Category: Climate Chaos

BP Executive pied as Europe’s largest BioFuels Event disrupted, Blockade of D1 Oils & demo outside exhibition

17th Octo­ber, 2007

BP speaker pied at Biofuel conference
BP biofuel conference stage invasionBiofuel lock-on17th Octo­ber, 2007
The exhi­bi­tion, fea­tur­ing over a hun­dred trade stands, ran along­side a con­fer­ence which opened on Wednes­day with a key note speech from BP Bio­fu­els’ Europe & Africa Direc­tor Oliv­er Mace, but was quick­ly thrown into chaos when a num­ber of peo­ple dressed in suits marched onto the stage to tar­get BP’s ‘dan­ger­ous and dis­hon­est’ green­wash and protest at the cat­a­stroph­ic effects of replac­ing cli­mate-sta­bil­is­ing ecosys­tems with arable crops for bio­fu­el feed­stocks.

A stunned audi­ence gasped as a cream-pie was launched at Mace, while activists swarmed the stage and hand­ed out leaflets to atten­dees. One of the pro­test­ers D‑locked him­self to the podi­um, telling del­e­gates “we need to reduce our con­sump­tion now – tech­no­log­i­cal fix­es are not the answer.” Pan­ic alarms were then set off around the room and the con­fer­ence was halt­ed.

Lat­er a press con­fer­ence was held at which East­side Cli­mate Action gave a state­ment say­ing: “Bio­fu­els are not part of the solu­tion, they are part of the prob­lem. We need lifestyle and eco­nom­ic change, a reduc­tion in con­sump­tion and local pro­duc­tion of all our own needs.”

BP, the main spon­sor of the Bio­fu­els con­fer­ence, did not rep­re­sent them­selves at the press con­fer­ence through fears that atten­tion would be focussed on the protest. Oliv­er Mace was said to be ‘shak­en’ by the morning’s events.

Richard Price, con­fer­ence organ­is­er and Bio­fu­els Media direc­tor, said that one of the aims of the event was to have some debate which sur­rounds issues such as food ver­sus fuel. He also offered a plat­form for those want­i­ng to raise objec­tions and con­cerns with the bio­fu­els indus­try.

Price point­ed to future bio­fu­el tech­nolo­gies, known as sec­ond gen­er­a­tion bio­fu­els, which use plant mat­ter such as Jat­ropha and algae, and do not nor­mal­ly enter the food chain. Price and oth­ers are claim­ing that these may offer advan­tages such as high­er oil yields and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of using oth­er­wise unvi­able land.

Price admit­ted “we should be using less fuel, being more eco­nom­i­cal, as well as explor­ing bio­fu­els. Next year we’ll see what the issues are, but clear­ly we need a much wider base.” Asked if the con­fer­ence would accept spon­sor­ship from BP in the future, Bio­fu­els Media have so far declined to com­ment.

Lat­er on there were fur­ther protests as cam­paign­ers gath­ered at the main gates to the Newark show­ground, where the con­fer­ence was held. Activists from pres­sure group Bio­fu­el­watch were in atten­dance to explain their con­cerns, and those attend­ing the con­fer­ence were engaged in dis­cus­sions and hand­ed leaflets explain­ing that defor­esta­tion ‑such as to make way for oil palms for fuel in Asia- is a major cause of cli­mate change, account­ing for up to 30 per­cent of glob­al green­house gas emis­sions.

Bio­fu­el­watch cam­paign­er Deep­ak Rughani referred to a recent study by sci­en­tist Paul Crutzen, which found that Bio­fu­els pro­duced from arable crops are direct­ly respon­si­ble for green­house gas emis­sions of up to 70% more than the equiv­a­lent of fos­sil-fuel. Rughani added, “when you add in ele­ments of defor­esta­tion or land-use change, you are look­ing at mas­sive fur­ther emis­sions due to the release of car­bon stored in trees, plants and with­in the soil.”

Bio­fu­el­watch cam­paigns against the use of bio-ener­gy from unsus­tain­able sources, name­ly bio­fu­els that are linked to accel­er­at­ed cli­mate change, defor­esta­tion, bio-diver­si­ty loss­es, water and soil degra­da­tion, and the dis­place­ment and impov­er­ish­ment of local pop­u­la­tions and loss of food sov­er­eign­ty and secu­ri­ty. Aside from tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions, Bio­fu­el­watch and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal groups believe cuts in green­house gas emis­sions must be based on over­all demand reduc­tion. This means reduc­ing ener­gy use and trans­port as opposed to replac­ing one type of fuel with anoth­er.

Bio­fu­els Con­fer­ence — Audio clip (intro & pie) — mp3 1.7M

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Press release —

Date: 17th Octo­ber, 2007
Embar­go: Imme­di­ate Release
CONTACT: 07880 937 511
Newark Show­ground, Newark, Not­ting­hamshire

This morn­ing a group of 15 cli­mate change activists from protest group Food Not Fuel entered the Bio­Fu­el Expo & Con­fer­ence tak­ing place at the Newark Show­ground and took over the keynote speech. Oliv­er Mace, CEO of BP Fuels, the lead spon­sors of the event received a cream pie in the face. Anoth­er cam­paign­er was D‑locked to the podi­um and var­i­ous alarms were placed around the place. The hall was emp­tied and talks were can­celled. There were no arrests.

They were protest­ing against planned expan­sion of bio­fu­els cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to defor­esta­tion and the fact that it will con­tin­ue to con­tribute to cli­mate change. The activists com­plained that bio­fu­els on a large scale is green­wash and com­pa­nies such as BP are ignor­ing its neg­a­tive impacts on the envi­ron­ment.

Pro­test­er Michelle Lynch said, “What they are pro­mot­ing is a replace­ment to fos­sil fuels, but the real­i­ty is that they are lit­tle bet­ter. Large scale plan­ta­tions are not the solu­tion; reduc­ing our con­sump­tion is the only real­is­tic way for­ward.”

Anoth­er pro­test­er, Thomas Brad­shaw point­ed out, “Bio­fu­els will be tak­ing food from the mouths of the hun­gary when there are already 800 mil­lion peo­ple suf­fer­ing from mal­nu­tri­tion. These cor­po­ra­tions are effec­tive­ly encour­ag­ing the ero­sion of valu­able arable farm­land and rain­forests vital for com­bat­ing cli­mate change.”

-end-

Notes for edi­tors:

1. The pro­tes­tors can be con­tact­ed at 07880 937 511. Their cri­tique argues that rad­i­cal social change is need­ed to deal with the impact of peak oil and cli­mate change, and that seek­ing solu­tions such as car­bon trad­ing and bio­fu­els are not the answer, as the real prob­lem is unsus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth.

2. The Bio­Fu­els Expo & Con­fer­ence (www.biodiesel-expo.co.uk) is the largest of its kind in Europe, and brings togeth­er big indus­try play­ers such as BP Fuels, Deloitte & Touche and many chem­i­cal, agri­cul­tur­al and man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies.

3. A com­pre­hen­sive cri­tique of bio­fu­els can be found at Bio­Fu­els Watch (www.biofuelwatch.org.uk) who are a dis­tinct group from Food Not Fuels, but are host­ing their own demon­stra­tion against the Con­fer­ence.

4. Text of leaflet dis­trib­ute to atten­dees.


Bio­fu­els & Fos­sil Fuels: Bio­fu­els that are not pro­duced by recy­cling waste oil are the direct prod­uct of large scale mono­cul­ture. Cur­rent­ly the amount of fos­sil fuels required to pro­duce bio­fu­els is greater than the amount of fuel you get out: you have to make the fer­til­iz­er, run the agri­cul­tur­al machin­ery, trans­port the feed­stocks and fuels, and refine the plant mat­ter into fuel.

Bio­fu­els & Food: The land that is used to farm bio­fu­els has to come from some­where. If it is agri­cul­tur­al land used for food then there will be less food. Maize, Mex­i­co’s sta­ple crop, have increased mas­sive­ly due to Amer­i­can demand for bioethanol. Adding to the num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing below the pover­ty line.

Bio­fu­els & Land use: If not agri­cul­tur­al land, then bio­fu­els will be grown on vir­gin rain­for­est or wet­land. 1/3 of all green­house gas emis­sions come from the destruc­tion of liv­ing car­bon sinks. The Ama­zon rain­for­est is the largest dri­ver of the cli­mate on the plan­et and expand­ing bioethanol plan­ta­tions will push it to extinc­tion. Wet­lands, eg peat, con­tain more car­bon that the whole atmos­phere and cov­er just 1% of the worlds sur­face. The largest peat bogs in the world, in Indone­sia, are cur­rent­ly being drained for palm oil plan­ta­tions. If green­house gas emis­sions con­tin­ue as they cur­rent­ly are we will go beyond the cli­mate tip­ping point caus­ing mass extinc­tion of life on earth.

Bio­fu­els & Local Con­trol: The dri­ving force beyond the expan­sion in bio­fu­els are big cor­po­ra­tions such as BP & Mon­san­to, and gov­ern­ment — the very peo­ple who have got us into this mess. They are using bio­fu­els as a way to con­tin­ue their posi­tion of pow­er into the post peak oil world. To stand a chance of sur­vival the con­trol of land must be by local peo­ple for local peo­ple.

The Solu­tion: We will need to reduce our con­sump­tion to lev­els that we can meet our­selves. This WILL mean a reduc­tion in lux­u­ries, like the lux­u­ry to trav­el. Some bio­fu­els will be used, but at a frac­tion of our cur­rent oil use. We need to end the search for tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions to eco­nom­ic prob­lems. We need to localise our econ­o­my, pro­duce our own food, make our own tools and use less.

We need an end to eco­nom­ic growth.

foodnotfuel1@yahoo.co.uk

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D1 Oils blockade banner
D1 Oils blockade
Block­ade of D1 Oils — anti-agro­fu­el demo

Pro­tes­tors from No Agro­fu­els UK block­ad­ed DI oils refin­ery and offices this morn­ing to raise aware­ness of the detri­men­tal impact of agro­fu­els. The protest was timed to coin­cide with the nation­al Bio­fu­els Con­fer­ence in Newark.

18 Pro­tes­tors chained the 3 gates to the refin­ery shut and 2 pro­tes­tors were D‑locked to the main gates. No vehi­cles were able to enter or leave the site and all work appeared to have been stopped.

Sev­er­al ban­ners were tied over the gates includ­ing “No Agro­fu­els, Land 4 Peo­ple, Food, Bio­di­ver­si­ty” and “Cli­mate Change Prof­i­teers”

Agro­fu­els (fuels pro­duced from pur­pose­ly and inten­sive­ly grown crops) are not the green solu­tion. They result in defor­esta­tion of trop­i­cal rain­forests and burn­ing of peat­lands which increase car­bon in the atmos­phere. Stud­ies have shown that when you include ener­gy used to grow and pro­duce the fuels includ­ing chem­i­cal pro­duc­tion and trans­porta­tion they use more ener­gy then oil based fuels.

Agro­fu­els also cause food inse­cu­ri­ty by reduc­ing land avail­bale to grow food and increas­ing food prices. They result in land dis­pos­ses­sion as peo­ple in Africa, Asia and South Amer­i­ca are forced off their land to enable crops to be grown for the fuel of Europe and the USA. In Colom­bia there have been human rights abus­es to gain con­trol of the land.

D1 is one of the biggest traders world­wide of palm oil and oil seed rape. They have inter­ests in India, Indone­sia, Chi­na, South Africa, Zam­bia, Swazi­land, El Sal­vador and are soon plan­ning to get into Brazil and sev­er­al otehr African coun­tries. They are direct­ly respon­si­ble for land dis­pos­ses­sion, food inse­cu­ri­ty and increas­ing pover­ty, they are not the pro­vid­ing the solu­tion to our cli­mate cri­sis, the only solu­tion to cli­mate change is a reduc­tion in ener­gy rather then exploit­ing the bio­di­ver­si­ty, peo­ple and land of the Glob­al South.

For more info see: www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

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Biofuel banner 2
Biofuel banner 1
Ban­ner Protest out­side Biodiesel Expo in Newark

About 40 pro­test­ers held a ban­ner protest out­side the Biodiesel Expo in Newark, Europe’s largest bio­fu­el con­fer­ence this year. Par­tic­i­pants of the con­fer­ence include BP, Vir­gin and D1 Oils, a bio­fu­el com­pa­ny head­ed by for­mer Shell CEO Lord Oxburgh which is acquir­ing rights over large areas of land in India and south­ern Africa. Pro­test­ers high­light­ed the dev­as­tat­ing impact which the indus­try is hav­ing on glob­al warm­ing, rain­forests, local com­mu­ni­ties in the glob­al South and food secu­ri­ty.

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PRESS RELEASE

Newark : 40 Pro­tes­tors call for food for peo­ple, not cars

Over 40 envi­ron­men­tal­ists protest­ed out­side the ‘Biodiesel Expo’ today, Wednes­day 17th Octo­ber, at Newark Show­ground. The protest was to raise aware­ness of the dam­age that mas­sive and rapid bio­fu­els devel­op­ment is hav­ing on the cli­mate, peo­ple, food secu­ri­ty and forests.

The protest comes just the day after World Food Day Octo­ber 16th when the UN Food and Agro­cul­ture orga­ni­za­tion (FAO) high­light­ed the impacts of bio­fu­els of food secu­ri­ty around the world.

The Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, is so con­cerned that he has warned that rapid bio­fu­el devel­op­ment is a total dis­as­ter for those who are starv­ing. He will call for an inter­na­tion­al five-year ban on pro­duc­ing bio­fu­els to com­bat soar­ing food prices in the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly on Octo­ber 25th. (see below).

Deep­ak Rughani from bio­fu­el­watch says “The UN FAO is very con­cerned about bio­fu­els. They have said that they ‘are grave­ly con­cerned that bio­fu­els will bring hunger in their wake’. A bat­tle is being cre­at­ed between food and fuel that will leave the poor and hun­gry in devel­op­ing coun­tries at the mer­cy of rapid­ly ris­ing prices for food, land and water. The EU and the UK urgent­ly need a mora­to­ri­um of bio­fu­els to make sure that we don’t push mil­lions into star­va­tion. We have protest­ed today to sup­port the call in the UN and demand the UK gov­ern­ment stops the mad rush to bio­fu­els”.

bio­fu­el­watch, who are cam­paign­ing for EU mora­to­ri­um on large-scale bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion and imports into the EU, say that from April 2008 UK con­sumers will have no choice about hav­ing to buy bio­fu­els at the pump. The bio­fu­els avail­able will be blend­ed from many dif­fer­ence sources across the globe depend­ing on com­mod­i­ty mar­ket prices.

From April, con­sumers will not be able to avoid buy­ing bio­fu­el that may be accel­er­at­ing destruc­tion of trop­i­cal forests, increas­ing their car­bon emis­sions, caus­ing human rights abus­es, and tak­ing land from vital food pro­duc­tion.

Infor­ma­tion:

The Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food is to demand an inter­na­tion­al five-year ban on pro­duc­ing bio­fu­els to com­bat soar­ing food prices at the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly on 25th Octo­ber. http://tinyurl.com/2ltgwd
The entire text of a report to the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly from Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Right to Food, Jean Zei­gler, high­light­ing the risks to mil­lions from bio­fu­els is attached to this Press release.

Links to World Food Day press from around the world
Jamaica — Food prices set to rise – Tufton:

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20071016/business/business1.html

Bio­fu­els high­light­ed in Colom­bia :

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1157

New Zealand: Food Prices Dri­ven by Bio­fu­els

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1149

World­wide Women’s Ener­gy issue :: Feed Peo­ple, Not Cars

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1146

Bio­fu­els and world hunger

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/message/1145

Con­tacts:

Andrew Boswell, Bio­fu­el­watch , UK : T: +44–1603-613798 M: +44–7787127881 (at the protest)

E: andrew.boswell[at]yahoo.co.uk

Deep­ak Rughani, Bio­fu­el­watch , UK : +44–7931–636337 (at the protest)

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

Burma activists ‘lock on’ to Total

16.10.2007
Three direct activists have today shut down a busy Total fill­ing sta­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma’s non­vi­o­lent strug­gle for democ­ra­cy.

London Total 116.10.2007
Three direct activists have today shut down a busy Total fill­ing sta­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma’s non­vi­o­lent strug­gle for democ­ra­cy.

Under a ban­ner say­ing “May all beings be hap­py – Free Bur­ma ” the activists have locked them­selves togeth­er and begun to med­i­tate, lock­ing togeth­er the hoses, turn­ing off the pow­er and block­ing the entrance to the premis­es in Lon­don’s Maryle­bone Road.

The group have tar­get­ed Total to high­light the com­pa­ny’s role in prop­ping up one of the world’s most bru­tal dic­ta­tor­ships. The Burmese mil­i­tary rulers rou­tine­ly tor­ture pris­on­ers, use rape as a weapon of war, and have forcibly dis­placed almost one mil­lion peo­ple from their land – includ­ing to make way for a 63 kilo­me­tre gas pipeline built by Total.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democ­ra­cy leader, has said that “Total has become the main sup­port­er of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime.” She told the French week­ly Le Nou­v­el Obser­va­teur that “Total knew what it was doing when it invest­ed mas­sive­ly in Bur­ma while oth­ers with­drew from the mar­ket for eth­i­cal rea­sons”. She added, “the com­pa­ny must accept the con­se­quences. The coun­try will not always be gov­erned by dic­ta­tors.”

Matthew Her­bert, one of the activists, said: “All the peo­ples of Bur­ma will be free. There is no force as pow­er­ful as the non­vi­o­lent resis­tance of a unit­ed peo­ple, espe­cial­ly when the cause is as just and urgent as this. As Aung San Suu Kyi says, Total will be held account­able. Today’s action plays just one small part in that reck­on­ing.”

A fel­low activist, added: “The author­i­ty to rule comes from the peo­ple them­selves, the peo­ple of Bur­ma have had enough, they are with­draw­ing their con­sent to be con­trolled. This action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma strug­gle for free­dom and a mes­sage to Total to with­draw from Bur­ma now.”

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact 07796 430141

Activist Film Festival is seeking submissions

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Beyond TV 8 flierUnder­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Sub­ject: Polit­i­cal Activist videos want­ed
From: under­cur­rents

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS OF FILMS

FOR BEYONDTV FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 2007

What is BEYONDTV?
From Novem­ber 28 to Decem­ber 2, 2007, Rad­i­cal media char­i­ty, Under­cur­rents will host the 8th annu­al BEYONDTV fes­ti­val of polit­i­cal doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions and music videos from inspir­ing media direc­tors.

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Impor­tant Note: We do not screen dra­mas using actors

BEYONDTV will be host­ed at the Dylan Thomas Cen­tre and Tal­iesin Cin­e­ma Swansea from Novem­ber 28 — Decem­ber 2, 2007

More details at http://www.beyondtvfestival.info
beyondtv@undercurrents.org

Under­cur­rents
Old Exchange
Pier st
Swansea
SA1 1RY
UK

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Day of Action — protests throughout England, Scotland & Wales — from cake to locked-on polar bears

Protests in Bris­tol, Lon­don, Manc, Nor­wich, Cam­bridge, Sheffield, Oxford, Edin­burgh, Truro, Birm­ing­ham, Glas­gow, Aberys­t­wyth, Cardiff, Bath, Brad­ford, St Andrews, Ply­mouth, Read­ing, Leam­ing­ton Spa, Leices­ter & Altrin­cham (‘read more’ for details, pho­tos, audio & video clips)

Protests in Bris­tol, Lon­don, Manc, Nor­wich, Cam­bridge, Sheffield, Oxford, Edin­burgh, Truro, Birm­ing­ham, Glas­gow, Aberys­t­wyth, Cardiff, Bath, Brad­ford, St Andrews, Ply­mouth, Read­ing, Leam­ing­ton Spa, Leices­ter & Altrin­cham (‘read more’ for details, pho­tos, audio & video clips)



Bristol RBS 3
Bristol RBS 4
Bristol RBS 5
A group of ‘cli­mate refugees’ blocked the vehi­cle entrance to the Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s Cor­po­rate Offices at Tem­ple Quay to shine the spot­light on cli­mate crim­i­nals RBS, the self-pro­claimed ‘Oil and Gas’ Bank. Four peo­ple from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide for Cli­mate Action dressed as home­less polar bears have locked them­selves togeth­er and pre­vent­ed all vehi­cles enter­ing the RBS branch for six and a half hours.

Today’s block­ade last­ed six and a half hours with the last ‘cli­mate refugee’ being final­ly chis­eled out at 2.30pm. Four peo­ple are cur­rent­ly being held at Trin­i­ty police sta­tion.
The police used a dubi­ous method of deal­ing with it — they lift­ed peo­ple and suit­cas­es on to trol­leys and then wheeled them away. This caused severe dis­com­fort and pan­ic for the peo­ple on the ground and at least one of them has bruis­ing as a result.
RBS lost many hours today due to rock­ing up late cos of park­ing issues and the many employ­ees that spent the day star­ing out of the win­dows watch­ing the dra­ma unfold­ing and tak­ing pho­tos on their phones (check out you tube for clips!).

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PRESS RELEASE: ‘Cli­mate refugees’ locked up at the Oil Bank of Scot­land, Bris­tol

A group of ‘cli­mate refugees’ are block­ing the vehi­cle entrance to the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land’s Cor­po­rate Offices at Tem­ple Quay to shine the spot­light on cli­mate crim­i­nals RBS, the self-pro­claimed ‘Oil and Gas’ Bank.

Six peo­ple from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide for Cli­mate Action dressed as home­less polar bears have locked them­selves togeth­er and are cur­rent­ly pre­vent­ing all vehi­cles enter­ing the RBS branch. This is part of a Nation­al Day of Local Action against the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land called by those huge­ly con­cerned with the dev­as­ta­tion to the cli­mate, plan­et and people.[1]

RBS-NatWest pub­licly pro­motes itself as “The Oil & Gas Bank”. They pro­vide the finan­cial fuel that is accel­er­at­ing cli­mate change. With­out these loans to oil and gas cor­po­ra­tions the projects would not hap­pen. [2]It is esti­mate that *in 2006, the bank pro­vid­ed over $10 bil­lion to fos­sil fuels – more than five times that pro­vid­ed to renew­able energy.[3]*

RBS pro­vide oil cor­po­ra­tions with loans to build new mas­sive­ly eco­log­i­cal­ly detri­men­tal drilling rigs, pipelines and oil tankers. [4] And as RBS’s prof­its rise so does the car­bon in the atmos­phere.

Glob­al cli­mate change already forces more peo­ple from their homes each year than war. And as the effects wors­en, one in sev­en peo­ple on Earth today could be forced to leave their homes over the next 50 years. [5]

A polar bear said, “I am here to let RBS know that their fun­nelling of cash into fos­sil fuel projects is mak­ing myself and mil­lions of oth­er ani­mals, includ­ing humans home­less.”

Anoth­er polar bear said “If car­bon diox­ide mol­e­cules had cor­po­rate tags of respon­si­bil­i­ty, the atmos­phere would be full of RBS logos min­gling with those of BP, Exxon and Shell!”

Con­tact:

Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide 07951789187
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Notes for Edi­tors

[1] The day of action was called by the UK Ris­ing Tide Net­work at this years Camp for Cli­mate Action which took place next to Heathrow Air­port. www.risingtide.org.uk

[2] In 2005 emis­sions from RBS financed oil and gas projects was about a quar­ter of the amount pro­duced by all UK homes.

[3] tak­en from: *The Oil and Gas Bank; RBS and the financ­ing of cli­mate change * http://peopleandplanet.org/dl/ddd/rbs_report.pdf

[4] RBS is help­ing force open the car­bon fron­tier, financ­ing con­tro­ver­sial projects in Nige­ria, the Cau­ca­sus and Wales. Its involve­ment in Angolan and Niger­ian oil fields encour­ages cor­rup­tion and con­flict, while gas projects from the Ara­bi­an Gulf to the Gulf of Mex­i­co threat­en envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion.

[5] Fig­ures from “Human Tide: The Real Migra­tion Cri­sis,” by Chris­t­ian Aid. The report calls for “urgent action by the world com­mu­ni­ty” if the worst effects of this cri­sis are to be avert­ed.

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one arrest at Roy­al Bank of Scot­land ban­ner drop this morn­ing in Lon­don

around a dozen activists from ‘ris­ing tide’ high­light­ed roy­al bank of scot­land’s shod­dy record of invest­ment in cli­mate change. one clam­bered on the glass canopy of their city hq to unfurl a ban­ner while oth­ers hand­ed out more than 900 leaflets

short­ly before 9am this morn­ing police sealed off the pave­ment under the glass canopy in front of 280 bish­ops­gate, the lon­don hq of the roy­al bank of scot­land. an activist had clam­bered up with a ban­ner pro­claim­ing ‘the oil bank of scot­land’, while a dozen oth­ers leaflet­ted passers-by and bank work­ers out­side the front doors.

the activists also had var­i­ous ban­ners, and one was fetch­ing­ly dressed as a polar bear.

the action last­ed about an hour and a half, while police pho­tog­ra­ph­er steve dis­combe used up the bat­tery of his long lens cam­era tak­ing shots of every­one involved. luck­i­ly, police back-up arrived with anoth­er bat­tery just as the ban­ner man came down.

police tried to seize the ban­ner from activists “as evi­dence” and after a short but com­ic game of ‘pig­gy in the mid­dle’, they suc­ceed­ed. in past cas­es around par­lia­ment square, it has been shown in court that if police have clear pho­tos of the ban­ner, under PACE they have no fur­ther right to seize the actu­al ban­ner, so in effect they stole it this morn­ing (as they often do!).

the ban­ner man was arrest­ed for ‘caus­ing a pub­lic nui­sance’ and it is believed he was tak­en to beth­nal green police sta­tion.

activists were high­light­ing the fact that RBS-NatWest have in the last five years fund­ed 655 mil­lion tonnes of emis­sions) which is more than the UK’s entire annu­al emis­sions. the bank has launched ‘avi­a­tion cap­i­tal’ to help put more planes in the sky, and it has pumped over $10billion into the oil and gas indus­try, fund­ing rigs, tankers and pipelines.

there is a fur­ther protest planned out­side the bank at 5pm today

20071015_RBS_WMV — video/x‑ms-wmv 15M

20071015_RBS_QT — video/quicktime 13M
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Lon­don pranks: ‘This Com­pa­ny is Out of Order’ signs left on 15 RBS and Natwest cash machines in cen­tral Lon­don. Pranksters do invis­i­ble the­atre in branch­es, try­ing to open accounts, hav­ing argu­ments about RBS’ uneth­i­cal poli­cies in the queues, and leav­ing piles of anti-RBS leaflets amongst their cor­po­rate pro­pa­gan­da. They then go under­ground for some ‘Tube Edu­ca­tion’, leaflet­ing and talk­ing to Tube pas­sen­gers.

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Nation­al cli­mate protests against Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’

15 Octo­ber 2007
For imme­di­ate release, for pho­tographs con­tact Mike J Wells 07799152888

POLAR BEAR PINS BLAME ON RBS DOOR

Cli­mate Change direct action group Lon­don Ris­ing Tide and friends, this morn­ing occu­pied the head­quar­ters of the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land to expose their role in Cli­mate Chaos. This was one of many actions hap­pen­ing across the UK today as part of a UK Ris­ing Tide call out for a Nation­al day of action against RBS.

Activists dropped a ban­ner read­ing “RBS prof­its, cli­mate cops it” from the bal­cony, while oth­ers held plac­ards on the street in front of the build­ing on Bish­ops­gate.

A polar bear, cur­rent­ly sleep­ing rough since the artic ice became his­to­ry, also attend­ed to ask “why are RBS still invest­ing in fos­sil fuel projects like ‘gas pipelines’ in Wales and ‘Tar sands strip min­ing’ in what was Cana­di­an Arbo­re­al For­est?”

The Bear said “Banks like RBS are the hid­den dri­vers of cli­mate change by offer­ing loans to fos­sil fuel projects that oth­er­wise the World Bank would not sup­port”.

RBS calls itself the ‘Oil and Gas Bank’, and is the pri­ma­ry UK fun­der of fos­sil fuel extrac­tion. RBS pro­vides oil com­pa­nies with the cap­i­tal to build and oper­ate drilling rigs, pipelines and oil tankers in some of the most sen­si­tive and unsta­ble places in the world. Through Avi­a­tion Cap­i­tal, RBS financ­ing allows air­lines to expand their fleets and put more planes into the skies.

The thir­ty oil and gas finance deals RBS signed between 2001 and 2006 will cre­ate 655 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon emis­sions over the next 15 years, which is more than the UK’s entire annu­al emis­sions. (2)

‘Banks like RBS who prof­it hand­some­ly from cli­mate-destroy­ing projects have stood in the shad­ows for too long, but they are as guilty as the oil com­pa­nies. If car­bon diox­ide mol­e­cules had cor­po­rate tags of respon­si­bil­i­ty, the atmos­phere would be full of RBS logos min­gling with those of BP, Exxon and Shell’, said Mar­tin Red­fern, from Lon­don.

For inter­views from the protest call 075 1311 9047

For more details vis­it
. www.risingtide.org.uk
. http://www.carbonweb.org/showitem.asp?article=268&parent=267
(www.platform.org.uk)
. www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
=========================

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND.…THE ‘OIL AND GAS BANK’

Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action tar­get­ed the RBS head­quar­ters on Deans­gate, Man­ches­ter, as part of a nation­al day of action called by the Ris­ing Tide net­work.

Local groups which formed to mobilise for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, have this morn­ing tak­en action against RBS, a major backer of the avi­a­tion indus­try and the world’s self-described ‘Oil and Gas Bank’.

Ban­ners were dis­played read­ing: ‘Cli­mate Change: RBS Makes It Hap­pen’ and ‘No Pipeline! Green Ener­gy Not Gas’. Pro­test­ers were greet­ed by 3 Tac­ti­cal Aid Unit Vans and secu­ri­ty guards, but despite police attempts to stop noise under the pub­lic order act, the sam­ba band played and fly­ers were giv­en out to work­ers, cus­tomers and passers by.

RBS employs some 5,000 staff in the Greater Man­ches­ter area and is the 2nd largest pri­vate employ­er in the area.

RBS pro­vides oil com­pa­nies with the cash to build and oper­ate drilling rigs, pipelines and oil tankers. RBS also prof­its through the avi­a­tion indus­try. From the Niger Delta to the Arc­tic, RBS loans play a key role in
forc­ing open the new car­bon fron­tier, which con­tributes to envi­ron­men­tal destruction,disruption of indige­nous peo­ples and increased con­flict across the plan­et.

RBS is the sec­ond-largest bank in Europe and has glob­al assets of over $1120 bil­lion, includ­ing UK brands NatWest, Direct Line and Churchill Insur­ance. Despite cre­at­ing a heav­i­ly green washed pub­lic image through
spon­sor­ship of sports and the arts, RBS activ­i­ties have major destruc­tive impacts on the envi­ron­ment and soci­ety. The thir­ty oil and gas finance deals RBS signed between 2001 and 2006 locked us all into 655 mil­lion
tonnes of emis­sions over the next 15 years, more than the UK’s entire annu­al emis­sions.

Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action meet reg­u­lar­ly, for more infor­ma­tion email:
manchester@climatecamp.org.uk. Next meet­ing is Tues­day 16th, 6pm, Eighth Day café, Oxford Rd (near Man­ches­ter Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty, oppo­site All Saints Park.)

radio report of rbs protest — mp3 2.2M
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Triple wham­my for RBS in Nor­wich

Last night, the doors of the RBS-Natwest Group Tech­nol­o­gy office on Exchange Street and the main RBS branch on Queen Street were locked shut. When staff showed up for work this morn­ing at the Queen Street branch they found them­selves locked out, and gath­ered oppo­site the branch to see what would hap­pen. Soon after, 6 activists from Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide turned up with leaflets and ban­ners read­ing ‘RBS: Financ­ing Cli­mate Change’ and ‘Closed for a Total Re-think’. The d‑lock proved to be a good one, and the bank was delayed from open­ing for busi­ness for over an hour. Ris­ing Tiders hand­ed out leaflets and chat­ted to the wait­ing staff and cus­tomers, with the usu­al mixed response. Passers-by were gen­er­al­ly sup­port­ive, and the police showed up only at the very end, once the bank had re-opened and we were run­ning low on leaflets. After our 500-strong leaflet stash had been exhaust­ed, we decid­ed to call it a morn­ing.

norwich@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk

=========================

Cam­bridge RBS action

At lunchtime on Mon­day 15 Octo­ber, around ten activists assem­bled out­side the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land branch on Trin­i­ty Street, Cam­bridge, as part of the nation­al day of action against the UK’s main bankroller of car­bon emit­ters. The pro­test­ers put up plac­ards next to the ATM, hand­ed out leaflets, and engaged passers-by and cus­tomers in dis­cus­sion.

Four police offi­cers were also in atten­dance, one tak­ing pic­tures of all the leaflet­ters. A num­ber of peo­ple who hap­pened to be pass­ing by want­ed to know the rea­son for this. Among these were an Amer­i­can woman who got quite strop­py with the offi­cers, and a young guy who want­ed to have pic­ture tak­en with one of the pro­test­ers (the police duti­ful­ly oblig­ed). Although the police came across all friend­ly, they did play their usu­al intim­i­da­tion tac­tics of drop­ping details of pro­test­ers into the con­ver­sa­tion that they could only have lift­ed from FIT files. On the flip­side, they asked for the plac­ards to be moved away from the ATM, as “cus­tomers might feel intim­i­dat­ed.”

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Roy­al Bank of Scot­land Tar­get­ed for Invest­ing in Cli­mate Change

A group of activists leaflet­ted the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land in Broomhill, Sheffield as part of a Nation­al Day of Action. Over 20 actions have tak­en place all around the coun­try includ­ing banks being locked up in Nor­wich and polar bears blockad­ing in Bris­tol. This is all part of a cam­paign against the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land which invests heav­i­ly in oil and gas, which is accel­er­at­ing cli­mate change.

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Oxford RBS
Quick Update on Today’s Oxford RBS Actions

Oxford cli­mate activists tar­get­ed a branch­es of both the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land and NatWest as part of the today’s Nation­al Day of Action. With ban­ners and oil-spat­tered T‑Shirts declar­ing “RBS Group — Fund­ing Cli­mate Change”, “Dirty Bankers — Shaft­ing The Plan­et”, and “The Oil Bank Of Scot­land”, they caused a stir in Oxford’s busiest shop­ping precinct and dis­trib­uted hun­dreds of leaflets to inter­est­ed cus­tomers and passers-by.

Activists also entered both branch­es with a large oil pipeline, explain­ing to cus­tomers and staff that they were deliv­er­ing it to the branch, but could­n’t leave until they’d spo­ken to Head Office to con­firm that it had arrived safe­ly. They stayed in each branch cheer­ful­ly (and loud­ly) rem­i­nisc­ing with staff and cus­tomers about all the oth­er pipelines and fos­sil fuel projects the bank was fund­ing, and how much cli­mate change they were caus­ing, until removed by the police. In the NatWest branch, they also man­aged to get a call put through to Head Office and asked them why RBS were fund­ing so many cli­mate-trash­ing projects (they did­n’t get any decent answers though).

No-one was arrest­ed, although one pro­test­er had to give their name and address under Sec­tion 50 of the Police Reform Act for “anti-social behav­iour” (they were appar­ent­ly caus­ing “alarm and dis­tress” by stand­ing in a bank, talk­ing about cli­mate change and hold­ing a card­board oil pipe).

Oxford Cli­mate Action meet on Mon­days at the Oxford Action Resource Cen­tre (OARC — www.theoarc.org.uk). To get involved, con­tact oxford@climatecamp.org.uk — new mem­bers always wel­come!

Link to video of Action

=========================

Stu­dents from Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ty protest­ed out­side RBS’s Cen­tral Branch in Edin­burgh as part of Ris­ing Tide’s nation­al day of action against RBS’s fund­ing of oil and gas extrac­tion.

Stu­dents from Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ty Peo­ple & Plan­et group stepped up their cam­paign against the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (RBS) this morn­ing. Along­side oth­er Peo­ple & Plan­et groups in Scot­land, and cam­paign­ers from Ris­ing Tide, they took part in a nation­al ‘day of action’ tar­get­ing the Edin­burgh-based bank.

The protests aim to high­light RBS’s role as one of the world’s largest fun­ders of cli­mate-wreck­ing oil and gas extrac­tion. Emis­sions result­ing from RBS-sup­port­ed projects around the globe are greater than those of the whole of Scot­land.

Cam­paign­ers gave out infor­ma­tion to cus­tomers, held ban­ners, and waved oil cov­ered hands out­side RBS’s cen­tral branch in St. Andrew’s Square.

Peo­ple & Plan­et recent­ly worked with cli­mate change experts PLATFORM to write a report into RBS (2). The report draws atten­tion to the bank’s cru­cial role in sup­port­ing the glob­al oil and gas extrac­tion indus­try, where it pub­licly mar­kets itself as ‘the oil and gas bank’.

Sarah Hol­l­i­day, a mem­ber of Edin­burgh Peo­ple & Plan­et said:

“RBS call them­selves ‘the oil and gas bank’. They pro­vide huge amounts of advice and fund­ing for new oil extrac­tion. Their fos­sil fuels projects world­wide will lock us in to emis­sions for decades to come – mak­ing a low car­bon econ­o­my impos­si­ble. They are the UK’s main finan­cial dri­vers of cli­mate change.”

The cam­paign is a part of the Peo­ple & Plan­et nation­al cam­paign, “Ditch Dirty Devel­op­ment”, which is also call­ing on the Depart­ment for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment to stop using aid mon­ey to fund fos­sil fuel projects (3).

More pho­tos can be found here.

1) Peo­ple & Plan­et is the UK’s largest stu­dent cam­paign­ing net­work. It cam­paigns on world pover­ty, human rights and the envi­ron­ment: www.peopleandplanet.org http://pandp.eusa.ed.ac.uk

2) The report, enti­tled ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’, can be found here

3)“Ditch Dirty Devel­op­ment” cam­paign web­site
“Oil Bank of Scot­land” cam­paign web­site

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Also in Edin­burgh: The locks of the main entrances to at least six Edin­burgh RBS branch­es were glued shut last night, and all of them had to have the locks replaced today.

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2 branch­es in edin­burgh were giv­en ‘pol­lu­tion awards’ — along with var­i­ous oth­er posters about RBS pol­i­cy. unfor­tu­natly the police drove by while one branch was just being fin­ished off, and took the still wet posters off. 🙁 — next time…

=========================
Truro RBS
Truro demo at RBS branch: Twelve activists from across Corn­wall gath­ered at the RBS branch in Truro for a two-hour demo with a friend­ly atmos­phere and good response from passers-by. They hand­ed out leaflets and slices of cake from a clock-shaped ‘11th hour’ cake, and made new con­nec­tions that built the foun­da­tions of a cli­mate action group for Corn­wall.

=========================

Birm­ing­ham Uni flood cam­pus NatWest: Over thir­ty stu­dents from Birm­ing­ham Peo­ple and Plan­et descend­ed upon the Natwest branch on cam­pus. Some were dressed in boil­er suits and car­ried oil pipelines. Oth­ers, dressed as bankers and imper­son­at­ing mem­bers of the RBS Oil and Gas Team gave a high­ly sar­cas­tic pre­sen­ta­tion extolling the virtues of RBS’ oil and gas invest­ments. Oil pipes and boil­er suits. Dressed as bankers. Went in and gave mock pre­sen­ta­tion, imper­son­at­ed oil and gas team. Extolled virtues of RBS. 20 min­utes. Did pre­sen­ta­tion again a few more times on cam­pus. 30 peo­ple. Couldn’t all fit in. Birm­ing­ham Peo­ple and Plan­et.

=========================
Glas­gow Trea­cle Tart Cabaret: After a half hour dis­cus­sion with the cen­tral Glas­gow RBS branch man­ag­er in which they expressed their anger about RBS’ invest­ment in oil and gas, two intre­pid activists left the branch, only to make a quick cos­tume change and return as the hosts of the Trea­cle Tart Cabaret. They sang, danced, waved ban­ners and plac­ards, got up on the cashiers’ desks and strut­ted their stuff, and even per­formed an Oil Rap. At this point the bank decid­ed to lock its doors, lock­ing the Tarts in and cus­tomers out, and effec­tive­ly shut­ting the bank down for an hour. Inside the atmos­phere was pos­i­tive, with the locked-in staff and cus­tomers get­ting into the swing of things. One of the Tarts capped off the per­for­mance by cut­ting up her RBS deb­it card as a mag­ic trick.

=========================



Around a dozen cli­mate change refugees queued out­side Nat West Bank in Aberys­t­wyth today, Mon­day 15th Octo­ber, to beg a ‘bank offi­cial’ for a home loan because cli­mate change was destroy­ing their cur­rent home. The refugees ranged from an Aussie through a Green­lan­der to an Artic Cod. As the refugees were inter­viewed, vol­un­teers hand­ed out fliers on Roy­al Bank of Scot­land , Nat West and their invest­ment in projects linked to cli­mate change. Mean­while, RBS and Nat West ATMs all mys­te­ri­ous­ly dis­played signs read­ing ‘OUT OF ORDER’ in large let­ters. On close inspec­tion with a mag­ni­fy­ing glass, the very small print read ‘RBS and Nat West invest­ment pol­i­cy’. The pos­si­ble effects of cli­mate change on a num­ber of coun­tries were mapped on the pave­ment with chalk – dis­turb­ing before and after snap­shots. As the refugees were all turned down for home loans, they car­ried a protest ban­ner into the bank. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, being weak­ened by loos­ing their homes, the refugees dropped the ban­ner and, being weight­ed down with heli­um bal­loons, it drift­ed up and dis­played itself from the ceil­ing for a good half an hour before staff man­aged to get it down.

=========================

The main cardiff branch RBS on st Mary’s Street was closed 3 hours after 20 activists entered the build­ing caus­ing dis­trup­tion. Hun­dreds of leaflets were hand­ed out and ban­ners dis­played out­side. The process was repeat­ed at Natwest after­wards.

Lots of Police were in atten­dance includ­ing intel­li­gence gath­er­ers. Pho­tos to fol­low.

cardiffanarchists@riseup.net
http://southwalesanarchists.org

=========================

Don’t Bank On Oil In Bath

As part of today’s nation­al day of action against the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, 7 activists from Bath Activist Net­work pick­et­ed the RBS branch on Qui­et Street in Bath, for two hours over lunch time. Ban­ner on dis­play, cus­tomers and passers-by were leaflet­ed with mock-up imi­ta­tion RBS lit­er­a­ture and invi­ta­tions to ‘Open an oil rig today!’, inform­ing the pub­lic about the Terms and Con­se­quences of bank­ing with RBS, their dodgy invest­ment record in fos­sil fuel extrac­tion and avi­a­tion indus­tries, and the 160,000 esti­mat­ed glob­al deaths a year due to the effects of cli­mate change. Whilst staff and police com­plained about the seem­ing­ly out-of-order ATM out­side their door, we lis­tened to sto­ries of cus­tomers’ poor treat­ment by their bank, and also helped at least the one stu­dent find more eth­i­cal options for his new account. Also bemus­ing were the mem­bers of pub­lic who mis­took the busi­ness-suit­ed activists for bank employ­ees, and chat­ted about the ser­vice.

bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk
http://myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

To read PLAT­FOR­M’s report on Roy­al bank of Scot­land, go here: http://peopleandplanet.org/dl/ddd/rbs_report.pdf
=========================

Brad­ford stu­dents leaflet cam­pus Natwest

Stu­dents from the uni­ver­si­ty of Brad­ford Peo­ple & Plan­et group leaflet­ed at the Natwest branch on cam­pus. That’s all the details I know, hope­ful­ly more details to fol­low.

=========================

St Andrews Uni P&P also did some protest per­for­mance art — ‘attempt­ing’ to open accounts in the town, etc.

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Ply­mouth — after a pro­ces­sion along North Hill Street, a group of peo­ple held a four-hour demo at the RBS branch near Drake Cir­cus, com­plete with music and drum­ming. A good response from passers-by, with lots of cus­tomers ask­ing direct­ly for leaflets.

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Read­ing Ris­ing Tide held a demo at the Read­ing RBS branch.

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A group of 5 held a demo in Leam­ing­ton.

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Cash-points were stick­ered with anti-RBS stick­ers in Leices­ter.

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Leaflets were stuck on lamp-posts in Altrin­cham.

Worldwide Day of Action Against McDonalds 16th October

14th Octo­ber 2007 ear­ly demo report: near­ly 30 peo­ple took part in the Lon­don leg of the world­wide anti-McDon­ald’s day. It start­ed at noon at the Leices­ter Square McDon­ald’s. There was a Ronald McDon­ald attack­ing a per­son dressed as a cow. The cow went down well with the kids and even some adults! Lots of leaflets were hand­ed out and the pub­lic seemed to be recep­tive on the whole. Also, the police were notice­able by their absence. The demo moved onto the Shaftes­bury Avenue McDon­ald’s and fin­ished at about 3.30.

Dying for a burger (London McD demo)
14th Octo­ber 2007 ear­ly demo report: near­ly 30 peo­ple took part in the Lon­don leg of the world­wide anti-McDon­ald’s day. It start­ed at noon at the Leices­ter Square McDon­ald’s. There was a Ronald McDon­ald attack­ing a per­son dressed as a cow. The cow went down well with the kids and even some adults! Lots of leaflets were hand­ed out and the pub­lic seemed to be recep­tive on the whole. Also, the police were notice­able by their absence. The demo moved onto the Shaftes­bury Avenue McDon­ald’s and fin­ished at about 3.30.

—

Adopt-YOUR-Store — leaflets from Veg­gies or Do It Your­self. Details here

Eric McDavid US Green Scare prisoner — found guilty & update

It has been two weeks since the jury found Eric guilty, and we are still try­ing to regroup and get ready for the next round. While this is going to be a long process – one which will require your help and sup­port in a vari­ety of ways – there is one thing that sim­ply can­not be put off.

It has been two weeks since the jury found Eric guilty, and we are still try­ing to regroup and get ready for the next round. While this is going to be a long process – one which will require your help and sup­port in a vari­ety of ways – there is one thing that sim­ply can­not be put off.

The jail is still deny­ing Eric veg­an food. After endur­ing a two-week hunger strike in March 2006, Eric was final­ly giv­en veg­an meals on April 24, 2006. This last­ed for 15 full months. Then, with­out any warn­ing or rea­son­able expla­na­tion, the jail cut off Eric’s veg­an meals one week before his tri­al began. Since that time, he has been sur­viv­ing off the few options he can pur­chase from com­mis­sary (peanut but­ter, beans, chips…) and the lit­tle food he can pull off of the meal trays they bring him (usu­al­ly bread and fruit – some­times oat­meal in the morn­ing). Clear­ly, this is not enough to con­sti­tute a healthy, bal­anced diet. It is the jail’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide Eric with the food he needs to remain healthy and strong. This is obvi­ous­ly some­thing they are com­plete­ly able to do, as they did so for 15 months with no prob­lems.

Eric has been con­tem­plat­ing what cours­es of action are open to him in this mat­ter, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, his options have become even more lim­it­ed. The suit that Eric filed against the jail to secure veg­an meals was dis­missed by the judge, great­ly dimin­ish­ing any hope he had for redress in the courts. A hunger strike could be extreme­ly risky due to the bout of peri­cardi­tis for which he was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal in April. It is unclear whether his heart could han­dle the strain a hunger strike would put on his body – he could quick­ly end up back in the hos­pi­tal, poten­tial­ly with a VERY seri­ous heart con­di­tion.

Because Eric’s options are so lim­it­ed, in the jail and in the courts, he needs sup­port from the out­side more than ever. This seems to be the only hope for change. In the mean­time, Eric con­tin­ues to lose weight, and his health will soon begin dete­ri­o­rat­ing. Please call the jail imme­di­ate­ly and request that Eric be giv­en veg­an meals…again. When you call, be pre­pared to sit through a lot of ring­ing and pos­si­bly trans­fers. The per­son who made the deci­sion to cut off Eric’s food before tri­al is Lt. Ilg, and the per­son who over­sees him is Scott Jones. Feel free to request to speak to either of these peo­ple when call­ing the jail.

It’s always help­ful to have Eric’s x‑reference num­ber handy when call­ing the jail, in case the per­son you are speak­ing with asks for it. Eric’s x‑ref is: x‑2972521. You can call the jail at :

916–874-6752
916–874-6905

Below are some things you might sug­gest while talk­ing to the jail:

1)The jail fed Eric veg­an food for 15 months with no prob­lems. There is no rea­son they can­not con­tin­ue to do so.

2)The jail is respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing Eric with a healthy diet. Eric has made it clear that he will not eat food that is not veg­an. As such, they will be respon­si­ble for any health prob­lems that Eric suf­fers due to his lack of nutri­tion.

3)The jail can­not claim they are unable to pro­vide Eric with veg­an food due to asso­ci­at­ed costs. This is sim­ply false. The jail is paid thou­sands of dol­lars by the feds to house fed­er­al inmates (such as Eric). They are prof­it­ing from Eric’s incar­cer­a­tion (and let’s face it, veg­an food is sim­ply cheap­er to begin with…)

In an affi­davit filed with the court in March 2006, Eric wrote, “…my veg­an beliefs and moral­i­ty are ani­mat­ed by the way of liv­ing which shows a respect for all life, rec­og­niz­ing the rights of liv­ing crea­tures; extend­ing to them the com­pas­sion and kind­ness exem­pli­fied toward peo­ple. It is a tru­ly eth­i­cal rela­tion­ship between humans and oth­er liv­ing crea­tures. My veg­an lifestyle is based upon my own health and my own eth­i­cal and moral under­pin­nings which I have arrived at con­sci­en­tious­ly and I am firm­ly con­vinced it is the right and appro­pri­ate way to live. It is health­i­er for me and the plan­et I live on. It is as sin­cere­ly held to me as oth­ers hold their own reli­gious beliefs.” Through­out his time in the Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, Eric has main­tained his integri­ty and resolve to live his life in the most eth­i­cal and com­pas­sion­ate way pos­si­ble. Let’s do our part to sup­port him and ensure that he does not suf­fer for doing so. Please call the jail and request that Eric be giv­en veg­an meals imme­di­ate­ly. And then call again, and again, and again – until this sim­ple demand is met.

Last­ly, thanks to an out­pour­ing of sup­port, Eric is cur­rent­ly very well off on books. At this point, he’s ask­ing that peo­ple please hold off on send­ing any addi­tion­al books until he’s able to get through the ones he cur­rent­ly has. We will post an update as soon as he’s able to receive more. As far as finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions, the best way to con­tribute to Eric is to donate to his legal defense; we are prepar­ing to file an appeal and need to raise funds as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. We are cur­rent­ly able to cov­er Eric’s com­mis­sary needs. Thank you again for keep­ing Eric in your thoughts and doing so much to help him through this very dif­fi­cult time.

Let­ter from Eric 10/5/07
Dear friends,

Below is a let­ter from Eric. We want to keep this short, and leave you with his words, but just a quick note: last night Mark filed a 28-page motion for a new trial/to acquit based on the errors made through­out the tri­al. Most of these have been dis­cussed in pre­vi­ous alerts and court reports, with the excep­tion of one. When the court issued it’s answers on Thurs­day morn­ing to the ques­tions the jury asked Wednes­day after­noon, the judge told the jury not to write down the answers, as the jury would be issued a type-writ­ten response upon their return to the jury room. The answer giv­en to the first ques­tion in court (whether or not Anna was a gov­ern­ment agent in August 2004) was an unequiv­o­cal “yes.” How­ev­er, the answer giv­en to the jury upon their return to the delib­er­a­tion room was a type-writ­ten “No.” This clear­ly could have had alarm­ing impacts on the ver­dict they decid­ed upon in Eric’s case…

A let­ter from Eric…

i’ve been told that my con­duct has been seen by some as inspi­ra­tional, i’m grate­ful to be able to pro­vide a source of strength to those in my fam­i­ly who find them­selves in a time of need — more so as being a part of their process of growth and self cre­ation… but my behav­ior is, in a sense, self­ish­ly borne — my intent orig­i­nates from a per­spec­tive which encom­pass­es my fam­i­ly and their future gen­er­a­tions… though, the term “fam­i­ly” i don’t uti­lize in a con­ven­tion­al or every­day sense — the bub­ble has expand­ed beyond the cus­tom­ary… it holds with­in it the micro and macro, all those with whom i have shared that mut­ed and unblink­ing stare of under­stand­ing — be it on the streets, at a skill­share or class, con­cert, speech or march, ral­ly, home-demo or a real­ly free mar­ket — at a con­ver­gence cen­tre, library, camp­site, crit­i­cal mass, on an on-ramp, along­side of a high­way, at a rest stop, from a train, in a for­est, a city park or square, or at a stream, riv­er, lake, hot-spring or beach… this bub­ble also includes each and every one of those indi­vid­ual places — unique unto them­selves in appear­ance, local­i­ty, time and energy/personality ~ as well as the non-humyn inhab­i­tants there­in, who aid in the con­tin­u­al self-cre­ations of those envi­ron­ments… keep­ing that self­ish­ness close to my Heart and mind is some­thing i aim for — know­ing that all my life i have been con­di­tioned by our soci­ety to the con­trary… dur­ing my ten days of “dis­ci­pli­nary iso­la­tion” last fall an idea made itself known to me ~ it was to cre­ate with that which is pro­vid­ed, not nec­es­sar­i­ly to its par­tic­u­lar pur­pose, but to my own… this includes the pain which resides with­in my Heart due to the sep­a­ra­tion between us… i’ve come to see ener­gy as the most mal­leable aspect of this real­i­ty, and the emo­tions that surge through our bod­ies can be uti­lized for any num­ber of means and ends… pain­less stag­nant can fes­ter into hate and reac­tion — but uti­lized with a con­scious and open intent it could nur­ture the cat­a­lysts required to move through our thresh­olds… hate is the death of joy and reac­tion is noth­ing more than uncon­scious reflex brought about by a cer­tain stim­u­lus (per­ceived or not) which induces pre­dictable respons­es — in most cas­es, con­ced­ing to the terms and def­i­n­i­tions of the ini­tia­tor, allow­ing the stim­u­lus to have affect, sig­ni­fies it’s suc­cess… con­scious cre­ations with the cycles of growth and health do not fit into the matrix of cause and effect — their qual­i­ties and forms flow through the rigid struc­tures that seek to encap­su­late, reform, define… … i object to being pigeon­holed (phys­i­cal­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly) by cleav­ing to some mar­shal or war­rioresque mantra that many have cho­sen when con­front­ed with sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances — what they chose is for their own per­son­al path, what they’ve per­ceived as nec­es­sary for their sur­vival… from where i stand, it feels that if i fol­lowed that train of thought i would be adher­ing to a path too well-worn ~ and don’t get me wrong, i hon­or and respect those that have come before me who con­tin­ue to adhere to the wis­dom in their hearts, but those known trails can also be used by oth­ers that have scout­ed them for weak­ness­es ~ if expe­ri­ence has taught me any­thing, it’s been to stick to the deer trails or cre­ate my own… anoth­er of my recent lessons has been to rec­og­nize the benef­i­cent qual­i­ties of shape-shift­ing, as defined by ter­ry tem­pest williams = “this has noth­ing to do with incon­sis­ten­cy. it has to do with seiz­ing the moment, per­ceiv­ing what is nec­es­sary in that moment … know­ing what each occa­sion demands, and stand­ing our ground in the places we live…” … but this is nei­ther the time nor the place to ful­ly delve into such things, for this let­ter has anoth­er intent… … … through­out this expe­ri­ence i have been in awe of the lov­ing sup­port giv­en by fam­i­ly, known and unknown from around the coun­try and the world, who have nour­ished me dur­ing this part of my jour­ney ~ i’ve received such an inun­dat­ing amount of mail that i haven’t been able to respond to it all ~ there is no con­cept that can ade­quate­ly express my thanx and appre­ci­a­tion to you all… … to all of those unknown and unnamed beau­ti­ful indi­vid­u­als who have aid­ed me on this case, i am impa­tient­ly wait­ing to thank you prop­er­ly with a huge hug… … chris­tine, i haven’t for­got­ten about the veg­an din­ner i promised… … to my coun­sel mark, who’s exper­tise in his field is unques­tion­able — his abil­i­ties, pas­sion, and deter­mi­na­tion pro­vide a well­spring of strength, espe­cial­ly know­ing that he con­tin­ues to fight for me — as he said on the 27th “it’s only the open­ings of the third quar­ter” ~ the notion of grat­i­tude does­n’t begin to encom­pass the feel­ing in my heart, my friend, much love… … to jed, my investigator/case manager/Elder, your ener­gies vest­ed into this case have been the bedrock of ground­ed explo­ration, bal­anc­ing the some­times fren­zied and bois­ter­ous antics that accom­pa­ny markus’ high ener­gy nature, thank you my friend… … i’d also like to thank bob, my first inves­ti­ga­tor, for his time, com­pa­ny and aid work­ing on the hours upon hours of tran­scripts with me over that first sum­mer (which my part­ner and sis­ter painstak­ing­ly gleaned from the shock­ing­ly abhor­rent qual­i­ty of fbi record­ings)… … the actions and aid of sac pris­on­er sup­port have and con­tin­ue to tran­scend any and all of my ideas con­cern­ing pris­on­er sup­port groups and have been mon­u­men­tal in this expe­ri­ence on every con­ceiv­able front — too much love… … the Love, Sup­port, and Under­stand­ing of my Par­ents and Sis­ters goes beyond scope, sim­i­le, and metaphor — i Love you all … … and i Feel and Know in my Heart, Body, and Soul that my sur­vival has been impact­ed to an inex­press­ible degree by the Love and Sup­port of my Part­ner ~ and the inter­twin­ing of Our Paths has brought a Depth and Qual­i­ty of Life i had nev­er before imag­ined to exist — my Thanx tran­scend lan­guage and my Love, only a Begin­ning… … …

my Thanx and Love 2 U All

This is far from Over

D

find your joy

More info at http://www.supporteric.org/
More info on the Green Scare at http://greenscare.org/

15th October — National Day of Local Action against Royal Bank of Scotland Update

It’s only a week away! There are plans afoot all over the coun­try, and there’s still time for you to organ­ise some­thing in your local area. A few things that might help:

Oily RBS logoIt’s only a week away! There are plans afoot all over the coun­try, and there’s still time for you to organ­ise some­thing in your local area. A few things that might help:

*There are leaflets avail­able to hand out on the day if you don’t fan­cy mak­ing your own. (Front — click here. Back — click here. And if you want editable ver­sions email us and we’ll email them to you).

*Stick­ers are also avail­able for what­ev­er sil­ly, seri­ous or sub­ver­sive pur­pose you can think of! Email us with a postal address to get a stash sent to you (these aren’t linked to the day of action so they’ll be use­ful into the future)
*There will be a nation­al press release about the day of action, so if you’re plan­ning some­thing pub­lic and want to let the nation­al press know about it, please send us the details. We’ll also do a press release on the day, so email us or bet­ter yet phone 07961 917535 to be includ­ed in the nation­al action round-up (and put it on Indy­media and here too of course!)

Orig­i­nal call out here

Greenpeace protesters raid coal power plant

Green­peace cam­paign­ers have staged a dawn protest at a pow­er plant which could be the site of Britain’s first new coal-fired sta­tion for 20 years.

Greenpeace Kingsnorth actionGreen­peace cam­paign­ers have staged a dawn protest at a pow­er plant which could be the site of Britain’s first new coal-fired sta­tion for 20 years.

More than 50 activists said they want­ed Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown to reject the pro­pos­al for the Kingsnorth site, on the Hoo Penin­su­la, in Kent.

They also aim to take the plant off the Nation­al Grid.

E.ON UK said pro­test­ers had been at the gates with some inside the facil­i­ty, but insist­ed it was still oper­a­tional.

Kent Police said it sent nego­tia­tors to the scene after being called at about 0600 BST on Mon­day.

Reduced emis­sions

A state­ment said: “It is thought that 23 Green­peace pro­test­ers are cur­rent­ly on pow­er sta­tion prop­er­ty and sev­er­al of them have chained them­selves to gen­er­a­tors.

“Police have closed sur­round­ing roads and have already moved on 30 peo­ple from the out­skirts of the site.”

E.ON UK announced in Octo­ber 2006 that it planned to build two new coal units at Kingsnorth, say­ing they would be clean­er and more effi­cient than the cur­rent ones with “state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy” reduc­ing car­bon diox­ide emis­sions.

There is a team who are scal­ing the 250m-high (820ft) smoke stack
Pro­test­er Joss Gar­man

Green­peace said more than 13,000 objec­tions had been sent to Med­way Coun­cil, but “in the next cou­ple of weeks the deci­sion will go to Gor­don Brown”.

The cli­mate cam­paign­ers said their mes­sage to the prime min­is­ter was: “Don’t bot­tle it on cli­mate change.”

They scaled fences at the site just after 0500 BST on Mon­day.

One pro­test­er, 22-year-old Joss Gar­man from north Lon­don, said he and oth­ers had climbed up coal con­vey­ors, pressed the emer­gency stop but­tons and chained them­selves to the belts.

Mr Gar­man described the action as a form of “peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence” which could last for days rather than hours.

“There is anoth­er team who are scal­ing the 250m-high (820ft) smoke stack, and they’ve got enough sup­plies to last for a few days,” he said.

A view inside the Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion
About 23 pro­test­ers got inside the facil­i­ty on Mon­day morn­ing

Mr Gar­man claimed the new coal units planned for Kingsnorth would do lit­tle to reduce car­bon emis­sions.

“This pow­er sta­tion [cur­rent­ly] wastes over two-thirds of the ener­gy that it pro­duces… although it will be slight­ly more effi­cient, this new plant will still lose over half the ener­gy it will cre­ate.”

He added that pro­test­ers hoped to have tak­en the pow­er sta­tion off the Nation­al Grid lat­er on Mon­day, but claimed there would be no black­outs as a result.

E.ON UK spokesman Jonathan Smith said: “They’re in a num­ber of places inside the pow­er sta­tion, but they aren’t actu­al­ly caus­ing it to stop run­ning just yet.

“These peo­ple are not qual­i­fied to be in our pow­er sta­tion… we’re work­ing very close­ly with the police to try to ensure a safe and swift end to this protest.”

Mr Smith also said the pro­pos­als were for a “clean­er coal devel­op­ment”.

“The new units will be car­bon cap­ture-ready, which means they would have the pipework on them to actu­al­ly cap­ture the car­bon diox­ide and to store it under­ground once that tech­nol­o­gy is proven.”

The com­pa­ny esti­mates the two new units will reduce car­bon emis­sions by about two mil­lion tonnes a year.

CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVISTS BLOCKADE DOMESTIC FLIGHTS IN MANCHESTER AIRPORT PROTEST

8.10.2007
Activists from Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action and Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid have block­ad­ed the secu­ri­ty check-in of ter­mi­nal 3 of Man­ches­ter Air­port. Pas­sen­gers are being denied access to the depar­ture lounge by sev­en activists locked togeth­er using arm-tube devices. Two ban­ners have been unfurled read­ing, “Man­ches­ter City Council…supporting cli­mate chaos” and “Domes­tic flights cost the Earth”. Oth­er pro­test­ers are leaflet­ing pas­sen­gers with infor­ma­tion about avi­a­tion and cli­mate change as well as hand­ing out train timeta­bles for route des­ti­na­tions.

MCR airport action 1

MCR airport action 3
MCR airport action 4
MCR airport action 58.10.2007
Activists from Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action and Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid have block­ad­ed the secu­ri­ty check-in of ter­mi­nal 3 of Man­ches­ter Air­port. Pas­sen­gers are being denied access to the depar­ture lounge by sev­en activists locked togeth­er using arm-tube devices. Two ban­ners have been unfurled read­ing, “Man­ches­ter City Council…supporting cli­mate chaos” and “Domes­tic flights cost the Earth”. Oth­er pro­test­ers are leaflet­ing pas­sen­gers with infor­ma­tion about avi­a­tion and cli­mate change as well as hand­ing out train timeta­bles for route des­ti­na­tions.

Avi­a­tion is the fastest grow­ing source of green house gas­es and accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment is respon­si­ble for 13% of the UK’s glob­al warm­ing con­tri­bu­tion [1]. The over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of flights from ter­mi­nal 3 are to domes­tic UK des­ti­na­tions such as Lon­don Heathrow. These are the most unnec­es­sary flights. The group are call­ing for an end to all domes­tic and short-haul flights and for inter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion to be includ­ed in the Cli­mate Change Bill.

The pro­test­ers are also high­light­ing the con­tra­dic­tion between Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil’s ‘Green City’ ini­tia­tive and their 55% own­er­ship of Man­ches­ter air­port . The air­port intends to expand its annu­al pas­sen­ger num­bers from 22 mil­lion in 2005, to 39 mil­lion by 2015, to 50 mil­lion by 2030. [2]

Green Par­ty Coun­cil­lor Vanes­sa Hall, who is tak­ing part in the block­ade said, “Man­ches­ter Coun­cil say we need the income from the air­port to fight pover­ty. The Air­port costs the peo­ple of Man­ches­ter in tax breaks and sub­si­dies – this mon­ey should be invest­ed direct­ly into green indus­tries direct­ly cre­at­ing jobs and reliev­ing pover­ty. Cli­mate Change will have a mas­sive impact on our econ­o­my, health and
well-being. It is envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic luna­cy to con­sid­er any expan­sion of avi­a­tion. We can’t be a Green City with an expand­ing Air­port. I am blockad­ing domes­tic flights to high­light the true cost of fly­ing and to call the coun­cil to account for their hypocrisy.”

The action today was inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action which saw around 2000 pro­test­ers gath­er next to Heathrow air­port in Lon­don this sum­mer.

Rob­bie Gillett, also present at the protest said, “It is no longer social­ly accept­able to fly from Man­ches­ter to Lon­don giv­en what we know about cli­mate change. It’s absurd when there are train alter­na­tives read­i­ly avail­able. The mon­ey ear­marked for the expan­sion of British air­ports needs to be redi­rect­ed towards improv­ing our rail infra­struc­ture. We’re the last gen­er­a­tion who can stop cli­mate change and time is run­ning out.”

ends

Notes to Edi­tors
[ 1 ]. Source : www.aef.org.uk/campaigns/detail.php?art_id=579
[ 2 ] Source: ‘Man­ches­ter Air­port Draft Mas­ter Plan to 2030’. page 39

——–

A Greater Man­ches­ter Police spokesman said: “Just after 7.30am police were called to Ter­mi­nal Three at Man­ches­ter Air­port fol­low­ing reports of a protest.

“Offi­cers arrived at the entrance to the depar­tures lounge, where up to 12 pro­test­ers were pre­vent­ing pas­sen­gers from get­ting through.

“Police are cur­rent­ly work­ing with air­port staff to arrange alter­na­tive ways for pas­sen­gers to get into the depar­ture lounge, and con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion.”

A spokesman for the air­port said the pro­test­ers had not passed through secu­ri­ty checks.

“At the moment, pas­sen­gers can­not get through to secu­ri­ty, but we do have alter­na­tive ways of get­ting pas­sen­gers through,” he said.

——–

Video show­ing the begin­ning of the block­ade of Man­ches­ter Air­port Ter­mi­nal 3’s domes­tic secu­ri­ty check­ing zone. Pas­sen­gers are being denied access to the depar­ture lounge by sev­en activists locked togeth­er using arm-tube devices.

Video (mpg1) of Man­ches­ter air­port block­ade — video/mpeg 18M

or streamed video

or small mp4

ESCALATING DEFLATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST 4x4s IN SWEDEN

- One thou­sand 4x4s dis­armed by The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle

In recent months, a cli­mate action group call­ing itself The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle has struck against SUVs across Swe­den. Tyres on one thou­sand cars have been deflat­ed. The cam­paign is spread­ing like wild­fire, prompt­ing nation­al debate and furi­ous aggres­sion among SUV-own­ers.

Stockholm Indians of the Concrete Jungle hit 4x4- One thou­sand 4x4s dis­armed by The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle

In recent months, a cli­mate action group call­ing itself The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle has struck against SUVs across Swe­den. Tyres on one thou­sand cars have been deflat­ed. The cam­paign is spread­ing like wild­fire, prompt­ing nation­al debate and furi­ous aggres­sion among SUV-own­ers.

—-
19th Octo­ber 2007
It has hap­pened again. Once more, we have drawn the atten­tion of Malmö to what’s hap­pen­ing to our cli­mate. Bus, bicy­cle and train are always bet­ter then dri­ving SUVs. That’s why we deflat­ed 32 fuel-guz­zling SUVs on the night of Octo­ber 18. As dur­ing ear­li­er actions, SUVs were tar­get­ed in (the afflu­ent areas of) Väs­tra Ham­nen and Väs­tra Inner­stan. The let­ter below was left on the widescreen on all the cars, to explain why they were deflat­ed.
—-
26th Octo­ber
In the worst wild­fires in the his­to­ry of Cal­i­for­nia, even the stars of Hol­ly­wood have been threat­ened by the burn­ing flames of glob­al warm­ing. The lev­el of causal­i­ty between glob­al warm­ing and fires in Cal­i­for­nia may not be 100 per­cent, but sure­ly large enough to make it iron­ic that the upper class of Öster­malm in Stock­holm forces the upper class of Hol­ly­wood to evac­u­ate their homes. There­fore, yesterday’s defla­tion of 50 SUVs on Öster­malm is ded­i­cat­ed to the hun­dreds of thou­sands who had to fled the fire — includ­ing the stars of Hol­ly­wood.
—-
The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle have received a mes­sage from a new tribe in Umeå, Sweden’s fifth or sixth biggest city, and now the eleventh to be endowed with direct action against the insane cli­mate destruc­tion of SUVs. The mes­sage reads:

On the night of Fri­day, Octo­ber 19, tyres were deflat­ed on some 90 SUVs in Umeå.

Keep well!
—-
In the night between Octo­ber 6 and 7, the Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle of Falun deflat­ed 45 suv:s in the neigh­bour­hoods of Vil­las­taden, Lustig Knopp, Brit­sarvet, Bojsen­burg, Östan­fors, Gam­la Her­rgår­den, Sten­näset, Els­borg and Cen­trum. The night end­ed with a com­plete dis­ar­ma­ment of one of the infa­mous Hum­mer-vehi­cles. We took a pic­ture of it with a sign read­ing: “Have you got a Hum­mer, stu­pid?” (a rhyme in Swedish). Of couse, we took down the sign after­wards, since it might be inter­pret­ed as humil­i­at­ing.

Peace!

The tribe of Falun

(Falun is Sweden’s 26th biggest town, with some 40 000 res­i­dents.)
—-
Many more reports in Swedish at http://asfaltsdjungelnsindianer.wordpress.com
=================
(This is a mes­sage from The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle to the world.)

Every­one knows it: action on cli­mate change is a mat­ter of utter urgency. Nonethe­less, car­bon emis­sions con­tin­ue to accel­er­ate, pow­ered by the uncon­trol­lable machines of the world econ­o­my. One emi­nent sign of this rush to dis­as­ter is the trend of SUVs, clog­ging the streets in our West­ern cities, emit­ting up to three times more car­bon than cars of aver­age size on the mar­ket. SUVs have become a sym­bol of the irra­tional destruc­tion of the most basic con­di­tions of life. Attached to no human need what­so­ev­er — only to the con­spic­u­ous con­sump­tion of an afflu­ent class, feel­ing the ”need” to flaunt mon­ster vehi­cles — they con­sti­tute per­haps the most insane source of unnec­es­sary car­bon emis­sions. Every­one should know it: if we can’t deal with SUVs swift­ly, we can’t deal with any oth­er emis­sions either. And noth­ing less than our sur­vival is at stake.

Armed with this analy­sis, and with mung beans or grains of grav­el, a group called The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle has struck against hun­dreds of SUV:s in Swe­den in recent months. The first action occured in the posh­est part of innerci­ty Stock­holm in June. Tyres on 60 SUV:s in Öster­malm were
deflat­ed. A weblog was post­ed on the inter­net, and since then, the cam­paign for dis­ar­ma­ment of SUV:s in Swe­den has spread like wild­fire. To this date, approx­i­mate­ly 1000 SUVs have been tem­porar­i­ly dis­armed in at least nine Swedish cities, includ­ing the three largest (Stock­holm, Gothen­burg and Malmö) as well as sev­er­al small­er cities; new tribes are pop­ping up by the week. The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle have appeared in vir­tu­al­ly every major media out­let in the coun­try — from a prime time debate on nation­al tele­vi­sion, to a very sym­pa­thet­ic report in the com­pa­ny of Indi­ans in action pub­lished in the biggest morn­ing news­pa­per, to an op-ed piece in the biggest evening paper and count­less news reports in
local media. Thus, in a mat­ter of months, the issue of unnec­es­sary car­bon emis­sions in gen­er­al and SUV:s in par­tic­u­lar have risen to the top of the agen­da in Swe­den – some­thing that nev­er hap­pened before – and own­er­ship of the vehi­cle has become all the less con­ve­nient.

Swe­den is unique in Europe in its addic­tion to SUVs. Car­bon emis­sions from new cars on Swedish roads are some 20 per­cent above the Euro­pean aver­age; no males in the EU emit as much by dri­ving cars as Swedish males do. This is large­ly due to the suc­cess of Volvo’s SUV mod­el XC90, as well as oth­er cars from the con­sis­tent­ly cli­mate destruc­tive com­pa­ny. The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle have decid­ed to change this sit­u­a­tion.

The action per­formed by the Indi­ans is sim­ple. The cap of the tyre’s valve is unscrewed, a bean or a grain of grav­el is insert­ed, and the valve is screwed back on the tyre. The lit­tle thing will push down the peg in the mid­dle of the valve, mak­ing sure the air is gen­tly released. The whole manoeu­vre takes about 10 sec­onds, after which fol­lows the long sound of the air peter­ing out. A let­ter to the own­er is left on the widescreen, where­in the action is explained (see trans­la­tion attached below). Instruc­tions and the let­ter are avail­able on the weblog, for all like-mind­ed activists to use and spread lav­ish­ly. The Indi­ans refrain from tar­get­ing SUVs used by hand­i­capped dri­vers, health care insti­tu­tions and
com­pa­ny work­ers.

Though the response has, in gen­er­al, been pos­i­tive among the pub­lic, con­sid­er­able fury and aggres­sion have arisen among SUV-own­ers. A coun­ter­force call­ing itself ”The Cow­boys of the Con­crete Jun­gle” has
appeared, threat­en­ing to deflate the lungs of the Indi­ans, pre­sum­ably with knifes. On var­i­ous inter­net com­mu­ni­ties run by motorists and sol­diers, plans are made to guard SUVs and beat or even kill Indi­ans; pub­lic sup­port­ers of the cause have been sub­ject to threats of attacks on their homes. Undaunt­ed, the Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle have con­tin­ued and esca­lat­ed the cam­paign, and so far, no one has been hurt. Only one Indi­an has been nabbed by Swedish police, though it has not even decid­ed what kind of crim­i­nal offence deflat­ing tyres actu­al­ly con­sti­tutes – if indeed it is a crime at all.

The con­flict sur­round­ing the actions is con­sid­ered a suc­cess in itself. There are real, social con­tra­dic­tions in the field of cli­mate change between those who emit car­bon relent­less­ly and those who suf­fer the heav­i­est loss­es, and bring­ing these to light is cru­cial for any progress. Not every­one will fight cli­mate change. Not every­one will give up their lethal priv­i­leges vol­un­tar­i­ly.

The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle are deter­mined to con­tin­ue their cam­paign of dis­ar­ma­ment. If it is done repeat­ed­ly and on a mas­sive scale, deflat­ing tyres will devel­op from a slight annoy­ance in the eyes of the own­ers into a real obsta­cle for dri­ving SUV:s. Imag­ine wak­ing up to a car with­out air in the tyres every morn­ing, or even once a week! The cam­paign is poised to spread fur­ther in Swe­den, and now the Indi­ans are look­ing for­ward to tribes tak­ing up the cause in oth­er coun­tries as well. In the pur­suit of spread­ing the word, all dec­la­ra­tions of recent actions will here­after be post­ed in Eng­lish as well as Swedish.

The weblog is: http://asfaltsdjungelnsindianer.wordpress.com/

The Indi­ans are hap­py to answer any ques­tions. Just write to this email adress.

Let­ter to SUV own­ers:

Your SUV kills!

We have deflat­ed one or sev­er­al tyres of your SUV. Don’t take it per­son­al. It’s your car we don’t like. You are cer­tain­ly aware of the large amount of fuel it con­sumes, so we don’t have to enlight­en you about that. But either you are igno­rant of, or you don’t care about the fact that all the gas you con­sume by dri­ving around in your SUV in the streets of the city has dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for oth­ers. Sci­en­tists are entire­ly sure that we are very close to push­ing cli­mate change across a thresh­old, into a
phase where it will be total­ly out of con­trol.

When the glac­i­ers melt, people’s source of water dis­ap­pear. When the deserts spread, agri­cul­tur­al fields become uncul­tivable. When the sea lev­el ris­es, homes are inun­dat­ed. Result: bil­lions of refugees, count­less deaths. It’s already esti­mat­ed that 160 000 humans die every year due to the effects of cli­mate change, accord­ing to the WHO. As an afflu­ent Swede you will sur­vive longer then most. Those most vul­ner­a­ble, and already worst afflict­ed by the glob­al warm­ing caused by North­ern afflu­ence, are the peo­ple of poor coun­tries. In the end, how­ev­er, cli­mate chaos will affect us all, poor peo­ple as well as rich.

This does not have to hap­pen if we impose a rad­i­cal cut on car­bon emis­sions. Now. Not tomor­row. That’s why we have dis­armed your SUV by deflat­ing the tyres. Since you live in a city with a func­tion­ing and acces­si­ble pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem you will have no prob­lem get­ting where you want with­out your SUV.

/ The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle