Category: Climate Chaos

End of the line for coal: Protestors blockade coal trains, New Zealand/Aotearoa

Press release: Save hap­py Val­ley Christchurch
Sun­day 29th April 2007

Save Hap­py Val­ley mem­bers have locked onto the train tracks near Christchurch to call for an end to new coal mines in New Zealand. Oth­er mem­bers have hung a twen­ty-two metre ban­ner – ‘Sol­id Ener­gy: Govt Spon­sored Cli­mate Chaos – along two of the coal wag­ons. They are on Kirk Road, Tem­ple­ton.

Press release: Save hap­py Val­ley Christchurch
Sun­day 29th April 2007

Save Hap­py Val­ley mem­bers have locked onto the train tracks near Christchurch to call for an end to new coal mines in New Zealand. Oth­er mem­bers have hung a twen­ty-two metre ban­ner – ‘Sol­id Ener­gy: Govt Spon­sored Cli­mate Chaos – along two of the coal wag­ons. They are on Kirk Road, Tem­ple­ton.

“Cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mat­ic events are already occur­ring; cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now,” said Gra­ham Jury, Save Hap­py Val­ley Christchurch spokesper­son. “Ear­li­er this year New Zealand final­ly reached the end of the line for coal fired pow­er sta­tions. It must also be the end of the line for coal min­ing.”

Two activists are locked onto the tracks, while a fur­ther twen­ty are on the tracks by the train. Save Hap­py Val­ley works for the pro­tec­tion of Hap­py Val­ley, pro­posed site of Sol­id Ener­gy’s next open­cast mine on the West Coast of the South Island. The group also cam­paigns for a just and swift tran­si­tion away from coal min­ing.

“Sol­id Ener­gy is ever increas­ing its pro­duc­tion, leav­ing dec­i­mat­ed ecosys­tems and water­ways in its wake. Already, they are respon­si­ble for annu­al car­bon diox­ide emis­sions approx­i­mate­ly equiv­a­lent to New Zealand’s entire trans­port fleet. Say­ing “no” to new coal mines would be an easy first step in actu­al­ly address­ing cli­mate change,” said Simon Rid­del, one of the activists locked to the tracks.

“The world’s cli­mate is becom­ing increas­ing­ly unpre­dictable and human-induced green­house gas emis­sions are evi­dent­ly respon­si­ble. The fos­sil fuel indus­try is a pre­ventable cause,” said Gre­go­ry Curline, the sec­ond activist ‘on the line.’

“Half of the coal extract­ed is sent off shore, gen­er­at­ing emis­sions out­side of our Kyoto Pro­to­col oblig­a­tions. How­ev­er, New Zealand is respon­si­ble for the coal it exports. The Gov­ern­ment must pull its state owned enter­prise back under con­trol,” said Mr Jury.

// ENDS

Media Con­tact
Gra­ham Jury, Save Hap­py Val­ley Christchurch spokesper­son, 0273070448

Notes
In March 2007, Mighty Riv­er Pow­er, anoth­er SOE, announced that it had dis­card­ed its plans to turn Mars­den B into an oper­a­tional coal fired pow­er sta­tion.

http://savehappyvalley.org.nz

Cambridge Climate Camp meetup

Hey all. There will be a meet­ing on Sat May 5 at 7pm for any­one in Cam­bridge and East Anglia gen­er­al­ly who is inter­est­ed in going to the Camp for Cli­mate Action on August 14–21, 2007. Peo­ple who were at last year’s camp will talk about what it was like, and we will have a chance to get to know each-oth­er and talk about going as a group to the cli­mate camp.

Hey all. There will be a meet­ing on Sat May 5 at 7pm for any­one in Cam­bridge and East Anglia gen­er­al­ly who is inter­est­ed in going to the Camp for Cli­mate Action on August 14–21, 2007. Peo­ple who were at last year’s camp will talk about what it was like, and we will have a chance to get to know each-oth­er and talk about going as a group to the cli­mate camp.

The meet­ing is in the McCrum Sem­i­nar room in Cor­pus Christi Col­lege. The direc­tions to Cor­pus are here: www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/about/directions.htm To get to the McCrum Sem­i­nar room, head to the McCrum lec­ture the­atre off Benet St (marked on the map — its next to the Eagle pub); but turn right in front of the lec­ture the­atre, up some stairs. Direct­ly ahead are some more steps going down to the left, go down those into a pas­sage­way and the McCrum Sem­i­nar room is to the right.

The Camp for Cli­mate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk) is a week-long event that will include work­shops about cli­mate change and oth­er top­ics, enter­tain­ment, alter­na­tive tech­nol­o­gy, low-tech liv­ing, and direct action against some of the indus­tri­al pol­luters that cause cli­mate change.

Please invite any­one who might be inter­est­ed.

cambridge@lists.riseup.net
http://www.cambridgeaction.net

Critical Mass reports

Police charge cyclists at Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass
29.04.2007

Last night the police com­mit­ted a sur­pris­ing u‑turn in their approach to deal­ing with Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass. The Mass has pre­vi­ous­ly been accom­pa­nied by cycle offi­cers “to ensure the safe­ty of the cyclists” how­ev­er there has been no police pres­ence since last Sep­tem­ber. This changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly with the April Crit­i­cal Mass.

Police charge cyclists at Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass
29.04.2007

Last night the police com­mit­ted a sur­pris­ing u‑turn in their approach to deal­ing with Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass. The Mass has pre­vi­ous­ly been accom­pa­nied by cycle offi­cers “to ensure the safe­ty of the cyclists” how­ev­er there has been no police pres­ence since last Sep­tem­ber. This changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly with the April Crit­i­cal Mass.

Last night the police com­mit­ted a sur­pris­ing u‑turn in their approach to deal­ing with Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass. The Mass has pre­vi­ous­ly been accom­pa­nied by cycle offi­cers “to ensure the safe­ty of the cyclists” how­ev­er there has been no police pres­ence since last Sep­tem­ber. This changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly with the April Crit­i­cal Mass; the 50–70 cyclists were tailed by a police van for the major­i­ty of the ride with the police stop­ping some of the rid­ers at the front of the mass and warn­ing them not to con­tin­ue else they may face charges. In the midst of the cycle run, while the Mass duti­ful­ly wait­ed at a red light, the two offi­cers (A303 and A628) made their way to the front of the mass and select­ed three cyclists, appar­ent­ly at ran­dom. It should be not­ed that these three were not the cyclists spo­ken to by the police ear­li­er. These arbi­trar­i­ly cho­sen cyclists have been charged with “Cycling with­out due con­sid­er­a­tion for oth­er road users” under sec­tion 29 of the 1988 Road Traf­fic Act (exact word­ing: If a per­son rides a cycle on a road with­out due care and atten­tion, or with­out rea­son­able con­sid­er­a­tion for oth­er per­sons using the road, he is guilty of an offence.In this sec­tion “road” includes a bri­dle­way). They were informed that a report will be sub­mit­ted to the Procu­ra­tor Fis­cal for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion. Watch this space.

http://www.glasgowcriticalmass.org.uk


Crit­i­cal Mass Lon­don 13th Anniver­sary ride.
16MB film — mp4
The very well attend­ed Mass got off to a good start, despite a spelling mis­take on the kind­ly donat­ed t‑shirts. There was the usu­al large police pres­ence with its usu­al intim­i­dat­ing video­ing of rid­ers. Pity they can’t take their own med­i­cine and try to con­ceal their faces.

The police returned to their pre­vi­ous tac­tic of block­ing the front of the ride, thus adding to traf­fic con­ges­tion. At the entrance to Par­lia­ment Square the front of the ride was blocked for sev­er­al traf­fic light cycles. Final­ly, in frus­tra­tion, and after some boo­ing at the block­ers, rid­ers decide to go around on the pave­ment to enter the Square. At some point the ride split into two but man­aged to join up again in the Strand. Video­ing stopped at the couri­ers’ pub, while the ride con­tin­ued on into the night head­ing East­wards.

All in all very enjoy­able and mer­ry ride.

!!!MANCHESTER DIRECT ACTION TRAINING DAY!!! — venue update

!!!MANCHESTER DIRECT ACTION TRAINING DAY!!!

Date: Sun­day, May 6, 2007
Time: 10:00am — 6:00pm
Loca­tion: MOVED TO MERCI DUE TO FIRE AT BASEMENT — see http://www.merci.org.uk/bridge‑5.php for direc­tions

!!!MANCHESTER DIRECT ACTION TRAINING DAY!!!

Date: Sun­day, May 6, 2007
Time: 10:00am — 6:00pm
Loca­tion: MOVED TO MERCI DUE TO FIRE AT BASEMENT — see http://www.merci.org.uk/bridge‑5.php for direc­tions
Man­ches­ter
Con­tact Info Email: manchester@climatecamp.org.uk

A fun filled day of work­shops and brief­in­gs on non-vio­lent direct action tech­niques and tac­tics, legal issues, secu­ri­ty issues, and chances to dis­cuss and plan your own direct action ideas. In light of the cli­mate camp, the theme will be tak­ing direct action against cli­mate change. it will be a great chance to meet peo­ple with expe­ri­ence of and an inter­est in tak­ing direct action!
Break­fast served at 10am, then work­shops from 11–6

Leeds Monthly Critical Mass Celebrations

Its the last fri­day of the month again: get your chains oiled, your tyres pumped, and adore your bike with horns and bells… its time for a lit­tle reclaim­ing of the streets.

Critical Mass Ride Daily Celebrate MonthlyIts the last fri­day of the month again: get your chains oiled, your tyres pumped, and adore your bike with horns and bells… its time for a lit­tle reclaim­ing of the streets.

The month­ly impromp­tu meet­ing of leeds cyclist will once again hit the city cen­tre on fri­day evening to parade around the city and cel­e­brate the joys of using the lo-tech car­bon free trans­port of the past, present and future. Although, by the very nature of crit­i­cal mass noth­ing has been offi­cial­ly planned its high­ly like­ly that an acci­den­tal meet­ing of cyclists will take place at 5.30pm in Mil­le­ni­um Square.

Fol­low­ing the ride, there are strong rumours that a game of bicy­cle polo will also take place on a open pub­lic space some­where in the city.

There can sure­ly be no bet­ter event to attend on the eve of the Wakey Wakey Spring Tour that comes to town this week­end. (See http://www.fraw.org.uk/tour/leeds.shtml for fur­ther info.)

…And remem­ber to spare a small thought for those still liv­ing in he 20th cen­tu­ry with inter­nal com­bus­tion engines fueled by crude oil deriv­a­tives that idle in their vehi­cles as they crawl throught the fri­day evening rush hour. Bless them and their anti­quat­ed ways.

Bath Party against Petrol report

Sat­ur­day 21st April. The Par­ty Against Petrol crowd gath­ered in Bath Abbey at mid­day to begin what would have been a colour­ful and noisy protest against car cul­ture and fos­sil fuels, intend­ing to occu­py Low­er Bris­tol Road and the Esso sta­tion fore­court there. Around 25–30 activists turned up, and the police, them­selves num­ber­ing 30 or more, with mount­ed police again, imposed con­di­tions on the pro­ces­sion: march round the Abbey for 30 mins, then dis­perse.

Sat­ur­day 21st April. The Par­ty Against Petrol crowd gath­ered in Bath Abbey at mid­day to begin what would have been a colour­ful and noisy protest against car cul­ture and fos­sil fuels, intend­ing to occu­py Low­er Bris­tol Road and the Esso sta­tion fore­court there. Around 25–30 activists turned up, and the police, them­selves num­ber­ing 30 or more, with mount­ed police again, imposed con­di­tions on the pro­ces­sion: march round the Abbey for 30 mins, then dis­perse.

Well, we did as were told, marched round the Abbey, drum­ming and danc­ing and play­ing foot­ball, returned and dis­persed… only to form up again and con­tin­ue the parade, flow­ing through the police lines eas­i­ly. Hand­ed out leaflets, spoke to passers­by, mean­while, the high­ly trained police were over­heard argu­ing with each oth­er, throw­ing out blame for their lack of con­trol, right in front of the shop­pers and tourists. The street par­ty parade came to a close at Vic­to­ria Park, amidst pic­nic and sun­bathing, under the police’s watch­ful eye.

This unsea­son­ably hot April, whilst good for sun­bathers, is prob­a­bly noth­ing to do with cli­mate change.

Despite the heavy hand­ed police har­rass­ment and intim­i­da­tion we’ve had so far, with var­i­ous peo­ple being repeat­ed­ly stopped and ques­tioned through­out the city, with A4 check­points and trains sta­tion search­es on the Thurs­day, tomor­row should see a free kitchen, freeshop stall, work­shop on recy­cling junk into use­ful stuff, and lit­ter­pick, meet­ing in Bath at mid­day. To find us, ring 07800 583011.

Report from Land and Marine demo and demo announcement

Despite mas­sive over-polic­ing and the evic­tion of Bath Cli­mate Camp, actions are con­tin­u­ing as sched­uled, so if you were think­ing of com­ing down for sat­ur­days demo, start­ing at 12 at Bath Abbey, please do so to show that their repres­sion will not make us go away! — here is a report of the Land and Marine demo -

Despite mas­sive over-polic­ing and the evic­tion of Bath Cli­mate Camp, actions are con­tin­u­ing as sched­uled, so if you were think­ing of com­ing down for sat­ur­days demo, start­ing at 12 at Bath Abbey, please do so to show that their repres­sion will not make us go away! — here is a report of the Land and Marine demo -

Fri­day 20th April, at 8 am, a group of 7 pro­test­ers approached the Land and Marine office, to leaflet and ban­ner drop, as part of the adver­tised block­ade, and were faced by a huge police pres­ence. The cops demand­ed that the pro­tes­tors move about 30 meters away from L&M, mak­ing the protest invis­i­ble. The group refused, and after nego­ti­a­tions and a cou­ple of tense moments, were able to stay in front of the offices, although the cops put a restric­tion on the num­ber of pro­test­ers to 6 (they count­ing skills should be called into ques­tions, as by this point, there were 8 pro­tes­tors!), for­bid­ding any addi­tion­al pro­test­ers from join­ing the demo and also imposed a time lim­it, restrict­ing the demo to two hours. Twice the time lim­it was pass­es, and twice re-nego­ti­at­ed until pro­test­er vol­un­tar­i­ly left at 12.30. The office was shut all day and no work­ers entered the premis­es. Also, L&M shelled out on a dou­ble row of fenc­ing around their prop­er­ty and a large num­ber of secu­ri­ty guards who have been there in var­i­ous num­bers for a cou­ple of weeks… Result! Our con­grat­u­la­tions to Inspec­tor Adam Jen­ners.

Also, the activists were all searched under a pro­posed mod­i­fi­ca­tion to Sec­tion 1 of the PACE 1984 Act, for items to be used in con­nec­tion with crim­i­nal dam­age. It may well be that this pro­posed mod­i­fi­ca­tion to the law has­n’t yet came in to pow­er by the time they tried to use it, so there may well be a law­suit in the works…

Police also con­firmed their use of phone tap­ping to one activist: “Acord­ing to your phone calls, you only expect­ed 10 peo­ple at your meet­ing, but when we there you had 100.” It seems that the police had con­fused our camp with that of the com­ing nation­al Cli­mate Camp, this sum­mer — and wast­ed 100,000s of pounds in the process. The head of this over-zeal­ous polic­ing oper­a­tion is prob­a­bly sweat­ing round about now.

Overkill police tac­tics failed to intim­i­date us and hope­ful­ly the day long clo­sure of L&M will be anoth­er set­back in the con­struc­tion of the pipeline.

To find out the facts, and get involved in the anti-pipeline cam­paign, check out www.risingtide.org.uk/bristol/pipeline

Intim­i­da­tion and repres­sion will not beat us or make us go away!

Bath Climate Camp evicted — BUT THE DEMOS ARE STILL HAPPENING!

19.04.2007
Bath Cli­mate Camp was today evict­ed by a stu­pid­ly large num­ber of cops, part of a stu­pid­ly large police oper­a­tion involv­ing ran­dom stop and search­es at the train sta­tion and on the streets — The rea­son for the evic­tion? Sec­tion 63 of the CJB — we were appar­ent­ly using the demo as a pre­text for a free par­ty!

19.04.2007
Bath Cli­mate Camp was today evict­ed by a stu­pid­ly large num­ber of cops, part of a stu­pid­ly large police oper­a­tion involv­ing ran­dom stop and search­es at the train sta­tion and on the streets — The rea­son for the evic­tion? Sec­tion 63 of the CJB — we were appar­ent­ly using the demo as a pre­text for a free par­ty!

But the demos will go on as planned, and crash space is avail­able -
*Fri­day — office hours — Demo at Land and Marine HQ near the A4 on Low­er Bris­tol Rd
*sat­ur­day, par­ty against petrol — meet 12 noon at Bath Abbey

If you were think­ing of com­ing along, please still do, to show the cops that their bul­ly­ing tac­tics won’t stop our resis­tance!

(less) Hap­py Camper x

bathclimatecamp@yahoo.co.uk

Party Against Petrol! — Saturday 21st April

As Part of Bath Cli­mate Camp, there will be a par­ty against petrol — a chance to protest against car cul­ture and fos­sil fuels. Meet at 12 at Bath Abbey or 11 at Bath Cli­mate Camp

The protest is going to be a colour­ful car­ni­val, so bring props, ban­ners and noise mak­ers. There will be free cake, kids bloc, music, a ‘balls to cli­mate change’ reclaim the streets footie game and more!

As Part of Bath Cli­mate Camp, there will be a par­ty against petrol — a chance to protest against car cul­ture and fos­sil fuels. Meet at 12 at Bath Abbey or 11 at Bath Cli­mate Camp

The protest is going to be a colour­ful car­ni­val, so bring props, ban­ners and noise mak­ers. There will be free cake, kids bloc, music, a ‘balls to cli­mate change’ reclaim the streets footie game and more!
The day will be a chance to take back the streets from cars and pol­lu­tion and use them for fun and friv­o­li­ty!

For more info, email bathclimatecamp@yahoo.co.uk

Bath Cli­mate Camp will be set up from Thurs­day the 19th April through to Sun­day 22nd, and will both serve as a demon­stra­tion of eco-liv­ing and ideals, and also serve as an edu­ca­tion anf focus point for eco-action. Set­ting up from mid after­noon on Thurs­day, there will be onsite eth­i­cal veg­an kitchen pro­vid­ing break­fast and din­ner, music/entertainment in the evenings, talks, per­ma­nent freeshop, and a kids‘ zone, attend­ed by pro­fes­sion­al car­ers. The camp can be locat­ed near where the Low­er Bris­tol Road meets the A4 out to Bris­tol. The camp num­ber is 07800 583011.

*Fri­day 20th April — All day — Shut down Land And Marine! — Land and Marine are the main con­struc­tion com­pa­ny respon­si­ble for the gas pipeline smash­ing through the Welsh coun­try­side, includ­ing the Bre­con Bea­cons. We have the com­pa­ny’s offices in Bath, and resis­tance to the pipe has been strong in Wales, it’s time to take the fight to their doorstep! We are ask­ing peo­ple to block­ade, make music, wave ban­ners, leaflet or what­ev­er else springs to mind! For more info on the pipeline, vis­it www.risingtide.org.uk/bristol/pipeline

*Sat­ur­day 21st April — 11 @ Bath Cli­mate Camp or 12 @ Bath Abbey — PARTY AGAINST PETROL! — Colour­ful car­ni­val against car cul­ture and fos­sil fuels! Bring noise mak­ers, props, bright things and ban­ners. The demo will have a kids’ bloc.

*Sun­day 22nd April (though there will be work­shops on the oth­er days as well!) — All day — Work­shops

There will be work­shops on direct action against the pipeline in Wales, Poi mak­ing and danc­ing ses­sions, solu­tions to cli­mate change, set­ting up inde­pen­dent media, diet and the envi­ron­ment, ‘we wont buy your crap, but we will use your scrap’ DIY ses­sion, mak­ing hand­i­crafts from ‘junk’ and loads more.

bathclimatecamp@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/bathclimatecamp

Disrupt Shell’s Annual General Meeting!

Notice is here­by giv­en that the Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing of Roy­al Dutch Shell plc will be held at Cir­custhe­ater, Cir­cusstraat, The Hague, The Nether­lands at 11.00 am (Dutch time) on Tues­day May 15, 2007, with an audio-visu­al link to a satel­lite meet­ing place at Novo­tel Lon­don-West Hotel and Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, 1 Short­lands, Ham­mer­smith, Lon­don, Unit­ed King­dom at 10.00 am (UK time).

Notice is here­by giv­en that the Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing of Roy­al Dutch Shell plc will be held at Cir­custhe­ater, Cir­cusstraat, The Hague, The Nether­lands at 11.00 am (Dutch time) on Tues­day May 15, 2007, with an audio-visu­al link to a satel­lite meet­ing place at Novo­tel Lon­don-West Hotel and Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, 1 Short­lands, Ham­mer­smith, Lon­don, Unit­ed King­dom at 10.00 am (UK time).

Dear All,

The date for the Shell AGM has been recent­ly announced. It is the 15th of May. As with last year the AGM will be held in the Hague with a video link up in Lon­don. The link up in Lon­don will be at the Novo­tel Lon­don West Hotel and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, 1 Short­lands, Ham­mer­smith, at 10 am UK time.

Shell to Sea is call­ing for Sol­i­dar­i­ty protests at the AGM. On the ground in Erris resis­tance con­tin­ues to Shel­l’s pro­posed refin­ery. Peat removal began at the start of April and since then there have been five group tres­pass­es onto the site shut­ting down work tem­porar­i­ly. We are cur­rent­ly in the midst of the EPA oral hear­ing for the IPPC (inte­great­ed pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol) license which is to grant Shell a license to pol­lute. Num­bers of Gar­dai in the area remain high.

Now more than ever we need to send Shell a mes­sage that this project is not accept­able and that 100 years is enough! We are hop­ing to send a del­e­ga­tion from Ire­land to the Hague to protest direct­ly. All protests at the Lon­don video link up would be warm­ly appre­ci­at­ed.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty