Category: Climate Chaos

Santas Against Excessive Consumption hit London, 16.12.06

San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion (SAEC) went out to play for the sec­ond year run­ning on Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 16th 2006, drop­ping in on the Shell-spon­sored Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um (NHM) on the way to the con­sumer hell that is Oxford Street.

San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion (SAEC) went out to play for the sec­ond year run­ning on Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 16th 2006, drop­ping in on the Shell-spon­sored Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um (NHM) on the way to the con­sumer hell that is Oxford Street.

At the NHM we wan­dered through the crowds hold­ing our ‘Lap­p­land is melt­ing’ and ‘Rein­deer can’t swim’ plac­ards, explain­ing that exces­sive con­sump­tion was melt­ing our ho-ho-home, and as such it was going to be tough to ensure a good sup­ply of presents in the future. We had a bit of inter­ac­tion with peo­ple wait­ing to skate on the British Air­ways-spon­sored ice rink. Half the rink was closed because it was too wet and slushy — the ice had melt­ed. The employ­ee with the thank­less task of try­ing to herd us out dis­agreed with me when I sug­gest­ed that this was sym­bol­ic. His word? ‘Iron­ic.’

‘See you next year!’, promised the mouthi­est San­ta as we left, (since month­ly vis­its are planned by SAEC’s friends Lon­don Ris­ing Tide in 2007.) Then it was on to join rein­force­ments in Oxford Street, using the tube jour­ney as a chance to thank the pun­ters for tak­ing pub­lic trans­port a well as smil­ing at bewil­dered nip­pers won­der­ing if we could have any con­nec­tion to the real thing. Tak­ing up res­i­dence at Oxford Cir­cus, some anti-cor­po­rate car­ols were giv­en a good see­ing to, and leaflets dis­trib­uted. A fes­tive for­ay into Nike­town result­ed in a swift but friend­ly expul­sion, while a min­strel-like wan­der into the big Apple shop trig­gered a grumpi­er response. The plea to ‘Sing your own songs to eachother this Christ­mas!’ was inter­pret­ed as some sort of adver­tis­ing by a com­peti­tor, and this as well as some live and direct car­olling inside the shop led to the police being called. But we stood our ground when asked by the hum­bug­ging cop­pers to move away from the shop win­dow, and soon enough they evap­o­rat­ed.

By that time we were pret­ty much Santa‑d out, so decamped to a caff to fill up on caf­feine and divest our­selves of the mag­ic but by this time some­what bedrag­gled beards and suits that made peo­ple smile at us and take our sub­ver­sive leaflets. Take care until next year…

www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk/gallery/v/Shell
www.shelloiledwildlife.org.uk
07708 794665
london@risingtide.org.uk
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Text of the Oxford Street leaflet:

LAPPLAND IS MELTING!

Today is the busiest shop­ping day of the year. Oxford Street is crammed with con­sumers all scram­bling for the lat­est must-have item, the per­fect present that will buy Christ­mas joy. Most of us find this part of Christ­mas incred­i­bly stress­ful — there’s nev­er enough time, ten­sions run high, and the oblig­a­tion of gift exchange rules the sea­son.

So why do we buy in to Christ­mas shop­ping mad­ness? Maybe it’s time to start fig­ur­ing out why we so des­per­ate­ly need a 5‑speed elec­tric tooth­brush in the first place, or why our chil­dren will be dev­as­tat­ed if they don’t get the lat­est McNike­Soft Godzil­la Action Fig­ure that tops The List. It might well boil down to the fact that we are each exposed to 3,500 adverts per day. (No real­ly, try count­ing!)

Cor­po­rate adver­tis­ing can actu­al­ly be seen as the largest sin­gle psy­cho­log­i­cal project under­tak­en by the human race. We are told from the day we are born that increas­ing our mate­r­i­al wealth will make us hap­pi­er peo­ple, and if we want to show some­one that we love them, we must buy them some­thing – the more expen­sive, the more we love them.

Christ­mas con­sump­tion caus­es cli­mate chaos!

The prob­lem is, cor­po­rate con­sumer cul­ture doesn’t just breed stress – it cre­ates envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe. If every­one in the world were to con­sume at the lev­el we do in the West, we would need 5 extra plan­ets. But it’s not just about dis­ap­pear­ing rain­forests and moun­tains of rub­bish. Our exces­sive con­sump­tion is also caus­ing cli­mate chaos, with dis­as­trous effects like hur­ri­canes, flood­ing and oth­er freak weath­er pat­terns.

We know that cli­mate change is direct­ly caused by the burn­ing of fos­sil fuels (oil, coal and nat­ur­al gas) to pow­er our offices, heat our homes, and fuel our cars & planes. But tack­ling cli­mate change is not only about tak­ing the bus and switch­ing off lights. Every prod­uct that is pro­duced, trans­port­ed, bought, used and thrown away eats up ener­gy that we don’t have, and cre­ates pol­lu­tion that our cli­mate can’t han­dle. And if that prod­uct is made of plas­tic (and think how many are), then it’s lit­er­al­ly made of oil.

Us San­tas aren’t sug­gest­ing you don’t give your loved ones presents this year. But why not make one or two of them, trade with friends, or buy local­ly. Think about the prod­ucts you’re buy­ing – what they’re made of, where they came from, how they got from there to here…and whether they’re actu­al­ly going to make some­one any hap­pi­er.

—————–
Text of NHM leaflet:

WHAT LIES BENEATH SHELL’S WILD LIE?

Hel­lo and Mer­ry Christ­mas. We are San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion, and we’ve dropped into the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um on our way to Oxford Street, to sing a few car­ols and to remind muse­um-goers that exces­sive con­sump­tion of oil is caus­ing Lap­p­land – our home! — to melt.

Why is this rel­e­vant to the NHM? Because Shell, the world’s third largest oil com­pa­ny, is also the new spon­sor of the its Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year exhi­bi­tion.

Could you join the cam­paign oppos­ing this spon­sor­ship, write to the Muse­um or lend images to our ‘Shell’s Wild Lie’ counter-exhi­bi­tion?

Despite attempts to ‘greenwash’ its rep­u­ta­tion via blan­ket adver­tis­ing and cul­tur­al spon­sor­ship, Shell is still heav­i­ly impli­cat­ed in pro­duc­ing ever-greater quan­ti­ties of the oil and gas that are desta­bil­is­ing our cli­mate to such an alarm­ing degree. Cli­mate change is set to wipe out mil­lions of plant and ani­mal species and to dev­as­tate the poor­est regions of the plan­et. Shell’s activ­i­ties also result in oil spills which are major caus­es of death and destruc­tion for many vari­eties of life. Its planned refin­ery and pipeline project in Coun­try Mayo, Ire­land, threat­ens a pris­tine ecosysys­tem, not to men­tion the homes and liveli­hoods of the inhab­i­tants. Last­ly, Shell is cur­rent­ly con­struct­ing a mas­sive devel­op­ment at Sakhalin Island in Rus­sia which is threat­en­ing the sur­vival of the West­ern Pacif­ic Grey Whale. For all these rea­sons, Shell should not be spon­sor­ing the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year exhi­bi­tion. We call on the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um to end its spon­sor­ship deal with Shell.

Tell NHM boss Michael Dixon direct­ly what you think of Shell (not to men­tion BP, which is a Muse­um part­ner):
(020) 7942 5000; m.dixon@nhm.ac.uk, cc’ing to feedback@nhm.ac.uk & us.

…and get more involved in the Art Not Oil campaign/exhibition via Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, tak­ing cre­ative direct action on the root caus­es of cli­mate chaos

london@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk

Shell education in Barnsley

On Sat­ur­day 16th Decem­ber poten­tial cus­tomers at a Shell petrol sta­tion in Barns­ley were giv­en infor­ma­tion about the activ­i­ties of Shell in Mayo and encour­aged to boy­cott the com­pa­ny.

Barnsley Shell protest 1Barnsley Shell protest 2On Sat­ur­day 16th Decem­ber poten­tial cus­tomers at a Shell petrol sta­tion in Barns­ley were giv­en infor­ma­tion about the activ­i­ties of Shell in Mayo and encour­aged to boy­cott the com­pa­ny.

A group from Rhythms of Resis­tance North moved in on the petrol sta­tion mid-after­noon. The entrance and exit were blocked, ban­ners hung and leaflets giv­en to motorists and pedes­tri­ans with infor­ma­tion about the Mayo pipeline. Many peo­ple received the infor­ma­tion sym­pa­thet­i­cal­ly. One motorist returned from the near­est alter­na­tive source of petrol, two miles away, so peo­ple could be divert­ed to it.

Sev­er­al car dri­vers how­ev­er were very con­fronta­tion­al, dri­ving into sam­bis­tas and in one case forc­ing a play­er on to their car bon­net before brak­ing to cause her to fall off.
The first police to arrive read out var­i­ous threats, which couldn’t be heard above the drum beats. Even­tu­al­ly rein­force­ments arrived, adding to the chaos with a num­ber of vehi­cles of their own. For a while they held up the traf­fic so their pho­tog­ra­phers could get a bet­ter view.

When it came to the point of inevitable arrest for con­tin­u­ing the block­ade the sam­bis­tas decid­ed it would be more pro­duc­tive to move to the pave­ment and con­tin­ue draw­ing people’s atten­tion so they could be giv­en more infor­ma­tion. A fair pro­por­tion of car dri­vers chose not to enter the sta­tion even when the entrance was unblocked.

http://www.corribsos.com/

Dine’ Establish Blockade Near Proposed Power Plant Site

Decem­ber 14th 2006

Lucy A. Willie, right, stands at the pro­posed Desert Rock Pow­er Plant site out­side of Burn­ham on Wednes­day where she and sev­er­al friends and fam­i­ly stayed overnight to stop a con­trac­tor for Desert Rock Ener­gy Com­pa­ny from doing pre­lim­i­nary work.

Dine blockadeDecem­ber 14th 2006

Lucy A. Willie, right, stands at the pro­posed Desert Rock Pow­er Plant site out­side of Burn­ham on Wednes­day where she and sev­er­al friends and fam­i­ly stayed overnight to stop a con­trac­tor for Desert Rock Ener­gy Com­pa­ny from doing pre­lim­i­nary work.

Please send far and wide!!!!

URGENT Sup­port is request­ed from Dine Elders and Youth!

Sithe Glob­al & DPA are propos­ing to build the Desert Rock pow­er plant, a 1,500 MW Coal Fired plant in the Four Cor­ners area on the Nava­jo Reser­va­tion. This is an area already pol­lut­ed by 2 oth­er major coal pow­er plants. Local Nava­jo res­i­dence and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers oppose this project for many harm­ful rea­sons!! This Desert Rock pow­er plant is still in the envi­ron­men­tal review process and has NOT yet been per­mit­ted.

How­ev­er, Desert Rock com­pa­ny trucks have began mov­ing onto the back­yard of Alice Gilmore, an elder­ly nava­jo woman, and her fam­i­ly on wednes­day to begin drilling efforts. Desert Rock offi­cials and police have not shown any doc­u­ments or per­mits to the local res­i­dents stat­ing their pur­pose or per­mis­sion to be there. Dine sup­port­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have joined Alice and her fam­i­ly to block­ade the road. They are elder­ly women and youth, and they have been camped out on the road over night since Tues­day! Desert Rock trucks have repeat­ed­ly rushed them and have almost run-over peo­ple a num­ber of times as they attempt to get by. Desert Rock pow­er com­pa­ny is vio­lat­ing the lease rights of the local Nava­jo res­i­dences and is harass­ing elder­ly Nava­jo women and youth! This is an urgent time and sup­port is need­ed!!!

Please read on to find out how you can help! and Please pass this onto oth­ers! (press release and addi­tion­al arti­cle)

What they need:
— More Peo­ple Sup­port
— Fire wood
— $$
— Atten­tion!

how You can Help!

- More Peo­ple! More peo­ple are need­ed to sit in sup­port! All are wel­come!
direc­tions to the area are below:
The site is between Gallup, NM and Shiprock, NM (north­east­ern, NM). Take the road between Gallup and Shiprock, the 491. at the Mus­tang Ser­vice Sta­tion (one of the only ser­vice sta­tions between the two), turn East on road #5 towards Burn­ham Chap­ter. From Burn­ham Chap­ter turn North onto grav­el road #5082. About 10–12 miles up the road turn West until you see the encamp­ment. There will be mark­ers (bal­loons) out on the roads. (if you begin to see a dragline, you’ve gone too far)

- Fire wood! it is cold out­side and many of the resisters are elder­ly women. if you can get fire­wood to the site it is very very much need­ed! the direc­tions to the site are above.

- $ Mon­ey! Resisters are in need of mon­ey for gas and food, and also for bail mon­ey if nec­es­sary. Please send dona­tions to local res­i­dent and sup­port­er:
Elouise Brown
1015 Glade Lane 34
Farm­ing­ton, NM 87401
Elouise can also be reached at: thebrownmachine@hotmail.com

- ATTENTION! the more media and observers are present the least like­ly Desert Rock is like­ly to run peo­ple over or harass them. con­tact the media, tell them what is going on. Con­tact Nava­jo Author­i­ties, tell them you are extreme­ly con­cerned. Be a legal observ­er. Spread this Alert!

###

Con­tact the Fol­low­ing Author­i­ties! Tell them you have heard about Desert Rock­’s harass­ment of Nava­jo elders and youth. Tell them you are extreme­ly con­cerned! If enough peo­ple con­tact these offices they will know that the world is watch­ing.

Shiprock Police Depart­ment
phone: (505) 368‑1350
fax: (505) 368‑1293

Nava­jo Nation Pres­i­dent Joe Shirley’s Office
P.O. Box 9000 Win­dow Rock, Ari­zona, 86515
phone #: (928) 871- 6352

also: George Hard­een, Nava­jo Nation Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Office of the Pres­i­dent
Office #: 928–871-7000
Cell #: 928–380-7688
e‑mail: georgehardeen@opvp.org

Bureau of Indi­an Affairs (Gallup Office) they are con­duct­ing the Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment.
Har­ri­lene Yazzi, NEPA Coor­di­na­tor Bureau of Indi­an Affairs, Nava­jo Region­al Office
P.0. Box 1060 Gallup, New Mex­i­co 87305
Phone: 505–863-8314
Fax: 505–863-8324

Be a Legal Observ­er — get to the site and help record/witness what is hap­pen­ing

Send this Action Alert Far and Wide!

Thank you for your sup­port!!!

Enei Begaye
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
Black Mesa Water Coali­tion
408 E. Route 66, Suite #1
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
Office #: (928) 213‑9760
PRESS RELEASE
Wednes­day, Decem­ber 13, 2006

Con­tacts:
Sarah Jane White, Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee (505) 860‑6166
Dailan J. Long , Diné CARE, Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee (505) 801‑0713
Elouise Brown, Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee (505) 974‑6159
Lori Good­man, Diné CARE (970) 759‑1908

BURNHAM, SANOSTEE & NENANEZAH RESIDENTS BLOCKADE DESERT ROCK PROJECT

Burn­ham, NM –Burn­ham, Sanos­tee & Nenanezah Elders and cit­i­zens are brav­ing the cold to pro­tect the land from the encroach­ing Diné Pow­er Author­i­ty (DPA) and Sithe Glob­al LLC at the pro­posed Desert Rock site. Nava­jo res­i­dents con­front­ed the Diné Pow­er Authority/Sithe Glob­al on Tues­day after­noon after learn­ing of water drilling that had been occur­ring with­out the knowl­edge and noti­fi­ca­tion of local res­i­dents.

“I have said ‘No’ over and over again and you keep com­ing over!â€? Nenanezah elder Alice Gilmore exclaimed to Sithe/DPA employ­ees at the con­fronta­tion. For Gilmore, the issue is despi­ca­ble and uncalled for since she gave no con­sent to allow DPA/Sithe into her graz­ing area. Mem­bers of the Doo­dá Desert Rock com­mit­tee gath­ered to sup­port her oppo­si­tion and asked Sithe/DPA to dis­close Drilling per­mits that allowed drilling activ­i­ty to occur, to no avail. The res­i­dents refused to leave after the Nava­jo Nation Police attempt­ed to give access to DPA/Sithe Glob­al, claim­ing that per­mits for the Desert Rock project are not for pub­lic dis­clo­sure. The Burn­ham res­i­dents bar­ri­cad­ed the roads to dis­al­low traf­fic into the Desert Rock site and have remained in place since the Tues­day inci­dent occurred.

Mem­bers of Diné CARE/Doodá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee met this morn­ing at the Shiprock Cour­t­house to get answers about drilling per­mits yet the Lieu­tenant Dempsey denied access to Gilmore and oth­er con­cerned res­i­dents to view the per­mits. Res­i­dents are ask­ing for: 1.) A copy of the cat­e­gor­i­cal exclu­sion that is allow­ing the drilling activ­i­ties to com­mence. 2.) Copies of the Clean Water Act Sec­tions 401, 402 and 404, that would prove com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments have been met. There are major dis­tur­bance tak­ing place and accord­ing to the Clean Air Act, these per­mits are a pre-req­ui­site for drilling activ­i­ty.

The pro­posed area is home to extend­ed fam­i­lies, but arbi­trar­i­ly drawn polit­i­cal bound­aries by the Nava­jo Nation and com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives have the fam­i­lies sep­a­rat­ed into the three chap­ters: Burn­ham, Sanos­tee, and Nenah­nezad. The bound­ary defin­ing Burn­ham and Nenah­nezad has been moved south for ben­e­fit of DPA/Sithe as recent­ly as two years ago.

“The local res­i­dents are not pro­test­ers but are resisters. Who would be hap­py if a well is being dug in their back­yard espe­cial­ly when it is done in secre­cy? So, how can those res­i­dents be con­sid­ered pro­test­ers when they are sim­ply stand­ing up for their rights to have clean air, water, and environment.â€? Stat­ed, Elouise Brown of Sanos­tee.

Burn­ham, Sanos­tee and Nenanezah res­i­dents are not wait­ing for rem­e­dy; many have set up camp at the pro­posed site and are refus­ing to move until they get the need­ed doc­u­ments. “We’re fed up with them,â€? states Sarah J. White, Pres­i­dent of the Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee, “the grand­mas and the grand­pas are being walked over by these mon­sters and they’re being denied infor­ma­tion. We’re stand­ing our ground now.â€? This inci­dent fol­lows accu­sa­tions made against Sithe/DPA about envi­ron­men­tal injus­tices, EPA’s pro­posed issuance of pre­ven­tion of sig­nif­i­cant dete­ri­o­ra­tion (PSD) per­mit Air Qual­i­ty Per­mit for Desert Rock Ener­gy Facil­i­ty and the cre­ation of Nava­jo Nation Ener­gy Poli­cies with­out pub­lic input.
###

Lori Good­man
Dine’ CARE
10 A Town Plaza, PMB 138
Duran­go, CO 81301
PH: (970) 259‑0199
FAX: (970) 259‑2300
Cell: (970) 759‑1908
kiyaani@frontier.net
dinecare.org

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

Nava­jo tra­di­tion­al elders block­ade pow­er plant site

By Bren­da Nor­rell
U.N. OBSERVER & Inter­na­tion­al Report

BURNHAM, NEW MEXICO, USA – Elder­ly Nava­jo women and their chil­dren formed a block­ade, built a fire and camped at the site of a pro­posed pow­er plant on trib­al land in north­west New Mex­i­co. The block­ade of tra­di­tion­al Nava­jos halt­ed site work in a region that is already tox­ic with air and water pol­lu­tion from pow­er plants, oil and gas wells and
scat­tered radioac­tive tail­ings from the Cold War.

Fac­ing the threat of arrest by trib­al police at the block­ade, Nava­jo elder­ly, includ­ing one med­i­cine man, said they are will­ing to go to jail to pro­tect their land and way of life.

Most of the elder­ly are already ill from liv­ing in an area where pow­er plants have released 100 tons of coal com­bus­tion waste that is blow­ing in the wind. One of the Nava­jo elder­ly resisters is in a wheel­chair and anoth­er has severe asth­ma.

For the sec­ond night on Wednes­day night, Dec. 13, Nava­jo resisters camped in the cold at the site.

“I have said ‘No’ over and over again and you keep com­ing over!â€? said Nenanezah elder Alice Gilmore, who holds the graz­ing per­mit for the area of the pro­posed Desert Rock Pow­er Plant. The Nava­jo Nation and Sithe Glob­al LLC plan to build the pow­er plant, which would be the third pow­er plant in the Farmington/Bloomfield area.

Con­fronting Sithe and Nava­jo DPA employ­ees, Gilmore was adamant that she has not giv­en per­mis­sion for the pow­er plant on her land. Nava­jo elders from Burn­ham, Sanos­tee and Nenanezah chap­ter, all tak­ing a bold action to fight the trib­al gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate aggres­sion, joined Gilmore at the block­ade.

“We’re fed up with them,â€? said Sarah J. White, pres­i­dent of the Doo­dá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee. “The grand­mas and the grand­pas are being walked over by these mon­sters and they’re being denied infor­ma­tion. We’re stand­ing our ground now.â€?

White said Nava­jos at the bar­ri­cade need every­thing in the way of food, fire­wood and sup­plies.

“We need every­thing from A to Z,â€? White said.

The block­ade was formed just 10 days after Nava­jo Nation elect­ed lead­ers gath­ered with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 14 coun­tries and for­mu­lat­ed a glob­al ban on ura­ni­um min­ing on Native lands. The pow­er plant block­ade also comes as Nava­jo Nation lead­ers are fight­ing in the
fed­er­al Ninth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals to pro­tect San Fran­cis­co Peaks near Flagstaff, Ariz., from the des­e­cra­tion of snow­mak­ing from recy­cled waste­water for tourism. The moun­tain is sacred to 13 area Indi­an tribes.

How­ev­er, both Nava­jo Pres­i­dent Joe Shirley, Jr., and the Nava­jo Nation Coun­cil sup­port the con­struc­tion of the Desert Rock Pow­er Plant and accom­pa­ny­ing coalmine, which Nava­jos say would add more pol­lu­tion to the air, land and water, already sat­u­rat­ed with dis­ease-caus­ing tox­ins.

The Nava­jo Nation trib­al gov­ern­ment has attempt­ed to cen­sor the voic­es of Nava­jos speak­ing out against the Desert Rock pow­er plant in New Mex­i­co and the use of aquifer water for coal min­ing by Peabody Coal on the west­ern side of the Nava­jo Nation in Ari­zona.

The pro­posed site of the new Desert Rock pow­er plant is in the Four Cor­ners Region, tar­get­ed since the 1970s as a nation­al sac­ri­fice area for ener­gy pro­duc­tion.

It is also the sacred region of Dine­tah, the place of ori­gin of Nava­jos. How­ev­er, the air is so pol­lut­ed in the region of Dine­tah near Bloom­field that per­sons with asth­ma and res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases find it dif­fi­cult to breathe.

Fur­ther, Nava­jos say while they strug­gle with res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, can­cer and the death of their loved ones in this region, many Nava­jos must also haul water and live with­out elec­tric­i­ty, since the pow­er plants on Nava­jo land pri­mar­i­ly pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty for non-Indi­ans.

The Nava­jo block­ade comes as O’odham in Sono­ra, Mex­i­co, chal­lenge a secret plan by the gov­ern­ment of Mex­i­co, with the knowl­edge of the US EPA, to cre­ate a haz­ardous waste dump near the sacred site of Quito­vac where O’odham hold cer­e­monies. The Nava­jo block­ade coin­cides with an action by Pima on Gila Riv­er trib­al land in Ari­zona to halt expan­sion
of a haz­ardous dump­site.

At the same time, Yaqui in Sono­ra, Mex­i­co, gath­ered to pro­hib­it the use of banned pes­ti­cides in agri­cul­tur­al fields, now result­ing in can­cer and deaths.

At the pro­posed new Desert Rock pow­er plant site in New Mex­i­co, Nava­jo res­i­dents con­front­ed the Diné Pow­er Authority/Sithe Glob­al on Dec. 12, after dis­cov­er­ing that water drilling was car­ried out with­out the knowl­edge and noti­fi­ca­tion of local Nava­jo res­i­dents.

Mem­bers of the Doo­dá Desert Rock com­mit­tee gath­ered to sup­port Gilmore’s oppo­si­tion and asked Sithe/DPA to dis­close drilling per­mits that allowed drilling activ­i­ty to occur. How­ev­er, no per­mits were pro­vid­ed.

The res­i­dents refused to leave after the Nava­jo Nation Police attempt­ed to give access to DPA/Sithe Glob­al, claim­ing that per­mits for the Desert Rock project are not for pub­lic dis­clo­sure. The Burn­ham res­i­dents bar­ri­cad­ed the roads to dis­al­low traf­fic into the Desert Rock site and Nava­jos remained at the block­ade.

Mem­bers of Diné CARE/Doodá Desert Rock Com­mit­tee met Dec. 13, at the Shiprock trib­al cour­t­house to get answers about drilling per­mits. Nava­jo res­i­dents said a trib­al police lieu­tenant denied Gilmore and oth­er res­i­dents access to view the per­mits.

Nava­jo res­i­dents are ask­ing for a copy of the cat­e­gor­i­cal exclu­sion, which would allow the drilling activ­i­ties to com­mence, and copies of the Clean Water Act Sec­tions 401, 402 and 404, that would prove com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments have been met.

“There are major dis­tur­bance tak­ing place and accord­ing to the Clean Air Act, these per­mits are a pre-req­ui­site for drilling activity,â€? Nava­jo res­i­dents said in a pub­lic state­ment.

Fur­ther, Nava­jos say trib­al bound­ary lines were redrawn to accom­mo­date the pow­er plant cor­po­ra­tion.

The pro­posed area is home to extend­ed fam­i­lies, but arbi­trar­i­ly drawn polit­i­cal bound­aries by the Nava­jo Nation and com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives have the fam­i­lies sep­a­rat­ed into the three chap­ters: Burn­ham, Sanos­tee, and Nenah­nezad.

Nava­jo res­i­dents said the bound­ary defin­ing Burn­ham and Nenah­nezad was moved to the south for the ben­e­fit of DPA/Sithe with­in the past two years.

Elouise Brown of Sanos­tee said, “The local res­i­dents are not pro­test­ers but are resisters. Who would be hap­py if a well is being dug in their back­yard espe­cial­ly when it is done in secre­cy? So, how can those res­i­dents be con­sid­ered pro­test­ers when they are sim­ply stand­ing up for their rights to have clean air, water, and environment.â€?

Burn­ham, Sanos­tee and Nenanezah res­i­dents are not wait­ing for rem­e­dy; many have set up camp at the pro­posed site and are refus­ing to move until they get the need­ed doc­u­ments.

Nava­jos said this inci­dent fol­lows accu­sa­tions made against Sithe/DPA about envi­ron­men­tal injus­tices, EPA’s pro­posed issuance of pre­ven­tion of sig­nif­i­cant dete­ri­o­ra­tion (PSD) per­mit Air Qual­i­ty Per­mit for Desert Rock Ener­gy Facil­i­ty and the cre­ation of Nava­jo Nation Ener­gy Poli­cies with­out pub­lic input.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Nava­jo block­ade:
Lori Good­man
Dine’ CARE
PH: (970) 259‑0199
FAX: (970) 259‑2300
kiyaani@frontier.net
dinecare.org

Invitation:building support for action against climate change: 14th December, Manchester

What can we do to sup­port and encour­age rad­i­cal action against cli­mate chaos?

One of the fol­low-up meet­ings after the cli­mate camp focused on what we can best do to sup­port action tak­ing place on cli­mate change. There will be anoth­er in Man­ches­ter on Dec 14th.

What can we do to sup­port and encour­age rad­i­cal action against cli­mate chaos?

One of the fol­low-up meet­ings after the cli­mate camp focused on what we can best do to sup­port action tak­ing place on cli­mate change. There will be anoth­er in Man­ches­ter on Dec 14th.

We met at the North­ern Eco-Action gath­er­ing in Brad­ford on Novem­ber 11. At a pro­duc­tive and ener­gis­ing meet­ing, we came up with a list of con­crete sug­ges­tions, and a whole load more ques­tions to be answered. A report of
the meet­ing is attached.

We’ll be tak­ing these ques­tions for­ward at a fur­ther meet­ing, which will look at what we can best do to sup­port local actions and groups tak­ing rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change, con­sid­er how best to stay in touch and share skills and resources. Pro­pos­als from this meet­ing will be brought to the next gath­er­ing in Leeds in Jan­u­ary.

We’ll be meet­ing in Man­ches­ter on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 14, 11am-5pm. Bring food to share for lunch.
The venue is at Bridge‑5 Mill (oth­er­wise known as MER­Ci) — ful­ly acces­si­ble & close to Man­ches­ter Pic­cadil­ly train sta­tion, details at http://www.merci.org.uk/visiting-b5m.php

We will be putting peo­ple’s thoughts and respons­es online in the lead-up to the meet­ing. Two of these are below: one a report from a work­shop at the Earth­First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, one the reflec­tions of one of the par­tic­i­pants at the meet­ing in Brad­ford. If you have some­thing to con­tribute to the debate that you would like peo­ple to read before we
meet, please email it to actionsupport@climatecamp.org.uk and we’ll cir­cu­late it to those who are com­ing.

If you want to read any oth­er thoughts sent out before the meet­ing, or if you’re like­ly to arrive late or need some­where to stay, please email actionsupport@climatecamp.org.uk to let us know you’re com­ing.

“Sup­port­ing rad­i­cal action against cli­mate change across the coun­try

Report from meet­ing Sat­ur­day 11 Novem­ber, Brad­ford Resource Cen­tre
(Meet­ing to devel­op ways of sup­port­ing local cli­mate action groups and actions, how to stay in touch and how to share skills and resources. Plus co-ordi­nat­ed days of actions.)

We start­ed by look­ing at what we need in order for lots of actions to be tak­ing place.

Broad­ly speak­ing, they fell into two cat­e­gories. The more abstract:

- inspi­ra­tion
— buzz
— ener­gy
— (feel­ing of) a crit­i­cal mass tak­ing part in actions
— sense of urgency
— hope

and the more con­crete:

- peo­ple find­ing out about actions so they can get involved
— feel­ing of suc­cess (and pub­li­cis­ing our suc­cess­es)
— skills
— mon­ey
— infor­ma­tion resources
— feel­ing of dif­fer­ence from approach­es and tac­tics that haven’t worked in the past
— lessening/avoiding/ability to resist state oppres­sion
— strate­gic reflec­tion

We felt that the more con­crete needs would fol­low rel­a­tive­ly eas­i­ly if the first were met: peo­ple’s ener­gy and inspi­ra­tion would mean that mon­ey is raised, infor­ma­tion resources get researched and dis­trib­uted, etc..

We iden­ti­fied as the main cat­a­lyst to inspi­ra­tion and ener­gy was pos­i­tive reports of suc­cess from lots of actions tak­ing place. So, the ques­tion became: where is the best place to con­cen­trate our ener­gy and resources to influ­ence and estab­lish the pos­i­tive feed­back loop that would lead to an esca­la­tion of direct action tak­ing place?

As a pre­cur­sor to eval­u­at­ing this, we tried to list some of the more and less con­crete things that would be like­ly to have this input, some steps that could be tak­en. This list is not com­pre­hen­sive, but reflects the direc­tions our think­ing and dis­cus­sion took on the day.

Resource packs
— brief­in­gs
— tem­plate actions
— press releas­es
— poten­tial tar­gets
— legal brief­in­gs
— reports of suc­cess sto­ries
— leaflets
— stick­ers
— oth­er mer­chan­dise: beer mats, brand­ed con­doms, lol­lipops etc.
— dif­fer­ent modes of how local groups might organ­ise
— poten­tial­ly use­ful action tat (e.g. dinghies)

Skill­shar­ing

Secure means of com­mu­ni­cat­ing and net­work­ing

Con­ver­gence
— face-to-face meet­ings
— par­ties
— big actions
— treeplant­i­ng

Pub­li­cis­ing actions
— print media: ours
— EF! update
— schnews
— local newssheets
— print media: oth­ers’ (we pro­vide the sto­ries, they pub­lish)
— lib­er­al press (often keen for sto­ries, some­times sym­pa­thet­ic)
— more main­stream press
— cas­cad­ing, decen­tralised meth­ods, e.g.:
— word-of-mouth
— stick­ers
— graf­fi­ti
— email
— film show­ings
— web-based
— EF! action reports
— indy­media
— indy­media cli­mate
— ris­ing tide
— cli­mate camp
(also use of email and web for dis­tri­b­u­tion of paper-based media)

Ways in
— dis­tri­b­u­tion of newssheets
— dis­tri­b­u­tion lists
— peo­ple to help!
— friend­ship net­works
— local groups con­tacts — pub­li­cised (not nec­es­sar­i­ly a group: can be person(s) up for stiff if more want to get involved)
— pub­lic meet­ings and gath­er­ings
— pres­ence on demos, at con­fer­ences, fes­ti­vals
— big, adver­tised pub­lic actions
— stalls
— gate­way actions/groups
— road­show

Kick­start actions
— local
— big­ger

Iden­ti­ty
— net­work iden­ti­ty rather than move­ment iden­ti­ty
— het­ero­ge­neous mem­ber­ship
— exist­ing net­works
— indi­vid­u­als
— groups
— friend­ship groups

Note on local organ­is­ing (par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant for con­tacts and for resource packs)
All local groups are dif­fer­ent, and what works some­where might not be the best way of organ­is­ing in a dif­fer­ent area. There are lots of suc­cess­ful ways of organ­is­ing, includ­ing
— one ‘action group’ with a broad­ly con­sis­tent mem­ber­ship but chang­ing focus, per­haps doing actions under dif­fer­ent ban­ners
— dif­fer­ent groups with peo­ple who attend more than one as infor­mal links
— dif­fer­ent groups with a forum in which they come togeth­er
— there is no local group, but peo­ple occa­sion­al­ly come togeth­er to do stuff
We should­n’t be pre­scrip­tive: there are as many sorts of local organ­is­ing as there are local groups.

The way for­ward from here:
The main task ahead is to work out how we can best use our resources for the great­est effect. This goes both for which areas we pri­ori­tise, and how we can best tack­le each area. In look­ing at, say, web-based pub­lic­i­ty, we need to look at what it is we need to ful­fill our aims, eval­u­ate whether any of the exist­ing fora meet these aims, and if not, if it would be pos­si­ble to trans­form them into some­thing more use­ful for our pur­pos­es, and the like­ly effort involved in this (worth com­par­ing with, say, resources to set some­thing up from scratch.)”

“NOTES FROM EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Work­shop:
Build­ing a move­ment for cli­mate jus­tice beyond the Camp for Cli­mate Action

Most inter­est­ing is sec­tion 3 — HOW WOULD THE NETWORK BE ORGANISED?

1 WHAT SHOULD IT ACHIEVE?
* Dis­man­tle the fos­sil fuel indus­try (and there­fore Cap­i­tal­ism)
* Place CC at the cen­ter of social thinking/culture in wider soci­ety, not just us
* Pro­vide sup­port for each oth­er – know­ing that oth­ers are work­ing on the same issues
* Devel­op renew­able ener­gy, decen­tralised around the coun­try, local­ly run
* Devel­op and set up work­able alter­na­tives
* Aware­ness rais­ing and edu­ca­tion
* Work to reduce consumption/demand – also means reshap­ing how we think about eco­nom­ic growth/progress
* Focus on aviation/aviation as a new anti-roads move­ment?
* Focus on Nuclear be ready for nuclear new build with strong argu­ments and analy­sis

2 WHAT WOULD THE NETWORK DO/ HOW WOULD IT BE DIFFERENT?
* Direct action!
* Build­ing hous­ing co-op move­ment, urban/rural links to re-local­i­sa­tion
* Rad­i­cal analy­sis not piss­ing about
* Think long term re-local­i­sa­tiom (with­in the mov­ment also)
* Work­ing in com­mu­ni­ties allot­ments, res­i­dents groups.
* Works with NIMBY groups re aviation/nuclear.
* Links with major­i­ty world.
* Find weak points in sys­tem now increas­ing­ly info/communications rather than phys­i­cal spaces.

3 HOW WOULD THE NETWORK BE ORGANISED?
* Need a group/named net­work to feel part of, to feel belong­ing and sense of sup­port
* Set­ting up new net­work seems inef­fi­cient why not use whats already there Ris­ing Tide Net­work? has basic struc­ture in place, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and deci­sion mak­ing struc­tures, news-sheet, web-host­ing, etc., inter­na­tion­al ele­ment RT North Amer­i­ca, Aus­tralia, etc
* No time for lob­by­ing gov­ern­ment
* Use social cen­tres
* Gath­er­ings for deci­sions mak­ing
* Region­al­ly based sup­port for local indi­vid­u­als

4 WHAT NEXT?
* Recog­nise that peo­ple are moti­vat­ed to come togeth­er to work on a spe­cif­ic action or project, rather than form a group for the sake of a group
* So har­ness the ener­gy com­ing out of the camp by call­ing for every­one to take part in spe­cif­ic upcom­ing actions it is this that will kick-start local groups
* Oct 3–4 Day of Action coin­cid­ing with G8 Ener­gy and Envi­ro min­is­ters meet­ing in Mex­i­co (called by Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca) soon but maybe good because there will still be a buzz on after the camp
* Oct 21st Shell spon­sored Wildlife pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the year award RT is doing a tour of the coun­try with peo­ple from Shell affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties (eg. Ross­port, Nige­ria), along with an alter­na­tive exhi­bi­tion, in the run up to the award win­ner being announced on Oct 21st. RT will only be able to get to a few cities peo­ple who come to the the camp could be part of/expand this?
* Feb­ru­ary 2007 pos­si­ble Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Shell (called by Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty)

* Anoth­er camp? Maybe local camps are more sus­tain­able, so no big camp next year but lots of small region­al camps.

* Also recog­nised that some new local groups will need sup­port Ris­ing Tide might be able to help, or at least help link up peo­ple who need skills/training with peo­ple who could pro­vide this”

Iceland Camp Against Heavy Industry Starts July 6th

The cam­paign to defend Europe’s vastest remain­ing wilder­ness con­tin­ues. After the direct action camps in Ice­land in the sum­mers of 2005 and 2006 against the Karah­n­jukar dam and ALCOA’s alu­mini­um smelter, the Sav­ing Ice­land cam­paign moves on to bring indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Ice­land to a halt. A new camp in Ice­land will com­mence on July 6th 2007 (loca­tion to be announced lat­er). New plans for dams, pow­er plants, smelters and oth­er heavy indus­try need to be stopped. Tar­gets include cor­po­rates such as ALCOA, ALCAN, Cen­tu­ry Alu­mini­um, Bar­clays, Mott McDon­ald, Bech­tel, Rio Tin­to and BH Bil­li­ton. Ice­land, with it’s vast geot­her­mal and megahy­dro pos­si­bil­i­ties, is a new fron­tier for ener­gy crav­ing indus­tri­al moguls, in times of increas­ing ener­gy scarci­ty and inse­cu­ri­ty. Stop­ping indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion of the last unspoilt coun­try in the west would be a major strate­gic vic­to­ry for the green and anar­chist move­ment and a new incen­tive for a glob­al move­ment against indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and eco­cide. This includes the cam­paign against ALCOA and AluTrin­t’s plans for a smelter in Trinidad and oth­er direct action against dams and heavy indus­try.

The cam­paign to defend Europe’s vastest remain­ing wilder­ness con­tin­ues. After the direct action camps in Ice­land in the sum­mers of 2005 and 2006 against the Karah­n­jukar dam and ALCOA’s alu­mini­um smelter, the Sav­ing Ice­land cam­paign moves on to bring indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Ice­land to a halt. A new camp in Ice­land will com­mence on July 6th 2007 (loca­tion to be announced lat­er). New plans for dams, pow­er plants, smelters and oth­er heavy indus­try need to be stopped. Tar­gets include cor­po­rates such as ALCOA, ALCAN, Cen­tu­ry Alu­mini­um, Bar­clays, Mott McDon­ald, Bech­tel, Rio Tin­to and BH Bil­li­ton. Ice­land, with it’s vast geot­her­mal and megahy­dro pos­si­bil­i­ties, is a new fron­tier for ener­gy crav­ing indus­tri­al moguls, in times of increas­ing ener­gy scarci­ty and inse­cu­ri­ty. Stop­ping indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion of the last unspoilt coun­try in the west would be a major strate­gic vic­to­ry for the green and anar­chist move­ment and a new incen­tive for a glob­al move­ment against indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and eco­cide. This includes the cam­paign against ALCOA and AluTrin­t’s plans for a smelter in Trinidad and oth­er direct action against dams and heavy indus­try.

Climate chaos and aviation: giant issue — giant letter

5.12.2006

5.12.2006

Yes­ter­day cli­mate activists from South­west Cli­mate Action smart­ly stormed North Som­er­set Envi­ron­ment and Plan­ning Offices to protest against the planned expan­sion of Bris­tol Inter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The plan­ners were tak­en aback by the style of deliv­ery when pre­sent­ed with a giant let­ter, but as the pro­test­ers explained, cli­mate change is a giant issue.

They occu­pied the lob­by and some climbed onto the roof, claim­ing they were try­ing to escape the ris­ing sea lev­els that cli­mate change will bring. A near­by soundsys­tem played record­ed sounds of planes tak­ing off in order to bring home to the plan­ners the effects that their deci­sions could have upon peo­ple in the South­west.

In the lob­by pro­tes­tors had the full atten­tion of key peo­ple involved in mak­ing this deci­sion and togeth­er they flood­ed them with the argu­ments: moral, envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­i­cal, for why expan­sion must not hap­pen.

The plan­ners admit­ted to the pro­test­ers that they might have to rethink the entire approach to the nation­al pro­gram of expan­sions in the light of increas­ing news about cli­mate change. The recent­ly pub­lished Stern Report pre­dicts that cli­mate change will push the world econ­o­my into a depres­sion if we do not act now.

Coun­cil­lor John Crock­ford-Haw­ley, North Som­er­set Coun­cil Exec­u­tive Mem­ber for Strate­gic Plan­ning and Trans­port, also agreed with our state­ment that if expan­sion went ahead it would make a mock­ery of peo­ples indi­vid­ual efforts.

Stanst­ed air­port was refused plan­ning per­mis­sion for their expan­sion last week. The plan­ners said that the Stern report was a major fac­tor in their deci­sion. The gov­ern­ment plans to expand almost every air­port in the UK, tripling air traf­fic by 2030. But this would make it impos­si­ble to meet the tar­gets for emis­sions in order to avoid run­away cli­mate change.

The pro­test­ers urged peo­ple to oppose the expan­sion. Passer­by­ers thatt felt moved wrote their com­ments on post­cards which were hand­ed in at the end of the day. The dead­line for objec­tions is Dec 22nd, which is the last chance for peo­ple to have their say.

South­west Cli­mate Action are a group of indi­vid­u­als inspired by the cli­mate camp and the glob­al move­ments for cli­mate jus­tice. They have pledged that, if the expan­sion goes ahead, they will take direct action in order to stop it.

The sub­mit­ted let­ter:
Mon­day 4th Decem­ber 2006

Dear Plan­ners,

We are a group of indi­vid­u­als who are very alarmed by the pro­posed mas­ter plan to expand Bris­tol Inter­na­tion­al Air­port con­sid­er­ing con­sen­sus by cli­mate sci­en­tists that we need to take action now to avert cat­a­stroph­ic effects on humans and the ecosys­tems we are part of.

We need to pre­vent glob­al tem­per­a­tures from ris­ing by more than 2 degrees above pre-indus­tri­al lev­els: the point at which dan­ger­ous process­es caused by cli­mate change could spi­ral out of con­trol, such as the melt­ing of the West Antarc­tic and Green­land ice sheets, which could raise glob­al sea lev­els by 7m and West­on being flood­ed.

Avi­a­tion: Bris­tol Air­port already pumps out more emis­sions than the whole of Bris­tol’s traf­fic. If the air­port expan­sion go’s ahead it will be impos­si­ble for North Som­er­set to meet their tar­get of 60% cuts by 2050.

Local Econ­o­my: Tourists spend £11bn in the UK, while UK tourists spend £26 bil­lion abroad – a loss of £15bn to our econ­o­my. Region­al tourism is the sin­gle largest indus­try in the South West with 8% of all jobs; with expan­sion the tourism deficit is like­ly to dou­ble by 2030.

Fur­ther­more, the Stern report reach­es the sim­ple con­clu­sion: “the ben­e­fits of strong, ear­ly action on cli­mate change con­sid­er­ably out­weigh the costs.â€?

In light of this infor­ma­tion it is crit­i­cal that you ful­ly acknowl­edge this infor­ma­tion now.

Demand’s

Recog­nise that cli­mate change is a seri­ous glob­al threat, it demands an urgent response.

Recog­nise the glar­ing con­tra­dic­tion between the coun­cils stat­ed com­mit­ment, through the Not­ting­ham dec­la­ra­tion, to tack­le cli­mate change and the expan­sion of the air­port.

Recog­nise that if the air­port expan­sion goes ahead it will be to the detri­ment of the local and glob­al econ­o­my.

Acknowl­edge that the ‘Master Plan’ con­tains inac­cu­ra­cies and fails to deal with the issue of cli­mate change, and thus is irre­spon­si­ble.

Acknowl­edge that the peo­ple of the South West will stand by the coun­cil in the rejec­tion of this insane plan­ning appli­ca­tion. North Som­er­set coun­cil will not be alone in reject­ing the cur­rent wave of ill-con­ceived air­port expan­sions.
Uttles­ford Coun­cil Plan­ners have recent­ly turned down the expan­sion of Stanst­ed say­ing
“It would be pre­ma­ture to grant plan­ning per­mis­sion for the increased use of the run­way in advance of clar­i­fi­ca­tion by the Gov­ern­ment as to whether part of its response to the Stern Review and oth­er recent research will be to with­draw or amend its Air Trans­port White Paper.â€?
“Given new evi­dence, such as the Stern report it is uncer­tain whether the pol­i­cy of encour­ag­ing air­port growth is a rea­son­able basis on which to pro­ceed.
If the expan­sion is giv­en the go ahead, despite the acknowl­edge­ment of the above infor­ma­tion, then the coun­cil will be com­plic­it in the dev­as­ta­tion of lives, com­mu­ni­ties and habi­tats around the world, who will be hit by the impacts of cli­mate chaos.

It would be neg­li­gent for the coun­cil to allow the expan­sion, but if they do we will take sus­tained action to stop it, tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for our lives and our future.

Yours tru­ly,
South West Cli­mate Action

westsideclimateaction@gmail.com

EF! gathering advance notice: date & contact to get involved

The Earth First Gath­er­ing 2007 is well into the plan­ning stage.

Make space in your diary now: 18th — 22nd July 2007, some­where in Nor­folk. Please cir­cu­late this infor­ma­tion wide­ly.

If you want to get involved con­tact nexter@riseup.net.

The Earth First Gath­er­ing 2007 is well into the plan­ning stage.

Make space in your diary now: 18th — 22nd July 2007, some­where in Nor­folk. Please cir­cu­late this infor­ma­tion wide­ly.

If you want to get involved con­tact nexter@riseup.net.

Thanx
The Col­lec­tive.

The Camp for Climate Action was just the beginning! — next meeting January 13/14th, Leeds

Come and take the next steps for­ward and be part of a new­ly ener­gised move­ment in the fight to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.

Drax at sunsetCome and take the next steps for­ward and be part of a new­ly ener­gised move­ment in the fight to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.

In August of this year hun­dreds gath­ered near Sel­by to con­front the UK’s biggest CO2 emit­ter: Drax Coal Pow­er Sta­tion. The Camp for Cli­mate Action was an inspir­ing 10 days of learn­ing, sus­tain­able liv­ing and direct action to chal­lenge the caus­es of cli­mate chaos.

There is already much enthu­si­asm for organ­is­ing anoth­er Camp, come and get involved on 13th/14th Jan­u­ary at ‘The Com­mon Place’ in Leeds (see www.thecommonplace.org.uk for direc­tions). Meet­ings will run Sat­ur­day 11am-5pm and Sun­day 10am-6pm.

This project is still at its ear­ly stages and details such as when, where and how to organ­ise the next Camp are to be decid­ed at this meet­ing. Food and crash pad accom­mo­da­tion will be pro­vid­ed. Every­one will be asked for a dona­tion of around £10 to cov­er costs. If you have par­tic­u­lar access or child­care needs, or if would like more infor­ma­tion con­tact leeds@climatecamp.org.uk.

Please spread the news far and wide. You can down­load a rather nice poster here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/resources.htm

Some of the neigh­bour­hoods from last year’s camp are meet­ing in the mean­time to gen­er­ate ideas for the next camp and organ­ise local­ly.

Lon­don Neigh­bour­hood Meet­ing
Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre
Dec 2nd 1.00pm

York­shire Neigh­bour­hood Meet­ing
The Com­mon Place
Dec 6th 7.00–9.00pm

Man­ches­ter Neigh­bour­hood Meeting/Social
The Base­ment 24 Lever St, Man­ches­ter
4th Decem­ber 7:30 ( http://thebasement.clearerchannel.org/ for
direc­tions). Please email: mcragainstclimatechange@lists.riseup.net to con­firm

Local groups

Some of these are specif­i­cal­ly Cli­mate Camp, Ris­ing Tide or Plane Stu­pid groups, some are local groups involved in tak­ing direct action against cli­mate change that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly see them­selves as belong­ing to a nation­al group.

Not­ting­ham: nottingham[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Oxford: oxford[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Man­ches­ter: manchester[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Lon­don Ris­ing Tide: london[at]risingtide.org.uk
South Penines: potzo8[at] yahoo.com
South West: caromac20032000[at]yahoo.com
Leeds/Bradford: katieplum75[at]yahoo.co.uk
Scot­land and Ire­land: scotland[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Cam­bridge Action Net­work: cambridge[at]lists.riseup.net
Birm­ing­ham: flatline[at]aktivix.org
Read­ing: climatejustice[at]postmaster.co.uk
York Ris­ing Tide: yorks[at]risingtide.org.uk
Scot­land Ris­ing Tide: scotland[at]risingtide.org.uk
Lon­don Plane Stu­pid: london[at]planestupid.com
Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid: manchester[at]planestupid.com
Cam­bridge Plane Stu­pid: cambridge[at]planestupid.com
Oxford Plane Stu­pid: oxford[at]planestupid.com
Sheffield Plane Stu­pid: sheffield[at]planestupid.com
Sus­sex Plane Stu­pid: sussex[at]planestupid.com
Read­ing Plane Stu­pid: reading[at]planestupid.com

leeds@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

York Critical Mass — Short report and Images

1 Dec 2006

York Critical Mass December 1
York Critical Mass December 21 Dec 2006

York saw the suc­cess­ful restart to Crit­i­cal Mass­es con­tin­ue for anoth­er First Fri­day of the Month ride. The Decem­ber turn out had plen­ty of tin­sel and ‘Father Christ­mas’ hats around. In amongst over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port­ive motorists — often at first bemused, but then with smiles — the mass made a safe space to ride round York, tak­ing the roads for non-pol­lut­ing traf­fic.

Through the cen­tre of town the motor traf­fic was crawl­ing as slow­ly as ever, hold­ing the mass up. On the way out up Lee­man Road, a dis­tinct­ly cyclist unfriend­ly road, with lots of cen­tral islands and a bit of a motorists speed run, the mass made a com­fort­able pace. Two motorists did their bit to try and pass, one fail­ing ter­ri­bly and sad­ly the dri­ver held up a bus for a minute.

Near the end of the ride it was nice to see Fos­s­gate again tak­en over for non-motor traf­fic.

Critical Mass Bike Ride this Friday 1st December

Birm­ing­ham’s Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride meets this Fri­day 1st Decem­ber at 6.00pm out­side St. Phil’s Cathe­dral.

Critical Mass logo 11 (negative 9)Birm­ing­ham’s Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride meets this Fri­day 1st Decem­ber at 6.00pm out­side St. Phil’s Cathe­dral.

Last mon­th’s ride had a great turn out and saw rid­ers sport­ing all man­ner of flash­ing fairy and xmas tree lights for the themed ‘well lit’ ride, this looks set to become stan­dard appar­el for night time Crit­i­cal Mass­es! There are also plans for a sound sys­tem although on a slight­ly larg­er scale to last mon­th’s…