Category: Climate Chaos

Two arrested for blocking tar sands megaloads in USA

News from Moscow Ida­ho, two arrest­ed blockad­ing Exxon’s mega­load trucks bound with tar sands equip­ment for Alber­ta.

News from Moscow Ida­ho, two arrest­ed blockad­ing Exxon’s mega­load trucks bound with tar sands equip­ment for Alber­ta.

Ear­ly News: More Pro­test­ers Arrest­ed for Block­ing Tar Sands “Mega­loads” in Moscow, Ida­ho

PRELIMINARY NEWS RELEASE

March 5, 2012

Four remark­ably brave activists elud­ed the bar­ri­cades and put their bod­ies between enor­mous Alber­ta tar sands upgrad­er parts and the eco­log­i­cal and cli­mate dev­as­ta­tion they will vis­it on us all.  As three of the last five of 78 ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil mega­loads moved through down­town Moscow, Ida­ho, two pro­test­ers were arrest­ed for link­ing arms and sit­ting down in Wash­ing­ton Street late Sun­day night, March 4.  Police arrest­ed two men but pulled two women to the side and detained and released them when the con­voy passed.  The women did not appre­ci­ate the dis­crim­i­na­tion.

In a video by Joshua Yei­del of a KRFP Radio Free Moscow inter­view, We Won’t Be Acces­sories to Geno­cide: Moscow ID, March 4, 2012, one of the dis­missed women explained her and her many allies’ moti­va­tions for march­ing, chant­i­ng, and even obstruct­ing mega­loads and risk­ing arrest in cold and dark win­ter con­di­tions.  “We’re not going to be acces­sories to geno­cide and cli­mate change and increased can­cer rates and all the oth­er eco­log­i­cal dam­ages that the tar sands intends to cause…”

Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide (WIRT) and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have gath­ered along Moscow streets to raise their voic­es in protest more than forty times since July 15, 2011, when the first trans­ports of out­sourced equip­ment rum­bled up to 425,000 pounds on High­way 95 from the Port of Lewis­ton to the cli­mate-wreck­ing tar sands.  Despite heavy, indus­try-spon­sored police pres­ence and clo­sure of entire rights-of-way, some cit­i­zens have entered the cross­walks and streets to briefly block the ship­ments and halt their eco­log­i­cal death march, before state, coun­ty, and city police offi­cers sur­round, harass, and drag them away and/or arrest them.

For a video shot by Joshua Yei­del of Sun­day night’s action, Mega­loads and Arrests, Moscow, Ida­ho, March 4, 2012, please see this video.

Fifty-one of Zachary Johnson’s pho­tos of the March 4 demon­stra­tion are avail­able on the Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide Face­book page

WIRT mem­bers extend our grat­i­tude, love, and high­est esteem to the four good souls who sac­ri­ficed their free­dom to stand up for what’s right last night and to all of the sup­port­ive cit­i­zens on the streets and side­walks, who spoke out and bore wit­ness for a green­er plan­et, health­i­er human­i­ty, and a liv­able, worth­while future for everyone’s descen­dants.  Please join friends and activists at 9 am on Mon­day, March 5, at the Latah Coun­ty Cour­t­house for the arraign­ments of Cass Davis and Jim Prall.  One of their spous­es report­ed that they are doing well in jail.  Besides this brief press release com­piled from WIRT activists’ input, we will send a more com­pre­hen­sive, cam­paign-inclu­sive sto­ry lat­er today.

Mean­while, for more news, pho­tos, videos, and inter­views, please see the WIRT Face­book page and web site/blog and lis­ten to the Cli­mate Jus­tice Forum radio pro­gram on Mon­days at 7:30 to 9:00 pm PST on KRFP Radio Free Moscow.

More info, pho­tos and past protests at http://wildidahorisingtide.org/

Shut Down the Corporations: Report from F29 actions against ALEC

29th Feb­ru­ary 2012

29th Feb­ru­ary 2012

Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca sent out this report today about the Shut Down the Cor­po­ra­tions call to action: “#F29 is off to bang this morn­ing with actions across the coun­try. big props to our Ris­ing Tide & Occu­py com­rades in Port­land for ini­ti­at­ing this great day of action.

The tar­get of the day is the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Com­mis­sion, or ALEC, & their mem­ber cor­po­ra­tions. ALEC is the shad­owy front group that has been push­ing a right wing agen­da on every­thing from labor to cli­mate change.

Here’s some updates:

-Occu­py­LA is blockad­ing a mas­sive Wal-Mart Dis­tro Cen­ter
-Occu­py Wall Street had a teach-in with Rolling Stone jour­nal­ist Matt Taib­bi & is see­ing march­es to Pfiz­er, block­ades at Bank of Amer­i­ca & lots of heavy hand­ed police repres­sion (shock­ing, we know)
-Occu­py­DC is blockad­ing Monsanto’s offices
-Actions are step­ping off in Ari­zona, Salt Lake City, Con­necti­cut, Hat­ties­burg, MS, Far­go, ND, Lake­land, FL, Tam­pa, FL, and Win­ston-Salem, NC.
-Today at 1130, Occu­py­Port­land has orga­nized a mass march to vis­it all ALEC offices in the city.

here’s the Glob­al Live Blog if you want to keep up

Great arti­cle this morn­ing on Moth­er Jones

…sol­i­dar­i­ty, RTNA News”

And check out this video of a block­ade of G4S secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny today in Tuc­son, AZ: http://youtu.be/AB5MZDdjHck

Mass Action: The Big-Six Energy Monopoly

Thurs­day 3rd May 2012
Meet in cen­tral Lon­don, details to be announced

The Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies: British Gas, EDF, E.ON, RWE pow­er, Scot­tish & South­ern and Scot­tish Pow­er con­trol 99% of our ener­gy sup­ply — mak­ing obscene prof­its from burn­ing fos­sil fuels, trash­ing the plan­et and push­ing peo­ple into fuel pover­ty.

Let’s take back the pow­er.

Thurs­day 3rd May 2012
Meet in cen­tral Lon­don, details to be announced

The Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies: British Gas, EDF, E.ON, RWE pow­er, Scot­tish & South­ern and Scot­tish Pow­er con­trol 99% of our ener­gy sup­ply — mak­ing obscene prof­its from burn­ing fos­sil fuels, trash­ing the plan­et and push­ing peo­ple into fuel pover­ty.

Let’s take back the pow­er.

On Thurs­day 3rd May, as the Exec­u­tives of the Big Six meet at the UK Ener­gy Sum­mit in cen­tral Lon­don, join Cli­mate Jus­tice Col­lec­tive in a mass action for ener­gy democ­ra­cy and against cor­po­rate con­trol and cen­tralised pow­er sys­tems.

The more heads involved in organ­is­ing this, the bet­ter it will be — so come along to our next organ­is­ing meet­ing:
When: Sat­ur­day; 3rd March: 11am – 5pm
Where: Green­peace, Canon­bury Vil­las, Lon­don, N1 2PN. Clos­est tube: Angel
or High­bury & Isling­ton.

*Crash Space & Kids* Please email climatejusticecollective@gmail.com if you’ll be need­ing crash space for Fri­day and/or Sat­ur­day night. Also let us know if you’ll be bring­ing along any of the next gen­er­a­tion of move­ment builders 🙂 Their ages would be help­ful to know as well.

http://climatejusticecollective.wordpress.com/

FRACK MOB 2

*Demo: 14th March*

Organised by *Frack Off <http://www.frack-off.org.uk/>*


On the 14-15th of March, The Marriott Hotel Regents Park is playing host

to another orgy of misinformation and industry propaganda, all in the name

of shafting the planet for profit. Let’s not disappoint! Fracking



*Demo: 14th March*


Organised by *Frack Off <http://www.frack-off.org.uk/>*



On the 14-15th of March, The Marriott Hotel Regents Park is playing host
to another orgy of misinformation and industry propaganda, all in the name
of shafting the planet for profit. Let’s not disappoint! Fracking
investors and the fracking companies themselves will be there. This is a
fantastic opportunity to expose the greenwash and show investors and
backers how dangerous and unpopular it is.



Wednesday, 14 March 2012, 3-8pm, 128 King Henrys Road, NW3 3ST London.



More details TBC - join the 'Frack Off' facebook event



https://www.facebook.com/events/165452203557945



to keep updated!

Hinkley Barnstormers Eviction Imminent ! Help Needed !

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 JOIN THE HINKLEY BARNSTORMERS BEFORE THEIR EVICTION !

On 27th Feb­ru­ary at the Roy­al Courts of Jus­tice, Lon­don, EDF won a pos­s­e­sion order against anti-nuclear activists who are occu­py­ing a barn on the pro­posed new site for a nuclear reac­tor at Hink­ley Point.

The barn has been suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied for over two weeks now but the evic­tion could come at any time in the next few days.

The occu­piers are wel­com­ing any one who wants to come and help dis­man­tle the camp. There is lots of food avail­able and a cosy and con­vivial atmos­phere to be enjoyed ! Please come !

PHONE : 0793 392 0425  or 0753 094 7554

The activists will be cel­e­brat­ing  what the camp had achieved in terms of rais­ing aware­ness of Hink­ley to the nation­al lev­el , as many peo­ple do not know that the gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to build new nuclear reac­tors, they want to slip these plans in “under the radar” to avoid a prop­er pub­lic debate tak­ing place, like there has been in Italy and Ger­many, in the wake of Fukushi­ma.

Nuclear pow­er is a cat­a­stroph­ic choice for Britain’s ener­gy future. A part from the fact that nuclear pow­er is still very fos­sil fuel reliant and won’t make much of a dent in the car­bon emmis­sions: If Hink­ley C is built, it won’t be in oper­a­tion until 2023 at the ear­li­est ! Also, nuclear is a bot­tom­less pit of expense to the tax pay­er, all that mon­ey will be divert­ed away from invest­ment in safe and sus­tain­able alter­na­tives.

There is no such thing as safe nuclear pow­er, prob­lems occur in the reac­tors for inu­mer­able rea­sons, includ­ing human error, and once every 12 years or so there is a major dis­as­ter. There is also the ever loom­ing prob­lem of nuclear waste, Britain already has enough to fill 5 Albert Halls and no where long term to put it. Only an insane government/industry would want to make more.

After Fukushi­ma, many coun­tries are say­ing enough is enough, Nuclear pow­er is fin­ished. It’s a dinosaur of the 20th cen­tu­ry and leads to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons. It’s time we said the same !

Please show your sol­i­dar­i­ty and go to the camp for some fun !

If you can’t make it to the camp, there’s anoth­er chance for you to show your oppo­si­tion to new nuclear on 10- 11 March at Hink­ley Point for the Sur­round and Block­ade action. Details below :

Coach tick­ets are avail­able to take you to the Sur­round action on 10 March  from Bris­tol CND:

secretarybristolcnd@gmail.com

For more infor­ma­tion about the 10–11 March see:

www.stopnewnuclear.org.uk

Earth First! makes a mess of SITLA tar sands plans in Utah

Yes­ter­day, Feb­ru­ary 20, the Earth First! 2012 Orga­niz­ers Con­fer­ence & Win­ter Ren­dezvous cul­mi­nat­ed in a row­dy demon­stra­tion out­side the School and Insti­tu­tion­al Trust Lands Admin­is­tra­tion (SITLA) offices in down­town Salt Lake City. Earth First! activists staged their protest with local orga­niz­ers from Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance and Canyon Coun­try Ris­ing Tide.

Yes­ter­day, Feb­ru­ary 20, the Earth First! 2012 Orga­niz­ers Con­fer­ence & Win­ter Ren­dezvous cul­mi­nat­ed in a row­dy demon­stra­tion out­side the School and Insti­tu­tion­al Trust Lands Admin­is­tra­tion (SITLA) offices in down­town Salt Lake City. Earth First! activists staged their protest with local orga­niz­ers from Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance and Canyon Coun­try Ris­ing Tide. The offices were closed for Pres­i­dents’ Day, but a clear (and messy) mes­sage was left at the doorstep—a mock oil spill accom­pa­nied by a mur­al read­ing “Hey SITLA: Tar Sands Out­ta Utah!” 

The project would lease school trust lands for tar sands extrac­tion in the Book Cliffs area, direct­ly impact­ing PR Springs, a site which is also uti­lized for camp­ing and recre­ation.

“Destruc­tion of edu­ca­tion trust lands through tar sands min­ing is con­trary to the man­date of this agency, which requires them to main­tain the land for the long term,” said Mark Pur­dy of Utah Tar Sands Resis­tance.

An arti­cle in the Desert News stat­ed: “The pro­posed min­ing oper­a­tion would occu­py a 213-acre site in the East Tava­putts Plateau strad­dling the bor­ders of Uin­tah and Grand coun­ties.  An ore pro­cess­ing facil­i­ty would accom­mo­date up to 3,500 tons of ore per day in the pro­duc­tion of bitu­men. The extrac­tion process would require 1.5 bar­rels to 2 bar­rels of water per bar­rel of bitu­men pro­duced… The com­pa­ny will have to post a recla­ma­tion bond of near­ly $1.7 mil­lion before any work is allowed to begin at the site.

Anoth­er com­pa­ny, MCW Ener­gy, is propos­ing a pilot project to test its pro­pri­etary sol­vent in the extrac­tion of bitu­men on 1,000 stock­piled tons of tar sands 3 miles west of Ver­nal in Uin­tah Coun­ty.

Oppo­nents have appealed per­mits issued relat­ed to the PR Springs project, with hear­ings set for next month.”

“oil spill” at SIT­LA’s doorstep (non-tox­ic, maybe even edi­ble…)

Utah was cho­sen specif­i­cal­ly as the site of the annu­al Earth First! win­ter gath­er­ing to high­light resis­tance to these tar sands pro­pos­al, as well as lend sup­port to the coura­geous actions of peo­ple like Tim DeChristo­pher who was sen­tenced to a two-years in prison for his effec­tive sab­o­tage of an oil and gas auc­tion on Utah’s pub­lic lands. 

Along with DeChristo­pher, two oth­er eco­log­i­cal and ani­mal lib­er­a­tion activists from Utah, Jor­dan Hal­l­i­day and Wal­ter Bond, are also cur­rent­ly fac­ing time behind bars for their involve­ment with direct action efforts in the state. Con­tacts for these and oth­er eco-pris­on­ers can be found at the Earth First! Journal’s pris­on­er sup­port page.

In relat­ed news, an anony­mous com­mu­nique enti­tled Eco-Sab­o­tage Ends Tar Sand Extrac­tion was also received the pre­vi­ous night, appar­ent­ly sent back from the future, stat­ing: “…The Book Cliffs, where Spot­ted Owls screech and Elk reign, were under attack… Eco-War­riors worked under the ris­ing sun. We have Molo­toved their min­ing equip­ment. We have Mon­key-Wrenched their machines. We have sawed their bull­doz­ers to pieces. There are no longer any func­tion­al drilling tools in the Book Cliffs.

A major blow has been dealt to the oil extrac­tion infra­struc­ture. The PR Springs Mine Project is at its knees. Take Warn­ing. Oil will nev­er be piped through the West. Utah will nev­er be mined. The mines of Alber­ta will cease.

Image from the futur­is­tic com­mu­nique dis­trib­uted at the protest

No longer will our wild places fuel this mil­i­ta­rized cul­ture. Your machines are bound to rust. Tar Sand Extrac­tion Prof­i­teers, SITLA, CEO’s Glen D. Snar and Mr. Cuth­bert; We are com­ing for you. This is just the begin­ning…”

The min­ing equip­ment is not actu­al­ly present on-site yet, just in case that was unclear.

National anti-Fracking Gathering

Sat­ur­day 17th March,

Sat­ur­day 17th March,
Methodist Cen­tral Hall, Old­ham Street, Man­ches­ter.  Map and Direc­tions here.
Organ­ised by Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change with REAF, The Vale Says No, Frack Off and No Frack­ing in Sus­sex.

11.00 am to 6.00 pm
Come and meet peo­ple from groups all around the coun­try (and beyond) cam­paign­ing against ‘hydraulic frac­tur­ing’ or “fracking”.(find out more about frack­ing here)
The event will include:
Open­ing ple­nary includ­ing pre­sen­taion from the Tyn­dal Cen­tre, speak­er from ‘Frack Off’ and oth­er speak­ers tba (watch this space)

Region­al report ses­sion from local anti-frack­ing cam­paign groups all around the coun­try.
2 Ses­sions of work­shops on all you need to know about frack­ing, tar­get­ed advice on how to run a local cam­paign, anti-frack­ing Direct action .…and more (watch this space for more details about spe­cif­ic work­shops…)
Dis­cus­sion on what we can do to form a broad-based Nation­al anti-frack­ing Coali­tion or umbrel­la group (with the local grass-roots res­i­dents groups at its core)

Extra time for the meet­ing to take things for­ward as it sees fit.….
Lets get togeth­er to stop frack­ing in the UK NOW, before it gets a hold and becomes unstop­pable!
 Put  the 17th March in your diary now !
www.campaigncc.org/nationalantifrackingmeeting

Aussies occupy drill rig to protest coal mining

6.02.12

6.02.12

One Aus­tralian activist has been released pend­ing sum­mons for ‘inter­fer­ing with a motor vehi­cle’ today after stop­ping drilling in Bac­chus Marsh. Paul Con­nor locked him­self  to the top of Man­tle Mining’s 8.5 metre-tall drill rig while hang­ing a ban­ner that read ‘No New Coal Bac­chus Marsh’. Anoth­er cam­paign­er, local moth­er Natasha Mills, also locked her­self to the drill rig at ground lev­el, sur­round­ed by a sup­port crew of 15 oth­er Quit Coal activists who occu­pied the drill site to stage a ‘pic­nic’, which fea­tured pro­duce from local farms.

‘We are eat­ing local­ly grown food to illus­trate what is at stake here’ said Mills, who is cur­rent­ly 7 and a half months preg­nant with her sec­ond child. ‘This project will destroy prime agri­cul­tur­al land, all for the sake of a quick buck and the burn­ing of brown coal, one of the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly harm­ful prac­tices pos­si­ble.

‘Mantle’s project has so lit­tle sup­port here among locals in Bac­chus Marsh that our May­or, our State MP and our Fed­er­al MP have all come out against it’ she con­tin­ued. ‘It’s just wrong, and we’re not going to let it hap­pen.’

The Quit Coal action drew a bar­rage of media atten­tion, with every major tele­vi­sion sta­tion in atten­dance. For a sam­ple of the media atten­tion, click on ‘dirty fight’ on the Ten News web­site here.

After 4 and a half hours chained to the top of the drill rig, Con­nor was cut free by Police from the Search & Res­cue squad with an angle-grinder. ’We need Vic­to­ri­ans to join this fight along­side us till we win it’ he said. ‘We can’t ignore the urgent warn­ings from cli­mate sci­en­tists that we need to move away from coal, and blind­ly seek to dig it up and sell it off over­seas. We have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to the world not to allow brown coal exports to begin, for the first time ever, here in Vic­to­ria.’

Because the site was on pub­lic land and they had not bro­ken any laws, the remain­ing Quit Coal activists occu­py­ing the site were not arrest­ed. They chose to com­ply with a police request and end­ed the protest peace­ful­ly, mind­ful that the police could oth­er­wise phys­i­cal­ly remove them fol­low­ing the move on order.

Man­tle also issued a state­ment say­ing that while they sup­port the right to peace­ful protest, our action will not affect their future oper­a­tions.

Quit Coal will see about that.

Videos and more at http://quitcoal.org.au/blog/

Winter Warm-up round-up — Fuel Poverty Action protests

Fri­day update: an excit­ing start to the Fuel Pover­ty Action Week­end of Win­ter Warm-ups…Hundreds of peo­ple across the coun­try came out of their cold homes to get warm at the build­ings of insti­tu­tions that have a hand in cre­at­ing fuel pover­ty, to chal­lenge the Big Six’s monop­oly and the government’s com­plic­i­ty.  Lon­don — Leeds — Swin­don — Man­ches­ter:

Fri­day update: an excit­ing start to the Fuel Pover­ty Action Week­end of Win­ter Warm-ups…Hundreds of peo­ple across the coun­try came out of their cold homes to get warm at the build­ings of insti­tu­tions that have a hand in cre­at­ing fuel pover­ty, to chal­lenge the Big Six’s monop­oly and the government’s com­plic­i­ty.  Lon­don — Leeds — Swin­don — Man­ches­ter: read more

Sat­ur­day update: Cam­bridge

Mon­day update: six activists have bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves into meet­ing rooms on two floors of British Gas offices in Staines, Mid­dle­sex, as part of the ‘Win­ter Warm-Up’ week­end called by the cam­paign group Fuel Pover­ty Action. British Gas is being tar­get­ed as one of the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies mak­ing prof­its out of ris­ing ener­gy bills.  Read more. 

Update — faced with a threat­en­ing police pres­ence, the occu­piers of the British Gas offices have now decid­ed to leave on their own terms.

police solidarity blockade of shell petrol station

27.1.12

27.1.12

in many years of inde­pen­dent report­ing, i’ve often seen sit­u­a­tions where police have caused larg­er dis­rup­tion than a hand­full of pro­tes­tors, clos­ing roads, some­times clos­ing down busi­ness­es, and some­times mas­sive­ly ampli­fy­ing the pow­er of the pro­tes­tors alone (not that that’s their inten­tion). how­ev­er, this evening was, i think, the first time that they so com­plete­ly did the job of the activists for them, that the cam­paign­ers could sit in a nice warm pub and toast the met, instead of stand­ing around in the cold them­selves.

the protest this evening was called by the cli­mate-con­scious shell-bash­ing ‘lon­don ris­ing tide’ group, in co-ordi­na­tion with the leg­endary activist sam­ba band ‘rhythms of resis­tance’.

each jan­u­ary, the band com­mem­o­rate the life of activist, val jones, a woman who helped put the ross­port coun­ty mayo strug­gles on the polit­i­cal map, and who, as a design­er, pro­duced many bril­liant huge ban­ners for the move­ment. she was sad­ly struck down with motor neu­rone dis­ease and passed away two years ago. in mem­o­ry of val, the com­mem­o­ra­tion takes the form of a shell garage block­ade each year.

so, tonight, the call-out was for a block­ade at the shell sta­tion in old street, the scene of pre­vi­ous block­ades. around twen­ty peo­ple turned up to the meet­ing point, armed with drums, ban­ners, and leaflets. well, actu­al­ly some­one for­got the leaflets, but as it turned out they weren’t need­ed.

the usu­al time-line for these events is that the activists turn up at the garage, the band plays on the fore­court, the large ban­ners are used to close the entrance to the site, and leaflets are hand­ed out to staff, to motorists, and to passers-by. the staff then close the shop and call the police, who turn up after about half an hour. the police warn peo­ple that they might be com­mit­ting aggra­vat­ed tres­pass, and then they force­ful­ly facil­i­tate the con­tin­u­a­tion of the action on the pave­ment, so that the garage opens for busi­ness once more.

how­ev­er, tonight, some­thing was very dif­fer­ent. even before the demo began, the garage went dark, bol­lards block­ing its entrance, and small groups of police lurked on street cor­ners near­by.

so the activists were con­fused. what to do? was there any point attempt­ing a block­ade of a garage that was already closed for busi­ness? pre­vi­ous esti­mates from block­ades show that garages lose sev­er­al thou­sands of pounds of busi­ness when they close, and this is of course part of the point of the protests. also, some­one had for­got­ten the leaflets, so although there was a sug­ges­tion of mov­ing to a dif­fer­ent tar­get, there was the con­cern the protest would­n’t be so effec­tive with­out this ele­ment.

every now and then, some­one went out to check the site, and the garage remained total­ly closed for busi­ness, all lights off, staff locked in their shop, and non­cha­lant street-cor­ner polic­ing. so, anoth­er drink, a bit of food, plans afoot for future actions, and as the cold wind built up, and the wet driz­zle came down, the occa­sion­al check that the police were con­tin­u­ing to car­ry out the activists’ mis­sion.

an hour passed, anoth­er one, a third. wow, this was bet­ter than any pre­vi­ous small-scale block­ade. there was fond rem­i­nisc­ing of the upper street block­ade a few years ago, val and the band present, on a sat­ur­day. this had closed the upper street shell garage for five or six hours, and end­ed with loads of TSG arriv­ing , a cou­ple of arrests, and a lot of details tak­en. but it was a much larg­er scale event with lots of pri­or plan­ning. tonight was always meant to be a small, token, and com­mem­o­ra­tive action.

after three hours, the police scaled down and appeared to leave, but the garage stayed closed for a futher two hours, until final­ly near 11pm it opened for busi­ness once more.

this has to have been the most suc­cess­ful block­ade with­out a sin­gle activist present. maybe they should con­tact the gui­ness book of records. we have the pho­tos, the eye-wit­ness reports.

var­i­ous the­o­ries emerged as to why this hap­pened tonight, but none of us real­ly know, so in the mean­time, the met should be heart­ened that a glass or two was raised to them for their ster­ling work this evening in cost­ing shell five hours-worth of busi­ness at a nor­mal­ly very busy lon­don garage, and thanks to them that a cou­ple of dozen activists stayed warm, safe and con­spir­a­to­r­i­al. 

all involved hope that the met join in with even more sol­i­dar­i­ty for the big block­ade on the 8th feb­ru­ary (occu­py­oil).