Author: earthfirst

Greenpeace greenwash lecture guerilla-ed

The 4th Green­peace Busi­ness Lec­ture took place on Tues­day 25th Jan­u­ary 2005 at the Roy­al Soci­ety of Arts and was deliv­ered by Lord Oxburgh, Chair­man of Shell. Green­peace Busi­ness said in advance that “The lec­ture will focus on the future of oil com­pa­nies in the light of grow­ing evi­dence on the dan­gers of cli­mate change.”

Wear­ing pro­tec­tive radi­a­tion suits and wield­ing top-of-the-range (home-made more like) green­wash detec­tion and clean-up equip­ment, The Green­wash Guer­ril­las were on site to declare the event a ‘Tox­ic Green­wash Haz­ard’. Passers-by and would-be atten­dees were advised to move away from the build­ing, while those insist­ing on entry were warned that direct phys­i­cal con­tact with the lev­els of “Cor­po­rate Social Respon­si­bil­i­ty” (CSR) antic­i­pat­ed could cause long-term dam­age to spir­i­tu­al health. Not to men­tion the like­li­hood of becom­ing a bit-play­er in a Shell-chore­o­graphed CSR soap opera. Sad­ly, none took this advice — per­haps the gas masks made it too hard to deci­pher.

A ban­ner read­ing “TOXIC GREENWASH HAZARD” (with the “A” of “GREENWASH” an oil der­rick pump­ing out flames and clouds of CO2) was tied to the rail­ings of the very fan­cy Roy­al Soci­ety of Arts. One oper­a­tive detect­ed high lev­els of green­wash below street lev­el. “They“re smug­gling Oxburgh in through the sew­er!” cried anoth­er, a the­o­ry which could not be ver­i­fied at time of writ­ing.

At one point, who should be seen step­ping from a black cab but Dr. Robin Bid­well, Chair­man of Envi­ron­men­tal Resources Man­age­ment (about whom, see our spoof web­site of a few years back at www.erm-concerns.com) He expressed no regrets for his company“s com­plic­i­ty in laun­der­ing BP“s Baku-Cey­han pipeline, and wouldn“t be drawn about the num­ber of con­tracts with BP had been lost since his offices were occu­pied in 2002/3.

Soon after, the freez­ing Guer­ril­las were thrilled to feel the heat of right­eous indig­na­tion cours­ing through their veins as a Shell pub­lic rela­tions rep­re­sen­ta­tive emerged onto the steps and began to insti­gate a lit­tle dia­logue. “Oil com­pa­nies can save the plan­et, (if their share­hold­ers will let them)”, he declared, before being wrapped in haz­ard tape…through which he kept spout­ing top-draw­er corp-speak, swear­ing on his mother“s SUV that Shell was “try­ing real­ly hard”, and “real­ly, real­ly cared” about the cli­mate. The GG“s were stunned into silence by this bare-faced dis­play – either that or they were smart enough not to be lulled by the prospect of “hav­ing their say” at the big mahogany board­room table of pow­er. (One who was tempt­ed had to be dis­in­fect­ed by a less cred­u­lous col­league.)

Rumours that this Shell rep was a plant to cre­ate a lit­tle fris­son of a full and frank exchange of views are a shock­ing bar­rel of lies.

Most atten­dees were drawn from the world of oil com­pa­nies, renew­ables com­pa­nies, big NGOs, media and pol­i­tics. Almost all accept­ed a non-tox­ic leaflet while some stopped to talk through the issues, often implaca­bly opposed to Shell and deter­mined to throw Oxburgh a tough ques­tion. One asked if we were Green­peace pick­et­ing Shell, as did an Inde­pen­dent reporter; there“s noth­ing like a lit­tle con­fu­sion to get the issues to show up in a clear­er light.

As the pun­ters queued to enter the lec­ture, a few GGs took advan­tage of their pro­tec­tive cloth­ing to accept a Green­peace Busi­ness offer to come inside and watch the lec­ture on the live video feed. At first they just checked the room for high but man­age­able lev­els of green­wash. But once Oxburgh came on screen, the equip­ment was under too much pres­sure, so they beat a swift retreat. This equip­ment is cut­ting edge, high-tech pro­to­type stuff on its first out­ing, and we need it to be in good order for the doubt­less large num­bers of events which we will have to attend and con­tribute our unpaid, unsung pub­lic ser­vice. This is the year of the G8 in the UK after all, so unprece­dent­ed lev­els of cli­mate-relat­ed green­wash will be stick­ing to our shoes all the way to July at least.

For that rea­son, (noth­ing at all to do with the bit­ing Jan­u­ary wind), we decid­ed to retreat tac­ti­cal­ly to a near­by hostel­ry to wash away dan­ger­ous inter­nal traces of Shell green­wash that might have evad­ed our anti-Shell suits ear­li­er on.

MESSAGE FROM THE GREENWASH GUERRILLAS (dis­trib­uted out­side lec­ture)

Shell vs. plan­et
WARNING! — you are with­in chok­ing dis­tance of a seri­ous spillage of ultra-pow­er­ful super-sophis­ti­cat­ed extra-tox­ic Shell green­wash. (Green­wash = envi­ron­men­tal white­wash.) Tonight, Lord Ron Oxburgh, Shell Chair­man, deliv­ers the Green­peace Busi­ness Lec­ture on “Peo­ple, Cli­mate and Nat­ur­al Resources”. We trust you have brought your gas mask & sick bag.

In terms of cli­mate chaos, the solu­tion is sim­ple: LPG (Leave Petro­le­um in the Ground). And in the bat­tle against green­wash, here“s anoth­er sim­ple acronym: DBI – Don“t Buy It. If not, then we will see the grad­ual sell­ing out of all mean­ing­ful oppo­si­tion to indus­try and gov­ern­ment-ped­dled fos­sil fuel mad­ness. You can“t put a price on the atmos­phere, and mar­ket envi­ron­men­tal­ism will not pre­vent mar­ket-dri­ven cat­a­stro­phes.

FOUR EXAMPLES FROM OVER A CENTURY OF PLUNDER:
* Growth at all costs? Shell “has promised to close the grow­ing gap with rivals such as BP and Exxon­Mo­bil by find­ing new reserves equal to 100 per cent of the oil and gas it pulls from the ground on aver­age for the next four years.”
Action aims to restore reserves, FT, 19.1.05.
* Niger­ian destruc­tion: 2005 is the 10th anniver­sary of the Shell-sanc­tioned mur­der of Ken Saro-Wiwa; “Shell“s com­mit­ment to cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty looks shal­low in the light of the sus­tained mis­ery of the peo­ple of the Niger Delta.”
Sus­tained mis­ery — Shell in the Niger Delta;www.christian-aid.org.uk
* Iraqi sell-off: “Oil majors, includ­ing Shell and BP, are mov­ing clos­er to estab­lish­ing a long-term pres­ence in Iraq…it emerged yes­ter­day.”
Shell advert seeks ‘our man in Iraq’, Gdn 11.8.04.
* Sakhalin sac­ri­ficed: “Clean up the oil spill, not just your image, cam­paign­ers tell Shell”;www.sakhalin.environment.ru/en/sakhalin2/msakhalin.html

With many civ­il soci­ety groups climb­ing into bed with rapa­cious, PR-savvy cor­po­ra­tions, it“s a relief to know that Green­peace will nev­er take cor­po­rate cash. But Shell has pulled off an invalu­able coup in appear­ing to have tamed the group best known for anti-oil direct action.
Since Big Oil“s triple bot­tom line is prof­it, prof­it & prof­it, since it is trained to lie to pro­tect that prof­it, and since it has no place in a sus­tain­able, social­ly just future, we look for­ward eager­ly to news of Green­peace and oth­er direct actions on Shell, (not to men­tion BP, Exxon, Sus­tain­Abil­i­ty et al) in the future. After all, there“s no such thing as a good oil com­pa­ny.

Let The Green­wash Guer­ril­las know what you think, c/o
Mal Brand­ed or Jude Boyn­ton from Lon­don Ris­ing Tide:
london@risingtide.org.uk c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, Lon­don E1 1ES
Tel: 07708 794665 londonrisingtide.org.uk See also risingtide.org.uk

Anti Linslade Bypass Protestors go to Road Builders Bucks County Council

Linslade council banner hang

Pro­tes­tors against the Linslade Bypass today took there protest to the Bucks Coun­ty Coun­cil Offices in Ayles­bury, hang­ing a large ban­ner on a car park oppo­site the coun­cil offices read­ing Chal­lenge Car Cul­ture. (Oh the irony!)

Chal­lenge Car Cul­ture! — The ban­ner oppo­site Bucks Coun­ty Coun­cil Offices.

The protest was held to time with Bucks Coun­ty Coun­cils efforts in the High Court today to get a rul­ing for­bid­ding fur­ther protests on the site, and was also at the same time as head of trans­porta­tion Gar­ret Emer­son was hold­ing a meet­ing with Bed­ford­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil regard­ing the Bypass.

The aim of the protest was to show oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of the Linslade bypass and sec­ond­ly to encour­age the coun­cil to devel­op a trans­port pol­i­cy based upon increased sup­port for pub­lic trans­port and local facil­i­ties. For exam­ple new hous­ing (if real­ly nec­es­sary) could be based around a reopened east-west rail link and express inter-town bus routes. It is hoped that the protest will also give encour­age­ment to the more Eco-mind­ed mem­bers of the Coun­cil to put across their views more strong­ly.

The ban­ner was vis­i­ble to any­body work­ing with­in the main coun­cil office tow­er and would have would have been vis­i­ble to any­body work­ing with­in the coun­cil offices. Unfor­tu­nate­ly as the ban­ner was tied to the side of a pri­vate car park it was tak­en down by secu­ri­ty with­in about 20 min­utes, how­ev­er those present felt it was there long enough to make a sig­nif­i­cant impact. The protest also got good local press and was cov­ered by the Bucks Her­ald, Mix 96 Radio and BBC local radio.

4 secu­ri­ty guys turned up to remove the ban­ner and escort­ed the two pro­tes­tors from the car park. Although tech­ni­cal­ly with­in their rights as the protest was on pri­vate prop­er­ty, they were slight­ly mob hand­ed in their actions. Where as the police on fac­ing a sit­u­a­tion like this will usu­al­ly polite­ly ask what you are doing and give you a chance to take down a ban­ner your­selves, these guys moved in with lit­tle pre­am­ble and start­ed to tear down the ban­ner. For­tu­nate­ly plead­ing with them worked to a small extent, as we were able to res­cue the ban­ner from their knives for use on anoth­er occa­sion.
Also to be fair to them they are prob­a­bly paid very poor wages and are unlike­ly to be giv­en train­ing as to what to do in such sit­u­a­tions.

Watch this space, more protest against the bypass will fol­low!
More peo­ple will­ing to get involved in action against the road always want­ed. See road alert for con­tact details.http://www.roadalert.org.uk/

Peat processing plant sabotaged, Somerset

At the end of 2004 a peat pro­cess­ing plant near Glas­ton­bury, Som­er­set, was sab­o­taged. The Plant processed peat for sev­er­al com­pa­nies dis­trib­ut­ing to Gar­den Cen­tres. The peat was extract­ed from areas in and near 5 dif­fer­ent Sites of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est for their eco­log­i­cal val­ue. These sites were with­in an Area of out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.

Two large bull­doz­ers, and a tur­bo engined pack­ing machine had their engines destroyed. A cat­api­lar tracked bull­doz­er and a JCB exca­va­tor had their engines sab­o­taged. All elec­tri­cal cut outs for the pro­cess­ing plant were switched off and sealed. Over 200 palets of peat sacks for three dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies had their bags slashed (well over 1000 sacks). This action was taked in defence of the wild species of Som­er­set. Take action!

Solid Energy HQ Lawns Dug Up (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

Solid Energy HQ mined

More than 20 mem­bers of the  SHVC and oth­ers arrived at the Sol­id Ener­gy head­quar­ters in Christchurch and pro­ceed­ed to dig for coal under their front lawn. As a parady of Sol­id Ener­gy’s mit­i­ga­tion plans, peo­ple dressed as kiwi entered the build­ing and attempt­ed to “relo­cate” Sol­id Ener­gy staff so that the min­ing efforts out­side could pro­ceed. Every­one man­aged to get away before the police arrived, and the efforts were replayed on TV3 news that night

Angels Disrupt Nanotech Conference and Present ‘Can of Worms’ Award to former Monsanto Man.

A host of heav­en­ly angels from THRONG (The Heav­en­ly Right­eous Opposed to Nan­otech Greed) appeared today unto a nan­otech­nol­o­gy busi­ness con­fer­ence in order to bestow a “Can of Worms” Award on a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Indus­try. Cho­sen to receive the award was Mr Har­ry Swan, for­mer­ly of Mon­san­to, who is Nan­otech­nol­o­gy man­ag­er of Britain’s lead­ing pro­duc­er of car­bon nan­otubes, Thomas Swan & Co.

Nan­otech­nol­o­gy, the manip­u­la­tion of mat­ter at the lev­els of atoms and mol­e­cules (a mil­lion nano-angels can dance on the head of a pin), is being tout­ed to Indus­try as “the next big thing” despite major con­cerns over its safe­ty and dis­rup­tive soci­etal impacts.

Hold­ing a ban­ner that read “Nan­otech­nol­o­gy — its not big and its not clever”, a dozen angels sang a melod­ic cho­rus of “Hark the throng of angels sing, Nan­otech’s a dodgy thing” as the “Can of Worms” award was pre­sent­ed by THRONG archangel Sarah Phimn. She cau­tioned del­e­gates against the fool­ish attempt to rush nan­otech­nol­o­gy to mar­ket: “Where these nano fools rush in we angels fear to tread”, she said.

The “Nan­otech­nol­o­gy — Deliv­er­ing Busi­ness Advan­tage” con­fer­ence is intend­ed to con­vince UK busi­ness­es to adopt this con­tro­ver­sial set of tech­nolo­gies. The con­fer­ence, fea­tur­ing speak­ers from arms com­pa­ny BAE and chem­i­cal giant ICI, is in part spon­sored by The Insti­tute of Nan­otech­nol­o­gy — a UK Nan­otech Trade Group whose back­ers include GM crop com­pa­ny Syn­gen­ta, food giant Unilever and defence con­trac­tor Qine­tiq.

“The same greedy cor­po­ra­tions who messed with the genet­ic basis of life are now seek­ing to alter and pri­va­tize nature right down to the atom­ic lev­el”, explained THRONG spoke­san­gel Pan­do­ra Spocks. “We want to warn com­pa­nies attend­ing this con­fer­ence that get­ting into nan­otech is real­ly not a clever idea – for soci­ety or their busi­ness”

This is the first in what is hoped to become an annu­al “Can of Worms” award cer­e­mo­ny. This year’s prizewin­ner, Har­ry Swan, is very famil­iar with open­ing cans of worms: He was respon­si­ble for Mon­san­to’s pub­lic rela­tions attempt to con­vince the pub­lic to accept GM foods — just a small taste of the big­ger con­tro­ver­sy over nan­otech­nol­o­gy still to come.

Notes to Edi­tors:

- For more details, pho­tos and video con­tact Gabriel: +44(0)7746 411539
email: angelsagainstnanotech@crapmail.com

- Copies of the infor­ma­tion giv­en to del­e­gates and of Sarah Phimns award pre­sen­ta­tion speech will be avail­able at http://angelsagainstnanotech.blogspot.comand www.indymedia.org.uk

- Details of the con­fer­ence can be found athttp://www.imeche.org.uk/

- The Insti­tute of Nan­otech­nol­o­gy can be reached atwww.nano.org.uk

- THRONG are not affil­i­at­ed with THONG (but we offer them a tip o’ the hat!) seehttp://www.chicagothong.org/nanocommerce.php?photo=061

 

Award Speech giv­en by Sarah Phimn, THRONG Archangel, at “Nan­otech­nol­o­gy-Deliv­er­ing Busi­ness Advan­tage” con­fer­ence, Bucks UK — 9th Dec 2004

“Broth­ers and sis­ters
Be not afraid. We have tid­ings of great impor­tance. We are here on behalf of THRONG (The Heav­en­ly Right­eous Opposed to Nan­otech Greed) to hand over the first ever “Can of Worms Award” to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the nan­otech indus­try.

We have been watch­ing the earth­ly plain for many mil­len­nia and from the fir­ma­ment we have noticed of late many fools rush­ing into the great nan­otech­nol­o­gy gam­ble. This caus­es us much con­cern. Those we see rush­ing into nan­otech include: the great fool­ish armies of the world; the fool­ish US pres­i­dent and of course the transna­tion­al com­pa­nies fresh from mak­ing fool­ish things such as weapons (like BAE Sys­tems), pes­ti­cides (like BASF) and GM Crops (Syn­gen­ta).
Where these nano fools rush in, we angels fear to tread.

Our angel­ic host will pass out amongst you hym­nals to explain our con­cern.

And its not just us in the heav­en­ly high get­ting our halos in a twist about small things. Envi­ron­men­tal groups, the insur­ance indus­try, trade unions … why even roy­als and roy­al soci­eties are issu­ing stern warn­ings:
— about the tox­i­c­i­ty of nanopar­ti­cles.
— about the mil­i­tary use of nan­otech­nolo­gies.
— about how nanosen­sors will increase con­trol and sur­veil­lance.
— about how nan­otech­nol­o­gy will strength­en cor­po­rate pow­er.
— about patents on mat­ter.
— about cir­cum­vent­ing dis­abil­i­ty rights.

It is clear to us that the emerg­ing field of Nan­otech­nol­o­gy is an almighty can of worms fraught with prob­lems, dan­gers and, lets face it, real­ly bad PR prob­lems..

And so we are here to present the first ever Can of Worms Award to:
Mr Har­ry Swan (of Thomas Swan and Co.)

Now.. you might not all realise but Har­ry is no stranger to open­ing messy cans of worms.

He was PR spokesper­son for Mon­san­to. He had the job of con­vinc­ing the British pub­lic that they want­ed GM foods. Oops!
Lat­er Har­ry took a job with a com­pa­ny that helps big oil and biotech com­pa­nies attack envi­ron­men­tal and human rights groups. tut tut!

But with an unerr­ing nose for new cans of worms, Har­ry has now returned to the fam­i­ly firm to stake its future on becom­ing the UK’s major pro­duc­er of car­bon nan­otubes — tox­ic asbestos-like fibres.

Har­ry, with nei­ther reg­u­la­tions, safe­ty tests or a clear lia­bil­i­ty regime in place for nan­otech­nol­o­gy we can already hear those worms squirm­ing .. You are a very deserved win­ner of this can of worms..
But real­ly we would advise you NOT to open it.…”

 

A Nano-hymn

Hark the throng of angels sing, nan­otech’s a dodgy thing
Piece by piece the world defiled
God­like sci­ence run­ning wild
Care­ful al ye peo­ple wise
Nano could be your demise
We will not coop­er­ate
With your cor­po­rate nano-state
Hark the throng of angels sing, nan­otech’s a dodgy thing

Leaflet at:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2004/12/302569.pdf More info from:
http://angelsagainstnanotech.blogspot.com/

Video at:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2004/12/302638.wmv

Battle of Sherwood commences as Under-sheriff risks protestors lives

Eviction Aruga!! Sherwood eviction

Evic­tion under­way at Sher­wood Green Protest site, Not­ting­hamshire — Under-Sher­iff risks tun­nellers’ lives, trees pro­tes­tors have been cleared, tree-felling under­way.

After over 14 months spent pro­tect­ing a vil­lage green from ille­gal destruc­tion. Pro­test­ers in Sher­wood for­est are fac­ing the tough­est day — Police turned up with­out warn­ing at 8 this morn­ing and start­ed to evict them.

The trees were evict­ed quite fast , but there is a tun­nel net­work that will take far longer. The tun­nels are well stocked and extreme­ly well defend­ed.

No notice was giv­en that the evic­tions were to take place and the Under-Sher­iff of Not­ting­ham (whose ulti­mate­ly in charge of evic­tions in the area) told the pro­test­ers only last week, that there would not be an evic­tion while legal cas­es were still out­stand­ing.

Pro­test­ers and local peo­ple are cur­rent­ly try­ing to pre­vent the police from get­ting near the tun­nels to stop any fur­ther destruc­tion of the vil­lage green.

As this release goes out, the beech tree which is at least a cou­ple of hun­dred years old is fac­ing the axe.

Sev­er­al peo­ple are known to be in tun­nels, local res­i­dents watch in anger, and the Not­ting­hamshire Police who pre­vi­ous­ly assured them that no tree-felling would take place until the tun­nels had been evict­ed, have now allowed felling to com­mence  of very large mature trees, direct­ly above the sit­ing of the tun­nels which could cause a fatal tun­nel col­lapse.

For infor­ma­tion tele­phone: Olan Trust 08708 080 080 or Fax: 08708 080 081

www.sherwoodgreen.net

Peat Excavation Site Sabotaged — Chat Moss

Ear­li­er this year a peat exca­va­tion works at Chat Moss near Man­ches­ter was Sab­o­taged. The site where the extrac­tion was tak­ing place was of high eco­log­i­cal val­ue and in the vacin­i­ty of a wildlife Site of Sci­en­tif­ic Impor­tance. Peat bogs also have great val­ue as Co2 sinks.

Under cov­er of a gale peo­ple entered the peat exca­va­tion site at Chat Moss. A tur­bo engined peat cut­ter and a cat­api­lar tracked exca­va­tor both had their engines destroyed. Locks on work­shops, stor­age area and office all had their locks sealed. This action was tak­en in defense of the wild. It was easy, any­body could do it all it takes is the will to act!

Sherwood Forest Camp on High Eviction Alert

Sherwood Back Off Bellway

Sher­wood For­est protest camp at Mans­feild Wood­house, Not­ting­hamshire are on high evic­tion Alert after they have been issued new Papers ear­li­er this week, Bal­ifs and unmarked secu­ri­ty vans are now patrolling the area and equip­ment is being deliv­ed to site.
The camp expects to be evict­ed very soon. They need peo­ple to act now, get on camp

Accord­ing to peo­ple on site they could be evict­ed with­in the week, or by christ­mass. there is lots of activ­i­ty and des­per­at­ly need help in preper­a­tions and to have peo­ple on site as once the cor­don goes up you won’t get in. So get on camp as soon as pos­si­ble.
If you are not on the phone tree call the SUMAC cen­tre on 0845 4589595 or the site 07800 501248
Web­site and maps etc.http://www.veggies.org.uk/sherwood/index.htm

They obvi­ous­ly need climb­ing tat, mate­ri­als and food etc.

Solidarity Action for Nine Ladies

Ear­ly this morn­ing activists blocked Stan­cliffe Stone a sub­sidiary of Mar­shalls PLC for three and a half hours using two tripods.

The action was done to show that regard­less of the camp being evict­ed from 9 Ladies site, that Mar­shalls or Stan­cliffe Stone are still very easy to shut down and that activists can cause eco­nom­ic dam­age in a peace­ful non vio­lent way.

Nanotech conference at Leeds’ Royal Armouries disrupted at lunchtime today (Friday 12th November)

At lunchtime today, a meet­ing of com­pa­nies involved in nan­otech­nol­o­gy indus­tries was invad­ed and dis­rupt­ed by a group of peo­ple opposed to tech­nolo­gies of social con­trol.

The protest took 3 main parts. First­ly, an infor­ma­tion gath­er­ing exer­cise to gain fur­ther details of who is involved in what, for future actions. Sec­ond­ly, the hall was vis­it­ed and made extreme­ly unple­sant by a well-known sub­stance for stink­ing out con­fer­ences: com­frey in water left to rot for a cou­ple of months, and fish bait. vis­i­tors to the hall an hr after said peo­ple were hold­ing their noses and not stay­ing, and the smell was hideous. Leaflets were also giv­en out. The third aspect was the seiz­ing of the tan­noy and a com­mu­nique being read out. This coin­cid­ed with a talk on nan­otech which drowned it out, and was heard in every room through the muse­um. Leaflets were also scat­tered down. Two of these peo­ple were held by secu­ri­ty until the police arrived, took down the name and address and date of birth that the two claimed were theirs, quick check to make sure there was no war­rant on the names giv­en, and then released.

Nan­otech­nol­o­gy is the newest weapon against diver­si­ty, rebel­lion, dif­fer­ence, auton­o­my and free­dom. The US mil­i­tary is, of course, the biggest investor as it tries to ensure total dom­i­na­tion of all life on the plan­et. The British gov­ern­ment has also invest­ed £90 mil­lion in nan­otech­nol­o­gy and most indus­tries and uni­ver­si­ties* are devel­op­ing inter­ests in the field.

Genet­ic engi­neer­ing was recog­nised as hav­ing mas­sive social and eco­log­i­cal impli­ca­tions and this ensured world­wide resis­tance against it. Nan­otech­nol­o­gy, which has the abil­i­ty to trans­form all mat­ter, has far more dra­mat­ic effects and needs dras­tic action to con­front this new assault on diver­si­ty of life.

Nan­otech, and its links to biotech­no­log­i­cal, infor­ma­tion­al and cog­ni­tive sci­ences, pro­vides the state with yet more tools with which to con­trol all dis­sent and iron out all life into a homo­ge­neous, manip­u­la­ble mass. Be it advances in sur­veil­lance tech­nolo­gies, the abil­i­ty to dis­able neur­al trans­mit­ters and break apart DNA strands by remote con­trol, arti­fi­cial­ly cre­ate ‘workaholism’ in labour­ers, or ‘stamp out’ phys­i­cal and men­tal dif­fer­ence, nan­otech­nol­o­gy puts mind con­trol, body con­trol, social con­trol and con­trol of the nat­ur­al world more firm­ly in the hands of the state, the cor­po­ra­tions and the rul­ing elite.

Just as biotech­nol­o­gy was sold to us as a green tech­nol­o­gy that would feed the world, so nan­otech is being her­ald­ed. Both instinct and rea­son tell us to take action against these new tech­nolo­gies before we lose our last lib­er­ties to them.

Leeds action is a UK first!

How­ev­er, we were beat­en by North Amer­i­cans tak­ing their clothes off in Octo­ber — Action in Chica­go by THONG at nanocom­merce 2004 — (Top­less Humans Organ­ised for Nat­ur­al Genet­ics) — see
http://www.chicagothong.org/nanocommerce.php?photo=061 for amus­ing pho­tos and also
http://nanobot.blogspot.com/2004/10/nano-industry-hits-bottom.html for indus­try reac­tion
and before that, a 30 Jan 2004 protest of the ground­break­ing of the Mol­e­c­u­lar Foundry, a new Dept of Ener­gy nanochem­istry facil­i­ty at the Lawrence Berke­ley Nation­al Lab in Berke­ley, CA USA;

and those pesky Con­ti­nen­tal-types:
actions/protest against nanotech/converging tech­nolo­gies in Greno­ble by piece­set­main­doeu­vre (anti tech activists — dis­rupt­ing nano-con­fer­ences) — seewww.piecesetmaindoeuvre.com

* These are easy tar­gets
* Get scared, then get active!

FURTHER INFO ON NANOTECH:

For those who, like many of us, have buried our heads in the sand about this new tech­nol­o­gy, but have decid­ed it is time to learn and to act, the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion should assist:

http://www.etcgroup.org — cam­paign­ing but non-rad­i­cal group with info on nan­otech; see ‘The Big Down’ report
http://www.wtec.org/ConvergingTechnologies/Report/NBIC_frontmatter.pdf- info from the “oth­er side”
http://www.leedsef.org.uk/atomtech.htm — earth first! web­site with an 8 page nan­otech arti­cle some­where on it!