Category: Aviation and Roads

Fossil Fools Day 2010

Cli­mate change is no laugh­ing mat­ter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t con­front the Fos­sil Fuel Empire with sub­ver­sive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, prac­ti­cal jokes and throw­ing a span­ner in the works to stop the fos­sil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

FFD graphic - bigCli­mate change is no laugh­ing mat­ter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t con­front the Fos­sil Fuel Empire with sub­ver­sive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, prac­ti­cal jokes and throw­ing a span­ner in the works to stop the fos­sil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

Last Decem­ber in Copen­hagen, the politi­cians sold us out to the fos­sil fools, cor­po­rate lob­by­ists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green cap­i­tal­ism,” a deeply unjust car­bon mar­ket and con­tin­ued assaults on our com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems. If we’re going to stop cli­mate chaos, the only real solu­tion is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

The stakes couldn’t be high­er: desta­bil­i­sa­tion of the glob­al cli­mate, local com­mu­ni­ties destroyed by dirty ener­gy extrac­tion and com­bus­tion, dev­as­tat­ing freak storms, droughts, floods, the list goes on …

This April 1st, join Ris­ing Tide in some cre­ative direct action … use the sim­ply sub­ver­sive to the down­right dis­rup­tive: office occu­pa­tions, ban­ner drops, clown­ish parades, road block­ades, spoof web­sites, sub­ver­tis­ing, street the­atre, leaflets, lock-ons or laugh-ins. What­ev­er works for you and your group.

Join us this Fos­sil Fools Day and hatch some hare­brained schemes that will strike a blow to cli­mate crim­i­nals every­where!

WANT MORE? Fos­sil Fools Day also marks the launch of the BP Tar Sands Fort­night of Shame: a two-week cam­paign cul­mi­nat­ing in actions sur­round­ing BP’s AGM on April 15th. The goal? To stop BP from going into the Cana­di­an Tar Sands – the biggest, dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel project on earth. Find out more: Tar Sands in Focus.. And a word to BP: be afraid… be very afraid.

NEED A HAND? If you would like ideas for actions, graph­ics for leaflets or web­sites, advice on deal­ing with the press, etc., send us an email and we’ll do our best to help out: info@risingtide.org.uk

For more infor­ma­tion see: Fos­sil Fools Day.

In the words of that mas­ter of pranks: “That’s All Folks”.

Disruption to 350 Road Projects in Chhattisgarh, India

Maoists Hold up Road Con­struc­tion in Chhat­tis­garh

Maoists Hold up Road Con­struc­tion in Chhat­tis­garh

Raipur, Oct 19 – Maoist guer­ril­las have held up con­struc­tion work at more than 350 road sites in Bas­tar region of Chhat­tis­garh, an offi­cial said Mon­day. ‘At least 350 road con­struc­tion projects under Prime Minister’s Rur­al Roads Scheme were held up in Maoist vio­lence-hit Bas­tar region, main­ly in Dan­te­wa­da, Bijapur and Kanker dis­tricts. It is dif­fi­cult to con­tin­ue the work due to vio­lence,’ an offi­cial in pan­chay­at and rur­al devel­op­ment depart­ment told IANS. The projects amount­ed to Rs.1,000 crore (Rs.10 bil­lion).

The con­trac­tors had told dis­trict police author­i­ties that they were find­ing it dif­fi­cult to car­ry on con­struc­tion work due to Maoist inter­ven­tion. Accord­ing to police, Maoist guer­ril­las had set ablaze at least 65 vehi­cles this year alone in Bas­tar that were engaged in road con­struc­tion projects. Sev­er­al offi­cials and work­ers who were car­ry­ing out con­struc­tion work were abduct­ed by the rebels and set free only after they guar­an­teed not to return to work.

Experts say Maoist guer­ril­las are hold­ing up rur­al road con­struc­tion projects as they do not want the infra­struc­ture be built up in the inte­ri­ors as it will give easy access to police and para­mil­i­tary forces to the forest­ed areas.….

http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/maoists-disrupt-construction-of-350-road-projects-in-chhattisgarh/

Riot police arrest 23 in night raid on peaceful protest against the destruction of Zagreb pedestrian zone

11.02.2010
At 03.30 this morn­ing around 100 riot police arrest­ed 23 activists from Green Action and the Right to the City ini­tia­tive in Zagreb, Croa­t­ia. The raid took place just hours after 4000 peo­ple turned out in snowy con­di­tions to protest against turn­ing part of the pedes­tri­an zone into a ramp for an under­ground garage planned as part of the Cvjet­ni shop­ping cen­tre and lux­u­ry flats devel­op­ment in the old part of Zagreb.

11.02.2010
At 03.30 this morn­ing around 100 riot police arrest­ed 23 activists from Green Action and the Right to the City ini­tia­tive in Zagreb, Croa­t­ia. The raid took place just hours after 4000 peo­ple turned out in snowy con­di­tions to protest against turn­ing part of the pedes­tri­an zone into a ramp for an under­ground garage planned as part of the Cvjet­ni shop­ping cen­tre and lux­u­ry flats devel­op­ment in the old part of Zagreb.

The oper­a­tion aimed to remove the accom­mo­da­tion con­tain­er which the groups had put on Varsavs­ka Street pedes­tri­an zone as a 24-hour info-point in order to block the begin­ning of works on the ramp, which is still under legal dis­pute. Activists inside of the con­tain­er and on the roof peace­ful­ly resist­ed removal by lock­ing them­selves togeth­er using arm tubes, and were arrest­ed after the fire brigade cut the tubes. Around 50 more activists blocked the road exits of the lor­ry car­ry­ing the con­tain­er but were also removed by the riot police.

The police also hacked to pieces a five-metre high wood­en tro­jan horse which had been brought to the site for the pre­vi­ous evening’s protest as a sym­bol of pri­vate inter­ests and cor­rup­tion mas­querad­ing as urban rede­vel­op­ment.

“Using riot police against a small group of peace­ful pro­test­ers is a dis­turb­ing over-reac­tion to the civ­il offence of fail­ing to obtain per­mis­sion before tem­porar­i­ly plac­ing the con­tain­er in the pedes­tri­an zone”, said Teo Celakos­ki from Right to the City. “Yet the whole Cvjet­ni project is based on dubi­ous legal manoeu­vres such as the city author­i­ties’ deci­sion to declare it a project of pub­lic inter­est when it is clear­ly noth­ing of the kind”.

“The Croa­t­ian author­i­ties must con­cen­trate on tack­ling the real prob­lem of cor­rup­tion instead of shoot­ing the mes­sen­gers, added Tomis­lav Toma­se­vic, from Green Action. “The Euro­pean Com­mis­sion has repeat­ed­ly iden­ti­fied cor­rup­tion as a major remain­ing obsta­cle to Croa­t­i­a’s EU Acces­sion but if this project is any­thing to go by there is still a long way to go.”

Videos of removal of activists & removal of ship­ping con­tain­er

Con­tact: Tomis­lav Toma­se­vic. +385 98 719 253
http://www.zelena-akcija.hr/

Bath Bomb #27 Out Now

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #27
free/donation
Feb 10

“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Bet­ter!”

B&NES Cuts It Fine

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #27
free/donation
Feb 10

“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Bet­ter!”

B&NES Cuts It Fine

In the ongo­ing saga of B&NES Coun­cil’s job-cut­ting bonan­za, plans have been revealed to go on a mas­sive redun­dan­cy spree, start­ing in April. Since the Bath Bomb got hold of con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments and blew B&NES’ axing plans out of the water back in Novem­ber, they have been try­ing to gloss over and deny what will be a mas­sive attack on pub­lic sec­tor employ­ees and ser­vice users alike. It now appears that the cuts will come in three stages: pre­sum­ably a poor attempt at mak­ing the redun­dan­cies and ser­vice slash­es seem less numer­ous, start­ing in earnest this spring. In the mean­time, we have to sat­is­fy our­selves with 70 imme­di­ate redun­dan­cies, affect­ing sev­er­al key depart­ments of the coun­cil. In April, the attacks will be switched up a gear, with 400 loss­es planned. To add insult to injury, those work­ers lucky enough to keep their jobs will suf­fer a pro­posed two-year pay freeze being dis­cussed at West­min­ster (agreed on by all three main­stream par­ties) to recoup costs after their mates, the bankers, pissed the econ­o­my down the drain. 

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, redun­dan­cies so far won’t affect mid­dle or high man­age­ment, but are instead aimed at the ground-lev­el work­ers who pro­vide us with ser­vices and sup­port. Work­ers that remain in their depart­ments will also be expect­ed to shoul­der the work­load of their for­mer col­leagues. Coun­cil work­ers have told the Bath Bomb that if the planned redun­dan­cies go ahead, it will be lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble to run their depart­ments or pro­vide any com­pe­tent ser­vice to the pub­lic, as many of the job cuts affect work­ers with very spe­cif­ic skills and abil­i­ties, and depart­ments would be left too under­staffed to be fit for pur­pose. This lat­est round of attacks on coun­cil work­ers is cou­pled with mount­ing plans to pri­va­tize our pub­lic ser­vices and slash the effec­tive­ness of what remains. 

With this only being stage one of a three-pronged attack, we are left won­der­ing what will be left of our pub­lic ser­vices by the time B&NES have fin­ished maul­ing them. It’s not all doom and gloom though, with local activists, com­mu­ni­ty groups and unions gear­ing up to fight back and defend our jobs, our ser­vices and our com­mu­ni­ties from the greed-dri­ven onslaught being unleashed on us by these politi­cians — watch this space for news on the fight­back!

Char­lie Gets Fat While He Tight­ens Our Green Belt

Yes, this just in — famous envi­ron­men­tal­ist and every­one’s least favourite jug-eared par­a­sit­i­cal tax drain Prince ‘Last Tan­go in Paris’ Charles has decid­ed to sell off part of his vast green belt estate to be used for new hous­ing. Around 2,000 new homes are planned for Bath, half of which are to be on Crown-owned lands around New­ton St Loe. Con­ve­nient­ly for­get­ting his sup­posed ‘green cre­den­tials’ for a sec­ond, Char­lie has shown his roy­al streak by being won over by mas­sive amounts of a dif­fer­ent type of green – cash.

Local oppo­si­tion groups have already sprung up in protest at the plans, which will see yet more of our trea­sured green spaces dis­ap­pear under con­crete. We would­n’t mind so much, were it not for the abun­dance of dis­used and dilap­i­dat­ed build­ings in Bath that sore­ly need ren­no­va­tion and could pro­vide homes for thou­sands. But once again, we are see­ing that the roy­al fam­i­ly, who only clawed their way to the top through blood­shed and greed, are no friends of ours. What real­ly wor­ries us here at Bath Bomb, how­ev­er, is once all the green fields have been con­cret­ed over, where are we going to take our hors­es and hounds when the time comes to stick a tail on Char­lie and his degen­er­ate ilk and chase them down?

Keep your ear to the ground, as more news of plans to fight the devel­op­ment are pop­ping up all the time, and with the impend­ing con­cret­ing of Bathamp­ton Mead­ows, we’ve got a prop­er fight to get stuck into to save the green spaces around Bath!

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by email­ing bathbombpress[at]yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request. And for more info on any of our sto­ries, check out http://www.thebathbomb.blogspot.com

In By The Cat­flap

The Black Cat, Bath’s best autonomous social space, is now up and run­ning again for the new year. The old Black Cat build­ing, on the Upper Bris­tol Road, was evict­ed late last year – and then almost imme­di­ate­ly reopened by a group of local res­i­dents. This new col­lec­tive ran the cen­tre until ear­ly Jan­u­ary, when the ‘own­ers’ of the build­ing used a back-door legal process to res­ur­rect their pre­vi­ous evic­tion order – despite such an act being fla­grant­ly unlaw­ful.

The two Black Cat col­lec­tives have now joined forces direct­ly to open a new cen­tre in Old­field Park. Sit­u­at­ed at the junc­tion of West Avenue and Cyn­thia Road, and mere min­utes from Old­field Park Sta­tion. Once again the cen­tre will house the Bath FreeShop, an exten­sive infos­hop (includ­ing copies of this fine pub­li­ca­tion), plus an inten­sive pro­gram of dance class­es, exhi­bi­tions, dub nights, debate clubs, film nights, cafes, open mic nights, and more. A suit­able venue is also being sought to hold a fol­low-up to the last cen­tre’s huge­ly suc­cess­ful ben­e­fit gig.

The Black Cat is open right now, unless you’re read­ing this between the hours of about 7pm and 1pm, and would love for you to drop by. They can be con­tact­ed at bathsocialcentre[at]googlemail.com, or on 07946 777609. The cen­tre is open most days from 1pm to 7pm, ear­li­er on Sun­days, and extra hours as need­ed for events.

http://bathsocialcentre.blogspot.com

Bath Activist Net­work are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce the Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als and greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, email bathactivistnet[at]yahoo.co.uk or see our web­site: http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

Green Gueril­las Hit Bath

The last cou­ple of months have seen a num­ber of mys­te­ri­ous gar­dens spring­ing up in the Bath area, the most notice­able of these being an ongo­ing project on Park St, behind St James’ Square. The gar­den has been cre­at­ed by guer­ril­la gar­den­ers — peo­ple who, sick of see­ing use­able land left uncul­ti­vat­ed, have tak­en it upon them­selves to cre­ate more local food sources. They’ve cleared the over­grown area and plant­ed fruit trees and bush­es to feed the local pop­u­lace for free.

Any­one can be a gueril­la gar­den­er; just find a few seeds, a dis­used area and some mates, then pop along in a clan­des­tine fash­ion and plant your veg­gies. There are lots of dif­fer­ent rea­sons for guer­ril­la gar­den­ing — some peo­ple want to feed them­selves, some hope to pro­vide their com­mu­ni­ty with free and local veg, while oth­ers, such as the cheeky gar­den­ers who plant­ed gan­ja in the flo­ral dis­play at the police sta­tion a few years back, may have oth­er motives!

You don’t need to be part of a group or have much gar­den­ing expe­ri­ence to be a guer­ril­la gar­den­er, but if you want to hook up with a local group, check out the local Tran­si­tion Towns group at transitionbath[at]googlemail.com. Alter­nate­ly, there are oth­er com­mu­nal gar­den­ing schemes, such as the allot­ments in Vicky Park — with Bath peo­ple cul­ti­vat­ing more and more of the city every day, there’s nev­er been a bet­ter time to go green!

Wheely Good News

Cycling enthu­si­asts will be pleased to hear that Bath Cycling Cam­paign are relaunch­ing that old favourite, the Crit­i­cal Mass. A Crit­i­cal Mass is a cel­e­bra­tion of ped­al pow­er in which cyclists take to the streets en masse to high­light the fun and eco-friend­li­ness of the bicy­cle. It is a car­ni­va­lesque parade, so feel free to dress-up, dress down, or just dress plain old weird (non-fan­cy dress/ seri­ous ‘politi­co’ styles are are also wel­come!).

The Crit­i­cal Mass is a world­wide event that hap­pens reg­u­lar­ly in Barcelona, Lon­don and New York to name but a few, and is always great fun, so why not come and get involved? The last Bath Crit­i­cal Mass drew over 50 peo­ple and was a great suc­cess. The Mass is meet­ing at 1pm at Kingsmead Square on Sat­ur­day the 27th of March.

http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Smile, You’re On Cam­era!

In a humor­ous turn of events, the obnox­ious Bath police spy vehi­cle has got­ten itself into a spot of both­er recent­ly after being pho­tographed parked in a dis­abled-only space! While on her way out, a con­sci­en­tious mem­ber of the pub­lic manged to beat the cops’ per­son­al voyeur wag­on at its own game, snap­ping a few choice shots of the van in the dis­abled space. Bath police have since apol­o­gised and claimed that they were on “very urgent busi­ness“, but won’t say what; in oth­er words, they want­ed a bite to eat and felt above the law enough to deprive a dis­abled per­son of their spot while they went to get it.

So hope­ful­ly the sight of a few red-faced spy-cops will bring a smile to the face of all of us who hate police sur­veil­lance and the CCTV soci­ety, or just find it plain old irri­tat­ing that the cam-van’s threat­en­ing, sin­is­ter mot­to “smile, you’re on cam­era” is writ­ten in such a love­ly, friend­ly font!

EVENTS

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ings, 2nd and 4th Mon­day of the month, 8pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Free sam­ba danc­ing class­es, Mon­days, 7–8pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Debt advice drop-in, Tues­days, 4–7pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road

The Lost Plot work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Bathamp­ton

Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­days, 10.30am, starts Abbey Church­yard, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, http://www.bathrys.org.uk/ Hazel 01225 469199

Black Cat Cen­tre gen­er­al meet­ing, Sun­days, 1–3pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Antifas­cist ben­e­fit punk/ska/hip-hop gig, Fri­day 12th Feb­ru­ary, doors open 6.30pm, £6 entry, the Croft, 117–119 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, fea­tur­ing La Frac­tion, Left For Dead, Jakal and Reject­ed,
http://libcom.org/news/gentle-bonecrusher-life-death-ivan-khutorskoy-17112009

Orchard Man­age­ment Work­shop for all lev­els of expe­ri­ence, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 10–3.30pm, the Vine House, Bail­brook Lane, Sols­bury Hill, Bath, £15 includ­ing light lunch, book with Jim Dowling/e‑mail piltonman[at]googlemail.com/ tel 01225 481500

‘Incor­po­rat­ing Cli­mate Change into your Com­mu­ni­ty-Led Plan­ning Process’, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 11–4pm, Brunswick Room, the Guild­hall, Bath, re-mail sara_grimes[at]bathnes.gov.uk

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, http://www.bathford.net/broadlands.php

Allot­ment Fair, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, 2–5pm, the Guild­hall, Bath, e‑mail alotta_thingsgoingon[at]yahoo.co.uk/ tel 01225 332246

EVICT THE BAILIFFS! Punk and folk ben­e­fit gig, Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary, The Plough, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, fea­tur­ing KilnAboy, The Autono­mads, Har­i­jan and Hack­saw

AWE Alder­mas­ton block­ade, Mon­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, start­ing 7am, there is already a car­load going from Bath (4 am start)

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Talk by Alas­tair McIn­tosh: ‘Engag­ing the Pow­ers’, Mon­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30pm, 3rd Floor, Bush House (above the Arnolfi­ni) 72 Prince Street, Bris­tol, BS1 4QD, £3 entry, http://www.ecoshow.org.uk

Work­shop: ‘Com­mu­ni­ty Ben­e­fits of Renew­able Ener­gy’, Tues­day 16th Feb­ru­ary, 6–9pm, Coun­cil Cham­ber, The Hol­lies, Mid­somer Nor­ton, e‑mail sara_grimes[at]bathnes.gov.uk/ tel 01225 477548

Tue 16 Feb — Tran­si­tion Film: ‘Hawaii: Mes­sage in the Waves’, Tues­day 16th Feb­ru­ary, doors open 7.15pm, the Min­er­va Cen­tre, 8 Combe Park, Low­er West­on, Bath BA1 3NP, http://www.transitionbath.org

‘Junk Poet­ry’ open mic night, Thurs­day 18th Feb­ru­ary, 7.30pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Camp for Cli­mate Action nation­al gath­er­ing, Fri­day 19th-Sun­day 21st Feb­ru­ary, Bridewell, Bris­tol

Tran­si­tion Bath open review: ‘How are we doing?’, Mon­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, 7.15pm, back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street, Bath, bring food to share, http://www.transitionbath.org

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 24th Feb­ru­ary, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Film: ‘Mat­wan’, Thurs­day 25th Feb­ru­ary, 7pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 3rd March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

North Som­er­set Coun­cil Meet­ing on future of Bris­tol Air­port expan­sion, Wednes­day 3rd March, 6pm, Town Hall, West­on Super Mare, come along to the meet­ing and show coun­cil­lors your con­cerns, http://www.stopbia.com

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 4th March, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Mon­day 8th March, 8–9pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Exhi­bi­tion: ‘Loss of Inno­cence: Gaza Chil­dren’s Art­work’, Mon­day 8th March-Wednes­day 17th March (not Sun­days), most­ly 10–4pm, St John’ Church, Frome, ffi e‑mail adam.stout[at]virgin.net

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 10th March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath Stop the War Coali­tion pub­lic meet­ing, Wednes­day 10th March, 7.30pm, Friends Meet­ing House, York Street, Bath

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 10th March, 8pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

Rad­i­cal debate club: ‘When envi­ron­men­tal­ism becomes fas­cism’, Thurs­day 11th March, 7–9pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 17th March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath tree-plant­i­ng project day, Sat­ur­day 20th March, more details tbc

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 24th March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Bath Crit­i­cal Mass, Sat­ur­day 27th March, 1pm start, Kingsmead Square

Trapese Col­lec­tive course: ‘Tools for Social Change’, train­ing in grass­root organ­is­ing for social change, Sat­ur­day 27th March-3rd April, Rag­man’s Lane Farm, For­est of Dean, £175-£350, lim­it­ed places avail­able so book ear­ly! http://www.stuffit.org/trapese/ragm.pdf

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 31st March, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 7th April, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Rad­i­cal debate club: ‘Rad­i­cal­ism & reli­gion’, Thurs­day 8th April, 7–9pm, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 14th April, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

Free yoga class, Wednes­day 21st April, 10.30–11.30am, Black Cat Cen­tre, http://www.blackcatcentre.blogspot.com

World Day for Lab Ani­mals march in Lon­don, Sat­ur­day 24th April, coach 8.30am, leav­ing Bris­tol Tem­ple Meads, £10 tick­et

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­il­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat upon. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer do not nec­es­sar­il­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor.

Insane In The B&NES

Mean­while, back to oth­er news. The Save Bathamp­ton Mead­ows cam­paign to save, err, Bathamp­ton Mead­ows, recent­ly suf­fered a blow when B&NES Coun­cil gave them­selves per­mis­sion to pro­ceed with their four-stage Bath Trans­port Plan – includ­ing the wildlife-devour­ing Bus Rapid Tran­sit route, the expan­sion of two exist­ing Park & Ride schemes, and the sac­ri­fice of the Mead­ows to be glo­ri­ous­ly reborn as a new flood-prone P&R. The much-hat­ed A36/A46 link road plan still remains too, despite con­stant pub­lic denial. Though the Coun­cil’s com­plete lack of trans­paren­cy and demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion (66% of Batho­ni­ans object­ed to the Bathamp­ton scheme in Nov 08) defied all expec­ta­tions, and the traf­fic con­ges­tion and air qual­i­ty ben­e­fits (less than 1%, accord­ing to gov­ern­ment stud­ies) of the plan are implau­si­ble at best, B&NES’ true motive is clear as glass: mon­ey. Yep, the £5.75 mil­lion car­rot of gov­ern­ment grant has got them all wet, and res­i­dents or the envi­ron­ment can fuck off.

In response, the sev­en-year strong SBM lot host­ed a packed-out com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing in Bath­eas­t­on on the 27th of last month. The cam­paign is now psych­ing them­selves up for a pin­cer attack legal chal­lenge, tak­ing first the Sec­re­tary of State to court, and then B&NES… if they can afford it. To this end the ‘protest com­pa­ny’ VeraC­i­ty Ltd have been formed, and with court costs expect­ed between £10,000 and £30,000 (with even the send­ing of a let­ter cost­ing £500, those solic­i­tors get pricey!) they are now eager for investors to share out the bur­den of a quid each. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, most of these chal­lenges take six years, but VeraC­i­ty are only being giv­en three months.

B&NES have now start­ed tend­ing out for con­struc­tion, spin and archi­tects con­tracts with which to waste their mon­ey. With luck, any info about com­pa­nies show­ing inter­est will come to light either on our own blogspot, or the SBM one.

Whilst we here in the office have some doubts on the effi­cien­cy of wad­ing through all that red tape, this, var­i­ous NIMBY legalese and Com­pul­so­ry Pur­chase Order court­room bat­tles could very well be the key to save the eco­log­i­cal­ly-impor­tant mead­ows. And if not, here’s to hop­ing the VC does­n’t lead the cam­paign away from its direct action com­mit­ments.

http://www.vcbath.blogspot.com
http://www.newbridgematters.blogspot.com
http://www.response2route.co.uk/wordpress/?p=221
http://www.savebathamptonmeadows.org.uk

A Cen­sor­ble Response To Islam4UK

A lot has been made late­ly of the antics of the pro-Sharia Mus­lim group ‘Islam4UK’ (a front group for Al-Muha­jiroon led by Anjem Choudary), who advo­cate the turn­ing of Britain into an oppres­sive Mus­lim state, com­plete with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and flog­ging for pub­lic drunk­en­ness (amidst a host of oth­er gems). They also recent­ly received noto­ri­ety for the gov­ern­men­t’s ban­ning of their pro­posed Woot­ton Bas­sett demo — the repa­tri­a­tion town for British war dead. White nation­al­ists were quick to con­demn the march, but you don’t have to be a flag-wav­ing skin­head to oppose these nut­cas­es.

Since the open­ing of hos­til­i­ties in Iraq and Afghanistan, var­i­ous groups have sunk to using the parad­ing of war casu­al­ties in Woot­ton Bas­sett as a pro­pa­gan­da tool. While some rev­el in the body count to pro­mote anti-west­ern sen­ti­ment, oth­ers like the BNP use coffins and griev­ing fam­i­lies to fly nation­al­ist flags. The truth, though, is that dead sol­diers are nei­ther heroes nor mon­sters – they’re sim­ply men and women who have paid a harsh price for doing the dirty work of cor­rupt politi­cians.

Real­ly, the BNP and Islam4UK are both a threat to the work­ing class, and pan­der to a polit­i­cal elite who desire only to see us divid­ed along their lines of race, reli­gion, gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty, instead of class. Sure­ly we want to build a soci­ety based on tol­er­ance, respect and equal­i­ty, and must resist the author­i­tar­i­an regime envi­sioned by the far right? If so, then we need to wake up and treat these peo­ple — no mat­ter the colour of skin or the faith — like the fas­cists they are. And whilst we can’t con­done state con­trol and bans, it’s the job of our com­mu­ni­ties to crush them.

To Vote Or Not To Vote?

On Thurs­day the 11th of Feb­ru­ary, the Black Cat Cen­tre held a debate on the sub­ject of vot­ing. Should we vote? If so, for whom? If not, why not? I have been ask­ing around to get a feel of what peo­ple pass­ing through the cen­tre think, and the results are far from unan­i­mous. They range from not vot­ing as a cat­e­gor­i­cal imper­a­tive, to vot­ing for the Tories so the rev­o­lu­tion comes, with mid­dle-ground posi­tions as well, con­trast­ing nation­al elec­tion with local ones. The debate promised to be mighty inter­est­ing.

There is not enough space to explore this issue in depth, so I will use the lit­tle I have left to present the act of vot­ing under dif­fer­ent lights, which will hope­ful­ly allow us to have a con­struc­tive exchange. There can be two ends in vot­ing; vot­ing to rule the coun­try, and vot­ing to destroy the sys­tem. Those who pro­pose to vote, at least the ones I’ve spo­ken to, are refer­ring to the sec­ond one; and, you’ve prob­a­bly guessed, those who pro­pose that we don’t vote are refer­ring to the first; that is, some­one has yet to say that we should form a par­ty and win the elec­tions.

There is no dis­agree­ment, then, on the right to rule. It does­n’t exist. What the peo­ple I’ve spo­ken to dis­agree on is whether it does us any good, as an activist move­ment, that one par­ty or anoth­er is behind the wheel. Can it help us build the resis­tance? Or does vot­ing, as such, under­cut it?

Here EDO Again

For the last five years, Brighton-based bas­tards EDO/ITT have been the sub­ject of a con­cert­ed activist cam­paign ini­ti­at­ed when locals learned that EDO sup­plies the Israeli and US mil­i­tary with bomb release mech­a­nisms and oth­er nas­ties that have been used in Gaza, Iraq and else­where. Since the begin­ning of the cam­paign, EDO has been sub­ject to numer­ous protests, lock-ons, block­ades, van­dal­ism and oth­er actions and has seen their share val­ue plum­met, and gone through four direc­tors in as many years.

On Jan­u­ary the 18th, over 300 peo­ple gath­ered in Brighton to mark the first anniver­sary of the bom­bard­ment of Gaza that EDO made pos­si­ble. Through­out the day, activists, includ­ing Batho­ni­ans, dodged batons and police dogs to make their way to the EDO fac­to­ry, which they even­tu­al­ly did via a lit­tle-used foot­path. Upon the march reach­ing the fac­to­ry, sec­tions of the fenc­ing dis­ap­peared, allow­ing pro­test­ers entry to the site, where a brief skir­mish with the police ensued. From there, the demo, which by this point had been offi­cial­ly banned by the police, head­ed back into town to let Brighto­ni­ans know what grot­ty death mer­chants ped­dle their trade on their doorsteps. It was lat­er dis­cov­ered that, in antic­i­pa­tion of the protests, the fac­to­ry had been closed the entire day. To add to EDO’s finan­cial mis­ery, lat­er that night the fac­to­ry was vis­it­ed and heav­i­ly paint-bombed and lock-glued in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Gaza — not a bad day’s work! The cam­paign against EDO con­tin­ues, and you can find out more at http://www.smashedo.org.uk

In sup­port of the Brighton demo, BAN sup­port­ers and oth­ers pick­et­ed Bar­clay’s Bank in Bris­tol. Bar­clays was tar­get­ed because it is the main bank of arms com­pa­nies. 20 peo­ple gave out leaflets and held a ban­ner in sup­port of Eli­jah Smith, a Bris­tol-based anti-mil­i­tarist who has been remand­ed in cus­tody with­out a tri­al for a year fol­low­ing an event last year where EDO was sub­ject­ed to the sin­gle action that brought it clos­er to col­lapse. Sev­en ‘de-com­mis­sion­ers’ entered the fac­to­ry and destroyed almost every piece of equip­ment they could find. There has been a cam­paign to keep his spir­its up, includ­ing send­ing let­ters and gifts, and even loud gigs held out­side the nick by sup­port­ers! To send Eli­jah your sup­port, send him a let­ter at – Eli­jah Smith, VP 7551, Shep­pey Clus­ter (Elm­ley), Church Rd, Eastchurch, Sheer­ness, Kent, ME 12 4DZ.

Climate Change Activists: Join the Vancouver Convergence

A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activists led by GatewaySucks.org is call­ing on cli­mate change activists to join the con­ver­gence at the 2010 Olympic Games in Van­cou­ver.


A coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activists led by GatewaySucks.org is call­ing on cli­mate change activists to join the con­ver­gence at the 2010 Olympic Games in Van­cou­ver.

When the 2010 Win­ter Olympics start a cou­ple of weeks from now in Van­cou­ver, BC the ath­letes and spec­ta­tors will be joined by orga­ni­za­tions with some of the worst records on cli­mate change.

Gen­er­al Motors is a nation­al part­ner for the games, and one of the lead­ing cor­po­rate oppo­nents of effec­tive action on cli­mate change. Only two years ago, a vice-chair­man of GM called glob­al warm­ing a “total crock of shit.” GM is sup­ply­ing a large fleet of vehi­cles for the games, almost all of which are gas-guz­zling SUVs.

Petro-Cana­da, anoth­er Nation­al Olympic Part­ner, is the retail arm of the largest extrac­tor of Oil Sands bitu­men. The Oil Sands are Canada’s biggest ghg emis­sions point source.

RBC (the Roy­al Bank of Cana­da) in addi­tion to being a promi­nent Olympic spon­sor is the largest com­mer­cial bank fun­der of the Oil Sands,. Tran­sCana­da pipelines, whose pipelines con­nect to the Oil Sands, is also an offi­cial sup­pli­er.

The gov­ern­ment of British Colum­bia is the main fun­der and pro­mot­er of the games. They kicked off a mas­sive plan to add over 1,000 km of new high­way lanes (an increase of over 2,000,000 annu­al tonnes of CO2e emis­sions ) with the Sea-to-Sky High­way expan­sion for the Olympics. These plans include the con­tro­ver­sial Gate­way Pro­gram. It con­tin­ues to heav­i­ly sub­si­dize the oil and gas indus­try which result­ed in it being the only Cana­di­an province to see ghg emis­sions from indus­tri­al sources increase in 2008.

The Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment of Cana­da which con­sis­tent­ly earned “Fos­sil Awards” at the most recent inter­na­tion­al cli­mate talks also is a major fun­der for the Olympics.

These cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ments want to fool the world with their claim that these are the “Green­est Games Ever” despite the links to cli­mate change deniers, high­way expan­sion and the Oil Sands.

If you would like to endorse this call-out or get involved direct­ly please con­tact info@gatewaysucks.org.

MORE INFORMATION:

Con­ver­gence Info: http://olympicresistance.net/

Wel­com­ing Com­mit­tee: http://2010welcoming.wordpress.com/

Green Olympic Watch: http://2010greenwatch.org/

GatewaySucks.org: http://www.gatewaysucks.org/

2010 Cli­mate Crime Scene: http://2010climatecrime.org

Manchester Airport and Heathrow residents join forces

Sun­day 7th Feb­ru­ary 2010

Sun­day 7th Feb­ru­ary 2010
Res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers against the expan­sion of Man­ches­ter and Heathrow air­ports have joined forces in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty between both places threat­ened by air­port expan­sion. Around 80 peo­ple turned out for the launch of the ‘Adopt-a-Res­i­dent’ scheme on Hasty Lane which involved cam­paign­ers from across Man­ches­ter and across the coun­try pledg­ing to sup­port the res­i­dents in their bat­tle to save their hous­es and that if it came to it – to take direct action against the bull­doz­ers try­ing to demol­ish their homes.

Peter John­son and daugh­ter Hol­ly John­son host­ed the event in front of their house. They were joined by Tra­cy Howard – a res­i­dent from Sip­son, as well John Stew­art, Chair of Air­port­Watch, and activists from Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port (SEMA) coali­tion and Plane Stu­pid.

The day also involved a vis­it to the near­by 300 year old nat­ur­al pond and home to endan­gered Great Crest­ed Newts.

SEMA spokesper­son Sian Jones said: “The res­i­dents aren’t alone in this — cli­mate jus­tice cam­paign­ers from across Man­ches­ter and the coun­try are back­ing them all the way.”

Hasty Lane res­i­dent Peter John­son said: “Togeth­er with Sip­son res­i­dents, we are going to fight these irre­spon­si­ble and unnec­es­sary plans. Our local coun­cil­lors all opposed the plans, but they were over­ruled. The coun­cil has let us down, but we’re not going to give up that eas­i­ly.”

Sip­son res­i­dent Tra­cy Howard, 35, who made the trip up north for the twin­ning event said: “The sto­ry of Hasty lane is a way too famil­iar sto­ry to ours. Local com­mu­ni­ties suf­fer­ing from a big air­port that is destroy­ing our homes, our health and the cli­mate. If a 3rd run­way at Heathrow is built I face los­ing my home, my job and my grandmother’s grave will be dug up. This is why I have been adopt­ed by a Plane Stu­pid activist as there direct action tac­tics could be all we have left.”

PRESS COVERAGE
———————————–
BBC Web­site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8502871.stm

Man­ches­ter Evening News report
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1191887_tea_party_protest_over_airport_extension_plan

Back­ground infor­ma­tion
———————————–
In Novem­ber 2009, Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil approved plans to bull­doze
peo­ple’s homes on Hasty Lane to expand the World Freight Cen­tre at
Man­ches­ter Air­port. This over­turned the deci­sion by local coun­cil­lors from the Wythen­shawe Area Com­mit­tee, who reject­ed the Air­port’s plans.

Man­ches­ter Air­port is one of the region’s biggest pol­luters (2.5 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 annu­al­ly, based on depart­ing flights only). Yet it was recent­ly omit­ted from Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil’s Cli­mate Change Action Plan ( http://www.manchesterclimate.com/)

Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil own 55% of Man­ches­ter Air­ports Group – which also owns Bournemouth, Hum­ber­side and Not­ting­ham East Mid­lands Air­port.

Man­ches­ter Air­port was recent­ly reject­ed from the 10:10 cam­paign.
http://stopmanchesterairport.blogspot.com/2009/11/manchester-airport-rejected-from-1010.html

For more infor­ma­tion, see:
http://www.stopmanchesterairport.org.uk

The new EF! Action Update — bursting onto the seams…

In the Spring edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, see how King Coal is being con­front­ed — chim­neys climbed, con­vey­ors locked-on to, mines invad­ed, machin­ery occu­pied, eco­tage, and more.

EF! AU logo 1In the Spring edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, see how King Coal is being con­front­ed — chim­neys climbed, con­vey­ors locked-on to, mines invad­ed, machin­ery occu­pied, eco­tage, and more.

Mar­vel at the Main­shill strat­e­gy of con­tin­u­ous action, look with awe at the range of tac­tics they used in the many months before eviction…and then think about what you can do, with who, where and when.

“If not you, who? If not now, when?”

The Main­shill fea­ture includes an action time­line, local com­mu­ni­ty links and ideas for the future.

The Nuclear New Build CON­sul­ta­tion is over on 22nd Feb­ru­ary — read about what hap­pens next, who’s involved, and an anti-nuclear camp in April.

“in the end we just need rebel­lion. Every­where.” — what was your response to the Copen­hagen cli­mate chaos, whether you went or stayed at home?

Be inspired by an inter­view with “D Lock,our mys­tery dig­ger div­ing activist” — get out there, bicy­cle lock in hand. In Jan­u­ary, one per­son so-armed brought a whole coal ter­mi­nal to a halt for many hours.

And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against high-speed train destruc­tion in Italy, high-volt­age pow­er lines in Cat­alo­nia, and whale hunt­ing on the High Seas.

And if you don’t get high on all that, try not to be inspired by con­fer­ences block­ad­ed, dams delayed, earth-trash­ing machin­ery sab­o­taged, trees hugged, archi­tects impost­ed, genet­ics roofed, bio­mess bio­massed and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10.pdf

Newbury Bypass Walk, 11am Sunday 10th January 2010

The annu­al New­bury Bypass Walk com­mem­o­rat­ing the fight to stop the New­bury Bypass will take place on Sun­day 10 Jan­u­ary 2010 at 11am. Any­one who was involved in the cam­paign are wel­come to attend.

The annu­al New­bury Bypass Walk com­mem­o­rat­ing the fight to stop the New­bury Bypass will take place on Sun­day 10 Jan­u­ary 2010 at 11am. Any­one who was involved in the cam­paign are wel­come to attend.

The 2010 walk to com­mem­o­rate the cam­paign to stop the New­bury bypass will take place at 11am on 10 Jan­u­ary. Sup­port­ers are asked to meet in the car park oppo­site the Northcroft Leisure Cen­tre, Northcroft Lane, New­bury, Berk­shire, RG14 1RS. The walk will then go via Speen and Mid­dle Oak to Don­ning­ton Cas­tle where there will be a pic­nic and then a trip to a local pub!

Anthill Mob reinforce anti-expansion message during Copenhagen climate talks, London City Airport

8/12/2009

London City Airport sloganned8/12/2009
Activists in east Lon­don have paint­ed two mega-mes­sages against growth in avi­a­tion — and flights at Lon­don City Air­port in par­tic­u­lar — to coin­cide with the Copen­hagen cli­mate sum­mit. One mes­sage say­ing, ‘Still cli­mate crim­i­nals!’ is writ­ten in giant let­ters on the top of a 60ft hill sit­u­at­ed just south of City Air­port, which planes pass direct­ly over.

“It’s a mes­sage to the del­e­gates fly­ing to and back from Copen­hagen,” explains Elsie Wai, spokesper­son for local anti-expan­sion group, the Anthill Mob. “The con­sci­en­tious will be tak­ing the train but the self­ish will be fly­ing. We’re remind­ing the self­ish del­e­gates that they’ll remain cli­mate crim­i­nals until they start think­ing green.”

The group are also angry about Lon­don City Airport’s con­tin­u­ing attempts to increase busi­ness and pri­vate flights. The air­port cur­rent­ly has approx­i­mate­ly 80,000 com­mer­cial flights a year but aims to increase this to 170,000 by 2030. “That means more pol­lu­tion, more glob­al warm­ing and more mis­ery for local peo­ple,” says Elsie.

The Anthill Mob’s sec­ond mes­sage is writ­ten in 10ft high let­ters along the bound­ary fence of Tate & Lyle’s sug­ar refin­ery — sit­u­at­ed beside the Dock­lands Light Rail­way approach to the air­port. The mes­sage reads: ‘Drop the sweet talk: no flight expan­sion at City Air­port.’

“You only have to look around the area next to the air­port to see that it is in ter­mi­nal decline,” says Elsie. “The air­port has made mil­lions in prof­its but all we get in return is more noise and pol­lu­tion. Pret­ty much every­thing at City Air­port is auto­mat­ed. As it stands, a tiny num­ber of peo­ple ben­e­fit from employ­ment at the air­port while the wider com­mu­ni­ty and the cli­mate suf­fers.”

Cas­es of asth­ma and child mor­tal­i­ty are already above the nation­al aver­age in the bor­ough of Newham – where the air­port is based. Expand­ing the air­port means a mas­sive increase in pol­lu­tion which will fur­ther blight one of the poor­est areas in Lon­don.

climate actions — tar sands, Santas at City Airport, Carbon Trading Exchange camped, Santas at BT (updated)

Cli­mate Activists Tell Cana­da: Don’t Cop Out On COP 15!

On Mon­day 14th of Decem­ber, cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work and Camp for Cli­mate Action protest­ed out­side Cana­da House in Lon­don and shut down Pall Mall Street in Trafal­gar Square to protest against Canada’s attempts to derail the cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen.

Tar Sands London bannerCli­mate Activists Tell Cana­da: Don’t Cop Out On COP 15!

On Mon­day 14th of Decem­ber, cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work and Camp for Cli­mate Action protest­ed out­side Cana­da House in Lon­don and shut down Pall Mall Street in Trafal­gar Square to protest against Canada’s attempts to derail the cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen.

Cana­da is one of the biggest cur­rent stum­bling blocks to an ambi­tious and bind­ing cli­mate deal – because it con­tin­ues extract­ing oil from the most destruc­tive project on earth, the Tar Sands. [1] This protest will take place in sol­i­dar­i­ty with sim­i­lar protests in Copen­hagen itself and sev­er­al Cana­di­an cities.

The Tar Sands in Alber­ta, Cana­da, are one of the world’s most pol­lut­ing projects and are hav­ing a dev­as­tat­ing effect on the lives of Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and fuelling glob­al cli­mate change. Cur­rent­ly in Copen­hagen, Cana­da is propos­ing an inad­e­quate tar­get for reduc­ing green­house emis­sions by only 3% by 2020 ignor­ing world sci­en­tists’ rec­om­men­da­tions to com­mit to over 40% reduc­tions below 1990 lev­els in order to avoid dan­ger­ous run­away cli­mate change. As a result, inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cism of Cana­da is mount­ing. Last week, a group of 11 Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment called on the lead­ers of BP, Shell, Sta­toil and Total com­pa­nies to halt pro­duc­tion of oil from the tar sands. [2]

“Cana­da has already spec­tac­u­lar­ly failed to meet its Kyoto Pro­to­col tar­gets and has shown no signs of chang­ing its pri­or­i­ties in Copen­hagen. Instead of mak­ing the nec­es­sary shift to a low car­bon econ­o­my, the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to approve new Tar Sands leas­es and is refus­ing to co-oper­ate with inter­na­tion­al efforts to mit­i­gate the impacts of cli­mate change. This affects the whole world,” says Suzanne Dhali­w­al of the UK Tar Sands Net­work, who will be at the Lon­don protest.

“The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to ignore its own laws, which state they must con­sult with Indige­nous Peo­ples who have been try­ing to con­vey con­cerns about Tar Sands devel­op­ment. Tar Sands are killing our com­mu­ni­ties and tram­pling over our rights. Fur­ther­more, the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion wreaked by the Tar Sands is direct­ly threat­en­ing thou­sands of lives now and is dri­ving our cli­mate into chaos. The world has wok­en up to the fact that Cana­da is now Pub­lic Cli­mate Ene­my Num­ber One. It’s time Cana­da did its glob­al duty and shut down the Tar Sands,” says Clay­ton Thomas-Muller, an Indige­nous activist with the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work (IEN), who is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the par­al­lel Tar Sands protest in Copen­hagen.

UK cam­paign­ing against the Tar Sands, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with IEN, has focused on BP which plans to enter the Tar Sands through the mas­sive ‘Sun­rise Project’ and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, now 84% state-owned, which has invest­ed £8.3 bil­lion in the Tar Sands since 2007 accord­ing to new research by the Rain­for­est Action Net­work.

The “Canada:Don’t Cop out on COP” action will start in Trafal­gar Square, which has been occu­pied by the Camp for Cli­mate Action [3] for the dura­tion of the Copen­hagen nego­ti­a­tions as a base for UK based sol­i­dar­i­ty actions. Cam­paign­ers will then move onto Cana­da House to deliv­er their mes­sage to the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment.

[1] See the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Network’s Cana­di­an Indige­nous Tar Sands Cam­paign, www.ienearth.org/cits

[2] http://www.tarsandswatch.org/members-european-parliament-appeal-companies-stop-tar-sand-business

[3] The Camp for Cli­mate Action is a grow­ing grass-roots move­ment of diverse peo­ple tak­ing action on cli­mate change. http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/about

UK Tar Sands Net­work
tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com

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Cli­mate Refugee San­tas in City Air­port Protest
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6 Decem­ber 2009
CLIMATE CAMP PRESS RELEASE:

REFUGEE SANTAS VS POLICE AT LONDON CITY AIRPORT

20 Cli­mate activists dressed as San­ta Claus were pushed out of Lon­don City Air­port depar­tures lounge today by police and secu­ri­ty guards. Presents of car­toon books about the prob­lems with car­bon trad­ing, car­bon ration books, and toy trains were left unde­liv­ered. These were meant for the pas­sen­gers on the final flight to Copen­hagen before the COP15 cli­mate talks begin.

The San­tas’ pho­tog­ra­ph­er was arrest­ed. The activists man­aged to pub­lish a pic­ture of the arrest on Twit­ter (1) along with anoth­er image of the San­tas in action (2)

The activists sang Cli­mate Change-themed Christ­mas car­ols, includ­ing “Silent Plight” and “God Rest We Mer­ry Car­bon Traders”, in the air­port lob­by.

A San­ta Claus said: “The hypocrisy of fly­ing to the Copen­hagen talks is unbe­liev­able. It just goes to show that for the politi­cians and cor­po­rate lob­by­ists in Copen­hagen, these talks are no more than busi­ness as usu­al.

“If gov­ern­ments agree a deal based on false solu­tions like car­bon trad­ing, I shall have to take direct action by get­ting stuck in a whole lot more chim­neys”

Video

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Carbon Exchange

7th Decem­ber: 11.30am This morn­ing pro­test­ers from the Cli­mate Camp have block­ad­ed the entrance to the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange in Bish­ops­gate, Lon­don [see video].

The COP Out Camp Out at Trafal­gar Square was set up on Sat­ur­day after the mas­sive Wave cli­mate demon­stra­tion ahead of the Cop15 cli­mate con­fer­ence which starts today in Copen­hagen.

The Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange in Bish­ops­gate was the tar­get and loca­tion of the Cli­mate Camp dur­ing the G20 protests back in April.

For updates see: http://twitter.com/climatecampldn
Video http://www.twitvid.com/19342

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BT Santa die-in
San­ta vis­its BT and expos­es coal invest­ment
Novem­ber 30, 2009

This morn­ing a team of San­ta’s arrived at the BT offices in Bris­tol Tem­ple Quay to expose the truth behind the com­pa­nies pen­sion scheme. BT pen­sions are fund­ing coal min­ing in South Wales, where Merthyr Tyd­fil hosts one of Europe’s largest open­cast coal mines. BT Pen­sion Scheme owns a com­pa­ny called Her­mes who own Argent, of Miller-Argent fame — the com­pa­ny who oper­ate the mine. Staff pen­sion mon­ey is secret­ly being spent on coal min­ing.

No won­der it came as a sur­prise when San­ta came to vis­it…

Arriv­ing at the BT offices at Tem­ple Quay in Bris­tol this morn­ing, San­ta Claus came to say a great big fes­tive NO to coal.

San­ta and his helpers descend­ed upon offices after find­ing out that BT pen­sion schemes are pay­ing for the mas­sive min­ing oper­a­tion at Ffos-y-Fran near Merthyr Tyd­fil in South Wales — one of Europe’s largest open cast coal mines. The mys­tery peo­ple in red say they are rais­ing the issue with BT work­ers, let­ting them know where their pen­sion mon­ey is being invest­ed.

The bemused staff seemed hap­py to be greet­ed by the singing san­tas as they arrived for work, but looked con­cerned with the news of their employ­ers dirty invest­ments.

A jovial woman clutch­ing a hand­ful of Christ­mas cards said “with the cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen com­ing up, the world’s eyes will be on politi­cians strug­gling to come to terms with the threat of cli­mate change.

We want the employ­ees to know that their mon­ey is being invest­ed in coal min­ing in Wales, wors­en­ing the effects of cli­mate change. It is up to them to hold BT account­able for their actions”

The Ffos-y-Fran mine is less than 40 metres from the near­est homes and res­i­dents lives are blight­ed with noise, dust and pol­lu­tion. Merthyr Tyd­fil was the site of the Cli­mate Camp in Wales ear­li­er this year, sup­port­ing local res­i­dents who have been fight­ing against the min­ing oper­a­tions.

San­ta and his helpers hand­ed out Christ­mas cards and sung car­ols to peo­ple as they arrived for work today, explain­ing why they have come to vis­it.

“Coal is the most cli­mate wreck­ing way to pro­duce ener­gy. Real­ly, if we want to stop the worst effects of cli­mate change we need to stop dig­ging it out of the ground and invest in green tech­nolo­gies instead”

“I’m here because I’m seri­ous­ly wor­ried about my home back in the Arc­tic” said Sam, one of the Santa’s. “With pre­dict­ed tem­per­a­ture ris­es, we’ll become refugees and the rein­deer are noto­ri­ous­ly fussy about where they live”.

Email — info@climatecampcymru.org

Notes:

· BT are linked to coal in the fol­low­ing way-BT own BT Pen­sion Scheme (BTPS) who in turn own a com­pa­ny called Her­mes who admin­is­ter the BT pen­sion fund. Her­mes bought the devel­op­ment group Argent (of Miller-Argent) who run the mine at Merthyr Tyd­fil.

· Ffos-y-Fran, locat­ed next to Merthyr Tyd­fil, is one of the biggest coal mines Wales has ever seen. Over the 15 year life­time of this new open­cast mine, more than 10.8 mil­lion tonnes of coal will be extract­ed. Burn­ing this will release 30 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere – at the same rate each year as the entire coun­try of Mozam­bique!

· Local peo­ple have been oppos­ing the mine for years. More than 10,000 peo­ple signed a peti­tion oppos­ing the mine. Despite this amaz­ing lev­el of oppo­si­tion, the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment, encour­aged by West­min­ster, gave the go-ahead to the mine.

· Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is Wales’ Camp for Cli­mate Action – inspired by the Cli­mate Camp move­ment tak­ing action on cli­mate change in the UK and world­wide. The Camp is com­mit­ted to edu­ca­tion, sus­tain­able liv­ing and sup­port­ing direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change.

· Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel there is – respon­si­ble for 50% of the CO2 added to the atmos­phere since the begin­ning of the indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion, and 40% of CO2 emis­sions glob­al­ly. Enough of it remains in the ground, if burned, to take us to a sub­stan­tial­ly dif­fer­ent plan­et from the one we know today — and which has exist­ed through­out all of human his­to­ry.

http://www.climatecampcymru.org