Author: earthfirst

Groundswell year of action for climate justice

 Gov­ern­ments have failed to deliv­er what is need­ed.

Gov­ern­ments have failed to deliv­er what is need­ed. Let’s show them what cli­mate jus­tice action real­ly looks like. Groundswell is a call to esca­late cli­mate jus­tice actions in the wake of the Paris cli­mate talks. From fos­sil fuel to bor­der con­trols, the arms indus­try to finan­cial mar­kets. It will link up groups tak­ing action, and cre­ate new avenues for peo­ple to engage in civ­il dis­obe­di­ence.

We want to do more for cli­mate jus­tice in one year than our gov­ern­ments have done in the last twen­ty-one.

It’s going to take a lot of us work­ing togeth­er, but it’s going to be great. If this sounds good to you, get involved…

More info on train­ing, sup­port and more

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.