Category: Climate Chaos

Prosecution collapses in Superglue Penny trial

Dur­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action at Heathrow last year, large num­bers of police invad­ed the site, only to be peace­ful­ly resist­ed by the Campers, and eject­ed from the site with impres­sive restraint. The pre­text for this attack by the police was so that the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team could “do a head­count” (in spite of the face that local police offi­cers were already patrolling the site, and were pre­sum­ably per­fect­ly capa­ble of ful­fill­ing this task). It is far more like­ly that the real rea­son behind the police action was their desire to pro­voke a riot, and thus have an excuse to destroy the camp and bang heads. After the incur­sion the Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Sup­port Group (riot police) were ordered to kit them­selves out in full gear, to pre­pare for a sec­ond assault on the camp.

Dur­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action at Heathrow last year, large num­bers of police invad­ed the site, only to be peace­ful­ly resist­ed by the Campers, and eject­ed from the site with impres­sive restraint. The pre­text for this attack by the police was so that the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team could “do a head­count” (in spite of the face that local police offi­cers were already patrolling the site, and were pre­sum­ably per­fect­ly capa­ble of ful­fill­ing this task). It is far more like­ly that the real rea­son behind the police action was their desire to pro­voke a riot, and thus have an excuse to destroy the camp and bang heads. After the incur­sion the Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Sup­port Group (riot police) were ordered to kit them­selves out in full gear, to pre­pare for a sec­ond assault on the camp.

This would have come to pass if it had not been for the swift response of an activist who super­glued her hands to the gates in order to deny them access.
As a result of this action Pen­ny East­wood was charged with obstruct­ing the police in the course of their duty, and she entered a plea of inno­cent on the grounds that the police were not act­ing in accor­dance with their duty.

After months of delay, the tri­al took place at Uxbridge on 8th and 9th Jan­u­ary, at which the pros­e­cu­tion case col­lapsed. The dis­trict judge pre­sid­ing right­ly spot­ted that the police’s case was a load of rub­bish, because they pro­duced no evi­dence that they were pre­vent­ed from car­ry­ing out a law­ful duty.

This case proves (if any proof were need­ed), that the police are ever hap­py to employ vio­lence in pur­suit of their polit­i­cal aims. It also shows that the Met are spec­tac­u­lar­ly stu­pid. I sup­pose we should take some com­fort that there are still judges in Britain who think that the pro­vok­ing of riots is out­side a police officer’s nor­mal course of duty.

Pen­ny said “I was try­ing to de-esca­late the sit­u­a­tion after aggres­sive­ly over the top polic­ing had cre­at­ed ten­sion. There were riot police crouch­ing behind the hedgerow. It was very scary, par­tic­u­lar­ly as there were chil­dren on site”.

“I am a cli­mate activist because I am a moth­er and I want to ensure that my chil­dren have a half-way decent future — that’s why I see it as my duty to oppose acts of envi­ron­men­tal luna­cy, like air­port expan­sion. I thought that the riot police were try­ing to shut down the cli­mate camp, and I did­n’t think that that was right or fair. The tri­al has been hang­ing over me for sev­er­al months, and it is a huge relief that my action has been vin­di­cat­ed by the judge.”

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 75, JANUARY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH & LONDON, 15.12.07
3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA — DECEMBER 2007
25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Just three months to go — are you out prac­tis­ing your rou­tines? rehears­ing your songs? build­ing your props yet? I should get out more over Christ­mas…
How­ev­er, it will soon be time to hatch your mis­chie­vous scheme, so get your friends round and start plot­ting!
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/

2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
In sup­port of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, AMP is organ­is­ing a night of live music at The Oth­ers, Manor Road, Stoke New­ing­ton. Entrance £5.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=38074566

3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
Organ­ised by Ris­ing Tide with speak­ers from Groundswell and Plane Stu­pid.
7pm St. Maw­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Hall, Nr. Newquay, Corn­wall. For more info. email; kernow@risingtide.org.uk

4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
11am — 6pm at The Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham.
This meet­ing came out of the last Cli­mate Camp gath­er­ing in Novem­ber. It is focussed on grow­ing our move­ment — how can we encour­age more groups to form and more actions/campaigns to hap­pen? What things do we want to do to help build a vibrant net­work of region­al action groups doing actions local­ly and nation­al­ly?
For instruc­tion on how to get there: http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html
Also, 11 peo­ple are going to tri­al in Not­ting­ham on Mon­day 14th for ‘shut­ting down’ the local coal pow­er sta­tion, If any­one wants to stay to sup­port them that would be great!

5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/nextmeeting.php

6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
Bio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 1st Feb­ru­ary 2008. We will short­ly update our web­site to pro­vide more back­ground infor­ma­tion about the UK agro­fu­el indus­try and poli­cies, as well as a draft leaflet and oth­er resources. If you would like to get involved or find out more, please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk.
http://biofuelwatch.org.uk/

7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Forum “Cli­mate Change: it’s time to pre­pare”
9.15am at the Methodist Hall, Old­ham St, Cen­tral Man­ches­ter
http://www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk/index.html

8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
On Jan­u­ary 26 self-orga­nized groups from all around the world will take cre­ative action in their com­mu­ni­ty. This will man­i­fest in many ways, from non­vi­o­lent direct action, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, street the­atre, con­ver­gences, teach-ins and oth­er activ­i­ties and events. Grass­roots move­ments around the world are mak­ing their voic­es heard and say­ing “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”. In coor­di­na­tion with the World Social Forum.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
Next course by the Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courseoutlinelowimpactsmallholding.htm

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
For the recent­ly formed Ker­now and Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide groups, this action marked an esca­la­tion in their fight against cli­mate change and for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. How­ev­er the planned rooftop protest at Newquay air­port was giv­en an unlike­ly boost when builders at the air­port left a lad­der propped up!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/248
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7146159.stm

2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH AND LONDON, 15.12.07
Sub­ver­sive Singing San­tas Spread Sea­son­al San­i­ty in Lon­don and Nor­wich On one of the busiest shop­ping days of the year. Ris­ing Tide activists in both Lon­don and Nor­wich dressed up as San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion and hit the high streets to sing a dif­fer­ent tune to the usu­al buy, buy,
buy mad­ness of the hol­i­day sea­son.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/247

3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
A series of actions is being tak­en against the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and Bris­tol Muse­um, in protest at the spon­sor­ship of the event by Shell. A grumpy polar bear vis­it­ed the offices of BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine, then activists dis­rupt­ed Bris­tol Muse­um’s posh recep­tion to kick off the exhi­bi­tion with a Yes Men-style inter­ven­tion. And on the open­ing morn­ing, dozens of humans, polar bears, a snow leop­ard and a tiger gath­ered (com­plete with the Shell’s Wild Lie counter-exhi­bi­tion) in front of the muse­um. They hand­ed out leaflets and cre­at­ed quite a spec­ta­cle. Protests are expect­ed to con­tin­ue through Jan. 13th.
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held on 16th Decem­ber at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.
On the 19th, a small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17942
http://www.corribsos.com/

5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
Over 10,000 cli­mate cam­paign­ers took to the streets to take part in march­es in Lon­don and Glas­gow over the week­end, despite pour­ing rain. Pro­test­ers braved the weath­er in one the biggest demon­stra­tions call­ing for cli­mate jus­tice the UK has ever seen.
http://www.campaigncc.org/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387497.html
Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of the Cli­mate March in Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/
Mean­while, in Man­ches­ter air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to Euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed.

6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
A col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17893

7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
All Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre were super-glued shut in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et” The UK’s only Hum­mer deal­er­ship, Bauer Mil­lett, was also D‑locked shut.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17887

8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
Activists from Chea­dle-High-Street Against Cli­mate Change held a “A plan­et is not just for Xmas” cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17917

9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
Two adverts pro­mot­ing DVD’s by Top Gear’s Jere­my Clark­son now have large stick­ers stuck on declar­ing “This caus­es cli­mate change”. Also, Fly­Be appears to have spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17937

10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
Women cli­mate activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and coin­cides with the open­ing of their first “con­sul­ta­tion”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17883

11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
A ban­ner with this warning/statement was dropped to wel­come all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17886

12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
More than thir­ty cli­mate activists, includ­ing mem­bers of the Ris­ing Tide net­work, joined with local res­i­dents from Merthyr Tyd­fil in stop­ping exca­va­tion work for a full day on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. Activists evad­ed police and secu­ri­ty before tak­ing over the 1,000 acre site on a hill­top near Cardiff. Dressed as clowns and polar bears, they chained them­selves to bull­doz­ers and oth­er heavy machin­ery to pre­vent work on the mine.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/242

13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90
per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/240
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/03/oil.bp

14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
Four home­less polar bears appeared before Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court on 14th Novem­ber. They were arrest­ed after blockad­ing the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cor­po­rate offices on Avon St. dur­ing the Ris­ing Tide nation­al day of action. After plead­ing guilty to charges of “wil­ful­ly obstruct­ing the pub­lic high­way with a non motor vehi­cle” (i.e. a suit case) they were giv­en a con­di­tion­al dis­charge and went on to pick­et the RBS branch on Bald­win Street!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/243

15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
The only way to fight cli­mate change. A new report by Oil­Watch.
http://www.oilwatch.org/doc/documentos/Keep_oil_underground.pdf
http://www.oilwatch.org/

16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing “nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos” and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17868

17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
Unbur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of her car and pulled a cyclist off his bike.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17889

18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
“Livestock’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.” Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006
find out more at
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/hot/index.php

19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
A free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work.
http://whatbettertime.livejournal.com/

20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­bler­ousi­ness.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17905

21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
For updates on the work of Pacif­ic Envi­ron­ment, a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that pro­tects the Pacif­ic Rim’s wild places and wildlife, see;
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2658

22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
From fan­ta­sy finance to glob­al crash.
Your guide to under­stand­ing the cri­sis that is sweep­ing through the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem and what it means for ordi­nary peo­ple.
Endorsed by Kevin Smith of Car­bon Trade Watch and film­mak­er Ken Loach.
http://www.aworldtowin.net/about/HouseOfCards.html

23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
A new web­site.
http://www.swairaction.org.uk/

24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA is born — DECEMBER 2007
The group had its first meet­ing on 3rd Jan­u­ary and is now swing­ing into action. If you live in the area and want to find out more or get involved con­tact becqke@riseup.net

25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE
Ris­ing Tide action footage has been spring­ing up all over youtube — check out http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RisingTideNetwork for some RT films, some of the lat­est actions and links to oth­er’s videos of RT actions.

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

END

Ogoni Day remembered as Shell fail to honour promise to halt gas flaring

Today is Jan­u­ary 4th 2008.

On this day in 1993, 300,000 peo­ple in Nige­ria marked the Unit­ed Nations Year of Indige­nous Peo­ples by protest­ing against Shel­l’s activ­i­ties and the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion of Ogo­ni­land in the Niger Delta.

2008 was sup­posed to be the dead­line for the end­ing of gas flar­ing by Shell in Nige­ria, but the com­pa­ny now says that this dead­line will not be met.

Let­ting the com­pa­ny have a taste of its own med­i­cine

Shell Dublin HQ Ogoni Day flaringToday is Jan­u­ary 4th 2008.

On this day in 1993, 300,000 peo­ple in Nige­ria marked the Unit­ed Nations Year of Indige­nous Peo­ples by protest­ing against Shel­l’s activ­i­ties and the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion of Ogo­ni­land in the Niger Delta.

2008 was sup­posed to be the dead­line for the end­ing of gas flar­ing by Shell in Nige­ria, but the com­pa­ny now says that this dead­line will not be met.

Let­ting the com­pa­ny have a taste of its own med­i­cine

At just before 8.30 this morn­ing, as staff were arriv­ing for work at Roy­al Dutch Shel­l’s Irish head­quar­ters in Dublin, they were treat­ed to a taste of what life is like for those who have to live and work near Shell instal­la­tions in oth­er parts of the world.

Short ver­sion of video (45 sec­onds) here: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=u4uZDvA5WY4

Long ver­sion (2 minute) here: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=597hkm9MuTo

More infor­ma­tion on Shell in Nige­ria here: http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2007/May3_DU_Flaring.htm

Gas Flar­ing is sim­ply the releas­ing of excess gas and liq­uids asso­ci­at­ed with oil and gas pro­duc­tion pipelines and refiner­ies into the atmos­phere. The main pur­pose of gas flar­ing is to pro­tect pipelines and infra­struc­ture from over-pres­sur­ing

The released gas­es are burned off, releas­ing any by-prod­ucts into the air. These include nitro­gen diox­ide, sul­phur diox­ide, and volatile organ­ic com­pounds like xylene and hydro­gen sul­fide. Car­cino­gens such as ben­za­pyrene are also released. Peo­ple exposed to these sub­stances can suf­fer from a vari­ety of res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems, which have been report­ed amongst many chil­dren in the Niger Delta but have but have nev­er been sys­tem­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gat­ed. These chem­i­cals can also aggra­vate asth­ma, cause breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties and pain, as well as chron­ic bron­chi­tis.

Ben­zene, which is known to be emit­ted from gas flares in undoc­u­ment­ed quan­ti­ties, is acknowl­edged as being a causative agent for leukemia.

Gas flar­ing of course, also con­tributes to glob­al warm­ing and cli­mate change.

Togeth­er with oil spills, gas flar­ing is seen as a major cause of envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. In Nige­ria, the prac­tice is sup­posed to be ille­gal, but there is no sign of the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment being able to enforce this law. Here in Ire­land we know all about how Shell can manip­u­late the world of pol­i­tics and the legal process to suit the needs of the com­pa­ny’s share­hold­ers.

In Nige­ria in 1995 how­ev­er, it appears that Shel­l’s PR peo­ple slow­ly realised that their part in the hang­ing of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight oth­er activists was a pub­lic rela­tions dis­as­ter, and in the after­math the com­pa­ny made var­i­ous con­ces­sions to its crit­ics, in a vain attempt to undue some of the dam­age it felt had been done to its brand. One of the promis­es made was the announce­ment of an end to gas flar­ing.

Shell of course, is not well known for liv­ing up to its promis­es, and so flar­ing is still going on today. In the year 2000, Shell for­mal­ly announced that it would stop gas flar­ing by 2008. Inter­est­ing­ly, since 2000, gas flar­ing in the Niger Delta has actu­al­ly increased (accord­ing to the 2005 Shell Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Report).

In Novem­ber 2005, the Fed­er­al High Court of Nige­ria stat­ed that Shell and oth­er oil com­pa­nies
should end gas flar­ing in the Niger Delta. In a case brought against Shell, the court ruled that the dam­ag­ing and waste­ful prac­tice of flar­ing could not law­ful­ly con­tin­ue and must stop. Shell appealed against the deci­sion.

At the demon­stra­tion on Jan­u­ary 4th 1993, an Ogo­ni elder said:
“We have wok­en up to find our lands dev­as­tat­ed by agents of death called oil com­pa­nies. Our atmos­phere has been total­ly pol­lut­ed, our lands degrad­ed, our waters con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, our trees poi­soned, so much so that our flo­ra and fau­na have vir­tu­al­ly dis­ap­peared”.

Jan­u­ary 4th became known as Ogo­ni Day.

For more infor­ma­tion see:

www.remembersarowiwa.com

greenwash guerillas hit shell hq

4.01.2008
at lunchtime yes­ter­day, a small band of green­wash gueril­las entered the lob­by of the lon­don shell hq to high­light the mas­sive amount of tox­ic green­wash ema­nat­ing from the build­ing. once eject­ed they con­tin­ued their work out­side, warn­ing the pub­lic of the dan­gers of green­wash

Shell HQ greenwashGreenwash leaflet4.01.2008
at lunchtime yes­ter­day, a small band of green­wash gueril­las entered the lob­by of the lon­don shell hq to high­light the mas­sive amount of tox­ic green­wash ema­nat­ing from the build­ing. once eject­ed they con­tin­ued their work out­side, warn­ing the pub­lic of the dan­gers of green­wash

full green­wash film in mp4 for­mat — video/mp4 8.2M
full green­wash film in wmv for­mat — video/x‑ms-wmv 8.8M

shell secu­ri­ty got into quite a tizz over the four pro­tes­tors and rather too many police arrived. the police (once the gov­ern­ment secu­ri­ty zone map was shown to them) “facil­i­tat­ed law­ful protest” as long as it did­n’t go too near the poi­so­nous shell build­ing. this may have been for the safe­ty of the pub­lic or for oth­er rea­sons.

the gueril­las’ the­atrics attract­ed quite a lot of pub­lic inter­est and loads of leaflets were hand­ed out

green­wash gueril­las are asso­ci­at­ed with ris­ing tide and you can find out more about what they do and when, by get­ting in touch via their web­site at www.risingtide.org.uk

the vid is post­ed in quick­time mp4 and wmv for­mats and is 6′30″
quick­time can be viewed on any com­put­er (any plat­form) with vlc play­er avail­able for free down­load from vide­olan

London Rising Tide activists ‘die’ in the Tate Britain (4 January 2008)

Activists ‘die’ in the Tate Britain

Activists from Lon­don Ris­ing Tide staged a ‘die-in’ in the BP spon­sored Tate Britain this after­noon. Bob Jones from LRT said “we’re here to demand that the Tate cut it’s ties with BP, an art gallery is no place for an envi­ron­men­tal haz­ard such as an oil com­pa­ny”. “BP are here to Green­wash their image and dis­tract from the eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion they’re caus­ing around the world”. The pro­test­ers hand­ed out lots of leaflets and urged patrons to demand the end of Oil Com­pa­nies spon­sor­ship of Art Gal­leries.

Activists ‘die’ in the Tate Britain

Activists from Lon­don Ris­ing Tide staged a ‘die-in’ in the BP spon­sored Tate Britain this after­noon. Bob Jones from LRT said “we’re here to demand that the Tate cut it’s ties with BP, an art gallery is no place for an envi­ron­men­tal haz­ard such as an oil com­pa­ny”. “BP are here to Green­wash their image and dis­tract from the eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion they’re caus­ing around the world”. The pro­test­ers hand­ed out lots of leaflets and urged patrons to demand the end of Oil Com­pa­nies spon­sor­ship of Art Gal­leries.

The ‘corpses’ were dressed in t‑shirts dis­pa­ly­ing the logos such as ‘art not oil’, ‘bp — fos­sil fools’ and ‘bp out of the tate’. Their epi­taphs was fit­ting for the loca­tion. Once dead the staff on site took the pre­cau­tion of shout­ing to every­body to leave which only attract­ed more peo­ple, and over 200 fly­ers were giv­en out inside the build­ing.

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the pub­lic were very sup­port­ive and even told the staff to stop try­ing to move us ; “these peo­ple are mak­ing more of a state­ment than most of the art in this room” was some­thing i heard being said.

After ask­ing the TATE for a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to dis­cuss the pol­i­cy of accept­ing mon­ey from social crim­i­nals, but they refused as all direc­tors were ‘still on hol­i­day’. A shame.…and i bet they flew too!

All in all, a good day with excel­lent pub­lic response.
we will be back.

20080104_RT_GG_Tate_Invasion — video/x‑ms-wmv 15M
20080104_RT_Tate_QT — video/quicktime 14M

Success for City Indians: 4WD targetted in Denmark

4th Jan­u­ary 2008

Orig­i­nal­ly from Swe­den a move­ment of “city indi­ans” tar­get­ting large 4WD cars has spread wide­ly in Den­mark, while in Swe­den a truce has been declared.

The num­ber of attacks on high pol­lu­tion 4WD city cars have been increas­ing steadi­ly in Den­mark since the city indi­ans first began in Swe­den some months ago. New year’s eve saw anoth­er wave of actions in Copen­hagen.

4th Jan­u­ary 2008

Orig­i­nal­ly from Swe­den a move­ment of “city indi­ans” tar­get­ting large 4WD cars has spread wide­ly in Den­mark, while in Swe­den a truce has been declared.

The num­ber of attacks on high pol­lu­tion 4WD city cars have been increas­ing steadi­ly in Den­mark since the city indi­ans first began in Swe­den some months ago. New year’s eve saw anoth­er wave of actions in Copen­hagen.

Mean­while in Swe­den where the actions start­ed a truce has been declared by the CI. “It seems our actions have had effect, the mes­sage that city jeeps have no place in our cities has got­ten through. But if we don’t con­tin­ue to see decreas­ing sales of the cars the hatch­et is eas­i­ly unburied”, the CI in Swe­den said in a state­ment on their web­site.

The CI in both Swe­den and Den­mark have received count­less death threats on their web­sites.

Celebrating the end of the carbon economy

This after­noon, at 5pm. mem­bers of Groen­front will join togeth­er in the cen­tre of cap­i­tal­ism in the Nether­lands: the Beur­splein in Ams­ter­dam. Here they will bring out a toast to the record-high price of oil of $100 per bar­rel. Since 2003 the price of oil has sky-rock­et­ed, with the rate some­times climb­ing sev­er­al dol­lars a day. Groen­Front-activist Rogi­er: “What the earth needs is eco­nom­ic ‘shrink­age’. The cli­mate cri­sis and the peak­ing oil pro­duc­tion show us that we need to adjust to the lim­its of our ecosys­tem”.

This after­noon, at 5pm. mem­bers of Groen­front will join togeth­er in the cen­tre of cap­i­tal­ism in the Nether­lands: the Beur­splein in Ams­ter­dam. Here they will bring out a toast to the record-high price of oil of $100 per bar­rel. Since 2003 the price of oil has sky-rock­et­ed, with the rate some­times climb­ing sev­er­al dol­lars a day. Groen­Front-activist Rogi­er: “What the earth needs is eco­nom­ic ‘shrink­age’. The cli­mate cri­sis and the peak­ing oil pro­duc­tion show us that we need to adjust to the lim­its of our ecosys­tem”.

Peakoil is the geo­log­i­cal­ly deter­mined peak­ing and — after that — shrink­ing of oil pro­duc­tion. The remain­der of oil becomes hard­er and hard­er to retrieve, demand­ing a still greater tech­no­log­i­cal and finan­cial effort.
It looks as if the world­wide pro­duc­tion of oil has reached that peak. Every fol­low­ing year, the pro­duc­tion will decrease. The decreased sup­ply in com­bi­na­tion with an ever increas­ing demand will push up the price of oil. Exec­u­tives of, among oth­ers, Total, Cono­co, Philps, Sau­di Aram­co and the Libyan Nation­al Oil Cor­po­ra­tion have already stat­ed that they are not able to meet the cur­rent demand for oil. The last few years have seen low­er yields from oil fields in the US, Mex­i­co and the North Sea. The Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency expressed its con­cerns over the ever grow­ing gap between sup­ply and demand in the glob­al oil mar­ket.

Whether the record-high price of $100 is ben­e­fi­cial to the envi­ron­ment depends on the way the oil-addict­ed soci­eties react. If the short­age in oil will be com­pen­sat­ed for with pol­lu­tive replace­ments, like agro­fu­els, uncon­ven­tion­al oil and syn­thet­ic diesel from coal and nat­ur­al gas, the world still has not learned its les­son. This record-high price should be used as a wake-up call: fos­sil fuels are lim­it­ed and already we are faced with the con­se­quences.

Fam­i­lies in the Unit­ed States are seri­ous­ly con­cerned with the oncom­ing win­ter because of the great­ly increased cost of petrol. Trans­port and fish­ing sec­tor in Europe are antic­i­pat­ing protests against the risen price of diesel fuel. In Third World coun­tries — where fuels are usu­al­ly sub­sidised — gov­ern­ments are faced with a choice: an emp­ty trea­sury or upris­ing. In Africa and Asia a grow­ing amount of fish­er­men are forced to stay ashore because of the high costs of fuel. Farm­ers are not able to bring their prod­ucts to the mar­ket place. Peakoil starts to rear its ugly head every­where.

“The cli­mate cri­sis and the deple­tion of fos­sile fuels show us that a rad­i­cal change in our eco­nom­ic sys­tem is an absolute neces­si­ty,” says Groen­Front activist Rogi­er. “Fail­ing to do so means wait­ing for an eco­nom­ic reces­sion which will hit the peo­ple who are already hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ties to cope. A redis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth is nec­es­sary, but most of all a choice has to be made for a lit­tle less wealth. We can do that now, vol­un­tar­i­ly and peace­ful­ly, or wait until both econ­o­my and ecol­o­gy force us to do so.” In con­clu­sion, Rogi­er states: “Eco­nom­ic shrink­age is the only real solu­tion to the approach­ing eco­nom­ic and eco­log­ic cri­sis.”

Happy Valley Occupation Celebration — Two Years! (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

SAVE HAPPY VALLEY!
OCCUPATION CELEBRATION — TWO YEARS!
THE WEEKEND OF FEBRUARY 2nd-3rd, 2008

SAVE HAPPY VALLEY!
OCCUPATION CELEBRATION — TWO YEARS!
THE WEEKEND OF FEBRUARY 2nd-3rd, 2008

You are invit­ed to the Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion’s cel­e­bra­tion of our SECOND suc­cess­ful year of occu­py­ing Hap­py Val­ley. We have been con­tin­u­ous­ly occu­py­ing Hap­py Val­ley since Jan­u­ary 28th 2006 in order to pre­vent Sol­id Ener­gy from turn­ing it into an envi­ron­men­tal­ly dev­as­tat­ing open­cast coal-mine. Despite spies, 6000 snails from Augus­tus trans­ferred in ice­cream con­tain­ers, the destruc­tion of a near­by moun­tain, Sol­id Ener­gy’s plans for mas­sive expan­sion, and the Octo­ber 15th raids on activists, peo­ple have man­aged to keep Hap­py Val­ley safe so far! Yay for train track block­ades, film nights, alter­na­tives to min­er­als forums, demos, radio inter­views, every­one’s actions, and the OCCUPATION!

The Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion, and any­one who wish­es to join us for the week­end cel­e­bra­tion, will be meet­ing at Les War­ren Park, in West­port, at 8am on Sat­ur­day 2nd Febu­rary 2008. (The major­i­ty of us will trav­el to West­port from Christchurch on the Fri­day night, car pool­ing can be arranged thru the coor­di­na­tor).

You will need all of your own tramping/camping gear and food, enough for the dura­tion of your intend­ed stay and you need to be pre­pared for unpre­dictable weath­er; rain; sun; hot and cold. This means that you must have have suit­able footwear, water­proof and warm cloth­ing, a sleep­ing bag and a tent (unless you have arranged to share with some­one else). An extend­ed gear list will be made avail­able to you when you con­firm plans with the occu­pa­tion coor­di­na­tor. If you do not have the required gear we may be able to pro­vide it for you, but please ensure that by the Fri­day you have the cor­rect gear.

We will be leav­ing the val­ley / return­ing to West­port on Sun­day the 3rd but it would be awe­some if you are able to stay longer in the val­ley!! Please let the coor­di­na­tor know.

We hope you can join us. Please RSVP so we can coor­di­nate eas­i­ly 🙂 Please let us know if you have any spe­cial needs that are of con­cern, we will be as accom­mo­dat­ing as pos­si­ble and we can pro­vide you with as much infor­ma­tion as you require.

For more infor­ma­tion please con­tact the occu­pa­tion coor­di­na­tor.

Thanks for your sup­port!

Frances Mar­tin
Occu­pa­tion Cel­e­bra­tion Coor­di­na­tor
frances.crayon@gmail.com
021 2037040

www.savehappyvalley.org.nz/occupation

If you can­not make it for this week­end but are able to vis­it the val­ley at anoth­er time please con­tact us! 🙂

Shell to Sea protesters scale government building to reach Minister’s Office

Wednes­day Decem­ber 19, 2007

A small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources today, to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.

Natural Resources Department roof-top occupationWednes­day Decem­ber 19, 2007

A small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources today, to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.

Split­ting into two small teams, the pro­test­ers used advice from Green­Peace to dis­tract the secu­ri­ty and gain access to the Min­is­ter’s top floor office and leave a mes­sage for him.

This action was car­ried out to bring to pub­lic atten­tion the gov­ern­men­t’s sup­port for every aspect of the Ross­port pipeline/refinery scheme, and the give­away of Irish Nat­ur­al resources to multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies like Shell, with no last­ing ben­e­fit for peo­ple in Ire­land. The Green par­ty have now had a full term of the Dáil to hon­our their elec­tion promis­es, but sad­ly, their end of term report is is marked FAIL.

None of the gas or oil in the wells off the west­ern coast of Ire­land will belong to the state, since the gov­ern­ment still plans to give it all away for free to pri­vate com­pa­nies. The recent changes to licens­ing agree­ments won’t apply to the eight bil­lion euro Cor­rib project, and don’t amount to a seri­ous stake for the peo­ple of Ire­land in their own nat­ur­al resources, 100 per cent of which is still being giv­en away to com­pa­nies like Shell and Sta­toil.

None of the mon­ey from these fos­sil fuels will be invest­ed in renew­able sources of ener­gy like wind and wave pow­er, and no thought has been giv­en to the impact that the exploita­tion of these resources will have on cli­mate change.

Áine, one of the Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors, said “The gov­ern­men­t’s supine sup­port for the oil com­pa­nies shows that they pri­ori­tise the wel­fare of Shell share­hold­ers over the well­be­ing of their own cit­i­zens. Shell are being allowed to keep all the gas and sell it to the high­est bid­der, almost cer­tain­ly in Britain. The refin­ing of 4 mil­lion euro worth of raw gas per day will clear­ly degrade the envi­ron­ment, both local­ly for the peo­ple of Mayo, and also in terms of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions when the gas is used. From an Irish point of view, we would be bet­ter off leav­ing the gas where it is, under the sea.”

Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors have also point­ed out that the gov­ern­men­t’s dou­ble talk on cli­mate change can be clear­ly seen when they are sup­port­ing the con­struc­tion of a raw gas refin­ery, and say they are hop­ing for fur­ther exploita­tion of fos­sil fuels in the Atlantic mar­gin.

ÁÍne con­tin­ued: “Until sup­ply-side solu­tions are put in place, the con­tin­u­ing exploita­tion of fos­sil fuels will be adding to car­bon diox­ide emis­sions which is caus­ing cli­mate change. Any pos­si­ble ben­e­fit from this is lost because the gas and oil are sim­ply hand­ed over to the big cor­po­ra­tions. The peo­ple of Ire­land will see no advan­tage, either envi­ron­men­tal or finan­cial, from their own gas and oil resources.”

“Mean­while the cor­po­ra­tions which will see huge prof­its from Irish resources, seek to use the cheap­est and most dan­ger­ous way of exploit­ing them. Our gov­ern­ment is hap­py to see lives of peo­ple in Ire­land put at risk by the use of an onshore pipeline and refin­ery in Mayo, sim­ply to max­imise returns for Shell share­hold­ers. ”

Relat­ed Link: http://www.shelltosea.com

Short haul flight Manchester adverts cancelled

18.12.2007
Shock­ing U‑turn from short-haul car­ri­er!

Appar­ent­ly, Fly­Be has spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!

Domestic flights advert cancelled18.12.2007
Shock­ing U‑turn from short-haul car­ri­er!

Appar­ent­ly, Fly­Be has spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!

All they need now is to con­vince their mates Ryanair, Easy­jet, et al. that short-haul avi­a­tion is unsus­tain­able and head­ing us towards run-away cli­mate change.