Climate Chaos – Page 120

Demo against E.ON, 16th July, London

Join the Greenwash Guerrillas to show that E.ON’S greenwash won’t wash!
Wednesday, 16th July, 8.15 AM, London

With two weeks to go before the Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth, E.ON are sponsoring a climate summit designed to help industry leaders ‘keep stakeholders engaged’. Just like their plans for ‘clean coal’ at Kingsnorth, this is greenwash of the highest toxicity: a laughable-if-it-weren’t-so-tragic attempt to distract us from the fact that E.ON are planning to build the first coal-fired power station in the UK for over thirty years. And that, in a time of unprecedented climate crisis, is an unacceptable insanity.

This hot-air-fest cannot pass without a visit from… the Greenwash Guerrillas!

Don a white painter’s suit and come on down to the Business Design Centre in Islington to join a crack team of greenwash detectors. We will be cordoning off the area and warning summit delegates about the high levels of toxic greenwash leaking from the building. (We suspect its source to be E.ON Managing Director Bob Taylor, who’s got a top spot on the panel.) To get a sense of what the demo will be like, check out the Greenwash Guerrillas in action here: www.risingtide.org.uk/node/250

This should be a fun, subversive demo, with the Camp for Climate Action, Rising Tide, People and Planet, Earth First! and WDM all helping to spread the word. Join us and help show E.ON that our actions won’t be confined to Kingsnorth this August. Climate Campers will go wherever we need to and do whatever it takes to shut down Kingsnorth – permanently.

Where: Business Design Centre, 52 Upper St, London N1 0QH

When: Wednesday, 16th July, meet 8.15AM in front of the Business Design Centre

Bring if you can: a white painter’s/boiler suit and any home-made greenwash detecting devices you can think up (eg. part of an old hoover, a remote control, a hair dryer painted green – get creative!) If you can’t bring these things, not to worry, extras will be on hand.

More info: info@climatecamp.org.uk / 07961 917 535
(Get in touch if you’re coming from out of town and need accommodation the night before)

Help spread the word – flyers (4 fit per piece of A4 – great on green paper) and poster available at

>>GGs Leaflet – Front
>>GGs Leaflet – Back
>>GGs Poster

www.climatecamp.org.uk
www.greenwashguerrillas.org.uk
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.stopkingsnorth.org.uk
www.peopleandplanet.org.uk
www.earthfirst.org.uk

The Long Good Friday – coal train protest eventually evicted – final update

5am, Saturday 14th June 2008
Police confirmed all protesters had been removed from the train, and arrests went “into double figures”.

Twenty-nine climate campaigners halted a train taking fuel to Drax power station in North Yorkshire on Friday.

Those arrested face possible charges of conspiracy to obstruct trains, obstructing trains and railway trespass, police said.

The train remains where it stopped, close to the village of Carlton, near Goole, ahead of an inspection.

Up to 100 police officers, some in riot gear, boarded the wagons of the train in the operation to remove the activists.

Supt Terry Nicholson of British Transport Police said: “It’s been a lengthy operation but our priority has been the safety of the public and our officers.

“We have been dealing with the protesters in a safe and professional manner and we have been arresting people for obstructing the railway.”

One of the party of demonstrators said they had chained themselves to the train and would need to be cut free if police wanted to remove them.

Speaking from the train, one of the protesters, called Natalie, said: “The police have moved into the hoppers. They’ve started taking stuff. There must be about 10 of them on the train but loads more around it.”

Some of the protesters could be seen moving on to the top of the steel arch of the bridge over the River Aire where the train is parked, a few miles from the village of Carlton.

The train was stopped in Rawcliffe, on the border of North and East Yorkshire, apparently by a protester waving a red flag.

The environmental campaigners used an iron girder bridge and climbing equipment to scale the 12ft high truck.

“This was a complex operation as many of those arrested had to be cut free having attached themselves to rail vehicles and the overbridge,” the BTP statement added.

The protesters had hoped to stay on the train for several days and had with them food and water as well as a portable lavatory.

See original story at http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20894

Video of start of eviction attempt

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Update:
At 12pm on Friday evening the last three coal train blockaders where evicted from the bridge above the blockaded train. The occupation had lasted 16 hours and occupiers had shovelled around 30 tons of coal onto the tracks. 20 people where cut out of arm tube lockons and 9 were taken of the bridge, 29 were arrested and charged with conspircy to commit Unlawful and malicious obstruction of trains. Everyone was out of the police cells and accounted for by 10pm Saturday evening. Everyone is bailed to return… you guessed it on the 31st of July and 4th 5th and 6th of August. The fires at Drax are still burning but the movement to stop coal is growing fast.

Protesters end blockade of Brazil mining railroad

Jun 13, 2008
SAO PAULO – Hundreds of Brazilian protesters ended a blockade of a railway line that transports iron ore for mining company Vale, the company said late on Thursday.

It was the latest in a series of protests this week, some of them violent, by landless peasant groups targeting large companies and multinationals in Brazil.

Jun 13, 2008
SAO PAULO – Hundreds of Brazilian protesters ended a blockade of a railway line that transports iron ore for mining company Vale, the company said late on Thursday.

It was the latest in a series of protests this week, some of them violent, by landless peasant groups targeting large companies and multinationals in Brazil.

Protesters left peacefully after the Minas Gerais state’s justice department ordered them to leave the tracks earlier on Thursday or risk being removed by police or fined 30,000 reais ($18,000) for every day they remained, Vale said in a note.

“It started around 6 a.m. this morning,” a Vale spokeswoman said, adding more than 30 trains were delayed in the 10 hours that protesters had stopped traffic on the railway.

Trains on the line each carry around 14,000 tonnes of ore from the company’s network of mines in the state to ports but Vale could not immediately confirm how many were transporting the commodity. It said around 70 trains a day carry iron ore and other cargo down the line.

One passenger train was stopped by the protest as well as trains carrying goods for other firms, Vale said.

The Via Campesina peasant movement said about 1,500 people were occupying the railway to pressure Vale to negotiate with 500 families who will be dislodged by the construction of a hydro-electric dam in which the company is involved.

Protesters occupied properties of industrial conglomerate Votorantim and a supermarket belonging to the Wal-Mart group on Wednesday.

The peasant groups are demonstrating against the advance of one-crop farms they say harm the environment and small farmers. They are also protesting high food prices, the growing use of biofuels and the influence of multinational companies in Brazil.

Via Campesina said in a statement it was holding another protest in front of Goias state’s electricity company over price increases.

Protest halts Drax coal train as summer of discontent against coal continues…

Media – Interviews are available with protestors: call 07944 367755 Photos from the protest at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sitefeed/ Protestors have halted a coal train carrying fuel for Drax power station in Yorkshire, the single biggest source of CO2 in the UK. The protest comes six weeks before the 2008 Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth power station … Continue reading “Protest halts Drax coal train as summer of discontent against coal continues…”

Media – Interviews are available with protestors: call 07944 367755
Photos from the protest at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sitefeed/

Protestors have halted a coal train carrying fuel for Drax power station in Yorkshire, the single biggest source of CO2 in the UK. The protest comes six weeks before the 2008 Camp for Climate Action at Kingsnorth power station – which will also highlight how using coal to supply energy will be a disaster for the planet.

Dressed in white overalls and canary outfits, they used safety signals to stop the train on a bridge overlooking the power station, before climbing on board and dumping coal off onto the tracks.

The train has been stopped on a branch line used exclusively for delivering coal to Drax. Protestors have used a network of climbing ropes to suspend themselves under the bridge from the train – meaning any movement while the protest continues is impossible.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

Updates at http://thecoalhole.org/

To find out what happened next, go to http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20903

9th June Noise Demo at UK Coal Head Office Protest – next one 14th July

UK Coal is about to devastate a beautiful part of the Derbyshire countryside by starting an open cast mine. So ‘Leave it in the Ground’ and Earth First! decided to make some noise over it with people from Derby, Nottingham Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Brighton as well as other places, all travelled to UK Coals Head office in Doncaster to make some noise.

On arrival the police were there as expected, but did little to engage us and a little later in the day a 2 police officer’s with a camera and a video did appear in a daft attempt to intimidate us. UK Coal had there own security at the gate who just stood there more bored than the police.

The day was hot and very sunny at the bleak entrance of UK coals Head Office, a soul less place with nothing that said they were very proud of their company, no ornate plants, flowers or trees, just a big maintained hedge for their privacy. It is no wonder they are happy to destroy beautiful countryside for the dirty coal.

Every one was in high spirits and chilled as we all made noise for the afternoon in the sun. The plod just looked bored and there faces were getting redder by the hour under the fluro’ jackets and helmets.

We were fine of course, as we occupied the UK Coals sign for the only bit of shade while the plod kept roasting; we also sat around eating cake, pasties and sausage roles all from Veggies in a take out form, while still making a din.

At times the noise sounded good and they deliberately had to try and play badly just so it was annoying, after all it was no picnic. Banners were also hung and a police officer told us we could tie them to a lamp post, not that we needed his permission. Drivers coming in or out were also leafleted and many motorists passing the entrance beeped in support (probably ex miners who hate open casting with a passion)

It’s not just the local open cast, people are opposing of course but also the UK policy on coal that is now outdated as climate change looms in front of our eyes. Burning coal is threatening the global environment and all our futures and UK coal are cashing in on climate devastation and destruction. The Lodge House site in Derbyshire is just one of 7 sites and Lodge house will have 1 million tonnes of coal ripped out of a 122 hectare area in 5 years

Local media had turned out and radio interviews were done over the phone and there is more stuff to follow check http://leaveitintheground.org.uk and http://leaveitintheground.wordpress.com for the latest information

derby@earthfirst.org.uk

Next event: noise demo outside UK Coal on Monday 14th July 2008 – meet 3:30 at Doncaster train station, or 4pm at UK Coal

GroenFront! blocks E.ON Benelux HQ

June 3rd, GroenFront! occupied the Benelux headquarters of E.ON in Rotterdam. The office was closed shut down from 6 AM – 1 PM, when police specialists finally managed to remove some technologically advanced lock-ons. GroenFront! is demanding an immediate halt to the construction of an E.ON coal power plant on the Maasvlakte, part of the port of Rotterdam. The action is part of GroenFront!’s “shrink or drown” campaign, which aims at bringing down the size of the Dutch economy to more manageable proportions. Seven protestors were arrested for refusing police orders or refusing to show an ID. They were released around midnight.

The E.ON plant is said to be CO2 capture-ready, but in a leaked email conversation between E.ON managers at the British Dept. of Industry, it appears E.ON itself has no faith in this technology at all and is not expecting it to work. GroenFront! and clown army activists had earlier tried to put a literal ‘cork’ on an existing E.ON plant in Holland to illustrate this point.

July 19th a bicycle protest and picnic are being organised by locals from the area and GroenFront!-ers.

Another coal power plant is being planned only 1 km from E.ON’s construction site, by the Belgian company Electrabel, and there are also plans by NUON and RWE for new coal power plants that GroenFront! says it will oppose by direct action.

GroenFront! was started in 1996 as the Dutch and Belgian branch of EarthFirst.

More info: http://www.groenfront.nl

Video of the action

World Naked Bike Ride UK

A peaceful, imaginative and fun protest against oil dependency and car culture. A celebration of the bicycle and also a celebration of the power and individuality of the human body. A symbol of the vulnerability of the cyclist in traffic. The world’s biggest naked protest: 50+ cities and thousands of riders participate worldwide, including more than 1500 in the UK in 2007.

http://worldnakedbikeride.org/uk/

To check any details of rides below, see http://nakedwiki.org/wiki/UK

# Southampton: Fri 6 June, 6pm
# Brighton & Hove: Sat 7 June, 11am
# York: Sat 7 June, 4pm
# Sheffield: Sun 8 June, 2pm
# Manchester: Fri 13 June, 6pm
# Cardiff: Sat 14 June, (time is still being finalised)
# London: Sat 14 June, 3pm
# Edinburgh: 28 or 29 June – TBC

# There is discussion about possible rides in Cambridge, Belfast, Glasgow, Oxford, or even a Bristol to Bath ride.

3rd June Food & Climate Change Day of Action – more actions, in Nottingham, London x3, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool & Amsterdam

Actions co-inciding with the UN Conference on World Food Security and Climate Change got off to an early start, with Sunday seeing the first of an outbreak of vegan food give-aways, in Manchester, with a spot of guerrilla gardening; the rash spread on Monday with GM labs occupied. The Ready Steady Skip website tried to soothe, but on the day, the action contagion spread…

Passer-bys were enticed to our stall by the offers of free chips, vegan pasties and tomato plants. We handed out leaflets about climate change & food and had lots of chats with people about the world food crisis & our solutions of eating a local, organic & vegan diet. An amazing number of people already grew there own food & lots more were encouraged to give it a go. We had a really positive response from the public and people seemed genuinely interested in the information leaflets we handed out.

More photos.

The next free vegan food giveaway in Nottingham is going to be on the 4th July.

A handful of us then visited Fresh & Ecoworks community garden based at St Ann’s allotments. We had a tour of the amazing gardens & saw a brilliant example of local, organic food being produced in the city. See
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2006/08/348168.html
and
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/10/382929.html

We toddled off home in the rain, chilli plants in hand, inspired to grow our own.

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Food & Climate Change Action – London

For the Food & Climate Change day of action, Whitechapel Food Not Bombs and Brixton Reclaim Your Food teamed up to serve free vegan food in front of a Mac Donald’s in Camberwell.

The groups had a stall right in front of a Mac Donald in Camberwell for two hours, serving out freshly skipped, lovingly cooked free vegan food to passers by, and engaging people in conversation about the link between the food they eat and climate change. For good measure, the group was accompanied by a bicycle sound system, to liven up the atmosphere.

All in all, over a hundred servings were given out, countless more people saw the stall and were given leaflets highlighting some of the links between food and climate change on the following topics : waste ; veganism ; organic food ; locally produced food.

The menu included a spicy mash, a curry, a pumpkin soup, a salad, some guacamole, some stuffed aubergines, some veggies burgers, an apple cake, a fruit salad and more.

Unsurprisingly, the Mac Donald’s managers weren’t too happy about people giving out free food in front of their window shop – but the police seemed to decide otherwise. The groups were asked to remove a banner from the Mac Donald window shop, but were otherwise permitted to stay there as long as there wasn’t too much obstruction.

londonfnb@lists.riseup.net
http://www.londonfnb.org

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25 protesters organised by Biofuelwatch and Food Not Fuel, London came together for a protest outside Newham town hall in East Ham on Saturday to raise public awareness of the planning application for the UK’s first biofuel-fired power plant to be built, in Beckton. Banners and placards quoted many statistics such as the number of people going hungry because of agrofuels and the number of people who could be fed with one tank of biofuel. Over 500 signatures objecting to the plant were collected…it appears that Beckton, one of the most polluted London boroughs, is prepared to fight back.

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In London, vegan campaigners we took to the streets of Chancery Lane to
treat the city workers to some vegan food samples. The response was good,
with a range of interested people coming to taste the food. We gave away
hundreds of recipe booklets, and leaflets for this year’s London Vegan
Festival.

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Bristol Protest Over Tesco’s Biofuels Claim

Biofuels far from the panacea to petrol prices and climate change, have added to the global food price hike by taking land previously occupied by food crops. A study by the University of Minnesota found that growing biofuel on converted rainforests, peat lands, savannas or grasslands created up to 420 times more carbon dioxide than it saved.

Wheat Prices have doubled in the UK over the past year, and consumers and retailers have so far managed to absorb this. But elsewhere in the world, people are going without wheat (and other staples) and bakers are going out of business.

To illustrate this issue, a dozens bakers (rather than a bakers dozen!) will be following up Bristol Rising Tides demo in April of this year to illustrate the true cost of Agro-fuels. They will be at Tesco, Eastville between 4.30pm and 7pm

Ms Bread of Bristol Rising Tide said:

“The question is do we want do feed our cars or feed ourselves?”

Tesco has made false claims about the source of the fuel sold at its service stations, according to an investigation that found that the chain sold the most environmentally damaging types of biodiesel -Palm Oil – whilst claiming that it ‘s biofuel was sourced from relatively sustainable UK-planted rape seed oil.[2]

Mr A.Baker of Bristol Rising Tide said:

“Its now clear that we leave big business to deal with climate change, this is the kind of thing that will happen – a bloody disaster”

At this years Climate Camp (3rd – 10th August) there will be a national day of action against Agrofuels.

[1] Bristol Rising Tide is part of the International Rising Tide for Climate Justice network
www.risingtide.org.uk
[2] The Times,April 14, 2008 “Tesco green fuel ‘adds to climate change”

Leaflet

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Waiting for (social) Change!

4/06/2008
Today in the Charing Cross area of Glasgow a group of waiters invited passers-by to ‘Taste the waste’ and sample their free food. The menu was made up entirely out of skipped goods from supermarket bins and included such delights as: homemade vegan frequent flyer banana cake, skipped chip, rescued roast veg. and binned beans. This was part of the call to action on Food and Climate Change by the Network for Climate Action (http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk).

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Liverpool hosted a free vegan food fair at its social centre ‘Next to
Nowhere’. Around 50 people attended and loads of food and information was given out. The event allowed for a lot of informal discussion, with a social area created for this purpose. People were delighted to hear that they can come back for vegan food every Saturday afternoon 1-5pm.

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Pigs say: If you care about climate change, eat less meat, milk and eggs

On Tuesday June 3rd, a group of pigs made a small action for a more vegan Amsterdam. They handed out vegan snacks to encourage people not to buy that ham for dinner. It may look like the pigs acted out of self-interest, but today their message was that meat production is a major cause of climate change. While the UN is conferring in Rome on World Food Security and Climate change, the pigs put a focus on that average Europeans have a diet of disaster. Raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.

Quite some people in front of the Albert Heijn on Jodenbreestraat were happy to taste the organic, vegan falafel and chocolate cake and many said they are vegetarians already. People were surprised to hear that producing one kilo of cheese cause as much greenhouse gas emissions as driving a car for 60 km. A Brazilian woman had witnessed the expanding soy fields used for feeding animal industry.

“Consumers can make a huge improvement by avoiding animal products and imports, and by supporting local, organic farmers instead. But humans need to organise themselves fast against the dominant culture if they want to save themselves from climate chaos” the piggies stated after all the food had been handed out.

Tonight, Wednesday June 4 from 19 there will be a film night in Plantage Doklaan 12, with organic vegan food and ideas on how to combat climate change. (See programme on the website)

Website: http://www.howtocookaplanet.net

Ready Steady Skip: Trailer and website launched!

Ready Steady Skip – the game show where needlessly wasted food is recovered from the bin and turned into delicious dishes before your very eyes!

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: http://www.readysteadyskip.org.uk/

Ready Steady Skip is a bit like “Scrapheap Challenge” meets “Ready Steady Cook” – skipping for food and whipping up some tasty dishes, with plenty of hilarity (and people diving into skips).

Every year over 17 million tons of food are put straight into landfill sites, yet over 4 million tons of this is perfectly edible and still well within it’s sell-by date. A whopping 5 million tons of food are wasted annually by consumers alone: that is, more than a quarter of all food we buy goes into the bin. It’s high time this insanity stopped!

Skipping (aka. “Freeganism” or “Dumpster Diving”) is all about reclaiming perfectly edible food “waste” from the jaws of an insane system founded on greed, and making good use of it.

We’ve launched the Ready Steady Skip trailer and website to coincide with the Days Of Climate Action food day (3rd June 2008), which is highlighting the fact that the food we eat contributes up to a third of the emissions that are poisoning the planet. When you consider the amount of food that is just thrown away, it brings home how needless this lunacy is. Nobody ever need go hungry – yet people still starve every day.

The programme was shot here in Nottingham at the beginning of March, and the full episode will be released online in July 2008. We’re also trying to organise a screening (and possibly even another contest) at the Climate Camp.

Keep an eye on our website for updates!

Previous Notts Indymedia piece: Ready, Steady, Skip!! – The Pictures 1

info@readysteadyskip.org.uk
http://www.readysteadyskip.org.uk/

Free Food Event and Guerrilla Gardening to herald Food & Climate Change day of action

FREE VEGAN FOOD EVENT!
On Sunday 1st Manchester Animal Protection and Manchester Climate Action held a free vegan picnic in Piccadilly gardens..

We gave away lots of delicious food, and seedlings, including aubergine plants and peppers! Much of the food was donated, some of it was skipped. We hung banners and had placards…

FREE VEGAN FOOD EVENT!
On Sunday 1st Manchester Animal Protection and Manchester Climate Action held a free vegan picnic in Piccadilly gardens..

We gave away lots of delicious food, and seedlings, including aubergine plants and peppers! Much of the food was donated, some of it was skipped. We hung banners and had placards…

The overall response was really positive, despite the rain! Lots of people came and talked to us for a long time, and the council even sampled some of our tasty snacks!

We did some guerrilla gardening in Piccadilly gardens, an area which is increasingly less like a gardens every; planting everything from courgettes to rosebushes!

We also took our snacks into Burger King, Starbucks and Cafe Nero, offering customers free cake (and propaganda!)..

Similar events happened across the north in cities like Liverpool and Sheffield.

This event was organised as part of the day of action on food and climate change, which is happening tomorrow (3rd June)…actions and events are happening over the next few days…more to follow soon!

To get involved in events like this in the future, email this address..

If you took photos, please also email them in!

Hopefully it will be the start of more combined events with MAP/MCA!

manchester@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk/food.html