Category: Climate Chaos

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 72, OCTOBER 2007

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

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
2) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD — OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
3) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING — 3–4.11.07 OXFORD
4) CLIMATE CAMPS — 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
5) TARA UPDATE — 22.9.07 IRELAND
6) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — NATIONWIDE
7) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS — AUTUMN 2007
8) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART — OCT ’07, EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
9) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES — 17.9.07
10) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11–2.12.07

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS — 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING,
MADRID & IRELAND
2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL — AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING — ARTICLES 2006/7
4) GAGGED! SOUTH WALES ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER — SEPTEMBER 2007
5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING — 14.9.07
6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN‑2 FUNDING — 15.8.07
7) “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT — 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA — 2/3.9.07
9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY — 12.9.07
10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION — SEPTEMBER 2007
11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS — 24.9.07
12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION AGAINST ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
RBS, the self-described ‘Oil and Gas Bank’ and sec­ond-largest bank in
Europe is the lead­ing financier of cli­mate change. From West Africa to the
Ecuado­ri­an rain­for­est, from the North Sea to the Mid­dle East, RBS loans
play a key role in forc­ing open the new car­bon fron­tier. 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 cur­rent annu­al emis­sions total!
On 15th Octo­ber, get togeth­er with your local group, build on con­nec­tions
made at the Camp, reach out to oth­ers in your area and con­front RBS with
your own cho­sen style of cre­ative direct action.

To find your near­est RBS branch or office:
www.rbs.co.uk/microsites/general/branch_locator/step1.asp
Down­load Plat­for­m’s report ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’:
www.carbonweb.org/documents/Oil_&_Gas_Bank.pdf
For help with plan­ning effec­tive actions: www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

One such action is being planned in con­junc­tion with West Corn­wall Friends
of the Earth; Out­side Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, Green St (off Lemon Quay),
Truro,
12 noon, Mon 15th Oct. Con­tact RTUK for oth­ers.

2) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD — OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
A lot has been hap­pen­ing in the last few weeks, includ­ing the inau­gur­al
Glos­sop Crit­i­cal Mass. Also, there are two URGENT let­ter actions that they
need your help with. They should only take a few min­utes of your time.
www.saveswallowswood.org.uk

3) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING — 3–4.11.07 OXFORD
The Cli­mate Camp 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 Nov 3–4 in Oxford. Every­one is wel­come,
whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
www.climatecamp.org.uk

4) CLIMATE CAMPS — 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
Fol­low­ing the mod­el estab­lished by the Camp for Cli­mate Action in the UK,
plans are afoot for a Cli­mate-Action Camp in Ger­many in 2008. This will
include knowl­edge exchange (in work­shops), self-organ­ised liv­ing that
min­imis­es the eco­log­i­cal foot­print, net­work­ing and direct action. There
are plans for sim­i­lar camps to be set up next year in sev­er­al coun­tries.
watch this space…
www.climatecamp.org.uk

http://www.klimacamp.org/

5) TARA UPDATE — 22.9.07 IRELAND
They are des­per­ate for more peo­ple and sup­plies on site. There are
cur­rent­ly just 20 peo­ple try­ing to stop work all over the Tara Skryne
val­ley.
www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.circlecommunity.org
For recent videos & pho­tos of protests see;
http://livevideo.com/tarapixie

6) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES — NATIONWIDE
For info. and updates check;
http://www.urban75.com/Action/critical.html

7) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS — AUTUMN 2007
Includ­ing “Reclaim Pow­er” 19.10.07 at 7pm fol­lowed by dis­cus­sion with
Ris­ing Tide rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

http://plymouthenvironmentcentre.org.uk/events.php#film-nights

8) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART SHOWS — OCTOBER 2007 EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
Edin­burgh 10th-14th Octo­ber
Man­ches­ter 24th-28th Octo­ber
For fur­ther info. check;
http://www.randomartists.org/

9) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES — 17.9.07
Two com­pa­nies plan­ning to explore for oil in Peru­vian rain­for­est have
revealed their sen­si­tive plans to ‘com­mu­ni­cate’ with the pre­vi­ous­ly
uncon­tact­ed inhab­i­tants using mega­phones! In the past, oil com­pa­ny work­ers
in the Ama­zon region have been killed by iso­lat­ed Indi­ans. Despite this
risk to their own work­ers, and the equal dan­ger of spread­ing fatal
dis­eases to the Indi­ans, the com­pa­nies — Bar­rett Resources of the US and
Rep­sol YPF of Spain — have refused to sus­pend their plans.
http://www.survival-international.org/news/2502
You can help by writ­ing a let­ter;
http://www.survival-international.org/actnow/letters/isolatedindians

10) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11–2.12.07

‘The Stu­dent Cli­mate Project came out of dis­cus­sions at the 2007 Cli­mate
Camp, and
seeks bring togeth­er stu­dents to take col­lec­tive action against the root
caus­es of
Cli­mate Change. It will also devel­op ways to build the stu­dent move­ment
and deal
with Cli­mate Change issues in the edu­ca­tion sys­tem. The project is
non-hier­ar­chi­cal
and based on con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing, and the Launch Gath­er­ing is the
per­fect
oppor­tu­ni­ty to get involved, share your ideas and plan for action. See
www.studentclimateproject.org.uk’

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-

1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS — 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING,
MADRID & IRELAND
There were a series of demon­stra­tions held in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the day of
action against Shel­l’s plans for a gas pipeline & refin­ery in Mayo,
Ire­land.
In Ross­port itself over 150 peo­ple occu­pied the refin­ery site.
Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide held a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo at a Shell Garage in East­ville,
Bris­tol with leaflets and ban­ners.
For more details about the var­i­ous actions check;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5090
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1&type=page

2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL — AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
Activists in Bris­tol have been busy. Parts of three golf cours­es have been
dug up and the mes­sage “deca­dent waste of water” sprayed near a club
house. A mobile phone mast has been sab­o­taged. A non-pas­sen­ger line which
trans­ports cars and fos­sil fuel to the Mid­lands was cut three quar­ters of
the way through in two places and marked with high vis­i­bil­i­ty paint. A
warn­ing ban­ner read­ing: “Stop: Trees on line” was fixed across the line
sev­er­al hun­dred yards in front of this.
Also, with­in the last 6 months, the front tyres of forty 4x4s have been
punc­tured in and around Bris­tol.
Final­ly, a “cor­po­rate enter­tain­ment” com­pa­ny called 4‑Play, which pro­vides
off road dri­ving for 4x4s in the south west, has had vehi­cles spray
paint­ed with

“4‑play — blow-job the plan­et”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5050

3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING — ARTICLES 2006/7
An excel­lent series of arti­cles on why the neolib­er­al approach to cli­mate
change isn’t work­ing can be found at;
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/subject/climate/

4) GAGGED! ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER – SOUTH WALES, SEPT 2007
Down­load the PDF here;
https://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/gagged/gagged19.pdf
Alter­na­tive­ly you can read it here;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5052

5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING — 14.9.07
A fed­er­al court has denied Shel­l’s lat­est request to lift an order
block­ing the com­pa­ny’s Arc­tic Ocean drilling. This rul­ing like­ly dooms the
Dutch oil giant’s drilling plans, at least for this year.
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/

6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN‑2 FUNDING — 15.8.07
The Euro­pean Bank of Recon­struc­tion and Devel­op­ment has decid­ed to pull
its fund­ing for the $20-plus bil­lion Sakhalin‑2 liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas
project, locat­ed in Rus­si­a’s Far East.
Since Jan­u­ary, EBRD and the Sakhalin Ener­gy share­hold­ers (Gazprom, Roy­al
Dutch Shell, Mit­sui and Mit­subishi) have held talks over the pro­jec­t’s
finance. EBRD cut off dis­cus­sions in favour of financ­ing oth­er projects,
such as those that pro­mote sus­tain­able ener­gy.
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/

7) PROTEST AS RDA HOLDS “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT — 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
York­shire For­ward (Region­al Devel­op­ment Agency) held an out­ra­geous “Flood
Sum­mit” at Finning­ley air­port. Local peo­ple vis­it­ed with pop-up tents and
ban­ners to leaflet the con­fer­ence’s par­tic­i­pants and hold alter­na­tive
work­shops high­light­ing the link between avi­a­tion growth and wors­en­ing
cli­mate change.
The con­fer­ence was intend­ed to con­grat­u­late the RDA on their response to
the recent floods. The choice of venue shows just how out of touch with
real­i­ty these half-wits are.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5021

8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA — 2/3.9.07
On the 2nd Sep­tem­ber, twelve Green­peace activists were arrest­ed at the
world’s biggest coal port at New­cas­tle, 160km north of Syd­ney, after
paint­ing the mes­sage “Aus­tralia Push­ing Export Coal” on the side of a coal
ship and unfurl­ing a large ban­ner in Chi­nese call­ing on Chi­na to be
cau­tious of John Howard and George Bush’s attempts to sab­o­tage Kyoto. The
protest comes at the start of the 2007 APEC (Asia Pacif­ic Eco­nom­ic
Coop­er­a­tion) forum meet­ing being host­ed by Aus­tralia.
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/media/releases/climate-change/apec-coal-protest
The fol­low­ing day activists locked them­selves on to a coal con­vey­or belt,
forc­ing the shut-down of a gen­er­a­tor and halv­ing pro­duc­tion from
Vic­to­ri­a’s biggest coal fired pow­er sta­tion.
http://www.realactiononclimatechange.blogspot.com/

9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY — 12.9.07
Peo­ple in South Africa, Ice­land, Trinidad, Den­mark and Amer­i­ca held a
series of coor­di­nat­ed protests against heavy indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion. This is
the first event of a new and grow­ing glob­al move­ment that began at the
2007 Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp in Ölfus, Ice­land.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5067

10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION — SEPTEMBER 2007
For direct action news from Greece, check;
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/

11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS — 24.9.07
For details and some great pics see;
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/381930.html

12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50

and over 1500 hits. Take a look and send in your own work:
www.artnotoil.org.uk

*The Bath Bomb * Issue #3 October ‘07 * @nti-copyright: copy and distribute! *

“Soapy suds of truth in a bath­tub of b*llshit!””

Oh, Just More Shops…

Walk­ing past the rub­ble of the South­gate Cen­tre, could my ears be deceiv­ing me? I have now heard sev­er­al peo­ple remark­ing how nice the view looks with­out the build­ings. The lat­est one of these came when I was walk­ing behind three very fash­ion­able look­ing girls who looked like they were ‘born to shop’:

Bath Bomb small logo“Soapy suds of truth in a bath­tub of b*llshit!””

Oh, Just More Shops…

Walk­ing past the rub­ble of the South­gate Cen­tre, could my ears be deceiv­ing me? I have now heard sev­er­al peo­ple remark­ing how nice the view looks with­out the build­ings. The lat­est one of these came when I was walk­ing behind three very fash­ion­able look­ing girls who looked like they were ‘born to shop’:
“What are they putting there?”
“Oh, just more shops.”
Could it be that more peo­ple than we real­ize would like more from life? Could it be time for some­thing new? Could it be that con­sumer cul­ture is real­ly on the wane? Coz it’s gonna take more than a Deben­hams to impress me.
What would the peo­ple of Bath like to see in a new shop­ping centre’s place? What could hap­pen if we let our imag­i­na­tions run wild? Why not get in touch with your ideas?

Reduce Car­bon, Cut Cap­i­tal­ism!

Sun­day the 16th Sep­tem­ber saw the arrival of the ‘Cut the Car­bon’ march in Bath. The group, includ­ing a mem­ber of MST, a Brazil­lian peas­ants move­ment who take land back from the rich to cul­ti­vate and feed their fam­i­lies, has been march­ing all over the UK, start­ing in Dublin, and end­ing the fol­low­ing week in Lon­don, to pub­li­cise the effects of cli­mate change on the plan­et. The group was met in Abbey Court­yard by 50 sup­port­ers, includ­ing a con­tin­gent from Bath Activist Net­work, wav­ing red and black flags and a ban­ner read­ing ‘social change not cli­mate change!’.
Their mes­sage was sim­ple, we can all do our bit to help stop cli­mate change, but it is the rich and the big busi­ness­es, from oil com­pa­nies to coal min­ing cor­po­ra­tions to the road build­ing indus­try, that are real­ly rap­ing the plan­et. We reck­on that the solu­tions to cli­mate change, pover­ty, wage slav­ery and greed can all be solved when we get togeth­er and take the pow­er away from those caus­ing the prob­lems — politi­cians, the idle rich and the cor­po­ra­tions. Bath Bomb would like to wish the ‘Cut the Car­bon’ marchers well on the last leg of their jour­ney and good luck in spread­ing their impor­tant mes­sage.

Work Kills

A new cam­paign has start­ed in Bath to high­light the dan­gers of casu­al and tem­po­rary work. This cam­paign is aimed at stu­dents and young peo­ple, many of whom are killed and injured doing this type of work each year. The cam­paign is being run by the Trades Coun­cil, a grass-roots trades union group, and the Simon Jones cam­paign (an action group set up to demand jus­tice for a stu­dent killed at work due to the neglect of com­pa­ny man­age­ment)
The cam­paign will be talk­ing at schools and uni­ver­si­ties, offer­ing advice and help. In ear­ly 2008, there will be a pub­lic meet­ing and an exhi­bi­tion (keep an eye on the Bath Bomb for fur­ther details!)
This cam­paign is need­ed because the state jus­tice sys­tem and boss­es care more for con­trol and prof­its at work than safe­ty.

www.simonjones.org.uk

Events List­ing

Mon­day nights Bath Hunt Sabo­teur meet­ings back room of Bell, Wal­cot Street, 8pm
6th Oct Fight the Pipe ben­e­fit gig, 8pm, The Plough in Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, with Crow­zone, Drug Snif­fin’ Dogs and Burnt Pork­chops
13th Oct Bath FreeShop out­side Hol­land & Bar­retts, Stall Street, 12–3pm
14th Oct Per­ma­cul­ture Col­lec­tiec Cafe food, film & work­shop, Kebele Kul­ture Pro­jekt 14 Robert­son Road, Bris­tol, from 5.30pm
15th Oct Day of action against Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, details tbc
19th Oct ‘Left­ism’ Ben­e­fit club night in aid of B.A.N., down­stairs at The Crown, Bath­wick Street, 9pm-1am
19th Oct Anar­chist Black Cross ben­e­fit gig, 8pm, The Junc­tion, 51 Stokes croft, with Born Dead, Jesus Bruis­er, 7 Crowns and War/System
21st Oct ‘Bub­bling Under: Behind The Mask’ Porter Cel­lar Bar, George Street, 1–4pm
23rd Oct cheap house clear­ance, ben­e­fit­ing ani­mal shel­ter in Kent! Ring 07990 847700 for details
27th Oct Anar­chist Book­fair in Lon­don www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk
1st Nov Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing down­stairs Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, 7.30–9pm
1st-11th Nov Bath Film Fes­ti­val www.bathfilmfestival.org
3rd Nov Bash The Rich, Not­ting Hill, Por­to­bel­lo road, Lon­don, 2pm www.bashtherich.org.uk [come along if you’re Class War or cop]
3rd Nov Gagged! ben­e­fit gig, Le Pub, Cax­ton Place, New­port, 9pm, with No Choice, Kilnaboy & Gun­rack?
7th Nov Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street, 7.30–8.30pm
10th Nov SHAC demo Hunt­ing­don town cen­tre, nation­al day of action against ani­mal abuse in Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences, www.veggieromance.com/f/61290
13th Nov Green Light Lec­ture — ‘Peak Oil: how to face the chal­lenge of glob­al oil decline’ — BRLSI, Queen Square, 7.30pm
24th Nov Punk all-day­er gig, ben­fit­ting legal costs from the Nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action, from 1pm at back­room [Wal­cot Palais!] of the Porter Butt on Lon­don Road — Tofu Love Frogs, Kilnaboy, Span­ner, Jesus Bruis­er, and more!

Fur Patrols

Here in the Bath Bomb office it’s start­ing to get a bit nip­py, now that win­ter’s on its way. But don’t wor­ry, this isn’t a call for heat­ing dona­tions — we’ve still got plen­ty of Chrons to feed the fire! What this does mean though, is that fur will soon start return­ing to our high streets, and we can’t have that. Around 40 mil­lion inno­cent ani­mals die every year to feed the fash­ion mar­ket, often spend­ing their entire lives in tiny cages, going mad with hunger and fear. ‘Pelt­ing’, or slaugh­ter, often takes the form of bru­tal hang­ings, elec­tro­cu­tion, car exhaust gassing — that is, if they’re not skinned alive.
For the last cou­ple of years, Bath Ani­mal Action and friends have been cam­paign­ing against fur out­lets in the city, with a string of suc­cess­es: Square signed the fur-free pledge last year, and John Antho­ny the year before. After weeks of reg­u­lar demos, it now remains to be seen as to whether Eleano­ra Brown at AH Moda will bring in rab­bit fur, again. Cry­ing wolf like any of today’s best actress­es, she col­lab­o­rat­ed with police last year to try and fit up a cou­ple of activists on false Pub­lic Order charges back in Jan­u­ary, both of whom were found not guilty.
BAA sleuths are now inves­ti­gat­ing the shop­ping cen­tres of the city to see if any stores are intent on prof­it­ing from this ani­mal abuse. Real fur is soft­er than syn­thet­ic fur, and if you do sus­pect any stores of sell­ing, please drop them a line: bathanimalaction@yahoo.co.uk.

http://www.caft.org.uk/

How Many MPs Does It Take To Veto Nuclear Pow­er…

We are hear­ing more and more that nuclear is the solu­tion to our pow­er needs, how plants are so much safer these days, blah blah blah. STOP. This is a dan­ger­ous thing to be con­sid­er­ing and will not even achieve what we need it to (nuclear pow­er, which only sup­plies elec­tric­i­ty, would only cut UK emis­sions by 4% by 2025–2030, by the government’s own fig­ures). Renew­able ener­gy will get for­got­ten about in the process, with hard­ly any fund­ing allo­cat­ed to research.
Nuclear pow­er is waste­ful, caus­es a lot of pol­lu­tion, is dan­ger­ous in many ways and isn’t even more reli­able see­ing as it still needs a fuel source which we must get from oth­er coun­tries. Renew­able ener­gy offers a sup­ply of clean fuel that is right on our doorsteps (such as wind, solar and geot­her­mal), it will achieve much more and soon­er. The government’s stub­born insis­tence on nuclear pow­er is anoth­er exam­ple of a quick fix that seems like it’s solv­ing a prob­lem when real­ly it’s only a tem­po­rary mea­sure that will come back to bite us in the ass in the future. Hard. We’ve got to stop cut­ting cor­ners and take the route that might take a bit more effort, may be a bit less famil­iar, but that is ulti­mate­ly the only way to begin to get us out of this mess we’ve got our­selves into.
Have your say here www.greenlightonbath.org/ with a ques­tion­naire or send out the mod­el let­ter to add your views to the Government’s review of the future of nuclear ener­gy. Also on this site, under the resources link is an inter­est­ing DVD you can view amongst oth­er things. The dead­line for this is the 10th Octo­ber, but if you miss that, as it’s short notice, there’s bound to be more oppor­tu­ni­ties to have your say. We must all shout loud and be deter­mined in our refusal of nuclear. The def­i­n­i­tion of stu­pid is doing the same thing (over and over) and expect­ing dif­fer­ent results. Also remem­ber two easy things you can do to reduce your ener­gy use — low ener­gy light bulbs (they cost more but last much longer) and turn off your stand­bys!

www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/index.php
http://nuclearpower2007.direct.gov.uk/reg/reg.asp

Direc­tor’s [Bolt] Cut

The sec­ond film in the ‘Bub­bling Under’ alter­na­tive cin­e­ma series screens on Sun­day the 21st of this month, down­stairs at Porter Cel­lar on George Street, at 1pm. Kei­th Mann, for­mer ani­mal lib­er­a­tionist jail­bird, intro­duces ‘Behind The Mask’, a doc­u­men­tary about peo­ple who risk their lib­er­ty to save ani­mals. He’ll also be dis­cussing his book ‘From Dusk Til Dawn’. Great veg­gie food also avail­able.

www.fromdusktildawn.org.uk

Who Are Bath Activist Net­work?

We are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment,
envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce
The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to
anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter.
For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email
bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

Dirty Mon­ey

Not a week goes by now with­out anoth­er cli­mate change and severe weath­er hor­ror sto­ries hit­ting the press, caus­ing around annu­al 160,000 deaths world­wide. And we know some of the cul­prits, too: while com­pa­nies like Esso, Shell and Nation­al Grid plun­der the earth and endan­ger our lives, the finance to do this has to come from some­where. This is where the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land come in. The self-pro­claimed ‘Oil & Gas Bank’, whilst oth­er investors are jump­ing to fund renew­ables projects round the world, RBS is busy under­cut­ting com­peti­tors, and fund­ing the dead­liest and dirt­i­est projects around: liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas in Qatar, oil pipelines in Azerbaijan/Georgia, tar sand extrac­tion in Cana­da, North Sea Oil, and anoth­er drilling project off the coast of Rus­sia, the sum­mer feed­ing ground of the threat­ened west­ern grey whale. And then they fund air­port expan­sion, too!
In 2005, their var­i­ous fund­ed projects pro­duced near­ly 4 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 emis­sions, as well as dis­plac­ing indige­nous peo­ples and encour­ag­ing oil wars the world over.
Also, remem­ber Bath Cli­mate Camp? That was set up to oppose Land & Marine’s LNG pipeline in south Wales, also fund­ed by RBS, putting the lives of thou­sands in jeop­ardy from poten­tial gas explo­sions. Eco-cam­paign­ers are call­ing for a nation­al day of action against the bank [who also own NatWest, Direct Line and Churchill Insur­ance] on the 15th of this month, so keep a look out!

www.theoilandgasbank.com
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk
www.carbonweb.org/documents/Oil_&_Gas_Bank.pd
To find your near­est RBS branch or office:www.rbs.co.uk/microsites/general/branch_locator/step1.asp

HOT OFF THE PRESS!:
Cad­bury’s prove yet again that they could­n’t give a Fudge about their staff, with the announced clo­sure of their suc­cess­ful fac­to­ry in Keyn­sham, Wink-ing out 500 jobs. And whilst it’s Time Out for the work­ers who have helped make the Mr Big execs rich, the relo­ca­tion to Poland will no doubt prove a tidy Boost to the confectioner’s prof­its; as well as stir­ring up Moro racism and anti-Pole resent­ment over here. Greedy bas­tards.

http://www.thisisbath.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=180730&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232315&home=yes&more_nodeId1=163047&contentPK=18568762

Well Fed Not An Ani­mal Dead!

Sat­ur­day morn­ing of the 22nd Sep­tem­ber saw Bath Ani­mal Action and sup­port­ers hold­ing a stall of veg­an food, gratis, prov­ing that there is such thing as a free lunch! Held as part of ‘Go Veg­gie Month’, it all went like hot cakes, and the pub­lic enjoyed it, too! Recipes were swapped and debates were had, and a real feel­ing of com­mu­ni­ty was [not Don!] fos­tered.

Fox Hunt­ing’s Fishy His­to­ry

Did you know that the expres­sion ‘red her­ring’ orig­i­nates from peas­antry in cen­turies past try­ing to sab­o­tage fox hunts? Pissed off with low pay, long hours and crap work­ing con­di­tions, it was a week­end pas­time for many of the 18th and 19th Cen­tu­ry rur­al poor to ruin their rich mas­ters’ hob­by. Amongst oth­er tac­tics, they did this by lay­ing her­rings and oth­er fish in the under­growth, dis­tract­ing the hounds from the scent of the fox, allow­ing it to escape. Our meth­ods may have changed since then, but hunt sabo­teurs are still out in the fields every week­end pro­tect­ing hunt­ed wildlife from the over-rich, under-IQ’d inbreds that con­sti­tute Britain’s rul­ing class. If you are inter­est­ed in pub­li­cis­ing Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs, help­ing us raise mon­ey, or bet­ter yet, com­ing out and help­ing us active­ly sab­o­tage local hunts, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk or give us a bell on 07854 062336

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring
http://hsa.enviroweb.org/hsa.shtml

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions are avail­able
on request

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute to this newslet­ter, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

http://www.myspace.com/bathbomb

2nd wave of Burma solidarity — target Total (London, Cardiff, Oxford)

Lon­don Total Oil’s offices tar­get­ed again this morn­ing
5.10.2007

Total Oil’s Lon­don HQ was tar­get­ed again this morn­ing as work­ers made their way into the build­ing in order to high­light the com­pa­ny’s involve­ment in finan­cial­ly sup­port­ing the Burmese mil­i­tary jun­ta.

London Total HQ
Lon­don Total Oil’s offices tar­get­ed again this morn­ing
5.10.2007

Total Oil’s Lon­don HQ was tar­get­ed again this morn­ing as work­ers made their way into the build­ing in order to high­light the com­pa­ny’s involve­ment in finan­cial­ly sup­port­ing the Burmese mil­i­tary jun­ta.

After a mass call out, activists showed up again this morn­ing to speak to office work­ers at Total Oil’s Lon­don HQ about the com­pa­ny’s involve­ment in Bur­ma. Police forces were already present at the site, actu­al­ly out­num­ber­ing pro­test­ers at 8:30, guard­ing the entrance and check­ing every­one enter­ing the build­ing, which caused sig­nif­i­cant nui­sance and slowed things down a bit. A FIT team was also present, hap­pi­ly snap­ping pic­tures of peo­ple. After stag­ing a die-in out­side the entrance and hand­ing out leaflets, it was decid­ed to end the action and re-group for break­fast.

We shall be back.

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Cardiff Total demoCardiff Total closed in Bur­ma protest

7.10.2007
A Total garage in Cardiff was closed for three hours in a sol­i­dar­i­ty action for the peo­ple of Bur­ma

Around 30 peo­ple marched from the cen­tre of Cardiff to the Total garage, where more pro­test­ers had already gath­ered.

Despite the nor­mal threats of arrest from the police, activists blocked the entrance and exit routes to the garage, shut­ting it down. The garage remained closed by the action for three hours. There were no arrests.

The lev­el of pub­lic sup­port for the action was amaz­ing, and car horns were beep­ing their sup­port almost con­stant­ly. Even the motorists that turned up to use the garage were (on the whole) sup­port­ive, and hap­pi­ly drove off to find some­where else to fill up.

This was an effec­tive and suc­cess­ful action — it would be nice to see more of these in the weeks and months to come.

——–

Text of leaflet that was giv­en out:

Total Oil — the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Bur­ma

French Oil Com­pa­ny Total is the biggest cor­po­rate investor for the unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic, mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship of Bur­ma. For the last 45 years a mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship has ruled Bur­ma with an iron fist. Total oil has pro­vides the dic­ta­tor­ship with 30% of there export rev­enue, which is esti­mat­ed at $450 mil­lion.

This is the largest for­eign invest­ment sup­port­ing the bru­tal regime, and Total is ful­ly aware of this. It has been fund­ing the regime since 1992, which has per­mit­ted them to exe­cute some atro­cious human right vio­la­tions includ­ing:

70,000 child sol­diers.
One of the largest armies in South East Asia, despite no exter­nal ene­mies.
Rape of women and chil­dren as a weapon of war.
Mass oppres­sion of free­dom of speech and opin­ion, which has lead to 1,350 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.
Almost half of the bud­get is spent on the mil­i­tary while only 19p is spent on health care per per­son, per year.
Total fund­ed the cre­ation of a 63-kilo­me­ter pipeline, secured by the army, which has lead to:

Between 600,000 and 1 mil­lion peo­ple forced from their homes and inter­nal­ly dis­placed.

Some of the worse forced labour abus­es on thou­sands of Burmese peo­ple.

Forced trans­port­ing of weapons, beat­ings and tor­ture.

And the use of civil­ians as human minesweep­ers.

Total Oil is fund­ing and pro­tect­ing this vio­lent regime, to defend its assets and prof­its made form Burmese oil and gas.

In 1988 mass demon­stra­tions occurred across Bur­ma due to the bru­tal­i­ty of the Mil­i­tary regime, and a 500% increase in oil and nat­ur­al gas prices. This result­ed in over 5000 peo­ple indis­crim­i­nate­ly being slaugh­ter by the army, and thou­sands more impris­oned, 1, 350 of which are still there.

2007 UPRISE — A REPEAT OF HISTORY – On the 15th of August, petrol prices rose by 500%, spark­ing mass protests for the next 2 months. The protests were lead by tens of thou­sands of social activist, monks and civil­ians. The mil­i­tary fought back with tear gas, beat­ings, arrests, shoot­ings and pre dawn raids on monas­ter­ies.

It’s esti­mat­ed that up to 3000 peo­ple, includ­ing elder­ly monks, chil­dren between 5 and 10 years old, nuns and women have been arrest­ed, endur­ing atro­cious con­di­tions in prison. It has been inter­nal­ly esti­mat­ed that 130 peo­ple have been killed.

Even though the media cov­er­age is dis­ap­pear­ing today, the oppres­sion and vio­lence direct­ed towards the Burmese’s peo­ple con­tin­ues to esca­late.

Stop the mil­i­tary regime. Act now before anoth­er 5000 die.

Action

www.burmacampaign.org.uk To sign peti­tions pres­sur­ing Total and oth­er cor­po­ra­tions to with­draw invest­ment in Bur­ma.
www.burmanet.org/news/ For up to date reli­able news in Bur­ma.
www.southwalesanarchists.org A group of like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als into civ­il dis­obe­di­ence.
www.avaaz.org To sign a peti­tion tar­get­ing and pres­sur­ing Chi­na, the main sup­port­er of the regime.

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Oxford 2nd Total demoTotal Total­ly Block­ad­ed in Oxford

6.10.2007
Pro­test­ers peace­ful­ly block­ad­ed a Total petrol sta­tion in Oxford today, in sup­port of the democ­ra­cy move­ment in Bur­ma (Myan­mar); activists were there for two hours and seri­ous­ly dis­rupt­ed Total’s busi­ness for the day.

This protest took place in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the pro-democ­ra­cy move­ment in Bur­ma, who have asked for inter­na­tion­al sup­port now that the regime is crack­ing down on them. Total Oil is the fourth largest oil com­pa­ny in the world and one of the biggest for­eign investors in Bur­ma. Its joint ven­ture with Bur­ma’s dic­ta­tor­ship earns the mil­i­tary regime hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars every year.

Peo­ple began to gath­er out­side the petrol sta­tion in East Oxford at 2.30 pm, and at 2.45 moved into the entrance­way, hold­ing a ban­ner which read ” Fuelling Oppres­sion In Bur­ma”. We blocked the entrance for a while until the police arrived and threat­ened to arrest peo­ple. How­ev­er, even after we shuf­fled to either side of the main dri­ve­way, just the pres­ence of the pro­test­ers, the ban­ner and the police was enough to put most cus­tomers off — we saw numer­ous peo­ple eye­ing up the entrance and then choos­ing to dri­ve by.

Those few who did plunge past the crowd of pro­test­ers onto the fore­court were quick­ly pounced upon by friend­ly leaflet-wield­ing activists who man­aged to per­suade the major­i­ty to take their busi­ness else­where.

The Total staff were less than over­joyed, but we gave them all leaflets too and explained why we were there. The police, too, were less than delight­ed by our pres­ence but seemed will­ing to tol­er­ate us, even though we’d pret­ty much closed the petrol sta­tion down for the after­noon. We got lots of waves and horn-toots of sup­port from passers-by.

Total has been a long­stand­ing sup­port­er of Bur­ma’s bru­tal regime. Wide­spread human rights abus­es have been asso­ci­at­ed with the Total pipeline in Bur­ma, includ­ing forced labour, tor­ture and rape. In addi­tion, tougher Euro­pean sanc­tions against Bur­ma have been blocked by the French gov­ern­ment in its effort to pro­tect Total’s inter­ests in the coun­try.

Today’s action was part of a grow­ing inter­na­tion­al move­ment against Total. Forc­ing the com­pa­ny to pull out of Bur­ma would be a major blow to the legit­i­ma­cy of the regime, jeop­ar­dise a vital source of income for the jun­ta and would make it even more dif­fi­cult for oth­er com­pa­nies to do busi­ness in the region.

For more infor­ma­tion see www.burmacampaign.org.uk/total_briefing.html. To get involved in action in Oxford email oarc@riseup.net.

—-

2nd Report from the Oxford Total demo

A brief expla­na­tion of some of the sit­u­a­tion in Bur­ma and a report on the demon­stra­tion in Oxford which took place on the 6th of Octo­ber, 2007.

Glob­al Day of Action for Bur­ma

The 6th of Octo­ber was the glob­al day of action for Bur­ma (also known as Myan­mar), and activists and sup­port­ers demon­strat­ed around the world for an end to the appalling actions of the repres­sive and vicious mil­i­tary jun­ta (group of army gen­er­als) that rules the coun­try. If you watched the news recent­ly you might remem­ber images of thou­sands of monks march­ing on the streets, before the bru­tal mil­i­tary crack­down. There is lit­tle or no news get­ting out of Bur­ma now because the gov­ern­ment shut off the inter­net and has start­ed to seize mobile phones and cam­eras so that images of vio­lent repres­sion can­not escape. The jun­ta has banned protest­ing and the expres­sion of any oth­er view apart from their own, which is that they are cre­at­ing a “dis­ci­pline-flour­ish­ing democ­ra­cy” and unusu­al­ly for a democ­ra­cy, all oppo­si­tion must be crushed. Con­tra­dic­to­ry? It sure is, but it is no laugh­ing mat­ter for fifty mil­lion Burmese.

Demon­stra­tors marched in coun­tries as var­ied as Thai­land, France, Aus­tralia, Cana­da and the Unit­ed King­dom, as well as many more. One of the biggest protests in this coun­try was in Lon­don, but they took place in every major city in the coun­try. One of the less pub­li­cised, but nonethe­less very well attend­ed protests was in Oxford, where pro­test­ers man­aged to suc­cess­ful­ly stop almost every­one fill­ing up at a Total garage from doing so for over two and a half hours.

On the face of it this action might seem to have lit­tle to do with Bur­ma, since Total is a joint­ly owned French and Amer­i­can com­pa­ny. How­ev­er, Total has a con­tract with the Burmese gov­ern­ment, signed in 1992, and is the sole com­pa­ny oper­at­ing in the coun­try. Two oil pipelines have already been built, one to Thai­land and one across Bur­ma, and a third one is on its way, despite the fact that new invest­ments from French com­pa­nies in Bur­ma were banned in 2004. The pipelines have been asso­ci­at­ed with seri­ous human rights abus­es for those work­ing on them, such as forced labour, the use of civil­ians as human minesweep­ers, the use of chil­dren, and sys­tem­at­ic rape of women. Total has been said to be the sin­gle biggest com­pa­ny prop­ping up the junta’s regime.

Total is one of the five biggest oil com­pa­nies in the UK and there­fore wields an enor­mous influ­ence both here and abroad. The French gov­ern­ment has blocked mea­sures such as sanc­tions against the jun­ta due to the fact that Total has such heavy involve­ment there.

With all this in mind I went to a demon­stra­tion close by to Read­ing, by a Total garage in Oxford. A huge ban­ner read­ing “Fuelling Oppres­sion in Bur­ma” left peo­ple in no doubt as to what the protest was about. Vol­un­teers hand­ed out leaflets show­ing a brief sum­ma­ry of the injus­tice of the military’s rule, and Total’s role in it, as well as peti­tions that con­cerned cit­i­zens could sign. The turnout was excel­lent, con­sid­er­ing that the demon­stra­tion had not been as well pub­li­cised as oth­er, larg­er ones in cities such as Birm­ing­ham and Man­ches­ter. In two hours we man­aged to stop the major­i­ty of peo­ple fill­ing up at Total. The work­ers at the garage were under­stand­ably not very pleased but we gave them leaflets too and let them know that we have noth­ing against them since they are only doing their job. Many peo­ple did not have any idea of the things which this com­pa­ny is involved in and once they were informed most of them chose to fill up at one of two near­by petrol sta­tions fur­ther along the road.

The atmos­phere was very jol­ly and every­one was eager to meet new peo­ple and help each oth­er out. The good weath­er helped with this as did the fact that most peo­ple were very friend­ly. We had sup­port both from the local police who were assigned to watch the demon­stra­tion, and from passers-by, many of whom honked their horns at us as they drove past. Many peo­ple who had filled up promised not to do so again. The protest began at 2:30, and although most peo­ple had gone by half past four, three of us chose to stay until five, hand­ing out leaflets to dri­vers.

We do accept that some peo­ple have no choice but to fill up there and we have noth­ing against peo­ple who do so, but I feel it is impor­tant that peo­ple have an informed choice about what it is that they are sup­port­ing when they fill up at a Total garage. At a time when many oil com­pa­nies are regard­ed as uneth­i­cal the idea that a com­pa­ny would open­ly fund one of the world’s most despi­ca­ble regimes pro­duces bad pub­lic­i­ty and a lack of trust, so it is in Total’s best inter­est to pull out of Bur­ma and in so doing, increase their prof­its due to win­ning back respect from peo­ple who have lost it for them. They should see that in the long term, due to the sit­u­a­tion in Bur­ma (with some states hav­ing had a civ­il war for over 20 years) stay­ing in the coun­try is unsus­tain­able and bad for their busi­ness as well as for human rights.

Should you wish to find out more about Total and their involve­ment in Bur­ma, please vis­it www.burmacampaign.org.uk/total_report.html. Please also sign the peti­tion to help the Burmese pro­test­ers, which will be pre­sent­ed to the pres­i­dent of Chi­na after it receives a mil­lion sig­na­tures, at www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma .

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London Burma demoAside from these direct actions, var­i­ous demon­stra­tions have hap­pened around the coun­try over the last few weeks — for full details, search at indymedia.org.uk

Shell to Sea Two and half years later and still going strong! October 12th day of action

In 2005 small west of Ire­land com­mu­ni­ty became the focus of atten­tion of the peo­ple in Ire­land. Five small farm­ers in Ross­port Co Mayo (one the most remote and iso­lat­ed places in North­west Europe) had stood up to a multi­na­tion­al con­glom­er­a­tion of Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon in fear they would die if Shell built their unprece­dent­ed on shore refin­ery.

In 2005 small west of Ire­land com­mu­ni­ty became the focus of atten­tion of the peo­ple in Ire­land. Five small farm­ers in Ross­port Co Mayo (one the most remote and iso­lat­ed places in North­west Europe) had stood up to a multi­na­tion­al con­glom­er­a­tion of Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon in fear they would die if Shell built their unprece­dent­ed on shore refin­ery.

The Irish State’s reac­tion to this was to inde­fi­nate­ly imprison them. This tran­spired to be 94 days at which point Shell decid­ed it was doing more harm than good by impris­on­ing as there was a series of direct actions and mass demon­stra­tion in their defence http://www.indymedia.ie/article/71388. In the weeks run­ning up to this some activists made con­tact with com­mu­ni­ty activists and start­ed a nation­al Shell to sea cam­paign. The unbe­liev­able sto­ry of what was going on in the west of Ire­land was spread through Europe through the meet­ing of activists at the G8 in Ster­ling in July 2008.

The sto­ry is quite unbe­liev­able. Shell and their part­ners are attempt­ing to destroy an unspoilt part of the west Ire­land, by run­ning a dan­ger­ous pipeline through the vil­lage of Ross­port to an inland refin­ery that will spew hun­dreds of thou­sands of tonnes of methane each year in the local envi­ron­ment. On top of this they are effec­tive­ly rob­bing the peo­ple in Ire­land of €51 bil­lion of Irish gas through a dodgy deal cut with cor­rupt politi­cians that at the time was called “eco­nom­ic trea­son”.

But lots of things are wrong and why should peo­ple all across the world we focus on this? Well its sim­ple- we can win and if we do the effects will be immense as a prece­dent will have been set that will not only effect Ire­land but Europe and beyond.

So what hap­pened since 2005 and where are we now?

Tra­di­tion­al sec­tar­i­an­ism was put aside and activists of dif­fer­ent back­grounds worked togeth­er form­ing what the media would lat­er bill “the looney alliance of anar­chists and repub­li­cans”. Through­out the sum­mer of 2005 and until the late sum­mer of 2006 things worked very well as con­stant pick­ets shut down Shel­l’s oper­a­tion in Mayo and pres­sure mount­ed on Shell and the Irish State.

Then at the end of Sep­tem­ber 2006 the State and Shell made their move. Over 200 gar­dai (Irish police) were bil­let­ed to Mayo. The top cop said he would have the protests fin­ished in 48hours. The com­mu­ni­ty and nation­al cam­paigns response was immense. Pick­et­ing went on through the night incase the Gar­dai tried
to cor­don activists away from the site. On the night of the sec­ond of Octo­ber the cops even­tu­al­ly turned out in force. In an effort to main­tain the year and half long pick­et cars were parked block­ing the refin­ery and behind them the com­mu­ni­ty sat in front of the gates. In area with low­est crime rate in Ire­land 200 Gar­dai pulled and dragged com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dents from the gates hos­pi­tal­is­ing two.

This lead to a surge in activ­i­ty with much cam­paign activ­i­ty around the coun­try and inter­na­tion­al­ly, focused on days of action in Ross­port. The Gar­da reac­tion to these days of Action was vio­lent cul­mi­nat­ing in a baton charge on Novem­ber the tenth. The cam­paign then in the face of what seemed like more vio­lence can­celled a pro­posed day of action on the 24th of Novem­ber 2006. Many saw this as deci­sive moment for the cam­paign as momen­tum passed out of our hands. Every­one realised the fol­ly of
it, but as with a lot of things in Shell to Sea it is a learn­ing process. Now it seems it was not as deci­sive as it seemed as things build again.

This sum­mer the cam­paign burst back to life by vic­to­ri­ous­ly oppos­ing shel­l’s attempt to install cab­ins for works in the bay — read more. This was fol­lowed with a very intense week which saw three fish­er­men includ­ing Pat “the chief” O Don­nell and his son and a friend impris­oned, the site was shut down for a day. On the fish­er­men’s release
an inva­sion of the con­struc­tion site took place. Over Sep­tem­ber there have been three site inva­sions and two days with numer­ous peo­ple blockad­ing traf­fic attempt­ing to access the site — read more.

All this occurred in the run up to the day of action on Sep­tem­ber 14th unique in that it had a pre-announced plan. The plan was sim­ple — go there and sit on the road and no vehi­cles get on site. The run-up to the day was ner­vous. The big ques­tion was- could Shell to Sea with its nation­al sup­port in town (or coun­try­side rather) reassert the right of ordi­nary peo­ple over multi­na­tion­als in Erris and real­ly push for­ward the already build­ing momen­tum behind the cam­paign. The con­di­tions were cer­tain­ly right- Shell were and still are run­ning into enor­mous prob­lems as build­ing has vir­tu­al­ly come to a stand­still due to poor qual­i­ty con­crete, con­stant protest and the lack of a pipeline route. On Fri­day the 14th about 150 — 200 peo­ple turned from around the coun­try and this was matched by a size­able mayo turnout.

The total pro­tes­tor turnout was matched by a size­able Gar­da pres­ence. As the pro­tes­tors shut down the main entrance to the site with the sit down the Gar­dai thought they would be clever and direct traf­fic around the sit down and bore us to tears. After this long you would imag­ine the cops would realise Shell to Sea is a lit­tle more on the ball than this. In the lack of the any trucks to meet pro­tes­tors we decid­ed to go and take a look and shut the site down. So it was up, over, under and through the gate as the protest made lit­tle a sec­ondary gate as well (espe­cial­ly con­struct­ed for the day) — read more. The Gar­dai respond­ed with their usu­al heavy hand­ed tac­tics. Regard­less of Shel­l’s rub­bish spin, RTE’s (Ire­lands state broad­cast­er) des­per­ate attempts to pla­cate Shell and and the gar­dai’s offi­cial line it was plain to see who had won the day and that the train is firm­ly back on the tracks.

It’s undoubt­ed that Shell to Sea is not yet at the dizzy­ing heights it was at 12 or 24 months ago. How­ev­er things are mov­ing in a sim­i­lar direc­tion at the moment. We have learned the mis­takes of plac­ing too much faith in politi­cians to pull a deal out the hat. With this knowl­edge it could just be third time lucky for Shell to Sea.

Through­out this peri­od the impact on sol­i­dar­i­ty from the Eng­land Scot­land and Wales has had an enor­mous effect. It has been instru­men­tal in keep­ing the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp con­tin­u­ing through peo­ple com­ing stay­ing a week or a year, fundrais­ing and dona­tions have also allowed the camp to expand. Hos­pi­tal­i­ty to cam­paign speak­ers was always sec­ond to none. Above all the impact that peo­ple com­ing has had a pro­found impact on the moral of peo­ple in Ross­port. They launched their oppo­si­tion in 1999 and it took six years to get Nation­al atten­tion and then imme­di­ate­ly peo­ple in the UK, once they heard, took up the chal­lenge. There is still more peo­ple from the UK have to offer this strug­gle.

Anoth­er day of Action has been called for Octo­ber the 12th as the sit­u­a­tion is heat­ing up as the pres­sure mounts up on Shell and polit­i­cal pres­sure on the greens. These days of Action will not work
on there own — if you cant trav­el we all need to be active in our com­mu­ni­ties organ­is­ing meet­ings, pos­ter­ing and rais­ing the issue where pos­si­ble. These days are how­ev­er cru­cial to pile on the pres­sure -
show­ing in a vis­i­ble robust way the lev­el of oppo­si­tion to this project and high­light­ing the bru­tal­i­ty of what is an every­day occur­rence in Ross­port.

At this stage many of us are scratch­ing our heads as to why mayo peo­ple can’t do this at the height of sum­mer but then again what else would you be doing on windy Fri­day morn­ing in Octo­ber? Ok fair enough we all do but it will cer­tain­ly be worth it to force this to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion after 8 years. For us it’s a few days of a trip to Ross­port for oth­ers it’s the high­light and morale boost­er in a 8 year strug­gle that must and will end soon When peo­ple arrive its intense­ly appre­ci­at­ed as it shows they are not strug­gling on their won and peo­ple care. What are you doing on Octo­ber the 12th? Organ­ise a pick­et at the Irish embassy or a Shell fill­ing Sta­tion or their head­quar­ters. Or if pos­si­ble trav­el to Ross­port. Trav­el to Dublin for Thurs­day at six and book a tick­et on the Dublin bus­es. Book ear­ly though. Come you need a hol­i­day!
(for tick­ets phone or text 0851609850 in Dublin) Cork — corkshelltosea@gmail.com or call 0851141170 for gen­er­al info.

www.rossportsolidaritycamp.com, www.shelltosea.com www.indymedia.ie/mayo

I Bike MCR October Bike Events

Update about some bike stuff hap­pen­ing soon in man­ches­ter.

The Spokes Bicy­cle Dance Troupe
Per­for­mances: Fri­day 19th Octo­ber 1pm-5pm Whit­worth Park, Man­ches­ter (opp MRI) Sun­day 21st Octo­ber Lon­don Bicy­cle Film Fes­ti­val, Bicy­cle Polo tour­na­ment

Update about some bike stuff hap­pen­ing soon in man­ches­ter.

The Spokes Bicy­cle Dance Troupe
Per­for­mances: Fri­day 19th Octo­ber 1pm-5pm Whit­worth Park, Man­ches­ter (opp MRI) Sun­day 21st Octo­ber Lon­don Bicy­cle Film Fes­ti­val, Bicy­cle Polo tour­na­ment

Hey ladies! Join the Spokes: come to a rehearsal- next one this Sun­day 7th
octo­ber at 10am at long­ford park, chorl­ton. email info@ibikemcr.org.uk if you have any ques­tions or want to know the next prac­tice time

The MCR Dropouts Bike Polo Prac­tice:
Every Thurs­day at 7pm and Sat­ur­day at 2pm at Platt Fields Park
Open prac­tice and demo: Fri­day 19th Octo­ber 1pm-5pm Whit­worth Park, Man­ches­ter (opp MRI)

Mcr Bicy­cle Art Parade and crit­i­cal mass
Fri­day 26th Octo­ber, 6pm, Cen­tral Library

woooo it will not only be an amaz­ing bike ride to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle, to
meet oth­er cyclists, to have an excuse to ride around, to feel part of a bike gang, to have a fun evening etc etc

but!

this month it will also be Man­ches­ter’s FIRST EVER Bicy­cle Art Parade! So
dress up your bike in tin­sel or glit­ter or make it look like a drag­on or a
fly…whatever..lets get cre­ative!!!!

Thurs­day 25th Octo­ber 4pm Tem­po­rary Autonomous Arts Exhi­bi­tion
(see forbiddenartsmanchester.org.uk for venue infor­ma­tion)
Pre-Parade crazy bike weld­ing and bike dec­o­rat­ing work­shop

If you can, bring old bikes, bits of bikes, spray paint, glit­ter, tin­sel, news­pa­per, chick­en wire, pva glue, paints, plas­tic bags, weld­ing equip­ment and skills to the work­shop

the last few months have seen around 120 cyclists on crit­i­cal mass, lets make this one even big­ger

see http://ibikemcr.org.uk/criticalmass.htm for info
join the i bike mcr bul­letin list:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/ibikemcr

Ride Safe

x x xmanchester bike art parade

Camp Hope — 20/21st October vs Gloucestershire Airport expansion

Camp For Hope At Staver­ton Air­port, Glouces­ter­shire 20/21st Octo­ber. Inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action 2007 activists and local res­i­dents are organ­is­ing a camp to protest the expan­sion of Glouces­ter­shire Air­port at Staver­ton. “Camp Hope” will take place at a secret loca­tion near the air­port on the 20/21 Octo­ber.

Gloucestershire Airport sandwich boardCamp For Hope At Staver­ton Air­port, Glouces­ter­shire 20/21st Octo­ber. Inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action 2007 activists and local res­i­dents are organ­is­ing a camp to protest the expan­sion of Glouces­ter­shire Air­port at Staver­ton. “Camp Hope” will take place at a secret loca­tion near the air­port on the 20/21 Octo­ber.

Loca­tion is near the air­port and to be announced on our web­site on the evening of 19th Octo­ber.

Staver­ton Air­port want to extend their run­way and increase ser­vices. The extra noise and fumes will dam­age the local envi­ron­ment and the huge amounts of CO2 will add to glob­al warm­ing.

We need to put our chil­dren’s future and the envi­ron­ment before the prof­its of an air­port.

Sat­ur­day 20th Oct:

Learn about glob­al warm­ing, what it means to you and your chil­dren. Learn what you can do about it.

Work­shops and dis­cus­sions start at 13:00pm

Lead speak­er David Drew MP

Sun­day 21st Oct:

Peace­ful protest against the air­port’s impacts on noise, the envi­ron­ment, and the area’s image

The air­port claims “only a small minor­i­ty are opposed to the devel­op­ment,” Come and show them that you are not part of a small minor­i­ty by mak­ing your voice heard

You can come and camp for the week­end, or just come for the Sat­ur­day or Sun­day.

For pub­lic trans­port to the air­port, take the 94 bus to Staver­ton Bridge. Also, park­ing is avail­able. Stew­ards will direct you from the air­port entrance

Take a look at http://campforhopeatstaverton.blogspot.com or www.myspace.com/campofhope and http://kevsclimatecolumn.blogspot.com For more infor­ma­tion email CampForTheFuture@btinternet.com

If any­one has access to any of the fol­low­ing it could be very use­ful :

* Mar­quees, yurts, car­a­vans, tem­po­rary struc­tures, tents
* Wood for build­ing (espe­cial­ly 2x2, 3x2, 18mm ply)
* Nails, wood­screws etc.
* Wood for burn­ing
* Food (veg­an, local­ly pro­duced, organ­ic)
* Water con­tain­ers
* Water pip­ing
* Water
* Hay/Straw
* Vans and trail­ers
* Beer
* Scraps of mate­r­i­al (the big­ger the bet­ter)
* Banners/Banner mak­ing equip­ment
* Peo­ple to give workshops/speeches
* Enter­tain­ment
* Cable ties
* Tarpaulains
* Cara­bi­nas
* Solar elec­tric­i­ty (PV) pan­els
* 12v Bat­ter­ies
* Wheel­ie bins
* Buck­ets
* Rope
* Gaffa tape (what every site is built on)

We also need peo­ple to help to organ­ise and pub­li­cise the event. If you have any time which you can use to help out it would be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed.

Tara frontline Action ‑avin it

On Mon­day Sep­tem­ber 24th, thir­ty brave cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists donned face paints and head­ed off on a route walk from the Rath Lugh direct action camp. Film direc­tor and actor Stu­art Townsend, fresh from the high­ly suc­cess­ful aer­i­al pho­to­graph on the hill attend­ed by an esti­mat­ed 3,000 peo­ple on Sun­day, arrived with four mas­sive bags of shop­ping for Tara’s sol­diers before every­one set off. Stuart’s con­tin­u­ing sup­port is mas­sive­ly appre­ci­at­ed!

On Mon­day Sep­tem­ber 24th, thir­ty brave cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists donned face paints and head­ed off on a route walk from the Rath Lugh direct action camp. Film direc­tor and actor Stu­art Townsend, fresh from the high­ly suc­cess­ful aer­i­al pho­to­graph on the hill attend­ed by an esti­mat­ed 3,000 peo­ple on Sun­day, arrived with four mas­sive bags of shop­ping for Tara’s sol­diers before every­one set off. Stuart’s con­tin­u­ing sup­port is mas­sive­ly appre­ci­at­ed!

Once on route activists erect­ed bar­ri­cades along the paths of the dig­gers and bull­doz­ers to slow destruc­tion work. Activists pro­ceed­ed to Baron­stown where sev­en to eight dig­gers were occu­pied, climbed and danced upon. The walk con­tin­ued as our mer­ry band arrived at Col­lier­stown, an ancient Fian­na grave­yard. The two dig­gers work­ing when we arrived were quick­ly halt­ed with peo­ple climb­ing into buck­ets of dig­gers, onto roofs and onto their tracks. Songs were sung and peo­ple danced. Work was halt­ed for half an hour before scouts indi­cat­ed that machin­ery was work­ing up ahead at Trevet. We head­ed there and on the way occu­pied anoth­er dig­ger. The dri­ver of this dig­ger refused to turn off his engine despite the fact that activists occu­pied his machine, a clear vio­la­tion of health and safe­ty laws and a sack­able offense.

Our next stop was Trevet, where one bull­doz­er was pre­vent­ed from work­ing by activists. It was then that the Gar­dai made their appear­ance. Tak­ing some of our group aside, names were tak­en and no fur­ther action occurred. As our walk was slight­ly behind sched­ule, when Gar­da offi­cers approached we decid­ed to pick up the pace, keep­ing twen­ty to forty feet between our­selves and the law. Offi­cers con­tin­ued to fol­low us for anoth­er 100 metres before head­ing back the way they came. Hav­ing stopped work for hours it was near din­ner time so we head­ed back to base camp. Through­out the day as we passed the sacred sites in the path of the pro­posed motor­way short talks were giv­en about the his­tor­i­cal and archae­o­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of each site. No one was arrest­ed and a great day was had by all. The cam­paign to pro­tect Tara from the mon­ey mad mile con­tin­ues pick­ing up pace after the phe­nom­e­nal suc­cess of the inter­na­tion­al Harpists for Tara event and John Quigley’s stun­ning aer­i­al pho­tog­ra­phy. Every Mon­day route walks will con­tin­ue.

Com­ple­tion of the M3 through the Tara Val­ley is years away and there is every­thing to play for! Be at the Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il camp on the hill by 9.30 am or at Rath Lugh by 10.00am. Please come, please sup­port and net­work!

www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.tarawatch.org
www.indymedia.ie

Critical Mass and Carfree day in Brussels

What a week­end for cyclists. Fri­day evening and the reg­u­lar Brus­sels Crit­i­cal mass was held one week ear­ly to coin­cide with mobil­i­ty week. Around 80 cyclists sprout­ed up at the Porte de Namur and reclaimed the streets of Brus­sels for an hour or two. This month there was a prac­ti­cal theme to cre­ate a DIY cycle lane. Recent­ly the Major of the city decid­ed that the cycle lane along the main boule­vard through cen­tral Brus­sels was a men­ace to traf­fic and even encour­aged cyclist to get in the way of hon­est car dri­ving cit­i­zens. What to do when that Major takes away the cycle path. A sim­ple ques­tion, you get togeth­er with your friends and paint it back again. Get­ting rid of the cycle hat­ing Major will prob­a­bly be the next step but that’s anoth­er action.

Brussels Critical Mass 1
Brussels Critical Mass 2
Brussels Critical Mass 3
Brussels Critical Mass 4
What a week­end for cyclists. Fri­day evening and the reg­u­lar Brus­sels Crit­i­cal mass was held one week ear­ly to coin­cide with mobil­i­ty week. Around 80 cyclists sprout­ed up at the Porte de Namur and reclaimed the streets of Brus­sels for an hour or two. This month there was a prac­ti­cal theme to cre­ate a DIY cycle lane. Recent­ly the Major of the city decid­ed that the cycle lane along the main boule­vard through cen­tral Brus­sels was a men­ace to traf­fic and even encour­aged cyclist to get in the way of hon­est car dri­ving cit­i­zens. What to do when that Major takes away the cycle path. A sim­ple ques­tion, you get togeth­er with your friends and paint it back again. Get­ting rid of the cycle hat­ing Major will prob­a­bly be the next step but that’s anoth­er action.

Brus­sels is a city of con­tra­dic­tions and for Sat­ur­day lunch time the city invit­ed cyclists for a sump­tu­ous nosh up. Any­one who was a cyclist was wel­come to help them­selves. A won­der­ful feast for non veg­e­tar­i­an wine lovers and the deserts were out of this world. Not so good on the cycle lanes but the free food almost makes up for it.

Sun­day was the car­free day and it real­ly was car­free in the whole city, not just one or two streets. It’s hard to describe the dif­fer­ence ban­ish­ing the cars can make to a city. Brus­sels, if only for one day became a place for peo­ple. Swarms of cyclists filled the streets peo­ple on foot could and did move about with­out risk of being run over by impa­tient dri­vers. The sun was shin­ing the air was clean for once and the angry honk­ing of car horns beau­ti­ful­ly absent. If only every day could be like this. The street is a place for peo­ple, city chil­dren need to play and a cup of cof­fee on a pave­ment café some­how tastes bet­ter when there isn’t traf­fic roar­ing by a few feet away. This might just be my opin­ion but the peo­ple of Brus­sels did seem to agree with me, well at least the ones who still remem­ber how to move about with­out a car.

Also for mobil­i­ty week the Brus­sels based envi­ron­men­tal group, Auto-nomie pre­sent­ed an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly car, tru­ly an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly car. Zero emis­sions is a thing of the past, this car has neg­a­tive emis­sions. If you care about the plan­et but still want a car that turns heads this is the mod­el for you and the con­ver­sion is cheap and easy. Take out the engine replace is with a few wheel­bar­rows full of good qual­i­ty soil and plant your favorite fruits and veg­eta­bles. Cruis­ing through the streets of Brus­sels in a cus­tomized car like no oth­er is the way to go. When your friends get tired of push­ing what bet­ter way of revi­tal­iz­ing them than a tasty car grown straw­ber­ry. The car was on dis­play in cen­tral Brus­sels all last week.

Playing with Fire: The Story of Daniel McGowan, “eco-terrorism” and the Green Scare

Grow­ing up in New York City, Daniel McGowan saw first-hand how pol­lu­tion fogged the air and fouled the beach­es in some of the city’s poor­est com­mu­ni­ties, set­ting him on a life­long path of envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice. But how he end­ed up drenched in gaso­line and set­ting fire to Oregon’s Jef­fer­son Poplar Farms in 2001 and was lat­er tar­get­ed as a “domes­tic ter­ror­ist” is the sto­ry of some­one who cared too much and didn’t know what else to do.

Playing with Fire coverGrow­ing up in New York City, Daniel McGowan saw first-hand how pol­lu­tion fogged the air and fouled the beach­es in some of the city’s poor­est com­mu­ni­ties, set­ting him on a life­long path of envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice. But how he end­ed up drenched in gaso­line and set­ting fire to Oregon’s Jef­fer­son Poplar Farms in 2001 and was lat­er tar­get­ed as a “domes­tic ter­ror­ist” is the sto­ry of some­one who cared too much and didn’t know what else to do.

Born in Brook­lyn and raised in Queens’ Rock­away Beach, Daniel McGowan grew up sand­wiched between asphalt and the sky, in a for­est of build­ings and buzzing streets. Until Dec. 7, 2005, the 33-year-old with a round face and a chip­munk smile was most­ly known in local cir­cles for his involve­ment in a vari­ety of activist projects. Today, after a near­ly two-year legal bat­tle that saw him labeled an “eco-ter­ror­ist” by the U.S. gov­ern­ment, McGowan is serv­ing a sev­en-year sen­tence at a fed­er­al prison in Min­neso­ta on 15 counts of arson, attempt­ed arson and con­spir­a­cy to com­mit arson against two pri­vate com­pa­nies in Ore­gon in 2001.

McGowan, whose arrest shocked his fam­i­ly and friends, and his case was lumped togeth­er with nine oth­ers as part of the Fed­er­al Bureau of Investigation’s Oper­a­tion Back­fire, which pro­duced 65 indict­ments for actions at 17 tar­gets, includ­ing pri­vate com­pa­nies, uni­ver­si­ties and gov­ern­ment facil­i­ties across five states from 1996–2001, in what the FBI called a “cam­paign of domes­tic ter­ror­ism.” The actions were all claimed by the Envi­ron­men­tal Lib­er­a­tion Front (ELF) or the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front (ALF), an under­ground, decen­tral­ized move­ment of rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ists, which McGowan par­tic­i­pat­ed in between 1999 and 2001 while liv­ing in Eugene, Ore­gon.

“At a cer­tain point, I got involved in the ELF,” McGowan told The Indypen­dent at his Brook­lyn home in June, a few weeks before report­ing to prison. “At the time it seemed like a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion, but it also coin­cid­ed with my increas­ing grief and rage I was feel­ing about the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion I saw. I went to Ore­gon and I couldn’t believe how okay peo­ple were with what was going on. We’d dri­ve to the edge of town and you saw the log­ging mills, or you went into the for­est and stum­bled upon a clear cut. It just blew me away. I had to find a way to chan­nel that grief and rage.” The dilem­ma McGowan faced has trou­bled activists for gen­er­a­tions. When you try every form of “accept­able” advo­ca­cy to make change with lit­tle suc­cess, what do you do?

“A Cam­paign of Domes­tic Ter­ror­ism” In the mid­dle of the night on May 21, 2001, McGowan found him­self in the vehi­cle shop of Jef­fer­son Poplar Farms in of Clatskanie, a small town in north­west Ore­gon on the Colum­bia Riv­er. He had just fin­ished lay­ing out soaked gaso­line sheets and tow­els con­nect­ed to a home­made incen­di­ary device, designed to set fire to a fleet of SUVs and the com­pa­ny office. The pri­vate­ly owned facil­i­ty had been select­ed as an ELF tar­get because McGowan and his accom­plices believed it was involved in genet­ic research by grow­ing a hybrid vari­ety of poplar-cot­ton­wood trees that would help tim­ber com­pa­nies replace the region’s old-growth forests with com­mer­cial tree farms.

“We torched Jef­fer­son Poplar because hybrid poplars are an eco­log­i­cal night­mare threat­en­ing native bio­di­ver­si­ty in the ecosys­tem,” the sabo­teurs wrote in a com­mu­nique that was released after the action. “Our forests are being liq­ui­dat­ed and replaced with mono-cul­tured tree farms so greedy, earth-rap­ing cor­po­ra­tions can make more mon­ey.”

“At some lev­el, I thought it [ELF actions] was effec­tive,” McGowan said. “If I would have writ­ten a state­ment that I think genet­ic-engi­neered trees are bad and old­growth log­ging is bad and sent it to every media out­let in the coun­try, it wouldn’t have been paid atten­tion to,” he explained. “There is some­thing real­ly strange about when you attach a state­ment to an arson it sud­den­ly becomes news­wor­thy … it is like pro­pa­gan­da with teeth.”

For McGowan, the actions were part of his search for the right mix of tac­tics to make pos­i­tive change.

“For me, the actions were not grotesque or not about destroy­ing things. I had a hard time get­ting into the mind set to destroy oth­er people’s stuff or even liv­ing [genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied] organ­isms,” he said. “I would get sick before actions, get ner­vous — it was real­ly dif­fi­cult. But I did it because I felt that the oth­er things weren’t work­ing, and that while there was a pre­pon­der­ance of oth­er tac­tics being tried, these tac­tics weren’t being tried and I thought that maybe there is some­thing we can do to help the issue.”

Between 1996 and 2001, an under­ground cell of activists based in Eugene, Ore­gon, called “the Fam­i­ly” in gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments, tar­get­ed fed­er­al and uni­ver­si­ty research facil­i­ties, meat and lum­ber com­pa­nies, a car deal­er­ship, wild horse cor­rals and oth­er “earth rap­ers,” as described by com­mu­niques released at the time.

Accord­ing to the FBI, the string of high pro­file actions that hit 17 tar­gets in the Pacif­ic North­west in the late 1990s caused near­ly $80 mil­lion in prop­er­ty dam­age. These actions are only a few of the more than 600 inci­dents claimed by the ELF and ALF nation­wide since 1996. “I think that’s real­ly what all these actions are about — is real­ly get­ting pub­lic atten­tion to some of these issues,” said Jim Fly­nn, a Eugene-based envi­ron­men­tal­ist in a July 2007 USA Today arti­cle. “If we were able to affect pol­i­cy change through more legal means, then cer­tain­ly that’s the way these peo­ple would go. Nobody enjoys being under­ground, and that lifestyle.”

TO CONTINUE READING ARTICLE, VISIT: http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/enemy-of-the-state/

SIDEBAR ARTICLES:

Why Green Makes the Right See Red
http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/why-green-makes-the-right-see-red/

The Birth of a Buzz­word: “Eco-ter­ror­ism”
http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/the-birth-of-a-buzz-word-eco-terrorism/
NOTE: See Ron Arnold’s response)

The Net Widens: Free Speech on Tri­al
http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/the-net-widens/

Under­ground Eco-defend­ers
http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/underground-eco-defenders/

Please leave com­ments on the arti­cles if you want!

THE INDYPENDENT is the news­pa­per of the NEW YORK INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER — www.indypendent.org

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For his address to write to, oth­er eco-pris­on­ers, tips for writ­ing etc, go to http://www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

National Camp for Climate Action Meeting Nov 3–4 Oxford

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 Nov 3–4 in Oxford. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.

Climate camp main marquee at night - planet has no emergency exits bannerThe 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 Nov 3–4 in Oxford. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.

The Cli­mate Camp had 4 key aims: edu­ca­tion, direct action, sus­tain­able liv­ing, and build­ing a social move­ment to col­lec­tive­ly tack­le cli­mate change and build a bet­ter world. Region­al meet­ings have been hap­pen­ing up and down the coun­try, and in Oxford we will meet to col­lec­tive­ly share all our ideas for tak­ing our aims fur­ther.

The agen­da for this meet­ing has not yet been set — if you have any ideas about top­ics you think it is impor­tant for us to dis­cuss, or if you are up for help­ing with plan­ning and facil­i­tat­ing this meet­ing, please email meetings@climatecamp.org.uk.

Local groups: please send any write-ups of dis­cus­sions from your debrief meet­ings to website@climatecamp.org.uk, so they can be put on the web­site, and meetings@climatecamp.org.uk, so they can be fed into the nation­al meet­ing agen­da.

Prac­ti­cal info:
The meet­ing will run 11–6 on Sat­ur­day Nov 3 and 10–5 on Sun­day Nov 4.
The venue is the East Oxford Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Princes Street, Oxford (see http://www.eocsc.co.uk/find_us.htm for direc­tions and a map). Veg­an food will be pro­vid­ed at a cost of approx­i­mate­ly £10 a day. Floor acco­mo­da­tion is avail­able (bring a sleep­ing bag!) and do please email oxford@climatecamp.org.uk in advance so we know how many peo­ple are com­ing! If you have any dietary, access, creche, or oth­er needs, please get in touch by email­ing oxford@climatecamp.org.uk.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion will be added to the web­site, www.climatecamp.org.uk, soon.