Category: Capitalism / Globalisation

(USA) Updates from Ongoing Tar Sands Blockade

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

  • The tar sands block­ade has suc­cess­ful­ly delayed con­struc­tion of the pipeline for two days by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion machin­ery and shut­ting down the con­struc­tion sites. There have been two suc­cess­ful block­ades at con­struc­tion sites in Liv­ingston and Saltil­lo, Texas.
  • Tran­scana­da sur­vey­ors were also pre­vent­ed from prepar­ing for con­struc­tion when landown­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers turned them away north of Winns­boro at an ongo­ing vig­il to pro­tect a local vine­yard which will be destroyed if con­struc­tion begins.
  • Two jour­nal­ists work­ing for the New York Times were hand­cuffed, detained and then turned away from pri­vate prop­er­ty by local law enforce­ment employed as pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards for Tran­sCana­da.
  • Nev­er­the­less, the New York Times still ran a front-page arti­cle about the Tar Sands Block­ade, includ­ing the first tree block­ade in Texas his­to­ry.
  • On August 19th the Tran­scana­da cor­po­ra­tion offi­cial­ly began con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline which will car­ry poi­so­nous tar sands from Alber­ta Cana­da to the Gulf of Mex­i­co despite over­whelm­ing oppo­si­tion from landown­ers and con­cerned res­i­dents, but a broad coali­tion called the Tar Sands Block­ade is orga­niz­ing to stop it.

 

 

(Sweden) Swedish Forest Occupation Declares Temporary Victory

Envi­ron­men­tal activists have been cel­e­brat­ing a vic­to­ry on Got­land Island, off the coast of south­east Swe­den, as tree felling machin­ery remained idle on Sat­ur­day evening.

Envi­ron­men­tal activists have been cel­e­brat­ing a vic­to­ry on Got­land Island, off the coast of south­east Swe­den, as tree felling machin­ery remained idle on Sat­ur­day evening.

“It was a smart and brave deci­sion,” field biol­o­gist Alva Snis Sigtryg­gs­son told Swedish news agency TT. “It feels like a par­tial vic­to­ry.”

Ear­li­er in the day police had to use cut­ting equip­ment to remove Green­peace pro­tes­tors who had chained them­selves to the machin­ery. The tree clear­ance was planned to make way for a con­tro­ver­sial lime­stone quar­ry in the Ojnare for­est adja­cent to an EU des­ig­nat­ed Natu­ra 2000 pro­tect­ed area.

The forestry own­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion, Mel­lan­skog, issued a state­ment indi­cat­ing that the for­est clear­ance will be stopped until after a High Court Rul­ing on the issue.

“We are well aware that Nord­kalk has a legal right to start work here but we want to avoid long term splits and bit­ter­ness in this com­mu­ni­ty where we have many mem­bers,” the asso­ci­a­tion wrote.

The min­ing company’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion chief, Eva Feldt, called the deci­sion “deplorable” and blamed the coun­try gov­er­nor for putting pres­sure on the forestry group.

Envi­ron­men­tal groups, includ­ing the Swedish Soci­ety for Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Green­peace have pledged to block all attempts to open a quar­ry in the area which they say should be pro­tect­ed in line with Euro­pean Union rules on bio­di­ver­si­ty.

The Swedish Ojnare For­est has been described as unlike any oth­er on the plan­et – with unique ancient pine forests, short in stature due to the cold cli­mate, yet with indi­vid­ual trees up to 1000 years old, in ecosys­tems con­tain­ing 265 endan­gered species. These old forests shroud the island’s unique and com­plex ground­wa­ter sys­tem, and their destruc­tion will place the island’s biggest fresh­wa­ter source at risk. The area’s unique nat­ur­al ecosys­tem habi­tats are of high nation­al inter­est for nature con­ser­va­tion, as the Ojnare For­est is locat­ed between and adja­cent to two Euro­pean Natu­ra 2000 con­ser­va­tion areas, and is pro­posed to become a Nation­al Park. The Ojnare For­est and its nat­ur­al ecosys­tems are under attack by a large open pit lime­stone mine that would cov­er 420 acres with a 26 meter deep tox­ic hole.

Over the objec­tions of the Swedish Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, and despite appeals to the Supreme Court, prepara­to­ry work for the mine is already under­way. There is a major for­est protest occu­pa­tion ongo­ing at Got­land Island against this log­ging and min­ing. Pro­test­ers have been occu­py­ing Ojnaresko­gen since July, and in recent days some 70 police offi­cers have come to remove them, and the num­ber of pro­tes­tors has risen to over 100 – rang­ing from self-described rebels against eco­cide, to fam­i­lies with small chil­dren. Despite hav­ing already start­ed clear­ing land for in excess of what had been approved, Mel­lan­skog decid­ed on Sat­ur­day to sus­pend the ongo­ing log­ging on Got­land pend­ing a deci­sion from the Supreme Court. While a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment, protest con­tin­ues until the log­ging and entire project are can­celled.

Although the acute­ly threat­ened area is “only” 170 hectares in size, the case reveals Sweden’s weak for­est pro­tec­tion leg­is­la­tion and pos­si­ble resource allo­ca­tion cor­rup­tion. Only a few per­cent of Sweden’s high con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests remain, and only 3.3 per­cent of the pro­duc­tive for­est area is pro­tect­ed. The ver­dict in this case will be used by oth­er cor­po­ra­tions to clearcut and exploit oth­er old nat­ur­al ecosys­tems in the coun­try. Eco­log­i­cal Inter­net has a long his­to­ry of suc­cess­ful­ly sup­port­ing local Scan­di­na­vian old-growth for­est pro­tec­tion move­ments. In 2009, our net­work sent 1,117,294 protest emails in a suc­cess­ful cam­paign stop­ping indus­tri­al devel­op­ment in 80% of Finland’s Cen­tral Lap­land wilder­ness, cov­er­ing tens of thou­sands of hectares. Few thought such pro­tec­tions were pos­si­ble, yet with strong local orga­niz­ing backed up by EI’s unprece­dent­ed glob­al network’s inter­na­tion­al cam­paign, it was one of many great vic­to­ries for Earth’s old forests.

(USA) Hudson Valley Earth First! Continue to Resist Fracking in New York

Res­i­dents in west­ern Orange Coun­ty began fight­ing the project over a year ago, and have tak­en every legal step pos­si­ble. FERC (the Fed­er­al Ener­gy Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion) approved the project with a 3 to 2 vote, unprece­dent­ed in their his­to­ry as a rub­ber stamp­ing revolv­ing door for indus­try. The split deci­sion was the result of an alter­na­tive site pro­posed by res­i­dents, which would involve the expan­sion of an already exist­ing com­pres­sion facil­i­ty. With their deci­sion, FERC con­firmed what we already knew, that when the inter­ests of indus­try come up against com­mu­ni­ty, the gov­ern­ment is no ally. The gas indus­try has plans to turn Min­isink and West­ern Orange Coun­ty into a hub for oper­a­tions, with anoth­er com­pres­sion sta­tion and an $800 mil­lion dol­lar nat­ur­al gas pow­er plant already in the ear­ly stages of reg­u­la­to­ry approval.

 

The com­mu­ni­ty, how­ev­er, has no plans to bow to indus­try or FERC. They have respond­ed with a promise for dai­ly action. On day 1, the site was suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed for over half the day, and only one res­i­dent was arrest­ed (he was released with­in 2 hours with a tick­et for dis­or­der­ly con­duct). On day 2, there were numer­ous work stop­pages as a result of soft block­ades (one brave indi­vid­ual was arrest­ed), vehic­u­lar inter­ven­tion, and the actions of one res­i­dent who jumped on top of a piece of heavy machin­ery (and amaz­ing­ly man­aged to avoid arrest). On day 3, around 75 peo­ple, includ­ing many chil­dren and local fam­i­lies marched from the site through town and back again to con­tin­ue to spread aware­ness about the tox­ic com­pres­sor sta­tion and strength­en resolve. On Day 4, a flash mob stopped traf­fic to the site for about an hour, with CBS news com­ing to cov­er the sto­ry. As we approach the 5th day, it remains to be seen how this cam­paign will esca­late in the near future.

One thing is cer­tain; no one in this area saw resis­tance of this mag­ni­tude com­ing. Hope­ful­ly this sig­nals a sea change in the way things have been in the Hud­son Val­ley. This bio-region has suf­fered enough sub­ur­ban­iza­tion, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, pol­lu­tion, and down­right dirty deal­ing. From Indi­an point (the nuclear plant with no evac­u­a­tion plan) to PCBs, nat­ur­al gas infra­struc­ture to green-washed incin­er­a­tor projects, we are here to let it be known that the hey­day of indus­try is over. No com­pres­sor sta­tion! No com­pro­mise! Long live the Indi­ana Bat!

The next day of action is this Sat­ur­day (10/6/12) with anoth­er march, fol­lowed by a direct action train­ing pre­sent­ed by Hud­son Val­ley Earth First! 

(USA) Tar Sands update: Blockader Locks to Underground Capsule to Protect a Family Farm

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – Mon­day, Octo­ber 1, 2012 8:00AM – A Tar Sands Block­ade pro­test­er has stopped the destruc­tion of a small fam­i­ly farm in East Texas by lock­ing him­self in front of oncom­ing Key­stone XL clear­ing equip­ment.

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – Mon­day, Octo­ber 1, 2012 8:00AM – A Tar Sands Block­ade pro­test­er has stopped the destruc­tion of a small fam­i­ly farm in East Texas by lock­ing him­self in front of oncom­ing Key­stone XL clear­ing equip­ment. Hous­ton res­i­dent, Ale­jan­dro de la Torre, 28, is tak­ing action to stop the Key­stone XL pipeline from destroy­ing the home of yet anoth­er Texas fam­i­ly threat­ened by TransCanada’s poi­so­nous tar sands slur­ry.

In a pow­er­ful dis­play of con­vic­tion, De la Torre locked his arm into a con­crete cap­sule buried direct­ly in the pro­posed path of the tox­ic pipeline. This coura­geous act is pre­vent­ing TransCanada’s unwel­comed onslaught of machines from dev­as­tat­ing prop­er­ty cap­tured through emi­nent domain abuse. Fol­low live updates on face­book and twit­ter.

“I was raised in New Orleans, so I’ve seen how local com­mu­ni­ties suf­fer at the hands of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions,” attests de la Torre. “I’m will­ing to risk arrest today to stop this tar sands pipeline because I have the priv­i­lege to help pro­tect the safe­ty of those most affect­ed. Key­stone XL endan­gers the health and safe­ty of every­one from the landown­ers and their fam­i­lies now threat­ened by can­cer caus­ing leaks, to the refin­ery com­mu­ni­ties in Hous­ton that have to breathe the dirty air, as well as peo­ple of col­or around the world who are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed by cli­mate change.”

In a sep­a­rate protest just miles away on the oth­er side of Winns­boro, Tar Sands Blockade’s aer­i­al tree protest enters into its sec­ond week. Sit­ters in plat­forms near­ly 100 feet in the air are not deterred by reck­less behav­ior on the part of TransCanada’s work crews. Despite repeat­ed warn­ing of the dan­gers on the part of the pro­test­ers, the com­pa­ny is encour­ag­ing the use of dan­ger­ous tree clear­ing equip­ment with­in feet of pro­test­ers’ trees, endan­ger­ing their lives.

Today’s block­ade comes less than a week after Tran­sCana­da super­vi­sors encour­aged law enforce­ment to bru­tal­ize two peace­ful pro­test­ers who were act­ing in defense of the largest tree block­ade in Texas his­to­ry. One of the abused pro­test­ers, Ben­jamin Franklin, explained why peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence must con­tin­ue despite the vio­lence orches­trat­ed by Tran­sCana­da, “I encour­age every­one to per­se­vere in the face of this type of sheer bru­tal­i­ty. To fol­low one’s moral com­pass in spite of extreme chal­lenges is the way we move for­ward towards a more humane, tar sands-free plan­et.”

Below is a pre­vi­ous­ly record­ed video of the landown­er, Susan Scott whose land stands to be clear-cut today, con­fronting TransCanada’s sur­vey­ors.

“Tran­sCana­da doesn’t have any local com­mu­ni­ty ties, it lies about the safe­ty of its pipeline because it cares more about mon­ey than about peo­ple,” claims Ron Seifert, spokesper­son for Tar Sands Block­ade.  “If this multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion had any com­pas­sion for East Texan’s homes, it would respect our con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed prop­er­ty rights instead of con­demn­ing the land and using it for its own pri­vate gain.”

UPDATE: 9:30AM – Police Arrive and Begin to Calm­ly Access the Sit­u­a­tion

UPDATE: 10:30AM – Tran­sCana­da Work­ers Bring­ing Shov­els and Threat­en­ing to Dig Ale­jan­dro Out

UPDATE: 11:00AM – Police Baf­fled About How to Respond – Tran­sCana­da Heli­copter Cir­cling Over­head

UPDATE: 11:30AM – Fire and Res­cue Crews Arrive With More Plain Clothes Police

UPDATE: 1:00PM – Police Steal Cam­era From Observers Stand­ing Near­by on Pri­vate Prop­er­ty

After the the tor­ture tac­tics used on our block­aders last week at the encour­age­ment of Tran­sCana­da super­vi­sors we’ve made ever effort to ensure we have observers on the scene care­ful­ly watch­ing with a video cam­era. Observers were stand­ing near­by on pri­vate prop­er­ty when police con­fis­cat­ed their cam­era! For­tu­nate­ly, TV crews are arriv­ing on the scene and hope­ful­ly they wouldn’t be sub­ject­ed to this same obstruc­tion of civ­il lib­er­ties.

UPDATE: 1:15PM – Police Attach Hand-Cuffs to Alejandro’s Ankles – Unde­terred He Holds Strong

UPDATE: 1:25PM – Police Put a Screen Around Ale­jan­dro So Observers Can’t Watch and Pro­tect Him

Since the police stole our main cam­era right now we only have pho­to of the screen tak­en far away with a cell phone cam­era. A back­up pho­tog­ra­ph­er arrived on the scene lat­er and took high def­i­n­i­tion pho­tos that we’ll upload on our flickr stream tonight.

UPDATE: 3:00PM – Police Chis­el­ing Away at the Under­ground Cap­sule That Ale­jan­dro is Locked Into

UPDATE: 3:45PM – Ale­jan­dro Has Been Arrest­ed For Help­ing Save a Fam­i­ly Farm From Key­stone XL

After delay­ing con­struc­tion for almost an entire day Ale­jan­dro has been extract­ed from the under­ground cap­sule and arrest­ed. Through his brave actions he was able to bring to light the dis­re­spect that local landown­ers have suf­fered at the hands of TransCanada’s emi­nent domain abuse and tram­pling of landown­er rights.

Sup­port Alejandro’s legal fees with a gen­er­ous dona­tion.

UPDATE: 4:00PM – Bull­doz­er Has Moved in to Lev­el More of the Fam­i­ly Farm 

After being delayed almost an entire work-day by Alejandro’s actions Key­stone XL con­struc­tion crews quick­ly moved in with machin­ery to get in at least one hour of work bull­doz­ing a local landown­ers beloved fam­i­ly farm before the end of the work day.

To per­ma­nent­ly stop this tox­ic pipeline we need more peo­ple to join us. Sign up to attend our Direct Action Train­ing Oct. 12–14th.

UPDATE: 6:00PM – Read Alejandro’s Sto­ry of How His Pas­sion For Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Moti­vates Him

“I’m will­ing to risk arrest because I have a cer­tain amount of per­son­al priv­i­lege that allows me to par­tic­i­pate. I don’t live near a Gulf refin­ery, or on land that’s at risk from a dev­as­tat­ing tar sands spill, so I’m able to play a small part in an action that will real­ly help people’s lives.  I’m here to stand up for peo­ple on the front lines because they’re being tram­pled to make way for cor­po­rate prof­its.

I’m sick of see­ing these dev­as­tat­ing affects on a per­son­al and com­mu­ni­ty lev­el and on a grand glob­al scale in which cor­po­ra­tions and their prof­its call all the shots.”

Read more of Alejandro’s sto­ry here.

UPDATE: 8:00PM – Excel­lent Cov­er­age From KLTV Chan­nel 7 – Tyler

KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jack­sonville, Texas | ETX News

UPDATE: OCTOBER 2nd, 9:00AM – Alejandro’s Bail Set at $10,000

Yes­ter­day Hous­ton res­i­dent Ale­jan­dro de la Torre delayed Key­stone XL clear cut­ting oper­a­tions on a fam­i­ly farm out­side Winns­boro, Texas for almost an entire day. De la Torre locked him­self to an under­ground cap­sule in the path­way of Key­stone XL to pro­tect the farm, say­ing sim­ply that “I’m here to stand up for peo­ple on the front lines because they’re being tram­pled to make way for cor­po­rate prof­its.” After Wood Coun­ty Sher­iff Depart­ment con­fis­cat­ed peace­ful observers camera’s they arrest­ed him for his coura­geous action.

De la Torre is cur­rent­ly being held on trumped up charges and a bail set at $10,000, an out­ra­geous sum for a non­vi­o­lent peace­ful pro­test­er. As a sup­port­er of Ale­jan­dro and the block­ade please demon­strate your sup­port with a gen­er­ous dona­tion to his bail. 

UPDATE: OCTOBER 2nd, 10:0AM- Ale­jan­dro Released!

Ale­jan­dro de la Torre has been released from Wood Coun­ty Jail. When more infor­ma­tion becomes avail­able we will update. For now, check out what Ale­jan­dro said before he was arrest­ed on our blog.

(USA) Tar Sands Blockade update (Day 9)

After yesterday’s auda­cious move by Tran­sCana­da to cut around the west side of the tree block­ade and com­plete­ly out­side of the des­ig­nat­ed Key­stone XL path­way, or ease­ment, block­aders have tak­en action.  

After yesterday’s auda­cious move by Tran­sCana­da to cut around the west side of the tree block­ade and com­plete­ly out­side of the des­ig­nat­ed Key­stone XL path­way, or ease­ment, block­aders have tak­en action.  

In the mid­dle of the night block­aders erect­ed a 30 foot high tim­ber pole in the new­ly clear-cut path­way. Life­long Tex­an Mary Ger­ma­nati has climbed atop the pole and is refus­ing to come down until the Key­stone XL pipeline is stopped for good. The pole is a free stand­ing struc­ture that’s safe­ly sup­port­ed by numer­ous life-line ropes to keep it upright. If Tran­sCana­da moves to sev­er these sup­port ropes it could seri­ous­ly injure Ger­ma­nati. Yes­ter­day their machin­ery was oper­at­ing so close that it shook the tim­ber scaf­fold­ing wall and sev­ered ropes attached to near­by trees intend­ed to keep a safe buffer between the machin­ery and the block­aders. Now that we are livestream­ing our hope is that the eyes of the world will pre­vent them from reck­less­ly endan­ger­ing peace­ful pro­tes­tors.

UPDATE: 9:00AM – Sher­iff Arrives and Tries to Talk Block­ad­er Down From Her Pole

UPDATE: 10:00AM – Livestream is Down Due to Tech­ni­cal Dif­fi­cul­ties 

Sor­ry folks, we’re doing our best down here in the back­woods of East Texas. Thanks for your patience as we attempt to bring you live footage of the tree block­ade. You can help us buy the tech­ni­cal equip­ment we need to con­tin­u­al­ly improve the qual­i­ty of the cov­er­age.

UPDATE: 11:00AM – Work­ers and Sher­iff Unsure How to Get Mary Down – Sit­u­a­tion is Steady

Block­aders on the ground have been talk­ing with Tran­sCana­da work­ers to explain how they are unable to pro­ceed with today’s clear-cut­ting oper­a­tion because Mary is secure­ly up a 40 foot pole in their path­way. Work­ers and the sher­iff are unsure how to get Mary down from her block­ade. A Tran­sCana­da work­er is film­ing every­one, hence we’ve been wear­ing masks for our own legal pro­tec­tion.

UPDATE: 1:00PM – Tran­sCana­da Work­ers in the Dis­tance – Mary Hold­ing Strong After yesterday’s close encoun­ters with TransCanada’s heavy machin­ery oper­at­ing dan­ger­ous­ly close to peace­ful tree block­aders things are calm today. It seems that Mary’s pres­ence on a 40 foot pole in the clear-cut path of the Key­stone XL has deterred their oper­a­tions for the day. Work­ers and police are still milling around on the ground. The only sound audi­ble from the tree block­ade is a wood-chip­per and exca­va­tor mov­ing slash piles of felled trees fur­ther away along the clear-cut scar. Hold strong Mary!

UPDATE: 5:00PM – Mary’s Action Stopped All New Clear-Cut­ting Today

Life­long Tex­an Mary Ger­ma­nati remains qui­et­ly perched on top of her 40 foot pole in the mid­dle of Key­stone XL clear-cut­ting site. Tran­sCana­da work­ers and police, unsure of how to deal with Mary, avoid­ed her all day and didn’t bring the heavy machin­ery back to the clear-cut they had begun the day before. About a dozen work­ers on foot and  four-wheel­ers roamed around on the ground.


Video stream­ing by Ustream


Video stream­ing by Ustream

“Extreme gas” project proposal gets heated response in Wells

A packed pub­lic meet­ing at Wells Town Hall on Tues­day night, gave a heat­ed response to the pro­pos­als by UK Methane to car­ry out test drilling for Coalbed Methane in Som­er­set.

A packed pub­lic meet­ing at Wells Town Hall on Tues­day night, gave a heat­ed response to the pro­pos­als by UK Methane to car­ry out test drilling for Coalbed Methane in Som­er­set.

Over a hun­dred peo­ple came to hear about the pro­pos­als from the devel­op­ers and protest groups in a bal­anced debate.  In the event, the devel­op­ers rep­re­sent­ed by Mr. Ger­wyn Williams of UK Methane pulled out just hours before the meet­ing start­ed leav­ing the floor to the oppo­si­tion.  The meet­ing was orga­nized by the alliance of groups under the umbrel­la of Frack Free Som­er­set.

Coalbed Methane is one of a num­ber of inter­re­lat­ed ‘extreme gas’ extrac­tion tech­nolo­gies (includ­ing frack­ing for shale gas, and under­ground coal gasi­fi­ca­tion). Coalbed Methane is a process for extract­ing gas from coal seams fair­ly close to the sur­face.

Som­er­set res­i­dents heard from speak­ers rep­re­sent­ing var­i­ous oppo­si­tion groups includ­ing Tran­si­tion Keyn­sham, Frack Off, and Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide.

Lau­ra Cor­field from Tran­si­tion Keyn­sham detailed how UK Methane are about to sub­mit a plan­ning appli­ca­tion to car­ry out test drilling in the Hicks Gate area of Keyn­sham to Bath and North East Som­er­set Coun­cil.

She said:  “All Som­er­set res­i­dents should be con­cerned about these pro­pos­als and it is vital that they now lodge their objec­tions to UK Methane’s plan­ning appli­ca­tion.  If we don’t stop them now, we can expect drilling rigs all over Som­er­set, endan­ger­ing our water sup­plies and local envi­ron­ment.”

Edward Lloyd-Davies from the nation­al group ‘Frack Off’ relat­ed the mul­ti­ple prob­lems expe­ri­enced in the US and Aus­tralia where coalbed methane has been going on for some years.  These include methane escapes, con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of drink­ing water, huge quan­ti­ties of pro­duced water con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with tox­ic salts need­ing dis­pos­al and sub­si­dence.  He pro­duced esti­mates of the poten­tial extent of drilling in Som­er­set based on infor­ma­tion from UK Methane’s Aus­tralian par­ent com­pa­ny. This indi­cat­ed up to 2100 drilling sites with exten­sive gas pipelines across the Som­er­set coun­try­side.

A spokesper­son from Ris­ing Tide said: “It is no good this indus­try claim­ing that they will do it dif­fer­ent­ly in the UK because we have tighter reg­u­la­tion.  The licens­ing regime for the ‘extreme gas’ in the UK is based on off-shore oil extrac­tion.  Reg­u­la­tion falls between the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change, the Envi­ron­ment Agency, the Health and Safe­ty Exec­u­tive and local plan­ning author­i­ties and is total­ly unco­or­di­nat­ed.  Expe­ri­ence in Lan­cashire has shown one com­pa­ny oper­at­ing out­side its plan­ning per­mis­sion and in con­tra­ven­tion of its plan­ning con­di­tions.”

Wells Town Coun­cil­lor, Chris Briton chaired the meet­ing and heard local res­i­dents express strong con­cerns about pol­lu­tion of drink­ing water and local rivers and envi­ron­men­tal impacts on the Som­er­set coun­try­side.

The audi­ence was over­whelm­ing­ly opposed the UK Methane’s pro­pos­als.

(USA) Love and Rebellion in the East Texas Woods

I’m writ­ing to ya’ll from a safe space near­by the Tar Sands Block­ade in rur­al east Texas.  Ear­ly this week, heed­ing the call of friends and com­rades already on site, we assem­bled a crew of Earth First!ers from the North­east US and made the 30+ hour dri­ve to the site to pro­vide cru­cial rein­force­ment.  The tree vil­lage set up on site is one of the most fan­tas­tic things we’ve ever seen, and the emerg­ing pic­tures on the inter­net do it no jus­tice. Down below the pods, hideous mon­sters in the form of mas­sive feller bunch­ers and doz­ers fill the air with the heinous sounds of cor­po­rate eco­cide: mechan­i­cal whirs, saw­ing, and worst of the all the sound of beau­ti­ful trees hun­dreds of years old falling to their death, dri­ving wildlife from their homes.

Yes­ter­day a feller bunch­er began clear­ing through a sec­tion of the for­est, rapid­ly advanc­ing towards one of the tree sit­ters.  Clear­ly print­ed in large let­ters on the side of the death machine read a warn­ing to stay back at least 500 feet.  A rov­ing team on the ground that I was part of began cat-and-mou­s­ing the feller bunch­er, try­ing to keep our com­rade in the tree safe.  On the ground two Tran­sCana­da work­ers and one local sher­iff oper­at­ing as an armed mer­ce­nary of the cor­po­ra­tion over­saw the oper­a­tions, try­ing to move through the felled trees to push back our crew from the clear cut site.  We con­tin­ued to advance, deter­mined not only to pro­tect our com­rade above in the canopy but to push them back and show them that we are not scared and that we will RESIST.  At one point as we had just watched the feller bunch­er take down an 80 foot water oak not 40 feet away from the sit­ter and we heard our friend scream­ing from above plead­ing for the safe­ty of their life, I ran towards the machine about 25 feet away mak­ing eye con­tact with the dri­ver who con­tin­ued to oper­ate the machine and yelling to Tran­sCana­da and their bought and paid sher­iff that we would not stay back, that they were going to kill our friend if they con­tin­ued to advance and they were required by law to stop the machine.  The sher­iff approached say­ing that “they” (speak­ing as if they were actu­al­ly part of TC) weren’t com­ing any fur­ther at that point and they turned the machine around to con­tin­ue clear cut­ting.  A crew of 7 of us held our ground and remained in defense of the sit­ter on the oppo­site side of a creek where we were forced to watch tree after tree fall. A dense part of the for­est was instant­ly turned in to a morose tree morgue.

 

Over­come with emo­tions, hav­ing nev­er seen a clearcut myself and cer­tain­ly hav­ing nev­er faced down a mas­sive feller bunch­er, I moved back through the clearcut, across the creek where our friend sat above us in a tree.  Feel­ing the ener­gy com­ing from the mer­ci­less­ly mauled fresh tree stumps, I lay over a large one cry­ing uncon­trol­lably as I watched the remain­ing few trees off in the dis­tance be cut and wres­tled out of place. I angri­ly con­tem­plat­ed the enor­mi­ty of the cor­po­rate state, the can­cer that is cap­i­tal­ism, and the injus­tice of the entire sit­u­a­tion. Com­rades were there to com­fort me and togeth­er we all walked away from the hor­ri­ble scene feel­ing renewed in our fight and cer­tain in our deci­sion to come to Texas to fight this mad­ness and call atten­tion to this scene.

As I write this now I’m receiv­ing word from the site that they’re cut­ting in from the south side, only 20 feet away from the sit­ter we spent yes­ter­day pro­tect­ing.  North from there at the wall that y’all have seen pho­tos of ear­li­er this week, sev­er­al of our friends’ lives are at risk and trees are being cut dan­ger­ous­ly close. TC is now clear­ing from the west side of the site, attempt­ing to box our site in and pre­sum­ably make way for cher­ry pick­ers and oth­er extrac­tion devices.

One of the locals who is cur­rent­ly resist­ing the Key­stone XL pipeline in sol­i­dar­i­ty with sev­er­al local landown­ers shared sto­ries with a few of us.  It is absolute­ly clear that Tran­sCana­da is pay­ing off local law enforce­ment offi­cers.  In addi­tion TC is relent­less­ly try­ing to serve peo­ple with law­suits, putting gag orders on landown­ers who had pre­vi­ous­ly been strong allies, and buy­ing off oth­ers.  Yes­ter­day one of our key allies awoke to TC in their yard with a big feller bunch­er.  TC had promised them mul­ti­ple times both ver­bal­ly and in for­mal­ly writ­ten depo­si­tions that they would give “fair” notice before begin­ning to destroy their land.  It seems like TC knew that this area is quick­ly receiv­ing an influx of resisters and gave this landown­er no warn­ing, know­ing that we’d have cer­tain­ly act­ed at that site.

Despite the sit­u­a­tion we are keep­ing spir­its high.  Last night I came out of the woods with three com­rades to head to a safe space to write this com­mu­nique to y’all.  We were excit­ed to find that many new friends and many famil­iar faces had arrived to rein­force the site.  We’re here for the long haul and are ask­ing y’all to come down to help defend our friends in the trees and stand up to Tran­sCana­da and their dirty pipeline.  What we’re doing is not enough, but there is strength in num­bers and with the aid of more friends we can turn up the heat on TC.  There are many oppor­tu­ni­ties to plug in in var­i­ous ways here and the pipeline is going in all across this region.  There are many allies and a sup­port­ive cam­paign.  We sit here anx­ious­ly wait­ing to re-join our com­rades and wor­ried for their safe­ty, and eager to return to the woods and keep up the fight.  We hope to see you in the woods.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty & For the Wild,

Your Anony­mous Com­rade

(Australia) Newcastle residents protest health effects of proposed 4th coal terminal

New­cas­tle res­i­dents and activists dressed in med­ical gowns protest­ed the lack of con­sid­er­a­tion of health and cli­mate change effects in the pro­posed build­ing of a fourth coal ter­mi­nal at the port of New­cas­tle, already the world’s largest coal port. A peace­ful protest and ‘lock­on’ occurred out­side The office of NSW Min­is­ter for Plan­ning Brad Haz­zard last Thurs­day who is due to con­sid­er the mer­its of the pro­pos­al.

Relat­ed: Newcastle’s T4 project puts short-term prof­it before health | Some­thing in the air: time for inde­pen­dent test­ing in coal areas | Coal Ter­mi­nal Action Group

Dressed as doc­tors and patients, about 20 pro­tes­tors hold­ing ban­ners and plac­ards occu­pied the front steps of Gov­er­nor Mac­quar­ie Tow­er at 1 Far­rer Place, Syd­ney.

Two cam­paign­ers were allowed in to meet with Min­is­ter Haz­zard’s staff. They spent 25 min­utes dis­cussing the 4th ter­mi­nal and relay­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s con­cerns over health and cli­mate and request­ed a pub­lic meet­ing in New­cas­tle with the Min­is­ter.

On the steps of the build­ing Spokesper­son Alex McIn­nis said “We are here because there are plans to expand New­cas­tle coal port, which is going to hurt the health of the com­mu­ni­ty because of the impact of coal dust. It’s also going to dam­age our farm­land and cli­mate.”

“So, we’ve come to Min­is­ter for Plan­ning Brad Haz­zard’s office to urge him to reject the planned expan­sion of the coal port and lis­ten to the com­mu­ni­ties con­cerns over health and put those con­cerns in front of the inter­ests of the coal com­pa­nies and reject the coal ter­mi­nal.” she said.

Anoth­er pro­tes­tor dressed in a med­ical gown said: “We are here today because in the res­pi­ra­to­ry unit the asth­ma caused by coal dust in the Hunter region and New­cas­tle is a seri­ous health haz­ard. We are ask­ing Min­is­ter Haz­zard not to allow the pro­posed 4th coal ter­mi­nal in New­cas­tle to go ahead.”

Police attend­ed and asked the pro­tes­tors to move. Some vol­un­tar­i­ly left the steps. Two pro­tes­tors in med­ical gowns refused and had their locks removed by the Police Res­cue Squad and were tak­en away and arrest­ed.

 

A steep drop in coal prices and reduced Demand for coal has caused many coal com­pa­nies like Rio Tin­to and Xstra­ta to shelve expan­sion plans in the Hunter Val­ley and cut jobs.

The fourth coal ter­mi­nal at New­cas­tle pro­posed by Port Waratah Coal Ser­vices will expand coal export capac­i­ty from 210 to 330 mil­lion tonnes each year, yet the demand for coal appears to be falling. Min­ing and trans­port of this coal will dou­ble the coal dust pol­lu­tion from coal trains, piles and coal load­ers that peo­ple breath in towns through­out the Hunter Val­ley.

Med­ical aca­d­e­mics have argued that Newcastle’s T4 project puts short-term prof­it before health. Pub­lic health and com­pre­hen­sive health mon­i­tor­ing has tak­en sec­ond place in coal regions to the argu­ments in favour of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. The long term health costs are sim­ply nev­er fac­tored into the eco­nom­ic costs.

The med­ical and health issues of coal are well known. Coal dust con­tributes to asth­ma, can­cer, heart dis­ease and stroke and it inter­feres with lung devel­op­ment and com­pro­mis­es intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty. In the US there has been health cost­ing data gath­ered show­ing that if the cost of dis­ease result­ing from coal was paid for by the coal and pow­er indus­tries it would almost dou­ble the cost of elec­tric­i­ty. Up to 50,000 deaths each year in the US are attrib­uted to pol­lu­tion from pow­er plants. A 2009 report by Physi­cians for Social Respon­si­bil­i­ty (USA) out­lined ‘Coal’s Assault on Human Health’ and the need to phase out coal on health, ener­gy and cli­mate grounds.

In Aus­tralia we have a woe­ful record of pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing and assess­ing health costs from coal. A good start to address­ing the imbal­ance between eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and health would be estab­lish­ing com­pre­hen­sive pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing done reg­u­lar­ly and inde­pen­dant­ly for all coal areas — mines, trans­port cor­ri­dors, ports, coal fired pow­er sta­tions and near­by res­i­den­tial areas — at the expense of the coal indus­try and make the data pub­licly avail­able. Read more at Some­thing in the air: time for inde­pen­dent test­ing in coal areas.

The Coal Ter­mi­nal Action Group is rais­ing mon­ey to mon­i­tor coal dust in sub­urbs between the Hunter Val­ley coal mines and Newcastle’s port.

Doc­tors for the Envi­ron­ment in their sub­mis­sion and com­ment on the Envi­ron­ment Impact state­ment said :“From the data pre­sent­ed, New­cas­tle is a pol­lut­ed town with like­ly exist­ing health impacts and now we have a pro­pos­al that will undoubt­ed­ly increase pol­lu­tion. It is not that Aus­tralia needs to make this sac­ri­fice for ener­gy secu­ri­ty, as alter­na­tives to burn­ing coal for ener­gy cur­rent­ly exist. Fur­ther­more the mor­bid­i­ty and mor­tal­i­ty con­ferred on the world’s peo­ple by the export of this coal would not be insignif­i­cant.”

Sources:

is a cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist from Mel­bourne Aus­tralia who has been writ­ing on cli­mate change, sci­ence and protests since 2004. This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at Aus­tralia Indy­media

BBC Investigates Opencast Mining

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

A small vil­lage, of just 75 house­holds, is all that may stand between pre­serv­ing large sec­tions of the Eng­lish coun­try­side and the expressed desire of the UK Min­er­al Extrac­tion Indus­try to see more per­mis­sions giv­en to exploit­ing England’s min­er­al resources in areas that are more envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive and / or are clos­er to where peo­ple live.

The unfor­tu­nate vil­lage is Hal­ton Lea Gate, locat­ed on the Cum­bria / Northum­ber­land bor­der and near an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty. A team from the BBC’s Coun­r­ty­file pro­gramme was film­ing there recent­ly to inves­ti­gate why this spot now finds itself on the front line of a nation­al plan­ning con­tro­ver­sy.

 In ear­ly August, after a Pub­lic Inquiry into an Appeal to grant per­mis­sion for an Open­cast Mine, the Inspec­tor found in favour of the Appli­cant. The sting in the tale, for all oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in Eng­land, is the rea­son­ing giv­en by the Inspec­tor to allow the Appeal. His rea­son­ing set a new case law prece­dent, it is argued, which affects all future min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions in Eng­land.

 What the Appli­cant has to repli­cate in the future, is the argu­ment used here: that there is a nation­al need for the min­er­al in ques­tion, in this case coal. If they can per­suade the Plan­ning Author­i­ty (or the Inspec­tor, if the Appli­ca­tion has gone to an Appeal) that this is the case, then ‘great weight’ has to be attached to this claim. So much weight it seems, that this fac­tor alone may over­ride all oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions.  (1)

This sit­u­a­tion has arisen as a con­se­quence of the Gov­ern­ment imple­ment­ing the new Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work. In the time lead­ing up to the 2010 elec­tion, lob­by­ing organ­i­sa­tions such as Coal­pro and the CBI lob­bied long and hard for a relax­ation of the plan­ning rules for min­er­al extrac­tion. (2) It seems, from this exam­ple, the first Pub­lic Inquiry for min­er­al extrac­tion to be held under the new rules, that their efforts have been reward­ed. The advice of the Inspec­tor has now gone to the Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ties and Local Gov­ern­ment to be con­firmed or reject­ed by a Min­is­ter.

The BBC came to inves­ti­gate the issue and explore why local peo­ple have tak­en on the task of rais­ing £40,000 so that they can mount a Judi­cial Review over the deci­sion. If local peo­ple are suc­cess­ful in rais­ing the mon­ey and mount­ing a suc­cess­ful action, they may have pre­vent­ed the flood­gates from open­ing and saved Eng­land from expe­ri­enc­ing a rash of min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions for devel­op­ing swathes of the coun­try­side. This is now a Pub­lic Appeal, and dona­tions can be made payable to The North Pen­nines Pro­tec­tion Group, who have been one of the local groups who have opposed this Appli­ca­tion

An e peti­tion to the Gov­ern­ment has been start­ed about this plan­ning deci­sion and its impli­ca­tion for sim­i­lar plan­ning deci­sions else­where which can be signed by fol­low­ing this link:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/36985

Steve Leary for the Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work com­ment­ed

“ LAON was con­tact­ed by the BBC in the lead up to film­ing for the Coun­try­side pro­gramme. We are delight­ed to be able to coop­er­ate in the mak­ing of the pro­gramme and show why we argue that this is an issue of nation­al impor­tance which will affect oth­er com­mu­ni­ties up and down the Coun­try if the deci­sion is not changed.

We know of five oth­er open­cast mine appli­ca­tions, near Smal­ly in Der­byshire (George Farm) , Kirklees, Sth. York­shire (Dearne Lea), Trow­el in Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm) , Whit­ton­stall in Northum­ber­land ( Hood­sclose) and Gateshead  (Birk­lands) that will be affect­ed by this deci­sion if it stands.

In addi­tion, we are aware of three oth­er sites where a poten­tial appli­cant is mak­ing the final deci­sion to pro­ceed with a full appli­ca­tion in Gateshead,   Mar­ley Hill Recla­ma­tion) , Der­byshire ( Hill Top Project near Clay Cross) and Northum­ber­land  (Fer­neybeds near Wid­dring­ton Sta­tion, Northum­ber­land) which might also be affect­ed.

The issue here though, we believe, goes way beyond open­cast min­ing. It’s about relax­ing the rules around all forms of min­er­al extrac­tion from pits for sand, grav­el and clay to quar­ries for gran­ite and lime­stone to open­cast mines for coal. This is what the indus­try lob­bied for and now, it seems, the Gov­ern­ment has deliv­ered, if it upholds the Inspector’s rec­om­men­da­tion to approve the Appli­ca­tion and the Judi­cial Review fails. We there­fore urge peo­ple every­where, who cher­ish and love our coun­try­side, to sup­port both the peti­tion and the pub­lic appeal for mon­ey to take this case to a Judi­cial Review.”

The Coun­r­ty­file edi­tion of the pro­gramme is to be broad­cast on Sun­day 30th Sep­tem­ber 2012. It will include a 12 minute sec­tion on the Hal­ton Lea Gate issue.

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Ref­er­ences

1)   For more infor­ma­tion on the sig­nif­i­cance of this deci­sion as far as open­cast mine appli­ca­tions are con­cerned see  LAON PR7 here

http://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/2754

2)   Evi­dence about the lob­by­ing to relax these plan­ning rules can be found here.

Brief­ing Note E2 “Ener­gy Pol­i­cy and the Pro­posed Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work,” MOPG 2011  @

http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/mopg-briefing-notes-series.html

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ABOUT LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It  func­tions as a medi­um through to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions through which any per­son / group can com­mu­ni­cate ideas, infor­ma­tion, requests for infor­ma­tion and pos­si­bly con­cert­ed actions if we find a tar­get. In addi­tion feel free to invite any oth­er per­son / group who oppose open­cast min­ing appli­ca­tions, to join the net­work so that it grows. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land, Scot­land, Wales, Northum­ber­land, Co Durham, Leeds, Kirklees Not­ting­hamshire, Der­byshire, Leices­ter­shire and Wal­sall.

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ https://twitter.com/Seftonchase

Anti Opencast Coal March in Clay Cross

A march is tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber to show the strength of oppo­si­tion to any pro­pos­al to seek to open­cast mine on the Hill­top Project site. For more info see

http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/events/2774

A march is tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber to show the strength of oppo­si­tion to any pro­pos­al to seek to open­cast mine on the Hill­top Project site. For more info see

http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/events/2774