Category: Climate Chaos

Big Wedding vs. Big Oil — Shell Petrol Station Blockaded in Activist ‘Wedding’

A won­der­ful day, with fine weath­er, good com­pa­ny, a wed­ding and a d‑lock.

Shell 'not wedding' ceremony 1Shell 'not wedding' ceremony 2Shell 'not wedding' ceremony 3Shell 'not wedding' ceremony 4A won­der­ful day, with fine weath­er, good com­pa­ny, a wed­ding and a d‑lock.

(Images from video frame grabs, expect bet­ter qual­i­ty pho­tos and video lat­er)

Around a hun­dred peo­ple showed up in Lud­low to cel­e­brate this very spe­cial ‘wed­ding’ and take a lit­tle direct action at the same time. The ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ along with the assem­bled friends and fam­i­ly wore black, green and pur­ple to sym­bol­ise our resis­tance. The fore­court was blocked off with ban­ners and the pumps were switched off and locked up. Hymns were sungs (Danc­ing on the Ruins of Multi­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tions and the Dig­gers Song). Veg­gies served cake and tea. A hand full of cops turned up to enjoy the cer­e­mo­ny and take some pho­tos.

Best wish­es and all the best for the future to the hap­py cou­ple.…

—————

Press Release: 19th Sep­tem­ber 2008; 12 noon

Lud­low, Shrop­shire: At noon today, on the fore­court of a Shrop­shire Shell petrol sta­tion, a Leeds cou­ple will tie the knot, sup­port­ed by around 100 friends and fam­i­ly form­ing a block­ade of the petrol sta­tion. Max Gas­tone and Cath Muller’s cer­e­mo­ny in Lud­low is a protest against the eco­log­i­cal and social dam­age caused by Shell (and the con­tin­ued use of fos­sil fuels) and also a com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing a dif­fer­ent world and a cel­e­bra­tion of the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty and resis­tance.

Shell has a hor­rif­ic record of caus­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and human dev­as­ta­tion worldwide2, most famous­ly in Nigeria3. But today the wed­ding par­ty is specif­i­cal­ly tak­ing action in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Ross­port, Ire­land, where Shell is try­ing to lay a dan­ger­ous­ly high pres­sure gas pipeline, despite mas­sive local and inter­na­tion­al opposition4. Local peo­ple have had their land com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased and many have been beat­en and impris­oned for resist­ing the destruc­tion of nation­al for­est, peat­land and eco­log­i­cal­ly pre­cious mud­flats — which could be avoid­ed by build­ing the refin­ery at sea.

Ban­ners read­ing ‘Give us a wed­ding present – use your bike’ and ‘Cel­e­brat­ing a future with­out exploita­tion’ will be hung from the sta­tion. The wed­ding will include music, read­ings, a teach-in about the sit­u­a­tion in Ire­land and a cer­e­mo­ni­al action against the petrol com­pa­ny. Cars are most def­i­nite­ly not invit­ed!

ENDS

Notes for Edi­tor
1.maxandcath@hotmail.com
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/apr/03/oilandpetrol.russia
3. http://www.essentialaction.org/shell/report/
and Move­ment for the Sur­vival of the Ogo­ni Peo­ple: www.mosop.net
4.Shell to Sea cam­paign — www.corribsos.com
5.Text of the fli­er being giv­en out at the wed­ding (below)

What’s Wrong With Shell Leaflet Text

You can be sure of Shell to have only one inter­est – MONEY- mak­ing prof­its from whomev­er and what­ev­er they can. Over the hun­dred years of its exis­tence, Shell has been at the fore­front of human, ani­mal and eco­log­i­cal abuse.

Shell in Mayo, Ire­land

Since 2000 the peo­ple of Erris (on Ire­land’s remote north­west coast) have been resist­ing Shel­l’s plans for an on-land refin­ery, served by a ter­ri­fy­ing­ly dan­ger­ous high pres­sure gas pipeline. Their land has been com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased by the Irish gov­ern­ment and they have been beat­en and impris­oned. The gov­ern­ment is let­ting Shell extract the gas for free, destroy­ing nation­al for­est, peat­land and eco­log­i­cal­ly pre­cious mud­flats to do it. The Irish peo­ple will not see a pen­ny from the sale of their nat­ur­al resources. A local head­teacher is cur­rent­ly on hunger-strike and her hus­band will take over if she dies. And all because it would cost Shell two weeks’ worth of prof­it to build the refin­ery at sea.

Shell in the Niger Delta

In 1993, hav­ing had vil­lages destroyed by the lay­ing of pipelines, farm­land and rivers pol­lut­ed by oil spills and air pol­lut­ed by gas-flar­ing, the Ogo­ni peo­ple of Nige­ria forced Shell vir­tu­al­ly to aban­don their land through peace­ful protest. Shell pro­vides near­ly half of Nige­ri­a’s for­eign income and of its mil­i­tary rev­enue. In 1994, after meet­ing with Shell, the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment announced “ruth­less mil­i­tary oper­a­tions.” Shell sup­plied the guns. Dozens of vil­lages were destroyed, hun­dreds of peo­ple were mas­sa­cred. Shell offered to secure the release of nine key cam­paign­ers (includ­ing Nobel prize-win­ner Ken Saro Wiwa), if they called off the glob­al protests which had erupt­ed. They did not, and were hung in Novem­ber 1995. The peo­ples of the Niger Delta con­tin­ue to resist.

But it’s not just Shell…
BP, Total, Exxon­Mo­bil, Elf and Esso all have Niger­ian inter­ests.

Total & Tex­a­co’s oper­a­tions in Bur­ma sup­port the mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship, which uses slave labour to clear rain­for­est for oil extrac­tion in return.

Exxon­Mo­bil & Chevron sup­port the dic­ta­tor­ship in Chad and opened a pipeline from there through Cameroon’s pris­tine rain­for­est in 2003. This has opened up the for­est and its com­mu­ni­ties to ille­gal log­ging and poach­ing and the influx of a large­ly male work­force has intro­duced dis­eases, includ­ing wide­spread HIV infec­tions. Human rights abus­es have increased in both coun­tries with the flow of oil mon­ey.

BP invad­ed Aus­tralian abo­rig­i­nal land and has also sup­port­ed the Columbian secu­ri­ty forces to get rid of oppo­si­tion to its destruc­tion of the Ama­zon.

Tex­a­co is also not averse to mass Ama­zon­ian dev­as­ta­tion and forc­ing out indige­nous peo­ples, embar­go­ing Ecuador in the ’70s until the gov­ern­ment gave in to all its demands.

Now that the ice is reced­ing due to glob­al warm­ing, all the com­pa­nies are turn­ing their gaze on the Arc­tic Wildlife refuge in Alas­ka and oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties that will arise in the Arc­tic.

All these com­pa­nies prof­it from our defence of their oil-fields in Iraq and from the the scram­ble for con­trol of the gas sup­ply line through Geor­gia and Azer­bai­jan – many more wars will be fought over resources and there will always be an excuse of sov­er­eign­ty or democ­ra­cy to back up the aggres­sors.

Why do we let this hap­pen?

We are pay­ing these com­pa­nies to fuel our addic­tion to fos­sil fuels. But we are hurt­ing our­selves too:

9 peo­ple are killed on the roads every day.

1 in 10 British chil­dren now has asth­ma.

Our seden­tary lives have con­tributed to a mas­sive rise in obe­si­ty.

Motor vehi­cles burn half the world’s fos­sil fuels and cli­mate chaos due to car­bon emis­sions is begin­ning in the UK. As flood­ing and storms take their toll, we are feel­ing the effect direct­ly.
Our col­lec­tive psy­che must be dam­aged if we can accept mur­der, tor­ture, pol­lu­tion and the destruc­tion of the plan­et on which we depend – just to car­ry on our com­fort­able lifestyle.
We have allowed our­selves to become utter­ly depen­dent on fos­sil fuels for every­thing – our heat­ing, food, tex­tiles, pow­er, move­ment, enter­tain­ment, health­care. We are com­plete­ly at the mer­cy of glob­al mon­ey mar­kets, cor­po­ra­tions and rapid­ly decreas­ing nat­ur­al resources.

There are pos­i­tive, cre­ative alter­na­tives

Today we are cel­e­brat­ing the future and the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty, love and resis­tance. Two of us are get­ting mar­ried on the fore­court of this Shell petrol sta­tion to sym­bol­ise our com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing a dif­fer­ent world, based on equal­i­ty and co-oper­a­tion:

where peo­ple give accord­ing to abil­i­ty and receive accord­ing to their need

where work is ful­fill­ing and cre­ativ­i­ty encour­aged

where there are no hier­ar­chies or author­i­tar­i­an pol­i­tics

where oth­er beings and the earth are val­ued and respect­ed in their own right rather than abused,
hunt­ed, pol­lut­ed and exploit­ed for fun or greed

Where there is no dis­crim­i­na­tion and every­one has an equal say in the deci­sions which affect them

Social Alter­na­tives

This is anar­chism and we believe it is the best way out of the prob­lems cur­rent­ly fac­ing soci­ety and the plan­et. Non-hier­ar­chi­cal soci­eties have always exist­ed, although the remain­ing few are under threat from the ever-hun­gry cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem. Anti-author­i­tar­i­an and com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance is as old as time and the con­cept of ‘anar­chism’ (no hier­ar­chy) has been around for 150 years. An ever-grow­ing com­mu­ni­ty is learn­ing from all this his­to­ry and putting ideas into prac­tice – we invite you to explore this fur­ther.

This wed­ding is an expres­sion of the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty. It is bring­ing togeth­er a diverse set of peo­ple in a cel­e­bra­tion of the future we are build­ing.

Prac­ti­cal Alter­na­tives

Anar­chist & non-anar­chist groups all over the coun­try (and the world) are show­ing how com­mu­ni­ties can take con­trol of their land, their food and their lives and pro­tect the earth for our future. Com­mu­ni­ty-sup­port­ed agri­cul­ture projects, food co-ops, shared vehi­cles, bike train­ing, Local Exchange Train­ing Schemes, cli­mate cafe discussion/action groups, alter­na­tive ener­gy co-ops, per­ma­cul­ture, Holis­tic Man­age­ment, hous­ing & work­er co-ops, Tran­si­tion Towns – the projects and the ideas are grow­ing and mul­ti­ply­ing.

We do not believe that reform will ever suc­ceed in chang­ing a sys­tem fun­da­men­tal­ly com­mit­ted to the abuse of humans, ani­mals and the plan­et — if not in Lud­low, then else­where in the world, hid­den but still in our name. All of us must change the way we think, live and love.

Ryanair AGM disrupted by climate activists

Sep­tem­ber 18, 2008
Today a group of cli­mate activists dis­rupt­ed the AGM of Ryanair at the Radis­son Hotel, Dublin Air­port. Cam­paign­ers dropped a ban­ner from the hotel with a sub­ver­tised Ryanair logo read­ing ’ LYINAIR.CON’. One cam­paign­er con­front­ed a dumb-struck Michael O’Leary at the podi­um, while oth­er eco-clowns jug­gled out­side.

Lyin'airSep­tem­ber 18, 2008
Today a group of cli­mate activists dis­rupt­ed the AGM of Ryanair at the Radis­son Hotel, Dublin Air­port. Cam­paign­ers dropped a ban­ner from the hotel with a sub­ver­tised Ryanair logo read­ing ’ LYINAIR.CON’. One cam­paign­er con­front­ed a dumb-struck Michael O’Leary at the podi­um, while oth­er eco-clowns jug­gled out­side.

The PLANE MAD cam­paign­ers are cam­paign­ing for respon­si­ble avi­a­tion. By pio­neer­ing the cheap flights mod­el Ryanair have been respon­si­ble for a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of the mas­sive growth in the avi­a­tion indus­try. Avi­a­tion is cur­rent­ly the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas­es. While gov­ern­ments and indi­vid­u­als are gear­ing up to tack­le their car­bon emis­sions it is nec­es­sary to accept the real­i­ty that fly­ing is the most pol­lut­ing form of trans­port.

Plane Mad is an Irish cam­paign­ing group tak­ing action against the unsus­tain­able nature of avi­a­tion in Ire­land. To find out more vis­it www.planemad.org

Today a group of cli­mate activists dis­rupt­ed the AGM of Ryanair at the Radis­son Hotel, Dublin Air­port.

Mem­bers of Plane Mad entered the meet­ing as share­hold­ers and told Michael O’Leary direct­ly that he was lying about cli­mate change. The Cam­paign­er, Rob Mac, told the AGM that he was cam­paign­ing for the respon­si­ble use of avi­a­tion. He also stat­ed that avi­a­tion would negate all oth­er reduc­tions in green­house gas emis­sions in Ire­land if cur­rent growth con­tin­ues. A men­tion was also made of the unfair tax breaks that avi­a­tion enjoys.

A brief­ing was dis­trib­uted in the AGM from a mys­te­ri­ous ‘M. O’Liary’ out­lin­ing a cli­mate change denial strat­e­gy, appar­ent­ly already being rolled out.

A ban­ner that read “Lyin Air” in the Rynair liv­ery was dropped form the roof ini­tial­ly. Find­ing the con­di­tions a bit windy the activist moved the ban­ner to a bal­cony at the front of the hotel, where it remained for near­ly an hour.

A pair of “Eco-Clowns” turned up near the ban­ner and jug­gled for a while. The clowns were wear­ing Pinoc­chio noses to rep­re­sent the lies being told by Michael O Leary.

One of the ‘Eco-clowns’, Ian Clot­wor­thy, said ‘O’Leary is clear­ly mis­lead­ing the pub­lic to try to pro­tect his prof­its. Ask any sci­en­tif­ic insti­tu­tion from NASA to MET Eire­ann and they will tell you cli­mate change is real. Cli­mate change can’t be denied any­more and nei­ther can avi­a­tion’s con­tri­bu­tion to the green­house gas emis­sions that cause it’.

The cam­paign­ers are mem­bers of the Irish group Plane Mad. The action was designed to draw atten­tion to denial of cli­mate change by the CEO of Ryanair in recent press and radio state­ments. Plane Mad believe that cli­mate change is the defin­ing chal­lenge of our gen­er­a­tion. The group believes that there are solu­tions to this chal­lenge and that we need to face them head on as soon as pos­si­ble.

One of the cam­paign­ers at the air­port, Tara Shee­hy from Tip­per­ary said, ‘By dis­miss­ing the clear­ly proven link between man-made emis­sions and our chang­ing cli­mate, Michael O Leary is run­ning from the truth. Stick­ing our heads in the sand and try­ing to deny that there is a prob­lem will not make cli­mate change go away. Michael O Leary claims not to be “a cloud bun­ny”, its time then for him to come down to earth about the sci­ence of cli­mate change and admit to the dam­age his air­line is caus­ing.’

‘By pio­neer­ing the cheap flights mod­el Ryanair have been respon­si­ble for a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of the mas­sive growth in the avi­a­tion indus­try. Avi­a­tion is cur­rent­ly the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas­es. While gov­ern­ments and indi­vid­u­als are gear­ing up to tack­le their car­bon emis­sions it is nec­es­sary to accept the real­i­ty that fly­ing is the most pol­lut­ing form of trans­port.’

‘Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now. It is neg­a­tive­ly affect­ing the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple all over the world. Avi­a­tion is the fastest grow­ing con­trib­u­tor to it. Try­ing to claim any­thing else is just plane mad.’

Plane Mad is an Irish cam­paign­ing group tak­ing action against the unsus­tain­able nature of avi­a­tion in Ire­land. To find out more vis­it www.planemad.org

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion or com­ment,

Con­tact: Tara Shee­hy 086 8581605

Mol­ly Walsh 00353879252820

Ryanair Agm

Sep­tem­ber 18, 2008

Spoof Brief­ing to Investors,

Dear Share­hold­er,

As I’m sure you are aware, a key threat to our rev­enue is the pos­si­bil­i­ty that pas­sen­gers would heed envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns and fly less. We clear­ly need a strat­e­gy to avoid con­sumers becom­ing aware of the cli­mate impact we have.

I want to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to assure you that I will not let this eco-bol­locks affect our prof­it, and to out­line my strat­e­gy for deal­ing with it.

The tac­tics of denial employed by the tobac­co indus­try proved suc­cess­ful for decades after the health impacts were proven. Exxon have suc­cess­ful­ly used the same tac­tics and many of the same per­son­nel to deny the real­i­ty of cli­mate change.

Cur­rent­ly very few pas­sen­gers know that fly­ing is the most car­bon inten­sive way to trav­el. We need to direct atten­tion away from the sci­ence by fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of doubt around the facts. The eco-loonies may attempt to cling to peer-reviewed sci­ence, but we don’t need to be able to refute their facts, all we need is to spread enough mis­in­for­ma­tion for doubt to linger.

I have already been active in nation­al news­pa­pers and on radio ques­tion­ing whether cli­mate change is caused by car­bon diox­ide. In the let­ters pages of the Irish Times on July the 17th, I used the cur­rent inclement weath­er to sug­gest that the cli­mate could not be warm­ing. The lib­er­al idiots who read the Irish Times will believe any­thing.

The Inter­na­tion­al Avi­a­tion and Trans­port Asso­ci­a­tion (IATA) have done com­mend­able work sup­press­ing infor­ma­tion on the dam­age caused by avi­a­tion. There are cer­tain con­crete facts that we can­not afford to allow to become accept­ed. If they did so envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness could become a tick­ing time bomb for the health of our prof­its. The fol­low­ing facts will be denied by me, like lying is going out of fash­ion.

1. The reduc­tions in emis­sions per pas­sen­ger are mean­ing­less due to our growth.

2. Due to the addi­tion­al pol­lu­tants released by air­planes and the alti­tude at which they are released the total warm­ing effect of avi­a­tion emis­sions is 2.7 times greater than the warm­ing effect of the car­bon diox­ide alone.

3. The 2 per cent fig­ure I always use for the share of car­bon that avi­a­tion accounts for, con­ve­nient­ly ignores the whole sto­ry of oth­er pol­lu­tants and recent growth.

Despite their san­dal-wear­ing, mues­li eat­ing car­ry-on, these eco-loons have the poten­tial to mess up our mar­ket­ing. I’m just a lad from a farm in Mullingar, but I know how to put bums on seats. Peo­ple want to fly, they want to fly cheap­ly and they don’t want to have to deal with the guilt ped­dled by those eco fun-police. All we need to do is to make it seem like the sci­ence might not be sol­id and our mon­ey will keep rolling in.

I know that you are ratio­nal peo­ple who under­stand busi­ness. I hope that you can stand behind my bla­tant lies, as I am work­ing to pro­tect our prof­its.

The 12 mil­lion or so pas­sen­gers I car­ry around Europe on cheap flights may well be caus­ing cli­mate change but it’s putting mon­ey in my pock­et. I am mak­ing mon­ey today. It is not my busi­ness to care about tomor­row.

And who do these eco-loons think they are any­way, dent­ing the bot­tom line of the com­pa­ny I’ve been tying my ego to for years? I lie very hard every day so my kids can be rich­er than their friends. Will I be spar­ing a thought for those who are now dying as a result of cli­mate change? You must be eco-jok­ing!

Screw the Bangladeshis.

Screw the next gen­er­a­tion.

Deny cli­mate change.

Fly Ryanair.

Yours sin­cere­ly,

M. O Liary

Chief Exec­u­tive

Film of dis­rup­tion

RT CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 83, SEPTEMBER 2008

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) SHELL TO SEA — HELP NEEDED IN MAYO — ONGOING
2) FLASHMOB AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION, 23.09.08
3) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER, 26–28.09.08
4) LOW CARBON COMMUNITIES NETWORK CONFERENCE, 04.10.08
5) DRAX COAL TRAIN DEFENDANTS APPEAL AND RALLY, 07.10.08

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) SHELL TO SEA — HELP NEEDED IN MAYO — ONGOING
2) FLASHMOB AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION, 23.09.08
3) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER, 26–28.09.08
4) LOW CARBON COMMUNITIES NETWORK CONFERENCE, 04.10.08
5) DRAX COAL TRAIN DEFENDANTS APPEAL AND RALLY, 07.10.08
6) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
7) CLIMATE RUSH, 13.10.08
8) LOW IMPACT LIVING AND RENEWABLE ENERGY COURSES, SEPT/OCT
9) NATIONAL CLIMATE MARCH, 06.12.08
10) FANTASTIC FOOLERY, FFD 2009, 01.04.09

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-
1) ECOTOPIAN REPRESSION – AUGUST
2) 7 GERMAN BANKS TARGETED – ‘NO TO UK COAL’ – 14.08.08
3) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, 15–24.8.08
4) KINGSNORTH SIX RESULT — NOT GUILTY — 10.09.08
5) HUNGER STRIKE IN MAYO, SEPTEMBER
6) CARDIFF HILTON COAL PROTEST – 10.09.08
7) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009,13–14.09.08
8) CLIMATE CAMP LEGAL UPDATE – ONGOING
9) ‘OIL WAR’ DECLARED IN NIGERIA — SEPT
10) COIN TRAINING — SEPT/OCT/NOV
11) ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS – 2008 EDITION OF SPIRIT OF FREEDOM
12) NEW FILM — WAKE UP, FREAK OUT, THEN GET A GRIP.
13) OILWATCH POSITION PAPER ON VOLUNTARY CARBON MARKET
14) NEW CORNER HOUSE ARTICLES ON CLIMATE

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-

1) SHELL TO SEA — HELP NEEDED IN MAYO — ONGOING
The Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Mem­bers of the Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta recent­ly deployed at the E.ON coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth, have made their way from Cli­mate Camp UK to Erris, in order to assist Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers in their oppo­si­tion to this pipeline con­struc­tion at Glen­gad. http://www.corribsos.com/
(Also see sto­ry below regard­ing the hunger strike in Erris).

2) FLASHMOB AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION, 23.09.08
A flash­mob to protest against the expan­sion of Heathrow, Man­ches­ter and all UK air­ports is being called to coin­cide with the Labour Par­ty Con­fer­ence in Man­ches­ter. It also marks the launch of the new­ly-formed Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port group (SEMA).For more info see: www.stopmanchesterairport.org.uk
Date: Tues­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber. Time: 12.45pm (sharp!) Loca­tion: Albert Square, out­side Man­ches­ter Town Hall. Turn up and reveal your red T‑shirt (keep it cov­ered before hand!) 3 ways to get your free ‘Stop Air­port Expan­sion’ T‑Shirt:
Email info@stopmanchesterairport.org.uk, meet at Friends Meet­ing House (Mount St) at 12.15pm and col­lect one, or make your own!

3) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER, 26–28.09.08
All are invit­ed to the first Post-Cli­mate Camp Nation­al Gath­er­ing. The gath­er­ing will offer a chance to reflect on where we are at, decide where we go from here, and pro­vide info as to how to get involved in the ongo­ing direct action cam­paign to stop Kingsnorth. Ques­tions? Email process@climatecamp.org.uk
For full details of the gath­er­ing go to http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/node/448

4) LOW CARBON COMMUNITIES NETWORK CONFERENCE, 04.10.08
A nation­al day of net­work­ing and strat­e­gy plan­ning for low car­bon com­mu­ni­ty groups across the UK. This free event in Llan­gollen is open to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of com­mu­ni­ty groups work­ing towards a low car­bon future for every­one. A range of work­shops, net­work­ing ses­sions and inspir­ing speak­ers offer the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn from each oth­er as we move towards a low car­bon soci­ety. To find out more vis­it — http://low.communitycarbon.net/2008-conference/

5) DRAX COAL TRAIN DEFENDANTS APPEAL AND RALLY, 07.10.08
On 13th June 2008 pro­tes­tors halt­ed a coal train car­ry­ing fuel for Drax pow­er sta­tion, which burns around 9 mil­lion tonnes of coal per year and emits some 21 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide. The Drax pro­test­ers were arrest­ed and 29 of them face crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings. The Dis­trict Judge sent the case to crown court because he thought it too seri­ous for the magistrate’s court: the max­i­mum sen­tence in the magistrate’s court is 6 months. The Drax defen­dants face cus­to­di­al sen­tences. They need help with expens­es so that the case can be heard. Peace News has launched an appeal and you can donate: Account Name: Mid­lands Con­ser­va­tion Club, Sort Code: 30–98-00 (Lloyds TSB), Account No: 291140002.

Or rather than give mon­ey sup­port then in per­son! Say ‘No’ to Coal and Cli­mate Change! Vigil/Rally in sup­port of the Drax 29 Tues­day 7th Octo­ber — 12.30 to 2.00pm
Out­side York Crown Court (next to the Cas­tle Muse­um). This is the first of two pre-tri­al appear­ances before the main tri­al when York Eco-Action shall be call­ing much big­ger actions. But lets show the media how big the issue is right from Day 1!

6) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
A meet­ing to bring togeth­er groups and com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing coal in the UK, from open cast and deep coal mines, to pow­er sta­tions and coal imports. Share infor­ma­tion, plan for action, and build a strong net­work of resis­tance.
Vis­it — www.leaveitintheground.org.uk for more details.

7) CLIMATE RUSH, 13.10.08
Par­lia­ment Square, Lon­don — 5.30pm
100 years ago the Suf­fragettes went to Par­lia­ment and demand­ed that their soci­ety change. They held a mass ral­ly out­side Par­lia­ment to which thou­sands came, before a num­ber of them rushed into Par­lia­ment and got every­one’s atten­tion. We invite you all to cel­e­brate the 100th anniver­sary of this world chang­ing event. No air­port expan­sion. No new coal. The cre­ation of poli­cies based on the most recent cli­mate research.
The Cli­mate Rush: www.climaterush.co.uk and info@climaterush.co.uk

8) LOW IMPACT LIVING AND RENEWABLE ENERGY COURSES, SEPT/OCT
Through­out Octo­ber the Low Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive are run­ning a range of cours­es to help you pre­pare for a low car­bon future. From com­post­ing to build­ing solar water heaters, green wood­work to low-impact small­hold­ings, wood burn­er con­struc­tion to advanced recy­cling. For more infor­ma­tion check out — http://www.lowimpact.org/courses.htm
AND
Green Drag­on Ener­gy are run­ning renew­able ener­gy cours­es through­out Octo­ber at var­i­ous loca­tions across the UK and Europe. Intro­duc­tion to Renew­able Ener­gy, Wind & Solar Elec­tric­i­ty Course, Solar Elec­tric­i­ty Instal­la­tion Course — Off-grid Appli­ca­tions for more see http://www.greendragonenergy.co.uk/courses.htm

9) NATIONAL CLIMATE MARCH, 06.12.08
Thou­sands will gath­er to March through Lon­don on Sat­ur­day 6th of Decem­ber, coin­cid­ing with the piv­otal UN inter­na­tion­al cli­mate talks in Poland. The march will be one of many hap­pen­ing in major cities through­out the world with all call­ing on world lead­ers take the urgent and res­olute action need­ed to pre­vent run­away cli­mate change. To find out about the Lon­don March — con­tact the Cam­paign Against Cli­mate Change at info@campaigncc.org or phone 0207 8339311.

10) FANTASTIC FOOLERY, FFD 2009, 01.04.09
Just in case you missed the news last month. Four con­ti­nents, 150 actions, and an April Fools Day with a fan­tas­ti­cal­ly sub­ver­sive (and rad­i­cal­ly nec­es­sary) twist — we’re def­i­nite­ly doing that again! So Fos­sil Fools Day 09 is a go — start pick­ing your fos­sil fuel tar­get now! Info and resources will be post­ed on the web­site soon, and look out for leaflets to dis­trib­ute in Decem­ber.

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
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1) ECOTOPIAN REPRESSION — AUGUST 2008
Greens, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, peace and nature sup­port­ers, and NGO’s from all over the World gath­ered on the 9th of August to join the 20th inter­na­tion­al Eco­topia gath­er­ing being held at Sarikum nature reserve in Sinop, Turkey. Eco­topia gath­er­ings pro­mote sus­tain­able ways of liv­ing, har­mo­ny with nature, and dis­cuss social jus­tice issues. This year, Eco­topia has sup­port­ed local anti-nuclear groups, raised con­scious­ness of nuclear issues and pro­mot­ed alter­na­tive ener­gy sources. On Wednes­day 20th August, 6 inter­na­tion­als and 5 Turk­ish peo­ple were placed under cus­tody while stag­ing a peace­ful vig­il out­side the Atom­ic Ener­gyA­gency (TAEK) in Sinop. On the 22nd August, approx­i­mate­ly 10 armed offi­cers, ordered by the gov­er­nor of Sinop, raid­ed the Eco­topia camp, threat­en­ing force­ful evic­tion if the site was not emp­tied with­in 3 hours. See Indy­media for more details — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/407393.html

2) 7 GERMAN BANKS TARGETED – ‘NO TO UK COAL’ – 14.08.08
Com­mu­nique sent via e‑mail to direct action news from ger­many (http://www.directactionde.blogspot.com/) “On the night of Thurs­day 14th August, in Berlin, we made 7 attacks on Deutsche Bank, Com­merz Bank, Allianz AG and Dres­den­er Bank. The locks to the banks and the card-read­ers were glued and ‘no to UK Coal’ was spray­paint­ed. Deutsche Bank is the sin­gle biggest Euro­pean investor in agro­fu­els in Latin Amer­i­ca. Along with Allianz, Deustche Bank is also one of the biggest share­hold­ers in UK Coal who cur­rent­ly plan to build 7 new coal fired pow­er sta­tions across the UK. The tar­gets cho­sen are both cli­mate change and cap­i­tal relat­ed. Exploita­tion of the envi­ron­ment and peo­ple by State and indus­try go hand in hand. They can­not be sep­a­rat­ed and both must be attacked. This attack coin­cides with the end of the UK Camp for Cli­mate Action and the begin­ning of the Kli­ma Camp and Anti-Raciss­mus Camp near Ham­burg. Social war not cli­mate chaos!” For more info see — http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21289

3) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, 15–24.8.08
From 15 to 24th August anti-racists and envi­ron­men­tal­ists pitched their tents in Ham­burg, in a joint camp with shared infra­struc­ture, spaces and time. Both in the camp itself and dur­ing actions attempts were made to stand togeth­er and build alliances, the action high points of the camps includ­ed the block­ade of the depor­ta­tion air­port Fuhls­büt­tel and the occu­pa­tion of the Moor­burg coal pow­er plant. At Ham­burg air­port, which was both an anti-depor­ta­tion and anti-cli­mate change action, an esti­mat­ed 2,000 peo­ple took action in the area. Toi­lets were flood­ed, var­i­ous actions inside the ter­mi­nals occurred and demon­stra­tions and bar­ri­cades were built on roads into the air­port. At Moor­burg, 800 peo­ple marched to the police lines in front of coal pow­er plant. Although Moor­burg had been suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied ear­ly in the week, police were now pre­pared. Water can­nons, pep­per spray, and batons were all used in full force against demon­stra­tors. A ‘five fin­ger tac­tic’ did man­age to get through police lines at times, as well as through forests and fences, but demon­stra­tors found each fence con­cealed yet anoth­er line of police and fences. For more infor­ma­tion and pic­tures see — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/407468.html

4) KINGSNORTH SIX RESULT — NOT GUILTY — 10.09.08
To recap on how impor­tant this ver­dict is: the defen­dants cam­paign­ers were accused of caus­ing £30,000 of crim­i­nal dam­age to Kingsnorth smoke­stack from paint­ing. The defence was that they had ‘law­ful excuse’ — because they were act­ing to pro­tect prop­er­ty around the world “in imme­di­ate need of pro­tec­tion” from the impacts of cli­mate change, caused in part by burn­ing coal. So the evi­dence for the defence cen­tred around the enor­mous dam­age burn­ing coal does to ecosys­tems, peo­ple and prop­er­ty around the plan­et — and the UK gov­ern­men­t’s abject fail­ure to take any mean­ing­ful action.
This could be a very impor­tant prece­dent for envi­ron­men­tal activists across the UK! For more infor­ma­tion vis­it — http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/kingsnorth-trial-breaking-news-verdict-20080910

5) HUNGER STRIKE IN MAYO — SEPTEMBER
Hunger Strike in Erris as Shel­l’s Pipe Lay­ing Ship Arrives.
On Sep­tem­ber 9th the world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land. Local fish­er­men are wor­ried about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the waters they depend on, and many local peo­ple who are con­cerned that the off­shore sec­tion of the Shell scheme is being put in place while no plan­ning per­mis­sion exists for the onshore sec­tion. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy. In recent weeks there have been 29 sep­a­rate arrests in thee area around Glen­gad beach, where the pipe is due to make land­fall.

A local school prin­ci­pal has vowed to refuse food until the ship leaves the area. She has parked her car in front of the Shell com­pound. The Irish gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Green Par­ty Min­is­ters of the Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, have backed Shel­l’s scheme. Last month the Gar­da released fig­ures show­ing that 11 mil­lion euro had been spent polic­ing the project since 2006, more than half the amount the force spent on fight­ing organ­ised crime. Activists on the ground in Mayo have asked for assis­tance. Those not in a posi­tion to trav­el to Mayo can hold sol­i­dar­i­ty protests at the Irish embassy or Shell petrol sta­tions. For more info see www.indymedia.ie/mayo, http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21448, http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/408913.html or con­tact rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com

6) CARDIFF HILTON COAL PROTEST – 10.09.08
Merthyr Tyd­fil res­i­dents and cli­mate change cam­paign­ers staged dis­rup­tive protests at the Cardiff Hilton dur­ing the AGM of the UK Coal Author­i­ty. Three cam­paign­ers scaled the main entrance of the lux­u­ry hotel and hung a ban­ner read­ing “Coal: Leave it in the Ground”, while oth­ers inside the con­fer­ence chal­lenged coal indus­try del­e­gates on their industry’s record of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age. The UK Coal Author­i­ty is a gov­ern­ment-fund­ed body tasked with pro­mot­ing and sup­port­ing the UK coal indus­try. Their AGM fea­tures ses­sions on expand­ing open­cast min­ing, length­en­ing the lifes­pan of aging pow­er sta­tions, and a range of oth­er con­tro­ver­sial activ­i­ties car­ried out by the indus­try, which has faced wide­spread oppo­si­tion over the past year to its plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of coal-fired pow­er sta­tions, and ongo­ing expan­sion of open­cast min­ing across the coun­try. media@thecoalhole.org
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21423

7) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009,13–14.09.08
Reports com­ing out from the first inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing in Copen­hagen sug­gest that it was a great suc­cess. The meet­ing finalised a call out text, which will be up on the Ris­ing Tide web­site short­ly, and start­ed mobil­i­sa­tion for direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change in Copen­hagen and through­out the world dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence (30 Nov ‑11 Dec 2009).
More info: http://klimax2009.org/?p=33&langswitch_lang=en
To get involved in this ongo­ing and open process, sign up to the email list: climateaction@klimax2009.org

8) CLIMATE CAMP LEGAL UPDATE — ONGOING
Return of prop­er­ty — A col­lec­tion of the items seized under the war­rant was to hap­pen Tues­day 16th Sep­tem­ber but annu­al leave deferred because of the Cli­mate Camp and rest days fol­low­ing Kent Police’s activ­i­ty at the Chan­nel Tun­nel fire means they can’t find an offi­cer to return the prop­er­ty at the moment. If you want items col­lect­ed from indi­vid­ual search­es, col­lect­ed and brought to the Man­ches­ter Gath­er­ing please email legal ASAP for advice — legal@climatecamp.org.uk
Wit­ness­es to an arrest of a white male, 6′1″ tall, slim, black fleece top, blue jeans with blue ruck sack and cam­era at the Deans­gate Golf Club search area on Sat­ur­day 9th August at 10.35am. Uni­formed inspec­tor (red shoul­der flash­es) grabbed him vio­lent­ly and frog- marched him to the exit. Email legal@climatecamp.org.uk

9) ‘OIL WAR’ DECLARED IN NIGERIA – SEPT
Nige­ri­a’s main mil­i­tant group in the Niger Delta has declared an “oil war” against for­eign-owned oil com­pa­nies work­ing in the region. The Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (Mend) said on Sun­day it had launched “hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa” and destroyed flow sta­tions and oil pipelines, killing 22 Niger­ian sol­diers. Mend said it was launch­ing the “war” after gov­ern­ment troops attacked one of its posi­tions a day ear­li­er with aer­i­al and marine forces. Chevron con­firmed one of its oil plat­forms was attacked by rebels on Sun­day. Roy­al Dutch Shell, Exxon­Mo­bil, Total, Eni, and Chevron, are among the numer­ous oil com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the Niger Delta. http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21446

10) COIN TRAININGS — SEPT/OCT/NOV
COIN’s train­ings in Lon­don this autumn are book­ing up fast — please see www.coinet.org.uk for details and book now to avoid dis­ap­point­ment.
The train­ings are: 30th Sept: Com­mu­ni­cat­ing Cli­mate Change; 28th Oct: Cli­mate Change Speak­er Train­ing; 18th Nov: Cli­mate Change Con­densed; 2nd Dec: How to win the cli­mate change argu­ment in a 15-minute tea break. COIN is also run­ning 2 train­ings in Sep­tem­ber for Trade Union­ists, see www.coinet.org.uk if you are a mem­ber of trade union and fan­cy some train­ing on cli­mate change com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

11) ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS – 2008 EDITION OF SPIRIT OF FREEDOM
See­ing so many good peo­ple removed from their fam­i­lies & loved ones for mere­ly act­ing out of com­pas­sion and a desire to stop envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and ani­mal abuse is heart­break­ing. Some of the pris­on­ers ELP lists are very well known, oth­ers are less well known. How­ev­er ALL of them deserve our love and sup­port. ALL of the list­ed pris­on­ers wel­come let­ters of sup­port. Even if it’s just a card say­ing “Hi. I’m think­ing of you”. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21341

12) NEW FILM — WAKE UP, FREAK OUT, THEN GET A GRIP.
A great new short film about cli­mate tip­ping points and why we need to act now. Watch it and pass it on — and it’s great for work­shops! http://wakeupfreakout.org/

13) OILWATCH POSITION PAPER ON VOLUNTARY CARBON MARKET
This doc­u­ment is now avail­able to down­loaded from the Oil­watch web­site — www.oilwatch.org

14) NEW CORNER HOUSE ARTICLES ON CLIMATE
Includ­ing how the pay-to-pol­lute prin­ci­ple killed South African activist Saji­da Khan, six sound­bites against car­bon mar­kets, why cli­mate change is becom­ing a social and polit­i­cal rather than tech­no­log­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic prob­lem, and a new video called the ‘CO2 Ali­bi’. http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/subject/climate

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RT CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 83, SEPTEMBER 2008
Com­piled and sent out by Ris­ing Tide UK: info at risingtide.org.uk
To receive this News Sheet month­ly, email news-sub­scribe at risingtide.org.uk with the sub­ject line ‘sub­scribe’ (with­out the quotes).

Roof top occupation of Shell offices in Belmullet

18.9.2008
Yes­ter­day after­noon in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, Shell to Sea activists occu­pied the roof of Shel­l’s offices in bel­mul­let hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing: ‘Soli­taire Out Now’. They were accom­pa­nied by a demo of around 40 peo­ple.

Shell rooftop occupation, Bellmullet18.9.2008
Yes­ter­day after­noon in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, Shell to Sea activists occu­pied the roof of Shel­l’s offices in bel­mul­let hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing: ‘Soli­taire Out Now’. They were accom­pa­nied by a demo of around 40 peo­ple.

At about 4pm, three Shell to Sea activists occu­pied the roof and dropped a ban­ner read­ing ‘Soli­taire Out Now’. The ban­ner remained there for over an hour and a half, while shell to Sea sup­port­ers protest­ed out­side the front of the Shell offices. More ban­ners were draped across the entrance area, and when the shell employ­ees left work at 5:30 they were hailed with a cho­rus of boos from the assem­bled pro­tes­tors.

Two of the three Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers who had been on the roof were arrest­ed when they descend­ed to the ground. The two arrestees were released quick­ly after­wards.

Out­side the gates of the Shell land­fall site com­pound in Glen­gad, Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s hunger strike entered its ninth day today. She remains in good spir­its, but the strike is slow­ly exact­ing its toll. She remains in her car, under the glare of pow­er­ful arc lights and with a con­stant heavy pres­ence of Gar­daí near­by. The 24-hour pro­tec­tive vig­il of Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers con­tin­ues to watch over her. Mau­ra’s hunger strike will end when the Shell pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire leaves Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. The Soli­taire remains at anchor in St. John’s Bay, Killy­begs, Co. Done­gal at the time of writ­ing.

Solidarity Actions in Copenhagen — No More Dams; No More Smelters!

Today, 18 Sep­tem­ber, we received a let­ter from Den­mark:

This morn­ing, big ban­ners were hanged on a build­ing in Copen­hagen say­ing: „Alu­mini­um Indus­try is destroy­ing all major Ice­landic rivers!” A big adver­tis­ment from Ice­landair Air­line Com­pa­ny, show­ing Ice­landic rivers, was hang­ing on this same wall last week.

Copenhagen Saving Iceland banner hangToday, 18 Sep­tem­ber, we received a let­ter from Den­mark:

This morn­ing, big ban­ners were hanged on a build­ing in Copen­hagen say­ing: „Alu­mini­um Indus­try is destroy­ing all major Ice­landic rivers!” A big adver­tis­ment from Ice­landair Air­line Com­pa­ny, show­ing Ice­landic rivers, was hang­ing on this same wall last week.

The con­struc­tion of the planned new Cen­tu­ry alu­mini­um smelter in Hel­gu­vík and Alcoa’s smelter in Húsavík, will lead to damming of more glacial rivers and geot­her­mal areas. Today it looks like dams will be built in Þjórsá Riv­er, Tung­naá, Skjál­fandafljót and Jökul­sá á Fjöl­lum; only for fur­ther heavy indus­try projects.

To sup­ply ener­gy for Alcoa’s 346 thou­sand tons smelter in Húsavík, a reser­voir big­ger than the infa­mous Hál­slón in Kárah­n­júkar will be need­ed; 72 km² (1).

There is no rea­son for feed­ing com­pa­nies like Alcoa with more cheap ener­gy. Alcoa is a arms pro­duc­er, direct­ly work­ing with the Amer­i­can army, the weapon pro­duc­er Lock­heed Mar­tin and oth­er mean com­pa­nies (2).

Alcoa is also well known for it’s human right crimes in the company’s fac­to­ries in Hon­duras and Guatemala. In Hon­duras work­ers often have to uri­nate and defe­cate in their clothes because they are not allowed to go to the toi­let more than two times a day; women have to take down their pants to prove they are hav­ing peri­od; and work­ers who plan to form unions get fired. These are just few exam­ples (3).

Ice­landic nature and soci­ety are in dan­ger!

No more Dams! No more Smelters!


Resources:

(1) Jaap Krater, Morgun­blaðið, Bak­ki Impact Assess­ment Should Include Dams, 22. Ágúst 2008.

(2) Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son, Morgun­blaðið, Lygar og Útúrsnúningar, 24. Júní 2008.

(3) Nation­al Labor Com­mit­tee with Com­mu­ni­ty Comu­ni­ca­tion Hon­duras (2007). The Wal­mart-iza­tion of Alcoa. http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=447.

Updates from Mayo — Shell to sea — London solidarity

15th Sep­tem­ber 2008
Protest at the Shel­l’s Dublin HQ

Activists from dif­fer­ent back­grounds came along to a 1PM protest in sup­port of the actions tak­en in the last week against Shell and the Irish gov­ern­ment.

Dublin Shell to Sea solidarity15th Sep­tem­ber 2008
Protest at the Shel­l’s Dublin HQ

Activists from dif­fer­ent back­grounds came along to a 1PM protest in sup­port of the actions tak­en in the last week against Shell and the Irish gov­ern­ment.

Hun­dreds of leaflets were dis­trib­uted and many pass­ing motorists beeped their horns in sup­port.

As always a large con­tin­gent of gar­daí were on hand to pro­tect the Shell employ­ees and the com­pa­ny’s prop­er­ty from the entire­ly peace­ful and dig­ni­fied protest out­side.

Around 20 peo­ple took park in a sol­i­dar­i­ty vig­il at 6pm at Shell HQ in sup­port of shell to sea hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton.

—-

Today Mau­ra Har­ring­ton marked her birth­day with a sev­enth day on hunger strike, while sup­port­ers from the UK & Ire­land demon­strat­ed across Lon­don to bring atten­tion to her protest. Mau­ra, a teacher in NW Mayo, is part of the Shell To Sea Cam­paign which has been active­ly oppos­ing Shel­l’s lat­est attempts to lay an 80 km sea based stretch of gas pipeline.

Mau­ra’s hunger strike began on Tues­day in protest at the arrival of the Soli­taire ship which was to lay the pipeline for Shell. Mau­ra ‘s has declared that her protest will con­tin­ue until the Soli­taire agrees to leave Ire­land with­out lay­ing the pipeline.

Two Irish neigh­bours of Mau­ra pick­et­ed the Shell HQ from mid­night Sun­day until 9am with a can­dle lit vig­il for their friend. At 7am this morn­ing Shell work­ers were greet­ed with leaflets & informed of Mau­ra’s plight.

Next was AllSeas UK Ltd who own the Soli­taire pipe-lay­ing ship. 30 peo­ple banged pans, blew whis­tles & hand­ed out leaflets out­side the reg­is­tered office of AllSeas. A blank stick­er had been placed over their com­pa­ny label & some­one from inside the build­ing claimed that no-one was home. Even­tu­al­ly a secu­ri­ty guard took a let­ter from the pro­test­ers, addressed to the Chief Exec­u­tive, demand­ing that the Soli­taire is removed from Irish waters imme­di­ate­ly.

After an hour at AllSeas the crowd processed to the Irish embassy shout­ing ”Irish woman on hunger strike. No new Shell pipeline”. The Irish embassy refused to take a let­ter from an elder­ly Mayo woman. The pro­test­ers were ask­ing that the Irish embassy pro­tect its cit­i­zens such as Mau­ra who are attempt­ing to pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ty from the health and safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal night­mare that the pipeline pos­es, instead of sup­port­ing the Gar­da intim­i­da­tion and bru­tal­i­ty.

The Nor­we­gian embassy was the last to be vis­it­ed. Nor­way is prof­i­teer­ing from the oppres­sion of peo­ple in Ire­land. It’s state oil com­pa­ny, Sta­toil is work­ing in part­ner­ship with Shell. Here a mem­ber of staff did come out to meet us and accept­ed a burn­ing can­dle as a sym­bol of our sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mau­ra and the request of the cam­paign that the Nor­we­gian Gov­ern­ment send the Soli­taire home.

As Mau­ra’s con­di­tion dete­ri­o­rates, the Soli­taire is yet to respond and leave Ire­land. Dai­ly protests con­tin­ue with a inter­na­tion­al day of sol­i­dar­i­ty action planned for this com­ing Sat­ur­day.

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Shell Demos from Thur 11th Sept

There were two demon­stra­tions held in Dublin on Thurs­day in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the strug­gle in Ross­port against Shel­l’s activ­i­ties.

One demo was held out­side Shel­l’s head­quar­ters ear­li­er in the evening and lat­er there was a demo out­side the GPO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m84LRWsLUr4

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Sep­tem­ber 14th 2008

Shel­l’s pipe-lay­ing ship pre­tends not to lis­ten: mean­while 500+ cars join protest ral­ly in Erris

Hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s daugh­ter Astrid and son Iol­lan trav­elled to Killy­begs Co. Done­gal, today to make a per­son­al plea to the Shell pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire and its cap­tain Mr. Simon van der Plicht to leave Irish waters imme­di­ate­ly, and allow Mau­ra to end her strike. Mean­while, over 500 cars (with their dri­vers and pas­sen­gers) drove around Erris this after­noon in a mas­sive show of sup­port for Ms. Har­ring­ton, who has now entered the sixth day of her hunger strike.

A dep­u­ta­tion from Shell to Sea trav­elled to Killy­begs, Co. Done­gal today to attempt com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Shel­l’s pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire and with its cap­tain, Mr. Simon van der Plicht. the dep­u­ta­tion includ­ed two of hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s chil­dren — her daugh­ter Astrid, and her only son Iol­lan, who was bru­tal­ly arrest­ed by Shel­l’s Gar­daí dur­ing yes­ter­day’s beach recla­ma­tion action in Glen­gad, Co. Mayo.

At about lunchtime, soon after the Shell to Sea dep­u­ta­tion arrived in Killy­begs, radio con­tact was estab­lished with the Soli­taire, which replied to ini­tial VHF radio con­tact. Once the dep­u­ta­tion announced their iden­ti­ty and their pur­pose over the radio, all radio con­tact with the Soli­taire ceased, and all com­mu­ni­ca­tions on VHF radio chan­nels were met with silence. Dis­ap­point­ed with the ship’s atti­tude but undaunt­ed, the dep­u­ta­tion kept com­mu­ni­cat­ing their mes­sage to the Soli­taire over the radio, with Astrid and Iol­lan elo­quent­ly explain­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Mayo and why their moth­er has cho­sen to go on hunger strike, and they made dig­ni­fied requests for the Soli­taire to leave Irish waters, so that their moth­er can end her strike. The oth­er ships that were involved in Shel­l’s abortive pipe-lay­ing oper­a­tion in Mayo were sim­i­lar­ly addressed; these com­mu­ni­ca­tions were also met with silence. A fur­ther attempt at com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Shel­l’s ships some two hours lat­er was met with silence again. The Shell to Sea del­e­ga­tion kept try­ing to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion for about a half an hour, but were ulti­mate­ly fruit­less.

Between the com­mu­ni­ca­tion attempts, Astrid board­ed the Irish Naval Ser­vice ship the LÉ Eithne, which was moored in Killy­begs har­bour. She man­aged to encounter its cap­tain, and she began explain­ing to him calm­ly the sit­u­a­tion in her home place in NW Co. Mayo and her dis­gust at the Irish Navy’s role in Shel­l’s attempt to begin pipe-lay­ing in Broad­haven Bay, but he walked away from her with­out com­ment­ing. She was then escort­ed off the ship.

Mean­while back in Co. Mayo a motor car ral­ly of over 500 cars made its way around Erris this after­noon — a sign of the mas­sive sup­port Shell to Sea’s and Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s stand com­mand in the local­i­ty. The ral­ly start­ed at Bar­na­tra at 3:30pm and is con­tin­u­ing at the time of post­ing.

Mau­ra Har­ring­ton entered the sixth day of her hunger strike this lunchtime. Her health and spir­its remain strong, as she stays in her car parked before the Shell Glen­gad com­pound gates. The gates area is kept con­stant­ly lit by Shell an an attempt to dis­rupt her sleep­ing pat­tern, and the numer­ous Gar­daí sta­tioned there con­tin­ue to behave in a aggres­sive abu­sive man­ner. A vig­il of sup­port­ers keeps watch on Mau­ra 24 hours a day, and help com­bat the var­i­ous Gar­da ver­bal and phys­i­cal nas­ti­ness­es. Her hunger strike will con­tin­ue until she receives sol­id assur­ances from either the Soli­taire or its own­ers Allseas Group SA that the ship will not be pipe-lay­ing in Broad­haven Bay this year and will be leav­ing Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters with­out delay.

Come to Mayo and see for your­self what Shell and the state have done to a resist­ing uncon­sent­ing com­mu­ni­ty!

Nigeria rebels declare ‘oil war’

15/09/2008
Nige­ri­a’s main mil­i­tant group in the Niger Delta has declared an “oil war” against forgeign-owned oil com­pa­nies work­ing in the region.

15/09/2008
Nige­ri­a’s main mil­i­tant group in the Niger Delta has declared an “oil war” against forgeign-owned oil com­pa­nies work­ing in the region.

The Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (Mend) said on Sun­day it had launched “hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa” and destroyed flow sta­tions and oil pipelines, killing 22 Niger­ian sol­diers.

Mend said it was launch­ing the “war” after gov­ern­ment troops attacked one of its posi­tions a day ear­li­er with aer­i­al and marine forces.

Chevron con­firmed one of its oil plat­forms was attacked by rebels on Sun­day.

“There was an attack on a plat­form already shut down due to pipeline prob­lems,” an offi­cial said.

“There were heavy casu­al­ties on the part of the mil­i­tants,” Lieu­tenant-Colonel Sagir Musa, a mil­i­tary spokesman for the task force in Rivers state, said.

“We are hope­ful they will give up the fight very soon.”

‘Hur­ri­cane of retal­i­a­tion’

He said no oil facil­i­ties were affect­ed by two days of heavy fight­ing.

Vio­lence in the Niger Delta, the cen­tre of the Opec mem­ber’s oil sec­tor, has halt­ed a fifth of the coun­try’s oil pro­duc­tion since 2006.

The Niger Delta accounts for most of Nige­ri­a’s oil out­put of two mil­lion bar­rels per day, mak­ing it the world’s eighth biggest oil exporter.

Dr Muhammed Ali Zainy, a senior ana­lyst for the cen­tre for Glob­al Ener­gy stud­ies, told Al Jazeera: “Recent­ly Opec reduced pro­duc­tion by about 520,000 bar­rels per day but this did not stop the slid­ing price of oil.

“This means that the demand for oil is fal­ter­ing and that the world econ­o­my is weak, there­fore any dent in Niger­ian oil pro­duc­tion would not have a big impact on the mar­ket,” he said.

Mend mem­bers warned oil firms in the Niger Delta on Sat­ur­day to with­draw their work­ers in the next 24 hours or face a “hur­ri­cane” of retal­i­a­tion fol­low­ing a major gun bat­tle with secu­ri­ty forces ear­li­er in the day.

Mend said secu­ri­ty forces used heli­copters, jet fight­ers and more than 20 gun­boats in Sat­ur­day’s fight­ing.

A secu­ri­ty source said sol­diers from the army, navy and air force were involved in the clash­es.

Inse­cu­ri­ty in the region has cut the West African coun­try’s out­put by around a fifth since ear­ly 2006, when Mend began blow­ing up oil pipelines and kid­nap­ping for­eign work­ers, help­ing push up world oil prices.

Roy­al Dutch Shell, Exxon­Mo­bil, Total, Eni, and Chevron, are among the numer­ous oil com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the Niger Delta.

Leave it in the Ground – Scotland organising meeting

Stop new coal devel­op­ments in Scot­land! Leave it in the Ground

Tues­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber, 7–9pm, Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh (17 West Mont­gomery Place)

Leave it in the Ground banner logoStop new coal devel­op­ments in Scot­land! Leave it in the Ground

Tues­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber, 7–9pm, Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh (17 West Mont­gomery Place)

Cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us. Burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Yet every day more coal is burned, and the coal indus­try and the gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

33 new open­cast coal mines and six coal fired pow­er sta­tions are at the plan­ning stage in the UK alone. In Scot­land, the out­look is bleak – many of these new coal mine projects are planned for the cen­tral belt, and two pow­er sta­tions are to be rebuilt.

Rum­blings of an effort to resist these new projects have begun. Leave it in the Ground is a net­work sup­port­ing and devel­op­ing groups across the UK as part of the cam­paign to stop new coal, and is grow­ing in strength. As a net­work, Leave it in the Ground is run by and for the groups that make it up, exist­ing as a way to estab­lish com­mon ground, facil­i­tate net­work­ing and share infor­ma­tion and skills.

This meet­ing aims to get every­one inter­est­ed in stop­ping new coal devel­op­ments in Scot­land togeth­er, and talk about what we want to do about them, under the ban­ner of ‘Leave it in the ground / No New Coal’. And there’s an awful lot to do — from research to com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and organ­is­ing to tak­ing direct action — its real­ly impor­tant that we get on the case now!

In addi­tion, there is a Leave it in the Ground nation­al net­work­ing meet­ing in Man­ches­ter on the 11th and 12th Octo­ber. We thought it would be good to have a meet­ing in Scot­land before this in the hope that peo­ple would be up for going to Man­ches­ter with feed­back and get Scot­land more involved in the net­work. Please come along!

Peaceful Protesters Lock their Bodies to Dominion Power Plant

15 Sep­tem­ber 2008
Pro­test­ers From Across the Coun­try Join Wise Coun­ty VA Res­i­dents to Oppose Pow­er Plant’s Impact on Envi­ron­ment and Health, and to Demand a Clean Ener­gy Future

Dominion Wise County lock-on 1Dominion Wise County lock-on 215 Sep­tem­ber 2008
Pro­test­ers From Across the Coun­try Join Wise Coun­ty VA Res­i­dents to Oppose Pow­er Plant’s Impact on Envi­ron­ment and Health, and to Demand a Clean Ener­gy Future

At 6:00am this morn­ing around 50 peace­ful pro­test­ers entered the con­struc­tion site of Domin­ion Vir­gini­a’s Wise Coun­ty coal-fired pow­er plant. Almost twen­ty pro­test­ers locked their bod­ies to eight large steel drums, two of which have oper­a­tional solar pan­els affixed to the top that illu­mi­nat­ed a ban­ner read­ing “renew­able jobs to renew Appalachia.” In addi­tion to those locked to the con­struc­tion site, over 25 pro­test­ers from across the coun­try con­vened in front of the plant singing and hold­ing a 10’x30’ ban­ner, which said “we demand a clean ener­gy future.”

In this event—the first protest at Domin­ion’s $1.8 bil­lion new coal-fired pow­er plant—local Wise Coun­ty res­i­dents have joined hands with those fight­ing moun­tain­top removal coal and cli­mate change from Ten­nessee to Cal­i­for­nia. Those young and old, from cities and from rur­al com­mu­ni­ties have come togeth­er because the con­struc­tion of this 585-megawatt pow­er plant not only pos­es a mas­sive risk to the health of Appalachi­ans, but it also stands in stark oppo­si­tion to the nation­al move to a clean ener­gy econ­o­my.

“Coal is in our blood but we’re real­iz­ing it’s also in our lungs and in our drink­ing water,” said Han­nah Mor­gan, Wise Coun­ty landown­er and one of those locked to the con­struc­tion site. “We are here because now is the time to take greater action as indi­vid­u­als, a com­mu­ni­ty, and a coun­try to cre­ate a sus­tain­able future and stop the destruc­tion of our home­place.”

“I’m here from Coal Riv­er, WV to sup­port my fel­low Appalachi­ans in our shared strug­gle to end coal indus­try abus­es,” said Bo Webb, res­i­dent of Coal Riv­er, WV and mem­ber of Coal Riv­er Moun­tain Watch. “We are not going to con­tin­ue to stand idly by and watch our chil­dren be robbed of their right to clean air and clean water. This is no longer an Appalachi­an prob­lem, it’s an Amer­i­can prob­lem.”

With very few jobs going to local res­i­dents for con­struc­tion or long-term plant oper­a­tion and with­out any means to cap­ture its car­bon diox­ide pol­lu­tion, the Domin­ion plant rep­re­sents a remark­ably bad deal for Vir­ginia. “With all the bil­lions of dol­lars that have rolled out of Appalachia in the last 5 years, it should look like Dubai but instead it looks like Guatemala,” said Jane Bran­ham, Wise Coun­ty res­i­dent and nurse. “My dad was a coal min­er. As he says, ‘it’s not the same as it used to be—there’s no prof­it in coal for the peo­ple here any­more there’s only dev­as­ta­tion.’ ”

This event comes on the heels of Domin­ion’s ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the plant on August 14 and con­tin­ues almost two years of oppo­si­tion to the project. Near­ly 45,000 Vir­gini­ans have signed a peti­tion against the con­struc­tion of the plant, three law­suits were recent­ly filed chal­leng­ing the state’s approval of the plant as its per­mits fail to ade­quate­ly con­trol emis­sions of haz­ardous tox­ins, such as mer­cury, which can cause severe neu­ro­log­i­cal deficits in devel­op­ing fetus­es and young chil­dren.

“Embrac­ing clean ener­gy is not a sac­ri­fice, it is an oppor­tu­ni­ty,” said Rebec­ca Tar­bot­ton of Rain­for­est Action Net­work, a Cal­i­for­nia group that is pres­sur­ing Bank of Amer­i­ca and Citi, lead­ing financiers of Domin­ion, to stop fund­ing coal plants and to start invest­ing in clean ener­gy. “This Domin­ion protest is part of a rapid­ly grow­ing move­ment of peo­ple across the coun­try who are will­ing to put their bod­ies on the line to ensure a clean ener­gy future.”

Oppo­nents to the plant believe Vir­ginia should be lead­ing the coun­try in renew­able ener­gy; Vir­gini­a’s skilled labor force could be at the fore­front of the bur­geon­ing green jobs move­ment. Leav­ing Appalachi­a’s moun­tains intact could sup­port a 2,000 megawatt wind farm, almost four times the amount of ener­gy gen­er­at­ed by this plant.

The plant, if con­struct­ed, will process large­ly moun­tain top removal coal, cre­at­ing an even big­ger incen­tive for the destruc­tive prac­tice that dec­i­mates his­toric moun­tains and con­t­a­m­i­nates drink­ing water. Wise Coun­ty has already had 25% of its his­toric moun­tain ranges destroyed for­ev­er to moun­tain­top removal min­ing.

/For more infor­ma­tion or for pho­tos and b‑roll, please con­tact Nell Green­berg, 276–337-3198./

http://www.wiseupdominion.org
http://www.blueridgeef.com

Son of Shell to Sea hunger striker assaulted and arrested at Glengad beach

13.09.2008
Today at mid­day around 50 local and nation­al Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to reclaim Glen­gad beach, Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, from Shell. Despite Shel­l’s com­mit­ment to allow pub­lic access to the beach, for the past two months the beach has been closed to the pub­lic while prepara­to­ry pipeline work is ongo­ing.

Glengad fence13.09.2008
Today at mid­day around 50 local and nation­al Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to reclaim Glen­gad beach, Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, from Shell. Despite Shel­l’s com­mit­ment to allow pub­lic access to the beach, for the past two months the beach has been closed to the pub­lic while prepara­to­ry pipeline work is ongo­ing.

When cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to exer­cise their right to pub­lic access to the beach they were met by Gar­da vio­lence. Four peo­ple were arrest­ed, includ­ing hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ringot­n’s son. Ms. Har­ring­ton’s son was treat­ed par­tic­u­lar­ly bru­tal­ly by the Gar­dai. Four Gar­dai knelt on his back, pushed his face into the sand for sev­er­al min­utes and twist­ed his arms behind his back.

One wit­ness to the arrests stat­ed, “There were over 50 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in the demon­stra­tion and out of all these the Gar­dai clear­ly sin­gled out Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s son. They called him by name and then assault­ed him. It was no co inci­dence that it was Mau­ra’s son that was so vio­lent­ly arrest­ed.”

All who were arrest­ed are cur­rent­ly being held in Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion.

At the time of writ­ing Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, Shell to Sea, is into her fifth day of a hunger strike which she began on Tue 9th August at approx­i­mate­ly 6pm when Shel­l’s pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire arrived in Broad­haven Bay, Erris, Co Mayo.

Mau­ra is clear that her hunger strike will end in one of two ways.

1) Writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion that the Soli­taire has left Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.
2) Her death.