Author: earthfirst

On the first of August 2005 a group of activists dropped a ban­ner at the Karah­n­jukar Dam Site in Protest abainst all planned Heavey Indus­try in Ice­land..

A paint­ed crack indi­cat­ed the dan­gers of such col­los­al con­struc­tion on a sub­struc­ture already weak­ened by geot­her­mal pres­suresIn 2003 Landsvirk­in­jun’s chief, fridrik Sophus­son, was asked what would hap­pen if there was an Earth­quake under the Dam. “It would burst. A cat­a­sproph­ic wall of water would anni­hi­late every­one in this .…and all the neigh­bour­ing farms wold be swept away.” Though he said “this won’t hap­pen”, sev­er­al days of con­ti­nous Earth­quakes in 2004 sug­gest oth­er­wise pro­test­ers com­ment­ed. The crack is also a sym­bol of sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er Dam Cam­paign­ers glob­al­ly. In 1980 the eco­log­i­cal resis­tance group ‘Earth first’ dropped a 100 metres  ban­ner from Glen Canyon Dam on Col­orado Riv­er (U.S.A.).

Twen­ty years lat­er a strong move­ment is suc­cess­ful­ly chal­leng­ing devel­op­ment and has achived rever­sal of some plans. It is hoped the same will hap­pen here.

In 2001 The nation­al plan­ning agency (NPA) reject­ed plans for Karah­n­jukar because of the“substantial, Irre­versible, neg­a­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact” — yet it is still going ahead.If these projects con­tin­ue, ice­land will and itself destroyed, pol­lut­ed, enslaved to for­eign com­pa­nies and liv­ing with a time­bomb. This action is to high­light the dan­gers of heavy Indus­try, the suc­cess­es of resis­tance in oth­er coun­tries and to call out to the ice­landic peo­ple to join in and defend their coun­try and cul­ture.

The group of activists were detained for 9 hours in Egilsstadir with­out bee­ing for­mal­ly arrest­ed. The cas­es are bee­ing dealt with cur­rent­ly.

Video -http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2005/08/320242.mov

e‑mail: saveingiceland@riseupnet.is
Home­page: http://www.savingiceland.org

On Tues­day, the 29th June, 2005, in Dublin, Ire­land, 5 farm­ers from Ross­port, Co. Mayo,Ireland were sent to Moun­tjoy Prison in Dublin, for vio­lat­ing an order imposed by the High Court to stop block­ing Shell access to their lands to con­stuct the onshore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas Field pipeline.

The men have appeared in Court sev­er­al times since that date and have been asked whether or not they wish to purge their con­tempt and agree to obey­ing the injunction,a request the have flat­ly refused on each occa­sion.

A Nation­wide cam­paign of Boycotts,Blockades,Pickets,Fundraisers,Large ‑Scale Demos,Occupations and sit-ins, Sol­i­dar­i­ty gath­er­ings as well as a per­ma­nent activist camp and block­ade at the remote site of the pro­posed pipeline has explod­ed in Ire­land since the men’s jail­ing.

The Irish Gov­ern­ment has giv­en Shell carte blanche with Ire­land’s ener­gy resources. Shell and sta­toil plan to build the world’s first-ever onshore gas pro­cess­ing plant in Mayo, and can now have the courts imprison any­one who tries to get in their way.

The High Court has jailed five peo­ple at the request of Shell for attempt­ing to stop the multi­na­tion­al from lay­ing a con­tro­ver­sial, high-pres­sure, “off­shore” gas pipeline through their land in Ross­port, Co Mayo. The judge ordered that the five men — four small landown­ers and a local sup­port­er — be impris­oned “until they purge their con­tempt”, mean­ing they will not be released until they have promised to allow Shell to dig up their land.

The pipeline is pro­posed to run along­side the men’s homes as well as those of many oth­er local res­i­dents at sev­er­al times the nor­mal pres­sure of such oper­a­tions due to the dis­tance the­gas must trav­el form the sea-source to the onshore refinery.Shell have built 3km of the pipeline with­out plan­ning per­mis­sion and have told the Min­is­ter they are report­ing to-Mr Noel Dempsey,of the right wing Fian­na Fail party,that they will be “more careful@ in future”

The jail­ing comes 10 years after the exe­cu­tion of nine Ogo­ni activists for their oppo­si­tion to Shel­l’s oper­a­tion in Nige­ria.
The sup­ply pipeline will be car­ry­ing raw, unprocessed gas at high pres­sure, in close prox­im­i­ty to hous­es and through a pro­tect­ed estu­ary. The pro­cess­ing plant will burn waste oil on site and dis­charge it into the atmos­phere, and will dump tox­ic waste direct­ly into the estu­ary, which is a habi­tat for rare marine life. The Co. Mayo coastal area itself is a Whale and Dol­phin sanc­tu­ary.

This issue rais­es again the incred­i­ble sit­u­a­tion where­by the fab­u­lous gas wealth off the coast of Co. Mayo has been giv­en by the Gov­ern­ment to Shell and Sta­toil for not a pen­ny in roy­al­ties to the Irish peo­ple and with huge tax write offs against the cost of exploit­ing it. The alter­na­tive is that the gas would be treat­ed and puri­fied in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent way to the present pro­pos­als by Shell and Sta­toil. The fact is that the intense pres­sure of raw gas mixed with con­den­sate oil and water, which is pro­posed to be brought through the dis­put­ed pipeline, is unprece­dent­ed by world stan­dards and gives rise to poten­tial unprece­dent­ed risks for the local com­mu­ni­ty. To have res­i­dents exposed to this kind of pres­sure to facil­i­tate a multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion is intol­er­a­ble.

The Irish peo­ple are ris­ing up against these cor­po­rate thiefs and the cor­rupt gov­ern­ment that gift­ed them our nat­ur­al resources!
Like so many oth­er issues we stug­gle on,this is and has become more so an Inter­na­tion­a­tion­al issue of cor­po­rate repres­sion with state assis­tance!
The cam­paign is esca­lat­ing and shall do so until the 5 men are released and receive jus­tice for them­selves and their fam­i­lies and until Shell have been stripped of the resources they have stolen from the Iirsh peo­ple!

BOYCOTT SHELL AND STATOIL!

More info,statistics,campaigns,how to get involved—
www.shelltosea.com
www.indymedia.ie
www.indymedia.ie/mayo

On Tues­day 19th July 2005.a group of approx­i­mate­ly 20 of us hiked to the main junc­tion approach­ing the site. Four of our group locked on to a pick up truck and a HUGE cater­pil­lar con­struc­tion vehi­cle. We man­aged to block 2 oth­er access roads and hault work on the site for three hours. This was a first in Ice­landic history:the police had to make up a word for lock-on. Thir­teen of us were detained, appar­ent­ly arrest­ed, and lat­er released with­out charge.…with the warn­ing that Impregi­lo were look­ing at this inci­dent with grave eyes and were like­ly to make a civ­il case. Impregi­lo have since changed their mind. For a change, the media did report that the pro­test­ers were friend­ly!

We have gath­ered to protest the con­tin­u­ing dev­as­ta­tion of glob­al ecol­o­gy in the inter­est of cor­po­rate prof­its. The strug­gle to save our plan­et, like the strug­gle against inhu­man­i­ty, is glob­al, so we have to be too. We are here to pre­vent the Karah­n­jukar Dam project from destroy­ing West­ern Europe’s last great wilder­ness.

Dodgy Ital­ian con­struc­tion con­glom­er­ate Impregi­lo, is in charge of build­ing most of the dam . One of Impregilo’s con­sul­tants has already been found guilty in 2003 of offer­ing bribes to a Lesotho hydro-elec­tric firm, and the com­pa­ny itself will face anoth­er hear­ing before the Lesotho courts in April 2005. Impregi­lo were also involved in build­ing the Argenti­na’s Yacyre­ta dam, which went almost $10 mil­lion over bud­get and was labeled by Pres­i­dent Car­los Men­em ‘a mon­u­ment to cor­rup­tion’ . Impregi­lo were also one of the firms plan­ning to build the infa­mous Ilisu dam in Turkey which, had it gone ahead, would have made 30,000 Kurds home­less and drowned the world his­toric site of Hasankeyf..

Alu­mini­um smelters emit enor­mous quan­ti­ties of green­house gas­es. In 2001, super-clean Ice­land was able to nego­ti­ate a 10% increase in per­mit­ted emis­sions under the Kyoto pro­to­col — the biggest increase in the world. In effect, Alcoa is buy­ing Ice­land’s licence to pol­lute, as well as cheap elec­tric­i­ty. The min­istry of envi­ron­ment also gave Alcoa a licence to emit 12 times the lev­el of sul­phur diox­ide the World Bank expects from mod­ern smelters. SO2; and flu­o­ride, the most dan­ger­ous pol­lu­tants in terms of pub­lic health and land dam­age, will be pumped direct­ly into the air via giant chim­neys.

Many geol­o­gists fear cat­a­stroph­ic results, espe­cial­ly as con­struc­tion is on a sub­struc­ture weak­ened by geot­her­mal fis­sures. Thorsteinn Siglaugs­son, a risk spe­cial­ist, pre­pared a recent inde­pen­dent eco­nom­ic report on Karah­n­jukar for the Ice­landic Nature Con­ser­va­tion Agency. It states that the project would nev­er have attract­ed pri­vate finance: “Karah­n­jukar will nev­er make a prof­it, and the Ice­landic tax­pay­er may well end up sub­si­dis­ing Alcoa.” A respect­ed fig­ure of the Ice­landic uni­ver­si­ty sent out an email declar­ing that it will take the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment 250 years sim­ply to recoup the finan­cial costs of the dam (which is unlike­ly to be oper­a­tional by that time). Nobody will be mak­ing a prof­it except for Alcoa. The only expla­na­tion for this project is one which con­firms the find­ings of the 2001 Gre­co (EU anti-cor­rup­tion group) report, that “the close links between the gov­ern­ment and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty [in Ice­land] could gen­er­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for cor­rup­tion”. This project is cor­rupt to the core, and it is the first of many planned for the future. Ice­land’s unique beau­ty is-lit­er­al­ly- to be sac­ri­ficed to pow­er the cor­po­rate machine.

The parade start­ed at the Irish embassy, and moved along ear­ly in the streets of Edin­burgh. It was a col­or­ful and relaxed protest despite the police tak­ing pho­tographs.

The protest was part­ly against the Shell pipeline being built in Mayo, Ire­land, but also high­lights shell appaul­ing human rights and envi­ro­men­tal record.

More infor­ma­tion at:
http://www.indymedia.ie/index.php?region=mayo
http://www.shellfacts.com

Today at 07:30, 2 petrol sta­tions were shut down in Edin­burgh. The first was a BP sta­tion on Calder Road, and the sec­ond was a Shell sta­tion on Comis­ton Road. All pumps were put out of action with bike locks, and oil spills at the fore­court entrances meant no more busi­ness as usu­al for a while.

The oil indus­try, like the G8 is the epit­o­me of cap­i­tal­ism and it’s ills. It places wealth and pow­er in the hands of the few at mas­sive expense to this plan­et’s envi­ron­ment and peo­ples.

Oil explo­ration and pro­duc­tion destroys wilder­ness and maims ecosys­tems. 10,000’s of tonnes of oil are rou­tine­ly dumped in rivers and oceans, poi­son­ing aquat­ic life and water sup­plies.

In the U.K. alone, 24,000 peo­ple die pre­ma­ture­ly each year from emis­sions from vehi­cles and refiner­ies, and many more are killed or crip­pled on the roads.

Against this back­ground, the vest­ed inter­ests of the oil indus­try fund aca­d­e­mics to hide the causal link between green­house gas­es emis­sions from burn­ing fos­sil fuels and spi­ralling cli­mate change. Glob­al tem­per­a­tures are the high­est in 2,000 years — we are fac­ing an envi­ron­men­tal melt­down cri­sis.

No amount of cor­po­rate PR exer­cis­es can hide how the oil indus­try helps make the rich rich­er and the poor poor­er. Most of the top 20 petro­le­um cor­po­ra­tions are based in G8 coun­tries, with a revolv­ing door of top jobs between their gov­ern­ments and the indus­try. These cor­po­ra­tions set the glob­al agen­da, reap­ing mas­sive prof­its as the major­i­ty world are crushed by pover­ty char­ac­terised by a lack of clean water, food, health care and edu­ca­tion.

Work­ers in the oil indus­try suf­fer long ardu­ous hours in dan­ger­ous con­di­tion, for poor pay. Eas­i­ly pre­ventable acci­dents are com­mon. Attempts to unionise and organ­ise for bet­ter con­di­tions are met with intim­i­da­tion, sack­ings and vio­lence.
Oil multi­na­tion­als lit­er­al­ly call the shots, as they rou­tine­ly back ruth­less dic­ta­tor­ships across the world, from Sudan to Colum­bia, Ango­la to Indone­sia. The death squads do their dirty work. Hand in glove with the rul­ing elites, they make sure that noth­ing stands in the way of their pipelines and prof­its. Should oil pro­duc­ing regimes not toe the line or com­ply with cor­po­rate inter­ests, inva­sion is always an option, with the mil­i­tary might of the U.S. and U.K. as the enforcers.Tens of thou­sands were killed in Iraq to secure access to the world’s sec­ond largest oil reserves.

For all the G8’s talk of can­celling debt and pro­mot­ing “devel­op­ment” (ha ha ha!), the exis­tence of the oil indus­try and the cap­i­tal­ism which it dri­ves con­demns mil­lions to hell­ish lives and is push­ing life on earth to the brink of envi­ron­men­tal and social cat­a­stro­phe. Every­thing it touch­es dies. The G8, the oil indus­try and cap­i­tal­ism can­not be reformed. They must be dis­man­tled and destroyed if there is to be any hope of a bet­ter world. This is why we take direct action, to dent their prof­its and to oppose their world of pow­er and prof­it. The pow­er and the odds against us are enor­mous, but we can nev­er give up. Fight for a new world in any way you can.The oil indus­try is the epit­o­me of cap­i­tal­ism and it’s ills. It places wealth and pow­er in the hands of the few at mas­sive expense to this plan­et’s envi­ron­ment and peo­ples.

Oil explo­ration and pro­duc­tion destroys wilder­ness and maims ecosys­tems. 10,000’s of tonnes of oil are rou­tine­ly dumped in rivers and oceans, poi­son­ing aquat­ic life and water sup­plies.

In the U.K. alone, 24,000 peo­ple die pre­ma­ture­ly each year from emis­sions from vehi­cles and refiner­ies, and many more are killed or crip­pled on the roads.

Against this back­ground, the vest­ed inter­ests of the oil indus­try fund aca­d­e­mics to hide the causal link between green­house gas­es emis­sions from burn­ing fos­sil fuels and spi­ralling cli­mate change. Glob­al tem­per­a­tures are the high­est in 2,000 years — we are fac­ing an envi­ron­men­tal melt­down cri­sis.

No amount of cor­po­rate PR exer­cis­es can hide how the oil indus­try helps make the rich rich­er and the poor poor­er. Most of the top 20 petro­le­um cor­po­ra­tions are based in G8 coun­tries, with a revolv­ing door of top jobs between their gov­ern­ments and the indus­try. These cor­po­ra­tions set the glob­al agen­da, reap­ing mas­sive prof­its as the major­i­ty world are crushed by pover­ty char­ac­terised by a lack of clean water, food, health care and edu­ca­tion.

Work­ers in the oil indus­try suf­fer long ardu­ous hours in dan­ger­ous con­di­tion, for poor pay. Eas­i­ly pre­ventable acci­dents are com­mon. Attempts to unionise and organ­ise for bet­ter con­di­tions are met with intim­i­da­tion, sack­ings and vio­lence.
Oil multi­na­tion­als lit­er­al­ly call the shots, as they rou­tine­ly back ruth­less dic­ta­tor­ships across the world, from Sudan to Colum­bia, Ango­la to Indone­sia. The death squads do their dirty work. Hand in glove with the rul­ing elites, they make sure that noth­ing stands in the way of their pipelines and prof­its. Should oil pro­duc­ing regimes not toe the line or com­ply with cor­po­rate inter­ests, inva­sion is always an option, with the mil­i­tary might of the U.S. and U.K. as the enforcers.Tens of thou­sands were killed in Iraq to secure access to the world’s sec­ond largest oil reserves.

For all the G8’s talk of can­celling debt and pro­mot­ing “devel­op­ment” (ha ha ha!), the exis­tence of the oil indus­try and the cap­i­tal­ism which it dri­ves con­demns mil­lions to hell­ish lives and is push­ing life on earth to the brink of envi­ron­men­tal and social cat­a­stro­phe. Every­thing it touch­es dies. The G8, the oil indus­try and cap­i­tal­ism can­not be reformed. They must be dis­man­tled and destroyed if there is to be any hope of a bet­ter world. This is why we take direct action, to dent their prof­its and to oppose their world of pow­er and prof­it. The pow­er and the odds against us are enor­mous, but we can nev­er give up. Fight for a new world in any way you can. See you on the streets…

Local com­mu­ni­ty requests help from activists to fight a Shell/Statoil/Marathon gas pipeline that will threat­en their lives and be eco­log­i­cal­ly dev­as­tat­ing for an iso­lat­ed, beau­ti­ful area of Ire­land

The local com­mu­ni­ty of Ross­port, Co. Mayo is threat­ened with unprece­dent­ed human and eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion by a col­lu­sion of the Irish State and a hydro­car­bon con­sor­tium, led by Roy­al Dutch Shell. The con­sor­tium plan an unprece­dent­ed raw gas pipeline that will run over bog­gy land, with­in 70m of farmer’s hous­es and through a land­slide prone area to a refin­ery, also built on bog­land. The Irish State grant­ed Shell Com­pul­so­ry Acqui­si­tion Orders, which threat­en the landown­ers with prison if they refuse to sell their land. There was also an injunc­tion placed upon the landown­ers from pre­vent­ing Shell employ­ees access to their land.

Today, in the midst of a week-long block­ade of the roads to the refin­ery build­ing site by locals and activists, the High Court has ruled to imprison all five defen­dants for break­ing the injunc­tion (ie. refus­ing to allow Shell employess access to land). It looks like the Court will attempt to imprison every­one who gets in the way of this pipeline.

The area, Ross­port in north Co. Mayo is one of incred­i­ble nat­ur­al splen­dour. Broad­haven Bay, into which Shell would pump mag­ne­sium oxide, arsenic, lead etc. is a breed­ing ground for whales, bask­ing sharks, dol­phins (includ­ing the very rare Rizo’s dol­phin) and salmon. A camp was first estab­lished at an ear­ly June sol­i­dar­i­ty week­end and there are now calls for its revi­tal­i­sa­tion. For pho­tos of the sol­i­dar­i­ty week­end, go here:http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70173

For pho­tos of the area, see here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayogas/

This cam­paign is winnable, but it needs com­mit­ted activists. I am cur­rent­ly in Lon­don, but will be head­ing to Mayo imme­di­ate­ly after the G8. I hope to spend the time until then inform­ing peo­ple about this sit­u­a­tion and get­ting peo­ple to go to the camp in Mayo. If you’d like to learn more, I’ll be at the gig in Ram­pArts tonight; glass­es, black hair, short and slight­ly sil­ly Irish accent. Oth­er­wise, I’ll be on the train on Fri­day. Please talk to me if you’d like to get involved so we can sort out logis­tics with the peo­ple in Mayo now.

e‑mail: info@shelltosea.com
Home­page: http://www.indymedia.ie/mayo