Category: Climate Chaos

Earth First! summer gathering — Wednesday 18th July until Sunday 22nd July 2007 — location & programme announced

What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

EF! gathering '07 logo (rabbit/fence)What is the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing?

* Are you fed up with bare-faced lies from politi­cians, big busi­ness and the media?
* Have you had enough of a world where cor­po­rate prof­it comes before life and dig­ni­ty?
* Do you want to see an end to mind­less con­sump­tion>
* Then this Gath­er­ing is for you! Read on…

Explor­ing alter­na­tives to the cor­po­rate world of greed, lies & exploita­tion -

The Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is the place where peo­ple involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action — or those who want to be involved — get togeth­er for five days of time and space to talk, walk, share skills, learn, play, rant, find out what’s going on, find out what’s next, live out­side, strate­gise, hang out, incite, laugh and con­spire.

The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of non-hier­ar­chi­cal low-impact liv­ing in action.

We are a diverse com­mu­ni­ty with a wide range of approach­es to our action, so there should be plen­ty to inter­est and inspire every­one whether you have been active for years or are com­plete­ly new to it all.

More info at earthfirstgathering.org.uk

Climate Activist Glues Herself To The Front Door Of Leeds Bradford Airport

18th May: A woman cli­mate activist blocked the entrance to Leeds/Bradford Air­port today, by super­glu­ing her­self in front of the revolv­ing door. The protest was against gov­ern­men­t’s fail­ure to curb the growth in air trav­el, in spite of the fact that it is the fastest grow­ing source of CO2 emis­sions from the Unit­ed King­dom.

18th May: A woman cli­mate activist blocked the entrance to Leeds/Bradford Air­port today, by super­glu­ing her­self in front of the revolv­ing door. The protest was against gov­ern­men­t’s fail­ure to curb the growth in air trav­el, in spite of the fact that it is the fastest grow­ing source of CO2 emis­sions from the Unit­ed King­dom.

The activist hand­ed the fol­low­ing state­ment to mem­bers of the pub­lic and air­port staff:-

“This is a peace­ful act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. It is my inten­tion to dis­rupt the nor­mal work­ing of this air­port because it is an envi­ron­men­tal haz­ard. In so doing, I am stand­ing up for the poor­est of the world’s peo­ple, and for future gen­er­a­tions, who will bear the brunt of cli­mate chaos, caused by the afflu­ent lifestyles and fos­sil fuel addic­tion of the rich.

The planned three­fold increase in air flights is envi­ron­men­tal luna­cy. If run­away cli­mate change is to be avert­ed, glob­al car­bon emis­sions need to peak this decade, and decline rapid­ly there­after. There is no way that this can be achieved with­out halt­ing the explo­sion in air trav­el. Leeds/Bradford Air­port is plan­ning to expand to 8million flights a year, and if the pub­lic author­i­ties refuse to curb this envi­ron­men­tal men­ace, then respon­si­ble local cit­i­zens must act.

I AM SUPERGLUED IN POSITION PLEASE DO NOT HURT ME BY ATTEMPTING TO REMOVE ME!

I am not a ter­ror­ist. The real ter­ror­ists are the peo­ple who are destroy­ing the plan­et for prof­it.”

The activist was in posi­tion for about an hour, giv­ing her plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty to edu­cate those going in and out of the air­port. The police again showed a remark­able tol­er­ance for the crimes of Leeds Brad­ford air­port by arrest­ing the activist and stop­ping her from per­form­ng this vital pub­lic ser­vice. What are they like?

www.climatecamp.org.uk

Activists Occupy Downtown West Palm Beach Billboard protesting Florida Power and Light

West Palm Beach, May 14 — This morn­ing local activists from Project Aware­ness and Ever­glades Earth First! hung ban­ners and locked them­selves to a down­town rooftop bill­board to call for a sus­tain­able future for west­ern Palm Beach Coun­ty. They oppose FPL’s pro­posed West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter, cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing, Ever­glades pol­lu­tion, and overde­vel­op­ment; and the Callery-Judge “Town Devel­op­ment,” which would jump­start urban sprawl in the Lox­a­hatch­ee area. Their mes­sages high­light the enor­mous water con­sump­tion cllowances already approved for each project, and pro­mote pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in two forums ñ tomorrow’s 2pm coun­ty com­mis­sion meet­ing and the FPL’s Share­hold­ers meet­ing to take place at FPL’s Juno Beach head­quar­ters on May 25.

West Palm billboard actionWest Palm Beach, May 14 — This morn­ing local activists from Project Aware­ness and Ever­glades Earth First! hung ban­ners and locked them­selves to a down­town rooftop bill­board to call for a sus­tain­able future for west­ern Palm Beach Coun­ty. They oppose FPL’s pro­posed West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter, cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing, Ever­glades pol­lu­tion, and overde­vel­op­ment; and the Callery-Judge “Town Devel­op­ment,” which would jump­start urban sprawl in the Lox­a­hatch­ee area. Their mes­sages high­light the enor­mous water con­sump­tion cllowances already approved for each project, and pro­mote pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in two forums ñ tomorrow’s 2pm coun­ty com­mis­sion meet­ing and the FPL’s Share­hold­ers meet­ing to take place at FPL’s Juno Beach head­quar­ters on May 25.

Their col­or­ful ban­ners showed an alli­ga­tor chomp­ing a pow­er plant and read:

“Got Water? They would: FPL’s West Coun­ty Plant ->18 mil­lion gal­lons a Day;

“Callery-Judge Town -> 5 mil­lion gal­lons a day. Keep it Rur­al, Keep it Wild. No new FPL Plant”

For over a year envi­ron­men­tal groups have been fight­ing the West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter (WCEC), a nat­ur­al gas plant that FPL hopes to con­struct 1000 feet away from the Arthur R. Mar­shall Nation­al Wildlife Refuge in Lox­a­hatch­ee. As the alter­na­tive to fos­sil fuel plans, activists are pro­mot­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy & renew­able ener­gy, which FPL claims is imprac­ti­cal, despite the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for Ener­gy Efficiency’s recent report on the poten­tial for effi­cien­cy and renew­able sources to meet Florida’s ener­gy demands.

“When it comes to renew­able ener­gy, the sci­ence has been there for years,” says local activist & physi­cist Lynne Purvis. “Why does FPL con­tin­ue to use old, dirty tech­nolo­gies? The answer can only be greed.”

The cur­rent drought and water short­ages spawn fur­ther con­cerns about FPL’s pro­posed WCEC water require­ments of 18 mil­lion gal­lons a day and the unknown water con­sump­tion of the hun­dreds of thou­sands of units of devel­op­ment enabled by the project, includ­ing Callery-Judge’s 5 mil­lion gal­lons a day.

“These projects are direct threats to Ever­glades Restora­tion,” declared Ever­glades Earth First! mem­ber Peter Shultz. “What we need is con­ser­va­tion, not more con­struc­tion.”

Dublin Shell to Sea – Bringing it all Back Home

Day of Action — They deserve it and you deserve bet­ter

On the 18th of May Dublin Shell to Sea is going to esca­late its cam­paign against Shell’s com­mand cen­tre – Cor­rib house on Lee­son Street with anoth­er day of action start­ing at 7.30 am sharp. This attempt to shut down Shell’s HQ, like our last day of action (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82200), is being called to high­light the incred­i­ble theft of our nat­ur­al resources that totals 51 bil­lion euros in the Cor­rib field alone. This is only pos­si­ble with your help; we encour­age every­one to come along.

1st Dublin Shell Day of Action 1
1st Dublin Shell Day of Action 2
Day of Action — They deserve it and you deserve bet­ter

On the 18th of May Dublin Shell to Sea is going to esca­late its cam­paign against Shell’s com­mand cen­tre – Cor­rib house on Lee­son Street with anoth­er day of action start­ing at 7.30 am sharp. This attempt to shut down Shell’s HQ, like our last day of action (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82200), is being called to high­light the incred­i­ble theft of our nat­ur­al resources that totals 51 bil­lion euros in the Cor­rib field alone. This is only pos­si­ble with your help; we encour­age every­one to come along.

Dublin Shell HQ mapFuel Pover­ty – A Nation­al Scan­dal
Ire­land is cur­rent­ly fac­ing a cri­sis. Our health ser­vice verges on the brink of col­lapse as our nurs­es are forced to strike for decent work­ing con­di­tions. Our politi­cians have told us they can’t give in, in fear we all might ask for decent con­di­tions.

We have been con­stant­ly remind­ed in the elec­tion cam­paign about how much we owe our politi­cians. We are told the Celtic Tiger has brought untold rich­es and this coun­try is now awash with mon­ey. This is true to a cer­tain extent. More mon­ey has been gen­er­at­ed and emi­gra­tion has stopped. But still all is far from per­fect in this coun­try. Mon­ey has been wast­ed and the great­est give­away is hap­pen­ing as we speak. 51 bil­lion euros of our nat­ur­al gas reserves is being giv­en to Shell, Marathon and Sta­toil (for more info on deal see http://www.publicinquiry.ie/reports.php). Whilst these fig­ures are often too big to con­tem­plate, it is some­times eas­i­er to look at who is being direct­ly affect­ed. As usu­al it is those who need help most who will be affect­ed worst.

Unbe­liev­ably, each win­ter, up to 3,000 peo­ple die pre­ma­ture­ly every year from fuel pover­ty (‘The Poten­tial Health Ben­e­fits of Improv­ing House­hold Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy’ Clinch and Healy 2000 and Help The Aged., source: http://www.eirigi.org/campaigns/naturalresources/fuel_p…y.htm). This is our par­ents and grand­par­ents who are dying. What is our politi­cians’ response to this? Instead of try­ing to solve the prob­lem they gave away the one thing that could alle­vi­ate the prob­lem – nat­ur­al gas. Above all else nat­ur­al gas could have ensured that three thou­sand peo­ple lived out their lives, but they chose to give it away instead (http://www.publicinquiry.ie/reports.php).

Roy­al Dutch Shell A.G.M. in The Hague
Whilst our politi­cians are to blame they are not the only ones. Shell, Sta­toil and Marathon are the thieves in this sit­u­a­tion and are mak­ing away with enor­mous amounts of our resources. This week one of the thieves, Shell, will cel­e­brate their grotesque prof­its at their A. G.M. in Hol­land. It’s quite telling that the only place that Shell’s board of direc­tors can be held to account (if you are rich) is in a con­fer­ence hall in The Hague. We the right­ful ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the nat­ur­al gas deposits off our west coast won’t have a say.

The new ben­e­fi­cia­ries are peo­ple like the Queen of Hol­land (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Beatrice) Lord Kerr of Kin­lochard (also direc­tor of Rio Tin­to, Jeroen van der Veer, Lin­da Cook, Andy Pyle and Ter­ry Nolan (for oth­er mem­bers of Shell’s board of direc­tors see (http://www.search.shell.com/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi). Through­out this week Roy­al Dutch Shell will wine and dine the glob­al elite and divide out 51 bil­lion euros of our mon­ey.
At this meet­ing the rest of Shell’s share­hold­ers will get the chance to see how their invest­ments are doing and decide what to do with €51 bil­lion they stole from you and Shell’s exec­u­tives this year will no doubt have a nice cig­ar and cham­pagne at your expense.

These men and women with their suits and brief­cas­es will sit smug in The Hague with their caviar in the knowl­edge that they have ripped off a coun­try that needs its resources bad­ly — Our health ser­vice verges on the brink of col­lapse as our nurs­es are forced to strike for a decent wage, our elder­ly now live in fear of Win­ter as up to 3000 peo­ple die each year from fuel pover­ty and pen­sions are being pri­va­tised.

What you can do?
But all is not doom and gloom, on Fri­day the 18th just as Shell’s Irish elite arrive back hav­ing giv­en away our resources to the glob­al rich. Dublin Shell to Sea plans to greet these peo­ple by shut­ting down their Irish nerve cen­tre and head­quar­ters – Cor­rib House. This is the build­ing where all deci­sions are tak­en, where they hatched the plans to steal our resources and tar­get the Mayo com­mu­ni­ties in their relent­less pur­suit of prof­it. So come and join us in protest­ing against these crim­i­nals and block­ade their offices on Fri­day the 18th of May – they deserve it and you deserve bet­ter!

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

New cars smashed while on transportation by train

Since the G8 in Gle­nea­gles 2005 there has been sab­o­tage on 3 dif­fer­ent dates, with esti­mat­ed dam­age about £200,000 plus,bristol indy­media has been spared the post­ings for legal rea­sons.

Since the G8 in Gle­nea­gles 2005 there has been sab­o­tage on 3 dif­fer­ent dates, with esti­mat­ed dam­age about £200,000 plus,bristol indy­media has been spared the post­ings for legal rea­sons.

EAST KENT EARTH FIRST!

This report announces the for­ma­tion of a new cam­paign­ing and action group to be called EAST KENT EARTH FIRST!

The group is based in Can­ter­bury, but already has sup­port from peo­ple in the Med­way Towns, Sit­ting­bourne, Herne Bay and Thanet as well as Can­ter­bury. Most of the peo­ple involved have a back­ground in the Ani­mal Rights move­ment and recog­nise the need to broad­en out into Eco Action and relat­ed issues. Be it GM crops, Air­port expan­sion, unnec­es­sary devel­op­ment, or diverse oth­er issues we shall seek to edu­cate, inform and protest, notwith­stand­ing the cur­rent clam­p­down on rea­son­able protest. There will short­ly be a web­site up and run­ning, but in the mean­time any­one inter­est­ed in being involved should

This report announces the for­ma­tion of a new cam­paign­ing and action group to be called EAST KENT EARTH FIRST!

The group is based in Can­ter­bury, but already has sup­port from peo­ple in the Med­way Towns, Sit­ting­bourne, Herne Bay and Thanet as well as Can­ter­bury. Most of the peo­ple involved have a back­ground in the Ani­mal Rights move­ment and recog­nise the need to broad­en out into Eco Action and relat­ed issues. Be it GM crops, Air­port expan­sion, unnec­es­sary devel­op­ment, or diverse oth­er issues we shall seek to edu­cate, inform and protest, notwith­stand­ing the cur­rent clam­p­down on rea­son­able protest. There will short­ly be a web­site up and run­ning, but in the mean­time any­one inter­est­ed in being involved should
con­tact the fol­low­ing email address. mattclowes@riseup.net

Plane Stupid Callout for Local Groups

Plane Stu­pid (www.planestupid.com) is call­ing out for local Plane Stu­pid groups to form to fight the fastest grow­ing cause of cli­mate change (avi­a­tion) in your area. Plane Stu­pid thinks that local groups tak­ing action in their area but with­in a wider net­work of Plane Stu­pid activists is the best way to fight the unsus­tain­able growth of the avi­a­tion indus­try. If you would like to set up a group in your area all you need is a few enthu­si­as­tic mem­bers com­mit­ted to using direct action to fight cli­mate change.

Plane Stupid plane fist logoPlane Stu­pid (www.planestupid.com) is call­ing out for local Plane Stu­pid groups to form to fight the fastest grow­ing cause of cli­mate change (avi­a­tion) in your area. Plane Stu­pid thinks that local groups tak­ing action in their area but with­in a wider net­work of Plane Stu­pid activists is the best way to fight the unsus­tain­able growth of the avi­a­tion indus­try. If you would like to set up a group in your area all you need is a few enthu­si­as­tic mem­bers com­mit­ted to using direct action to fight cli­mate change.

The 2003 Avi­a­tion White Paper out­lines plans for between dou­ble and triple the cur­rent num­ber of pas­sen­ger flights. This involves mas­sive air­port expan­sion all over Britain at rate equiv­a­lent to the build­ing of a new Heathrow every 5 years. The UK’s top cli­ma­tol­o­gists pre­dict that avi­a­tion’s emis­sions alone are pre­dict­ed to exceed the gov­ern­men­t’s tar­get for the coun­try’s entire out­put of green­house gas­es in 2050 by around 134%. (Tyn­dall Cen­tre for Cli­mate
Chan­g­eRe­search)

Plane Stu­pid has become one of the direct action groups of the emerg­ing grass­roots cli­mate move­ment in Britain. Our dra­mat­ic impact has come by means of a series of high-pro­file direct actions and a near obses­sive focus on clear, basic demands that peo­ple under­stand: the scrap­ping of air­port expan­sion plans, a tax on air­craft fuel and
plane tick­ets, and an end to unnec­es­sary and unsus­tain­able short haul flights.

Since we formed in less than 18 months ago; we have dis­rupt­ed the world’s largest inter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion indus­try con­fer­ence in Cen­tral Lon­don; ground­ed planes through the occu­pa­tion of a taxi­way at the short-haul East Mid­lands Air­port; blocked the entrance to BAA’s head­quar­ters at Heathrow twice; staged a roof-top protest at easy­Jet’s cor­po­rate head­quar­ters in Lon­don, tem­porar­i­ly shut down tens of trav­el agents across the UK and helped angry Heathrow res­i­dents dis­rupt the trans­port min­is­ter’s speech. We also inspired and over­saw Britain’s first nation­al day of action against short haul flights, which saw local groups hold demon­stra­tions at six region­al air­ports and out­side Flight Cen­tre trav­el agents in cities across the UK.

Gov­ern­ment and indus­try’s prof­i­teer­ing from cre­at­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change will go unchecked unless YOU do some­thing today! Join us by set­ting up a local group with some like mind­ed peo­ple in your area to help us scrap air­port expan­sion, get avi­a­tion fuel and tick­ets taxed and end­ing short haul flights.

Con­tact info@planestupid.com or call 07948 219 493 for advice on set­ting up a local group or for some­one to come and speak in your area about Plane Stu­pid. Also on the 12th and 13th of May we will be at the Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change con­fer­ence in Lon­don (http://www.campaigncc.org/) where you can come and speak to us.

www.planestupid.com
info@planestupid.com

Norwich Rising Tide — First Action

6.05.2007
NRT Spoof action — ‘Build the NDR: Con­crete is Free­dom!’ Pos­ing as mem­bers of the fic­tion­al Coali­tion for Roads And Progress (C.R.A.P), and bran­dish­ing plac­ards bear­ing slo­gans such as ‘Re-tar­mac the streets!’, ‘Oil is Good for the Plan­et’ and ‘The NDR – an indus­tri­al par­adise’ we held a series of mock press con­fer­ences out­side the Forum in Nor­wich city cen­tre.

NDR Norwich demo6.05.2007
NRT Spoof action — ‘Build the NDR: Con­crete is Free­dom!’ Pos­ing as mem­bers of the fic­tion­al Coali­tion for Roads And Progress (C.R.A.P), and bran­dish­ing plac­ards bear­ing slo­gans such as ‘Re-tar­mac the streets!’, ‘Oil is Good for the Plan­et’ and ‘The NDR – an indus­tri­al par­adise’ we held a series of mock press con­fer­ences out­side the Forum in Nor­wich city cen­tre.

On a fine Sat­ur­day morn­ing in May, 15 activists head­ed into Nor­wich city cen­tre to hold a rov­ing protest against the pro­posed North­ern Dis­trib­u­tor Road (NDR). Pos­ing as mem­bers of the fic­tion­al Coali­tion for Roads And Progress (C.R.A.P), we held a series of mock press con­fer­ences out­side the Forum, where the Coun­ty Coun­cil are hold­ing an exhi­bi­tion about plans for the NDR.

Stand­ing in front of a ban­ner read­ing ‘Build the NDR: Con­crete is Free­dom’, and sur­round­ed by a crowd of sup­port­ers wav­ing plac­ards bear­ing slo­gans such as ‘Spend More Time in Your Car!’ and ‘Who Needs Green Space or Peace and Qui­et?’, the press con­fer­ence heard from C.R.A.P mem­bers about their rea­sons for sup­port­ing the NDR.

Dr. Sey­mour Rhodes pre­sent­ed new med­ical research about the health ben­e­fits of air pol­lu­tion and the risks of exces­sive walk­ing or cycling. Mr. I. Sell­more, the devel­op­er on the pan­el, blew away the myth that the NDR will ease traf­fic con­ges­tion, instead insist­ing that it will replace the peace­ful vil­lages in North Nor­wich with a new indus­tri­al par­adise. Coun­cil­lor There­sa Gone reas­sured audi­ence mem­bers that the £100 mil­lion cost of the road would not go over bud­get, chal­leng­ing them to name any large infra­struc­ture projects around the coun­try that had not come in on time and on bud­get.

At the close of the press con­fer­ence, which came with much applause from the crowd that had assem­bled, the coali­tion mem­bers stepped out of char­ac­ter and began dis­trib­ut­ing leaflets to passers-by and talk­ing with them about the NDR project.

After an hour out­side the Forum, we moved loca­tions to the mar­ket square, where the press con­fer­ence was repeat­ed for the bustling Sat­ur­day morn­ing shop­ping crowd.

‘It was fun to watch, and real­ly inspir­ing to see peo­ple com­mu­ni­cat­ing such an impor­tant mes­sage in such a cre­ative way,’ said one of the audi­ence mem­bers.

Today’s protest was intend­ed to be a light-heart­ed way of point­ing out some major con­cerns we and many oth­ers have about the pro­posed NDR. The pit­falls of the project have become so great as to bor­der on the ridicu­lous, and we thought we could play on this as a fun and unusu­al way to engage passers by.

See below for the leaflet hand­ed out on the day, which explains both C.R.A.P.’s com­i­cal­ly pro-road posi­tion and our own con­cerns about the NDR.

It was a fun way to spend a Sat­ur­day morn­ing, and a suc­cess­ful and inspir­ing first out­ing for the new Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide group. Watch this space (and www.risingtide.org.uk/norwich) for more actions against the NDR and oth­er local cli­mate crim­i­nals!

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

Spoof Plac­ards

Here’s a full list of the spoof plac­ards that Coali­tion for Roads And Progress (C.R.A.P) mem­bers were bran­dish­ing yes­ter­day: -

NDR – an Urban Indus­tri­al Par­adise
Re-tar­mac the Streets
Oil is Good for the Plan­et!
Escape Flood­ing … by Car
Wim­pey say bring on the NDR
Urban is Joy!
Reward Fat Cats
Who needs Green Space or Peace and Qui­et?
Con­crete is Free­dom
More Con­crete, More Pol­lu­tion
Hoorah for the NDR – Spend more time in your Car
Tescos Loves the NDR
Car Fumes are Cheap­er than Cig­a­rettes
More Con­crete, Few­er Trees
The NDR – You know it Makes Sense!
More Con­crete, Less Green­ery
May Gur­ney has our Best Inter­ests at Heart
Growth is Hap­pi­ness
Sup­port Your Local Share­hold­er
Walk­ing is a Waste of Time!

Gloucester pipeline action group

May 6, 2007
There has been an action group formed in Glouces­ter to raise aware­ness about the pipeline and to protest against the pipeline. We meet up around once month and also stage direct actions, put on ben­e­fit gigs and have info stalls in Glouces­ter and at local events. Please send an email to fightthepipe@hotmail.co.uk for more infor­ma­tion or con­tact us through our myspace http://www.myspace.com/fightingthepipe

May 6, 2007
There has been an action group formed in Glouces­ter to raise aware­ness about the pipeline and to protest against the pipeline. We meet up around once month and also stage direct actions, put on ben­e­fit gigs and have info stalls in Glouces­ter and at local events. Please send an email to fightthepipe@hotmail.co.uk for more infor­ma­tion or con­tact us through our myspace http://www.myspace.com/fightingthepipe

We would love to hear from any­one whether you just want email updates on what we are doing, put up a few posters and give leaflets to friends or get involved with direct actions.

Togeth­er we can make a dif­fer­ence!

Plane Stupid mark ten years of Blair — BAA HQ blocked

2.05.2007 Green activists today marked the tenth anniver­sary of Tony Blair com­ing to pow­er by vis­it­ing his best friends in indus­try to high­light the revolv­ing door between Labour and the avi­a­tion indus­try and his fail­ure to tack­le cli­mate change. (1) A team of pro­tes­tors from cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid, (2) are block­ing the ‘revolv­ing door’ to BAA’s Heathrow HQ to oppose gov­ern­ment and indus­try plans for air­port expan­sion.

BAA 10 years of Blair2.05.2007 Green activists today marked the tenth anniver­sary of Tony Blair com­ing to pow­er by vis­it­ing his best friends in indus­try to high­light the revolv­ing door between Labour and the avi­a­tion indus­try and his fail­ure to tack­le cli­mate change. (1) A team of pro­tes­tors from cli­mate action group, Plane Stu­pid, (2) are block­ing the ‘revolv­ing door’ to BAA’s Heathrow HQ to oppose gov­ern­ment and indus­try plans for air­port expan­sion.

The activists have chained up the front doors to the offices and have dumped copies of the sci­ence of cli­mate change, reports from the UN and from the Tyn­dall Cen­tre, into the recep­tion area. The activists have pledged not to allow the staff out until they’ve read the sci­ence. Oth­er cam­paign­ers have unfurled a ban­ner out­side the build­ing stat­ing, “Read the sci­ence. www.planestupid.com”

Cam­paign­er for Plane Stu­pid, Leo Mur­ray, explained:

“In years to come, Blair will be remem­bered for sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly approv­ing cli­mate-wreck­ing projects like air­port expan­sion. But it might not have hap­pened if it weren’t for the fact that the revolv­ing door between Labour and BAA just hasn’t stopped spin­ning.” (3) (4)

He added:

“We can’t believe that if BAA had read the sci­ence, they’d still be push­ing ahead with their cli­mate-crazy plans for air­port expan­sion. With Blair prepar­ing to leave office, UN cli­mate sci­en­tists gath­er­ing in Bangkok, and the hottest April on record, it’s time BAA used their enor­mous influ­ence to tell Blair to ditch expan­sion plans or leave with a lega­cy of fail­ing on cli­mate change.”

This Friday’s IPCC report on mit­i­ga­tion of cli­mate emis­sions, a draft copy of which has been obtained by Plane Stu­pid, con­firms, “Land use plan­ning and trans­port demand man­age­ment can make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion.”

Plane Stu­pid are one of the groups behind the adver­tise­ments in today’s nation­al news­pa­pers head­lined, “Vote for cli­mate change.” (5)

Notes for Edi­tors:

(1) The BAA/Labour revolv­ing door:
— In advance of the government’s 2003 avi­a­tion white paper which paved the way for their expan­sion pro­gramme, BAA was the main sup­port­er of lob­by group, “Free­dom to fly.” This group is thought to be the brain child of Steve Hard­wick, Direc­tor of Pub­lic Affairs at BAA who took time out to work on the Labour elec­tion cam­paigns of 1997 and 2001.
— “Free­dom to fly” was direct­ed by John Prescott’s for­mer per­son­al polit­i­cal advi­sor from 1999–2001, Joe Irvin. When, after a year, Joe Irvin resigned, he was replaced by Dan Hodges. Hodges is the son of Glen­da Jack­son MP, who hap­pens to have been Labour’s first avi­a­tion min­is­ter.
— Joe Irvin has this week been appoint­ed as one of Gor­don Brown’s top advi­sors (4)
— BAA’s “Free­dom to Fly” was chaired by Labour peer, Bren­da Dean.
— The gov­ern­ment appoint­ed Avi­a­So­lu­tions to assess the respons­es to its con­sul­ta­tion on expan­sion. Avi­a­So­lu­tions is run by for­mer high-fly­ers from BAA, Sea­mus Healey, Paul Eden and his wife, Liz. Also on the company’s board was Lyne Mered­ith, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked as BAA’s direc­tor of plan­ning and envi­ron­ment.
— BAA hosts from its West Lon­don offices, “Future Heathrow,” an indus­try lob­by group chaired by Labour peer, Lord Soley. Launched per­son­al­ly by then-trans­port sec­re­tary, Alis­tair Dar­ling, it was estab­lished to ensure that the third run­way and sixth ter­mi­nal is built.

(2) Plane Stu­pid is Britain’s first nation­al direct action group against the unsus­tain­able avi­a­tion growth. www.planestupid.com

(3) For more details and sources on the revolv­ing door between BAA and Labour: http://www.turnuptheheat.org/?page_id=24

(4) http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/article2483864.ece and http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0„2–2007180865,00.html

(5) For more on the ads, includ­ing the press release, see www.spurt-aviation.com

For interviews/info:

press@planestupid.com
www.planestupid.com

- ENDS –

At 5.30pm — four peo­ple were arrrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass after BAA refused to read the sci­ence.