Author: earthfirst

Faslane Free Cafe ‑Zombies at the base!!

Zom­bies at the base!!
Still liv­ing die in, nam­ing the dead.
Work­shops “What you real­ly should know about deplet­ed ura­ni­um ”
Paint a stone…make a cairn

Meet at peace camp Sat­ur­day, 01 May 2010 at 17:00

On the Sun­day fol­low­ing the free cafe will be film show­ings.
Those wish­ing to stay overnight are more than wel­come. Car­a­van spaces are avail­able.

Zom­bies at the base!!
Still liv­ing die in, nam­ing the dead.
Work­shops “What you real­ly should know about deplet­ed ura­ni­um ”
Paint a stone…make a cairn

Meet at peace camp Sat­ur­day, 01 May 2010 at 17:00

On the Sun­day fol­low­ing the free cafe will be film show­ings.
Those wish­ing to stay overnight are more than wel­come. Car­a­van spaces are avail­able.
For more info or to book yer bed call us..

Direc­tions -

The camp is sit­u­at­ed 6 miles North of Helens­burgh. Helens­burgh can be reached from Glas­gow by train, for £5 return, trains leave every half hour from Glas­gow Queens Street (Low lev­el station).Or the 216 from Jamaica St — Helens­burgh.
You can catch the 316 bus from Helens­burgh Cen­tral train sta­tion (for Coul­port or Gare­loc­head, stops out­side the camp) it only costs £1:50, and you can ask to be dropped off at the peace camp.

-F.P.C. is on the east verge of the A814 road, which leads to HMNB Clyde and beyond. The Camp is there­fore vis­i­ble to all traf­fic com­ing towards the base from the direc­tion of Helens­burgh.

We are about 30 miles west of Glas­gow, by the Gare­loch, a riv­er Clyde estu­ary sea loch. Faslane Naval Base is on the Gare­loch.
CAMP PHONE 01436820901

faslaniapeacecamp@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=346471983449&ref=ts

The Earth First! Journal is celebrating 30 years in print this Winter!

30 years of no-bull report­ing, direct actions, exten­sive bio-diver­si­ty cov­er­age from those with­in the Earth First! move­ment who refuse to com­pro­mise in defense of Moth­er Earth!

30 years of no-bull report­ing, direct actions, exten­sive bio-diver­si­ty cov­er­age from those with­in the Earth First! move­ment who refuse to com­pro­mise in defense of Moth­er Earth!

The EF! Jour­nal Col­lec­tive is look­ing for your help in cap­tur­ing a wicked part of the his­to­ry of this move­ment- the UK chap­ter of direct action, Earth First! orga­niz­ing, EF! gath­er­ings and some of the best for­est defense cam­paigns on the plan­et!

If you’re inter­est­ed in writ­ing an arti­cle for the 30 year anniver­sary please send an e‑mail to: collective@earthfirstjournal.org and we can talk more about word length, con­tent and dead­lines.

We are also look­ing for more con­tri­bu­tions: direct action pho­tos for 2011 Direct Action Cal­en­dar and music for a new EF! music com­pi­la­tion. Send high res­o­lu­tion pho­tos with a cap­tion to the col­lec­tive e‑mail address, as well as your sug­ges­tions for songs/songwriters/bands for the new com­pi­la­tion!

Cheers!

For the Wild,
‑the EF! Jour­nal Col­lec­tive”

Earth First! Summer Gathering, 4th — 9th Aug 2010, Derbyshire — location & programme announced/set-up plans & call-out

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme
Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

What’s hap­pen­ing?
Over 80 work­shops, dis­cus­sions, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘where next’ ses­sions:

*Share and learn skills for kick-ass actions on land and water.
Small boat han­dling and blockad­ing using kayaks / Blockad­ing — tripods, lock-ons/ Fences / Climb­ing skills / Action recon­nais­sance / Secu­ri­ty for Activists / Strat­e­gy and tac­tics / How to research cor­po­ra­tions /

*Net­work cur­rent cam­paigns against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion
Open-cast min­ing / Genet­ic engi­neer­ing / Agro­fu­els / Sav­ing Ice­land / Cli­mate actions / Pipeline resis­tance in Ross­port / Anti-nuclear / Air­port expansion/ Tar Sands

*Think about eco-cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tive ways of organ­is­ing
Deep green ethics / Anar­chist eco­nom­ics / Anar­chist his­to­ry / Rad­i­cal Pol­i­tics / Work­ing with­out leaders/ Con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing

*Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy / Restora­tion ecol­o­gy / Flo­ra and Fau­na iden­ti­fi­ca­tion / Veg­an Cake mak­ing / Pow­er from solar and wind / wild food / Squat­ting / Bike main­te­nance

As well as inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns round-up, net­work­ing and plan­ning for future actions.

Cost and prac­ti­cal things
£20–30 accord­ing to what you can afford.
The gath­er­ing is in Der­byshire, the exact loca­tion will be announced the week before. More info on our web­site.

Find out more and join in!

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

We have now a stack of fresh­ly print­ed posters adver­tis­ing the gath­er­ing. If you’d like to send you some to stick up in your area or to take to events, fes­ti­vals and the like, please email us. Alter­na­tive­ly you can also down­load the files and print your own. They are fair­ly large files! EF! gath­er­ing poster (A4)

We are now look­ing for peo­ple to run work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the gath­er­ing. Please con­tact us if you can offer some­thing. Have a look at our pro­gramme page to see the kind of thing we’re look­ing for.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ NOSPAM _ @ _ NOSPAM earthfirst.org.uk

Faslane blockaded twice in three days during Euro Days of Action to Ban Nukes

6 APRIL 2010

6 APRIL 2010

Fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day’s pan-Euro­pean actions at nuclear weapons bases (see http://www.vredesactie.be/campaign.php?id=12 for details), more than a dozen Tri­dent Ploughshares activists today revis­it­ed Faslane, home of the UK’s nuclear weapons. The pro­test­ers intend to ensure that high on the agen­da of the elec­tion called by Gor­don Brown today is the UK’s nuclear weapons and their threat to glob­al secu­ri­ty.

The pro­tes­tors peace­ful­ly block­ad­ed the base and ensured that activ­i­ty at the base was dis­rupt­ed.

A spokesper­son said, ‘we enjoyed tak­ing part in Sat­ur­day’s sym­bol­ic block­ade at the North Gate, but we recog­nise the need to send a more seri­ous mes­sage, and have returned today to exer­cise our civic respon­si­bil­i­ty under Inter­na­tion­al Law, to do what we can to stop the work of prepar­ing and main­tain­ing these hor­rif­ic weapons of mass destruc­tion. At this time of year we reassert our mes­sage of East­er, that love is more pow­er­ful than hate, and life is more pow­er­ful than death’.

Up-date:

Janet Fen­ton was arrest­ed for cut­ting down the sign ‘Faslane Nuclear depot’ as a sym­bol of the day that the base will close. Mor­ag Bal­four was help­ing with that but was only arrest­ed after a spray­ing paint­ing a mes­sage. Bri­an Larkin, Eurig Scan­drett, Bar­bara Dowl­ing and Jean Oliv­er were arrest­ed for block­ing the gate­way locked togeth­er.

Fol­low Tri­dent Ploughshares on Twit­ter: http://twitter.com/TridentPlough
media [at] tridentploughshares.org
http://www.tridentploughshares.org

BP not welcome in Wantage and Grove

6th April 2010
No Tar sands and Boy­cott BP sprayed onto walls in Wan­tage and Grove.

6th April 2010
No Tar sands and Boy­cott BP sprayed onto walls in Wan­tage and Grove.

Tonight, inspired by the fact that Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action are organ­is­ing an event called Tar­maged­don this Sat­ur­day. We sprayed “no tar sands” and “boy­cott BP” on var­i­ous loca­tions through­out Wan­tage and Grove, includ­ing a wall oppo­site a BP petrol sta­tion. This is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the indige­nous peo­ple for whom tar sands is destroy­ing their lives as well as their envi­ron­ment. This action was tak­en as part of the Fort­night of shame.

Wan­tage and Grove Autonomous Net­work (WAGAN)

Penan step up campaign to defend Heart of Borneo nature reserve

6, April, 2010
Penan natives from Sarawak’s Upper Baram region in the Malaysian part of Bor­neo have erect­ed two log­ging road block­ades to pre­vent their last remain­ing vir­gin jun­gle from being logged by the Sam­ling Group, a Malaysian tim­ber giant.

6, April, 2010
Penan natives from Sarawak’s Upper Baram region in the Malaysian part of Bor­neo have erect­ed two log­ging road block­ades to pre­vent their last remain­ing vir­gin jun­gle from being logged by the Sam­ling Group, a Malaysian tim­ber giant.
The block­ades have been erect­ed at two strate­gi­cal loca­tions on log­ging roads near the Penan vil­lages of Long Sabai and Ba Ker­ameu on the upper reach­es of the Akah riv­er. Accord­ing to com­mu­ni­ty sources, sur­vey­ors of the Sam­ling cor­po­ra­tion had repeat­ed­ly been asked by vil­lagers of Long Sabai to stop work­ing on the Penan’ s native lands but had refused to do so. As a con­se­quence, the vil­lagers erect­ed two block­ades that have been in place since 24 March and 31 March respec­tive­ly.
Aya Lud­ing, a spokesman for the Long Sabai com­mu­ni­ty, said: “We know that we are weak­er than the Sam­ling bull­doz­ers. But we are deter­mined to fight for our next gen­er­a­tion because we can­not sur­vive with­out the for­est. If we let the com­pa­ny in and do some log­ging, they will want to take all of our for­est.”
Last Novem­ber, sev­en­teen Penan com­mu­ni­ties of the Upper Baram region had declared their native lands a self-admin­is­tered nature reserve. The “Penan Peace Park” cov­ers an area of 163,000 hectares of high con­ser­va­tion val­ue rain­for­est and tra­di­tion­al­ly used agri­cul­tur­al land near the inter­na­tion­al bor­der between Malaysia and Indone­sia. ”

Source: http://www.bmf.ch/en/news/?show=200

Glasgow airport protest announced — protesters arrested

6th April 2010

6th April 2010
4 men and 1 woman were arrest­ed and charged on Wednes­day 31st March for speak­ing in pub­lic about the cli­mate effects of avi­a­tion at the reopen­ing of Glas­gow Air­port Ter­mi­nal 2. The group from Stop Expan­sion at Scot­tish Air­ports (SESA), includ­ing a legal observ­er and two pho­tog­ra­phers, were leav­ing the air­port after hold­ing a ban­ner for a pho­to­graph out­side Ter­mi­nal 1 when a police van and police car pulled up and arrest­ed 4 of the group.

Late into the night, riot police lat­er went to the homes of the arrest­ed with­out war­rants. On Thurs­day the 5 were charged with obstruct­ing nor­mal air­port busi­ness. All of the accused deny the charges. The group believes that those arrest­ed were tar­get­ted because SESA is call­ing for a pub­lic non-vio­lent peace­ful protest at the air­port on Octo­ber 10.

Amelia Bir­rell, had riot police at her door after mid­night say­ing that they want­ed to ques­tion her son, Rob­bie. She said: “I think that this jus­tice sys­tem is a joke when it locks up peace­ful indi­vid­u­als until 6pm the next day when they are talk­ing about such seri­ous mea­sures as cli­mate change. We were made to feel like crim­i­nals when riot police searched around the whole of our house in the mid­dle of the night. I know that the air­port is a sen­si­tive place but they are all pas­sion­ate indi­vid­u­als wor­ried about the future of our coun­try and they were doing noth­ing to cause any dis­tur­bance. I am proud of my son, we are sup­posed to have free­dom of speech in this coun­try and such heavy hand­ed polic­ing is dis­pro­por­tion­ate and hyp­o­crit­i­cal.”

This is not the first time that Scot­tish anti-air­port expan­sion cam­paign­ers have been sub­ject to heavy-hand­ed polic­ing tac­tics. In Jan­u­ary 2009 Geoff Lamb, a pen­sion­er from Aberdeen was been held in a cell overnight for inno­cent­ly writ­ing ‘you fly, we die’ in the snow in food dye. Lat­er in 2009, Plane Stu­pid exposed a mas­sive police oper­a­tion to bribe and infil­trate peace­ful protest groups.

The dis­pro­por­tion­ate tac­tics we have seen by Strath­clyde police mir­ror those infa­mous­ly used by the Met­ro­pol­i­tan police. Arrest­ed for voic­ing con­cerns about the avi­a­tion industry’s mas­sive and grow­ing con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change? Who are the real crim­i­nals here?

http://sesacoalition.blogspot.com/

Huntington Lane Fossil Fools Weekend roundup

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

Fossil Fools Weekend

A day before Fos­sil Fools Days saw the camp attacked dur­ing the night by three loud bangs, which it is thought came from some­one either throw­ing fire­works or an air bomb into the camp. The camp which includ­ed young chil­dren were ter­ri­fied after being wok­en up dur­ing the dead of night. One camper said

“It was ter­ri­fy­ing, real­ly ter­ri­fy­ing. It was in the dead of night, death­ly qui­et, and then all of a sud­den we heard these three thun­der­ous bangs quick­ly one after the oth­er.”

As a result of the attack a 24 hour watch has now been estab­lished at the camp

Huntington Lane Camp

The week­end saw a steady stream of peo­ple vis­it the camp which has now grown to include two com­mu­nal tip­is and a third shel­tered com­mu­nal area is under con­struc­tion which when fin­ished will have raised floor­ing.

Fri­day the 2nd April saw two cam­paign­ers hang a ban­ner from the famous Iron Bridge World Her­itage Site land­mark in view of thou­sands of Bank Hol­i­day vis­i­tors.

“We are try­ing to raise aware­ness. We are still find­ing a large amount of peo­ple do not know pro­pos­als for a coal mine are in exis­tence, let alone it being so close to an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.”

Over­all the mood at the camp is pos­i­tive but we still need as many peo­ple at the camp as pos­si­ble and any­thing you can donate would be appre­ci­at­ed. We still need Food, Water, Tarp, Ropes, Straw/Sawdust/Woodchips to soak up the mud a lit­tle and Walkie Talkies

http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/fossil-fools-weekend-roundup/

Fossil Fools Day round-up

In the UK —

BP ad cam­paign hoax kicks off the Fort­night of Shame

In the UK —

BP ad cam­paign hoax kicks off the Fort­night of Shame
BP Back to Black logo smallBP Hoax 1BP Hoax 2
BP today had to halt the launch of a mul­ti-mil­lion pound ‘Back to Black’ ad cam­paign. That’s right, BP’s award-win­ning ‘beyond petro­le­um’ brand took a hit today when a, pre­vi­ous­ly unknown, PR agency deliv­ered 22,000 revamped BP logos and a new sign to the company’s head­quar­ters in St. James’ Square.The ad agency mis­in­ter­pret­ed the brief to come up with a new logo that took account of BP’s deci­sion to invest in the Cana­di­an tar sands, and launched the mul­ti-mil­lion pound ‘Back to Black’ cam­paign.

… What day is it? April Fools Day, a day for pranks both sil­ly and seri­ous.
So here’s what real­ly hap­pened:

Pos­ing as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a PR com­pa­ny, cli­mate cam­paign­ers played a Fos­sil Fools Day prank on BP today by deliv­er­ing 22,000 new logos – one for every BP logo in the UK – to the company’s HQ.

The cam­paign­ers, from Lon­don Ris­ing Tide and the UK Tar Sands Net­work, piled box­es of ‘Back to Black’ logos on BP’s doorstep and d‑locked a match­ing sign onto the build­ing in protest at the company’s rever­sal of its deci­sion to stay out of Canada’s con­tro­ver­sial tar sands.

BP’s ‘beyond petro­le­um’ brand was nev­er more than a slick cha­rade and BP’s plans to move into the tar sands reveal the company’s true colours. We vis­it­ed BP today to present a logo that’s more fit­ting for a com­pa­ny about to invest in the most destruc­tive project on the plan­et.

Today marks the start of the BP Tar Sans Fort­night of Shame, which will see actions tak­ing place up and down the coun­try, all with a com­mon mes­sage. Extrac­tion in the Cana­di­an tar sands is fuelling cli­mate chaos and tram­pling indige­nous rights, and we won’t let BP go into the tar sands with­out a fight.

If you want to get involved then come along to the BP Tar Sands: Par­ty at the Pumps on Sat­ur­day 10th April, meet 1pm, Oxford Cir­cus – more info at: www.risingtide.org.uk

tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://www.tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com

Video

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Ris­ing Tide dis­rupt Shell in Bris­tol
Bristol Shell petrol station protest
Activists from Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed the Shell garage in Muller Road, East­ville at 8.30am yes­ter­day to high­light the repres­sion expe­ri­enced by com­mu­ni­ties in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land who are try­ing to stop Shell build­ing an onshore high pres­sure pipeline and gas refin­ery.

The com­mu­ni­ty in Erris, Coun­ty Mayo has seen con­tin­ued harass­ment and intim­i­da­tion by Gar­dai and Shell secu­ri­ty, as well as the unlaw­ful arrest and tar­get­ed jail­ing of key cam­paign­ers. In Feb­ru­ary fish­er­man Pat O’Don­nell was sen­tenced to 7 months in jail for con­vic­tions of “breach of the peace” and of “obstruct­ing a Gar­da”. The com­mu­ni­ty has been fight­ing this project for over a decade. Con­struc­tion of the gas refin­ery has result­ed in the pol­lu­tion of the local drink­ing water. Untreat­ed waste chem­i­cals from the refin­ery, includ­ing lead, mer­cury, arsenic and radon would be pumped into Broad­haven Bay despite it being a des­ig­nat­ed Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion. 1

The action was part of Fos­sil Fools Day, a glob­al day of cre­ative action against cor­po­ra­tions who con­tribute to and prof­it from cli­mate change. 2

Rachel Keevil from Ris­ing Tide, chas­ing anoth­er activist with a large sec­tion of pipe, said “Shell are cli­mate crim­i­nals. The gas pipeline in Coun­ty Mayo will dam­age the envi­ron­ment and threat­en the health and liveli­hoods of local peo­ple; all for the prof­it of Shell. It’s a pipeline to dis­as­ter.”

This street the­atre was clear­ly a ridicu­lous rep­re­sen­ta­tion of very seri­ous events but opened up a space for talk­ing with the pub­lic about the issues, many of whom took gen­uine inter­est, some say­ing they were inspired to write to Pat in prison.

Notes
1 http://www.shelltosea.com/node/21
2 http://risingtide.org.uk/node/336

Bris­tol and Bath Ris­ing Tide
bristol@risingtide.org.uk
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

–

Eon switch on to com­mu­ni­ty renew­ables

PRESS RELEASE 01-04-2010

GREEN ENERGY GIFT FOR MEDWAY
Medway Renewables 2Medway Renewables 1
Ger­man ener­gy giant EON have announced that they are shelv­ing con­tro­ver­sial plans for a mas­sive expan­sion of coal and gas
elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion in the Med­way region. The sur­pris­ing news emerged today as Eon con­trac­tors broke ground at the offices of Med­way Coun­cil on Dock Road, Chatham, and start­ed installing wind tur­bines and solar pan­els.

Eon media rela­tions offi­cer, Joe King announced, “We realise that con­tin­ued invest­ment in fos­sil fuels is a dan­ger­ous dis­trac­tion from the urgent need to devel­op tru­ly sus­tain­able tech­nolo­gies so we’ve aban­doned our dat­ed plans to con­tin­ue burn­ing gas and coal. This wind farm for Med­way coun­cil is just the begin­ning, we’re also offer­ing all our cus­tomers heav­i­ly dis­count­ed shares in future com­mu­ni­ty wind farm schemes, so they’ll actu­al­ly co-own the sys­tems that pro­vide their pow­er”.

In a leaflet passed out to passers by, Eon admit­ted that until now, only a triv­ial amount of their invest­ments had gone into renew­ables but promised that would now change. Acknowl­edg­ing the urgent need to dras­ti­cal­ly cut emis­sions in order to curb glob­al warm­ing and avoid dis­as­trous cli­mat­ic tip­ping points, the com­pa­ny promised they’d aban­don their plans to turn Med­way into a CO2 pump­ing hub, end fur­ther invest­ment into fos­sil fuels, and instead com­mit to tru­ly sus­tain­able ener­gy such as wind and sun.

How­ev­er, a local activist Ben­nie Fac­tor, expressed dis­be­lieve, “This is a joke! All this renew­able ener­gy rhetoric rep­re­sent noth­ing more than cycli­cal green­wash from these ener­gy giants. Sad­ly, the real­i­ty is that they are still com­mit­ted to busi­ness as usu­al, damn­ing us all to con­tin­ued green­house gas emis­sions and cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.”

–

The FOSSIL FOOLS FARCE … is here!

Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth & Art Not Oil-Ply­mouth took the Ply­mouth city cen­tre streets to bring you the big “Fos­sil Fools Farce”, to remind us there are facts and names behind the Cli­mate dra­ma.

Today, on “Fos­sil Fools Day”, we bring you:

*The BIG OIL evil clown – Oil indus­try is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the ‘tax­pay­er sup­port­ed’ glob­al expan­sion into the far reach­es of the plan­et. Unless fur­ther explo­ration to find and exploit more oil and oth­er fos­sil fuels is stopped, and instead accel­er­ate the trans­fer of invest­ment into renew­able ener­gy, the planet’s cli­mate will not be able to with­stand. Apart of mas­sive CO2 emis­sions, the oil indus­try has been respon­si­ble for mas­sive scale defor­esta­tion, local mor­tal dis­eases in oil field areas, eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ters, over­rid­ing indige­nous rights and more human rights vio­la­tions. All in the name of their prof­it.

Cur­rent­ly BP & Shell are invest­ing in the trag­ic TAR SANDS project in Cana­da, which is the dirt­i­est and most expen­sive oil in terms of extrac­tion and emis­sions that will lead us inevitably to run­away Cli­mate Chaos ‑at a time when glob­al oil resources are run­ning out!

*The Crazy AVIATOR – In terms of dam­age to the cli­mate, fly­ing is ten times worse than tak­ing the train. It’s respon­si­ble for 13% of the UK’s impact on the cli­mate and it’s the fastest grow­ing source of emis­sions in this coun­try; between 1990 and 2050, emis­sions from avi­a­tion are set to quadru­ple, which sci­en­tists say could wipe out all oth­er emis­sions sav­ings we make in every oth­er sec­tor! The main cause of this mas­sive growth in the UK is the pro­lif­er­a­tion of short haul routes — often unnec­es­sary domes­tic ones.

In Ply­mouth we have Air South West ( owned by Sut­ton Har­bour group — who also man­age Ply­mouth air­port!) pub­li­cis­ing aggres­sive­ly domes­tic flights between Ply­mouth-Lon­don and Newquay. Their ‘cheap’ price offers don’t tell you what we’ll all have to pay after­wards — the REAL price behind it: a plan­et that will nev­er stop warm­ing up. Besides, trains to Corn­wall aren’t expen­sive! – and it’s a great land­scape.

Fos­sil fuels are the main source of Green­house Gas emis­sions. How­ev­er last Decem­ber in Copen­hagen the politi­cians sold us out to the fos­sil­fools, cor­po­rate lob­by­ists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green cap­i­tal­ism,” a deeply unjust car­bon mar­ket and con­tin­ued assaults on our com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems.

The stakes couldn’t be high­er: desta­bil­i­sa­tion of the glob­al cli­mate, local com­mu­ni­ties destroyed by dirty ener­gy extrac­tion and com­bus­tion, dev­as­tat­ing freak storms, droughts, floods, the list goes on …

If we’re going to stop cli­mate chaos, the only real solu­tion is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

Join the pos­i­tive char­ac­ters of this dra­ma and change the script of our future!

Join the inspir­ing WIND FAIRY, play­ing and trust­ing clean ener­gy; the com­mit­ted CYCLIST, who claims the future with ped­al pow­er! and
the down to earth PERMACULTURE, who respects the land, grows their own food and sows the seeds into our chance to be healthy and eco­nom­i­cal­ly inde­pen­dent com­mu­ni­ties!

We can be the prob­lem ..or the solu­tion. That is our stance today.

NOTES:

-Join ‘Tran­si­tion-Ply­mouth’ grass­roots local ini­tia­tive for a sus­tain­able Ply­mouth!
Email: plymouthtransition@nature-mail.com or phone: 01752 222152

- Get the facts on Tar Sands: http://www.tarsandswatch.org/

- Stop sup­port­ing uneth­i­cal fos­sil banks like RBS & Bar­clay’s. Switch your­self to an eth­i­cal one: the Co-oper­a­tive or Tri­o­dos, or see:
http://www.vegansociety.com/Lifestyle-And-Nutrition/Finance/Ethical-Banking.aspx

- More alter­na­tives: http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/positivesolutions

Ris­ing Tide-Ply­mouth takes cre­ative non-vio­lent direct action and pro­vides pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion to con­front the root caus­es of Cli­mate
Change.

www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk

–

Brighton — RBS out of order over Tar Sands

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cash­points have fall­en prey to an April fools prank in protest at RBS’s invest­ments in Cana­di­an tar sands. The cash­points were dis­abled by local activist group Brighton Against Tar Sands (BATS) with signs which read ‘Invest­ing in tar sands is OUT OF ORDER’. The signs were fixed to half a dozen cash­points in Brighton and Lewes in the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day (1st April) morn­ing.

The prac­ti­cal joke had a seri­ous mes­sage. Tar sands oil extrac­tion in Alber­ta, Cana­da is the sin­gle largest indus­tri­al CO2 emit­ter on the plan­et and has been respon­si­ble for destroy­ing an area of ancient for­est the size of Eng­land.

It is also home to First Nation tribes who have lived off the land for mil­len­nia. Due to the pol­lu­tion they now have high rates of can­cer and are los­ing their ancient hunt­ing grounds.

BATS spokesper­son Dan Stars said: “RBS is out of order. Tar sands is like­ly to be respon­si­ble for run­away cli­mate change if the exploita­tion con­tin­ues unchecked. It is whol­ly irre­spon­si­ble for the bank to invest in what amounts to tar­maged­don.”
http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/wdm/4327600119

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Back in the USA —

Col­orado activists pulled an elab­o­rate prank on Xcel Ener­gy today, April Fool’s Day, announc­ing that the util­i­ty com­pa­ny pledged to switch to 100 per­cent renew­able elec­tric­i­ty statewide by phas­ing out not just coal plants, but nat­ur­al gas as well. More

–

Pro­test­ers boast­ing signs that read “Break America’s Oil Addic­tion” and “Coal is Dirty” crowd around Bank of Amer­i­ca in down­town Asheville shout­ing and chant­i­ng slo­gans like: “What do we want? No Coal! When do we want it? NOW.” More

–

An activist was arrest­ed this after­noon at the Water­loo Branch of RBC Bank. Mark Cor­biere was charged with mis­chief for hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing “Boy­cott RBC” and “Stop the Tar Sands” from the roof of the branch, locat­ed in uptown Water­loo. More
–

Pep­co announces plan to shift all pow­er facil­i­ties to wind and solar ener­gy, may can­cel planned rate hikes Pep­co noti­fies its cus­tomers that it wish­es “to serve the ener­gy needs of our cus­tomers for gen­er­a­tions to come — Wash­ing­ton DC. More

–

Late last night vol­un­teers with Port­land Ris­ing Tide blast­ed the city with over 3,000 fake news­pa­per cov­ers wrap­ping the Willamette Week. With con­tent includ­ing an inter­view with Big­foot about pipeline plans. More

–

Philadel­phia envi­ron­men­tal­ists told morn­ing com­muters not to be “fos­sil fooled” by PNC Bank – a bank that calls itself “A Green Bank with Eco-Friend­ly Ser­vice”. PNC Bank has direct and indi­rect con­nec­tions to moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing. More

==================

Blame Cana­da

In the spir­it of April Fools day, 13 Cities in Cana­da have pulled cre­ative pranks on fos­sil fuel indus­try sup­port­ers, or “Fos­sil Fools,” pleas­ant­ly con­fus­ing secu­ri­ty guards, police, and the gen­er­al pub­lic. More

==================

It’s not Down Under — New Zealand/

Camp for Cli­mate Action Auck­land has vis­it­ed the offices of OMFi­nan­cial to present them with this year’s Fos­sil Fools day award for help­ing New Zealand’s biggest pol­luters cheat their way out of deal­ing with cli­mate change. More

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Beware what hap­pens in The Nether­lands

Shell Apol­o­gis­es for Human Rights Vio­la­tions in Niger Delta, The Hague. More

Fos­sil Fools Day 2010

Black Wood protest camp disappears over night to fight another mine, another day

2.4.2010
The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp packed up the night before last and left the site of UK Coal’s new mine at Blair Farm, in Fife. The camp occu­pied the site for a week and a half to show UK Coal and oth­er mine oper­a­tors that no new mine or coal infra­struc­ture is safe and out of reach of pro­test­ers.

2.4.2010
The Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp packed up the night before last and left the site of UK Coal’s new mine at Blair Farm, in Fife. The camp occu­pied the site for a week and a half to show UK Coal and oth­er mine oper­a­tors that no new mine or coal infra­struc­ture is safe and out of reach of pro­test­ers.

The inten­tion of the camp from the begin­ning was to hold a short-term occu­pa­tion to bring atten­tion to the issue, make links with local com­mu­ni­ties and cost UK Coal mon­ey. The occu­pa­tion was a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with local res­i­dents who opposed the mine, and with the cur­rent­ly occu­pied Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast site in Shrop­shire.

One of the pri­ma­ry aims of the camp was to cost UK Coal mon­ey and make it more dif­fi­cult for the com­pa­ny to cause such destruc­tion in oth­er places. Dun­fermline Sher­iff Court would inevitably have grant­ed the sum­ma­ry evic­tion of the occu­piers today and, cou­pled with the fact that bailiffs from the Nation­al Evic­tion Team recent­ly vis­it­ed site, the camp had undoubt­ed­ly already hit UK Coal prof­its.

The camp was set up on Sun­day 21st March in protest against the dev­as­tat­ing effects of open cast coal min­ing. Impacts on near­by com­mu­ni­ties will include noise and dust pol­lu­tion, increased traf­fic on the roads through HGV move­ments, the loss of land­scape, local ecol­o­gy and bio­di­ver­si­ty, and loss of access to recre­ation areas, not to men­tion the increased rates of res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases and can­cer from expo­sure to coal dust. The min­ing of this coal will also release over 2 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 into the atmos­phere from com­bus­tion alone at near-by Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion, direct­ly con­tra­dict­ing the Scot­tish government’s tar­gets to reduce emis­sions.

As envi­ron­men­tal­ists, the camp occu­pants made sure to leave the site as they found it, undam­aged by their activ­i­ties. This was unlike UK Coal – with felling oper­a­tions com­plete, huge areas of birch and oak for­est – des­ig­nat­ed ancient wood­land – have been lost as well as the wildlife with­in it, which includ­ed nest­ing birds, bats and red squir­rels. On top of this, the camp is con­duct­ing an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into alle­ga­tions, sup­port­ed by local wit­ness­es, that fire dam­age to Great Crest­ed Newt areas was car­ried out on behalf of UK Coal to facil­i­tate the newts forced migra­tion as a con­di­tion of plan­ning con­sent.

Fiona Coop­er from the camp said “We will be oppos­ing more open cast coal sites in Scot­land, as well as sup­port­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing the unsus­tain­able and dam­ag­ing growth of the coal indus­try in the UK, such as the Hunt­ing­ton Lane protest site in Shrop­shire.”

The camp would like to thank the peo­ple of Oak­ley and sur­round­ing areas for their sup­port through­out the occu­pa­tion, and remind UK Coal of its oblig­a­tions to restore the site when it is fin­ished with it.

Black Wood Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp
coalactionscotland@riseup.net
http://blackwood.noflag.org.uk/