pub­lic dis­cus­sions and dis­plays, and link­ing groups from dif­fer­ent areas to help strength­en iso­lat­ed cam­paigns. For route details see:
www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21915
More info or to get involved: caravan@climatecamp.org.uk.

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
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1. Bio­fu­elled attacks in Suma­tra, Indone­sia – 18.12.08
In the rush to clear sub­sis­tence farms and for­est for agro-fuel plan­ta­tion, local vil­lages in the glob­al South are suf­fer­ing. On 18th Decem­ber 2008 the vil­lage of Suluk Bongkal in Suma­tra, Indone­sia was attacked by hun­dreds of armed police and para­mil­i­taries with fire-arms and tear­gas and was also fire-bombed from a heli­copter. Hun­dreds of hous­es were burned down and lat­er bull­dozed. Most of the vil­lagers fled into the forests and oth­ers were arrest­ed. The attack is linked to a sub­sidiary com­pa­ny of Sinar Mas, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) which is clear­ing land for pulp and paper tree plan­ta­tions. Sinar Mas is one of the biggest own­ers of palm oil and pulp and paper plan­ta­tions in Indone­sia. A protest let­ter is col­lect­ing sig­na­to­ries to send to the Indone­sian author­i­ties.
To sign and for more info: www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/index.php

2. Plane Stu­pid turns Southamp­ton air­port into a refugee camp — 17.01.09
Activists chained them­selves to the entrance of Southamp­ton air­port and erect­ed tents at the main entrance in a bid turn the region­al air­port into a cli­mate refugee camp. In addi­tion to set­ting up camp, activists for­mal­ly sub­mit­ted a plan­ning appli­ca­tion with East­leigh Bor­ough Coun­cil to turn the air­port into refugee hous­ing.
www.planestupid.com

3. Cli­mate Rush activists lock on to Par­lia­ment — 20.01.01
On the day that Par­lia­ment vot­ed about the third run­way, nine Cli­mate Rush activists high­light­ed the high farce that is UK democ­ra­cy by chain­ing them­selves to the gates of Par­lia­ment. Despite stay­ing for hours and enter­tain­ing tourists and the press, when the police final­ly cut them out, the activists walked away scot free.
www.climaterush.co.uk

4. E.On Ref Off! – 24.01.09
On Sat­ur­day 24th Jan­u­ary a group of Lon­don Cli­mate Camp activists turned up at Stam­ford Bridge dressed as foot­ball ref­er­ees to show E.ON the red card. Over 40,000 Chelsea and Ipswich fans arriv­ing for the game heard us blow­ing the whis­tle on E.ON’s dirty FA Cup spon­sor­ship mon­ey, and thou­sands of them were per­son­al­ly hand­ed an “E.ON F.OFF” red card explain­ing how the com­pa­ny is mak­ing foul prof­its from the cli­mate cri­sis. It was all good fun and reac­tions were pret­ty pos­i­tive — E.ON them­selves would have paid tens of thou­sands to get the oppo­site pub­lic­i­ty for their brand!
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/420346.html

5. A not-so-Roy­al wel­come for the nuclear indus­try — 09.02.09
Hun­dreds of tourists, vis­it­ing the Palace for the Chang­ing of the Guard, were amused to see “nuclear guards” tak­ing their place at the gates. They held up a large ban­ner read­ing “Nuclear Pow­er is Not the Answer to Cli­mate Chaos!” and a plac­ard read­ing “Roy­al Nuclear Fam­i­ly? No Thanks!”, draw­ing atten­tion to the fact that Prince Andrew, the UK’s Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Inter­na­tion­al Trade and Invest­ment, was host­ing a gala lunch at the Palace for the nuclear indus­try, pre­sum­ably to plot how best to pro­mote their tox­ic green­wash agen­da at home and abroad.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/421693.html

6. Man­ches­ter RBS branch roof occu­pa­tion — 11.02.09
Around 35 stu­dents held a cli­mate change ‘Evic­tion Demon­stra­tion’ out­side (and on top of) a Roy­al Bank of Scot­land branch at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union. The group from Peo­ple and Plan­et also sub­mit­ted a motion to the Union Gen­er­al Meet­ing propos­ing that the Union does not renew the lease for RBS’ branch when it expires in Jan­u­ary 2010. Stu­dents climbed up on to the roof of the branch, and dropped ban­ners adver­tis­ing RBS’ fos­sil fuel invest­ments. Oth­ers engaged in ‘rapid infor­ma­tion dessim­i­na­tion’, rac­ing off to speak to as many peo­ple as they could in 20 min­utes before return­ing back to the RBS branch to com­pare scores.
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22169

7. Occu­pa­tion of Kel­ster­back For­est, Frank­furt Air­port, Ger­many — Ongo­ing The occu­pa­tion of the threat­ened Kel­ster­back For­est con­tin­ues. This is a large and beau­ti­ful for­est that has already been encroached upon for exist­ing air­port infra­struc­ture and is “in the way” of a planned, addi­tion­al run­way.
http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

8. New report – Cater­ing for the Coal Indus­try A per­son­al account from an activist on the ground in Columbia,documenting resis­tance to exploita­tion in Columbia’s’ coal industry.The report is focused on the lives of those who pre­pare and serve the food nec­es­sary for the mine to func­tion. They want peo­ple out­side of La Loma to hear of their inhu­mane, dan­ger­ous and humil­i­at­ing work­ing con­di­tions. Read­ing and shar­ing this report helps to break the invis­i­bil­i­ty of the exploita­tion with­in the glob­al coal infra­struc­ture.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/419675.html

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