Category: Aviation and Roads

Plane Stupid mark ten years of Blair — BAA HQ blocked

2.05.2007 Green activists today marked the tenth anniver­sary of Tony Blair com­ing to pow­er by vis­it­ing his best friends in indus­try to high­light the revolv­ing door between Labour and the avi­a­tion indus­try and his fail­ure to tack­le cli­mate change. (1) A team of pro­tes­tors from cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid, (2) are block­ing the ‘revolv­ing door’ to BAA’s Heathrow HQ to oppose gov­ern­ment and indus­try plans for air­port expan­sion.

BAA 10 years of Blair2.05.2007 Green activists today marked the tenth anniver­sary of Tony Blair com­ing to pow­er by vis­it­ing his best friends in indus­try to high­light the revolv­ing door between Labour and the avi­a­tion indus­try and his fail­ure to tack­le cli­mate change. (1) A team of pro­tes­tors from cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid, (2) are block­ing the ‘revolv­ing door’ to BAA’s Heathrow HQ to oppose gov­ern­ment and indus­try plans for air­port expan­sion.

The activists have chained up the front doors to the offices and have dumped copies of the sci­ence of cli­mate change, reports from the UN and from the Tyn­dall Cen­tre, into the recep­tion area. The activists have pledged not to allow the staff out until they’ve read the sci­ence. Oth­er cam­paign­ers have unfurled a ban­ner out­side the build­ing stat­ing, “Read the sci­ence. www.planestupid.com”

Cam­paign­er for Plane Stu­pid, Leo Mur­ray, explained:

“In years to come, Blair will be remem­bered for sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly approv­ing cli­mate-wreck­ing projects like air­port expan­sion. But it might not have hap­pened if it weren’t for the fact that the revolv­ing door between Labour and BAA just hasn’t stopped spin­ning.” (3) (4)

He added:

“We can’t believe that if BAA had read the sci­ence, they’d still be push­ing ahead with their cli­mate-crazy plans for air­port expan­sion. With Blair prepar­ing to leave office, UN cli­mate sci­en­tists gath­er­ing in Bangkok, and the hottest April on record, it’s time BAA used their enor­mous influ­ence to tell Blair to ditch expan­sion plans or leave with a lega­cy of fail­ing on cli­mate change.”

This Friday’s IPCC report on mit­i­ga­tion of cli­mate emis­sions, a draft copy of which has been obtained by Plane Stu­pid, con­firms, “Land use plan­ning and trans­port demand man­age­ment can make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion.”

Plane Stu­pid are one of the groups behind the adver­tise­ments in today’s nation­al news­pa­pers head­lined, “Vote for cli­mate change.” (5)

Notes for Edi­tors:

(1) The BAA/Labour revolv­ing door:
— In advance of the government’s 2003 avi­a­tion white paper which paved the way for their expan­sion pro­gramme, BAA was the main sup­port­er of lob­by group, “Free­dom to fly.” This group is thought to be the brain child of Steve Hard­wick, Direc­tor of Pub­lic Affairs at BAA who took time out to work on the Labour elec­tion cam­paigns of 1997 and 2001.
— “Free­dom to fly” was direct­ed by John Prescott’s for­mer per­son­al polit­i­cal advi­sor from 1999–2001, Joe Irvin. When, after a year, Joe Irvin resigned, he was replaced by Dan Hodges. Hodges is the son of Glen­da Jack­son MP, who hap­pens to have been Labour’s first avi­a­tion min­is­ter.
— Joe Irvin has this week been appoint­ed as one of Gor­don Brown’s top advi­sors (4)
— BAA’s “Free­dom to Fly” was chaired by Labour peer, Bren­da Dean.
— The gov­ern­ment appoint­ed Avi­a­So­lu­tions to assess the respons­es to its con­sul­ta­tion on expan­sion. Avi­a­So­lu­tions is run by for­mer high-fly­ers from BAA, Sea­mus Healey, Paul Eden and his wife, Liz. Also on the company’s board was Lyne Mered­ith, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked as BAA’s direc­tor of plan­ning and envi­ron­ment.
— BAA hosts from its West Lon­don offices, “Future Heathrow,” an indus­try lob­by group chaired by Labour peer, Lord Soley. Launched per­son­al­ly by then-trans­port sec­re­tary, Alis­tair Dar­ling, it was estab­lished to ensure that the third run­way and sixth ter­mi­nal is built.

(2) Plane Stu­pid is Britain’s first nation­al direct action group against the unsus­tain­able avi­a­tion growth. www.planestupid.com

(3) For more details and sources on the revolv­ing door between BAA and Labour: http://www.turnuptheheat.org/?page_id=24

(4) http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/article2483864.ece and http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0„2–2007180865,00.html

(5) For more on the ads, includ­ing the press release, see www.spurt-aviation.com

For interviews/info:

press@planestupid.com
www.planestupid.com

- ENDS –

At 5.30pm — four peo­ple were arrrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass after BAA refused to read the sci­ence.

SWEDISH AIRPORT RUNWAY SEIZED BY CLIMATE ACTIVISTS

>
> On 14 April, activists broke into Brom­ma Air­port in Stock­holm to
> occu­py the run­way for half an hour. The sched­uled flight to Gothen­burg
> – a short dis­tance indeed – was delayed, and some planes had to divert

>
> On 14 April, activists broke into Brom­ma Air­port in Stock­holm to
> occu­py the run­way for half an hour. The sched­uled flight to Gothen­burg
> – a short dis­tance indeed – was delayed, and some planes had to divert
> their land­ing. The ten activists, linked by chains and car­ry­ing a huge
> ban­ner which read “Stop domes­tic flights”, man­aged to enter the
> air­port and run­way with­out being detect­ed. After some five min­utes,
> police arrived to the scene, but refrained from vio­lent inter­ven­tion.
> When the block­ade had been car­ried to its planned end, the activists
> were arrest­ed and informed of the for­mal charge of aggra­vat­ed
> tres­pass. The most like­ly pun­ish­ment is some heavy fines, but prison
> terms are pos­si­ble.
>
> The action was car­ried out by Cli­max, a group in Stock­holm formed two
> weeks ago. It is the seed of a direct action-move­ment against the root
> caus­es of cli­mate change in a coun­try which has just recent­ly wok­en up
> to the facts of ongo­ing glob­al warm­ing. Cli­max is inspired by Plane
> Stu­pid and Ris­ing Tide. The action of 14 April, coin­cid­ing with the
> enor­mous Nation­al Day of Cli­mate Action in the U.S., was the first of
> its kind to occur in Swe­den. More is bound to fol­low soon. Check for
> updates (and pic­tures of the recent action) at www.klimatet.org.
>
> Glob­al action against glob­al warm­ing!
>
> Kli­max-Stock­holm
>
> 2007-04-15

Climate Camp Meeting this weekend in Bristol, and Film

Last year saw 600 peo­ple gath­er in the shad­ow of Drax Pow­er Sta­tion for the ten day Camp For Cli­mate Action. This week­end in Bris­tol is the next nation­al plan­ning meet­ing, Sat­ur­day 17th and Sun­day 18th March. The venue is Bar­ton Hill Set­tle­ment which is 5 min from Lawrence Hill Sta­tion.

Last year saw 600 peo­ple gath­er in the shad­ow of Drax Pow­er Sta­tion for the ten day Camp For Cli­mate Action. This week­end in Bris­tol is the next nation­al plan­ning meet­ing, Sat­ur­day 17th and Sun­day 18th March. The venue is Bar­ton Hill Set­tle­ment which is 5 min from Lawrence Hill Sta­tion.

Any ques­tions, sug­ges­tions or pro­pos­als for the meet­ing can be sent to gath­er­ings [at] climatecamp.org.uk.

Last years camp was cap­tured on video and turned into a doc­u­men­tary by Cine Rebalde called Reclaim Pow­er. Copies are now avail­able on DVD in this coun­try from Ris­ing Tide and local groups work­ing towards this years cli­mate camp.

Those in Lon­don can check out the cli­mate camp film as part of two evenings of cli­mate chaos relat­ed films at the ram­pART social cen­tre (see http://rampart.co.nr for details). Also show­ing is the epic doc­u­men­tary The Plan­et, plus Glob­al Dim­ming and The Denial Machine. Addi­tion­al­ly there will be speak­ers and info.

More info on film at http://www.cinerebelde.org/site.php3?id_rubrique=22&lang=en
More info on camp for cli­mate action at http://climatecamp.org.uk

Call for workshops at the Earth First! Summer Gathering 2007

This year’s gath­er­ing is from 18 — 22 July in Nor­folk, near a main­line rail­way sta­tion.

The focus is on prac­ti­cal skills, but there will also be many of the reg­u­lar diverse and inter­est­ing work­shops.

EF! summer gathering 2007 logoThis year’s gath­er­ing is from 18 — 22 July in Nor­folk, near a main­line rail­way sta­tion.

The focus is on prac­ti­cal skills, but there will also be many of the reg­u­lar diverse and inter­est­ing work­shops.

The idea is to have mul­ti­ple work­shop ses­sions, e.g. four two-hour slots spread over four days build­ing up skills in a par­tic­u­lar area, so peo­ple can learn the basic skills to actu­al­ly do the job at oth­er mobil­i­sa­tions, events like the cli­mate camp — or wher­ev­er. For exam­ple plumb­ing, elec­tri­cal skills, medics…and what­ev­er else peo­ple want to do… It’s not just about the prac­ti­cal skills but also about get­ting to know each oth­er and start­ing to work togeth­er.

If you would like to offer a work­shop please write to:
martinshaw64@riseup.net

Thanks — the EF! sum­mer gath­er­ing col­lect­ing
Gen­er­al con­tact details etc at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/

please for­ward to peo­ple you think would be inter­est­ed.

Heathrow residents disrupt minister’s speech

6.03.2007

ANGRY HEATHROW RESIDENTS DISRUPT MINISTER’S SPEECH

~ Air­port res­i­dents resort to direct action tech­niques for the first time
~ Marks new phase in resis­tance to air­port expan­sion


6.03.2007

ANGRY HEATHROW RESIDENTS DISRUPT MINISTER’S SPEECH

~ Air­port res­i­dents resort to direct action tech­niques for the first time
~ Marks new phase in resis­tance to air­port expan­sion

1pm — Lon­don­ers fac­ing house demo­li­tions and increased noise from gov­ern­ment plans for expan­sion of Heathrow today took direct action against the plans for the first time. They stormed the stage at an avi­a­tion indus­try con­fer­ence and dis­rupt­ed an address being made by the Trans­port Min­is­ter, Dou­glas Alexan­der.

The res­i­dents from the West Lon­don vil­lages of Sip­son and Har­mondsworth joined envi­ron­men­tal activists from cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid, and breached secu­ri­ty at Chatham House. Some unfurled a ban­ner read­ing, “No third run­way” whilst anoth­er went nose-to-nose with the Min­is­ter in front of the con­fer­ence del­e­gates. Oth­er res­i­dents with ban­ners demon­strat­ed out­side the con­fer­ence cen­tre.

Local res­i­dent Dr John Hunt from Houn­slow who went head-to-head with Alexan­der on the stage, said, “For decades the gov­ern­ment has betrayed us with a cat­a­logue of bro­ken promis­es. In the 80s we were told Ter­mi­nal 4 would be the last expan­sion, then in the 90s we were told Ter­mi­nal 5 would be the end. Now we’re fac­ing yet more noise and more con­crete, and this time they want to wipe our entire com­mu­ni­ty off the map. The time for gen­tle per­sua­sion is over. Dou­glas Alexan­der is warned: the fight back has begun.”

He added, “We’re glad to be joined by our eco-war­rior friends from Plane Stu­pid. They’ve done this kind of thing before and have been help­ful with their direct action train­ing over recent weeks. I think it’s safe to say there’s more of this to come.”

Plane Stu­pid shot into the head­lines with their block­ade of an air­port run­way at Not­ting­ham East Mid­lands short haul air­port in Sep­tem­ber. The group have also occu­pied BAA and Easy­jet offices in recent months, and organ­ised November’s nation­al day of action against short haul flights.

Plane Stupid’s Richard George said, “Whist Min­is­ters like Dou­glas Alexan­der preach about action to stop cli­mate change they’re con­cret­ing over local demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­si­tion to new run­ways with their plans to cater for unnec­es­sary and cli­mate-wreck­ing short haul flights. It’s not sur­pris­ing that hav­ing failed though con­ven­tion­al protest, the res­i­dents have decid­ed to up the ante.”

For interviews/information:

info@planestupid.com
http://www.planestupid.com

documentary: Reclaim Power — voices from the camp for climate action 2006

In the sum­mer of 2006, 600 peo­ple con­vinced that there is no time to waste set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK. Cine Rebelde pro­duced a doc­u­men­tary film about the camp.

Cli­mate change is now a real­i­ty. Lead­ing sci­en­tists across the world agree that in a ’busi­ness as usu­al sce­nario’ we have no longer than 10 years to pre­vent 2–3 degrees of addi­tion­al glob­al arm­ing that will lead to irre­versible cli­mat­ic changes with dra­mat­ic con­se­quences for our plan­et.

Climate camp view from gateIn the sum­mer of 2006, 600 peo­ple con­vinced that there is no time to waste set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK. Cine Rebelde pro­duced a doc­u­men­tary film about the camp.

Cli­mate change is now a real­i­ty. Lead­ing sci­en­tists across the world agree that in a ’busi­ness as usu­al sce­nario’ we have no longer than 10 years to pre­vent 2–3 degrees of addi­tion­al glob­al arm­ing that will lead to irre­versible cli­mat­ic changes with dra­mat­ic con­se­quences for our plan­et.

How­ev­er, in a world dri­ven by prof­it and com­mit­ted to unlim­it­ed eco­nom­ic growth, human­i­ty seems very unwill­ing to change the course of the fos­sil fuel econ­o­my.

In the sum­mer of 2006, the 5th hottest year ever record­ed in recent his­to­ry, 600 peo­ple con­vinced that there is no time to waste set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK.

With over one hun­dred work­shops on a wide range of top­ics, the 10 day camp was a space of col­lec­tive learn­ing, sus­tain­able liv­ing and tak­ing direct action on the root caus­es of cli­mate change. The gath­er­ing that showed prac­ti­cal low ener­gy solu­tions in action, cul­mi­nat­ed in a day of protest and mass direct action in an attempt to shut down Drax.

DVD 62min + extras
Eng­lish with sub­ti­tles in Eng­lish, French, Ger­man and Span­ish
reports on indy­media UK: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/climatecamp/

Trail­er down­load: 2:58 min
http://www.cinerebelde.org/site.php3?id_article=356〈=en

a cine rebelde pro­duc­tion in coop­er­a­tion with http://risingtide.org.uk and http://climatecamp.org.uk

indy­media reports of the Camp 2006:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/climatecamp/

Pic­tures, infor­ma­tion and film orders:
orders@cinerebelde.org
http://www.cinerebelde.org

DVDs will also soon be avail­able from ris­ing tide, cli­mate camp groups and at the meet­ing in Bris­tol.

* * * * * *
Prepa­ra­tions for the Camp for Cli­mate Action 2007 are in full swing. The upcom­ing meet­ing will be in Bris­tol on March 17th /18th.

Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca is cur­rent­ly doing a Road Show. Check out:
http://risingtidenorthamerica.org

Bradford Climate Criminals flyposted

22.1.07
On Wednes­day evening, a num­ber of con­cerned Leeds and Brad­ford res­i­dents decid­ed to draw atten­tion to the activ­i­ties of a num­ber of cli­mate crim­i­nals in Brad­ford city cen­tre. Adver­tise­ments for dam­ag­ing air flights were mod­i­fied to tell the truth; that fly­ing is the fastest grow­ing cause of cli­mate change, the “sin­gle great­est threat to human-kind” accord­ing to the government’s chief sci­en­tist.

Bradford climate camp aviation flyposters22.1.07
On Wednes­day evening, a num­ber of con­cerned Leeds and Brad­ford res­i­dents decid­ed to draw atten­tion to the activ­i­ties of a num­ber of cli­mate crim­i­nals in Brad­ford city cen­tre. Adver­tise­ments for dam­ag­ing air flights were mod­i­fied to tell the truth; that fly­ing is the fastest grow­ing cause of cli­mate change, the “sin­gle great­est threat to human-kind” accord­ing to the government’s chief sci­en­tist.

Despite assur­ances that cli­mate change is being tak­en seri­ous­ly by any num­ber of politi­cians or busi­ness peo­ple, the fact is that new run­ways are planned, motor­ways are being expand­ed, and pipelines being built to increase our depen­dence on fos­sil fuels. In the face of this hypocrisy, it was clear that the time had come to make a direct state­ment that irre­spon­si­ble crim­i­nal­i­ty of this kind will not be tol­er­at­ed by sane and mod­er­ate peo­ple.

Sev­er­al trav­el agents, shame­less­ly plug­ging mas­sive­ly destruc­tive air flights for prof­it, had their mis­lead­ing win­dow dis­plays obscured by handy stick­ers which made plain the true cost of fly­ing. Those peo­ple tak­ing part in this vital ser­vice did so as a way of encour­ag­ing oth­ers to stand up against the cli­mate crim­i­nals and car­ry out sim­i­lar pub­lic-spir­it­ed actions in their areas. The stick­ers used are avail­able at a cost of 50p each to any­one who wants them – just email trees@riseup.net with your order. The stick­ers are just £10 for 20, post free!

There is still time to pre­vent run­away cli­mate change but we must act now.

Part of that action must be to expose the ongo­ing activites of those who wish to destroy the plan­et for prof­it. Clear­ly, we can’t leave it to busi­ness and gov­ern­ment to sort out the mess – they are the ones mak­ing it because of their bizarre obses­sion with an eco­nom­ic sys­tem based on con­tin­u­al growth and unsus­tain­able con­sump­tion.

The rich are plun­der­ing the Earth, and as always the poor will suf­fer the worst. We can all act in our lives, and join togeth­er to cre­ate a rad­i­cal, and ulti­mate­ly rea­son­able and mod­er­ate, move­ment for social change and cli­mate jus­tice.

This action was inspired by the Camp For Cli­mate Action, which seems to have been a new begin­ning for the fight-back by rea­son­able and mod­er­ate peo­ple against the cli­mate crim­i­nals and prof­it-ter­ror­ists who seek to kill us all.

photos of Manchester carbon footprint stencils

7.02.2007

Last Thurs­day, to coin­cide with the IPCC report, a group of Man­ches­ter cli­mate activists dec­o­rat­ed the pave­ments out­side flight cen­tres, petrol sta­tions, super­mar­kets and a humvee garage with car­bon foot­prints.


7.02.2007

Last Thurs­day, to coin­cide with the IPCC report, a group of Man­ches­ter cli­mate activists dec­o­rat­ed the pave­ments out­side flight cen­tres, petrol sta­tions, super­mar­kets and a humvee garage with car­bon foot­prints.

Rough­ly a dozen sten­cils appeared Fri­day morn­ing in var­i­ous city cen­tre loca­tions. The stunt fol­lowed a num­ber of oth­er aware­ness rais­ing actions in Man­ches­ter, such as the block­ade of the humvee garage a few weeks ear­li­er.

PLANE STUPID Newsletter #6

PLANE STUPID Newslet­ter #6

“This is a deeply trau­ma­tized com­mu­ni­ty which has been lied to for years and years

Plane Stupid logo 2PLANE STUPID Newslet­ter #6

“This is a deeply trau­ma­tized com­mu­ni­ty which has been lied to for years and years
by the avi­a­tion indus­try and one polit­i­cal par­ty after anoth­er. There is a litany of
bro­ken promis­es. I won­der just how you might feel if you had endured all this for
years! I am so angry I am almost incan­des­cent with rage at the immoral­i­ty of it
all.” — A res­i­dent of Har­mondsworth, near Heathrow

~ VICTORY FOR STOP STANSTED CAMPAIGN! ~

After a sus­tained and long run­ning cam­paign by the com­mu­ni­ty near Stanst­ed, the
Uttles­ford Dis­trict Coun­cil have blocked the pro­posed plans for expan­sion of the
exist­ing run­way. BAA how­ev­er is refus­ing to accept the demo­c­ra­t­ic rul­ing and is
tak­ing it to a pub­lic enquiry. A cam­paign fund has been launched to fight the
enquiry. www.stopstanstedexpansion.com

~ OCCUPATION AGAINST BRISTOL EXPANSION ~

On the 4th Decem­ber, activists from South West Cli­mate Action occu­pied North
Som­er­set Envi­ron­ment and Plan­ning Offices to protest against plans for expan­sion of
Bris­tol air­port. Pho­tos and report at www.indymedia.org.uk

~EASYJET SHUT IN DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SHORT HAUL FLIGHTS! ~

On Novem­ber 6th, activists from around the coun­try came togeth­er to take
action against short haul flights. Plane Stu­pid activists shut down the Lon­don HQ of
Easy­Group, the own­ers of low-cost car­ri­er Easy­jet, and Lon­don Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed
the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, pre­sent­ing them with a giant cheque for their £9.2
bil­lion annu­al sub­sidy.

In Cam­bridge, Man­ches­ter, Read­ing and Lon­don, there were protests out­side
trav­el agents, while Leeds Brad­ford air­port was plas­tered with anti-avi­a­tion
stick­ers. Robin Hood air­port received a vis­it from Robin and his Mer­ry Men,
dou­bly-angry because the air­port has been oppos­ing local wind farm appli­ca­tions.
Activists in Man­ches­ter dropped a ban­ner, and in Southend a trav­el agents was shut
when a pro­tes­tor locked her­self to the front door.

30 trav­el agents across the UK had their front doors chained shut
by activists who left signs on the win­dows read­ing, “Closed for a total
rethink. See www.planestupid.com”

A mem­ber of staff at Flight Cen­tre said, “Plane Stu­pid are caus­ing may­hem here
today, every­one is get­ting all aer­at­ed and vexed.” We’ll give them “aer­at­ed and
vexed!” What about the 182 mil­lion peo­ple to die in Africa this cen­tu­ry alone
because of cli­mate change, or the res­i­dents of ‘hacked off’ Har­mondsworth?

The day of action came as new research from HACAN Clearskies shows that 100,000
flights from Heathrow each year are to short haul des­ti­na­tions that are eas­i­ly
reach­able by the more sus­tain­able train alter­na­tive.

Reports and pho­tos at www.indymedia.org.uk

~ COURT REJECTS ASBOS FOR NEMA 25 ~

Lough­bor­ough Mag­is­trates Court reject­ed calls from the Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice to
slap ASBOs on the 24 Plane Stu­pid activists who they described as “high­ly orga­nized
extrem­ists” that were arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the shut down of Not­ting­ham East
Mid­lands short haul air­port in Sep­tem­ber.

In an appar­ent move aimed to avoid hav­ing the case heard by a jury, the charge of
pub­lic nui­sance was dropped, as was the charge relat­ing to an alleged breach of the
avi­a­tion and secu­ri­ty act.

Cam­paign­er for Plane Stu­pid, Ellen Rick­ford, said, “The same day that we learn the
gov­ern­ment is push­ing ahead with its air­port expan­sion pro­pos­als, they try to use
ASBOs to stamp out peace­ful protest. Well, it seems their plans were as doomed as
the avi­a­tion indus­try.”

17 activists got one year con­di­tion­al dis­charges (the min­i­mum sen­tence avail­able)
and each was charged £70 in costs. The 5 charged with crim­i­nal dam­age in addi­tion to
aggra­vat­ed tres­pass were giv­en vary­ing lev­els of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. One per­son was
referred to Crown Court due to unre­solved legal issues and anoth­er had his case
adjourned until Jan­u­ary 31st. One oth­er activist was unable to attend court due to
ill­ness.

Help us pay our fines! Donate via: www.planestupid.com

~ TOP 100 GREEN CAMPAIGNERS OF ALL TIME ~

Vet­er­an green cam­paign­er and staunch sup­port­er of Plane Stu­pid, John Stew­art, has
been named by the Envi­ron­ment Agency as the 82nd most influ­en­tial green activist of
all time! Just one posi­tion behind Mahat­ma Gand­hi, Plane Stu­pid is mighty glad he’s
on our side and proud that he’s often been our spokesman!

~ MARKETING GURU PREDICTS END OF SHORT HAUL AIR TRAVEL ~

In a cov­er-sto­ry fea­ture of Mar­ket­ing Week­ly Mag­a­zine, trig­gered by our nation­al day
of action, a PR guru is quot­ed as say­ing that he thinks short haul bud­get air trav­el
will go the same way that coal did in the 80s because, “they are unnec­es­sary,
out­dat­ed and there­fore fac­ing decline.” Too right!

~ AVIATION INDUSTRY PUBLISH “TEN REASONS TO KEEP FLYING” ~

Respond­ing to Plane Stu­pid­’s “10 rea­sons to ground the Plane” — the avi­a­tion
indus­try’s PR peo­ple at www.cheapflights.co.uk have come up with, “10 rea­sons to
keep fly­ing!” This comes after the Stern report sin­gled out avi­a­tion as one of the
most sig­nif­i­cant caus­es of cli­mate change.

~ ‘ETHICAL MAN’ JOINS PLANE STUPID ON LONDON CLIMATE MARCH ~

Around fifty Plane Stu­pid-ers marched togeth­er with Air­port­Watch cam­paign­ers and
Stanst­ed res­i­dents on the Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change (CaCC) march to Trafal­gar
Square on Novem­ber 4th. There was an 8ft long wood­en plane on storks, big ban­ners
and tons of peti­tion­ing. March­ing with Plane Stu­pid was News­night’s ‘eth­i­cal man’
and Seize the Day’s Theo and Shan­non. Pho­tos avail­able soon on the web­site…

In the mean­time, see www.indymedia.org.uk

~ POLITICS ROUND-UP ~

Gor­don Brown snubbed sci­en­tists and cam­paign­ers calls for tough new green tax­es and
instead opt­ed in his pre-bud­get report for the pathet­ic polit­i­cal ges­ture of
increas­ing air pas­sen­ger duty by £5. This news came less than a week after a report
from BA boss, Rod Edding­ton, who was hired by Gor­don Brown and paid by us the
tax­pay­er, to (shock) sug­gest air­port expan­sion was a good thing. So we now know that
indus­try boss­es sup­port their own plans. Fan­cy that!

~ DO YOU WANT US TO SPEAK IN YOUR AREA? ~

Plane Stu­pid speak­ers have appeared at the Lib Dem Region­al Con­fer­ence along with
Shad­ow Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, Chris Huhne; at the LSE along­side Stop Cli­mate Chaos
direc­tor, Ashok Sin­ha; at stu­dent union venues includ­ing in Lon­don and Sus­sex; and
at local Green­peace and FoE meet­ings across the UK. If you want us to come and talk
in your area, get in touch. info@planestupid.com

————————————————————-EVENTS
———————————-

CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION MEETINGS

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful cli­mate camp at Drax, plans are afoot for the next camp
which will be at a dif­fer­ent location.get involved with putting plans into action.

www.climatecamp.org.uk

PLANE STUPID BENEFIT GIG/FILM SHOWING

On Fri­day 26th Jan­u­ary, Brix­ton Jamm presents The Alabama3. Tick­ets avail­able soon
via www.planestupid.com

——————————————————— RESOURCES
——————————

~ PLANE STUPID: A year in review ~

On Novem­ber 29th, Plane Stu­pid had its first anniver­sary. For a reflec­tion on the
incred­i­ble momen­tum we’ve built up over the last year, with video footage and pho­tos
for down­load, see www.planestupid.com

~ PLANE STUPID Blog ~

Plane Stu­pid has estab­lished a blog at www.myspace.com/planestupid. Its first blog
entry includes, “The arm­chair envi­ron­men­tal­ist’s guide to off­sets… or ‘How to save
the world for 38p!’)”

~ LEGAL RESOURCE FOR ACTIVISTS~

Expe­ri­enced cam­paign­ers are offer­ing free advice and train­ing to grass­roots groups
includ­ing legal skills and more. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

~ THE SHEILA McK­ECH­NIE AWARDS ~

The Sheila McK­ech­nie Awards pro­vide cam­paign devel­op­ment pack­ages to grass­roots
cam­paign­ers. Up for grabs is a ‘Trans­port Award’.anyone want­i­ng to apply should see:
www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk