Category: Climate Chaos

26th Feb Climate Rushes — north and south

North­ern Cli­mate Rush — Rush on UK Coal!

North­ern Cli­mate Rush — Rush on UK Coal!

Fresh from their Man­ches­ter Air­port incur­sion, North­ern Cli­mate Rush is back, and we are pay­ing a vis­it to the UK’s largest coal com­pa­ny! We will be trav­el­ling by minibus to the head­quar­ters of UK Coal in Don­cast­er. Meet in front of the Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dent Union build­ing at 1pm on Thurs­day Feb 26. Dress in Edwar­dian fash­ion (if you so desire) and bring food to share, ban­ners, and musi­cal instru­ments.

WHAT IS NORTHERN CLIMATE RUSH?

It’s a group of intre­pid activists who, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from the suf­fragettes, use civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to bring about a tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my. We believe that, giv­en gov­ern­men­t’s total fail­ure to take mean­ing­ful action on cli­mate change, a cam­paign of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence is nec­es­sary, and in fact it is the only respon­si­ble way for­ward, giv­en that the fate of all future gen­er­a­tions rests on the deci­sions that are made now and in the next cou­ple of years.

Our sis­ter group of Cli­mate Rush­ers in the South will be pay­ing a vis­it to a coal indus­try awards cer­e­mo­ny in Lon­don on the same day.

WHY UK COAL?

Coal com­pa­nies such as UK Coal are active­ly stand­ing in the way of the nec­es­sary tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my based on renew­ables. They invest in new coal mines, and by lob­by gov­ern­ment against the changes need­ed for a tran­si­tion to alter­na­tives.

HOW CAN WE LIVE WITHOUT COAL?

Var­i­ous recent sci­en­tif­ic reports* have shown how the UK could tran­si­tion from fos­sil fuels, to a low-car­bon econ­o­my. We would have to switch to renew­able pow­er sources (main­ly wind and wave) and reduce our ener­gy con­sump­tion by fly­ing much less, by reduc­ing the use of pri­vate cars by cre­at­ing a vast­ly improved pub­lic trans­port sys­tem, by ensur­ing that with­in the next few years all UK homes and build­ings are prop­er­ly insu­lat­ed, and by requir­ing all appli­ances to have the high­est stan­dard of ener­gy effi­cien­cy.

WHAT ABOUT JOBS?

Dur­ing the min­ers’ strikes of the 70’s and 80’s most coal mines in the UK were deep pit mines, which required hun­dreds of min­ers to work them. But now most of the coal that can be deep-mined has already been dug up, and new UK coal mines are open-cast — huge dig­gers are used to rip the top off a hill, and then coal is sift­ed from the rub­ble. It is tremen­dous­ly destruc­tive to local ecolo­gies, and also employs far few­er work­ers.

By con­trast the cre­ation of new wind and wave-pow­er infra­struc­ture, a pro­gram of build­ing insu­la­tion instal­la­tion, and lay­ing on more trains, trams and bus­es, would all cre­ate new, sus­tain­able jobs. We are call­ing for gov­ern­ment to pro­vide train­ing pro­grams so that work­ers from fos­sil fuel indus­tries which need to be phased out can move direct­ly into posi­tions in the new, sus­tain­able indus­tries.

It’s now or nev­er time for the cli­mate, join us!

All gen­ders wel­come.

* See for exam­ple:
— Nico­las Stern, “Stern Review of the Eco­nom­ics of Cli­mate Change”, http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/stern.htm

- Tyn­dall Cen­tre for Cli­mate Change Research, “Decar­bon­is­ing the UK”, http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/media/news/tyndall_decarbonising_the_uk.pdf

northernclimaterush@googlemail.com
http://www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com

————-

UK Coal will be pre­sent­ing cel­e­bra­to­ry awards to the most dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies in the coal indus­try on Feb­ru­ary 26th Feb­ru­ary at the Land­mark Hotel on Maryle­bone Road, Lon­don. Cli­mate Rush will be in atten­dance to offer alter­na­tive awards based on the eco­log­i­cal dam­age that the coal indus­try is inflict­ing on the envi­ron­ment.

We invite you to join us in your best cock­tail fin­ery (fab­u­lous hats a rec­om­men­da­tion, and sooty styling a sug­ges­tion) to show UK Coal pre­cise­ly what “indus­try play­ers can expect to chal­lenge them in 2009.”

NO NEW COAL AWARDS

THURSDAY 26TH FEBRUARY

THE LANDMARK HOTEL
Dress for­mal­ly for cock­tails in the Win­ter Gar­den at 6.30 prompt.

WHAT CLIMATE RUSH SAYS TO THE UK COAL AWARDS

No new coal to avoid run­away cli­mate change
Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel, and by far the dirt­i­est way to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty. We must leave coal in the ground and not build any new coal fired pow­er sta­tions if we want to avoid run­away cli­mate change. CCS is an unproven tech­nol­o­gy that may nev­er be a viable option. Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now and we must act now to stop it.

We can’t have infi­nite growth on a finite plan­et
At this out­dat­ed and fos­silized awards cer­e­mo­ny UK Coal is cel­e­brat­ing the worst excess­es of our fail­ing eco­nom­ic sys­tem. Just like over­paid bankers these heads of cor­po­ra­tions are receiv­ing plau­dits for plun­der­ing the plan­et.

A tran­si­tion to a low car­bon soci­ety with sus­tain­able jobs
We must coun­ter­act any jobs loss­es from the coal indus­try with a major re-skilling pro­gram in sus­tain­able trades. Many more jobs will be cre­at­ed by a huge retro­fitting pro­gram of old hous­ing stock and in the new renew­able ener­gies sec­tor than in new coal. The Ger­man clean ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion has seen the cre­ation of 250,000 new jobs.

http://climaterush.co.uk/

Plane Stupid turns Southampton Airport into climate refugee camp

17th Jan­u­ary: A group of activists from local anti-avi­a­tion group Plane Stu­pid Southamp­ton have just chained them­selves to the entrance of Southamp­ton air­port and erect­ed tents at the main entrance in a bid turn the region­al air­port into a cli­mate refugee camp.

Southampton airport climate refugee camp17th Jan­u­ary: A group of activists from local anti-avi­a­tion group Plane Stu­pid Southamp­ton have just chained them­selves to the entrance of Southamp­ton air­port and erect­ed tents at the main entrance in a bid turn the region­al air­port into a cli­mate refugee camp. In addi­tion to set­ting up camp today, activists have for­mal­ly sub­mit­ted a plan­ning appli­ca­tion with East­leigh Bor­ough Coun­cil to turn the air­port into refugee hous­ing.

The planned expan­sion of Southamp­ton air­port, along with 34 oth­er region­al air­ports in the UK, will do enough dam­age to the cli­mate to force an esti­mat­ed 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple in impov­er­ished parts of the world to flee rais­ing sea lev­els, flood­ing, drought and famine.

Increased fly­ing is one of the main cul­prits of cli­mate change. While the gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted the UK to reduc­ing CO2 emis­sions by 80% by 2050, the expand­ing avi­a­tion indus­try alone would destroy any hope of hit­ting this tar­get. BAA hopes to increase pas­sen­ger traf­fic for Southamp­ton Air­port form 1.5 mil­lion pas­sen­gers a year to 3 mil­lion by 2015.

In order to get fly­ing under con­trol, the gov­ern­ment needs to halt all air­port expan­sion, and encour­age peo­ple to take the train. Train jour­neys are ten times less dam­ag­ing to the cli­mate, and Southamp­ton has excel­lent rail links to the rest of the UK, mak­ing fly­ing unnec­es­sary.

“Peo­ple in the UK fly more per capi­ta than any­one else, so the UK avi­a­tion indus­try has the great­est respon­si­bil­i­ty for the con­se­quences of cli­mate change. It makes per­fect sense for Southamp­ton to take on the bur­den of hous­ing some of the world’s cli­mate refugees”, said Pete Bark­er of Plane Stu­pid. “It’s crazy to imag­ine that we can tack­le the seri­ous threat posed by run­away cli­mate change whilst still allow­ing air­ports to expand.”

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

Plane Stupid activists accuse Ed Milliband of plane hypocracy

12th Febu­rary 2008

Miliband interrupted12th Febu­rary 2008
Plane Stu­pid Brighton Activists have inter­rupt­ed a pub­lic meet­ing dur­ing a speech by Ed Miliband MP, Sec­re­tary of State for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change, unveil­ing a ban­ner high­light­ing the hyp­o­crit­i­cal actions of the gov­ern­ment in rela­tion to avi­a­tion and cli­mate change. The action expos­es the con­tra­dic­tion between the gov­ern­men­t’s stat­ed aim to cut 80% of CO2 emis­sions by 2050 and their plans to mas­sive­ly expand the avi­a­tion sec­tor in the UK. The ban­ner accus­es the gov­ern­ment of becom­ing a “Hypoc­ra­cy” — a democ­ra­cy gov­erned by hyp­ocrites.

The Plane Stu­pid activists dressed in t‑shirts read­ing ‘Ed’s Pop­u­lar Mobi­liza­tion Team’ refer­ring to Miliband’s call late last year for ‘Pop­u­lar Mobi­liza­tion’ on the issue of Cli­mate Change[2]. Fly­ers list­ing the 34 air­ports planned for expan­sion with­in the UK[1] were hand­ed out to the audi­ence, demon­strat­ing the appar­ent lack of gov­ern­ment resolve for tack­ling the envi­ron­men­tal issues that are cru­cial for safe-guard­ing our future. Demon­strat­ing their dis­ap­proval of the gov­ern­ments un-demo­c­ra­t­ic pan­der­ing to cor­po­rate inter­ests, the audi­ence made paper aero­planes, which took flight in the direc­tion of Ed Miliband.

“It is all very well for Ed Miliband to request the pub­lic to take action but it is time for the gov­ern­ment to pro­vide real lead­er­ship in tack­ling cli­mate change.” Said Lar­ry from Plane Stu­pid, “pass­ing the buck is not an option if we are to avoid the chaos and loss of life Cli­mate Change is pre­dict­ed to bring.” The activists feel that their actions demon­strate their will­ing­ness to take respon­si­bil­i­ty in mobil­is­ing around the issue of Cli­mate Change, and expect the gov­ern­ment to sim­i­lar­ly accom­pa­ny their rhetoric with strong action.

“The gov­ern­men­t’s far­ci­cal plans for air­port expan­sion are incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing the required tar­gets for pre­vent­ing run­away cli­mate change. We are engag­ing with the demo­c­ra­t­ic process in every way we know how, but at the same time the gov­ern­ment has hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed con­tin­ued air­port expan­sion.” Said Clare, one of the activists Brighton Plane Stu­pid.

Last year Ed Miliband cham­pi­oned the Cli­mate Change Bill, yet in Jan­u­ary he under­mined this by sup­port­ing a Third Run­way at Heathrow. The actions of Plane Stu­pid at this meet­ing high­light the incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty of these two posi­tions, and chal­lenge not only Ed Miliband but the Labour gov­ern­ment in gen­er­al to be held account­able for their com­mit­ments. Their actions sim­i­lar­ly chal­lenge Nan­cy Platt, Labour Par­ty can­di­date, who will poten­tial­ly per­pet­u­ate this style of gov­ern­ment which is so full of promis­es, and yet so devoid of con­vic­tion. The demo­c­ra­t­ic struc­tures in place have been wor­ry­ing­ly bypassed not only dur­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion on Heathrow, but also on Stanst­ed’s sec­ond run­way; where BAA has had more say than both local coun­cils and respect­ed sci­en­tif­ic orga­ni­za­tions, who oppose the planned expan­sions. There is a con­cern that these rigged con­sul­ta­tion pro­ce­dures may become com­mon­place, and this is what the activists do not want.

Brighton Plane Stu­pid activist Lucy stat­ed “Any­one with as much access to sci­ence as Ed Miliband knows that the avi­a­tion indus­try can­not con­tin­ue to expand. Miliband and a host of oth­er MP’s have failed us on Heathrow, prov­ing their words to be as reli­able as quick­sand, the glob­al envi­ron­men­tal sit­u­a­tion does not allow us enough time to see this track record of deceit and hypocrisy grow”.

Mr Mil­liband was inter­rupt­ed but not obstruct­ed from mak­ing his speech in sup­port of the Labour Par­ty can­di­date Nan­cy Platt at the Brighthelm Cen­tre in Brighton.

Ends

———————————————————————————————————————————————

[1] Tak­en from the Gov­ern­men­t’s White Paper ‘The Future of Air Trans­port’ Decen­m­ber 2003
http://www.dft.gov.uk/about/strategy/whitepapers/air/utureofairtransportwhite5694.pdf
Accessed Feb 1 2009

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/3681149/Ed-Miliband-urges-popular-mobilisation-to-tackle-climate-change.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/08/ed-miliband-climate-politics-environment
Accessed Feb 1 2009

Manchester students occupy roof of Royal Bank of Scotland

Around 35 stu­dents held a cli­mate change ‘Evic­tion Demon­stra­tion’ out­side (and on top of) a Roy­al Bank of Scot­land branch at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union on Wednes­day 11th Feb­ru­ary 2009.

Evict RBS flyerEvict RBS rooftop demoAround 35 stu­dents held a cli­mate change ‘Evic­tion Demon­stra­tion’ out­side (and on top of) a Roy­al Bank of Scot­land branch at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union on Wednes­day 11th Feb­ru­ary 2009. The group from Peo­ple and Plan­et have sub­mit­ted a motion to the Union Gen­er­al Meet­ing propos­ing that the Union does not renew the lease for RBS’ branch when it expires in Jan­u­ary 2010.

The demo began on the steps of the Stu­dent Union at noon. RBS had hired in extra secu­ri­ty, and the cam­pus cops were sniff­ing around. So a group went to the front of the RBS and talked loud­ly of their plans for ‘rapid infor­ma­tion dessim­i­na­tion’.

Whilst this dis­trac­tion ensued, tieing up secu­ri­ty, a sec­ond group snuck round the back and climbed aboard the roof. From here they dropped ban­ners adver­tis­ing RBS’ fos­sil fuel invest­ments and adver­tis­ing the Union gen­er­al meet­ing the fol­low­ing week.

Mean­while the rapid infor­ma­tion dessim­i­na­tion went ahead with every­one rac­ing off to speak to as many peo­ple as they could in 20 min­utes before return­ing back to the RBS branch to com­pare scores.

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land pro­vid­ed $16 bil­lion for coal com­pa­nies and explo­ration projects from May 2006 to April 2008. This has includ­ed some of the dirt­i­est and most dan­ger­ous oil and gas projects includ­ing the Baku-Cey­han pipeline in Tib­lisi, Geor­gia which has been crit­i­cised by Amnesty, WWF, and Friends of the Earth for its human rights and pol­lu­tion impacts. The embed­ded emis­sions from RBS loans total more than those of the whole of Scot­land.

Toby Brett, 19, Physics Stu­dent at Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty says; “We hope to send a clear mes­sage to RBS that if they con­tin­ue with their irre­spon­si­ble invest­ments then they will not be wel­come to rent branch space from our stu­dent union.”

This action was part of a wider nation­al cam­paign call­ing for a boy­cott on RBS in Sep­tem­ber 2009.

Man­ches­ter Peo­ple and Plan­et have pre­vi­ous­ly staged a flash­mob protest against RBS at a Uni­ver­si­ty recruit­ment event
(http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21650)

And award­ed RBS a spoof green­wash award at their region­al head­quar­ters in Deans­gate.
(http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21907)

For more detail on RBS’ cli­mate crimes please vis­it:
www.peopleandplanet.org/ditchdirtydevelopment
www.oyalbankofscotland.com

Earth First! tree planting weekend in Pennines Fri 13th-Sun 15th March

The annu­al and occa­sion­al­ly hedo­nis­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First!

EF! fist tree 1The annu­al and occa­sion­al­ly hedo­nis­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First! activists in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Calderdale com­mu­ni­ty group Treespon­si­bil­i­ty we will be based in Heb­den Bridge in Calderdale. If you fan­cy a week­end of hard but sat­is­fy­ing work plant­i­ng native wood­land com­bined with good food and social­is­ing put the week­end of the 13–15th March in your diary.

Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end…

Date: Fri­day 13th — Sun­day 15th March

Venue: We will be stay­ing in a camp­ing barn with com­fy beds and heat­ing. Bring a sleep­ing bag.

Trans­port: Get your­self to Heb­den Bridge train sta­tion for a pick up at 6pm or 8pm on the 13th. Pick­ups are avail­able by arrange­ment at oth­er times if you e‑mail in advance.

Food: All food will be cooked col­lec­tive­ly and will be veg­an.

Cost: £25 for the week­end. This includes all food and acco­mo­da­tion. You’ll have to sup­ply you own beer. We will be vis­it­ing the famous Blue Pig pub­lic house on the Sat­ur­day night.

Need more info? Con­tact: treesponsibility@yahoo.co.uk or call 07983743894

Climate Camp hits the City of London on April Fools Day, the eve of the G20 leaders’ London Summit. Join us!

Climate camp 2009 /// Stopping carbon markets /// Because nature doesn’t do bailouts.

G20 CCA logo

Climate camp 2009 /// Stopping carbon markets /// Because nature doesn’t do bailouts.

First the city traders spec­u­lat­ed with our homes, jobs and mon­ey – with dis­as­trous results. Now they are spec­u­lat­ing with our cli­mate and the very future of life on earth – and once again our gov­ern­ments are cheer­ing them on.

By cre­at­ing a brain-bend­ing sys­tem of car­bon pol­lu­tion licens­es, fos­sil fuel com­pa­nies and trad­ing firms have found a way to keep on churn­ing out glob­al warm­ing gas­es and to reap huge wind­fall prof­its at the same time.
Mean­while, the UK gov­ern­ment is jus­ti­fy­ing a third run­way at Heathrow and a coal-fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth by say­ing that these new “car­bon trad­ing” schemes will mag­i­cal­ly make all their emis­sions van­ish.

They are hand­ing con­trol of our cli­mate over to the same peo­ple and sys­tems that caused the finan­cial col­lapse. All the work­able and fair alter­na­tives aren’t get­ting a look-in

We need to stop this fool­ish­ness.

We’ve camped against the Heathrow run­way, we’ve camped against the Kingsnorth coal pow­er sta­tion. Now its time to camp against the over-arch­ing prob­lem: absolute faith in unfet­tered mar­kets and end­less eco­nom­ic growth. On April 1st the G20 lead­ers arrive in Lon­don. At a time of cli­mate cri­sis their response to the mar­ket melt­down is emer­gency loans to car man­u­fac­tur­ers, increased spend­ing to encour­age con­sump­tion, and bailouts for the very peo­ple who got us into this mess — just the thing that will make the cli­mate cri­sis worse.

Don’t let them get away with it: join our camp in the Square Mile! Gath­er at noon, April 1st, at the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, Hasil­wood House, 62 Bish­ops­gate, EC2N 4AW. Bring a pop-up tent, sleep­ing bag, wind tur­bine, mobile cin­e­ma, action plans and ideas…let’s imag­ine anoth­er world.

Don’t let the finan­cial and fos­sil fools make the rules!

for updates, details on back-up plans, and mor­e­in­for­ma­tion, vis­it us again at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

To get involved, come to our plan­ning meet­ing on Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 14th in Lon­don (arrive at the library hou­use, 52 Knatch­bull, at 1 pm for a 1:30 start) or come to the gath­er­ing on March the 6th/7th in Not­ting­ham.

Email g20 [@] climatecamp.org.uk for more infor­ma­tion.

Join the announce­ments list, the face­book page and event.

Please post this link, paste this text, and oth­er­wise spread the word!

Help cel­e­brate Fos­sil Fools Day and Finan­cial Fools Day

Stop Incineration Now! SchNEWS Film and Roast Fundraiser !

Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now Film and Roast Fundrais­er -
Just released:SchNEWS Film:Wasters:The quirky & inspir­ing sto­ry of a group of cli­mate activists from Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! & Cli­mate Camp, who occu­pied the site of pro­posed Newhaven Incin­er­a­tor last year, July 2008.
Also featured:The Sto­ry of Stuff.
Announce­ment of Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Incin­er­a­tion: 11 July 2009

Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now Film and Roast Fundrais­er -
Just released:SchNEWS Film:Wasters:The quirky & inspir­ing sto­ry of a group of cli­mate activists from Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! & Cli­mate Camp, who occu­pied the site of pro­posed Newhaven Incin­er­a­tor last year, July 2008.
Also featured:The Sto­ry of Stuff.
Announce­ment of Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Incin­er­a­tion: 11 July 2009
and 2 day Car­a­van against Incineration:September 26 & 27 2009

Address: The Cow­ley Club, 12 Lon­don Road, Brighton BN1 4JA
Direc­tions: From frnt of Brighton Sta­tion, turn left down Trafal­gar St to end, then left ont o Lon­don Road, keep walk­ing till u come to Somer­fields, the Club is just a few steps fur­ther down the same road.
Near­est Pub­lic Trans­port: Bus­es on Lon­don Road, Brighton train Sta­tion
Post­code: BN1 4JA | View Map
Time: 2pm onwards
Price: Noth­ing to enter, £3.50 dona­tion for roast
Phone: 07505016362
Email: mkechnge7@wildmail.com
Web: http://stopincinerationnownetwork.wordpress.com

15 years on — Solsbury Hill anti-road resistance photo exhibition, book launch and on-line archive

Sols­bury Hill near Bath was the set­ting for an ear­ly ’90s bat­tle against road build­ing (and by exten­sion depend­ing who you talked to from the cam­paign — unsus­tain­able development/romans/global warming/industrial infra­struc­tur­al growth/spectacular society/babylon/illogical trans­port policy/the tories/civilisation.)

Sols­bury Hill near Bath was the set­ting for an ear­ly ’90s bat­tle against road build­ing (and by exten­sion depend­ing who you talked to from the cam­paign — unsus­tain­able development/romans/global warming/industrial infra­struc­tur­al growth/spectacular society/babylon/illogical trans­port policy/the tories/civilisation.)

Adri­an Arbib a pho­tog­ra­ph­er who was also active in the cam­paign (and who has worked with indige­nous groups world­wide) is pub­lish­ing a book of his pho­tos from the cam­paign and has set up a linked on-line video/document archive.

The book is being launched at a view­ing and par­ty of the Sols­bury Hill Pho­to exhib­it on Fri­day 20th Feb­ru­ary 6 — 8:30pm In the Wal­cot Chapel Gallery, Bath and over the road after to the Bell Pub.

The Exhi­bi­tion is run­ning until March 8th and the book of pho­to’s is com­ing out to coin­cide with the open­ing.
(Bring old photo’s/ news paper cuttings/ posters etc to up-load on the web page to make a big­ger archive.)

For more details and to check out the archive see: www.solsburyhill.org.uk

ps please for­ward to any con­tacts from the hill.

Climate Rush gets chained to Parliament

28 jan­u­ary 2009

Climate Rush chained to parliament28 jan­u­ary 2009
As I write this blog our MPs are debat­ing the sub­ject of the third run­way in the Com­mons. Although any deci­sion made will not be bind­ing it is pos­si­ble that there will be a labour revolt over the cur­rent deci­sion to go ahead when a vote is held at 7pm this evening. A not insignif­i­cant amount of MPs are seri­ous­ly annoyed with our gov­ern­men­t’s col­lu­sion with BAA, with two MPs decid­ing to resign over the issue this morn­ing.

Cli­mate Rush were out­side the gates of Par­lia­ment to show what they think of our far­ci­cal democ­ra­cy at 10.30am this morn­ing, cun­ning­ly bear­ing chains under large coats. It was an easy stroll over to the rail­ings and a leisure­ly pad­lock­ing ensued before any police even took any notice. Eight women and two men dressed in assort­ed Edwar­dian-style gear unfurled their lov­ing­ly sten­cilled aprons bear­ing the immor­tal DEEDS NOT WORDS, and pro­ceed­ed to smile for the atten­dant press.

After about an hour the police decid­ed to move every­one else off the area with a bit of force, before then mak­ing a u‑turn and let­ting every­one back in. They threat­ened arrest sev­er­al times, for protest­ing in a SOCPA area (you have to apply to protest any­where near Par­lia­ment) with­out a per­mit, and then for refusals to unchain. This was much to the amuse­ment of the pro-cannabis lob­by over the way in the square, who heck­led us through their mega­phone. I think they may take tips from us in the future. Tourists stopped to have their pho­tos tak­en. Suf­fragettes drank tea from a flask and ate turk­ish delight.

Even­tu­al­ly, the bolt­cut­ters arrived, and the police chopped through the chains. But still no arrests, in fact they appeared des­per­ate to avoid any arrests, clear­ly dread­ing the extra pub­lic­i­ty over our demon­stra­tion of true democ­ra­cy in action — orders seemed to change rapid­ly from whomev­er was pass­ing them down from on high. After all the Suf­fragettes had been freed a group hud­dle ensued to decide on whether to fur­ther attempt arrest, but it was decid­ed that this might prove near­ly impos­si­ble giv­en that it had already proved so dif­fi­cult, and instead we went off for a cup of tea and a plate of chips in the Methodist Church Hall cafe.

I’d like to think that some­thing sen­si­ble might occur in gov­ern­ment today, like our elect­ed politi­cians real­is­ing that build­ing a third run­way is not com­pat­i­ble with cut­ting 80% of our CO2 emis­sions, as already agreed. Alas I fear not.…
Join the fun with Cli­mate Rush if you’d like to voice your opin­ion on this mat­ter on a future date.

climaterush.co.uk

More pho­tos at http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/amelias_blog/2009/01/climate_rush_gets_chained_to_p.php

Arson attacks on luxury/railway cars, construction machines and airport fencing, Germany

26/01/09: Again cars torched

Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January
Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January
Direct Action Germany: 8th-26th January
26/01/09: Again cars torched
22/01/09: Arson attack on cars of the Ger­man Rail­way Ser­vice (Deutsche Bahn)
19/01/09: Exter­nal fence prop­er­ty of the police dam­aged
14/01/09: Three upper­class cars burned
10/01/09: Two cars and a moto burned down
09/01/09: Unknown per­sons set con­struc­tion machines in flames

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Again cars torched

Berlin, 25 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Again arsons attacks in Friedrichshain.
In the night to Sun­day, three cars got burned.
In the Elde­naer­str. a Porsche Cayenne got torched, togeth­er with a Golf parked next to it.
A few min­utes lat­er, a pass­er-by dis­cov­ered a burn­ing DHL vehi­cle in the Thaer­str.
The state secu­ri­ty took up the inves­ti­ga­tions.

Source: Berlin­er Zeitung

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Arson attack on cars of the Ger­man Rail­way Ser­vice (Deutsche Bahn)

Berlin, 22 of Jan­u­ary 2009

a claim we received:

„Attack the handy­men of the nuclear-lob­by

Before the Cas­tor’s trans­port 2008 took place, sev­er­al rail­ways line have been sab­o­taged through hook­claws in France and Ger­many. Short­ly after­wards, 9 com­rades have been arrest­ed in France, accused of mem­ber­ship with­in a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion and of being respon­si­ble of the sab­o­tages.
One of them is still in prison.

It is not a new thing, that in France one inprison activist upon antiter­ror laws. Already in Jan­u­ary 2008, it came to the impris­on­ment of five per­sons, described by cops and press as part of the „ultra­left­ists, anar­cho-autonomen“ move­ment, and they are wait­ing since then for their tri­al, in the dun­geons of the french jus­tice.

Such a way of pro­ceed­ing seems to be a strong trend with­in euro­pean author­i­ties respon­si­ble for the secu­ri­ty issues. Also the ger­man state secu­ri­ty works a lot on its ter­ror­ist-con­struc­tion, which new­ly land­ed in a tri­al against alleged mem­bers of the Mil­i­tant Group.
In Greece, 13 youths are sit­ting in prison since the begin­ning of the Decem­ber insur­rec­tion, also con­front­ed with the antiter­ror para­graph.

That is why on the 22 of Jan­u­ary we torched 5 cars of the Deutsche Bahn dur­ing the action week for the Tarnac 9.

As long as the Deutsche Bahn will keep on offer­ing its rail­ways for the nuclear trans­port, they will remain always a tar­get of our protest.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty means attack

a few „ultra-left­ists-anar­cho-autonome“.“

More pic­tures here: http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/foto/
_bin/index.php/Berliner+Zeitung/wieder_brannten_autos/2

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Exter­nal fence prop­er­ty of the police dam­aged

Frank­furt’s air­port, 19 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Mon­day the 19.1.09 one reck­oned that unknown per­sons dam­aged the exter­nal fence put by the police had been seri­ous­ly dam­aged, pre­cise­ly on its north­ern and west­ern side.

The amount of the dam­age is quite high.

Tues­day the 20.1.09, a group, which is clear­ly against the expan­sion of the air­port and calls itself „frank­furt’s gen­er­al sweep­ing blow“ (n.t.: wordgame in ger­man, the group name is almost the same as the one of the most impor­tant frank­furt’s news­pa­per), took respon­s­abil­i­ty for the attack by send­ing a claim.
Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the „frank­furt’s com­mon sweep­ing blow“!

Source: http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

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Three upper­class cars burned

Berlin, 14 of Jan­u­ary 2008

Three cars have been destroyed by arson on the ear­ly hours of wednes­day.
A pass­er byer notice a mer­cedes burn­ing in the Wiener­str. (Kreuzberg) around 2.20am and called the cops. The fire­bri­gade came to extin­guish the fire, the car got seri­ous­ly dam­aged though.

At Michaelkirch­platz, Mitte, a bmw burned around 3.15am.
Just 100m far­away, in Leuschn­er­damm, Kreuzberg, anoth­er bmw burned. The fire brigade extin­guished both fires. The cops sus­pect a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion behind the actions, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Tage­spiegel

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Two cars and a moto burned down

Berlin, 10 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Unknown per­son set last night a car and a moto on fire, in the Geth­se­manes­traße. The moto was a bmw, an opel car parked next got also dam­aged. Few min­ut­ed lat­er, cops reck­oned that an audi parked in the area was also in flames.

Since cops believe a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion behind the facts, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Tage­spiegel

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Unknown per­sons set con­struc­tion machines in flames

Berlin, 9 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Unknown per­sons set up sev­er­al con­struc­tion machines in flames, it hap­pened on a con­struc­tion site in Pankow.
Inhab­i­tants saw the flames on the spot, sit­ed in the Richard-Ermisch-straße and called the cops.
A dig­ger and two rad­lad­er got burned. State secur­tiy inves­ti­gates, since a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion is believed, there is no trace of the authors.

Source: ddp

infos about the con­struc­tion site: http://www.concepta-stadthaeuser.de/en/news/building-projects.html

Note for eng­lish speak­ing per­sons: sev­er­al lux­u­ri­ous hous­es are being build on this spot, close to an area where sev­er­al house­pro­jects are locat­ed.

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direct action news from greece
http://directactionde.blogspot.com