Category: Climate Chaos

Police Attack 20,000 French Citizens Protesting Against Airport Notre-Dame-Des-Landes

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4371803_3_a8d2_selon-la-prefecture-la-manifestation-a_fb63a9c22897e38e5bfc3f4b4776d41b

Feb­ru­ary 22, 2014

The event attend­ed by ten’s of thou­sands of French cit­i­zens against the air­port Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des esca­lat­ed Sat­ur­day after­noon in the city cen­ter of Nantes when Police Block­ad­ed the pro­gres­sion of the march and attacked with charges to the peo­ple protest­ing. Many cit­i­zens were wound­ed by tear gas and rub­ber bul­lets. Par­tic­i­pants respond­ed with fired pro­jec­tiles – bot­tles, cans, steel balls, flares – towards the police who charged repeat­ed­ly.

About 20,000 people demonstrated in the city center of Nantes to protest against the construction of the new airport of Our Lady of Landes.Des violent clashes took place at the end of the event between violent groups and CRS | Franck Dubray

About 20,000 peo­ple demon­strat­ed in the city cen­ter of Nantes to protest against the con­struc­tion of the new air­port of Our Lady of Landes.Des vio­lent clash­es took place at the end of the event between vio­lent groups and CRS | Franck Dubray

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“This is tens of thou­sands,” assured Julien Durand, spokesman for the ACIPA, the main oppo­si­tion group to the air­port project, while refus­ing to give a pre­cise fig­ure.

Accord­ing to him, the par­tic­i­pa­tion is equiv­a­lent to the pre­vi­ous ral­lies, such as in Novem­ber 2012 which accord­ing to the orga­niz­ers had expect­ed 40,000 peo­ple (13,000 accord­ing to police).

In the late after­noon, the city cen­ter of Nantes showed scenes of dev­as­ta­tion. Peo­ple took out frus­tra­tion from being ignored for years and beat­en down when they speak out by ran­sack­ing a police sta­tion, an agency of Vin­ci (deal­er air­port project) group, but also broke sev­er­al store­fronts, any agency of Nantes trans­port or agency Nou­velles Fron­tières. At least two con­struc­tion equip­ment vehi­cles and a bar­ri­cade were also burned.

Objects were thrown at the SNCF cate­nary to block the move­ment of trains one source said. As for police, they made use of a large amount of tear gas, stun grenades and water can­nons.

Pro­test­ers moved away blind­ed by tear gas while sev­er­al hun­dred oth­ers con­tin­ued to face the police, refer­ring new pro­jec­tiles bot­tles, or even own grenades forces.

“No mat­ter what tell the pre­fec­ture, for all of you it is a great suc­cess,” pro­vid­ed at the end of the event Julien Durand.

via @Le Télégramme

via @Le Télé­gramme

le-centre-ville-de-nantes-devaste_1
“An unnec­es­sary and expen­sive project”
The demon­stra­tion had start­ed in a friend­ly atmos­phere. “No thank you Ayrault­port”, “No to Ayrault pork”, “Ayrault also emerges Vin­ci”, “Ni or air­port metrop­o­lis, the city is ours” we heard in the pro­ces­sion.

le-centre-ville-de-nantes-devaste_2“The mobi­liza­tion is great here. We are here to show our deter­mi­na­tion to aban­don this use­less and expen­sive at this time of short­age project,” said AFP Eva Joly MEP EELV.

Giv­en the anti-cap­i­tal­ist com­po­nent of the event and clash­es that have marked pre­vi­ous events, the pre­fec­ture on Fri­day adopt­ed a mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the route so that it avoids the down­town core.

The event is orga­nized two months after the pub­li­ca­tion of pre­fec­tur­al ordi­nances autho­riz­ing the start of pre-con­struc­tion of the air­port. Appeals were filed against these orders but do not have sus­pen­sive effect. How­ev­er, work has still not start­ed.

via @youranonnews

via @youranonnews

The inau­gu­ra­tion of the future Grand Ouest Air­port, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for 2017, is now con­sid­ered only “2019 or 2020″ by sup­port­ers of the trans­fer. Accord­ing to an Ifop poll pub­lished Sat­ur­day, a major­i­ty of French (56%) are opposed to the future air­port, 24% being pos­i­tive and 20% were unde­cid­ed.

This sur­vey was con­duct­ed on behalf of Act­ing for the envi­ron­ment, Attac and ACIPA, the lead­ing asso­ci­a­tion of oppo­nents to the project. The project of pub­lic util­i­ty in 2008, is jus­ti­fied by its sup­port­ers, PS as the UMP, includ­ing the risk of sat­u­ra­tion of the cur­rent air­port Nantes Atlan­tique.

One of several damaged buildings. via Franck Dubray

One of sev­er­al dam­aged build­ings. via Franck Dubray

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STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

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STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

 

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS

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http://t.co/RS8wSS9yRB” target=“_blank”>FranceTVinfo
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Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al. To sup­port this pub­li­ca­tion, pre­order your copy or donate today.

After sev­er­al years in devel­op­ment, the Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al is ready to go to press. A group of front­line activists has assem­bled over 300 pages of dia­grams, descrip­tions of tech­niques and a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the role direct action plays in our cam­paigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundrais­ing cam­paign to ensure that this crit­i­cal book gets out to peo­ple who can use it. You can pre­order your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your ear­ly endorse­ment by donat­ing today. More impor­tant­ly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowl­edge. Every dona­tion over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the man­u­al to a cam­paign of your choice. The more you give, the more man­u­als we can put in the mail.

The man­u­al will be print­ed in the com­ing month with long­time Earth First! part­ner, The Gloo Fac­to­ry. This com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed, union print shop has sup­plied Earth First! and its affil­i­ates with stick­ers and mer­chan­dise for decades and remains com­mit­ted to using a high stan­dard for recy­cled and reclaimed mate­r­i­al, as well as sup­port­ive work­er con­di­tions.

The man­u­al was first print­ed near­ly two decades ago and has been out of print since its ini­tial dis­sem­i­na­tion. Though many of the con­sid­er­a­tions for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and inter­ven­tion have remained tried and true, new ele­ments have altered the ways we put these tac­tics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al will con­tin­ue the role of safe and effec­tive actions in stop­ping the destruc­tion of the plan­et.

Sup­port this effort today!

Barton Moss anti-fracking update

 

Embedded image permalink

15th Feb 2014

Lor­ries being brought in on a Sat­ur­day, tankers so like­ly full of chem­i­cals, fol­lowed by trucks with pipes. 

 

Embedded image permalink

15th Feb 2014

Lor­ries being brought in on a Sat­ur­day, tankers so like­ly full of chem­i­cals, fol­lowed by trucks with pipes. 

Campers try­ing to stop, one locked on top of a tanker. 

Three days ago a court ruled that the road was not a pub­lic high­way, but a foot­path, open­ing up the threat of being arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass by block­ing the trucks on the foot­path (it is legal­ly pos­si­ble under Sec­tion 68 Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994). 

Live feed 1 and Live feed 2

Romanian Villagers and Priests Occupy Chevron Fracking Site in Protest

9/2/14

Roman­ian police clashed with vil­lagers on Wednes­day as they tried in vain to force them off a field they have occu­pied for a third day to pre­vent U.S. ener­gy giant Chevron from drilling for shale gas.

9/2/14

Roman­ian police clashed with vil­lagers on Wednes­day as they tried in vain to force them off a field they have occu­pied for a third day to pre­vent U.S. ener­gy giant Chevron from drilling for shale gas.

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers blocked access to the site at Silis­tea in east­ern Roma­nia where Chevron plans to drill an explo­ration well, lying down in the mud and hold­ing hands to form a human chain.

Some 250 anti-riot police engaged in an hours-long stand-off with the pro­test­ers, with skir­mish­es as they phys­i­cal­ly tried to force them off, but the demon­stra­tors pushed their way back onto the field.

The group of pro­test­ers, some of whom have been sleep­ing at the site since Mon­day, had grown to about 500 on Wednes­day, pre­vent­ing Chevron bull­doz­ers and exca­va­tors from access­ing the site.

Ortho­dox priests also joined the protest.

Many of the vil­lagers in the rur­al region arrived on horse carts, some brought their chil­dren who held up signs read­ing: “Stop Chevron!”, while an elder­ly woman leaned on her cane beside them.

They are afraid of the envi­ron­men­tal and health impact of the high­ly con­tro­ver­sial method used for shale gas drilling, called hydraulic frac­tur­ing or ‘frack­ing’.

The tech­nique con­sists of pump­ing water and chem­i­cals at high pres­sure into deep rock for­ma­tions to free oil and gas.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists say frack­ing may con­t­a­m­i­nate ground water and even cause small earth­quakes.

Chevron has per­mits to explore for shale gas in three vil­lages in this part of east­ern Roma­nia as well as on Romania’s Black Sea coast.

“Chevron is com­mit­ted to build­ing con­struc­tive and pos­i­tive rela­tion­ships with the com­mu­ni­ties where we oper­ate and will con­tin­ue our dia­logue with the pub­lic, local com­mu­ni­ties and author­i­ties on its projects,” the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment to AFP.

“Our pri­or­i­ty is to con­duct … activ­i­ties in a safe and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble man­ner con­sis­tent with the per­mits under which we oper­ate,” it added.

Also Wednes­day, more than 2,000 peo­ple staged a protest in the cap­i­tal Bucharest, shout­ing “no to shale gas”.

Romania’s rul­ing cen­tre-left coali­tion has been defend­ing shale gas explo­ration after fight­ing it when it was in the oppo­si­tion.

Day 72 – 6th February — Barton Moss — anti-fracking camp & blockade

day 71 lock on 2

day 71 lock on 2

Today there was a lock-on pre­vent­ing the con­voy leav­ing the iGas site from mov­ing for over 6 hours. The leader of the Green Par­ty, Natal­ie Ben­nett also vis­it­ed the camp with her sup­port­ers and met up with pro­tec­tors on the march.

Live feed from lock-on

Reclaim the Power gathering 8–9 February

After an incred­i­ble day of idea gen­er­a­tion and vision­ing at the last gath­er­ing, it’s time for con­crete pro­pos­als and deci­sions about our next steps.


Loca­tion: Oxford
Time: Sat­ur­day 8th Feb­ru­ary 11am ­­– Sun­day 9th 4pm
Address: TBC
Crash Space/Social: Pro­vid­ed. Fur­ther details TBC.
Meals: Pro­vid­ed, dona­tion cost TBC
Trav­el Pool: Avail­able. Please book trav­el tick­ets in advance so that this can sup­port the most peo­ple.
Notes from Man­ches­ter Vision­ing Day are here: http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3

In ear­ly Decem­ber a large num­ber of peo­ple came togeth­er to dis­cuss the rad­i­cal visions they had for the future – visions that Reclaim the Pow­er, as a net­work, could help bring about.

It was a very open day of dis­cus­sion with a clear struc­ture, but with no pre-planned agen­da. Every­thing we talked about was gen­er­at­ed by par­tic­i­pants, and a huge num­ber of dif­fer­ent ideas were placed on the table.

So what next? Well, the idea is that all of that dis­cus­sion feeds into a month of cre­ative pro­pos­al mak­ing before the next gath­er­ing. This will be a space for short and medi­um-term deci­sion mak­ing where we work out what we’re doing in the next few months – and how this fits in with long term visions.

Rough pro­pos­al area groups formed at the Decem­ber gath­er­ing, includ­ing:

1. How to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er
2. Move­ment and diver­si­ty
3. Ener­gy and fos­sil fuels
4. Pos­i­tive solu­tions

If you would like to link up with these groups and input into pro­pos­als for next steps, just con­tact info@nodashforgas.org.uk and you will be put in touch with a group con­tact.

This said, all pro­pos­als are wel­come! If you’re work­ing on your own, out­side these groups, then great. The more ideas the bet­ter.

The pro­pos­al dead­line is the 31st Jan­u­ary 2014. Please try and fol­low this rough four point list when writ­ing them, as it is essen­tial that all the pro­pos­als be con­sid­ered on an equal foot­ing.

1. What is it?
2. How does it link to long-term strate­gic aims?
3. Time­line?
4. Resources need­ed? (inc, peo­ple, costs, skills)

Spe­cif­ic venue and agen­da details to fol­low soon. In the mean­while, please check http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3 to see the dis­cus­sions and out­comes of the last agen­da.

See you soon,

RTP Gath­er­ings Team

info@nodashforgas.org.uk

 

Australia: Anti-mining Blockade at Maules Creek Steps It Up a Notch

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Maules Creek mining site protest. Photo credit: Leard Forest Alliance

28.01.14 — More than 100 pro­test­ers have blocked access for work crews in the Leard State For­est as the cam­paign to block con­struc­tion of the Maules Creek open-cut coal mine expands.

Work­ers from White­haven Coal, the devel­op­er of the planned mine in north­ern NSW, were turned away ear­ly on Tues­day, said Georgina Woods, spokes­woman for the Leard For­est Alliance. Machin­ery is tied up at three sites and four access roads are blocked, she said.

“We’re basi­cal­ly dig­ging in to stop them from using the machines to clear the for­est,” said Ms Woods. “It’s not going to end until this for­est gets a reprieve.”

 

Police have arrest­ed at least 10 pro­test­ers since the main block­ade began about two weeks ago. One pro­test­er has been arrest­ed on Tues­day as police move in on cam­paign­ers attached to sev­er­al struc­tures on the work site.

The cam­paign­ers want fed­er­al Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Greg Hunt to revoke approval to clear the for­est for coal min­ing.

Police and the Rur­al Fire Ser­vice this month suc­ceed­ed in hav­ing the Leard for­est declared closed to the pub­lic until March 31 by the Forestry Cor­po­ra­tion of NSW because of fire risks. The move sparked com­plaints by envi­ron­men­tal groups and a fire­fight­ers’ union.

Coun­cil evic­tion vote

A sep­a­rate move by the Narrabri Coun­cil to evict the pro­test­ers from crown land under their con­trol will now pro­ceed after after sev­er­al coun­cil­lors had lodged an objec­tion to the move. The coun­cil brought for­ward a vote on the evic­tion from Feb­ru­ary 4 and passed the evic­tion order on Tues­day after­noon.

“There’s a pre­dic­tion that there’s very hot weath­er on the way,” said Bevan O’Regan, one of the coun­cil­lors who halt­ed the orig­i­nal coun­cil move, detail­ing the rea­son giv­en for the ear­ly vote.

Mr O’Regan said the council’s gen­er­al man­ag­er may not pro­ceed to issue fines for those who refuse to move on from crown land.

“The ques­tion is now whether they will start evict­ing, or is it a bluff?,” said Mr O’Regan. “We’ll soon find out,” he said, adding that the pro­tes­tors may not move their camps back into the for­est.

The Bureau of Mete­o­rol­o­gy is fore­cast­ing a max­i­mum of 35 degrees on Tues­day and then six days rang­ing from 37 to 40 degrees.

Among peo­ple risk­ing arrest on Tues­day is Bill Ryan, a legal­ly blind 91-year old Koko­da vet­er­an, who is tak­ing part with his 65-year old son, cam­paign­ers said.

“This block­ade has giv­en our com­mu­ni­ty hope that we are not just the col­lat­er­al dam­age of the coal indus­try,” said Maules Creek res­i­dent Roslyn Druce in a state­ment “(It) is doing the job the gov­ern­ment should have done, pro­tect­ing an irre­place­able for­est.”

Earth First! Winter Moot 7–9 March 2014: programme up

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

Evening Fri­day 7th — after­noon Sun­day 9th March 2014, Not­ting­ham

Cost scale £20 to £30. This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion.

It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat. Train to Not­ting­ham then tram to Bea­cons­field street– walk to the end turn right on to Glad­stone St — 245 Glad­stone St, Not­ting­ham NG7 6HX — www.earthfirst.org.uk

Full map/travel details

For offers of help or ques­tions email themiddle@earthfirst.org.uk

 

Programme

Friday

16.30–17.30 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop
17.30–18.30 Film

18.30 Din­ner

20.00 Ben­e­fit Gig

Saturday

8.30–9.30 Break­fast
9.30–10.45 Intro go round of cam­paigns

10.45–11.00 Break

11.00–12.00 Future of Earth First Part 1
12.00–13.00 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop

13.00–14.00 Lunch

14.00–14.30 Lush/fundraising work­shop
14.30–18.15 Cam­paign Work­shops (tim­ings to be finalised to include Frack­ing, Nuclear, Roads and Coal)
18.15–18.30 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing han­dover

18.30 Din­ner
20.00 DJ??

Sunday

9.00–10.00 Break­fast fry up
10.00–10.30 Tidy up of venue
10.30–11.30 Feed­back go round
11.30–12.30 Future of Earth First Part 2
12.30–14.00 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Plan­ning (and time of oth­er work­shops to run in par­al­lel)

14.00–15.00 Lunch
15.00 End

Blockade of Mine Site Enters Third Day

mb_wide_maules-20140115000958462076-620x349 14th Jan­u­ary 2014 Activists have block­ad­ed the Maules Creek mine site at Bog­gabri in New South Wales, Aus­tralia, for three days now.

mb_wide_maules-20140115000958462076-620x349 14th Jan­u­ary 2014 Activists have block­ad­ed the Maules Creek mine site at Bog­gabri in New South Wales, Aus­tralia, for three days now.

On Mon­day, 30 pro­tes­tors, includ­ing mem­bers of Abo­rig­i­nal groups and the orga­ni­za­tion Leard For­est Alliance, descend­ed on the site, with some lock­ing them­selves to heavy machines.

Yes­ter­day, 10 more pro­tes­tors joined the group, re-enforc­ing an ad-hoc encamp­ment and lock­ing down to bull­doz­ers.

The Leard For­est is set to be destroyed by the open pit coal mine, and the heavy machines are sup­posed to start clear­ing for­est for Wite­haven Coal’s oper­a­tion. The for­est is impor­tant habi­tat, as well as a cul­tur­al and bur­ial site for Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple in the area.

Activist group the Leard For­est Alliance said the heavy vehi­cles were at the site to begin clear­ing for­est for a road and rail­way line to ser­vice White­haven Coal’s $767 mil­lion open-cut coalmine. The alliance says the mine will destroy Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al and bur­ial sites and valu­able for­est and ani­mals.