Category: Climate Chaos

Plane Stupid activists on Heathrow runway in climate protest

13th July 2015

12 cli­mate change activists from anti air­port expan­sion direct action group, Plane Stu­pid, got onto the north run­way at 03:30am this morn­ing at Heathrow Air­port by cut­ting through a fence, in a peace­ful protest against pro­pos­als to build a new run­way.

The pro­test­ers say that going ahead with the recent Air­ports Com­mis­sion rec­om­men­da­tion that a third run­way should be built at Heathrow will make it impos­si­ble for the UK to meet its cli­mate change tar­gets.

The skies above Heathrow are already the busiest in the world, and demand for flights is dri­ven by air fares that are kept arti­fi­cial­ly low by gen­er­ous tax exemp­tions. The activists say that if the avi­a­tion indus­try paid more of its envi­ron­men­tal costs then there would be no press­ing need for a new run­way. Nine of the top ten most pop­u­lar routes out of Heathrow are short haul, includ­ing des­ti­na­tions such as Paris, Man­ches­ter and Edin­burgh which all have exist­ing rail alter­na­tives.

Ella Gilbert, an activist from Plane Stu­pid who is on the run­way, said:

“Build­ing more run­ways goes against every­thing we’re being told by sci­en­tists and experts on cli­mate change. This would mas­sive­ly increase car­bon emis­sions exact­ly when we need to mas­sive­ly reduce them, that’s why we’re here.We want to say sor­ry to any­one whose day we’ve ruined, and we’re not say­ing that every­body who wants to fly is a bad per­son. It’s those who fly fre­quent­ly and unnec­es­sar­i­ly who are dri­ving the need for expan­sion, and we can­not keep ignor­ing the ter­ri­fy­ing con­se­quences of fly­ing like there’s no tomor­row.

No ifs, no buts, no third run­way. And we mean it.”

Updates — https://twitter.com/planestupid

Roundup of Actions Against Fossil Fuel Infrastructure in Vermont and NY (PHOTOS)

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July 7th, 2015

from Ris­ing Tide Ver­mont

* 150+ w/dozens occu­py­ing the tracks in Ticon­dero­ga to ‪#‎StopOil­Trains‬.
* Four arrest­ed blockad­ing VT fracked gas pipeline con­struc­tion.
* TWAC still locked down to CNG truck on way to IP mill.

Disrupting Vermont Gas Systems

from Burling­ton Free Press

About 30 pro­test­ers dis­rupt­ed work at a Ver­mont Gas Sys­tems con­struc­tion site in Willis­ton on Tues­day morn­ing.

Four pro­test­ers were arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion that they unlaw­ful­ly tres­passed to stop work at the con­struc­tion site, said Willis­ton police Chief Todd Shep­ard. Willis­ton police had giv­en pro­test­ers until 7 a.m. to move.

Ver­mont State Police, Essex police and South Burling­ton police were also on scene. Shep­ard said about 14 law enforce­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives had arrived by the end of the protest.

Thomas Buck­ley, 34, of West­ford and Martha Water­man, 25, of Char­lotte chained them­selves togeth­er across a ditch dig­ging machine. Avery Pittman, 25, of Burling­ton was lat­er also chained to Water­man.

Buck­ley, Water­man and Pittman were tak­en into cus­tody before 9 a.m. Grayson Flo­ry, 28, of Los Ange­les was also arrest­ed after refus­ing to leave the site at 310 Hur­ri­cane Lane.

All pro­test­ers arrest­ed were car­ried from the site by law enforce­ment, but they did not active­ly resist arrest oth­er­wise, Shep­ard said.

Each pro­test­er has been released from police cus­tody and issued a cita­tion to appear on Thurs­day in Ver­mont Supe­ri­or Court in Burling­ton, Shep­ard said.

Occupation of the Tracks


 

Flotilla

from Ris­ing Tide Ver­mont: More than a hun­dred peo­ple con­verged in Ticon­dero­ga, NY today for a flotil­la and sym­bol­ic block­ade to ‪#StopOil­Trains.

Yes­ter­day marked the sec­ond anniver­sary of the Lac-Megan­tic oil train dis­as­ter, in which a train car­ry­ing fracked oil explod­ed and lev­eled the small Que­bec town, killing 47 peo­ple.

In the so-called Cham­plain val­ley, tens of mil­lions of gal­lons of fracked oil are trans­port­ed annu­al­ly along the lake, and indus­try is mak­ing plans to start bring­ing tar sands through.

TWAC Throws Down

from Ris­ing Tide Ver­mont: “Our friends at the Trans and/or Women’s Action Camp (TWAC) also stopped a truck on its way to deliv­er com­pressed fracked nat­ur­al gas to Inter­na­tion­al Paper. One per­son has locked their body to the back of the truck pre­vent­ing it from mak­ing a deliv­ery. Fracked gas by truck is just as dirty and dan­ger­ous as fracked gas in a pipeline!”


 

(TWAC is a group of activists who iden­ti­fy as Trans*, Trans­gen­der, Gen­derqueer, and Gen­der non-con­form­ing as well as any­one who iden­ti­fies as a woman regard­less of whether they were assigned female at birth)

Released from Jail!!!

The four peo­ple who were arrest­ed this morn­ing block­ing the con­struc­tion of the fracked gas pipeline have all been released. Please share and donate to our legal fund to sup­port this fierce esca­la­tion of resis­tance against extreme ener­gy! Donate to our legal fund at: http://bit.ly/J7legal

Germany: Giant Coal Excavator Occupied 145315

from Ham­bach For­est and here (Ger­man Lan­guage link)

June 6th, 2015
(The occu­pa­tion is ongo­ing)
Last night at 1 am, four activists occu­pied a large buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the Inden open­cast mine. They climbed to the top of the exca­va­tor about 70m high. The machine halt­ed is one of the largest machines in the world that nor­mal­ly destroys 24/7, lit­er­al­ly churn­ing the land­scape. In Inden lig­nite is pro­mot­ed for RhenAish min­ing area above ground, that is: Every­thing is about being in the way and will be destroyed; who lives about is expro­pri­at­ed and expelled.  Where vil­lages, fields, mead­ows and woods once stood incon­ceiv­ably huge holes appear in the land­scape, an indus­tri­al waste­land to the hori­zon. Of all of the ener­gy sources, lig­nite, is ridicu­lous­ly inef­fi­cient, releas­ing huge loads of CO2 and par­tic­u­late emis­sions, and the con­ver­sion of pow­er sup­ply to renew­ables sab­o­taged with inflex­i­ble “base­load plants”.
The event is also a sol­i­dar­i­ty greet­ing from the resis­tance against the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area to the resis­tance against the meet­ing of the G7 in Elmau. There is a pre­sump­tion that this polit­i­cal elite of glob­alised cap­i­tal­ism wants to define the solu­tions to the prob­lems that they them­selves have cre­at­ed , The G7 did not even have the decen­cy to pre­tend to demo­c­ra­t­ic legit­i­ma­cy – they coor­di­nate as the oli­garchic gov­ern­ment of the world, sim­ply because they can. This meet­ing of glob­al pow­er elite has no oth­er aim than solid­i­fy­ing their dom­i­nance.
It remains in the sep­a­ra­tion between indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries and those that may be exploit­ed as sources of raw mate­ri­als and for­eign mar­kets. The G7 bear most of the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the glob­al cli­mate col­lapse, but the con­se­quences are so far main­ly to oth­er parts of the world, and the cli­mate refugees left behind – which unfor­tu­nate­ly is ter­ri­bly often fatal by the inhu­mane bor­der poli­cies of the indus­tri­alised coun­tries. This meet­ing is noth­ing more than the most pow­er­ful crim­i­nal car­tel of the world – so stop  the G7!
“If four peo­ple can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours in such a gen­tle way …”
“… What might hap­pen if only a small part of all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of the soci­ety were pulled in the same direc­tion?” – From the Action State­ment
It was often said that it is when it comes to cli­mate pro­tec­tion, it is “11:55″, and that the world must act. But the world is not still, and some­one has to start some­where times. In the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area was also often try­ing to stop through the legal and demo­c­ra­t­ic influ­ence on pol­i­tics, the dis­place­ment of peo­ple and the destruc­tion of the Ham­bach for­est. These expe­ri­ences have shown that the deci­sion-mak­ers from the social pow­er elites will always give pri­or­i­ty to prof­it inter­ests – as long as we give them the choice.
This block­ade is not a fur­ther appeal to the politi­cians, to final­ly use their pow­er for good, because we do not trust the pol­i­cy mak­ers any­way. The weapon­ry of the block­ade draws a clear bound­ary: thus far and no fur­ther – Respect exis­tence or expect resis­tance! This action is an appeal to all those who are ready to assume their respon­si­bil­i­ties: Desert­ing from this sys­tem of indus­tri­al destruc­tion, you defied him, the match­ing of forms of resis­tance against it – and then let it decompose.Together we will replace it with some­thing bet­ter! If four peo­ple in such a gen­tle way, can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours – what might hap­pen if only a small part of all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of this soci­ety pulls togeth­er? If we want to bequeath a hab­it­able plan­et, there must be a thor­ough change from below. This occu­pa­tion can only be the start.
Even a small reminder: For the begin­ning of August, the Alliance mobi­lizes “end area” to a mass block­ade of an open pit in Rhineland. Here should be made pos­si­ble to low thresh­old lev­el a broad mass of peo­ple, access to civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and resis­tance. In addi­tion, each of the four for­est occu­pa­tions in Ham­bach for­est clear­ance is con­stant­ly under threat, and also on the cur­rent­ly rel­a­tive­ly safe occu­pa­tion mead­ow near the for­est there are many points of con­tact for moti­vat­ed peo­ple …
Togeth­er we can make the cap­i­tal­ist lig­nite mad­ness put an end!
The hab­it­abil­i­ty of the plan­et is at stake, pre­cise­ly now.
So Let’s do it!
PRESS RELEASE
Buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the brown coal mine Inden occu­pied
Dis­trict of Düren. In the night from Fri­day to Sat­ur­day, a buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the open-cast min­ing inden was occu­pied. Four peo­ple climbed at 1am to the top of the engine at an alti­tude of about 70m. One aim of the cam­paign is to bring the progress of the mine for a few hours to a halt. Sec­ond­ly, the occu­piers explain in their action state­ment sol­i­dar­i­ty with the protests in Elmau against the meet­ing of the G7.
“For the three lig­nite mines in the Rhineland are entire vil­lages and forests per­ma­nent­ly destroyed for­ev­er,” says one par­tic­i­pant action. “We have a respon­si­bil­i­ty for future gen­er­a­tions. Sim­ply ask to politi­cians, and then com­plain that there is no change, is not enough. “As ear­ly as on 15 March, there had been in a sim­i­lar Inden open­cast mine exca­va­tors occu­pa­tion by six peo­ple, inter­rupt­ed in the course of the oper­a­tion of the exca­va­tor for twelve hours.
Today’s block­ade will also release a sign of protest against the meet­ing of the lead­ers of the sev­en largest indus­tri­al nations in Elmau. “There is a pre­sump­tion that this polit­i­cal elite of glob­alised cap­i­tal­ism wants to define the solu­tions to the prob­lems that they them­selves have cre­at­ed,” it says in the action state­ment. “If we want to bequeath a hab­it­able plan­et, there must be a thor­ough change from below. This occu­pa­tion can this be just an impulse. ”
The action is still ongo­ing.
They can be reached under the num­ber 0157 32 48 23 40 and are O‑tones are avail­able. (In regard to the cell phone bat­tery but only to a lim­it­ed extent.) You can also reach activists, the direct con­tact with the exca­va­tors occu­pa­tion hold, on the mead­ow occu­pa­tion under 0157 541 36 100th
16:30 rest. Exca­va­tors eas­i­ly acces­si­ble.
Peo­ple from the area are wel­come to come to the open pit edge.
“It is pos­si­ble to get pret­ty close here.”, Said grade with an activist by tele­phone, who grew up in the vicin­i­ty of the open pit. “From the vil­lage Schophoven there are only a few dirt roads until man stands in front of our exca­va­tors.”
Exca­va­tor in 70m height
14:15 A fire truck arrived.
Some peo­ple climb fur­ther down the exca­va­tor around and to get an idea of ​​the sit­u­a­tion. The police can not see them.
Morn­ing
13:00 twelve hours are man­aged.
The machine stands still; “We are now the only ones here on the exca­va­tor!”
Morn­ing
12:00 loca­tion qui­et. Clothes dry again
Still no police. The clothes are now again most­ly dry. “We hav­ing quite cozy here. Ear­li­er a dog-walk­er wave­dat us. “
Morn­ing
7:00 No more police
The day dawns. Anoth­er pho­to in bright­ness reach us via MMS.
Still no police. Only an ambu­lance is around.
3:00 Police sniffs
Less than 10 Polizist_innen appear, climb up a piece and try to com­mu­ni­cate.
“We’re fine!”, The activists call back.
After some time, the police dis­ap­pear
If four peo­ple can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours in such a gen­tle way … … what might hap­pen if only a small part of pulling all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of the soci­ety in the same direc­tion? – From the Action State­ment
Staffed 1:00 exca­va­tor
Peo­ple arrive at the open pit and climb the buck­et wheel.
Some were lying down in the ear­ly evening with blan­kets in the woods and a lit­tle pre-sleep.
Now they are drenched by thun­der­storms and full of oil from the exca­va­tors to 70m height and try to curl up under a tarp.

Wrong Decision — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspector

On Wednes­day (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal’s appli­ca­tion to mine 520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site is cur­rent­ly agri­cul­tur­al land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a high­ly con­test­ed site with real­ly strong and well orches­trat­ed oppo­si­tion from local peo­ple. Why is this a bad deci­sion? … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Wrong Deci­sion — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspec­tor”

On Wednesday (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal's application to mine
520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site
is currently agricultural land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a highly
contested site with really strong and well orchestrated opposition from
local people.


Why is this a bad decision?



* The community were so very clear that there was NO COMMUNITY CONSENT
* One woman (the planning inspector) thinks she can decide whether a mine
would offer 'national, local or community benefits which would clearly
outweigh the remaining adverse impacts.' How can she possibly say yes when
the community SAYS NO.
* We are moving away from a reliance on coal (but not quickly enough) with
two coal fired power stations announcing closures next year
* The company pursuing the application will not directly operate the site
as they have serious financial difficulties and had to be helped by the
government in closing their last remaining deep mines and were order to
sell off their remaining opencast mines



As the following history of the application shows, the coal company
refused to take no for an answer being determined to sell on the mine with
planning permission. This is not the end of the battle. We need you to
think about what you are going to do to ensure that this piece of rural
Britain is never dug up. We need to stand together to protect the
livelihoods, families, local history, quality of life, homes, air quality,
tranquillity, health, wildlife and ecosystems in this area. Even if the
legal battle is over the fight is not. Get in touch with your suggestions
info@coalaction.org.uk



History of the application.



UK Coal’s first application was rejected by planners in 1986. In 2001 a
second application was rejected.



In February 2011 the planning hearing of Durham Council unanimously
rejected the application, councillors called UK Coal "thugs," "vandals"
and said they were trying to bribe them.



In Autumn 2011 there was a three week appeal which UK Coal lost.



The coal company took this to the High Court in London who said that the
decision was perverse and ordered another appeal.



The second appeal happened in Autumn 2014 and lasted three weeks. It was
well attended by local people, tens of whom spoke out against the mine
with incredible passion, dedication and knowledge.
From the team at The Coal Action Network

For more info on sim­i­lar issues check out 

http://www.coalaction.org.uk 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Coal-Action-Network/429163990497895

HAMBACH FOREST: LIVING ON THE BARRICADES

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers are present­ly block­ing RWE’s open cast lig­nite mine

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers are present­ly block­ing RWE’s open cast lig­nite mine from expand­ing with liv­ing bar­ri­cades and tow­ers which in turn are pro­tect­ing access to the three for­est tree sits with plat­forms, tree­hous­es and inter­conect­ing walk­ways.  
The Ham­bach Mine iron­i­cal­ly named after the for­est it is destroy­ing is Europe‘s largest net CO2 pol­luter and it is record break­ing antro­pogenic cli­mate change, one of the largest plan­e­tary extinc­tions and increas­ing waves of cli­mate refugees that are reminders and ulti­mate glob­al shout-outs that eco-jus­tice is social jus­tice.

After the attack, evic­tion and arrest of 3 activists dur­ing the destruc­tion last week of “Pirate Ship” liv­ing plat­form bar­ri­cade not 3 days have elapsed and we have errect­ed a new tow­er bar­ri­cade.  Almost 3 times high­er than the last one we have named it Remi‘s Tow­er to hon­or Remi Frese, a cli­mate activist who was killed by a police con­cu­sion grenade dur­ing the strugle of Zad de la Teste in South­ern France.  That death is reflec­tive of increas­ing­ly high­er stakes of glob­al eco­log­i­cal strug­gle and at least 2 envi­ro­men­tal activist dying each week.  For these that refuse to be silent and pas­sive in the face of this onslought our hearts and minds are with you.

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers.

http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2015/06/02/germany-an-update-from-hambach-forest-defenders/

hambacherforst@riseup.net

Germany: An Update from Hambach Forest Defenders

June 2nd, 2015

The defence of the the Mil­lenar­i­an Ham­bach­er For­est against the encroching RWE open cast lig­nite mine con­tin­ues with activist-build tow­ers and live-in bar­ri­cades.  The Ham­bach­er For­est is not only one of the last Mil­lenar­i­an Forests in Europe but also the largest on the edge of most­ly defor­est­ed area of Ruhr Val­ley and the Bel­gium, Nether­lands, Lux­em­burg region hence its impor­tance to bio­di­ver­si­ty and ani­mal migra­tion cor­ri­dors.

The lig­nite mine fought through direct action meth­ods by the activist liv­ing in the for­est for the last 3 years has been devour­ing towns, vil­lages, whole forests and drain­ing the watertable for up to 70 kilo­me­ters  and is also the largest in west­ern europe and Europe’s biggest net CO2 emmiter.

The scale of the mine itself being 12km across and near­ly half a kil­lome­ter deep con­jures analo­gies of Mor­dor or Sci­Fi Prison plan­et with the dig­gers  being the world’s largest machines feed­ing the con­vey­or belts deliv­er­ing the coal to rail links sup­ply­ing the pow­er plants on the edge of the mine itself and through­out this region .  This in turn pales in com­par­i­son to the glob­al and exter­nal­ized costs of lig­nite as a cli­mate chaos agent and a num­ber one source of mer­cury con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in worlds oceans.

The Ham­bach For­est Strug­gle con­tin­ues to expe­ri­ence peri­od­ic police intru­sions, arrests and desc­truc­tion of bar­ri­cades which are pro­tect­ing three for­est tree-sits: Oak­town, Beech­town, and Crusty­Town  which are spread through­out the for­est.  The arrest result in sol­i­dar­i­ty actions and demon­stra­tions and rel­a­tive­ly short releas­es.

This is not some­thing that can be said about the irre­versible habi­tat destruc­tion that con­tin­ues day and night and sad­ly after par­tial vic­to­ry of hav­ing the costs of evic­tions and police actions being deferred to the RWE con­cern  the Ger­man Forestry depart­ment start­ed fil­ing com­plains about the for­est being block­ad­ed against the machin­ery send to destroy it and the tax­pay­er and the Ger­man State resumed again pick­ing up the bill for the repres­sion of eco-activists and eco­log­i­cal destru­c­ion.

For that rea­son we urge all who choose to pur­sue the avenues of civic action to put grass­roots pres­sure on the appro­pri­ate­ly named Fed­er­al Min­istry of Food and Agri­cul­ture in Bonn (www.verbraucherlotse.de) Mon­day to Thurs­day from 9:00 bis 17:00 Tele­fon­num­mer 02 28 – 24 25 26 27, per E‑Mail  info@verbraucherlotse.de, 53168 Bonn und unter der Fax-Num­mer 02 28 – 68 45 72 20.

 

 

For those in the strug­gle to pro­tect the Earth through direct action we urge you to vis­it us and fol­low the strug­gle and become a part of glob­al com­mu­ni­ty of resis­tance.

Our present demand and wish list includes as always plan­e­tary eco-jus­tice fol­lowed by walkie talkies, 12v bat­ter­ies and solar pan­els.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty,

Ham­bach For­est Defend­ers!

Didcot Camp Action Round Up: 18 actions against the fossil fuel industry

Block­ades, shut­downs, lock-ons, love-ins, tripods and nanas…..Reclaim the Power’s day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try today (1 June 2015) saw 18 dif­fer­ent actions draw­ing the dots between big ener­gy firms, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, pub­lic rela­tions com­pa­nies, oil arts spon­sor­ship and the frack­ing indus­try.

Let’s take a run-down of the day’s events…(more text and pics com­ing soon!)

Action 1: 9.04am – Npower’s debt collection and pre-payment meter office in Leeds blockaded

We’ve all had the threat­en­ing let­ters from ener­gy com­pa­nies demand­ing pay­ment for bills we can’t afford – and today we hit back. Reclaim the Pow­er groups vis­it­ed RWE Npower’s offices in Leeds and block­ad­ed the front doors. Many house­holds are forced onto pre-pay­ment meters which are more expen­sive than direct deb­it accounts.

Action 2: 9.08am – Delegates at World Coal Association conference locked out of Institute of Directors

The coal indus­try are try­ing to con­tin­ue burn­ing fos­sil fuels by dan­gling the promise of Car­bon-Cap­ture-and-Stor­age tech­nol­o­gy. Con­fer­ence del­e­gates at a World Coal Asso­ca­tion event found all five entrances to the exclu­sive Insti­tute of Direc­tors blocked this morn­ing. There no arrests but lots of marigolds.

Action 3: 9.09am “Wind not gas” protest at DECC

Cheeky pro­test­ers high­light­ed the con­tin­ued fos­sil fuel bias with­in the Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change by blockad­ing its steps. Rowan Tilly explained, “Against the advice of their own Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, the gov­ern­ment has approved the con­struc­tion of up to 30 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions, and intends to go ‘all out’ for shale gas – with up to two thirds of the UK licensed for frack­ing. This new dash for gas is reck­less­ly at odds with our nation­al and inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions on cli­mate change and must be resist­ed, for both the sake of our­selves and future gen­er­a­tions.

“We are now find­ing our­selves at a stage where we don’t know where gov­ern­ment ends and cor­po­ra­tions begin and unless we act now we will soon find our­selves be locked into infra­struc­ture which will burn car­bon for years to come whilst killing off renew­able ener­gy, with polit­i­cal deci­sions ruled by prof­it and act­ing in igno­rance of the bla­tant dan­gers of cli­mate change. We sim­ply can’t afford to let this hap­pen.”

Action 4: 9.10am – Invesco’s Revolving Door between government and Drax

Con­tin­u­ing this theme, Reclaim the Pow­er activists vis­it­ed the offices of Invesco – the invest­ment man­age­ment com­pa­ny which owns 26% of Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire. New DECC junior min­is­ter Andrea Lead­man worked at Invesco for 10 years before tak­ing up her post in gov­ern­ment. The revolv­ing doors were lit­er­al­ly blocked and ban­ner dropped above the Lon­don Wall road.

Action 5: 9.30am – Polishing a turd: office occupation of Media Zoo

Pub­lic rela­tions firm ‘Media Zoo’ rep­re­sent chem­i­cals giant Ineos – who have recent­ly pledged £640 mil­lion invest­ment in frack­ing. Eight activists occu­pied their offices in Impe­r­i­al Wharf, Lon­don car­ry­ing a ban­ner ban­ner read­ing, ‘Frack­ing is Shit. You can’t pol­ish a turd.’ They used arm tubes lock ons to stay put. Sev­en peo­ple were arrest­ed around lunch time.

Mediazoo’s web­site boasts exten­sive expe­ri­ence of deal­ing with “indus­tri­al dis­putes”, “fatal acci­dents” and “child labour”. They are con­sult­ing Ineos on PR and media strat­e­gy. The CEO of Ineos Upstream Gary Hay­wood said, “I want Ineos to be the biggest play­er in the shale gas indus­try.” Medi­a­zoo were respon­si­ble for what UNITE described as Ineos’s “cam­paign of fear” dur­ing the dis­pute at Grange­mouth oil refin­ery in Scot­land when 1400 work­ers fought cuts to pay, jobs and pen­sions.

Action 6: 9.45am – Anti-nukes visit Carmargue PR firm

As well as rep­re­sent­ing RWE Npow­er, pub­lic rela­tions firm Camar­gue also spin the work of Hori­zon Nuclear Ener­gy. 12 pro­test­ers tar­get­ed the firm’s offices in Soho. Clare Jones said, “The pub­lic has a right to be informed about the real dan­gers of nuclear – from can­cer to con­t­a­m­i­na­tion to cli­mate change. For the cost of build­ing one nuclear pow­er sta­tion you could build over 1000 off­shore wind tur­bines.”

Action 7: 10.25am – Energy UK lobby group blockaded

Ener­gy UK is the trade body for the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies. They have lob­bied the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce the ‘Capac­i­ty Mar­ket’ into the recent Ener­gy Act (2014) – which uses pub­lic mon­ey to sub­sidise new gas pow­er sta­tions. Three peo­ple block­ad­ed the entrance, includ­ing two in an arm tube lock on.  There were two arrests.

Action 8: 10.30am – Big Six Love-in at Oxfordshire Conservative Party headquarters

Big 6

Action 9: 10.55am – RWE Npower headquarters in Swindon blockaded

Action 10: All morning – Subvertising in Oxford

Action 11: The Bill of Wrongs at British Gas HQ near Oxford

Action 12: 12.11pm – Lancashire Nanas link fracking and gas-fire power stations at Didcot B

Cuadzilla puppet

Action 13: 1.00pm – Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ rebranded by Shell

Shell rebrand

Action 14: 1.00pm – Avonmouth Biofuel plant invaded

Action 15: 1.30pm – “No stone left unfracked” Tripod fracking rig erected at London City Hall

Boris Saya

Action 16: 1.41pm – Edelman PR firm deliver first fracked baby (trigger warning)

Action 17: 2.00pm – Blockade of Cuadrilla offices in Lichfield (again!)

Cuadrilla HQ

Action 18: 2.30pm – Occupation of Imperial College’s Department of Mining

Reclaim the Power — Didcot and beyond!

 

Five days to go — here we come Didcot!

Programme’s up and packed full of treats.

In less than a week’s time Did­cot Mass Action Camp 2015 will be in full swing and we’re count­ing down the days and rar­ing up for a wicked week­end.

Set-up and start: Fri­day 29th May
Fin­ish: Tues­day 2nd June 2015
Face­book event here

We’ve got a packed sched­ule this year includ­ing the ‘Min­istry of Dis­sent’ — a one-stop shop for skilling up and tak­ing action with train­ers on board all day.  There’ll be the good peo­ple of Bar­ton Moss speak­ing about how to set up an ener­gy co-op and activist friends from Roja­va will be talk­ing about how to set up an entire autonomous region!

A range of train­ings are sched­uled from organ­i­sa­tions work­ing on the front­line of social change in the UK right now, includ­ing Lon­don Black Revs and UK Uncut, with Fuel Pover­ty Action tak­ing on the ‘Big 6’  and com­mu­ni­ty mobil­is­ing with DPAC (Dis­abled Peo­ple Against Cuts), and we’ll hear news about what’s com­ing up with the Paris cli­mate talks in Decem­ber, and from friends in the Rhineland about hold­ing off Big Coal there in August. Clos­er to home, we’ll also be hear­ing from Frack Free Lan­cashire about the immi­nent deci­sion in June, and how we can come togeth­er to say no to frack­ing — not now, not ever.

There’s also a com­e­dy dou­ble bill and music in the evening and time for us to dance and play, and get ener­gised and ready for our big day of action on Mon­day.

Check out the full pro­gramme here.

The site will be announced on Fri­day the 29th — keep your eyes on our web­site , Face­book and Twit­ter

Vol­un­teers want­ed!

Every­one’s invit­ed to get involved in mak­ing this camp awe­some, and there’s a wide range of vol­un­teer roles avail­able that we’re look­ing to fill.  Specif­i­cal­ly this includes:

  • kitchen crew
  • expe­ri­enced child-min­ders
  • qual­i­fied first-aiders
  • expe­ri­enced tran­quil­li­ty/well-being crew
  • media savvy peo­ple to help out in the media tent
  • gate and comms
  • wel­come tent crew
  • water and plumb­ing
  • a ded­i­cat­ed crew of TAT-down on Tues­day (tak­ing down camp)

If you’re up for help­ing with any of these roles then please let us know via our Face­book page or drop us a line at info@nodashforgas.org.uk   — thanks!

 

Germany: Police and Security Clear Barricades in Hambach Forest

Police, RWE and secu­ri­ties appeared at the occu­pa­tions in the Ham­bach For­est.

28 April 2015: At around 11 o’clock, police, RWE and secu­ri­ties appeared at the occu­pa­tions in the Ham­bach For­est. They cut sev­er­al climb­ing ropes, imposed dis­missals and sur­round­ed the liv­ing bar­ri­cade.
This is not the first time climb­ing ropes where cut as a sab­o­tage. This is a life threat­en­ing and use­less action on behalf of the police and RWE.
This hap­pens after the ‚dia­log‘ in the state par­lia­ment in Düs­sel­dorf with the police, the min­istry of inter­nal affairs, the par­ties, RWE and the region­al ini­tia­tive on the 20th of April this year. After the annu­al gen­er­al assem­bly of RWE last week and the human chain in Garzweil­er last week­end.
This is sup­posed to be the ener­gy tran­si­tion and the dia­log that is held. The inter­est of econ­o­my and those who are payed by them are in the fore­ground. On the 21th of may, the admin­is­tra­tive court in Aachen will decide if the mead­ow occu­pa­tion could be imme­di­ate­ly evict­ed. This is a call­out to all peo­ple who want to resist against the destruc­tion of land­scape.
Pics of the action [here]

News

06:28 am
Night is pass­ing and a new day is ris­ing… at the moment one per­son is in front of the police sta­tion, with ban­ners and infor­ma­tion. The police told to reg­is­ter a pick­et(?). If not the ban­ners should be removed. the out­come remains open…

05:50 am
Dur­ing the night, the per­sons in front of the police sta­tion was switched. It remains calm with no rain. Come around and bring break­fast. Hof cof­fee and tee are wel­come.

02:37 am
A sign of life from the cel­lars of the courts of this city. The press and a per­son in front of the police sta­tion are deter­mined to stay until our friend is released. In front of the police sta­tion, a gui­tar is play­ing and from the cel­lars one can hear the Anti RWE song from Mona&Hummel. You can lis­ten to it here: http://monaundhummel.noblogs.org/musik/

01:28 am
Blan­kets, Matrass­es and rice to eat have been brought. Here you can find a film doc­u­ment­ing the assaults of the RWE secu­ri­ty against activists. They are appar­ent­ly talk­ing about the sup­posed dig­ger occu­pa­tion of 06.04.2015.

01:20 am
Greet­ings from the police sta­tion in Kalk, we are prepar­ing for a long night.

00:05 am
Sev­er­al peo­ple are at the police sta­tion in Cologne/Kalk, to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with our arrest­ed friend. She is hap­py about sup­port, as well as blan­kets, hot tee and cups. The hot choco­late is almost gone! Come around!

23:30 pm
We are online again and have installed a press loca­tion and an EA in Cologne. If you want to know more about the course of events around our arrest­ed frend. This num­ber is reach­able around the clock: 0049 15753511306

18:oo pm
We just received the sad mes­sage that a friend of ours, who has pre­vi­ous­ly been held cap­tured in Hürth, has now been trans­fered to the prison n Cologne/Kalk. A release is not in sight. As she has been locked on, they charge her pf ‚resis­tance against execu­to­ry officers‘We send you pow­er and strenght… . The police oper­a­tion was com­mis­sioned by the region­al for­est depart­ment Rhein Erft. One of the many insti­tu­tions which are close­ly relat­ed to RWE and who sup­port the deple­tion of the Ham­bach For­est, as has been shown in the last years dur­ing sim­i­lar oper­a­tions.

16:31 pm
The police retreat­ed from the for­est. Appar­ent­ly the oper­a­tion was enforced by the for­est depart­ment of NRW.

15:30 pm
Heavy machin­ery of RWE is still on it’s way through the for­est and on the for­mer high­way A4, clear­ing the bar­ri­cades. The first sup­port­ers are arriv­ing in front of the police sta­tion in Hürth.

14 pm
More police cars/trucks arrive and dri­ve towards the for­est occu­pa­tions.

13:50 pm
RWE evict­ed the Hedge­hog with the help of police, now they cut a swath of destruc­tion through the for­est.

13:30 pm
The police just announced that the per­son locked in the Hedge­hog has been brought tot he police sta­tion in Bergheim, accom­pa­nied by a medic.

12:50 pm
The per­son in the Hedge­hog is evict­ed. They will start with the destruc­tion of the habi­tat.

12:30 pm
The sit­u­a­tion around the Hedge­hog is tense. There, RWE secu­ri­ty and diverse police depart­ments have sur­round­ed the place and plan to destroy the bar­ri­cades in the for­est and evict and destroy the Hedge­hog (a big, liv­ing bar­ri­cade). On per­son locked them­selves in the Hedge­hog to stop fur­ther use­less destruc­tion of nature with their own body.
The Hedge­hog is locat­ed at the for­mer meet­ing point in the for­est, where some RWE secu­ri­ties stole a stat­ue of Christ a few months ago.
Apart from this, the helpers of nature destruc­tion have left the mead­ow, Oak­town and Beech­town for now. Arrest­ed peo­ple are set free, noth­ing else is known so far.

12 pm
Peo­ple are arrest­ed in the Ham­bach For­est

11:40 am
Activists are sur­round­ed and dis­missals are imposed

 

Also, support the Hambach Defenders on 16 May:

from Ham­bach For­est Occu­pa­tion
Sup­port the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. Mead­ow under legal pres­sure

We at the Ham­bach­er For­est have been resist­ing envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion by the largest coal mine in West­ern Europe for the last three years expe­ri­enc­ing 3 major evic­tions and numer­ous police and secu­ri­ty actions. Now we are fac­ing a new per­il. Our sup­port camp with its veg­an kitchen, the­ater, infos­hop and 2 libraries, numer­ous liv­ing and guest spaces is fac­ing legal pro­ceed­ings in Aachen on the 21st of May with a demon­stra­tion of sup­port on May 16th in Cologne.
The Mead­ow Sup­port Camp has become a can­vas for build­ing with straw­bail, green roofs, renew­able ener­gy and bio­dy­nam­ic farm­ing. It is also a home to many activists includ­ing two fam­i­lies with chil­dren. Sup­port­ing at the same time two for­est occu­pa­tions, direct action cam­paigs and pub­lic events.
We would like to call for inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port in the form of legal assis­tance in Ger­many as well as inter­na­tion­al­ly. Please con­tact the court involved:

Demon­stra­tion on the 16th of May
Against coal min­ing in rheine area
Cologne / Ehren­feld 14 o‘clock

Prozess on the 21st of May
Achen Admin­is­tra­tive Court
Adal­bert­stein­weg 92
im Jus­tizzen­trum
52070 Aachen
fax 0241 9425 83204
tel 0241 9425 0

This is the court that will be attempt­ing to use build­ing code reg­u­la­tions to destroy struc­tures in the Mead­ow Sup­port Camp. It is the same reg­u­la­tions that are reg­u­lar­ly used against earth­ship, straw bail and oth­er infor­mal archi­tec­ture and spaces in favor of resource extrac­tion rich(wasteful and destruc­tive) habi­tats and inter­ests.

Warrington fracking coal bed methane lock-on protest

21/4/15

Update:

Cheshire Police has con­firmed that one woman and three men have been arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

At 1.25pm the woman had her chain removed but it was not until 4.30pm that all were arrest­ed.

 

Anti-frack­ing Pro­tec­tors Lock on at IGas War­ring­ton coal bed methane com­pound

At Doe Green Widnes WA8 9TZ

The four pro­tes­tors locked them­selves to secu­ri­ty fences around the well heads this morn­ing

Please show local sup­port!

Livestream: http://t.co/5IRjpIcv2q

Local news­pa­per arti­cle