Category: Aviation and Roads

Latest details: Earth First! Winter Moot 2008 — February 22nd – 24th 2008 — Nottingham

Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

EF! fist tree 1Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

Cost: £15 (to include accom­mo­da­tion and food)
Crèche and dis­abled access both avail­able,
but please call to let us know if you need either or if you have oth­er needs.

At The Sumac Cen­tre, Glad­stone Street Not­ting­ham, www.veggies.org.uk/sumac
For more info call 01508 531636 (num­ber not avail­able dur­ing the event)

Fri­day late after­noon and evening will be a chance to arrive, and for intro­duc­tions, plus a G8 talk & film, and an Intro­duc­tion to EF!

We’ll be kick­ing off ear­ly on Sat­ur­day morn­ing (9am break­fast) — start­ing with all shar­ing the most impor­tant rea­sons why we’ve come to Not­ting­ham, we’ll get on with some prac­ti­cal dis­cus­sions around the EF! Action Update, the web­site, and the sum­mer gath­er­ing.
From what we’ve all said, we’ll be able in the after­noon to move on to ‘where next?’, plus shar­ing cam­paigns we’re involved with & see­ing what they need, and get­ting togeth­er local­ly and region­al­ly with oth­er folk who are there.

On Sun­day we’ll move into groups to con­crete­ly take the ideas for­wards from the Sat­ur­day, from the cam­paigns we’re already work­ing on and what we want to do togeth­er. We’ll fin­ish at 4pm, after hav­ing shared what we’ve come up with. Hoorah.

Earth First! is not an organ­i­sa­tion, but a way of using non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and the use of direct action to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. For fur­ther info check out www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/

Plus
All day Fri­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, Sav­ing Ice­land UK meet­ing, also at the Sumac Cen­tre. Open to those inter­est­ed in trav­el­ling to Ice­land or tak­ing part in sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against the con­struc­tion of large, wilder­ness wreck­ing dams in Ice­land.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion and essen­tial book­ing con­tact 01508 531636 or savingiceland@riseup.org

Spring into action (though storms may be at the door) — the latest issue of the EF! Action Update has burst forth

Read all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on w

Rabbit under fenceRead all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on whal­ing boats, Buy­ing Noth­ing, Reclaim­ing the Streets and the unstop­pable singing of Christ­mas songs, not to men­tion skat­ing pen­guins. Even some upcom­ing dates to get stuck in or to meet oth­er direct action cra­zies. We could­n’t make it up even if we tried.

Anoth­er bumper issue, with a spe­cial insert on Agro­fu­els includ­ing a list of refiner­ies ‘in the pipeline’ or already on the ground, plus a legal update about the recent changes to your access to solic­i­tors in police sta­tions.

The lat­est issue of the Earth First! Action Update burst forth at the lat­est nation­al meet­ing of the Camp for Cli­mate Action (see climatecamp.org.uk for how the camp idea is auda­cious­ly mor­ph­ing this year).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here.

Jet-set waltz off while the planet burn

21.01.2008
Over twen­ty envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­ers have this morn­ing breached secu­ri­ty at Edin­burgh Air­port and block­ad­ed the entrance to the pri­vate jet com­pa­ny, Greer Avi­a­tion.


Greer Aviation action 1
Greer Aviation action 2
21.01.2008
Over twen­ty envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­ers have this morn­ing breached secu­ri­ty at Edin­burgh Air­port and block­ad­ed the entrance to the pri­vate jet com­pa­ny, Greer Avi­a­tion.

The activists, from rad­i­cal direct action group Plane Stu­pid Scot­land, pledged that today’s actions come as part of a nation­wide cam­paign to reverse the cur­rent plans for a tripling of air trav­el in Scot­land which they say flies in the face of the gov­ern­men­t’s own cli­mate tar­gets.

The pro­tes­tors, with ban­ners read­ing ‘This plan­et has no emer­gency exits,’ and dressed in busi­ness atire with indi­vid­ual pri­vate jet wings strapped to their backs high­light­ed that unreg­u­lat­ed busi­ness jet use must be brought into the avi­a­tion debate.

Plane Stu­pid Scot­land spokesper­son Oli said:

Expo­nen­tial eco­nom­ic growth is not com­pat­i­ble with cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion. The major­i­ty of avi­a­tion growth stems from the demand of the wealth­i­est 10%, and this is why we tar­get pri­vate jet use today. We will nev­er suc­ceed in sav­ing this plan­et and main­tain­ing our exis­tence on it unless we com­mit to fight­ing for the right to exis­tence for all through dis­man­tling cap­i­tal­ism. If we don’t use our ener­gy to join with oth­ers to make real glob­al change, to cre­ate new ways of liv­ing togeth­er, and to find gen­uine­ly sus­tain­able alter­na­tive job oppor­tu­ni­ties for those employed in high emis­sion indus­tries, then we live in a sys­tem in which the plan­et suf­fers along­side us, the peo­ple.

Today’s action aims to high­light the fact that in the UK, pri­vate jet use is the fastest grow­ing sec­tor of the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas emis­sions – aviation[1]. Yet pri­vate jet jour­neys typ­i­cal­ly have a glob­al warm­ing impact that can be an incred­i­ble 50–70 times that of the same jour­ney made by train.[2]

Plane Stu­pid spokesper­son Lucy said:

“Whilst the British Gov­ern­ment is eager to flout their green cre­den­tials in the upcom­ing Cli­mate Change Bill, they are still sup­port­ing expan­sion at 24 air­ports across the UK – includ­ing every sin­gle Scot­tish air­port. But the sci­ence clear­ly shows that it will be impos­si­ble for Britain to meet the CO2 reduc­tion tar­gets set out in the bill if these plans go ahead – which is the real rea­son why emis­sions from avi­a­tion are specif­i­cal­ly exclud­ed from the bill.”

The Depart­ment for Transport’s own fig­ures show that around half of the fore­cast expan­sion in Scot­tish air trans­port, from 14 mil­lion to 50 mil­lion pas­sen­ger move­ments by 2030, will take place at Edin­burgh air­port — more than dou­bling its emis­sions. Yet incred­i­bly the scale of car­bon emis­sions has been exclud­ed from the gov­ern­ment con­sul­ta­tion on the expan­sion plans (3).

Spokesper­son Jo added.

“A stag­ger­ing 98% of flights from Edin­burgh are to des­ti­na­tions reach­able by bus or train – both over ten times less pol­lut­ing. We see no attempt by BAA Edin­burgh to make its own con­tri­bu­tion to cut­ting car­bon emis­sions. Instead they push ahead with their pro­mo­tion of binge-fly­ing dis­re­gard­ing all the sci­en­tif­ic warn­ings.”

Despite unprece­dent­ed aware­ness about the impact of air trav­el on glob­al warm­ing, air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers fore­cast world­wide deliv­er­ies of new pas­sen­ger jets will come close to 10,000 over the next decade — almost dou­ble the pro­duc­tion rate for the pre­vi­ous 10 years. If UK expan­sion plans are allowed to go ahead, around 3000 planes will be added to British fleets alone (4).

Plane Stu­pid Scot­land argues that the links must be made between the avi­a­tion indus­try prof­i­teer­ing off the plan­et, local res­i­dents and work­ers alike. Plane Stu­pid Scot­land is fed up with wait­ing for gov­ern­ment to act in the face of an unprece­dent­ed cli­mate threat. Today is the first action of Plane Stu­pid Scot­land who in turn are just one part of the grow­ing move­ment of cli­mate activists who have decid­ed that they must act them­selves to stop cli­mate change.

Plane Stu­pid Scot­land are Call­ing for

1) The Gov­ern­ment to end all sub­si­dies giv­en to the Scot­tish avi­a­tion indus­try
2) An urgent, tar­get­ed and pub­lic invest­ment strat­e­gy in the alter­na­tives to short-haul avi­a­tion
3) No more run­ways- and a strat­e­gy to dis­man­tle exist­ing ones.
4) Mobi­liza­tion of affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties to deter­mine their own lives against avi­a­tion expan­sion and run­away cli­mate change.

Sources:

[1] Air trav­el as a whole already accounts for over 13% of the UK ’s total con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change. The lat­est fig­ures avail­able show 6.9% of Euro­pean flights record­ed by air traf­fic con­trol author­i­ties were “busi­ness avi­a­tion” in 2005, with an esti­mat­ed 40% fly­ing emp­ty on “posi­tion­ing flights” to pick up pas­sen­gers. The num­ber of busi­ness jet flights was grow­ing at 8.9% two years ago — twice as fast as the rest of air traf­fic — and is believed to have accel­er­at­ed since.

[2] http://www.aef.org.uk

[3] Tyn­dall Cen­tre for Cli­mate Change Research. Ander­son , Bows (2006) ‘Pol­i­cy Clash’, Trans­port Pol­i­cy. http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/

[4] http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/environmentalissues/ukairdemandandco2forecasts/airpassdemandfullreport.pdf — note: DfT pre­dic­tions fac­tor in a wild­ly opti­mistic increase in fuel effi­cien­cy of almost 30% by 2030.

———-

Ten peo­ple from Plane Stu­pid Scot­land were arrest­ed. Four peo­ple in steel lock-on tubes who were block­ing the vehi­cle gate onto the taxi-way were cut out by the Faslane cut­ting team after suc­cess­ful­ly blockad­ing for four hours. One of the four was tak­en to hos­pi­tal for treat­ment of hypother­mia. There had ear­li­er been a long dis­pute between mem­bers of action sup­port and the police. The police were pre­vent­ing access to the block­aders who were clear­ly shiv­er­ing and soaked by the por­ing rain. after twen­ty min­utes it was nego­ti­at­ed that a coat could be placed over one man who was par­tic­u­lar­ly suf­fer­ing but it was left too late to stop him from get­ting hypother­mia. We’re still wait­ing to hear from the hos­pi­tal about his con­di­tion.

Two pairs of peo­ple were d‑locked over the two main entrances to the build­ing and were also cut out and nicked at the same time. Two women who had climbed on the roof of the Greer build­ing waltzed around the roof and had a tea par­ty to the sound of live clar­inet play­ing. The cops even­tu­al­ly put a lad­der up and they too were arrest­ed. They had remained on the roof for four hours. All sup­port were able to leave. Agro from the cut­ting team was min­i­mal but the arrival of rein­force­ments in riot gear was some­what over the top.

March of the penguins: Plane Stupid reclaim the ice

12.01.2008
10.30am — Around 30 pen­guins today ‘reclaimed the ice’ at the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um’s ice rink in protest at British Air­ways spon­sor­ship of the muse­um’s annu­al win­ter fes­tiv­i­ties.

BA ice penguins 1BA ice penguins 212.01.2008
10.30am — Around 30 pen­guins today ‘reclaimed the ice’ at the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um’s ice rink in protest at British Air­ways spon­sor­ship of the muse­um’s annu­al win­ter fes­tiv­i­ties.

The pro­tes­tors, from the cli­mate action group Plane Stu­pid, dressed as pen­guins to high­light the irony of an air­line cre­at­ing an ice rink in cen­tral Lon­don, whilst its busi­ness activ­i­ties are a major cause of glob­al warm­ing, which is melt­ing the polar ice caps and caus­ing dan­ger­ous cli­mate change. The loss of the polar ice will imper­il wildlife such as pen­guins and polar bears and is believed to be a major ‘tip­ping point’ which will speed up cli­mate change.

A spoke­spen­guin called Tam­sin said: “We’ve come to remind peo­ple that we love ice too, but the ice in our own home is melt­ing as a result of glob­al warm­ing. BA has shown no con­cern for the issue of cli­mate change. It is a major lob­by­ist for the expan­sion of Britain’s air­ports — par­tic­u­lar­ly the third run­way at Heathrow — which will lead to a huge rise in green­house gas emis­sions at a time when emis­sions from oth­er sec­tors are being cut back. It is shame­ful that an insti­tu­tion like the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um should allow British Air­ways to trade on its eco-friend­ly rep­u­ta­tion by spon­sor­ing this ice rink. BA are push­ing for air­port expan­sion which will guar­an­tee we can­not stop cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.”

She added, “British Air­ways’ mon­ey is dirty, and we hope that next year the muse­um will find a more appro­pri­ate spon­sor for their ice rink.”

The pen­guins, car­ry­ing ban­ners and plac­ards read­ing, ‘BA Fly, Pen­guins Die’, and ‘Freeze Flights’ skat­ed and hand­ed out leaflets for around 20 min­utes before being forcibly removed from the ice by British Air­ways secu­ri­ty staff. There were no arrests.

www.planestupid.com

- ENDS —

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 75, JANUARY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH & LONDON, 15.12.07
3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA — DECEMBER 2007
25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Just three months to go — are you out prac­tis­ing your rou­tines? rehears­ing your songs? build­ing your props yet? I should get out more over Christ­mas…
How­ev­er, it will soon be time to hatch your mis­chie­vous scheme, so get your friends round and start plot­ting!
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/

2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
In sup­port of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, AMP is organ­is­ing a night of live music at The Oth­ers, Manor Road, Stoke New­ing­ton. Entrance £5.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=38074566

3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
Organ­ised by Ris­ing Tide with speak­ers from Groundswell and Plane Stu­pid.
7pm St. Maw­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Hall, Nr. Newquay, Corn­wall. For more info. email; kernow@risingtide.org.uk

4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
11am — 6pm at The Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham.
This meet­ing came out of the last Cli­mate Camp gath­er­ing in Novem­ber. It is focussed on grow­ing our move­ment — how can we encour­age more groups to form and more actions/campaigns to hap­pen? What things do we want to do to help build a vibrant net­work of region­al action groups doing actions local­ly and nation­al­ly?
For instruc­tion on how to get there: http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html
Also, 11 peo­ple are going to tri­al in Not­ting­ham on Mon­day 14th for ‘shut­ting down’ the local coal pow­er sta­tion, If any­one wants to stay to sup­port them that would be great!

5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/nextmeeting.php

6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
Bio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 1st Feb­ru­ary 2008. We will short­ly update our web­site to pro­vide more back­ground infor­ma­tion about the UK agro­fu­el indus­try and poli­cies, as well as a draft leaflet and oth­er resources. If you would like to get involved or find out more, please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk.
http://biofuelwatch.org.uk/

7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Forum “Cli­mate Change: it’s time to pre­pare”
9.15am at the Methodist Hall, Old­ham St, Cen­tral Man­ches­ter
http://www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk/index.html

8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
On Jan­u­ary 26 self-orga­nized groups from all around the world will take cre­ative action in their com­mu­ni­ty. This will man­i­fest in many ways, from non­vi­o­lent direct action, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, street the­atre, con­ver­gences, teach-ins and oth­er activ­i­ties and events. Grass­roots move­ments around the world are mak­ing their voic­es heard and say­ing “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”. In coor­di­na­tion with the World Social Forum.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
Next course by the Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courseoutlinelowimpactsmallholding.htm

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
For the recent­ly formed Ker­now and Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide groups, this action marked an esca­la­tion in their fight against cli­mate change and for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. How­ev­er the planned rooftop protest at Newquay air­port was giv­en an unlike­ly boost when builders at the air­port left a lad­der propped up!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/248
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7146159.stm

2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH AND LONDON, 15.12.07
Sub­ver­sive Singing San­tas Spread Sea­son­al San­i­ty in Lon­don and Nor­wich On one of the busiest shop­ping days of the year. Ris­ing Tide activists in both Lon­don and Nor­wich dressed up as San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion and hit the high streets to sing a dif­fer­ent tune to the usu­al buy, buy,
buy mad­ness of the hol­i­day sea­son.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/247

3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
A series of actions is being tak­en against the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and Bris­tol Muse­um, in protest at the spon­sor­ship of the event by Shell. A grumpy polar bear vis­it­ed the offices of BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine, then activists dis­rupt­ed Bris­tol Muse­um’s posh recep­tion to kick off the exhi­bi­tion with a Yes Men-style inter­ven­tion. And on the open­ing morn­ing, dozens of humans, polar bears, a snow leop­ard and a tiger gath­ered (com­plete with the Shell’s Wild Lie counter-exhi­bi­tion) in front of the muse­um. They hand­ed out leaflets and cre­at­ed quite a spec­ta­cle. Protests are expect­ed to con­tin­ue through Jan. 13th.
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held on 16th Decem­ber at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.
On the 19th, a small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17942
http://www.corribsos.com/

5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
Over 10,000 cli­mate cam­paign­ers took to the streets to take part in march­es in Lon­don and Glas­gow over the week­end, despite pour­ing rain. Pro­test­ers braved the weath­er in one the biggest demon­stra­tions call­ing for cli­mate jus­tice the UK has ever seen.
http://www.campaigncc.org/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387497.html
Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of the Cli­mate March in Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/
Mean­while, in Man­ches­ter air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to Euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed.

6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
A col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17893

7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
All Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre were super-glued shut in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et” The UK’s only Hum­mer deal­er­ship, Bauer Mil­lett, was also D‑locked shut.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17887

8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
Activists from Chea­dle-High-Street Against Cli­mate Change held a “A plan­et is not just for Xmas” cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17917

9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
Two adverts pro­mot­ing DVD’s by Top Gear’s Jere­my Clark­son now have large stick­ers stuck on declar­ing “This caus­es cli­mate change”. Also, Fly­Be appears to have spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17937

10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
Women cli­mate activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and coin­cides with the open­ing of their first “con­sul­ta­tion”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17883

11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
A ban­ner with this warning/statement was dropped to wel­come all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17886

12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
More than thir­ty cli­mate activists, includ­ing mem­bers of the Ris­ing Tide net­work, joined with local res­i­dents from Merthyr Tyd­fil in stop­ping exca­va­tion work for a full day on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. Activists evad­ed police and secu­ri­ty before tak­ing over the 1,000 acre site on a hill­top near Cardiff. Dressed as clowns and polar bears, they chained them­selves to bull­doz­ers and oth­er heavy machin­ery to pre­vent work on the mine.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/242

13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90
per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/240
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/03/oil.bp

14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
Four home­less polar bears appeared before Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court on 14th Novem­ber. They were arrest­ed after blockad­ing the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cor­po­rate offices on Avon St. dur­ing the Ris­ing Tide nation­al day of action. After plead­ing guilty to charges of “wil­ful­ly obstruct­ing the pub­lic high­way with a non motor vehi­cle” (i.e. a suit case) they were giv­en a con­di­tion­al dis­charge and went on to pick­et the RBS branch on Bald­win Street!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/243

15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
The only way to fight cli­mate change. A new report by Oil­Watch.
http://www.oilwatch.org/doc/documentos/Keep_oil_underground.pdf
http://www.oilwatch.org/

16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing “nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos” and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17868

17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
Unbur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of her car and pulled a cyclist off his bike.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17889

18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
“Livestock’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.” Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006
find out more at
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/hot/index.php

19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
A free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work.
http://whatbettertime.livejournal.com/

20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­bler­ousi­ness.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17905

21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
For updates on the work of Pacif­ic Envi­ron­ment, a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that pro­tects the Pacif­ic Rim’s wild places and wildlife, see;
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2658

22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
From fan­ta­sy finance to glob­al crash.
Your guide to under­stand­ing the cri­sis that is sweep­ing through the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem and what it means for ordi­nary peo­ple.
Endorsed by Kevin Smith of Car­bon Trade Watch and film­mak­er Ken Loach.
http://www.aworldtowin.net/about/HouseOfCards.html

23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
A new web­site.
http://www.swairaction.org.uk/

24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA is born — DECEMBER 2007
The group had its first meet­ing on 3rd Jan­u­ary and is now swing­ing into action. If you live in the area and want to find out more or get involved con­tact becqke@riseup.net

25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE
Ris­ing Tide action footage has been spring­ing up all over youtube — check out http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RisingTideNetwork for some RT films, some of the lat­est actions and links to oth­er’s videos of RT actions.

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

END

Short haul flight Manchester adverts cancelled

18.12.2007
Shock­ing U‑turn from short-haul car­ri­er!

Appar­ent­ly, Fly­Be has spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!

Domestic flights advert cancelled18.12.2007
Shock­ing U‑turn from short-haul car­ri­er!

Appar­ent­ly, Fly­Be has spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!

All they need now is to con­vince their mates Ryanair, Easy­jet, et al. that short-haul avi­a­tion is unsus­tain­able and head­ing us towards run-away cli­mate change.

What Better Time? Issue One out now!

What Bet­ter Time? is a free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work. Issue one is out now, get em while they’re hot (actu­al­ly after the demo on Sat­ur­day they’re a bit wet and sog­gy).

What Bet­ter Time? is a free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work. Issue one is out now, get em while they’re hot (actu­al­ly after the demo on Sat­ur­day they’re a bit wet and sog­gy).
This month­ly news sheet aims to inform peo­ple across Scot­land, and fur­ther, from a wide range of back-grounds about a fight to save the plan­et (yes, that old chest­nut). As I am sure you are aware human induced cli­mate change is immi­nent, and every per­son on the plan­et has to do some­thing about it. The Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work brings togeth­er activists and con­cerned indi­vid­u­als from across Scot­land so we can sup­port each oth­er in our work to stop cli­mate change through protest and direct action along with build­ing sus­tain­able alter­na­tives.

It is avail­able in hard copy in all good social cen­tres and hip­py hang-outs or online.

Email: what­bet­ter­time [at] riseup.net
Web­site: whatbettertime.livejournal.com

Billboards pasted in Manchester

8.12.2007
Three air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed today in Man­ches­ter with the words “Stop wor­ry­ing about cli­mate change.

Climate guilt remover subvert8.12.2007
Three air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed today in Man­ches­ter with the words “Stop wor­ry­ing about cli­mate change. Be hap­py with a free guilt remover™.”

Plane Stupid activists shut down travel agents on route of climate march

Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid have shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of today’s Nation­al Cli­mate March in Lon­don as part of the Glob­al Day of Action against cli­mate change.

Climate march travel agents shutEnvi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid have shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of today’s Nation­al Cli­mate March in Lon­don as part of the Glob­al Day of Action against cli­mate change.

Plane Stu­pid spokesper­son Michael Kel­ly said,

“These busi­ness­es con­tin­ue, with full sup­port from the gov­ern­ment, to prof­it from wreck­ing our cli­mate.”

The march is set to coin­cide with the UN cli­mate talks in Bali where the British gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to talk big on cli­mate change whilst fail­ing to take mean­ing­ful action at home.

Kel­ly added:

“The government’s col­lu­sion with BAA over the Heathrow con­sul­ta­tion on the third run­way con­cretes over pub­lic debate and irre­spon­si­bly ignores cli­mate warn­ings from the UN Inter-gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change.”

Plane Stu­pid argues that we can­not afford to wait for gov­ern­ments, in bed with the likes of the avi­a­tion indus­try, to face up to the real­i­ties of the cli­mate threat. Today Plane Stu­pid will march as part of the grow­ing move­ment of cli­mate activists who have decid­ed that they must act them­selves to stop cli­mate change.

http://www.planestupid.com

Fossil Fools Day, April 1st 2008

Ris­ing Tide Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for a day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try on April 1st 2008…

Fossil Fools Day advance flierRis­ing Tide Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for a day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try on April 1st 2008…
FOSSIL FOOLS DAY!

Roll up, roll up! The cli­mate cir­cus is in town. Cli­mate change threat­ens our very sur­vival, but the fools at the head of the fos­sil fuel empire con­tin­ue to plun­der the earth, with gov­ern­ments the will­ing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape cli­mate change with tech­no-fix­es, mar­ket mech­a­nisms and off­set schemes – all tech­no­crat­ic acro­bat­ics that dis­tract us from the truth: the only real solu­tion to cli­mate change is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

For over a cen­tu­ry the fos­sil fuel indus­try has been fool­ing with our lives. From extrac­tion to com­bus­tion they have poi­soned our air, pol­lut­ed our water and ruined our cli­mate. On April 1st, 2008, we’re going to turn the tables and show them who the real fools are.

Find a local fos­sil fool – the coal-min­ing clown, the off­set con­tor­tion­ist, the avi­a­tor trip­ping on the high wire, the super­mar­ket food mile freak show, the oily strong man, or any oth­er fool that deserves your atten­tion – and join with thou­sands around the world in tak­ing one step clos­er to dis­man­tling the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

On Fos­sil Fools Day, bring the spir­it of car­ni­val and mis­chief to the fight for cli­mate jus­tice.

www.fossilfoolsday.org
www.risingtide.org.uk

(More info and resources com­ing soon… for now, put the date in your diary, spread the call-out above far and wide, and start schem­ing!)