Category: Climate Chaos

Balcombe anti-fracking protests update days 25–39

Day 37 (Fri 30th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (10:30am): One pro­tec­tor arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing.

Update (9:30am): Police try­ing to force frack­ing truck through com­mu­ni­ty blokade.

 

Day 34 (Tues 26th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Day 37 (Fri 30th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (10:30am): One pro­tec­tor arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing.

Update (9:30am): Police try­ing to force frack­ing truck through com­mu­ni­ty blokade.

 

Day 34 (Tues 26th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (5:00pm): One pro­tec­tor arrest­ed today as police con­tin­ue to force frack­ing trucks through the block­ade for Cuadrilla.

Update (10:30am): First frack­ing truck of the day.

 

Day 28 (Wed 21st) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (3pm): All Pro­tec­tors who were in Craw­ley Mag­is­trates Court today have been giv­en bail con­di­tions that allow them to return to the camp.

Update (1pm): For­est camp evict­ed by police.

Update (12pm): Police are try­ing to ille­gal­ly evict (with­out a court order) the for­est camp (small­er camp in wood­land next to the Cuadrilla rig site, not main camp on grass verge) at Bal­combe. Come sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty!

 

Day 27 (Tue 20th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (10:40am): Anoth­er frack­ing truck being blocked.

Update (9:30am): Frack­ing truck forced through com­mu­ni­ty block­ade by police. One Pro­tec­tor arrest­ed.

 

Days 25/26 — the Reclaim the Pow­er block­ade and more updates/photos here

 

200 activists blocking coal train in the Rheinland

coalblockade

coalblockade

31/08/2013 Man­heim. Sec­ond Day of the Actions Days in the Rhineland Coal­field. Around 300 activists are occu­py­ing the coal train tracks which is the main way to trans­port coal between the open-cast coal mine “Ham­bach” to the big pow­er plants which emit 100 mil­lions tons of CO2 per year. The action is hap­pen­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Cli­mate and Reclaim the Fields Camp that is tak­ing place from August 23 to Sep­tem­ber 6, 2013 in the Rhineland coal­field.

„Already in the last two years, there have been actions like this. But this year, there are much more peo­ple who express their legit­i­mate protest in this way. It is peo­ple from the most var­ied back­grounds and regions of the world. This clear­ly shows: Cli­mate change affects us all. And: A change of the exist­ing con­di­tions of exploita­tion and destruc­tion is only pos­si­ble with deter­mined and joined grass-root actions”, says one of the activists.

„The impacts of lig­nite burn­ing is not a local issue – first, because of the con­se­quences of glob­al warm­ing but also because of the far-reach­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion of par­ti­cle mat­ter. Depend­ing on the weath­er con­di­tions, the par­ti­cle mat­ter of RWEs pow­er sta­tions can go down any­where in Europe and can cause grave health prob­lems.”

„Some peo­ple crit­i­cize the resis­tance actions against lig­nite min­ing because they are in con­flict with the law. How­ev­er, if the exist­ing law pro­tects indus­tries which destroy the future of this plan­et, then the law is the prob­lem. Not the peo­ple who vio­late it“. This is how one of the activists explains why she is there and why she thinks this action is legit­i­mate..

28 Days Later: Please spread far and wide

Cuadzilla Balcome Rolling Blockade Red Version

Cuadzilla Balcome Rolling Blockade Red Version

A Rolling Block­ade of the Bal­combe frack­ing site, 1st Sep­tem­ber – 28th Sep­tem­ber

Frack­ing com­pa­ny Cuadrilla’s gov­ern­men­tal licence to drill in Bal­combe ends on Sep­tem­ber 28th. The gov­ern­ment may be allow­ing them to drill but they have no social licence from the peo­ple of Bal­combe to frack their land and threat­en their water sup­ply.  Nei­ther do they have any man­date to begin an entire wave of frack­ing across the coun­try. The vast major­i­ty of peo­ple in the UK want clean­er, green­er ener­gy.
After the upsurge of cli­mate activism at Reclaim the Pow­er in August, let’s make these last 28 days count. Let’s halt their work at Bal­combe, and also send a strong mes­sage to those want­i­ng to frack else­where.

A block­ade has been on-going at the drilling site, but trucks have still been get­ting through. Now it’s time to up the ante.

We invite groups from around the coun­try to come and play a part in a 28 day rolling block­ade.

Think cre­ative­ly and act respon­si­bly. Pick a week­day before Sep­tem­ber 28, gath­er friends and use­ful kit get your­selves to Bal­combe.

Frack­ing is stop­pable, anoth­er world is pos­si­ble.

* Peo­ple are remind­ed that this is a peace­ful block­ade and that the Bal­combe camp is alco­hol-free.

* For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­tact 28dayslater.balcombe@gmail.com

* Fol­low us on Twit­ter (@28_dayslater) and like us on Face­book (https://www.facebook.com/28dayslaterrollingblockade)

Coal company and police try to prohibit climat camp

Cli­mat Camp near Cologne, Ger­many start­ing tomorow got prob­lems with the camp site. 

Cli­mat Camp near Cologne, Ger­many start­ing tomorow got prob­lems with the camp site. 
The admin­is­tra­tion action of cli­mate-camp-orga­niz­ers at the admin­is­tra­tive court in cologne against the restric­tions against the cli­mate/rtf-camp by the dis­trict police got reject­ed. The dis­trict police had approved the legal reg­is­tra­tion of the camp, but for­bade “infra­struc­ture in terms of accom­mo­da­tion and food ser­vices” to be estab­lished. the dis­trict police had filed an appli­ca­tion for rejec­tion against our admin­is­tra­tive action with some out­ra­geous claims.

That these con­di­tions are now con­firmed by the admin­is­tra­tive court, is a blow against our basic right to free­dom of assem­bly. Pre­vi­ous­ly, the city of Ker­pen announced that in the event of reg­is­tra­tion as an event also high require­ments would be imposed, such as pro­fes­sion­al secu­ri­ty ser­vice, even though it had only been at Pen­te­cost that there was a Catholic youth camp with around 200 par­tic­i­pants in Man­heim, a with­out such require­ments. Sim­i­lar­ly, the city of Ker­pen for­bade the use of the san­i­tary facil­i­ties of a sports field to which the camp par­tic­i­pants had easy access in recent years.

Like that the cli­mate camp should be banned by the back door, so as to avoid unpleas­ant crit­i­cal pub­lic­i­ty at Ham­bach. “We believe that RWE has put pres­sure on the city and police because they do not like the camp,” says Clau­dia Hen­ry of the prepara­to­ry group, “but the stones that are placed in our way, just show how thick the sleaze between ener­gy com­pa­nys and local insti­tu­tions is. ”

At the moment, the peo­ple that are build­ing up the camp are put under mas­sive pres­sure to take the tents down again!

But the fight against cli­mate change and for our liveli­hood can’t be for­bid­den. The orga­niz­ers of the camps will not be intim­i­dat­ed by admin­is­tra­tive bar­ri­ers and police harass­ment and will do every­thing so that all the camps can take place. Spread the news, stay up to date, sol­i­darise your­self and come around.

http://www.ausgeco2hlt.de/klimacamp/en/camp-2013–2/

Activists Boat onto Sludge Pond; Confront politician on Dangers of Coal Sludge

21 August 2013 – This morn­ing at 7:30 a.m. two activists pad­dled out onto the 2.8 bil­lion gal­lon Shu­mate slur­ry impound­ment in Raleigh Coun­ty with ban­ners read­ing, “Slur­ry Poi­sons Appalachia” and “Gov.

21 August 2013 – This morn­ing at 7:30 a.m. two activists pad­dled out onto the 2.8 bil­lion gal­lon Shu­mate slur­ry impound­ment in Raleigh Coun­ty with ban­ners read­ing, “Slur­ry Poi­sons Appalachia” and “Gov. Tomblin, Put Health Over Prof­it.”  Lat­er this morn­ing, one activist locked him­self to a bar­rel of black water in front of Gov. Tomblin’s man­sion in a Tyvek suit read­ing “Locked to Dirty Water”.   Activists are call­ing atten­tion to the fail­ure of the state gov­ern­ment to pro­tect its cit­i­zens from the abus­es of the coal indus­try and the threats posed by coal slur­ry dis­pos­al.

 

“I grew up in Eunice drink­ing water poi­soned by coal slur­ry, went to Marsh Fork Ele­men­tary under that dam, breathed the dust from that prep plant, and I’ve suf­fered the life­long health con­se­quences of that.  These same abus­es are tak­ing place today across our great state, and the blame for that lies square­ly at the feet of Gov. Tomblin,” said Junior Walk of Rock Creek, W.Va. who attend­ed today’s protest at the Governor’s man­sion.

Coal slur­ry, the tox­ic byprod­uct of “wash­ing” impu­ri­ties out of coal before it is sold, has long been a mat­ter of deep con­cern for area res­i­dents.  Its com­mon dis­pos­al meth­ods have cre­at­ed trag­ic dis­as­ters such as poi­son­ing the pub­lic water sup­plies of Prenter and Eunice, W.Va., and slur­ry floods in Mar­tin Coun­ty, Ky., and Buf­fa­lo Creek, W.Va..  Despite this, evi­dence mounts that West Vir­ginia reg­u­la­tors con­tin­ue to fail at ade­quate­ly reg­u­lat­ing impound­ments.

Just this year, two Office of Sur­face Min­ing (OSM) inves­ti­ga­tions found seri­ous prob­lems with the WV Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Protection’s (DEP) over­sight, both in pre­vent­ing impound­ments from break­ing through into under­ground mines and ensur­ing prop­er com­paction, a key mea­sure of impounde­ment safe­ty.  The com­paction report revealed that over 75 per­cent of tests of coal slur­ry impound­ments in West Vir­ginia failed.  In Feb­ru­ary, the U.S. Depart­ment of Labor asked a fed­er­al judge to order the imme­di­ate shut­down of an impound­ment in Bar­bour Coun­ty that had not been cer­ti­fied by an engi­neer for two years, because mine oper­a­tors were “flout­ing fed­er­al law, ignor­ing vio­la­tions and fines, and putting the pub­lic at risk.” WVDEP had the abil­i­ty to shut down this impound­ment, but it didn’t until weeks after the Dept. of Labor took action.

DEP’s finances reveal its pri­or­i­ties.  Dur­ing its 2011 study of the water and health cri­sis in Prenter, W.Va., the DEP spent over 6 times as much mon­ey hir­ing a pri­vate law firm to sue EPA on behalf of the coal indus­try as it spent on that study.  Mean­while, Dr. Yorem Eck­stein of Kent State Uni­ver­si­ty con­firmed long held com­mu­ni­ty sus­pi­cions that the well water in Prenter had been con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with coal slur­ry based on years of water qual­i­ty data.  Despite this evi­dence and exten­sive­ly doc­u­ment­ed health prob­lems includ­ing high inci­dence of brain tumors, DEP’s study on Prenter’s water released last year con­clud­ed that water was uncon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.

“Our politi­cians and reg­u­la­tors say that it’s safe to dump slur­ry in our com­mu­ni­ties, but they don’t want it on their doorstep.  Gov. Tomblin could order to coal indus­try to install fil­ter press­es that would elim­i­nate slur­ry while cre­at­ing jobs for less than a dol­lar a ton,” said Chuck Nel­son, retired UWMA coal min­er of Glen Daniel, W.Va.  “That’s the way it also goes.  Our Gov­er­nor puts the inter­ests of the coal indus­try above the health of our com­mu­ni­ties.”

There is mount­ing evi­dence that coal’s impacts on West Vir­ginia go far beyond coal slur­ry.  New stud­ies con­tin­ue to doc­u­ment the dam­age to com­mu­ni­ty health and water qual­i­ty from out of con­trol min­ing, but Gov. Tomblin con­tin­ues to blind­ly defend the indus­try.  Gov. Tomblin has not only ignored the evi­dence of the coal industry’s impacts on the health of West Vir­ginia com­mu­ni­ties, he has also reject­ed calls for alter­na­tive eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in the face of a declin­ing coal indus­try.  Cen­tral Appalachia is in the midst of a steep decline as pre­dict­ed by many indus­try ana­lysts.

“I was scared on the impound­ment, but I am more ter­ri­fied of the coal industry’s con­tin­ued dis­re­gard for human life and land. After tak­ing all of the coal, Alpha will aban­don Appalachia in order to find oth­er resources and com­mu­ni­ties to extract,” said Ric­ki Drap­er, one of the two activists that boat­ed onto the sludge impound­ment.

How we Reclaimed the Power! — summary report of actions and before

A short sto­ry of No Dash for Gas, Reclaim the Pow­er and how peo­ple from across the coun­try stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Bal­combe to oppose Cuadrilla and the dash for gas…

A short sto­ry of No Dash for Gas, Reclaim the Pow­er and how peo­ple from across the coun­try stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Bal­combe to oppose Cuadrilla and the dash for gas…

It all began last year, when 21 activists occu­pied and shut down EDF’s gas fired pow­er sta­tion in West Bur­ton for over a week. It was time to stop the ‘Dash for Gas’ which would smash our cli­mate tar­gets and push up ener­gy prices…

  1. http://reclaimthepower.org.uk.gridhosted.co.uk” style=“max-width: 16px” />
    Grid­host­ed
    ·

    The Great Gas Gala! | Com­muntiy Pro­tec­tion Col­lec­tive

    The Great Gas Gala! Since 7am on Thurs­day (25th July) the com­mu­ni­ty in Bal­combe, Sus­sex has been resist­ing attempts by frack­ing com­pa­ny…
    http://greatgasgala.org.uk” style=“max-width: 16px” />
    Great­gas­gala
     

    And then, when we heard that Cuadrilla were explor­ing the poten­tial of frack­ing in Bal­combe and the local com­mu­ni­ty’s resis­tance, we changed the loca­tion of our ‘Reclaim the Pow­er’ action camp…

    action camp to switch loca­tion from West Bur­ton … — No Dash for Gas

    Aug 6, 2013 … The coali­tion of cli­mate, anti-aus­ter­i­ty and fuel pover­ty activists who were plan­ning on return­ing to West Bur­ton pow­er…
    http://www.nodashforgas.org.uk” style=“max-width: 16px” />
    Nodash­for­gas
  2. reclaimthe­p­ow­er
     
    Huge num­bers of peo­ple signed up to our face­book event and told us they were com­ing. Even Rus­sell Brand was with us in spir­it!
     
    On Fri­day, we arrived in beau­ti­ful sun­ny Bal­combe, with mem­bers of a whole host of cam­paigns includ­ing UK Uncut, UK Tar Sands Net­work, Occu­py Lon­don, Dis­abled Peo­ple Against the Cuts and No Dash for Gas all join­ing the camp.
     
    Reclaim The Pow­er has arrived in Bal­combe | Come and join us!
     
    We joined the March for a Frack Free Future with two thou­sand pro­test­ers from across the coun­try…
     
  3. …and those from the local com­mu­ni­ty who’d been resist­ing Cuadrilla for weeks!
    August 19 2013: Bal­combe Sol­i­dar­i­ty Sun­day anti-frack­ing protest
     
    Local cam­paign­ers Vanes­sa Vine, Charles Met­calfe and Car­o­line Lucas MP were joined by speak­ers from No Dash For Gas and Occu­py Chevron in Poland to head­line a thun­der­ous ral­ly of oppo­si­tion.

 

The pro­test­ers then formed a human cir­cle around the site, join­ing hands, chant­i­ng and singing, while Cuadrilla’s work­ers looked on from inside their razor-wire fence.

  1. On Mon­day morn­ing, our Day of Action began!
     

  2. 6 activists block­ad­ed the entrance to Bell Pot­tinger’s offices in Lon­don, Cuadrilla’s “spin-doc­tors”. They are respon­si­ble for a whole host of pro-frack­ing lies and spin which we have thor­ough­ly debunked over the past 6 days.

    Cuadrilla’s PR com­pa­ny Bell Pot­tinger shut down by activists from Reclaim the Pow­er

    …then we heard from a group of 20 activists who occu­pied Cuadrilla’s HQ in Lich­field, just out­side Birm­ing­ham. They set up camp out­side the build­ing while three activists went inside, shut down 8 work sta­tions and took over a floor of the office!

  3.  
     
  4. Activists lock them­selves to fur­ni­ture inside Cuadrilla’s HQ
    …mean­while, a third action was tak­ing place at the con­stituen­cy office of pro-frack­ing min­is­ter, Fran­cis Maude MP. Tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from Lib­er­ate Tate, a wind tur­bine blade was deliv­ered to the roof of his office…
     
  5. Wind tur­bine out­side office of Fran­cis Maude MP
     
    …and with a rather love­ly mes­sage for Mr. Maude to read on his return!
     
  6. Note left out­side office of Fran­cis Maude MP
     
    Back at the drill site in Bal­combe, var­i­ous groups set up a range of orig­i­nal and cre­ative block­ades at the gate, involv­ing bikes, singers and dancers and lock­ing on to a wheel chair… 
     
  7. Block­ade out­side Cuadrilla frack­ing site in Bal­combe

    Sad­ly, the police decid­ed to be heavy-hand­ed in response to our peace­ful protest…

  8. Pro­test­ers block­ade Cuadrilla frack site in Bal­combe, West Sus­sex

     

    Else­where in Lon­don, 6 peo­ple had gone to Lord How­ell’s town house for our next action and set up a ‘For Shale’ sign there. George Osborne’s father-in-law is eager to spread frack­ing across the UK, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the ‘des­o­late north east’! Our activists from New­cas­tle might have oth­er ideas…

  9. Frack­ing lob­by­ist Lord How­ell’s house is for shale!
  10. Frack­ing lob­by­ist Lord How­ell’s house: for shale!

     

    Back in Bal­combe, the police decid­ed to start arrest­ing peace­ful pro­test­ers stag­ing a sit-in at the gate to the Cuadrillia site. Green MP, Car­o­line Lucas, was among those arrest­ed…

Back at the camp, the chil­dren at Reclaim the Pow­er (we were a gath­er­ing of all ages!) went on a bus ride to Bal­combe vil­lage to speak to local peo­ple about the dan­gers of frack­ing to every­one’s future. 
  1. Frack Free Future bus on tour!

     

    Word had spread to our friends and sup­port­ers world­wide about our day of action which had tak­en on Cuadrilla and the dash for gas from all sides!

    Then, only hours after being released, Car­o­line Lucas was field­ing inter­views, media work and back fight­ing frack­ing!

    And then, on Tuues­day, as we began mak­ing plans for the future…

    So as we pack down our camp today, it’s not the end! As Ewa from No Dash For Gas put it, ‘this is a marathon, not a sprint’ and we will win the fight against frack­ing…

Above from here

Good video

March for a Frack-Free Future

18th August 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18th August 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peo­ple came from all over the UK to protest against frack­ing, and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the vil­lagers of Bal­combe and the road-side protest camp who’ve been ‘Lock­ing the Gate’ for three weeks now.  Police have been increas­ing­ly harass­ing camp res­i­dents, arrest­ing seem­ing­ly at ran­dom times pick­ing peo­ple off as they come out of the toi­let or are eat­ing lunch, and putting severe pres­sure on the rig-side for­est camp.  Mean­while the Reclaim the Pow­er camp had land­ed in a field about a 30 minute walk away, and has been build­ing up to the action days this com­ing week. 

Well over a thou­sand peo­ple marched — the first wave left Reclaim the Pow­er, passed through the orig­i­nal protest camp and made it’s way up to the sta­tion.  No soon­er than a line of yel­low came into view ahead through the trees lin­ing the road, a cheer rose and peo­ple at the sta­tion came stream­ing down.  The police with­drew from between the crowds — fear­ing a Blake­lock Sand­wich — and took up posi­tion at what had been our rear, and now was the front.  We slow­ly marched down, to the beat of a band of drum­mers, a sam­ba band, and sound sys­tems, down to the gate, where along with the lines of police from var­i­ous forces, peo­ple lis­tened to speech­es by com­mu­ni­ties fight­ing the frack­ing threat and pub­lic fig­ures there in sol­i­dar­i­ty. 

Pic­tures

Local ‘democ­ra­cy’ (AKA cor­rup­tion) of Bal­combe parish coun­cil — Pri­vate Eye

Balcombe anti-fracking protests update days 21–24

Peo­ple slow­ing trucks down, police forc­ing them through, some arrests and over­ly restric­tive bail con­di­tions on those already nicked lift­ed…

Peo­ple slow­ing trucks down, police forc­ing them through, some arrests and over­ly restric­tive bail con­di­tions on those already nicked lift­ed…

Details with pho­tos: Day 21 | Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24

work stopped at Hastings-Bexhill Link Road

11th August 2013

11th August 2013

The Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing has just fin­ished.  This year in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Coombe Haven Defend­ers, it was in a beau­ti­ful spot close by to the Hast­ings-Bex­hill Link Road, the scene of big protests and camps to try to stop the road ear­li­er in the year. 

Each day there were Coombe Haven Defend­ers talks and walks, most­ly inspir­ing ‘acci­den­tal’ inva­sions of the road work site, engag­ing in a bit of dig­ger-div­ing or ‘foot­path enforce­ment’, in oth­er words stop­ping con­struc­tion vehi­cles. 

The road is of ‘low val­ue’ even by the gov­ern­men­t’s stan­dards, cam­paign­ers worked out a week ago.  There was a Cam­paign for Bet­ter Trans­port work­shop about the Roads to Nowhere nation­al road pro­pos­als (full map and more).

Balcombe update days 18 — 19 & 20

Day 18

Day 18 (Sun 11th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex
See The Great Gas Gala Web­site for upcom­ing events and how to get involved.

Day 18

Day 18 (Sun 11th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex
See The Great Gas Gala Web­site for upcom­ing events and how to get involved.

Update (2pm): Day 18 of the com­mu­ni­ty frack­ing block­ade in Bal­combe. Huge num­bers of peo­ple com­ing down to the site to sup­port the block­ade and sing togeth­er.

P1050596

Day 19

Update (4pm): 2 arrests today. High­light of day was home­made piz­za brought down to feed peo­ple at lunch time!

Update (11am): 2nd truck of day took 40mins to get onto site. Come down and help pro­tect Sus­sex.

Update (9:10am): One woman arrest­ed while pro­tect­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing.

Update (9am): Day 19 of the com­mu­ni­ty frack­ing block­ade in Bal­combe. Renewed efforts by Cuadrilla to force frack­ing trucks through the block­ade. Come lend your sup­port!

Day 20

Update (11am): Police have forced 3 frack­ing trucks through the block­ade today

Update (10am): Today the block­ade in Bal­combe goes Dutch. A con­tin­gent of peo­ple from the Nether­lands is on their way to sup­port the fight against frack­ing. They are expect­ed to arrive around 3pm. Arch-frack­ers, Cuadrilla Resources, are also active in the Nether­lands.

Update (9am): Day 20 of the com­mu­ni­ty frack­ing block­ade in Bal­combe. Renewed efforts by Cuadrilla to force frack­ing trucks through the block­ade. Come lend your sup­port!