earthfirst – Page 188

Shell compound breached in Glengad during RSC gathering

May 31, 2009
This afternoon at 5pm, over 200 people from the local community and the Rossport Solidarity Camp Summer Gathering attempted to dismantle Shell’s illegal compound at Glengad.

After a day of direct action training, local people and their supporters walked to the south side of the compound where they attempted to breach the fence in two places. They were met by strong opposition from over sixty Gardai, including many from the Public Order Unit.

At least five people who scaled the fence into the compound were held by security guards and later arrested.

Later in the afternoon, as the crowd were leaving, a further arrest was made when the Gardai targeted a prominent campaigner and forcibly detained him for speaking out against the actions of the Gardai.

Today’s action comes the day after Maura Harrington was released after 13 days in Mount Joy prison, Dublin for non-payment of fines, including a one thousand euro contribution to the Garda Benevolent Fund.

Around 200 people are attending the RSC summer gathering. It’s a beautifully sunny weekend and preperations are now well under way for another summer of action against Shell in Mayo, on land and sea. Come and be part of it!

71 arrested in Copenhagen resisting the World Business Summit on Climate Change

24th May 2009

24th May 2009
Protesters clashed with police in Copenhagen today while attempting to disrupt the World Business Summit on Climate Change, a gathering of the worlds largest corporations and, not coincidentally, biggest polluters. Organized by the Danish government, the Business Summit gave corporate interests unprecedented access to the ongoing UN climate talks, including face time with UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon and so called climate “hero” Al Gore.

The group of protestors, lead by a banner reading “Our Climate is not Your Business” attempted to breach police lines in order to disrupt the meeting. The lively group of activists wanted hightlight the damaging and disruptive role that corporations play in the international climate talks. The list of corporations attending included #1 carbon emitter in the world Shell Oil, Duke Energy (#12 at last count), and BP among other climate criminals.

“The Danish government appears to be under the impression that some of the world’s most polluting companies are going to put forward tough measures to tackle climate change,” said Kenneth Haar, a researcher with Corporate Europe Observatory. “But unfortunately this doesn’t seem likely to be the case. The majority of the corporations attending the World Business Summit on Climate Change seem more intent on pursuing business as usual – with the promise that future technologies will resolve the problem at a later date.

“Corporate lobbyists have been trying to influence the UN climate talks from the start. But now they are being invited to set the agenda before the negotiators have even sat down. If their demands are listened to, we might as well give up the fight against climate change now.”

The WBSCC draws into question the legitimacy of the UN climate talks. How can we trust a process that opens the door to the very corporations that created the climate crisis, while shutting out the worlds poor, indigenous, and land based

peoples who are least responsible for climate change, yet will bare the brunt of its impacts?

To get involved with the resistance to corporate control over the talks check out:

www.klimakollektiv.dk

More Arrests on Coal River Valley as Actions Against Mountaintop Removal and Coal Sludge Dams Continue

Non-violent Civil Disobedience in Coal River Valley, WV: Seventeen Arrested in Three Separate Actions

May 23, 2009: Coal River Valley, WV More than seventy-five residents of the Coal River Valley and members of a coalition that includes Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero picketed the entrance to Massey Energy’s Marfork mining complex today at noon. Seven people were arrested. The actions were in protest of the company’s plans to blast 100 feet away from the Brushy Fork coal sludge impoundment.

The demonstration began with a prayer and sermon by Bob “Sage” Russo of Christians for the Mountains. Referencing the Sermon on the Mount, he called upon citizens to be stewards of the Earth and to move towards sustainable, stable jobs.

Protestors stood in front of the gates of the mine facility with signs including “7 billion spilled, 998 killed.”

“Passersby on Route 3 were overwhelming supportive with honks, waves, and thumbs up signs,” Rock Creek (Raleigh County) resident Julia Sendor said.

During the protest, seven people approached the entrance to the dam facility and the Whitesville detachment of the West Virginia State Police asked them to leave. When the seven refused, the State Police arrested them. Dispatchers say the activists were sent to the Southern Regional Jail near Beckley, but that information has not been confirmed. Bail was reportedly set at $2,000 per person.

After the arrests, former U.S. Congressman Ken Hechler, a longtime opponent of strip mining, gave a speech. He underscored the responsibility of citizens to safeguard their freedoms and stand up for their rights.

The protest came just hours after activists carried out two non-violent direct actions to protest mountaintop removal and coal sludge impoundments.

This morning, at the Marfork facility, two people wearing hazmat suits and respirators were arrested after boating onto the Brushy Fork impoundment and floating a banner that read, “No More Toxic Sludge.” State Police charged the activists with littering and misdemeanor trespass and transported them to the Southern Regional Jail. Their bail has been set at $2,000.

At another action, six activists hung a “Never Again” banner and chained themselves to a massive dump truck on a Patriot Coal-owned mountaintop removal mine on Kayford Mountain. State Police arrived on site to find three people chained to the main axle of the truck and three others chained outside the truck’s cab. The police removed the six activists, who, along with two others supporting them, were transported to the Madison County Courthouse, where they were reportedly processed and released.

The toxic lake at Brushy Fork dam sits atop a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines. Massey Energy’s own filings with the state Department of Environmental Protection project a minimum death toll of 998 should the seven-billion-gallon dam break. Floodwaters would reach 38.78 feet in height in the town of Peytona, 26.61 miles downstream, within three hours and fifteen minutes of breakage.

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May 26, 2009: BECKLEY, W.Va. – Seventeen mountaintop removal activists had no choice but to enforce the laws since all administrative remedies have been exhausted, said some of the activists and supporters at a press conference today. The four still-jailed activists were released on their own recognizance by Judge Burnside shortly after the press conference, which was held on the Raleigh County Courthouse steps.

“I’ve lived in West Virginia most of my life. I’m sick and tired of big business and the corrupt government telling us what to do,” began Sid Moye of Mercer County, who participated in the Picket at Pettus. “They come in and they can take our land, they can ruin our water and they can take our resources. It’s not right and somebody has to do something about it so we do the little things that we can.”

Eric Blevins, also arrested in the Pettus action, said, “I asked the officer arresting me if Massey is going to be allowed to blast near the dam and he didn’t want to talk about it. I asked him, doesn’t he have a responsibility to enforce the law, and he said ‘Not those laws.'”

“We locked down on the Kayford mountaintop removal site with mud from Mingo County on our boots,” Ashlee Henderson said in a statement from the Kayford 8, “After we were arrested we had the dust remains from Kayford Mountain added to that mud.”

“Just because a mining permit is applied for,” Debbie Jarrell of Rock Creek, Raleigh County asked the crowd, “Is there a law that states that it has to be granted? If there’s a cleaner way to develop energy, such as the Coal River Wind Project, should we not take advantage of it?”

Matt Louis-Rosenberg pointed out the absurdity of the littering charges for the two individuals on the Brushy Fork Dam and the $2,000 bail for each of the protesters. He contrasted the bail rate with the $1,800 fine Massey paid in 1999, when 14.5 miles of the Coal River were blackened with slurry and the $15,000 A & G Coal paid for the death of three year old Jeremy Davidson outside of Appalachia, Virginia in 2004.

“It was extremely unjust that the magistrate illegally posted such a high bail, when our maximum fine was only one hundred dollars,” said Laura Steepleton of the Pettus 7, who was released this afternoon. “He justified his statement by telling us that we had no ties to the area. As a human being and a citizen of this country I do not only have a tie to this area, but a responsibility to ensure security for these mountains and the safety for the people of this beautiful community.”

Bristol Co-Mutiny 12th – 20th Sept “Social Change Not Climate Change”

Capitalism and its puppet de‘mock’cracy are spiralling out of control:a self-created recession, rocketing unemployment, soaring national debt, the illegal and unjust occupation of Afghanistan & Iraq, apathy towards massacres in Palestine and Sri Lanka, the criminalisation of free movement, the police assaults and murders of people on the streets, the construction of larger airports and coal-fired power stations in the face of devastating environmental degradation, the privatisation of social housing, the list goes on.

But there is hope. There are anti government protests from Greece to Paris, and China to London, as well as factory and school occupations across the U.K. World wide there are growing, active, and increasingly angry radical & working class movements standing up and resisting climate chaos, oppression, poverty, insecurity and state control.

Hand-in-hand with these protests are grassroots actions to build a new society and take control of our own lives. Ordinary people are finding ways to help each other in the face of the credit crisis created by the banks and corporations. We are re-learning old skills and learning new ones for the transition to a just society; enabling us to create community gardens, establish housing, food and worker’s co-ops, and use new economics in the neighbourhoods where we live

In Bristol and surrounds, a diverse bunch of enraged creative, dreamers and schemers, builders and gardeners, workers, students and unemployed have been drawn together by the common threads of our indignation at how a combination of corporate greed, social injustice and environmental degradation is leading us all towards climate chaos and financial collapse.

We invite you to converge on Bristol for an uprising of autonomous actions and events from 12th – 20th of September 2009.

The themes for those events and days of action are:

* Freedom of movement (surveillance, migration)
* Anti-militarism (Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Palestine, Filton)
* Climate justice (Just transition, financing of climate chaos, coal, airports)
* Financial collapse / community growth (role of banks, creating a new economy)
* Work (Workers’ solidarity, co-operative working, workplace occupations)
* Food (animal rights, sustainable food production, permaculture)
* Autonomous spaces (gentrification, housing, squatting)

The Co-Mutineers will be organising actions and events but we need you to get involved, wherever you are from and whatever your experience.

We encourage autonomous actions. Come on down, join the mutiny, get in touch!

comutiny@riseup.net
http://comutiny.wordpress.com

Dates for your diary:
Sat 12th September – Bristol Anarchist Book Fare
Sun 13th – Sun 20th September – CoMutiny Action Convergence – insert your revolution here!
Fri 18th – Sun 20th September – Days of action in defence of squats and autonomous spaces.

Otaraua hapu save wahi tapu from oil pipeline in Aotearoa

28th May 2009
The Otaraua hapu in Taranaki began packing up their occupation camp today after finally protecting their wahi tapu, from Greymouth Petroleum’s new pipeline.

After occupying the entrance to the well site and disrupting work on the new well for more than two months, the hapu’s request to have Tikorangi Pa officially identified as a wahi tapu by the New Plymouth District Council, was approved for an independent review last night.

After previously demanding a written agreement from GMP, the hapu informed Greymouth Petroleum via fax yesterday, stating it was willing to accept a verbal statement by CEO Mark Dunphy that GMP would not drill a pipeline through Tikorangi Pa. The hapu seem confident that the District Council review, due out in a few months, will provide the protection they need for their pa.

Mr Doorbar said while the occupation had brought the hapu together and closer to achieving a common goal, the fight was “not over”.

“It is important oil companies who work in our communities understand the impact they have, not just on tangata whenua but on the wider farming community … for ourselves we feel we have achieved the outcomes of why we undertook this occupation. Greymouth Petroleum did not drill through Tikorangi Pa. It remains to be seen whether or not we have to return to any form of peaceful occupation in the future.”

Updates: Day 11 | Day 17 | Day 55

Calais No Border Camp Call-Out 23-29 June 2009

The Calais No Border camp is a joint venture between French and Belgian activists and migrant support groups and the UK No Borders Network.

It aims to highlight the realities of the situation in Calais and Northern France; to build links with the migrant communities; to help build links between migrants support groups; and lastly, but not least, to challenge the authorities on the ground, to protest against increased repression of migrants and local activists alike.

This camp calls for the freedom of movement for all, an end to borders and to all migration controls. We call for a radical movement against the systems of control, dividing us into citizens and non-citizens, into the documented and the undocumented.

Why Calais?

We have chosen Calais for two main reasons; it is an important location in the history, development and practice of European migration controls and has long been a major bottleneck for those seeking to get to Britain. But more importantly, it is also a focus of the struggle between those who would see an end to all migration into the EU, and those trying to break down the barriers between peoples, the borders that prevent the freedom of movement for all, not just the privileged few.

Since the mid-nineties tens of thousands have lived in destitution, sleeping rough in Calais, waiting for their chance to cross the channel to England. Between 1999 and 2002 the Red Cross ran a centre at neighbouring Sangatte but this was forced to close after political pressure from France and Britain. Since then, the massive police presence and repression in Calais has forced thousands of men woman and children to wander the Calais region and all along the North coast of France, Belgium and Holland. They are routinely brutalised by the police; tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and repeatedly interned at the nearby Coquelles detention centre. The police regularly burn their shelters and the few meagre possessions that they contain. The local groups that support the migrants by providing food and other humanitarian aid are coming under increasing attack from the police and a number of activists have been arrested in recent months. Meanwhile British Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has been calling for the construction of a permanent holding/detention centre for migrants in Calais docks.

The Bigger Picture

Calais however remains only one small part of the overall picture of European migration controls, a major internal border within the hi-tech EU borders regime. Since the beginning of the decade, the EU been attempting to build ‘Fortress Europe’; externalising EU borders into Africa and Asia with EU border guards patrolling the Mediterranean, in Libya and off the West Coast of Africa courtesy of the Frontex borders agency; and via the European Neighbourhood Policy, where countries from the Ukraine all the way round the Mediterranean to Morocco are now paid by the EU to do its migration prevention work for it.

Migrants’ Rights Are Workers’ Rights

Through this system of border controls, authorities create two kinds of migrants: a small number of ‘skilled’ migrants, who are designated as ‘useful’ to the state; and a massive number of undocumented workers who have no rights and are therefore exploitable as cheap labour. Thus is our fight for freedom of movement also a fight for the rights of all workers.

Transnational solidarity works!

Building links and working together allows us to share information between us on a transnational level. It also allows us to exploit the fault-lines and cracks in Fortress Europe. Last November, transnational solidarity helped to prevent the planned deportation of Afghans from Calais to Kabul.

Campaigning Against Borders

This camp will continue the tradition of the No Border camps across the world since the late 1990s and, like the camp taking place this year in Lesvos in August, it will be a space to share information, skills, knowledge and experiences; a place to plan and take action together against the system of borders which divides us all. For centuries European imperial powers have exploited the land, resources and people of the majority world to become wealthy and powerful, leaving war, environmental destruction and massive inequality in their wake. Those who attempt the journey to the UK or elsewhere in Europe are challenging this injustice by their movement. The situation in Calais is a result of the compromise and conflict of interest between French and UK immigration policy and we call on groups, networks and individuals here to take action across Europe and to become part of a global movement of solidarity that defends their right to choose where they move .

Equal rights for all !!

*No One Is Illegal. Freedom Of Movement And The Right To Stay For All*

http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/

http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009

Saving Iceland Summer Mobilisation 2009!

Join us from 18th July to resist the industrialisation of Europe’s last remaining great wilderness and take direct action against heavy industry!

The Struggle So Far

Join us from 18th July to resist the industrialisation of Europe’s last remaining great wilderness and take direct action against heavy industry!

The Struggle So Far

The campaign to defend Europe’s greatest remaining wilderness continues. For the past four years direct action camps in Iceland during the summer have targeted aluminium smelters, mega-dams and geothermal power plants.

After the terrible destruction caused at Kárahnjúkar and Hengill, it is time to crush the ‘master plan’ that would have seen every single major glacial river dammed, every substantial geothermal field exploited and the construction of aluminium smelters, oil refineries and silicon factories, as well as a significant increase in Iceland’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The Situation Now

Despite optimism following the ‘cutlery revolution’ where mass street protests and direct action brought down the Icelandic government and forced the issue of heavy industry back onto the political agenda, the battle is far from over.

The fall of aluminium prices on the world market and the global economic crisis has taken its toll on heavy industry projects and aluminium companies in Iceland, putting many of the plans for aluminium smelters, mega-dams and geothermal power plants on hold, or ruled out completely. The heavy industry machine is far from having been defeated but recent uprisings show the deep impact Saving Iceland has had on the grassroots and the political landscape.

Political Changes

The recent elections are a major blow for the environmental movement in Iceland, with the ‘Left Greens’ booting the minister of the environment out for being too much of a genuine environmentalist. We are looking at a heavily fortified pro-heavy industry government, doing away with any pretence of the government being ‘Green’ or even remotely Left wing. On top of this, national energy companies have already started negotiations with other types of industry in the North, where some politicians ruled out a new smelter.

Anarchy in Iceland

Years of work by Saving Iceland to introduce the ideas of direct action and anarchy into mainstream society, coupled with a radicalised population following the downfall of the government, has resulted in a constantly growing movement of radical activists and anarchists in Iceland.

Over the past few months squatters have twice taken a social centre and defended it from eviction, refugee and no borders activism is going strong, Food Not Bombs hit the streets every week and actions such as the four “skyr attacks” (where green yoghurt is thrown all over displays, computers and suits) in two months have targeted politicians and nature killers.

The mutual support between the Icelandic radical community and Saving Iceland this summer will make for a very exciting and action-filled mobilisation!

Targets this Summer

The Helguvík aluminium smelter, targeted by Saving Iceland last summer with an action that stopped construction for a whole day after 40 activists invaded the site, is still being built. Powering the smelter will mean eight new power plants, at least seven of which will be geothermal from the Reykjanes Peninsula, drying it up, and Hellisheiði – also targeted by Saving Iceland last summer that saw a drill rig shut down costing thousands of pounds. One of the geothermal plants powering Century’s smelter could be in Bitra, close to Hengill, where a local campaign last winter stopped construction from taking place. The eighth power plant will probably be a mega-dam on the beautiful Þjórsá River.

If ever there was a building site and "test drilling sites" destroying unique and fragile ecosystems and vulnerable to direct action this summer they are on the Reykjanes peninsula, South West Iceland!

Get involved!

Come to Iceland from the 18th July and join us for a summer of resistance and direct action. Check www.savingiceland.org for regular updates and information for people joining us, or email us on savingiceland@riseup.net to let us know when you’re arriving.

Help support our struggle with donations, translations, solidarity actions and by spreading the word.

Climate Rush Pedal Power

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Monday 1st June the UK Parliament returns from recess for the summer sitting.
We want to give them a warm welcome and remind them of the heat they can expect if they continue to ignore climate change.

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

Ed Miliband (Secretary of State Energy and Climate Change) is in Bonn that evening, discussing with other ‘world leaders’ the agenda for the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. Let’s give our ‘leaders’ a taste of the civil disobedience they can expect if real climate justice fails to materialise.

It is also the first evening of a coal conference at the illustrious ‘Chatham House’. Everyone who’s anyone, at least in the coal world, will be there.

We’ll begin our bike-ride outside their conference before winding our way through town.

Meet us from 5pm on St James Square, SW1Y 4LE. We’ll then move off at 6pm and take our bikes for a relaxed tour through London. Labour might think that investing in electric cars is the solution to climate change but we know that cars using electricity from coal-fired power stations is yet another red-herring.

Camp Climat at Nantes

Activists campaigning against a proposed local airport near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 – 9 August 2009.

“Le Camp Climat” concept is taking off over the channel, just as it is in the UK. Activists campaigning against the proposed construction of a new airport 16 kilometres north of Nantes (Loire-Atlantique, 44) have announced a camp from the 3 – 9 August 2009.

Activists campaigning against a proposed local airport near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 – 9 August 2009.

The airport plans have a long history, with the origins of the plan to construct a “hub” for north-west France, dating from 30 years ago. The proposed airport will concrete over 2000 hectares of traditional bocage: pastoral land divided by traditional hedgerows. By contrast Britain’s second busiest airport Gatwick occupies a site of only 300 hectares. And all this despite 3 airports already operational (Nantes, Angers, Rennes) within 100 kilometres of the proposed sites. None of the existing airports are operating at anything like full capacity at the moment, nor will they in the future if current air tickets sales continue their present downward trend.

Despite being beyond any reasonable concept of utility, the Pharaonique project rolls forward, with forced sales of farms, homes, and land. Surveys and geological sampling of the site began in October 2008.

Opposition to the project is centred on two main organisations: the Camp Climat, and a coalition that unites resident groups called ACIPA, which has long pursued a civil campaign amongst the French bureaucracy.

As the threat becomes more imminent, many acts of resistance have already occurred: with tractor roadblocks and sabotage of survey works. A visiting official from the prefecture, come to announce the loss of land and homes, was flanned. The survey workers now work alongside an escort of up to sixty gendarmes. Eight activists face fines of up to 15,000 euros and sentences of 2 – 4 months for their part in the resistance.

Le camp fonctionnera de manière autogérée, avec pour principes de base : une empreinte écologique minimum, des actions à fort impact auprès de la population locale et/ou des médias, des échanges de savoirs sur les pratiques alternatives et écologiques, la mise en commun des bénéfices, la pratique du prix libre ou coûtant et le développement de réseaux. Il s’inscrira dans le cadre d’une semaine de résistance sur le site et fera suite à deux moments forts sur place : le festival « Le Plancher des Vaches » (samedi 1er août) et le pique-nique annuel des opposants au projet d’aéroport (dimanche 2 août).

(The basic principles of the autonomous camp are: a minimal ecological footprint, strong local links, strong media impact, educational activities and exchanges, development of networks, and communal living with food at prix libre (contribute as you can afford). The camp forms part of a week of resistance at the site with a music festival on the 1 August, and an annual local picnic on the 2 August.)

Notre-Dames-De-Landes is 202 kilometres from the ferry terminal at St. Malo, which makes for a pleasant two day ride to be here, but Nantes is also well served by rail: the TGV from Paris (1 train/hour) takes 2h 20mins.

www.campclimat.org

Scottish Climate Camp 3-10 August – details

“Global ecosystems are in collapse, species extinction is unparalleled in human history and dangerous climate change is a reality affecting us all. There is no time to act but now. Join us 3-10 August for a week of low-impact living and high-impact direct action.”

The camp will be set up somewhere around the Firth of Forth in central scotland – surrounded by coal-fired power stations, gas and oil refineries, coal ports, open cast coal mines, corporate HQs, an airport, a nuclear power station, a cement factory and oil terminals.

This camp will cut carbon emissions. Climate Camp Scotland will raise the profile of direct action in Scotland, showing that the nature of the climate crisis is such that we no longer have time to wait for our political and business ‘leaders’ to act for us.

In addition, we aim to radicalise the political analysis of climate change and its solutions, placing it within a wider political context of social change and the reshaping of society towards more egalitarian and libertarian values.

Join us in August to take action against the root causes of climate change!

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Fundraiser 4th June:

2 DEGREES 2 HOT – A night of Revolutionary Hip-Hop!

Thursday 4th June, 11-3am at the Bongo Club

Support us by coming to the Bongo Club in Edinburgh (37 Holyrood Road) on Thursday 4th June for great music, a great night out and raising money for our summer of direct action!

Acts confirmed so far: Radical performance and poetry by Tickle, Burning Bright, Mechanical Beast, Lifeshows, 1sp and DePTHS!

Boiling Over – Scotland’s Gathering for Climate Action: 11th – 14th June, The Phoenix Centre, Glasgow

Boiling Over will be a space for thought, analysis, learning, movement building, training and creativity. Ultimately, we hope to develop a strategy for stopping climate change from within Scotland.

Social Change not Climate Change

Despite years of rhetoric about Climate Change Bills, Kyoto Protocols, Technofixes and Sustainability, CO2 emissions are still rising, ecosystems are still collapsing and society is as unequal as ever. This is testimony to the fact that we need to take matters into our own hands and find bottom up solutions to climate chaos.

What’s happening?

The programme will include four days of talks, film showings and discussion, culminating in planning and visioning sessions. We will skill-share practical skills such as cooking for large numbers of people and direct action trainings which will lay the foundations for the Camp for Climate Action happening in Scotland from 3-10 of August.

Come along!

The space will be a safe, accessible and open environment, free from oppression, hierarchy and discrimination. Food and accommodation will be provided.

Register early!

Register and donate early to help us plan and fund Boiling Over.
Download the Registration Form from our website and post it back to us, or email your information to climatecampscotland@riseup.net and make your donation online.

If you would like to see a particular workshop/discussion/filmshowing/etc happen or would like to facilitate one please get in touch and send an email to *climatecampscotland [at]
riseup.net*

http://www.climatecampscotland.org.uk/