Author: earthfirst

Lammas Ecovillage, Wales gets Planning Approval (finally!)

Today the Lam­mas group won plan­ning per­mis­sion for their ecov­il­lage project.

Today the Lam­mas group won plan­ning per­mis­sion for their ecov­il­lage project.

Lam­mas is a new set­tle­ment of 9 eco-small­hold­ings, a camp­site and a com­mu­ni­ty hub build­ing, to start con­struc­tion this autumn. It will be sit­ed on 76 acres of mixed pas­ture and wood­land next to the vil­lage of Gland­wr, Pem­brokeshire. The site is on land cur­rent­ly belong­ing to Pont-y-gafel farm, next to the vil­lage of Gland­wr, North Pem­brokeshire. The site is cur­rent­ly used as farm­land.

After their first appli­ca­tion was turned down for insuf­fi­cient detail, Lam­mas put in an amend­ed appli­ca­tion on March 17th 2008. The first appli­ca­tion had filled an entire wheel­bar­row (the sec­ond con­tain­u­ing 150 illus­tra­tions and 1200 pages of text would have requ­uired 2 bar­rows — so it was sub­mit­ted elec­tron­i­cal­ly!) How­ev­er, their sec­ond appli­ca­tion was again turned down in Sep­tem­ber 2008. Fur­ther frus­tra­tion was expe­ri­enced when the Welsh Assem­bly refused them the right to appeal on the grounds that the appli­ca­tion was invalid on some tech­ni­cal­i­ty. How­ev­er, appeal they did, and the appeal into the refusal of the revised plan­ning appli­ca­tion was heard ear­li­er this sum­mer. The inspec­tor, intrigued and unvon­ven­tion­al­ly, chose not to allow lam­ma’s expert wit­ness­es to present their full cas­es in favour, pre­fer­ring to open the debate about the appli­ca­tion to the whole floor so that all voic­es in favour and against the appli­ca­tion were heard. Insp­tec­tor took a few weeks to reach his deci­sion in con­sid­er­ing the whole appli­ca­tion.

Despite the launch of a pio­neer­ing low-impact pol­i­cy by Pem­brokeshire Coun­ty Coun­cil in 2006 and years of metic­u­lous ground­work, con­scien­cious ded­i­ca­tion and patient delib­er­a­tion, the long exact­ing process sought for approval of the project has tak­en over 2 years since the ini­tial appli­ca­tion was first sub­mit­ted. Empha­sis­ing the imbal­ance of the cur­rent plan­ning sys­tem which does­n’t take account of cli­mate change, Paul Wim­bush of the Lam­mas project even sug­gest­ed that it would have been eas­i­er to have applied for plan­ning per­mis­sion to build a pow­er sta­tion! That it has suc­ceed­ed is due to a tremen­dous dri­ve to suc­ceed born of an inspi­ra­tional vision of low impact/low car­bon liv­ing for the 21st cen­tu­ry.

Lam­mas was con­ceived as the first large-scale low impact project that would work with the plan­ning sys­tem, (ie: to apply for plan­ning per­mis­sion in advance of the con­struc­tion and estab­lish­ment of the project, or in oth­er word, not ret­ro­spec­tive­ly). The Lam­mas Ecov­il­lage will be com­plete­ly inde­pen­dent of all mains ser­vices. All water will be sourced from the site using a com­bi­na­tion of an exist­ing spring for drink­ing water and rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing from rooftops. All elec­tric­i­ty will be pro­duced on site using renew­ables. For­tu­nate­ly there is an exist­ing water tur­bine sys­tem on site which Lam­mas plans to ren­o­vate. All organ­ic waste will be com­post­ed on site using a com­bi­na­tion of com­post toi­lets, wormeries and com­post heaps. Fuel, in the form of cop­piced wil­low and ele­phant grass, will be grown on site.

The project will be man­aged by Lam­mas Low Impact Ini­tia­tives Ltd, a coop­er­a­tive reg­is­tered under the Indus­tri­al and Prov­i­dent Soci­ety Act. A com­pre­hen­sive man­age­ment plan has been com­piled which sets out how the project will be estab­lished and run.

The small­hold­ings will essen­tial­ly be agri­cul­tur­al lease­holds which are con­di­tion­al­ly tied to require­ments as set out in the man­age­ment plan. Thus the objec­tives of the project will be assured in the long term. The require­ments will cov­er issues such as liveli­hood, trans­port, ser­vices and mon­i­tor­ing.

The peo­ple select­ed for the first phase of the project have devel­oped well researched plans for their liveli­hoods. In addi­tion to sourc­ing fuel, water, elec­tric­i­ty and food from the site, the 9 house­holds will also run small-scale farm busi­ness­es pro­duc­ing a wide range of qual­i­ty goods includ­ing hazel­nuts, smoked ham, soft fruit, wood­land crafts, veg­eta­bles and cooked foods. The pro­duce will be mar­ket­ed through a vari­ety of out­lets includ­ing local shops and a Lam­mas mar­ket stall.

Com­mon Land
Some areas of the project will be man­aged in com­mon. There is an area of exist­ing broadleaf wood­land on site which will be con­served for its wildlife val­ue. The exist­ing conifer wood­land will be man­aged and har­vest­ed as a resource for build­ing. There will also be shared graz­ing and fuel crop areas as well as a millpond and vil­lage green.

In hind­sight
As Larch Max­ey has writ­ten: “Lam­mas soft­ly-soft­ly approach, seek­ing to work with the plan­ning sys­tem, has led to huge delays while prospec­tive res­i­dents liv­ing local­ly [have poured] sav­ings into inad­e­quate acco­mo­da­tion. Oppor­tu­ni­ties to har­ness peo­ple’s ener­gy have been lost. Whilst it remains invalu­able to have the Low-Impact Devel­op­ment move­ment broad­ened by projects seek­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion before mov­ing on, the plan­ning sys­tem is ill equipped for the speed and scale of the chal­langes we face. Until it is equipped, peo­ple must con­tin­ue to take direct action towards the sus­tain­abil­i­ty tran­si­tion in every way they can {includ­ing} build­ing low impact lives”.

More Info:
Ref: http://www.lammas.org.uk/ecovillage/news.htm Llamas Village Group

Land and Forest Occpation started in Lapland (Finland)

On the 26th of August an inter­na­tion­al occu­pa­tion­camp has been start­ed in Finnish Lap­land, due to the plan­ning of ura­ni­um min­ing and the plan­ning of a new nuclear plant. Locals and par­tic­i­pants from the cli­mate camp fin­land, decid­ed to com­bine pow­ers and try to pre­serve the lap­pish nature and way of life.

Forest in FinlandOn the 26th of August an inter­na­tion­al occu­pa­tion­camp has been start­ed in Finnish Lap­land, due to the plan­ning of ura­ni­um min­ing and the plan­ning of a new nuclear plant. Locals and par­tic­i­pants from the cli­mate camp fin­land, decid­ed to com­bine pow­ers and try to pre­serve the lap­pish nature and way of life.

lat­est news from the camp, Ran­ua ( FL)

August 31th, 2009
On August 26th a base­camp has been estab­lished for the Ran­ua Res­cue Are­va Min­ing Mon­i­tors. Dur­ing the Lap­land Nuclear Cli­mate Camp in July we learned from locals that Are­va has already began their ura­ni­um prospect­ing in Ran­ua, Lap­land. We have come here to mon­i­tor Are­va’s activ­i­ties and help sup­port the resis­tance to ura­ni­um min­ing here, and every­where.
We have found a beau­ti­ful loca­tion for the camp, near a lake, with­in an old for­est, on the edge of Are­va’s mas­sive prospect­ing claim area. We need thought­ful, respect­ful peo­ple, skills, sup­plies, sup­port, laugh­ter, and ded­i­ca­tion!
You can check the http://www.nuclearfreefinland.org site, and the blog on http://www.ranuarescue.blogspot.com.
Soon we will be send­ing pho­tos and direc­tions to get here, we will also set up a sched­ule for when peo­ple are most need­ed, what is need­ed, and what events will be hap­pen­ing.
When you want to come to the camp, con­tact in advance (camp (at) nuclearfreefinland.org) and tell of your arrival time in Ran­ua. From there you can phone the camp work phone num­ber +358 40 365 2041.[1]

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So every­body who has some spare time on their hands is very wel­come to come.

Anoth­er Web­site: http://www.greenkids.de/europas-atomerbe/index.php/Ranua_Uranium_Exploration_Action

Climate protesters scale Carbon Exchange

27th August 2009
Cli­mate change pro­test­ers have scaled a build­ing in the City to high­light their oppo­si­tion to car­bon trad­ing.

Climate CasinoClimate casino - playing with police27th August 2009
Cli­mate change pro­test­ers have scaled a build­ing in the City to high­light their oppo­si­tion to car­bon trad­ing.

Activists tar­get­ed the Car­bon Exchange in Bish­ops­gate at about 0900 BST and unfurled a ban­ner claim­ing car­bon trad­ing to be a “false solu­tion”.

A Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police spokesman said about 20 activists were at the site and that offi­cers were “in atten­dance”.

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers have gath­ered in Lon­don as part of Cli­mate Camp — a week of “edu­ca­tion on green issues”.

The site for the camp — Dart­mouth Field in Black­heath, south-east Lon­don — was kept secret until the last moment and details were sent to activists by text.

Activists had repeat­ed­ly refused to reveal the final loca­tion, say­ing they did not trust the police.

It fol­lowed accu­sa­tions that the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police were heavy-hand­ed in polic­ing the G20 protests.

The site was cho­sen because it is with­in view of the City and near the Riv­er Thames, organ­is­ers said.

A Cli­mate Change spokes­woman said: “Some peo­ple are mak­ing huge prof­its from car­bon trad­ing, and politi­cians are telling us it’s cut­ting car­bon emis­sions but it’s not.

“Car­bon trad­ing is a false solu­tion that is doing noth­ing to tack­le cli­mate change. So busi­ness­es, bankers and gov­ern­ments are just gam­bling with our plan­et.”

The four key themes of the annu­al camp are edu­ca­tion, direct action, sus­tain­able liv­ing, and build­ing a move­ment to tack­le cli­mate change.

Ch Supt Helen Ball, of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police, said: “As yet we don’t know what camp par­tic­i­pants intend to do in the days ahead.

“I’d like to repeat our request that they talk to us about any protests they are plan­ning so we can ensure a pro­por­tion­ate polic­ing response and min­imise any fur­ther impact on Lon­don­ers.”

The campers have wind tur­bines on site and say they are com­post­ing their food and toi­let waste.

Flood plains

Cam­paign­ers say that about 3,000 activists are expect­ed to vis­it the camp over the com­ing week.

They will be invit­ed to work­shops on a range of sub­jects, from cli­mate change, bio­fu­els and the fight against Heathrow air­port, to yoga, wood­en pen­cil-mak­ing and ped­al-pow­ered sound sys­tems.

Organ­is­ers said this year’s venue sym­bol­ised the finan­cial and cor­po­rate cen­tres of pow­er, and was with­in the flood plains of the Riv­er Thames, which they warned was at risk of burst­ing its banks as cli­mate change esca­lat­ed.

The heath was the set­ting for the Peas­an­t’s Revol­tu­ion, which saw thou­sands of pro­test­ers demon­strate against tax­es more than 700 years ago.

The site host­ed Jack Cade’s Ken­tish rebel­lion against King Hen­ry VI in 1450, which was fol­lowed by the Bat­tle of Dept­ford Bridge in 1497 dur­ing which Cor­nish rebels camped at the site.

Irish climate camp & actions round-up

Peat pow­er worse than coal for CO2 emis­sions

Cli­mate Camp is up and run­ning at Shan­non­bridge, Co.Offaly — start­ed Sat­ur­day 15th August and goes on till Sun­day 23rd August.

Peat pow­er worse than coal for CO2 emis­sions

Cli­mate Camp is up and run­ning at Shan­non­bridge, Co.Offaly — start­ed Sat­ur­day 15th August and goes on till Sun­day 23rd August.

It’s about what we can do in the face of chang­ing cli­mate that will affect us all. Peat bogs are a liv­ing car­bon sink — greater even than forestry. Burn­ing peat releas­es more CO2 into the atmos­phere than burn­ing coal. The peat-fired pow­er­sta­tion beside the camp should have been shut down long ago — since our gov­ern­ment and Bord na Mona still fail to see the urgency of reduc­ing emis­sions, cli­mate camp will be stag­ing a major protest on Sat­ur­day 22nd August — this will be a day of action and fun, includ­ing street the­atre, art, etc, which will hope­ful­ly bring media atten­tion to this impor­tant issue.

Mean­while, the camp has lots of great work­shops every day this week about sus­tain­able liv­ing, peat bogs, forestry, cycling, renew­able ener­gy, etc, etc. Come along to my Trees and You work­shop on Wednes­day ! I will be talk­ing about trees as car­bon sinks, as vital ele­ments of bio­di­ver­si­ty, as added val­ue to farms and gar­dens, wood­land gar­dens, agro­forestry, CELT native tree nurs­ery, CELT Week­end in the Woods (19 / 20 Sep­tem­ber) (anoth­er event not to be missed !) .….….….….….……

So get your­self along to CLIMATE CAMP and be a part of it !

http://www.climatecamp.ie

Camp trail­er

Newslet­ter, includ­ing next organ­is­ing gath­er­ing
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Cli­mate Campers take Direct Action on Bog Restora­tion
August 23, 2009

Hun­dreds par­tic­i­pat­ed in Cli­mate Camp at Shan­non­bridge, which was held under the shad­ow of the peat burn­ing pow­er­sta­tion.
The Cli­mate Camp organ­ised three events to cre­ate bet­ter aware­ness around the indus­tri­al use of peat in pow­er­sta­tions.

Fian­na Fáil’s Gar­ret Tubridy unknow­ing­ly con­tributed to the eco-con­scious Cli­mate Camp at Shan­non­bridge. Recent local elec­tion posters were reused as part of the men’s toi­let facil­i­ties. Users did not have to look at his face. Gavin Harte gave a talk on com­mu­ni­cat­ing the media mes­sage with plen­ty of work­shops on drum­ming, Ross­port, per­ma­cul­ture, the end­less dream­catch­ers and there were more ban­ners being made than you could shake a stick at. It was great for kids and par­ents alike.

Lentil Dis­or­der pro­vid­ed the veg­gie food for the hun­gry mass­es with an oats cri­sis on the Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Choco­late flap­jacks sat­ed the appetites of ear­ly ris­ers.

Locals were bemused watch­ing the parade which left the camp short­ly after mid­day. The bar­men from both locals — Killeen’s and Luk­er’s pubs — waved at some of their new cus­tomers. Anoth­er local said noth­ing like this had ever hap­pened in Shan­non­bridge before. Paraders from the camp had dressed up as zom­bies and the dark forces of dan­ger­ous car­bon emis­sions with a sym­bol­ic chim­ney stack. Bif­fo of course led the zom­bies through the vil­lage! Campers had made ban­ners, plac­ards, dream catch­ers and an eclec­tic sound sys­tem boomed, ‘Black Bet­ty, Bam Alam’ and Mar­ley.

Kayak­ers got onto the lit­tle island in the mid­dle of the Shan­non hold­ing aloft a ban­ner ‘Sponge Bog Stops Floods’, as the parade reached the bridge timed nice­ly with cyclists return­ing from anoth­er direct action from the bog.

A few dif­fer­ent direct actions were planned and no one told me nuthin’.

Climate Justice Now banner
There are three peat pow­er­sta­tions in Ire­land, Lanes­boro and Eden­der­ry, where agile activists dropped ban­ners from, and Shan­non­bridge where there was a parade and some scuf­fles broke out when the parade could­n’t go up to the pow­er­sta­tion.
peat protest placardGive Peat a Chance placard
Look at ClimateCamp.ie for more infor­ma­tion about the issues.

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Cli­mate Campers take Direct Action on Bog Restora­tion
Filling in peat trenches
No time to waste — pre­serv­ing Irish peat­lands is essen­tial

Cli­mate campers of all ages at Shan­non­bridge took a direct action this morn­ing August 18th, on a near­by bog by fill­ing in trench­es that are used to drain the bog for cut­ting. The peace­ful demon­stra­tions last­ed 2 hours with police curi­ous­ly onlook­ing at the hard work­ing activists.
Peat train line trespass
This morn­ing at 11.30am six­ty odd Cli­mate Campers of all ages strolled 2km from the camp beside the Shan­non­bridge Peat Burn­ing Pow­er Plant towards one of the Bord na Móna man-made brown deserts out­side of the town. Equipped with some sacks, shov­els, pil­low cas­es, wheel­bar­rows, ban­ners and good cheer, they start­ed fill­ing in the trench­es made to drain the bogs with milled peat which was des­tined for burn­ing at the pow­er plant. The direct action con­tin­ued for about 2 hours fill­ing in a sig­nif­i­cant part of the trench. Local police watched as the cli­mate campers, includ­ing many chil­dren, dili­gent­ly set about their task and some engaged the police in con­ver­sa­tion explain­ing to them the rea­sons for their actions.

This is the first step that’s need­ed to restore our bogs” said Mol­ly Walsh, spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp Ire­land. “Peo­ple don’t realise that when bogs are drained and dried, they release ample amounts of car­bon diox­ide, even before the peat is burnt. Degrad­ed peat­lands release 0.97 mil­lion tonnes of C02 annu­al­ly in Ire­land.” she added.
peat banners
Colour­ful ban­ners and plac­ards were unveiled on the bog say­ing “Cli­mate Change Costs Lives” and “The bog is our rain­for­est”. One ban­ner was mount­ed on a piece of peat-cut­ting machin­ery which said “Don’t Burn our Bogs”. Some of the activists board­ed a bog train, while oth­ers pushed them along, sym­bol­is­ing that human­i­ty is on the wag­on towards cli­mate chaos unless we halt these cli­mate chaos caus­ing activ­i­ties imme­di­ate­ly.

Come join us at the camp for more actions and work­shops! Cli­mate Camp Ire­land con­tin­ues at Shan­non­bridge until August 22nd with the main day of action. We call on every­one to come join us on a day of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop peat burn­ing at the Shan­non­bridge Pow­er Sta­tion.

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Cli­mate Camp shuts down two peat burn­ing pow­er sta­tions
22nd August 2009

The Cli­mate Camp cul­mi­nat­ed in Shan­non­bridge with a day of action. The unsus­tain­abil­i­ty of the peat burn­ing was suc­cess­ful­ly high­light­ed with actions at all three peat burn­ing pow­er plants. Activists suceed­ed in shut­ting down the two plants at Shan­non­bridge and Lanes­bor­ough. The Shan­non­bridge plant has been shut all week since the camp start­ed, and the Lanes­bor­ough plant was shut down by activists today.

This morn­ing a group of Cli­mate Camp activists car­ried out a peace­ful direct action at Lanes­bor­ough peat burn­ing pow­er plant. Some activists locked them­selves to the gates while anoth­er group entered the plant and car­ried out a ban­ner drop on one of the build­ings which read “Give Peat a Chance.” The pow­er plan­t’s chim­ney stack stopped bel­low­ing its car­bon emis­sions for most of the work­ing day. Two activists were arrest­ed.

Ger­ald Glynn, a spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp said, “We took this peace­ful direct action to high­light the urgency of cli­mate jus­tice issues. Our bogs are our rain­forests and we need to pro­tect them. We can’t wait for our gov­ern­ments to act. Let’s give peat a chance now.”

At mid­day anoth­er group of Cli­mate Campers tar­get­ted a third pow­er plant in Eden­der­ry, owned by Bord na Mona. Five women dropped a ban­ner from the pow­er sta­tion’s con­vey­or belt which read “Cli­mate Jus­tice Now”. The work­ers at the plant came out and took an inter­est in the action. “Bord na Mon­a’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty talk is noth­ing but that, talk, they are still extract­ing and burn­ing the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel. We are send­ing out a strong mes­sage of sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in the Glob­al South suf­fer­ing from the impacts of cli­mate change.” said Jer­rieann Sul­li­van, a spokesper­son for the group.

A live­ly colour­ful parade began at 12pm in Shan­non­bridge and made its way through the town, across the riv­er and back towards the pow­er plant. Many cre­ative ban­ners were car­ried by Cli­mate Campers of all ages with slo­gans such as “Cli­mate Change Costs Lives” and “Bogs are our rain­forests”. Peo­ple were dressed up as zom­bies and bog mon­sters as they parad­ed, chant­ed, danced and sang through the town while locals looked on with amused inter­est. Anoth­er group merged with the parade after tak­ing more direct action fill­ing in trench­es which drain the bogs to start restor­ing our peat­lands. A Cli­mate Camp riv­er crew also unveiled a ban­ner say­ing “Sponge bog stops floods” to many cheers from the main parade.

“300,000 peo­ple are dying annu­al­ly world­wide as a result of cli­mate change, not to men­tion loss­es in wildlife and bio­di­ver­si­ty.” said Nan­cy Ser­ra­no, spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp. “Peo­ple in the mid­lands deserve bet­ter com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed sus­tain­able jobs. We need to think long-term and we need to start now.” she added.

ENDS

www.climatecamp.ieFor inter­view or fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­tact the cli­mate camp media phone 085 7851241
or for spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion on the action in Lanes­bor­ough — 085 1386675

http://www.flickr.com/photos/climatecampireland

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Daily Shannonbridge blockade
Dai­ly peace­ful block­ade of Shan­non­bridge pow­er sta­tion

site taken for Camp for Climate Action 2009, at Blackheath

After a relaxed start to things, get­ting to the camp­site seemed almost too easy. Only one video­g­ra­ph­er was has­sled when an offi­cer tried to grab his cam­era ear­ly on. After a first meet­ing, tents and mar­quees are going up all over the place.

Tripod & banner at climate camp 2009climate camp 2009 tripod with banks behindAfter a relaxed start to things, get­ting to the camp­site seemed almost too easy. Only one video­g­ra­ph­er was has­sled when an offi­cer tried to grab his cam­era ear­ly on. After a first meet­ing, tents and mar­quees are going up all over the place.

The weath­er is nice, albeit some­what windy and the view over Lon­don is amaz­ing. It’s almost hard to believe that we’re still in the city.

Swoop action time­line

Loca­tion, more pho­tos and more at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

Come to a Picnic

A Fam­i­ly Pic­nic Day to Stop Tesco Build­ing at Tit­nore Woods, in West Sus­sex.

A Fam­i­ly Pic­nic Day to Stop Tesco Build­ing at Tit­nore Woods, in West Sus­sex.

On Tues­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber, we will meet at 12 noon at the round­about in front of the exist­ing West Dur­ring­ton Tesco Extra. It’s the where Romany Road joins New Road. At about 1230 we’ll move to a bet­ter pic­nic site in the fields behind the Tesco car park, where build­ing work for the new Tesco has begun. Bring food to share and any­thing else that you think will help make the point that we don’t want Tesco destroy­ing our land­scape and our com­mu­ni­ties! Please tell your friends and bring them along.
The protest camp is near­by and they wel­come vis­i­tors and dona­tions.

http://www.titnore.wordpress.com

Eco-Anarchists Attack Luxury Car in Guadalajara, Mexico

In the ear­ly morn­ing hours of August 18 our cell once again decid­ed to attack the machines which destroy the plan­et and its inhab­i­tants; this time our protest was against the auto­mo­bile, and why do it if not to lux­u­ry cars.

In the ear­ly morn­ing hours of August 18 our cell once again decid­ed to attack the machines which destroy the plan­et and its inhab­i­tants; this time our protest was against the auto­mo­bile, and why do it if not to lux­u­ry cars.

Com­mu­nique:

“Arson attack on a lux­u­ry car by eco-anar­chists in Guadala­jara, Mex­i­co

In the ear­ly morn­ing hours of August 18 our cell once again decid­ed to attack the machines which destroy the plan­et and its inhab­i­tants; this time our protest was against the auto­mo­bile, and why do it if not to lux­u­ry cars. We entered a bour­geois area of our city and we set fire to the front tires of a lux­u­ry car; unfor­tu­nate­ly the fire did not spread because of the rain; it only melt­ed the tires, but it cre­at­ed a psy­cho­log­i­cal fear in all those who choose to invest their mon­ey and spend it in the destruc­tion of our planet.We will return to destroy their machines!

ECO ANARCHISTS GUADALAJARA MEXICO”

Source: ELF Press Office

Ride Planet Earth

Dear all,

I hope you are well.

My name is Richard i am the British coor­di­na­tor of the Ride Plan­et Earth project.

I hope you can take a moment to read this mes­sage.

Bike powerDear all,

I hope you are well.

My name is Richard i am the British coor­di­na­tor of the Ride Plan­et Earth project.

I hope you can take a moment to read this mes­sage.

Ride Plan­et Earth is encour­ag­ing action to pre­vent dan­ger­ous cli­mate change. The project cul­mi­nates on 6th Dec 09, the day before the Cli­mate Change nego­ti­a­tions begin in Copen­hagen, with a series of simul­ta­ne­ous cycling events in cities, towns, and dirt tracks around the globe. The mes­sage we are send­ing is that ordi­nary peo­ple can and will take action to stop cli­mate change so our gov­ern­ments must do the same. Start Cycle Change: Stop Cli­mate Change.

Ride Plan­et Earth began as a jour­ney from Bris­bane to Copen­hagen by bicy­cle, to high­light the cur­rent impacts of cli­mate change on the plan­et’s most vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties. The Cycle Change Con­voy has now reached Geor­gia and over the next 4 months will cross europe to Den­mark.

To find out more vis­it

www.rideplanetearth.org

At present the 6th Dec will see events occur­ring in Aus­tralia, Asia, Africa, Europe and North Amer­i­ca. But to make a stronger state­ment we need more. The UK has a huge poten­tial to help.
That is why I am writ­ing to you.

Please con­tact me at richardkimberley8@hotmai.com, if you, your organ­i­sa­tion can or know of any indi­vid­u­als or organ­i­sa­tions who have the capac­i­ty to put on a ride, large or small. Your help will be great­ly, great­ly appre­ci­at­ed.

Lets spread the word

Yours sin­cere­ly,

Richard Kim­ber­ley

British Coor­di­na­tor
www.rideplanetearth.org
richardkimberley8@hotmail.com

Start Cycle Change Stop Cli­mate Change

RBS glued shut by the ELF

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land is one of the largest investors and prof­i­teers of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and the inter­na­tion­al arms trade. They destroy nat­ur­al habi­tats, there­fore unbal­anc­ing the ecos­phere, by using geno­ci­dal meth­ods against the species pop­u­lat­ing the Earth.

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land is one of the largest investors and prof­i­teers of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and the inter­na­tion­al arms trade. They destroy nat­ur­al habi­tats, there­fore unbal­anc­ing the ecos­phere, by using geno­ci­dal meth­ods against the species pop­u­lat­ing the Earth.

Whilst hold­ing shares in arms deal­er ITT, who sup­port­ed the Nazis and now make wars pos­si­ble in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pales­tine, RBS are also the largest financier of the arms indus­try, hav­ing loaned £44.6 bil­lion in the last ten years and hold­ing £36.4 mil­lion shares.

In response to the call for action against the arms trade, in the run up to the DESi arms fair, their locks were glued shut in Som­er­set.

ELF

Five activists walk straight into Faslane nuclear weapons base – *breaking news*

Tri­dent Ploughshares, Mon­day August 17, 2009 – 16:40pm – for imme­di­ate release

Faslane walk-inTri­dent Ploughshares, Mon­day August 17, 2009 – 16:40pm – for imme­di­ate release

This after­noon five peace activists from non­vi­o­lent direct action group Tri­dent Ploughshares walked unchal­lenged straight into Faslane naval base in Scot­land, the home of Britain ’s nuclear-armed Tri­dent sub­marines, mak­ing a mock­ery of secu­ri­ty for Britain’s “strate­gic nuclear deter­rent.” The five are cur­rent­ly still inside the base.

The activists, one man and four women, released the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“We invite oth­ers to fol­low us through this gate to restore human­i­tar­i­an law.”

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion to fol­low.

Notes to edi­tor:

Tri­dent Ploughshares is a cam­paign ini­ti­at­ed in 1998 to dis­arm Britain ’s Tri­dent nuclear weapons sys­tem in a non-vio­lent, peace­ful, safe, open and account­able man­ner

Web­site: http://www.tridentploughshares.org

Tri­dent Ploughshares Media
tridentp.media [at] yahoo.co.uk

—–

State­ments from the cit­i­zen inspec­tors; arrestee details

17.08.2009 17:25
The five Tri­dent Ploughshares cit­i­zen inspec­tors, who are now in cus­tody after the “ban­dit alarm” went off at Faslane for around half an hour, are as fol­lows:

Bri­an Larkin 49 Amer­i­can , unem­ployed teacher liv­ing in Scot­land

Sylvia Boyes 65 Peace Cam­paign­er from Keigh­ley

Mary Milling­ton 61 Retired welsh lan­guage tutor — lived at Green­han for 5 years

Ang­ie Zel­ter 58 Human Being!

Pen­ny Stone 25 Musi­cian

They issued the fol­low­ing state­ment:

Dear Friends at Faslane,

A group of us from Tri­dent Ploughshares have entered the base today to call for the process of dis­ar­ma­ment of Tri­dent nuclear weapons to begin. We are here to remind all con­cerned that the UK gov­ern­ment, as sig­na­to­ry to the Nuclear Non Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty under­took more than 40 years ago to com­plete the dis­ar­ma­ment of its nuclear weapons. The con­tin­u­ing deploy­ment of Tri­dent seri­ous­ly threat­ens glob­al secu­ri­ty and peace, encour­ag­ing fur­ther pro­lif­er­a­tion. In 2009 Judge Bed­jaoui, Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice, gave an opin­ion on “the legal­i­ty of a nuclear weapons sys­tem that deploys over 100 nuclear war­heads with an approx­i­mate yield of 100 kilo­tons per war­head.” He stat­ed: “Bear­ing in mind that war­heads of this size con­sti­tute around eight times the explo­sive pow­er of the bomb that flat­tened Hiroshi­ma … and killed over 100,000 civil­ians, it fol­lows that the use of even a sin­gle such war­head in any cir­cum­stance, whether a first or sec­ond use and whether intend­ed to be tar­get­ed against civil­ian pop­u­la­tions or mil­i­tary objec­tives, would inevitably vio­late the pro­hi­bi­tions on the inflic­tion of unnec­es­sary suf­fer­ing and indis­crim­i­nate harm as well as the rule of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty…. In my opin­ion, such a sys­tem deployed and ready for action would be unlaw­ful.”

The Scot­tish gov­ern­ment formed a work­ing group for a future of a Scot­land with­out nuclear weapons near­ly two years ago but has failed to release a report let alone take any rel­e­vant action while the peo­ple of Scot­land over­whelm­ing­ly oppose the pres­ence of nuclear weapons in these waters. As long as the gov­ern­ments fail to begin a process of dis­ar­ma­ment mem­bers of Tri­dent Ploughshares are com­mit­ted to what­ev­er non­vi­o­lent action pos­si­ble to begin that process. We invite oth­ers to join us or con­tact us to dis­cuss your con­cerns.

The process of dis­ar­ma­ment would not have to mean the loss of jobs in the area. We urge the gov­ern­ment to redi­rect the resources cur­rent­ly allo­cat­ed to Tri­dent to meet real human needs. The skills of peo­ple work­ing at this base could well be employed in the area build­ing the infra­struc­ture for renew­able ener­gy, alle­vi­at­ing the threat of cli­mate change, among oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties. We invite you to con­tact us so that we can enter into plan­ning for the future of a Scot­land and world with­out nuclear weapons.

Rather than con­tin­ue to threat­en oth­er nations and mil­lions of inno­cent civil­ians with nuclear weapons Scot­land and the UK could lead the world by scrap­ping Tri­dent.
We entered the gate ful­ly aware that we might be charged with vio­la­tion of SOCPA. That laws was estab­lished osten­si­bly to deter “seri­ous orga­nized crime.” But it is the pres­ence of Tri­dent sub­marines each car­ry­ing 48 war­heads ten times more destruc­tive than the Hiroshi­ma bomb which con­sti­tutes a seri­ous orga­nized crime. We invite oth­ers to fol­low us through this gate and restore human­i­tar­i­an law.

In peace and hope,

Sylvia Boyes Con­tact:
Mary Milling­ton 07768 312675
Pen­ny Stone
Bri­an Larkin
Ang­ie Zel­ter

Mem­bers of Tri­dent Ploughshares 17 August 2009

Mary Milling­ton addi­tion­al­ly issued the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“Hav­ing recent­ly moved to Glas­gow, I am so proud that Scot­land has decid­ed we do not want Tri­dent or any oth­er nuclear weapon.

“I have entered Faslane Naval Base today to express my sense of urgency for this weapon of mass destruc­tion to be gone, for just the very pos­ses­sion of it, let alone its poten­tial use, is immoral, ille­gal and caus­ing pro­lif­er­a­tion and dan­ger across the plan­et.”

Tri­dent Ploughshares Media
tridentp.media [at] yahoo.co.uk
http://www.tridentploughshares.org

——-

All five arrestees were released at around 9pm on Mon­day evening (17 August) and charged with crim­i­nal tres­pass under the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police (SOCraP) Act 2005 (also known as SOCPA) s.128 and under the Min­istry of Defence byelaws (entry to the base with­out author­i­ty). A report is being sent to the Procu­ra­tor Fis­cal who will decide whether or not to pros­e­cute.

The five were in Scot­land to take part in the Tri­dent Ploughshares dis­ar­ma­ment camp at Coul­port, near Faslane. The camp is a week long gath­er­ing dur­ing which peace activists share ideas, plan actions and enjoy them­selves. The camp will run until the 23rd of August and every­one is invit­ed to come and par­tic­i­pate. Details can be found here: http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article983