Category: Climate Chaos

The Great Gas Gala – Day 5 In Pictures

29 July 2013

Update (11:00pm): Day 6! of the block­ade tomor­row. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty tomor­row.

29 July 2013

Update (11:00pm): Day 6! of the block­ade tomor­row. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty tomor­row.

Update (3:30pm): Block­ade grow­ing, as is size of police escorts for frack­ing trucks. Come to Bal­combe and lend your sup­port!

Update (3:30pm): 3 more peo­ple arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing. Come sup­port Bal­combe!

Update (2:30pm): 4 arrests so far at the com­mu­ni­ty block­ade today. Come down and sup­port the fight against frack­ing!

Update (2:05pm): 8 months preg­nant local moth­er shoved out of way by police. Shame!

Update (2:00pm): Large police pres­ence and get­ting more hos­tile. Come sup­port the comm­ni­ty

Update (1:00pm): Police try­ing to push trucks through the block­ade again

Update (1:00pm): Trucks brought to a halt for the moment. Police dis­cussing what to do. Come on down!

Update (10:30am): One per­son arrest­ed at com­mu­ni­ty frack­ing block­ade in Bal­combe. Come and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty in the fight against frack­ing.

Update (10:15am): Trucks back­ing up in vil­lage. Wait­ing to try and break the block­ade. Come down now!

Update (10:00am): Police try­ing to escort truck through com­mu­ni­ty frack­ing block­ade. Come sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty fight­ing frack­ing in Sus­sex!

Update (9:55am): Police mass­ing to try to break through the com­mu­ni­ty block­ade. Come down if you can!

Update (9:40am): Trucks expect­ed to start arriv­ing soon. Come on down!

Update (8:00am): No trucks so far. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty in the fight against frack­ing!

Update (7:00pm): Police begin arriv­ing for day. 30 peo­ple stayed at the camp overnight. Comes down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty.

Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade Hold­ing Back Truck In Bal­combe

Police Escort For Frack­ing Truck At Bal­combe Block­ade

Size Of Police Escort For Frack­ing Trucks Has Been Dou­bled

Peo­ple Sit In Road Block­ing Frack­ing Truck From Enter­ing Cuadrilla’s Site

Peo­ple Link Arms To Defend Bal­combe From Frack­ing

Block­ing Frack­ing Truck Out­side Cuadrilla’s Site In Bal­combe

8 Months Preg­nant Local Moth­er Being Shoved By Police

Preg­nant Local Moth­er Being Com­fort­ed After Police Attack

Peo­ple Rush Out To Defend Bal­combe From Anoth­er Frack­ing Truck

Com­mu­ni­ty Blocks Truck From Enter­ing Frack­ing Site

Police Try­ing To Break The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade In Bal­combe

Police With­draw To Wait For The Next Frack­ing Truck To Arrive

Large Num­bers Of The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade In Bal­combe

Local Moth­er At The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade In Bal­combe

Large Police Pres­ence At Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

A Quick Break For Lunch At The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade In Bal­combe

Anoth­er Local Bal­combe Fam­i­ly Joins The Block­ade

Police Try­ing To Force Anoth­er Truck Through The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Camp At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Camp At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Camp At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Camp Well Sup­plied With Bis­cuits Due To Gen­er­ous Dona­tions

Fam­i­lies At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Com­mu­ni­ty Dis­tressed As Cuadrilla Tries To Force Frack­ing On Bal­combe

Truck Out Of Resident’s Bed­room Win­dow This Morn­ing In Bal­combe

Police Attempt­ing To Break Through Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Police Mass­ing To Attempt To Break Through Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Dam­age To New­ly Resur­faced Road Out Frack­ing Site Due To Trucks

All Qui­et On The West Sus­sex Front

 

No Names, No Frack Drill.

Day 5 of Bal­combe vil­lage’s strug­gle against Frack Attack (Update)

Update — Day 5 — Mon­day 29th July

Day 5 of Bal­combe vil­lage’s strug­gle against Frack Attack (Update)

Update — Day 5 — Mon­day 29th July

After a rel­a­tive­ly qui­et day on Sun­day, today Mon­day, saw many vehi­cles arriv­ing on site. Each deliv­ery was met with heavy resis­tance. A heav­i­ly preg­nant woman attempt­ed to stop one of the trucks but was forced away as things got dodgy and dan­ger­ous. At the same time a man was arrest­ed and bru­tal­ly wres­tled to the ground with a sus­pect­ed bro­ken arm.

For the rest of the after­noon more deliv­er­ies reg­u­lar­ly turned up but only got through with police march­ing in front of each HGV and clash­ing with pro­test­ers attempt­ing to stop them. A lat­er deliv­ery of office fur­ni­ture saw a sit-down protest that result­ed in a more sig­nif­i­cant delay and yet anoth­er arrest.

Per­haps as a sign of the strug­gle ahead the police have installed a mobile office on site and a casu­al con­ver­sa­tion with one cop made it obvi­ous that the police think they are there for the long haul. Some pro­test­ers thought it might pay to also set up a solic­i­tor’s office and branch of Infin­i­ty Foods along­side.

Last Week

After Thurs­day’s suc­cess­ful stand ‑off, Fri­day saw nine­ty police deployed to force the first of Cuadrilla’s trucks through the human bar­ri­cades in front of the site gates. As pro­tes­tors linked arms the cops began to make the first arrests.

Alto­geth­er six­teen arrests were made – using a sec­tion of the Trade Union and Labour Rela­tions Act 1992 , which was leg­is­la­tion first brought in to tar­get fly­ing pick­ets dur­ing indus­tri­al dis­putes. Two more were arrest­ed on Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Obvi­ous­ly Cuadrilla have now man­aged to start get­ting trucks in – but they’re on a tight sched­ule with their drilling licence over by Octo­ber. Alleged­ly they were sup­posed to get drilling today (Sat­ur­day) but that’s been put back until Mon­day already. Accord­ing to Anna Dark, a com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive “They need to get forty days of drilling done before the end of their licence, they’ve lost a day already – we can stop this!”

Cuadrilla’s plan­ning per­mis­sion only allows for vehi­cle move­ments at cer­tain times – they were sup­posed to stop at 1 pm today. Sus­sex cops start­ed off claim­ing that there was an exten­sion but backed down in the face of irate vil­lagers demands to see the paper­work.

Unde­terred by the show of repres­sion a large protest camp has sprung up along the verge and with 90% of Bal­combe vil­lage res­i­dents say­ing they’re in favour of direct action this one could run and run.

SchNEWS has heard that there will be no truck move­ments tomor­row but there will be trans­port head­ing from Brighton up to the drilling site – leav­ing at 9 a.m from out­side RBS on the Old Steine

For con­tin­u­ous updates and how to get involved http://frack-off.org.uk

or phone 07858 614861/07 944 087 421

http://www.schnews.org.uk/stories/No-Names,-No-Frack-Drill/

Myanmar Activist Jailed 10 years For Anti-Mine Protest

Security forces move in to stop protesters plowing fields near the copper mine at Letpadaung Mountain in northern Burma's Sagaing division on April 25, 2013.28 July 2013 A court in cen­tral Myan­mar has s

Security forces move in to stop protesters plowing fields near the copper mine at Letpadaung Mountain in northern Burma's Sagaing division on April 25, 2013.28 July 2013 A court in cen­tral Myan­mar has sen­tenced an activist to a decade in prison for “threat­en­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty” after he led a protest against a con­tro­ver­sial Chi­na-backed cop­per mine which led to clash­es with author­i­ties, accord­ing to a fel­low cam­paign­er.

Judge Kaythi Hlaing of the Shwe­bo city court hand­ed Aung Soe, an activist with Myanmar’s People’s Sup­port Net­work, the 10-year sen­tence on Mon­day after con­vict­ing him on eight charges linked to the vio­lence on April 25, Moe Moe, also of the activist’s group, told RFA’s Myan­mar Ser­vice.   

The group had backed hun­dreds of farm­ers protest­ing the alleged seizure of their land by Wan Bao Com­pa­ny, which runs the cop­per mine near Mount Let­padaung in north­ern Burma’s Sagaing divi­sion.

The clash­es broke out after secu­ri­ty forces moved in to stop the farm­ers from plow­ing their fields on the con­test­ed land. At least ten protest­ing farm­ers were injured, some of them report­ed­ly with gun­shot wounds, while 15 police­men were also wound­ed.

Aung Soe “was sen­tenced under eight charges, includ­ing for threat­en­ing reli­gious puri­ty and nation­al secu­ri­ty, and for ille­gal assem­bly,” Moe Moe said Tues­day.

“He was sen­tenced at the Shwe­bo court by the judge, Daw Kaythi Hlaing,” he said, using an hon­orif­ic title.

Two res­i­dents of Setae vil­lage, near the Let­padaung cop­per mine, named Soe Thu and Maung San, were also sen­tenced for “vio­lat­ing orders” and “incit­ing riots,” Moe Moe added.

He did not say how long the two vil­lagers were sen­tenced to prison.

Moe Moe said that Aung Soe’s lawyer will appeal his con­vic­tion.

Sus­pend­ed oper­a­tions

An inquiry com­mis­sion in Myan­mar ruled in March that the cop­per mine should be allowed to con­tin­ue despite wide­spread objec­tions.

But near­ly four months lat­er, oper­a­tions at the facil­i­ty remain sus­pend­ed with protest­ing vil­lagers refus­ing to accept com­pen­sa­tion offers.

Oper­a­tions at the mine have been sus­pend­ed since Novem­ber, when a bru­tal crack­down on protests against the mine prompt­ed the gov­ern­ment to set up the com­mis­sion to look into the project’s via­bil­i­ty.

The com­mis­sion rec­om­mend­ed that the project should be allowed to move ahead despite con­ced­ing that it brought only “slight” ben­e­fits to the nation.

Since then, vil­lagers who are most­ly farm­ers have staged reg­u­lar protest against the mine, com­plain­ing that the com­pen­sa­tion was not enough and call­ing for a com­plete halt to the project.

Some 15 protesters—both local res­i­dents and activists from Yangon—are want­ed by the author­i­ties over demon­stra­tions against the mine in recent months.

Vil­lagers have said that they do not want pol­lu­tion from the mine to destroy the area and that author­i­ties have con­fis­cat­ed some 8,000 acres (3,000 hectares) of farm­land from 26 vil­lages to make way for the mine.

Hundreds Protest Nickel Mine In Russia, Previous Clashes Resulted in Torched Equipment

28 July 2013 VORONEZH — Hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­ered in a small town in Voronezh region on Sun­day for a new protest in their year-lon

28 July 2013 VORONEZH — Hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­ered in a small town in Voronezh region on Sun­day for a new protest in their year-long cam­paign against plans to open a nick­el and cop­per mine in the area, police offi­cials said.

The demon­stra­tion was orga­nized by the local anti-mine move­ment and res­i­dents of Novokhop­er­sk who called for halt­ing the min­ing project. The ral­ly orga­niz­ers said that about 3,000 peo­ple took part in the demon­stra­tion, includ­ing those from neigh­bor­ing provinces, while the police put the num­ber at 900.

It is the first mass gath­er­ing of the cam­paign­ers after the 13-month stand­off explod­ed last month with a crowd of sev­er­al hun­dred storm­ing the premis­es of a geo­log­i­cal explo­ration par­ty and torch­ing cars, con­struc­tion trail­ers and drilling rigs.

The min­er, pri­vate­ly owned Ural Min­ing and Met­al­lur­gi­cal Com­pa­ny (UMMC), has denied that its mine would harm the envi­ron­ment.

Portland Activists Blockade Columbia River in Symbolic Protest Against Fossil Fuel Shipments

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28th July 2013

581681_555938907803540_1813073730_n

28th July 2013

In a day-long affair involv­ing hun­dreds of activists, the Port­land Ris­ing Tide and 350.org col­lab­o­ra­tion, Sum­mer Heat, went off yes­ter­day with­out a hitch.

Activists con­gre­gat­ed in the morn­ing at the Van­cou­ver Land­ing in Van­cou­ver, Wash­ing­ton, where the port author­i­ties recent­ly OKed a ter­mi­nal to ship hun­dreds of thou­sands of bar­rels of oil car­ried on trains from the Bakken Shale. 

521686_555937994470298_835309442_nHost­ing info ses­sions about free trade agree­ments, direct action, and infra­struc­ture resis­tance, the event car­ried a fes­tive air into the ear­ly after­noon. By 3pm, around 250 activists in more than 100 boats took to the riv­er for a sym­bol­ic block­ade and massed under the Colum­bia Bridge.

More activists gath­ered on the bridge, and three climbers repelled down with a long, trans­par­ent ban­ner that read, “Coal, Oil, Gas: None Shall Pass.”

“It went as well as I thought it could have,” stat­ed one Ris­ing Tide activist to EF! News. Although the FBI had been snoop­ing around in the weeks pri­or to the event, the crowd that came out to the protest showed that they will not be intim­i­dat­ed.

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Police pres­ence was rel­a­tive­ly min­i­mal at the protest com­pared to oth­er Ris­ing Tide and Occu­py actions that have occurred. Nobody was arrest­ed, and the mes­sage was sent: Expect Resis­tance.

Sum­mer Heat was only a high point in what has been a long, hard, and in many ways suc­cess­ful strug­gle, which has seen three three pro­posed coal ter­mi­nals shut down so far.  Today, Port­land Ris­ing Tide looks invig­o­rat­ed, con­fi­dent, and more ded­i­cat­ed than ever to the mis­sion of stop­ping cli­mate change.

 

The Great Gas Gala – Day 4 In Pictures

28 July 2013

28 July 2013

Update (11:30pm): 80 peo­ple stay­ing at the camp tonight. Come down tomor­row bright and ear­ly to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty against the frack­ing threat.

Update (7:00pm): Green and Black Cross ‘Know Your Rights’ work­shop at camp now. If you’re can’t attend, do your home­work here: http://greatgasgala.org.uk/know-your-rights/

Update (2:50pm): Cops throw­ing their weight around. Try­ing to force peo­ple t move a cou­ple of feet for no par­tic­u­lar rea­son, but noth­ing major.

Update (2:00pm): Block­ade con­tin­u­ing to grow. About 80 peo­ple now. Locals bring down food to feed every­one

Update (12:45pm): Today the camp is most­ly build­ing show­ers & a toi­let – relaxed & enjoy­ing the sun

Update (12:00pm): Com­mu­ni­ty block­ade still going strong. Camp grow­ing with 30 peo­ple stay­ing overnight and more stream­ing in now. Check of the camp wish list if you are com­ing down.

Camp At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Fam­i­ly At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Camp At The Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe

Bal­combe Res­i­dent Read­ing Sun­day Papers At The Camp

Anti-Frack­ing Scare­crow Doing Its Job In Bal­combe

 

Rebel Clowns Target Fracking in Scotland

Clown Pyramids say NO to Fracking27 July 2013 Yes­ter­day morn­ing a hoard of clowns descend­ed on the gov­ern­ment Direc­torate for Plan­ning and Envi­ron­men­tal Affairs to deliv­er a spe­cial anti-frack­ing mes­sage to the pow­ers that be.

Clown Pyramids say NO to Fracking27 July 2013 Yes­ter­day morn­ing a hoard of clowns descend­ed on the gov­ern­ment Direc­torate for Plan­ning and Envi­ron­men­tal Affairs to deliv­er a spe­cial anti-frack­ing mes­sage to the pow­ers that be.

Frack your own back garden
Frack your own back gar­den

Dirty Dangerous Disastor
Dirty Dan­ger­ous Dis­as­tor

At 8.30am yes­ter­day morn­ing, anti-frack­ing activists gath­ered for a clown­ing action at the Direc­torate for Plan­ning and Envi­ron­men­tal Affairs (DPEA) in Falkirk. Dressed in colour­ful clown cos­tumes a group of 17 activists mocked the dan­gers of frack­ing with ridicu­lous play. Clowns burst in to the car park with music, ban­ners and a frack­ing tow­er as bemused work­ers looked on. Games con­tin­ued to the to town cen­tre to raise aware­ness among the pub­lic.

A spokesper­son for the actions said “we are here today to high­light the absur­di­ty of going down yet anoth­er route of non-renew­able ener­gy that is a short term and dan­ger­ous solu­tion to a long term energy/carbon prob­lem with it’s own set of poten­tial­ly dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences.

“Despite mount­ing evi­dence of the dan­gers of frack­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing local water sup­plies releas­ing high car­bon methane gas and risk of cat­a­stroph­ic explo­sions, the gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to giv­ing frack­ing mul­ti-nation­als the green light, plac­ing prof­it over local oppo­si­tion and the poten­tial for envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion.

“We are here to show those mak­ing the deci­sion about DART Energy’s appli­ca­tion to frack in the Falkirk and oth­er areas, that oppo­si­tion to these irre­spon­si­ble oper­a­tions is mount­ing. We are here in sup­port of local oppo­si­tion to the plans and ongo­ing inter­na­tion­al oppo­si­tion to frack­ing else­where.” (1)

The DPEA was tar­get­ed as clown inves­ti­ga­tions uncov­ered evi­dence that the deci­sion on what hap­pens next with the frack­ing plans in Scotland’s cen­tral belt will be tak­en there by gov­ern­ment civ­il servants(2). This fol­lows DART Energy’s appeal to the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment when Falkirk and Stir­ling coun­cils failed to make the deci­sion due to resis­tance from local com­mu­ni­ties, and a lack of cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion on health and envi­ron­men­tal concerns(3).

The action hap­pened amid grow­ing con­cerns over both the West­min­ster and Holy­rood gov­ern­ments’ cur­rent favour­ing of short sight­ed, lucra­tive non-renew­able ener­gy plans, despite their alleged com­mit­ments to cut­ting car­bon and pur­su­ing renew­able ener­gy resources. Last week George Osbourne announced tax breaks for frack­ing firms oper­at­ing with­in the UK (of 50% more than oth­er ener­gy companies(4). This break was cham­pi­oned by Lyn­ton Cros­by, the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty Chief Strate­gist and the man respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing shale gas frack­ing in Aus­tralia. Cros­by’s PR firm “Cros­by Tex­tor” also rep­re­sents the Aus­tralian Petro­le­um Explo­ration Asso­ci­a­tion, of which DART is a sub­sidiary.

This action was organ­ised by Reclaim the Fields and con­ti­nu­ity fac­tions of the Clan­des­tine Insur­gent Rebel Clown Army. Anti-frack­i­li­cious!

NOTES

1. http://frack-off.org.uk/

2. http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/cgc/pnas2011.pdf

3. http://www.dpea.scotland.gov.uk/CaseDetails.aspx?id=qA355856

4.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/19/david-cameron-fracking-lynton-crosby

All-Night Anti-Shale Gas Truck Seizure, Road Block, Ends Peacefully Despite RCMP Negotiation Failure

Last night, July 27th,

Last night, July 27th, about 35 anti-shale gas activists block­ad­ed a 20 ton truck, sub­con­tract­ed to SWN Resources Cana­da, for over 8 hours. The truck, filled with heli­copter bags – each con­tain­ing dozens of geo­phones – was attempt­ing to exit south­ward along Irv­ing Road, a back road west of high­way 126 in New Brunswick. The truck, as well as eight oth­er equip­ment trucks sub­con­tract­ed to SWN, were con­duct­ing seis­mic test­ing in the hopes of find­ing shale gas deposits along a 35.9 kilo­me­ter north-south line known as ‘Line 5′. All the equip­ment and work­ers were halt­ed until about 3:30am Atlantic Time.

Activists had orig­i­nal­ly nego­ti­at­ed with RCMP for a 3 hour work stop­page, in homage to the Ghost Dance that the Sun­dancers in Elsi­pog­tog were under­tak­ing yes­ter­day evening. Elsi­pog­tog War Chief John Levi, him­self a Sun­dancer, was absent from the block­ade. In his stead, Jason Okay, Dis­trict War Chief, and ‘Sev­en’, the Mi’kmaq ter­ri­to­ry War Chief, had come to the assis­tance of the anti-shale gas move­ment.

The 3 hour work stop­page was meant to occur at the end of the work­day. It would appear that RCMP had agreed to this tem­po­rary block.

How­ev­er, when the 20 ton truck was first blocked at about 5pm – in front of an already heavy police pres­ence – the RCMP imme­di­ate­ly blocked in the activists who sur­round­ed the truck. At the time there were about 35 activists at the scene, and word began to trick­le in to those encamped that an RCMP road­block at the entrance to Irv­ing Road – about 16 kilo­me­ters to the south – was not allow­ing any­one to pass. This was appar­ent­ly counter to the orig­i­nal agree­ment, and began what was to be a stand­off that con­tin­ued until the ear­ly morn­ing hours.

RCMP and the ‘Elsi­pog­tog Peace­keep­ers’ – a group of three indi­vid­u­als on Elsi­pog­tog Band pay­roll who osten­si­bly serve as a neu­tral par­ty – did not seem able or desirous of undo­ing the police road­block that was refus­ing all entry. The activists requests were ini­tial­ly straight­for­ward, only ask­ing that any­one wish­ing to attend their cer­e­mo­ny be allowed to dri­ve the 16 kilo­me­ter dis­tance. The activists also specif­i­cal­ly request­ed a drum leader and a pipe car­ri­er to assist them. Social media sources con­tin­ued to note that a siz­able line of cars was still being refused entry.

Ten­sions fur­ther increased at about 7:30pm when Annie Clair, also known as ‘Pocha­hon­tas’ to the anti-shale gas activists, climbed atop the roof of the seized truck and chained and pad­locked her­self to a spare tire mount­ing weld­ed to the roof. She was quick­ly joined by two oth­er activists, one of whom also chained her­self to the roof while the oth­er locked her­self to a heli­copter bag filled with geo-phones.

Clair, who only days before had tied her­self to heli­copter bags and had halt­ed work at a heli­copter launch­ing site, was defi­ant in her mes­sage to the gath­ered police force, not­ing that if they were going to shoot her, to go ahead.

 

RCMP and the Peace­keep­ers again con­tin­ued to ‘nego­ti­ate’, but did not seem able to relay the mes­sage to the RCMP block­ade that the first step towards resolv­ing the stand­off was to allow traf­fic to flow freely. Activists, for their part, remained adamant that the 3 hours they were promised for cer­e­mo­ny would only begin once the RCMP block­ade was removed and their sup­port­ers could join them. As the hours of stand­off con­tin­ued, and food and water were denied to the activists, RCMP marched in for­ma­tion through the block­ade with numer­ous box­es of piz­za and cas­es of water.

 Even­tu­al­ly, one of the Elsi­pog­tog Elders – also a clan moth­er – begged Clair to unchain her­self and descend from the truck roof. With social media now reach­ing some­thing of a fren­zied pitch – and sto­ries of dozens of police cruis­ers and pad­dy wag­ons wait­ing for the activists, Clair com­plied. Indeed, the activists were now vis­i­bly blocked in by numer­ous police trucks and cruis­ers. Infrared lights shone from some of the RCMP cars and a large spot­light was erect­ed shin­ing direct­ly onto the activists’ makeshift encamp­ment.

 

RCMP nego­tia­tors not­ed that they would not arrest any­one that night, but made no guar­an­tees that future days might not see activists picked off one by one in house arrests. As has been the case since ear­ly June when active protests began against shale gas explo­ration in Kent Coun­ty, yes­ter­day police made no secret of their heavy sur­veil­lance of the action. At 3:30am, as activists moved their trucks and cars off the road, it became clear that an entire SWN work crew had been stopped. With a heavy police escort, eight SWN trucks emerged from a side road and quick­ly sped past the gath­ered crowd. With no equip­ment or SWN work­ers left to guard, the RCMP quick­ly left the scene as well.

 

The Great Gas Gala – Day 3 In Pictures

27 July 2013

Update (4:30pm): Com­mu­ni­ty block­ade now has a pool table. Relaxed atmos­phere now Cau­drilla have been stopped for rest of the day. Join us!

27 July 2013

Update (4:30pm): Com­mu­ni­ty block­ade now has a pool table. Relaxed atmos­phere now Cau­drilla have been stopped for rest of the day. Join us!

Update (3:10pm): Com­mu­ni­ty block­ade still grow­ing with about 200 peo­ple. Police have announced that because of com­mu­ni­ty con­cerns there will be no more deliv­er­ies today! Seems like Cuadrilla have been break­ing con­di­tions of their plan­ning per­mis­sion with the vehi­cle deliv­ery times. Don’t hold your breath for any­one to be arrest­ed and tor­tured over that though.

Update (1:40pm): About 100 peo­ple at the com­mu­ni­ty block­ade. Large num­bers of police in wedge for­ma­tions being used to try to push frack­ing trucks through com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance. Police heli­copter over­head.

Update (1:20pm): West Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil High­ways called to patch up road dam­age caused by the few trucks that have already made it onto site.

Update (1:00pm): Large num­bers of police being used to force through Cuadrilla’s frack­ing trucks against will of com­mu­ni­ty. Come lend your sup­port if you can!

Update (12:40pm): Police try­ing to get anoth­er truck through. The com­mu­ni­ty is resist­ing. Come sup­port them if you can!

Update (12:00pm): Sec­ond arrest of the day! Do come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty if you can!

Update (11:55am): Anoth­er truck is being stopped by the com­mu­ni­ty block­ade

Update (11:15am): Num­bers build­ing at the camp and the weath­er is good. Do come down and join if you can!

Update (10:00am): Rein­force­ments arrive on the bus from Brighton but more need­ed. Come on down!

Update (9:45am): One Sus­sex res­i­dent arrest­ed after sit­ting in front of truck.

Update (9:35am): Road closed and police try­ing to escort truck through com­mu­ni­ty block­ade. Get down to help if you can!

Update (8:55am): Police num­bers increas­ing. Get down to help if you can!

Update (8:45am): Truck turned away from frack­ing site! Come down and join the block­ade!

Update (8:00am): Sus­sex res­i­dents block­ing site entrance again! Come down if you can!

Update (7:30am): Camp still going strong. Come on down!

Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade At Bal­combe Now Has A Pool Table

Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade At Bal­combe Still Grow­ing

Coun­cil Work­ers Patch Road Dam­age After Just a Few Frack­ing Trucks Have Gone In

Large Num­bers Of Police Being Used Force Frack­ing Trucks Through Com­mu­ni­ty Resis­tance

Police Guard Truck Load Of Frack­ing Chem­i­cals

Com­mu­ni­ty Blocks Frack­ing Truck From Enter­ing Site

Police Try To Escort Anoth­er Truck Through The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Police Try To Escort Anoth­er Truck Through The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Anoth­er Truck Blocked At Site Entrance

Num­bers Build­ing At The Camp And Weath­er Is Good

Kitchen At The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade In Bal­combe

Tox­ic Cuadrilla Scare­crow At The Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Bus Load Of Peo­ple From Brighton Arrive To Help Their Neigh­bours

Police Attempt To Escort Truck Through Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade

Five Police Vans Arrive At Frack­ing Site

Attempts To Halt Deliv­er­ies To Frack­ing Site Con­tin­u­ing

 

Hundreds Halt Fracking Operations in Susex

In the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing, anti-frack­ing activists and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in Bal­combe, Sus­sex, UK, suc­cess­ful­ly halt­ed the first day of explo­rations for a new shale gas devel­op­ment by famed (infa­mous, rather) frack­ing com­pa­ny Cuadrilla. Over 250 peo­ple unit­ed in a pow­er­ful, peace­ful, joy­ful block­ade—that even­tu­al­ly con­vinced the trucks con­tain­ing the ini­tial frack­ing equip­ment to aban­don the site.

This is com­mu­ni­ty pow­er at its best. Cam­paign­ers in Bal­combe, just like those in front­line com­mu­ni­ties around the world (in the U.S., Indone­sia, Argenti­na and else­where) had been call­ing atten­tion to the dan­gers of frack­ing for over a year. This week, when Cuadrilla’s license for explo­ration and devel­op­ment was approved, activists quick­ly mobi­lized to orga­nize a Great Gas Gala, invit­ing peo­ple in Sus­sex and neigh­bor­ing areas to con­verge on Bal­combe and oppose Cuadrilla’s efforts.

Yesterday’s protests are set in the con­text of a recent announce­ment by the UK gov­ern­ment propos­ing a 50 per­cent tax cut for com­pa­nies involved in shale gas extrac­tion, the most gen­er­ous tax regime for frack­ing in the whole world. The pro­pos­al is very much in line with the dread­ed “dash for gas” that Chan­cel­lor George Osborne announced at last year’s unveil­ing of the bud­get.

It is in oppo­si­tion to these efforts that groups like Frack Off, No Dash for Gas and many of our part­ners and allies around the coun­try, are mobi­liz­ing pub­lic aware­ness and oppo­si­tion, in a gen­uine effort to shift the pow­er in our ener­gy sys­tems and put our com­mu­ni­ties and their peo­ple back in charge. The Glob­al Pow­er Shift UK team will be work­ing in the upcom­ing months on help­ing build that large, inclu­sive movement—one that rep­re­sents com­mu­ni­ty inter­ests, lever­ages our diver­si­ty and builds on our shared vision of a peo­ple-pow­ered future that solves the cli­mate cri­sis once and for all.

The fight in Bal­combe is not over yet. Yesterday’s explorato­ry frack­ing attempt was the clos­est to Lon­don to date, where a lot of the finance for these oper­a­tions comes from and where the tan­gled webs of pow­er and influ­ence are care­ful­ly thread­ed between con­sent­ing politi­cians and short-term prof­it ori­ent­ed fos­sil fuel cor­po­rate exec­u­tives. Impuni­ty for them and their cli­mate-wreck­ing efforts? No longer. Real resis­tance is brew­ing in their back­yard.