Author: earthfirst

sign up for The Big Burn anti-incineration carnival, near Stroud

THE BIG BURN!

24 hours after significant construction activity begins at Javelin Park we will be converging for The Big Burn! Come along and shield Haresfield at a community-led carnival of anti-incineration revelry. All are warmly invited to join Gloucestershire in a show of front-line protection against those that threaten us and our environment. Sign up here to ensure you receive an invitation to this most poignant of parties!

All those signed-up will, when the time beckons, receive a text message with a start time. You’ll be wanting to pack a party-bag in advance so you’ll be ready when the time comes. Imagine being the only one at the party without a costume. Only joking, you won’t be allowed in if you’re not in fancy dress. No that’s not true either. This is a community-led event and is open to all. Children most-definitely included!

Javelin Park is easily accessible from Stroud and Gloucester by car.

There will most likely be free transport running to the Big Burn. Please contact honeybuzzard@riseup.net to request or offer a lift!

Take Note!:

The Big Burn! will be a show of community protection against the threat of harm to our health and environment posed by the Haresfield Incinerator. This industry is supported by the state and therefore there will almost certainly be a police-presence. Know your rights, read this pamphlet (opens in new tab) and don’t be intimidated. The Big Burn! will be a inclusive, friendly space and we won’t be bullied.

See you at the party, it’ll be cookin’…!

Directions, more details including what to bring and not to bring and TO SIGN UP, here

some Stroud protest present & past (location of 2016 EF! Winter Moot)

Stroud was an appropriate location for this year’s Winter Moot, with a proud history of protest past and present.

 

Stroud was an appropriate location for this year’s Winter Moot, with a proud history of protest past and present.

The venue for the Moot is the Centre for Science & Art, itself saved by the Stroud Campaign Against The Ringroad in the 70s. In 1980 there were plans to demolish some 17th & 18th century listed buildings on the High Street – a combination of roof top occupations and other strategies saved them, and the road is now pedestrianised.

In 1989 the Save The Trees Campaign took on the council’s road-widening scheme (for a Tesco’s). A midnight raid to fell thirteen trees in Stratford Park was foiled when local people got wind of the ‘secret’ and attached themselves to the trees. The trees are still there, and instead a traffic calming scheme was developed, resulting in less crashes.

In 2013 a campaign was fought against developers with an apple tree being occupied for 6 days. A local who gave us a tour during the Moot of places fought for or saved by protests said: “There was a very sad end to this story, but I hope it is a good reminder of what we can do, and what may be needed in some of the battles over local development and our environment in the near future.” (source)

There’s been a long campaign these last years against the Javelin Park incinerator at Haresfield, and though the county council’s planning committee blocked it in 2013, they were over-ruled by the Secretary of State. GlosVAIN and others continue to campaign, and came to talk to us about the different community organising strategies they’ve used.

Though permission has been granted for the incinerator, the campaign continues (though unfortunately pushing an alternative that involves, er, incineration!).

The reality of the UK’s coal industry exposed

Map

A new report from the Coal Action Network exposes the untold human and environmental stories of the coal supply chain. Ditch Coal calls on the government to phase out coal faster than its suggested end of 2025. The extreme situations surrounding mines in Russia, Colombia, the USA and the UK which supply the UK’s power stations show that coal energy is an extreme energy. 24% of electricity generated in 2015 came from coal.

Grass roots group the Coal Action Network has worked with communities and environmental activists from the four major countries supplying the UK’s coal. The report details the ignored social justice issues caused by our addiction to coal.

Mining Impacts Abroad

Russia supplies 42% of the coal imported to the UK. In Russia’s main coal producing region, the Kuzbass area of Siberia, mining is devastating indigenous communities and their cultures. Shor and Teleut peoples are being forced off their ancestral lands, breaking the connection with their spiritual homes, their culture is being attacked and their language is fading from use.

Companies exporting coal from Colombia have been implicated in financing paramilitary mass murders, executions, and disappearances. Whole villages have been forcibly evicted to make way for mines, with insufficient relocation plans. Colombia produces a third of the coal imported here.

In the USA, where 19% of the coal imported to the UK is from, extremely destructive mining operations are destroying huge swathes of land and ecosystems, and poisoning local people. Mountaintop removal and damaging deep mining processes are used by companies exporting coal to the UK.

Although the UK government has announced an intention to phase out coal by 2025 Coal Action Network do not see this as something to celebrate. This time-frame and the phase out’s many caveats show that the government continues to prioritise our high electricity demands over others basic rights such as the safety of ones home, the ability to grow food, rights to health, freedoms of religion and spirituality, and biodiversity.

Mining in the UK

Since the government’s coal phase out announcement Durham based mining company Hargreaves have been granted permission to mine at Field House County Durham. Miller Argent who run the UK’s biggest mine Ffos-y-Fran are appealing a decision against a new mine adjacent to it. Five other coal mine applications are still waiting a decision. We need to stop coal mining in this country.

Communities in the UK are fighting for their areas and against coal power. As environmental activists we should follow their example and stand up to the companies involved and stand in solidarity with front-line communities. We cannot simply wait for the government to sort this out. The coal industry is spread wide across our island. Ditch Coal highlights where the ports importing coal are, where power stations are situated and which companies are mining in the UK. There are nine power stations burning coal without a closure plan.

Coal power used to be a main focus of the UK environmental movement, it still is in Germany and remains an issue here. The Coal Action Network will be touring the UK with a Russian activist in the spring, you can catch a preview at the Earth First Winter Moot. The Coal industry’s currently in a position of change, where new technology needs to be implemented or power stations closed. Join the Coal Action Network in fighting the individual power stations and working with communities, let’s not rely on the government to take these important actions.

The whole report can be viewed at www.coalaction.org.uk/ditchcoal as can the two page summary and infographics. Check out the website to see what we are up to or follow us on facebook.

Upton anti-fracking camp eviction in progress!

12th January 2017 – bailiffs and police have moved in at Upton Community Protection camp, in Cheshire.

12th January 2017 – bailiffs and police have moved in at Upton Community Protection camp, in Cheshire.

The anti-fracking community there has been going strong for a long time now and is at the forefront of community resistance to this national threat.  Get along to help if you can, and support people to keep resisting at least until Saturday, when there’s a national day of action there already set.

Updates at https://twitter.com/earthfirst_uk and how to get to the camp here

J16 Upton

he government’s grand gesture of ‘closing coal’ is conditional on replacing it with gas. Fracking is a key part of that vision, but it’s meeting with resistance at every step.

The government’s grand gesture of ‘closing coal’ is conditional on replacing it with gas. Fracking is a key part of that vision, but it’s meeting with resistance at every step.

Upton is the country’s longest standing community protection camp. It’s due to be evicted any day now so that test drilling for unconventional gas can start.

Lets put a red line around the UKs fracking front line. On January 16th, from 10am- 4pm. If the camp is still in situ we can help build an exciting new defence and show our solidarity with the community. If it’s been evicted and the drill is present there’ll be creative ways to get in the way. This will be a family friendly event with something for everyone.

http://www.nodashforgas.org.uk/event/j16-upton/

Letter from Em Sheppard 26 December 2015

Please note it is important that this is not reposted after 30 December 2015 as this will be in breach of licencing conditions.

Please note it is important that this is not reposted after 30 December 2015 as this will be in breach of licencing conditions.

In October my probation officer said I could go back to Bristol. Now it transpires I have been a MAPPA (multi-Agency Protection) for my whole sentence, though no one thought to tell me (I always thought it was strange I wasn’t). The police met in November about me and to draw up my licence conditions, but (as is common practice) have only told me now. The licence is so restrictive that ironically I will have had more freedom in jail in some ways. I’m not sure what’s worse – to refuse to leave prison, or to accept their restrictions! It clearly shows what a farce the much quoted claims of “rehabilitation” and “maintaining family ties” are. I had a place to live and several jobs organised, but instead they make me sign-on and live in a bail hostel in Reading.

Licence conditions are one of many possible examples of how the prison society extends beyond these walls. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore said “Prison is not some building ‘over there’ but a set of relationships that undermine rather than stabilise everyday lives, everywhere”.

Apart from the usual “big 6” licence conditions, I also have: a 7-7 curfew for my entire licence (plus signing several times during the day and ‘group work’ and sessions with probation to address my “attitude”), not using any computers or internet capable devices (and specifically not deleting any browser histories), not going within 100 metres of any police buildings (probation said if I want to report a crime I can but I have to ask permission from them first…?!!?!), not to have more than one mobile phone (possibly not even one at all they are checking on this) and to provide the SIM/IME number, to permanently reside at Elizabeth Fry, not to visit or interact with any prisoners, not to contribute to or publish anything, or attend any meeting/gatherings associated with direct action/activism/campaigning, not to contact directly or indirectly any person whom I know or believe to be involved with “extremist” activities ( I have asked for the legal definition of this), or have been charged with or convicted of an offence. I am also not allowed to work with “vulnerable adults” or “groom” (or have discussions with) anyone for the purposes of radicalisation or extremism.

Once I’m out I’m going to challenge these conditions but my solicitor said it’s hard to do from inside prison. Accepting them goes against everything I believe in but I am going to do so for my family. They are obviously setting me up to fail (most girls at Elizabeth Fry do because drugs are rife there) so we’ll see how long I last. Once I sign the conditions, unless I get recalled, I won’t be able to write again until 2017.  🙁

They can try to stifle and control me with their restrictions, false sympathies and fake smiles, but “no pueden encarcelar neustras ideas”. My silence is only temporary, and my rage is infinite.

“Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Just like the moons and like the suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise”

  • Still I’ll rise, Maya Angelou

Thanks for all the support this year. Hope you have a fun and mischievous 2016.

Solidarity, love and lots of rage

Em x 🙂

Please note it is important that this is not reposted after 30 December 2015 as this will be in breach of licencing conditions.

More on her case here.

Resources for writing to prisoners here.

 

actions in Paris at #COP21 & around the world

For all the latests updates on climate direct actions taken around the world, including in Paris parallel to the UN climate negotiations, see our twitter feed

For all the latests updates on climate direct actions taken around the world, including in Paris parallel to the UN climate negotiations, see our twitter feed

Plane Stupid kick off Red Lines COP21 direct action

The main road entrance to Heathrow airport, London, was blocked by climate change activists for four hours early on Thursday morning, causing a traffic tailback several miles long.

The main road entrance to Heathrow airport, London, was blocked by climate change activists for four hours early on Thursday morning, causing a traffic tailback several miles long. Three members of anti airport expansion campaign group Plane Stupid parked a vehicle across both lanes of the inbound tunnel and locked their bodies to it, unfurling a red banner quoting David Cameron’s election promise: “No Ifs, No Buts: No Third Runway”. David Cameron has promised a decision by the end of the year on whether to build another runway at Heathrow.

This action represents an early entry for the Climate Games, sending a clear message to the UK government that expanding aviation is a no-go for the climate; were it to go ahead the UK would undoubtedly miss its emissions targets as set out under the 2008 Climate Change Act.

Nor will aviation expansion benefit the majority of the population or businesses, as is often claimed. The demand for airport expansion is being driven by rich frequent  flyers. Last year, less than half of people in Britain flew. Of those who did, a mere 15% of flyers took 70% of our flights. As well as noise and air pollution, poor people are paying the price in droughts, flooding and storms so that the rich can cook the planet with frequent leisure flights. Whilst we might hope that David Cameron might live up to his pre-election promise – “no ifs, no buts, no third runway” – we can’t rely on it. Partly after being forced to take non-violent disobedient action where all other options were exhausted, we stopped a third runway before and we’ll stop it again this time too.

#RedLines

At the COP21 talks this year in Paris, the theme for the mass day of action on December 12th (D12) is Red Lines. These blockades will represent lines that cannot be crossed if we are to stay within the 2C rise in global temperatures. Failure to stay within this threshold will take us down a road where even if we reduce emissions to zero, feedback loops will mean that emissions will continue to rise: climate chaos.

In reality there are many Red Lines we should not cross, but governments and corporations seem intent to do so. In the UK this includes the aviation industry, which if it continues to grow at its current rate will by 2050 emit all of the carbon it is safe for the UK to emit. Beyond this, other red lines that are close to being crossed nationally include increasing unconventional fossil fuel extraction through fracking and a government’s ‘dash for gas’ to build power stations rather than renewables. Internationally, there are similar concerns as well as a clear need to stop lignite coal mining in Germany and the Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada. Whilst there are many such examples of industries that cannot continue, overall the science dictates that the fossil fuel industry must transition to renewables and most of the carbon must be kept in the ground.

Beyond the Paris conference

Unlike the climate talks in Copenhagen, many activists are going to Paris with low expectations. We know that the heads of state and business leaders won’t come up with a satisfactory deal to prevent climate catastrophe. Naomi Klein writes in ‘This Changes Everything’ that climate deals always come in second place to trade deals as corporate profit and perpetual economic growth are ideologically untouchable in our neoliberal era. With this in mind, the aim for many activists is to see the Paris talks as a way for us all to network between struggles and to show on day 12 that if our ‘leaders’ won’t do it, then we can stop climate chaos  ourselves. Unfortunately, with the recent events in Paris, marches have been banned out of fears over safety, which may mean that our mobilisations might not be as big or as effective as we hoped.

However, given that we know that the solutions to the climate crisis won’t come from the COP, let’s see this as an opportunity rather than a problem. Let’s get out and take action wherever the real #RedLines are: the dirty fossil fuel industries, the unsustainable, undemocratic mega-projects. #ClimateGames starts tomorrow. In this game we have nothing to lose but our fears. We have our whole futures to win. Asking our ‘leaders’ to solve our problems has left us with the hottest years on record, year after year.  We are the solution we’ve been waiting for.

We are not fighting for nature. We are nature defending itself.

EF! Winter Moot 19-21 February 2016, Stroud

You are invited to attend the Earth First! Winter Moot, a gathering for people involved or wanting to know more about ecological campaigning & direct action in the UK.

You are invited to attend the Earth First! Winter Moot, a gathering for people involved or wanting to know more about ecological campaigning & direct action in the UK. Draft programme/details below.

 

Cost is £25/30 at the Centre for Science and Art, 13 Lansdown, Stroud, Gloucestershire GL5 1BB.  Stroud station is a 5 minute walk away.

Arrive Friday 5pm, leave Sunday 6pm.

Vegan meals and accommodation are provided.  Bring a sleeping bag and roll mat for the communal sleeping area.

Coming to an EF! gathering for the first time?

Those taking their first steps innto ecological campaigning are warmly welcomed.  There will be debates, discussions on campaign planning, updates, support and soldarity, tactics, strategies, community building, sustainable activism and networking including groups campaigning against:

fracking, incineration, new roads, GM (genetic engineering).

Earth First! is a banner for independent groups who share a common need to protect our ecological systems.  We believe in non-hierarchical direct action, to stop and reverse the forces responsbile for the destruction of the earth and its inhabitants.

For info or offers of help, contact us on:
southwest.earthfirst@riseup.net
earthfirstgathering.org