Author: earthfirst

Climate Rush at UK Coal HQ & coal awards — Doncaster & London — and next one 5th March at RBS

North­ern Cli­mate Rush vis­it to UK coal head­quar­ters

UK Coal rush 1UK Coal rush 2North­ern Cli­mate Rush vis­it to UK coal head­quar­ters

Around 15 cli­mate activists from the North of Eng­land vis­it­ed the head­quar­ters of UK Coal near Don­cast­er yes­ter­day, 26th Feb­ru­ary, in a protest against new coal and call­ing for tougher mea­sures to con­trol CO2 emis­sions.

Two peo­ple climbed up lam­posts to sus­pend a 6m ban­ner read­ing ‘Leave it in the Ground’, while on the ground below the pro­tes­tors played a bit of sam­ba, danced, and had a pic­nic. The pro­tes­tors wore Edwar­dian themed dress includ­ing red sash­es with the words ‘No New Coal’ writ­ten across them.

UK Coal is the UK’s largest coal com­pa­ny. The Don­cast­er protest was timed to coin­cide with the Cli­mate Rush at the UK Coal Awards, host­ed by UK coal, in Lon­don.

The police reac­tion was fair­ly low-key and non-obstruc­tive, although they did take an awful lot of pho­tos (I sup­pose they had noth­ing else to do). A van dri­ver was has­sled by cops, had his details checked and was told he was not insured to dri­ve the vehi­cle (which was not the case).

—

Thurs­day 26th Feb­ru­ary 2009
PRESS RELEASE: North­ern Cli­mate Rush vis­its UK Coal head­quar­ters

Cli­mate activists from the North vis­it­ed the head­quar­ters of UK Coal near Don­cast­er today in a protest against new coal and call­ing for tougher mea­sures to con­trol CO2 emis­sions. The protest coin­cid­ed with the ‘Cli­mate Rush’ in Lon­don where peo­ple intend­ed to gate­crash the Coal UK Con­fer­ence and Awards 2009 at the Land­mark Hotel in Regents Park. How­ev­er, the Lon­don pro­test­ers arrived to find the Con­fer­ence had moved venue at the last minute. Around 200 pro­test­ers in Lon­don occu­pied the lob­by of the Land­mark and dropped ban­ners. They asked that the hotel to refrain from host­ing any future events with fos­sil fuel indus­tries such as UK Coal, to which the man­age­ment agreed.

The pro­tes­tors of both demon­stra­tions wore Edwar­dian themed dress includ­ing red sash­es with the words ‘No New Coal’ writ­ten across them. In Don­cast­er two female pro­test­ers scaled lamp-posts to hang a ban­ner read­ing ‘Leave it in the ground’ across the entrance to the UK coal head­quar­ters.

Coal is the dirt­i­est form of ener­gy pro­duc­tion yet the gov­ern­ment has plans to expand the coal indus­try, includ­ing a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in Kent. UK Coal are respon­si­ble for oper­at­ing sev­er­al open cast mines across the UK. Open cast coal min­ing is par­tic­u­lar­ly dam­ag­ing to the local envi­ron­ment since it involves scalp­ing the land­scape and typ­i­cal­ly pro­vides an aver­age of only 40 jobs per site, for a hand­ful of years only.

Vanes­sa Hall, spokes­woman for the North­ern Cli­mate Rush said, “It is essen­tial that we take cli­mate change seri­ous­ly and move away from dirty fos­sil fuels like coal. There is no way we can avoid run­away cli­mate change if we con­tin­ue to burn coal.”

Megan Beech, 24, said, “The coal indus­try talk about Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age (CCS) as the mag­ic bul­let that will allow us to keep burn­ing coal. How­ev­er CCS is as yet an unproven tech­nol­o­gy. You don’t start a fire on the promise that one day we”ll invent a fire extin­guish­er with which to put it out.”

ENDS

Notes to Edi­tors

This is the third major ‘Cli­mate Rush’ event, fol­low­ing from the first in Par­lia­ment square in Octo­ber 2008 on the cen­te­nary of the Suf­fragette rush on Par­lia­ment. Pro­test­ers demand­ed ‘Deeds Not Words’ on cli­mate change, includ­ing an end to air­port expan­sion and no new coal. The sec­ond was at Heathrow and Man­ches­ter air­ports to draw atten­tion to the threat of avi­a­tion and cli­mate change.

The North­ern Cli­mate Rush is made up of cam­paign­ers from Man­ches­ter, Leeds, Hud­der­s­field, Brad­ford and Liv­er­pool.

www.climaterush.co.uk
www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com

———
'Coal: so last century' banner
Coal canary climate rush
Cli­mate Rush host­ed cock­tail par­ty for the coal indus­try out­side of the Land­mark Hotel on Maryle­bone Road, Lon­don.

Coal UK planed to pre­sent­ed cel­e­bra­to­ry awards to the most dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies in the coal indus­try. Cli­mate Rush offered an alter­na­tive awards based on the eco­log­i­cal dam­age that the coal indus­try is inflict­ing on the envi­ron­ment.

How­ev­er after sev­er­al tries at rush­ing the hotel peo­ple dis­cov­ered that the award din­ner had been can­celled.

Brochure for the awards din­ner:
http://conf.mccloskeycoal.com/journals/McCloskey/Conferences/Conferences/attachments/Coal%20UK%20Brochure%20web.pdf

Cli­mate Rush calls for:

1. No new coal to avoid run­away cli­mate change

Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel, and by far the dirt­i­est way to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty. We must leave coal in the ground and not build any new coal fired pow­er sta­tions if we want to avoid run­away cli­mate change. CCS is an unproven tech­nol­o­gy that may nev­er be a viable option. Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now and we must act now to stop it.

2. We can’t have infi­nite growth on a finite plan­et

At this out­dat­ed and fos­silized awards cer­e­mo­ny UK Coal is cel­e­brat­ing the worst excess­es of our fail­ing eco­nom­ic sys­tem. Just like over­paid bankers these heads of cor­po­ra­tions are receiv­ing plau­dits for plun­der­ing the plan­et.

3. A tran­si­tion to a low car­bon soci­ety with sus­tain­able jobs

We must coun­ter­act any jobs loss­es from the coal indus­try with a major re-skilling pro­gram in sus­tain­able trades. Many more jobs will be cre­at­ed by a huge retro­fitting pro­gram of old hous­ing stock and in the new renew­able ener­gies sec­tor than in new coal. The Ger­man clean ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion has seen the cre­ation of 250,000 new jobs.

More pho­tos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/filkaler/tags/climaterush/

—

Land­mark Deci­sion Against Coal Indus­try
For imme­di­ate release: 26 Feb­ru­ary 2009

LANDMARK DECISION

A top class Lon­don hotel has vowed com­pa­nies and organ­i­sa­tions which con­tribute to cli­mate chaos will no longer be wel­come to use their facil­i­ties for cor­po­rate pro­mo­tion and enter­tain­ment

The move fol­lows a Cli­mate Rush action on the Land­mark Hotel in Maryle­bone, where hun­dreds of pro­test­ers con­verged on Thurs­day to halt a coal indus­try awards cer­e­mo­ny.

Coal is acknowl­edged among sci­en­tists and cli­mate change activists as the world’s worst con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change in the form of CO2 emis­sions.*

The coal indus­try under the ban­ner of UK Coal were booked into the Land­mark to host an awards cer­e­mo­ny with five star food and drink where they planned to hand out gongs for UK coal per­son­al­i­ty of the year and the best open cast min­ers among oth­er cat­e­gories.

Pro­test­ers dropped ban­ners and staged a peace­ful sit-in to speak out at the hotel’s sup­port and the coal industry’s insis­tence of “busi­ness as usu­al” in the face of evi­dent esca­lat­ing cli­mate chaos.

The Landmark’s land­mark deci­sion has been applaud­ed by activists. “At Last! For too long prof­i­teer­ing from cli­mate change has been sold to the pub­lic as a neces­si­ty of ‘busi­ness as usu­al’. But with glob­al tem­per­a­tures ris­ing and cli­mate chaos run­ning riot in the form of drought (Africa and Aus­tralia) and flood­ing (low lying lands all over), we all need to work togeth­er.

“ We applaud the Land­mark for their good sense and the vision to say ‘enough is enough’. They right­ly don’t want to be asso­ci­at­ed with the cor­rupt sys­tem that needs over­turn­ing. We wel­come the Land­mark to play their role in the new way of doing things so need­ed.”

The Land­mark now plans to deny com­pa­nies such as the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (the biggest sin­gle investor in coal and oil indus­tries) and oil com­pa­nies, such as ESSO, BP and Shell, as well as the coal indus­try from using their ball­rooms and ban­quet halls to pro­mote their cause.

The hotel has also pledge to com­mu­ni­cate with the 24 oth­er five star hotels in its’ group to sug­gest they do the same.

Cli­mate Rush has pledged to work with the Land­mark Hotel to ensure the right com­pa­nies are blocked, to send a clear mes­sage to pol­luters: they’re not wel­come.

ENDS
Notes and foot­notes to Edi­tors

Coal is respon­si­ble for 50 % of the cli­mate change gas­es in the atmos­phere caused by human activ­i­ty.

Cli­mate Rush is a cut­ting edge move­ment of car­bon cut­ting indi­vid­u­als who have seen the light and want to spread the word through their remit: Deeds not words, based on the clar­i­on call of the suf­fragettes

For high qual­i­ty pho­tos and fur­ther com­ments please ring 075 2839 8441 or email media@climaterush.co.uk

For com­ments from the land­mark hotel please ring Fran­cis T Green 0207 631 8000

–

UK No New Coal Awards

Cli­mate Rush is delight­ed to announce that it will be pre­sent­ing the fol­low­ing “Canary in the Coalmine” awards:

Sci­ence Fic­tion award
goes to the most unbe­liev­able tech­nol­o­gy not yet avail­able to stop CO2 emis­sions, Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age.

Finan­cial Fool award
goes to the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, for help­ing to raise $16 bil­lion in loans to finance the world­wide coal indus­try over the past two years.

Life­time Achieve­ment award
goes to Drax coal fired pow­er sta­tion, for the Great­est Emis­sions in the UK, equiv­a­lent to that of the 54 poor­est coun­tries in the world.

Best Sup­port­ing Role
goes to the biggest Cli­mate Cow­ard, Gor­don Brown, for his use­less lead­er­ship over Cli­mate Change.

Best New­com­er
goes to the next like­ly “fac­to­ry of death”, Kingsnorth coal fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent.

and final­ly…

UK Coal Per­son­al­i­ty of the Year
goes to Paul Gol­by, CEO of ener­gy com­pa­ny E.ON, for out­stand­ing ser­vices to Green­wash (whilst plot­ting to build Kingsnorth)

——

CLIMATE RUSH: THURSDAY 5TH MARCH, 1PM, RBS HQ

GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK and STOP TRASHING THE PLANET

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land: £33 bil­lion in bail outs SO FAR!

Using OUR MONEY!

RBS boss 50-year-old Sir Fred: retires ear­ly with a whop­ping £16 mil­lion pen­sion fund.

Using OUR MONEY!

OUR bank: arranges £16 bil­lion in loans to the coal indus­try in just two years.

RBS: the BIGGEST investor in cli­mate chaos.

FOR THE LOVE OF OUR MONEY, WHAT PLANET ARE THEY ON?

Grab your mates, bring some lunch and get down to the bank to demand OUR mon­ey back.

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land HQ

Thurs­day 5th March

1.OOPM PROMPT: think flash­mob…

280 Bish­ops­gate, near Liv­er­pool Street Sta­tion

ANGRY? You bet­ter believe it: Let’s rush!

See what they’re say­ing about the RBS Cli­mate Rush in the Guardian here

Face­book invite here: invite ALL your friends

Please help spread the word by down­load­ing the poster as a pdf here to print out and stick up wher­ev­er you go!

Be sure to keep check­ing the site for updates… and don’t for­get to sub­scribe and join our face­book group!

Protestors To Go Bananas at Leeds Tesco

Banana flash­mob at Leeds Tesco in protest of Tesco refus­ing to stock only Fair­trade bananas.

Banana flash­mob at Leeds Tesco in protest of Tesco refus­ing to stock only Fair­trade bananas.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift, a move­ment of young agi­ta­tors, is demand­ing that Tesco ban the sale of non-Fair­trade bananas for good. At 1pm on March 3rd 2009, Pro­tes­tors will stage a flash­mob protest at Tesco Metro in Leeds city cen­tre. Using Fair­trade bananas as dum­my phones, the pro­tes­tors will hold loud phone con­ver­sa­tions about the poor eth­i­cal stan­dards that Tesco main­tains. A viral video and social net­work cam­paign will run over the inter­net in the run up to the event.

Leaflet link here

Over the last five years, British super­mar­kets have engaged in banana price wars, match­ing each other’s price cuts to such a low lev­el that it is now impos­si­ble for many plan­ta­tion work­ers to earn a liv­ing — or even a legal min­i­mum – wage.

Han­nah Mar­tin who is part of Ctrl.Alt.Shift and helped organ­ise the Leeds flash­mob said ‘It’s a scan­dal that a com­pa­ny as pow­er­ful as Tesco refuse to ful­ly sup­port an organ­i­sa­tion as sig­nif­i­cant as Fair­trade, Ctrl.Alt.Shift want to show Tesco we wont sit back and let this con­tin­ue’.

In 2007, both Sainsbury’s and Wait­rose agreed to sell Fair­trade-only bananas. But Tesco refuse to fol­low suit. As the nation’s largest retail­er, it is Tesco’s duty to sup­port Fair­trade prac­tices with­in the World’s sup­ply chains. As a result, many plan­ta­tion work­ers are still paid less than $2 per day.

Ctr­lAlt­ShiftLeeds
flash@ctrlaltshift.co.uk
http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk

Work Stopped at Shipley Open Cast Coal Mine Site

26th Feb 2009
This morn­ing a group of four ex-local res­i­dents, not affil­i­at­ed with any par­tic­u­lar group went dig­ger div­ing at the Ship­ley Open Cast Coal Mine.

Shipley soul bannerShipley soul security26th Feb 2009
This morn­ing a group of four ex-local res­i­dents, not affil­i­at­ed with any par­tic­u­lar group went dig­ger div­ing at the Ship­ley Open Cast Coal Mine.

Work was stopped for one hour and a half. The pro­tes­tors left when the police turned up.

The police entered into dis­cus­sion with UK Coal about cre­at­ing a more per­me­nant space for peo­ple to protest at, the police sug­gest­ed some kind of shel­ter. UK Coal declined, stat­ing that they were wor­ried the pro­tes­tors would turn the shel­ter into a “con­crete lock-on”.

No arrests were made.

Same ban­ner; dif­fer­ent protest.

Work Stopped at Rosewell Open Cast Coal Mine Site

23.2.2009
At 9am today a group of eco-activists began to dis­rupt the oper­a­tions of Scot­tish Coal at the Rosewell open-cast coal mine in the Mid­loth­i­ans. Some of the 10 activists stop­ping work today are local res­i­dents.

Rosewell coal mine action23.2.2009
At 9am today a group of eco-activists began to dis­rupt the oper­a­tions of Scot­tish Coal at the Rosewell open-cast coal mine in the Mid­loth­i­ans. Some of the 10 activists stop­ping work today are local res­i­dents.

They climbed onto dig­ging machin­ery to pre­vent works and climbed onto trucks to pre­vent coal from leav­ing the Rosewell site for 2 hours this morn­ing. Then police arrived but no-one were arrest­ed.

One activist said “the burn­ing of coal to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty is one of the most pol­lut­ing and destruc­tive of all human activ­i­ties. We can­not deal with cli­mate change while com­pa­nies like Scot­tish coal con­tin­ue to prof­it from coal exploita­tion.”

A local res­i­dent said “With a gov­ern­ment com­mit­ted to expand­ing open­cast, deep mine and new coal pow­er gen­er­a­tion across Scot­land, ask­ing politi­cians will achieve noth­ing. Peace­ful direct action is the only way peo­ple are going to stop coal expan­sion.”

Anoth­er said. “We are opposed to this cli­mate dis­as­ter of an ener­gy pol­i­cy and to the scar­ring of scot­land’s coun­try­side with these hor­ri­ble open-cast coal mines, Rosewell and Scot­tish Coal’s oth­er oper­a­tions have and will con­tin­ue to be met by resis­tance from local peo­ple tak­ing direct action.”

This action was done by indi­vid­u­als who are not affil­i­at­ed to any par­tic­u­lar group.

This is anoth­er exam­ple of the grow­ing resis­tance to new coal in scot­land. For more gen­er­al info on how peo­ple are stop­ping new coal in Scot­land, check out www.coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk

Germany: Upper class car torched, armament company & luxurious condo-project attacked

02/02/09: Upper­class car from O.Rohr (house­keep­er of L14 and R94) torched
02/02/09: Arma­ment com­pa­ny attacked with stones and col­or
09/02/09: Stones and bot­tle against lux­u­ri­ous con­do-project

Upper­class car from O.Rohr (house­keep­er of L14 and R94) torched

Berlin, 2 of Feb­ru­ary 2009

Direct Action Germany: 2nd-12th February02/02/09: Upper­class car from O.Rohr (house­keep­er of L14 and R94) torched
02/02/09: Arma­ment com­pa­ny attacked with stones and col­or
09/02/09: Stones and bot­tle against lux­u­ri­ous con­do-project

Upper­class car from O.Rohr (house­keep­er of L14 and R94) torched

Berlin, 2 of Feb­ru­ary 2009

A claim which reached us:
„On mon­day the 2 of Feb­ru­ary we payed a vis­it to the offices of Rohr, dis­trict Marien­dorf, and we torched his car.

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Arma­ment com­pa­ny attacked with stones and col­or

Hamburg/Kiel, 2 of Feb­ru­ary 2009

Claim of the attack:

„On the night from the 1 to the 2 of Feb­ru­ary, we ren­dered nicer the arma­ment com­pa­ny Northtrop Grum­man, sit­ed in the Woltmanstr.19 in Ham­burg and the Marine Logis­tic (Mar­log) sit­ed in the Werlt­str. 179, Kiel, by using stones and col­or.
Through this action, we want to adress us against the gath­er­ing of inter­na­tion­al politi­cians of the NATO State mem­bers, their accom­plices, arma­ment indus­tri­al­ists such like Northtrop Grum­man and Mar­log and to the Army, who will all meet at the begin­ning of Feb­ru­ary 2009 at the 45 con­fer­ence for the secu­ri­ty politic, tak­ing place in Munich.
They want to meet there, in order to improve the civil­ian-mil­i­tary coop­er­a­tion.
This means war and oppres­sion for mil­lions of peo­ple.
We also see this action as a con­tri­bu­tion to the begin­ning of the protests against the 60 years fes­tiv­i­ties of the NATO hap­pen­ing in Baden Baden and Stras­bourg at the begin­ning of April 2009.

Against cap­i­tal­ist glob­al­iza­tion and world­wide war politic of NATO States which leads to a fur­ther mil­i­ta­riza­tion of soci­eties to their inside and to the out­side!

Action Group against mil­i­tarism and cap­i­tal­ism

Source: Inter­im

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Stones and bot­tle against lux­u­ri­ous con­do-project

Berlin, 9 of Feb­ru­ary 2009

Unknown per­sons threw stones and bot­tles full of col­or against the facade of a house sit­ed in the Dres­d­ner­str., Mitte.
Since this house is con­sid­ered being of the upper­class, one can not exclude a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion behind it, so the police.
State secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Berlin­er Zeitung

note for eng­lish-speak­ing read­ers: this lux­u­ri­ous house built on the bor­der between Kreuzberg and Mitte has been already vic­tim of attacks dur­ing the past.

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direct action news from ger­many
http://directactionde.blogspot.com

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 86, February 2009

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

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

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

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

——————
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
——————

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

——————
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
——————

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

———-

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newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

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This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

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Upcoming action dates, activist gatherings, & the official meetings en route to the Copenhagen climate summit, 2009 — updated

‘Offi­cial’ meet­ings on the Road to Copen­hagen:

31 March to 8 April 2009
First Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meet­ing), Bonn, Ger­many

‘Offi­cial’ meet­ings on the Road to Copen­hagen:

31 March to 8 April 2009
First Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meet­ing), Bonn, Ger­many
The first meet­ing on the “road to Copen­hagen” and first inter­na­tion­al cli­mate meet­ing for the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion. Expect­ed Out­come: Broad dis­cus­sions on respec­tive mit­i­ga­tion goals for devel­oped and devel­op­ing coun­tries. How­ev­er, it is unclear whether Pres­i­dent Oba­ma will have a cli­mate nego­tia­tor and under sec­re­tary in place at this time so there will real “nego­ti­at­ing” at this meet­ing. http://unfccc.int/meetings/items/2654.php

2 April 2009
G20 Meet­ing, Lon­don, Eng­land
This will like­ly be Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s first large-scale meet­ing with oth­er world lead­ers. The agen­da will like­ly look to tack­le the finan­cial cri­sis, but the G20 web­site men­tions the need to “make progress on long-term issues such as cli­mate change and inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment.” Expect­ed Out­come: Devel­op a com­mit­ment that the glob­al eco­nom­ic recov­ery will fac­tor in car­bon emis­sions. http://www.g20.org/

24–26 May 2009
World Busi­ness Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change, Copen­hagen, Den­mark
The Copen­hagen Cli­mate Coun­cil is orga­niz­ing the World Busi­ness Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change, which will bring togeth­er the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, top sci­en­tists, econ­o­mists and oth­er lead­ing thinkers. Expect­ed Out­come: Issue rec­om­men­da­tions for the next inter­na­tion­al glob­al warm­ing agree­ment. http://www.copenhagenclimatecouncil.com/

1–12 June 2009
Sec­ond Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meet­ing), Bonn, Ger­many
Draft nego­ti­at­ing text is expect­ed to be issued before or dur­ing this meet­ing and will like­ly be very gen­er­al with all the con­tentious items placed in brack­ets, but it will be the basis for actu­al nego­ti­a­tions. Expect­ed Out­come: Draft nego­ti­at­ing text. http://unfccc.int/meetings/items/2654.php

8–10 July 2009
G8 Sum­mit, La Mad­dale­na, Italy
The host, Ital­ian Prime Min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni, does not share the com­mit­ment to address­ing cli­mate change of pre­vi­ous G8 hosts. Address­ing cli­mate at this meet­ing will be crit­i­cal for keep­ing momen­tum toward Copen­hagen. Expect­ed Out­come: G8 Agree­ment set­ting the stage for Copen­hagen
http://www.g8italia2009.it/G8/G8-G8_Layout_locale-1199882116809_Home.htm

31 August – 4 Sep­tem­ber 2009
World Cli­mate Con­fer­ence Three, Gene­va, Switzer­land
The World Cli­mate Con­fer­ences (WCC) is the major “sci­en­tif­ic” meet­ing for 2009 and is the third in a series of inter­na­tion­al meet­ings, orga­nized by the World Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Orga­ni­za­tion
about glob­al cli­mate issues. The sec­ond WCC in 1979 result­ed in the cre­ation of the U.N.‘s Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change. http://www.wmo.int/pages/world_climate_conference/index_en.html Expect­ed Out­come: Group will address cli­mate pre­dic­tion, dis­as­ter risk reduc­tion and adap­ta­tion to cli­mate change.

August 2009 (date not set)
Third Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meet­ing), Bangkok, Thai­land
This is the third meet­ing on the “road to Copen­hagen” and, by this point, par­i­ties should have set their nego­ti­at­ing posi­tions so the frame­work for the next inter­na­tion­al treaty can start to be craft­ed. Expect­ed Out­come: Nation’s set nego­ti­at­ing posi­tions. http://unfccc.int/meetings/items/2654.php

21–25 Sep­tem­ber 2009
Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly Cli­mate Sum­mit, Copen­hagen
New York, New York — *UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Bon Ki Moon has indi­cat­ed that he plans to hold a spe­cial ses­sion with heads of state to address cli­mate change. Expect­ed Out­come: Indi­ca­tions of nation’s nego­ti­at­ing posi­tion for

Octo­ber 2009 (date not set)
Fourth Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meeting/Minister’s Meet­ing), Loca­tion to be deter­mined
Expect­ed Out­come: Final draft text agreed to. This is the final nego­ti­at­ing ses­sion before Copen­hagen and may be attend­ed only by envi­ron­ment min­is­ters mak­ing it a closed door meet­ing designed to set the stage for COP 15.

7–18 Decem­ber 2009
UNFCCC Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties 15, Copen­hagen, Den­mark
If there is to be no gap between the Kyoto Pro­to­col and a new agree­ment, a frame­work must be agreed to at this meet­ing. Expect­ed Out­come: New inter­na­tion­al glob­al warm­ing treaty. http://www.cop15.dk/en

2010 (dates uncon­firmed)
UNFCCC Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties 16, Jamaica

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

Old dates from this cal­en­dar:

Com­piled at the recent EF! Win­ter Moot (scroll down for your sum­mer of fun — dates up until Decem­ber ’09):

21–22 Feb­ru­ary 2009
No Bor­ders UK gath­er­ing, Bris­tol

26 Feb­ru­ary 2009
Demon­stra­tions at UK Coal Awards (www.climaterush.co.uk) & at UK Coal HQ (www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com)

5 March 2009
Next Cli­mate Rush, Lon­don
> http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22254

13–15 March 2009
EF! Treeplant­i­ng, Heb­den Bridge
(trees@riseup.net > www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22158)

13–15 March 2009
COP15 Inter­na­tion­al Mobil­i­sa­tion Net­work meet­ing, Copen­hagen, Den­mark (www.climateaction09.org)

14–15 March
Nation­al squat meet­up, Bris­tol
(www.squatmeet09.wordpress.com)

21–22 March 2009
Cli­mate Camp Car­bon Trad­ing Edu­ca­tion Week­end, Lon­don
(international@climatecamp.org.uk)

21–22 March 2009
Direct Action train­ing, 10am at Cow­ley Club, Brighton
(www.cowleyclub.org.uk)

1 April 2009 Fossil/Financial Fools Day
G20 Protests + Events List + Loca­tions Map
Squar­ing up to the Square Mile: the Lon­don G20 map

Cli­mate Camp in the City, Lon­don (www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20)
G20 Melt­down at the Bank of Eng­land (www.g20meltdown.org)
Fos­sil Fools’ Day, every­where (www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday2009)
Times & resource links > http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22258

* G20 Crit­i­cal Mass
9:00 AM Meet at Bank Junc­tion (Bank tube sta­tion) EC2

* Finan­cial Fools Day Street Par­ty
Assem­ble at Can­non Street, Moor­gate, Liv­er­pool Street or Lon­don Bridge sta­tions 11am to form four march­ing blocks head­ing towards the Bank of Eng­land for 12-noon, in the ‘Square Mile’ of the City of Lon­don.
See: http://www.g‑20meltdown.org/
Bring a portable radio!

* Cli­mate Camp in the City
The cli­mate camp are camp­ing in the Euro­pean Car­bon Exchange, Hasil­wood house, City of Lon­don 12-noon.
See: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20
Final update on what to bring and what to do where at http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22291

* Fos­sil Fools Day: ‘Your Par­ty’s Over!’ *** POSTPONED by BP fol­low­ing police advice. ***
Cli­mate Crim­i­nal BP is cel­e­brat­ing its cen­te­nary with cock­tails and canapes at the British Musem. And we will be there too, between 6–7pm, to say ‘Your party’s over!’
Meet at 6pm at the British Museum’s Gt. Rus­sell St. gate
See: http://www.fossilfoolsdayofaction.org
Bring ban­ners, musi­cal instru­ments, a sense of cli­mate jus­tice and a non­sense of fool­ery.

2 April 2009
* Crash the Stock Exchange
Eat cap­i­tal­ism for break­fast. Dis­rupt the traders whose finan­cial ego­ma­nia per­pet­u­ates glob­al injus­tice: let’s shut­down trad­ing for the day.
Meet out­side the Lon­don Stock Exchange, 10 Pater­nos­ter Square, City of Lon­don, Lon­don EC4M. 7am (traders arrive at 7am, trad­ing com­menc­ing 8am). Near­est tube: St Pauls — have a pleas­ant jour­ney in… tubes might be busy.
* Excel Cen­tre
Direct action all day against the Excel Cen­tre, Can­ning Town where the G20 will be meet­ing
ExCeL Lon­don, One West­ern Gate­way, Roy­al Vic­to­ria Dock, Lon­don, E16 1XL
A coali­tion of groups includ­ing: The Pales­tine Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign, Stop the War Coali­tion, The British Mus­lim Ini­tia­tive, and CND have called two protests at the G20; a march and ral­ly in cen­tral Lon­don on the after­noon of April 1st, and a protest to the con­fer­ence itself on April 2nd.

3–5 April 2009
Demon­stra­tions at NATO 60TH Anniver­sary Sum­mit, Baden-Baden, Ger­many & Stras­bourg, France
http://dissent.fr/taxonomy/term/165

24 April‑5 May 2009
Coal Car­a­van, cycling from Not­ting­ham, through Der­byshire, York­shire & .
Stop­ping off at a vari­ety of open-cast sites, pow­er sta­tions and oth­er beau­ti­ful places! Full details of how to book, itin­er­ary for where to join.
(caravan@climatecamp.org.uk > www.coalcaravan.org.uk)

25/26th April 2009
Sizewell anti-nuclear Camp and Demo

2–3rd May 2009
Anti-mil­i­tarist con­fer­ence, Brighton
(http://antimilitaristnetwork.noflag.org.uk)

4th May 2009
Smash EDO May­day! May­day! Street par­ty against war and greed, Brighton.
(http://www.smashedo.org.uk)

6 May 2009
A Wake for BP at the oil behe­moth­’s cen­te­nary par­ty

29 May‑1 June
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp sum­mer gath­er­ing

1 June
Cli­mate Rush Ped­al Pow­er
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22611

6 June 2009
Eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion, SW Lon­don
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22593

6–7 June 2009
Nation­al Anar­chist Gath­er­ing, Lon­don
www.conference09.org.uk

11–14 June 2009
Scot­tish Cli­mate Camp Con­ver­gence
(http://climatecampscotland.org.uk)

23th-29th June 2009
Calais No Bor­ders Camp
(http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/)

3–5 July
For­est Cir­cus fes­ti­val, Lap­pers­fort, Bel­gium

8–10 July 2009
Demon­stra­tions at G8 Sum­mit, La Mad­dale­na, Italy

11–12 July 2009
Anti-Mil­i­tarist Net­work Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham
(http://www.antimilitaristnetwork.org.uk)

11–19 July 2009
Dan­ish Cli­mate Camp, near Copen­hagen
(http://camp09.dk/)

12–19 July 2009
Das Kli­ma Work­shop Festival/Le camp cli­ma­tique, near Berne, Switzer­land
(http://www.netzwerkzeug.org/)

18th-? July
Sav­ing Ice­land Sum­mer Mobil­i­sa­tion 2009
(www.savingiceland.org)

20–26 July 2009
NO to Ura­ni­um Pow­er — Anti­nu­clear Cli­mate Camp, Ter­vola, Fin­land
(http://www.hyokyaalto.org/category/english)

23rd-27th July 2009, Oxford­shire.
You are invit­ed to Peace News’ first ever sum­mer camp.
(http://www.peacenewscamp.info)

3–9 August 2009
French Camp Action Cli­mat, Notre Dame des Lan­des, Nantes
(www.campclimat.org)

3–9 August 2009
Dutch/Belgian Cli­mate Camp
(www.klimaatactiekamp.org)

3–10 August 2009
Scot­tish Camp for Cli­mate Action
(http://climatecampscotland.org.uk)

13–16 August 2009
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru, Near Merthyr Tyd­fil, South Wales
(http://climatecampcymru.org)

15–23 August 2009
Irish Cli­mate Camp
(http://www.climatecamp.ie)

18–24 August 2009
Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Cum­bria
(www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk)

20–23 August 2009 IN SALENTO, NUCLEAR CLIMATE CAMP, Italy – Lec­ce
More info

21–23 August 2009
Beyond Bor­ders week­end, Not­ting­ham
A week­end of skill­shar­ing and dis­cus­sion about fight­ing bor­der con­trols and show­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with migrants
(http://beyondbordersweekend.wordpress.com)

27 August‑2 Sep­tem­ber 2009
UK Camp for Cli­mate Action — con­ver­gence with­in the M25/London (www.climatecamp.org.uk)

Sep­tem­ber 2009 (dates uncon­firmed)
Cli­mate Camp, South Aus­tralia
(http://climatecampsa.org)

North Amer­i­can action camps sum­mer 2009
inter­na­tion­al list of Con­ver­gences for Cli­mate Action

12–20 Sep­tem­ber 2009
Bris­tol Co-Mutiny

18–19 Sep­tem­ber 2009
squats and autonomous spaces — 2 days of direct action around hous­ing and the cre­ation of more autonomous spaces at this time of cri­sis. See link

10–11 Octo­ber
Work­ers’ Cli­mate Action con­fer­ence, Lon­don

12–16 Octo­ber 2009
Glob­al Mobil­i­sa­tion in Defence of Moth­er Earth and the Peo­ples
called by the 4th Con­ti­nen­tal Sum­mit of Indige­nous Peo­ples Abya Yala (”Amer­i­ca”)
More info/resources

16–18 Octo­ber 2009
COP15 Inter­na­tion­al Mobil­i­sa­tion Net­work meet­ing
(www.climateaction09.org)

17–18 Octo­ber 2009
The Great Cli­mate Swoop, clos­ing down Rat­cliffe-on-Soar coal-fired pow­er sta­tion
More info

24 Octo­ber 2009
Lon­don Anar­chist Book­fair
(http://www.anarchistbookfair.org)

24 Octo­ber 2009
Inter­na­tion­al Day of Cli­mate Action
http://www.350.org/

31 October‑1 Novem­ber
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/23245

31 Oct‑1 Nov 2009
Gath­er­ing Against the Prison Soci­ety, Brighton
Dis­cus­sions & pre­sen­ta­tions about the strug­gle for lib­er­a­tion, inside and out­side of the prison walls
More info

21–22 Novem­ber 2009
No New Nuclear. Plan­ning to win strate­gis­ing week­end, Lon­don

28 November‑1 Decem­ber 2009
Week­end of Action and Work­shops at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp

5 Decem­ber 2009
COP15 OUT, a secret plan to take a space in the City of Lon­don away from and after the Wave. It’s time to show our ‘lead­ers’ how we’re going to take action to reduce emis­sions our­selves.

3–9 Decem­ber 2009
Social and Cli­mate Jus­tice Car­a­van from the WTO Min­is­te­r­i­al in Gene­va to the COP15 sum­mit in Copen­hagen.
http://www.climatecaravan.org

7–18 Decem­ber 2009
Demon­stra­tions at COP15 Sum­mit, Copen­hagen, Den­mark
(www.climateaction09.org)
See this arti­cle for back­ground & links to Action Guide & Map

7–18 Decem­ber 2009
Kli­mafo­rum: Peo­ple’s Cli­mate Sum­mit
http://www.klimaforum09.org

11 Decem­ber 2009
* Our Cli­mate! Not Your Busi­ness! (organ­ised direct action to stop Cor­po­ra­tions tak­ing part in COP process)
http://notyourbusiness.hacklab.dk/

12 Decem­ber 2009
* Flood for Cli­mate Jus­tice (demon­stra­tion by FoE)
http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/un-climate-talks/global/2009/the-flood-is-coming
* Glob­al day of Action
http://www.globalclimatecampaign.org/
* March for Cli­mate Jus­tice (includ­ing sys­tem change, not cli­mate change bloc)
* Don’t Nuke the Cli­mate! Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action
http://www.dont-nuke-the-climate.org/index.php?lang=en

13 Decem­ber 2009
Hit the Pro­duc­tion of Cli­mate Chaos
http://htp.noblogs.org/
* Farm­ers action (Via Campesina against agro-indus­try)

14 Decem­ber 2009
* No Bor­ders, No Cli­mate Refugees! (Day of action in Copen­hagen. Call to action to inter­na­tion­al no bor­ders groups dur­ing the COP 15 in Copen­hagen)
http://info.interactivist.net/node/13135
* Repa­ra­tions for Cli­mate Debt

15 Decem­ber 2009
* Resis­tance is Ripe! Agri­cul­ture Action Day (Change the food sys­tem not the cli­mate)
http://www.climate-justice-action.org/mobilization/agriculture-action-day/

16 Decem­ber 2009
* RECLAIM POWER! — Push­ing for Cli­mate Jus­tice! (Mass action to enter the COP15 con­fer­ence area and dis­rupt the ses­sions in order to hold a Peo­ple’s Sum­mit for Cli­mate Jus­tice. Con­fronta­tion­al civ­il dis­obe­di­ence)
http://www.climate-justice-action.org

18 Decem­ber 2009
* (last offi­cial day of the sum­mit) — “Nev­er Trust a COP” actions through­out the city
http://www.nevertrustacop.org/

Homeless campaigners and Social Centre gets eviction notice

Cam­paign group JUSTICE NOT CRISIS who have been cam­paign­ing for more social hous­ing in Birm­ing­ham and help­ing to run a social cen­tre in Birm­ing­ham had been served court papers. Due to the fact that there was no date or time on the papers JNC vis­it­ed the Court to find out when we were to attend court.

Cam­paign group JUSTICE NOT CRISIS who have been cam­paign­ing for more social hous­ing in Birm­ing­ham and help­ing to run a social cen­tre in Birm­ing­ham had been served court papers. Due to the fact that there was no date or time on the papers JNC vis­it­ed the Court to find out when we were to attend court. We were shocked to find that the hear­ing was to be held 45 min­utes lat­er and we did­n’t have time to pre­pare or let oth­er cam­paign­ers know what was hap­pen­ing.

Despite the fact that the papers were not prop­er­ly served the judge con­tin­ued with the hear­ing and award­ed pos­s­e­sion to the own­er with imme­di­ate effect. He also award­ed costs against 3 named peo­ple to the tune of almost £4,000.

JUSTICE NOT CRISIS are prepar­ing an appeal and will update this site as soon as pos­si­ble.

We expect the demo­li­tion com­pa­ny to arrive at 9.00am on Tue­sa­day next week (24th Feb) to start secur­ing the site.

WE MAY NEED HELP IN DEFENDING THIS ACTION. MORE INFO TO FOLLOW.

For more info from our web site please vis­it http://www.justicenotcrisis.wordpress.com

26th Feb Climate Rushes — north and south

North­ern Cli­mate Rush — Rush on UK Coal!

North­ern Cli­mate Rush — Rush on UK Coal!

Fresh from their Man­ches­ter Air­port incur­sion, North­ern Cli­mate Rush is back, and we are pay­ing a vis­it to the UK’s largest coal com­pa­ny! We will be trav­el­ling by minibus to the head­quar­ters of UK Coal in Don­cast­er. Meet in front of the Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dent Union build­ing at 1pm on Thurs­day Feb 26. Dress in Edwar­dian fash­ion (if you so desire) and bring food to share, ban­ners, and musi­cal instru­ments.

WHAT IS NORTHERN CLIMATE RUSH?

It’s a group of intre­pid activists who, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from the suf­fragettes, use civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to bring about a tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my. We believe that, giv­en gov­ern­men­t’s total fail­ure to take mean­ing­ful action on cli­mate change, a cam­paign of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence is nec­es­sary, and in fact it is the only respon­si­ble way for­ward, giv­en that the fate of all future gen­er­a­tions rests on the deci­sions that are made now and in the next cou­ple of years.

Our sis­ter group of Cli­mate Rush­ers in the South will be pay­ing a vis­it to a coal indus­try awards cer­e­mo­ny in Lon­don on the same day.

WHY UK COAL?

Coal com­pa­nies such as UK Coal are active­ly stand­ing in the way of the nec­es­sary tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my based on renew­ables. They invest in new coal mines, and by lob­by gov­ern­ment against the changes need­ed for a tran­si­tion to alter­na­tives.

HOW CAN WE LIVE WITHOUT COAL?

Var­i­ous recent sci­en­tif­ic reports* have shown how the UK could tran­si­tion from fos­sil fuels, to a low-car­bon econ­o­my. We would have to switch to renew­able pow­er sources (main­ly wind and wave) and reduce our ener­gy con­sump­tion by fly­ing much less, by reduc­ing the use of pri­vate cars by cre­at­ing a vast­ly improved pub­lic trans­port sys­tem, by ensur­ing that with­in the next few years all UK homes and build­ings are prop­er­ly insu­lat­ed, and by requir­ing all appli­ances to have the high­est stan­dard of ener­gy effi­cien­cy.

WHAT ABOUT JOBS?

Dur­ing the min­ers’ strikes of the 70’s and 80’s most coal mines in the UK were deep pit mines, which required hun­dreds of min­ers to work them. But now most of the coal that can be deep-mined has already been dug up, and new UK coal mines are open-cast — huge dig­gers are used to rip the top off a hill, and then coal is sift­ed from the rub­ble. It is tremen­dous­ly destruc­tive to local ecolo­gies, and also employs far few­er work­ers.

By con­trast the cre­ation of new wind and wave-pow­er infra­struc­ture, a pro­gram of build­ing insu­la­tion instal­la­tion, and lay­ing on more trains, trams and bus­es, would all cre­ate new, sus­tain­able jobs. We are call­ing for gov­ern­ment to pro­vide train­ing pro­grams so that work­ers from fos­sil fuel indus­tries which need to be phased out can move direct­ly into posi­tions in the new, sus­tain­able indus­tries.

It’s now or nev­er time for the cli­mate, join us!

All gen­ders wel­come.

* See for exam­ple:
— Nico­las Stern, “Stern Review of the Eco­nom­ics of Cli­mate Change”, http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/stern.htm

- Tyn­dall Cen­tre for Cli­mate Change Research, “Decar­bon­is­ing the UK”, http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/media/news/tyndall_decarbonising_the_uk.pdf

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

————-

UK Coal will be pre­sent­ing cel­e­bra­to­ry awards to the most dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies in the coal indus­try on Feb­ru­ary 26th Feb­ru­ary at the Land­mark Hotel on Maryle­bone Road, Lon­don. Cli­mate Rush will be in atten­dance to offer alter­na­tive awards based on the eco­log­i­cal dam­age that the coal indus­try is inflict­ing on the envi­ron­ment.

We invite you to join us in your best cock­tail fin­ery (fab­u­lous hats a rec­om­men­da­tion, and sooty styling a sug­ges­tion) to show UK Coal pre­cise­ly what “indus­try play­ers can expect to chal­lenge them in 2009.”

NO NEW COAL AWARDS

THURSDAY 26TH FEBRUARY

THE LANDMARK HOTEL
Dress for­mal­ly for cock­tails in the Win­ter Gar­den at 6.30 prompt.

WHAT CLIMATE RUSH SAYS TO THE UK COAL AWARDS

No new coal to avoid run­away cli­mate change
Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel, and by far the dirt­i­est way to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty. We must leave coal in the ground and not build any new coal fired pow­er sta­tions if we want to avoid run­away cli­mate change. CCS is an unproven tech­nol­o­gy that may nev­er be a viable option. Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now and we must act now to stop it.

We can’t have infi­nite growth on a finite plan­et
At this out­dat­ed and fos­silized awards cer­e­mo­ny UK Coal is cel­e­brat­ing the worst excess­es of our fail­ing eco­nom­ic sys­tem. Just like over­paid bankers these heads of cor­po­ra­tions are receiv­ing plau­dits for plun­der­ing the plan­et.

A tran­si­tion to a low car­bon soci­ety with sus­tain­able jobs
We must coun­ter­act any jobs loss­es from the coal indus­try with a major re-skilling pro­gram in sus­tain­able trades. Many more jobs will be cre­at­ed by a huge retro­fitting pro­gram of old hous­ing stock and in the new renew­able ener­gies sec­tor than in new coal. The Ger­man clean ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion has seen the cre­ation of 250,000 new jobs.

http://climaterush.co.uk/

Urgent call for eviction solidarity tomorrow in Bath

New squat in Bath threat­ened with evic­tion tomor­row (Thurs­day 19th) evening by trans­port police

They’re threat­en­ing to evict tomor­row evening — sol­i­dar­i­ty request­ed. Meet at 4.30pm at the entrance to Twer­ton, oppo­site Mac­don­alds near the Low­er Bris­tol Road.

New squat in Bath threat­ened with evic­tion tomor­row (Thurs­day 19th) evening by trans­port police

They’re threat­en­ing to evict tomor­row evening — sol­i­dar­i­ty request­ed. Meet at 4.30pm at the entrance to Twer­ton, oppo­site Mac­don­alds near the Low­er Bris­tol Road.

They don’t have court papers but claim not to need to as they say it’s part of the rail­way. Net­work Rail claim to own the build­ing despite it not hav­ing been used as a rail­way build­ing since before 1920. The pre­vi­ous (legal) occu­pant is believed to have gone on the run for drug offences — the build­ing’s been aban­doned for years.