Category: Climate Chaos

Ministry blocks anti-tar sands law, so we block ministry’s front door

28.11.11

28.11.11

This morn­ing, 50 activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port with two immo­bilised cars parked in front of the entrance. Why? Because our gov­ern­ment is try­ing to scup­per EU leg­is­la­tion that will block tar sands oil — the dirt­i­est, most pol­lut­ing form of oil there is — from being sold at UK petrol pumps.

Min­ing for tar sands is wreck­ing the Cana­di­an bore­al for­est, destroy­ing the home­lands of indige­nous peo­ple, and accel­er­at­ing dan­ger­ous cli­mate change.

So why then is the Depart­ment for Trans­port try­ing to sab­o­tage leg­is­la­tion that would block tar sands oil from Euro­pean petrol pumps? Looks like they’ve been lob­bied hard by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and big oil.

 

Stop Shell’s peat removal!

Fri­day 25th Novem­ber saw over 5 hours of Shel­l’s peat and stone haulage com­plete­ly blocked by cam­paign­ers, and no arrests were made. First thing in the morn­ing four cam­paign­ers had trucks blocked for over an hour and a half, and lat­er on one per­son climbed on top of a peat truck out­side Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery, remain­ing there for 3 and a half hours stop­ping all haulage.

At about 7.15am Fri­day 25th Novem­ber four peo­ple went out to Shel­l’s haulage route to stop work­ers from get­ting to the Augh­oose tun­nel­ing com­pound. A van full of work­ers was stopped, along with the first load of quar­ry trucks which came along about 10–15 min­utes lat­er.

A squad car with one gar­da was present, but he was unable to stop peo­ple from block­ing on his own. Even­tu­al­ly more gar­daí arrived so peo­ple stopped block­ing, and the trucks that had been stopped up all morn­ing start­ed mak­ing their way to the com­pound. No arrests made.

Lat­er that day at 3.30pm, three peo­ple stopped a peat truck out­side Gate 1 of Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery. See­ing as there were only three peo­ple to block the truck and gar­daí would sure­ly arrive soon to move peo­ple out of the road, one per­son climbed on top of the lor­ry to ensure all haulage would be stopped.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp mem­ber Grainne Clan­cy speaks, “We are doing all we can with the num­bers we have at the moment, but we real­ly need more peo­ple up here right now. Some­times there’s only a cou­ple of us block­ing, if we had even a few more peo­ple we could be doing a lot more to dis­rupt Shel­l’s peat removal”

She con­tin­ues, “There have been some actions like the last Bar­ret­t’s [quar­ry in Ban­gor] one, where secu­ri­ty could bare­ly han­dle us as it was, and with a cou­ple more peo­ple we would have been suc­cess­ful”

See report and pho­tos from Bar­ret­t’s quar­ry action here: http://shelltosea.com/content/shells-peat-haulage-has‑b…upted

On Fri­day the per­son remained on top of the truck for three and a half hours, until Shell stop work at 7pm. All Shell traf­fic was blocked but local traf­fic was still able to pass on the oth­er side of the road, aside from when gar­daí rather arbi­trar­i­ly claimed the entire road was blocked, turn­ing local traf­fic around.

At a lock-on protest ear­li­er in the week a gar­da was over­heard giv­ing orders to “shut the road down to local traf­fic, if they see a local in the lock-on they’ll be delight­ed,” appar­ent­ly try­ing to stop local traf­fic from see­ing one of their neigh­bours with an arm in the con­crete lock-on.

At the protest on Fri­day gar­daí were over­heard explain­ing to dri­vers that pro­test­ers have the entire road shut down, when clear­ly traf­fic could pass and it was actu­al­ly gar­daí shut­ting the road down. Even­tu­al­ly the gar­daí gave up block­ing the whole road and resumed direct­ing local traf­fic around the stopped lor­ry.

By 4.30pm a lot of locals had shown up with tea and snacks, and at least 20 peo­ple remained there for the ear­ly evening. At 7pm the per­son got down from the top of the peat truck and walked away, escap­ing arrest.

Grainne Clan­cy con­tin­ues, “Fri­day was great, but the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what we could do with a few more peo­ple is real­ly excit­ing. Shell are only allowed to use one haulage route, and with us block­ing it all the time they’ll hard­ly get any work done. Please come up to Mayo”

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is a wel­com­ing base for any­one inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the cam­paign or any­one inter­est­ed in tak­ing action against Shell. All are wel­come at any time, come vis­it and see what it’s about for your­self. And tak­ing action against shell does­n’t have to mean climb­ing on trucks or doing lock ons. Help is need­ed with tak­ing pho­tos and video, mak­ing din­ner, build­ing lock ons, chop­ping wood, and lots of oth­er things it takes to keep the camp run­ning smooth­ly.

The camp is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose, next to Augh­oose Church (between Pul­lath­omas and Bel­lan­aboy).

To ring for direc­tions, ques­tions or to let us know you’re com­ing: 085.114.1170 or email: rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com

Shell’s Peat Haulage Has Begun… And Been Disrupted !

Shell is remov­ing peat bog from the tun­nelling com­pound in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo, Ire­land, and replac­ing it with stone and grav­el from near­by quar­ries. The increased truck move­ments has not gone unchal­lenged.

 

Shell is remov­ing peat bog from the tun­nelling com­pound in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo, Ire­land, and replac­ing it with stone and grav­el from near­by quar­ries. The increased truck move­ments has not gone unchal­lenged.

 

Fol­low­ing the peat truck protest last Wednes­day that result­ed in 4 peo­ple being arrest­ed –  https://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/content/campaigners-block-shells-peat-haulage-morning-after-taisce-faces-local-community – protests have been hap­pen­ing almost every day.

On Sat­ur­day 19th Novem­ber, around 12pm, 4 peo­ple stopped peat and quar­ry trucks along the haulage route. By the time Gar­dai arrived, most of the work­ers in the com­pound had gone home and work had stopped for the day.

On Mon­day the 21st , 8 peo­ple entered into Bar­ret­t’s Quar­ry in Ban­gor and tried to get onto dig­gers to stop work. One cam­paign­er reached one of the dig­gers, but was dragged down by secu­ri­ty before climb­ing on top. The IRMS secu­ri­ty grabbed every­one and held them down until they could drag them out of the quar­ry. This is the first time enter­ing Bar­ret’s Quar­ry that no-one suc­ceed­ed in get­ting on top of machin­ery. If there had been a cou­ple more peo­ple on the action, it may have suc­ceed­ed (i.e. come up to Mayo!)

On Tues­day 22nd Novem­ber around 12:15pm, 2 peo­ple locked their arms into a con­crete bar­rel; block­ing the main haulage route. This hap­pened after the week­ly Tues­day morn­ing protest with locals and sup­port­ers from 8 to 11am. The morn­ing was very effec­tive in its own right as over 20 peo­ple spread out along the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery road and stopped many of the peat and quar­ry trucks at sev­er­al points. The Gar­dai present were stretched in deal­ing with the sit­u­a­tion at hand.

The lock-on was put in place an hour after the end of the morn­ing protest. At one stage Gar­dai briefly attempt­ed to pull out one per­son­’s arm while they were scream­ing that they were locked into the bar­rel, which required some angry reminders from oth­ers present that cut­ting them out was going to be the only accept­able way. The lock-on was high­ly effec­tive and last­ed from 12:15pm until 5:30pm. There was local sup­port for a while before the Gar­dai pro­ceed­ed to close down the road. Up to 12 trucks were sat wait­ing in the Augh­oose com­pound and dig­gers and oth­er machin­ery there­fore had noth­ing to do. The 2 cam­paign­ers were arrest­ed and released lat­er that evening.

Also worth men­tion­ing were sev­er­al trucks being stopped or slowed down through­out the week for half an hour or so when the oppor­tu­ni­ty arose. No arrests were made on those occa­sions.

If you and/or your friends are inter­est­ed in com­ing down to the ongo­ing cam­paign and being almost cer­tain of halt­ing work for all or most part of the day, then now is the time !

Show your sup­port – the bat­tle goes on !

www.shelltosea.com

www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

Campaigners block Shell’s peat haulage morning after An Taisce faces local community

Fri­day 18th Novem­ber 2011

Fri­day 18th Novem­ber 2011

On Tues­day 15th Novem­ber, An Taisce board mem­ber Attrac­ta Uí Bhroin trav­elled to Bel­mul­let Civic Cen­tre to defend the with­draw­al of An Taisce’s legal chal­lenges to the valid­i­ty of con­sents for the Cor­rib Gas project. An Taisce have claimed that their set­tle­ment is a ‘vic­to­ry for the envi­ron­ment’ despite the fact that the State remains in breach of Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal direc­tives in pro­ceed­ing with the Cor­rib project. The next day cam­paign­ers stopped Shell’s peat haulage out­side Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site to demon­strate that despite An Taisce set­tling with the State, local cam­paign­ers will con­tin­ue to defend the safe­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We’ll have to fight for anoth­er day, the whole com­mu­ni­ty. Ye might set­tle for mon­ey with them, but we are not going to.”

The next morn­ing, peat extrac­tion trucks were spot­ted for the first time trav­el­ling from the Augh­oose com­pound to the Srah­more peat depo­si­tion site in Ban­gor Erris. Shell’s use of these very large trucks sig­nals the start of their attempts to remove peat from Augh­oose and haul stone in order to begin the process of tun­nel­ing through Sruwad­da­con estu­ary.

Shell plan up to 475 truck move­ments a day through the affect­ed route and vil­lages in this peri­od of con­struc­tion. Mem­bers of the local com­mu­ni­ty and Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp respond­ed by gath­er­ing at 12.30pm out­side the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery to show their con­tin­u­ing oppo­si­tion to the project. A peat truck was stopped at 12.45pm, as three cam­paign­ers climbed inside. A fourth cam­paign­er locked on under­neath the lor­ry at 2.30pm. With cam­paign­ers occu­py­ing the peat truck, local res­i­dents record­ed that ten fur­ther trucks were pre­vent­ed from either leav­ing the Augh­oose com­pound and or leav­ing the refin­ery. The peat lor­ry blocked all Shell trucks to and from the Augh­oose com­pound until 3.20pm.

Last Fri­day over 80 local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers came to Bel­lan­aboy to demon­strate their oppo­si­tion and hon­our eleven years of resis­tance. Ban­ners were hung at the gates of Bel­lan­aboy gas refin­ery which stat­ed that the State is vio­lat­ing the Euro­pean habi­tats direc­tives in pro­ceed­ing with the Cor­rib project. Local cam­paign­ers are ask­ing peo­ple to trav­el to Erris and help to defend the safe­ty of this com­mu­ni­ty and place.

Occupy Shellanaboy set up at refinery gates in Erris (& solidarity with Ogoni 9)

Novem­ber 11, 2011

Novem­ber 11, 2011

About 40 Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers blocked the Augh­oose com­pound this morn­ing — all Shell employ­ees pre­vent­ed enter­ing com­pound 7.30 to 9.30. The road was kept open to local traf­fic by the cam­paign. There was no Gar­da pres­ence. Just after 10 Shell to Sea activists start­ed set­ting up an Occu­py Shell Cor­rib Camp at the gates of the refin­ery in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the glob­al Occu­py move­ments!

At 9.30 cam­paign­ers start­ed mov­ing from the Augh­hoose com­pound to the refin­ery site where there will be meet up at 10. This action was part of the day of sol­i­dar­i­ty called both to remem­ber the exe­cu­tion of Ken Saro Wiwa and for peo­ple from around Ire­land to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty in Erris, Mayo.

Local res­i­dents and their sup­port­ers will gath­er at 10am at the gates of Shell’s inland refin­ery. From there they will walk to Bel­lan­aboy Bridge to com­mem­o­rate a baton charge by Gar­daí on Novem­ber 10th, 2006. The baton charge result­ed in numer­ous injuries to cam­paign­ers and is one of the low points of the 11-year strug­gle against the inland refin­ery and high pres­sure pipeline. They will also be mark­ing the 16th anniver­sary of the exe­cu­tion of nine activists in Ogo­ni­land, Nige­ria. Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight oth­ers were hanged by the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment on Novem­ber 10th, 1995 for their oppo­si­tion to Shell’s envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion in the Niger delta. The walk which is now (11.20) under­way is lead by peo­ple car­ry­ing the 9 cross­es to com­mem­o­rate the Ogo­ni 9 exe­cut­ed on this day in 1995. Over 100 peo­ple are tak­ing part

http://www.dublins2s.com

anti-shell protest at awards

9.11.11

9.11.11

tomor­row marks the six­teenth anniver­sary of the killing of ken saro-wiwa and eight oth­er activists in nige­ria. today, shell, com­plic­it in their exe­cu­tion, was pol­ish­ing its image by spon­sor­ing an awards event for young entre­peneurs at the cen­tre­point build­ing in cen­tral lon­don. ris­ing tide organ­ised a reminder of shel­l’s bloody his­to­ry out­side the event, involv­ing grim reapers, som­bre drums, and hun­dreds of leaflets.

after meet­ing and dress­ing just round the cor­ner, a dozen or so activists arrived out­side the cen­tre­point build­ing, cre­at­ing quite a stir with a mor­bid beat from two huge sur­do drums, sev­er­al ghost­ly shell logo skull-faced grim reapers, and an excel­lent ban­ner using the shell and livewire logos and the slo­gans “shell livewire — sup­port­ing bright young busi­ness, shell deathrope — hang­ing out­spo­ken young nige­ri­ans”.

cen­tre­point secu­ri­ty at first over­stepped the mark, push­ing peo­ple and try­ing to snatch the ban­ner, but they retreat­ed indoors and closed off the entrance when they realised they were being filmed, allow­ing the protest to con­tin­ue right out­side.

hun­dreds of leaflets were hand­ed out to inter­est­ed passers-by, and police, who arrived after around 40 min­utes, wait­ed for instruc­tion up the com­mand chain before decid­ing to leave the protest alone.

after about 90 min­utes, with leaflets run­ning out, and the young entre­peneurs appar­ent­ly led out of the build­ing via an under­ground car park, it was off to the pub for a well-deserved drink for the activists.

it was on the 10th novem­ber in 1995 that the niger­ian gov­ern­ment hanged ken saro-wiwa and eight oth­er young activists who were cam­paign­ers against the dev­as­ta­tion caused by shell and oth­er oil exploiters in their home­lands. shell was lat­er shown to have been com­plic­it in the mur­ders. to this day, shell still attacks com­mu­ni­ties (like ross­port in north­ern ire­land, as well as con­tin­u­ing abus­es in the niger delta) and destroys the plan­et through oil extrac­tion, and to off­set their destruc­tive image they put tiny amounts of their prof­its into high pro­file spon­sor­ship events like ‘livewire’, a youth busi­ness enter­prise.
 

VIDEO
Thanks too to ‘You and I Films’ for pro­duc­ing a video of our (S)Hell DeathROPE action, and to Kevin Smith of Plat­form for the infor­ma­tive interview/voiceover, which you can watch online at:

• ‘Shell Death Rope — In Mem­o­ry of Ken Saro-Wiwa’, at vimeo
» video, 2:29 – http://vimeo.com/31879898

BLOGS
Thanks to Ben Amunwa at Plat­form, there are also two blog post­ings about our (S)Hell DeathROPE action:

• ‘Protest Expos­es Shell’s Grim Record on Human Rights’
» http://blog.platformlondon.org/2011/11/10/protest-exposes-shells-grim-record-on-human-rights/
» http://remembersarowiwa.com/protest-exposes-shells-grim-record-on-human-rights/

FUTURE ACTIONS
If you are also inclined to acknowl­edg­ing that the cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate chaos caused by anthro­pogenic glob­al warm­ing is the most seri­ous social/economic/political issue humankind has ever faced, and want to join in tak­ing grass­roots direct action to influ­ence our civil­i­sa­tion toward cli­mate jus­tice, then do please con­sid­er join­ing Lon­don Ris­ing Tide (or your local Ris­ing Tide group).

• Ris­ing Tide, Lon­don
» http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
• Next action plan­ning gath­er­ing: Thu 17 Nov 2011, 19:30–21:00 (and after­wards (option­al­ly) down t’pub), at the Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre, 62 Fieldgate Street, Whiechapel, Lon­don E1 1ES
» LARC – http://www.londonarc.org

• Ris­ing Tide, UK and around the world
» http://risingtide.org.uk
• see left hand col­umn for links to Ris­ing Tide groups all around the world

How to use a bikelock to save the Great Barrier Reef — protest halts Gladstone dredging

9 Novem­ber 2011

9 Novem­ber 2011

Derec Davies used a bicy­cle U lock to attach him­self to a dredger in Glad­stone Har­bour this morn­ing. The direct action was tak­en to pro­tect the Great Bar­ri­er Reef against the devel­op­ment of Glad­stone har­bour liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas facil­i­ties on Cur­tis Island to export Coal Seam Gas. Mas­sive Dredg­ing of the Glad­stone har­bour is occur­ring which fish­er­man and envi­ron­men­tal­ists say is caus­ing tur­bid­i­ty in the water and caus­ing ill­ness of fish effec­tive­ly clos­ing down the local fish­ing indus­try. Devel­op­ment is endan­ger­ing the World Her­itage sta­tus of the Great Bar­ri­er Reef.

Relat­ed: In 2010 Con­ser­va­tion­ists crit­i­cised gov­ern­ment over coal ship ground­ing on Great Bar­ri­er Reef near Glad­stone | Capri­corn Con­ser­va­tion Coun­cil: The LNG inva­sion of Cur­tis Island | ABC TV Four Cor­ners: Great Bar­ri­er Grief | Get­up! peti­tion to Save the reef

Derec Davies, a Friends of the Earth cam­paign­er, was whisked out to a dredger about 9.30am this morn­ing by a fast inflat­able boat. He unfurlled a ban­ner on the dredge, which read “Save the reef, halt dredg­ing” and chained him­self. All dredg­ing stopped when he locked onto equip­ment. The police were called and attend­ed to cut him free. Dredg­ing was stopped for over 2 hours.

Derec Davies was released from cus­tody at 3:40pm today with three charges under the Trans­port Oper­a­tions and Mar­itime Safe­ty act. The charges car­ry a total max­i­mum penal­ty of $74000 or one years impris­on­ment.

“The Great Bar­ri­er Reef is worth a lot more than $74 000, so I think that it was worth­while,” said Mr Davies. “We should­n’t have to take action like this, but our Envi­ron­ment min­is­ters Vicky Dar­ling and Tony Burke are let­ting us all down. Hope­ful­ly the judge will see that peo­ple need to have the right to protest, oth­er­wise this destruc­tion of the reef will go unchal­lenged.” said Mr Davies.

Drew Hut­ton, a spokeper­son for Friends of the Earth said that the pur­pose of the protest was to call for a halt to all dredg­ing in the har­bour until a gen­uine inde­pen­dent enquiry was held into the caus­es of the appar­ent ecosys­tem col­lapse in the har­bour.

The ABC TV Four Cor­ners cur­rent affairs Pro­gram on Mon­day night did an in depth report on port devel­op­ments in Queens­land and their impact on The Great Bar­ri­er Reef Marine Park and World Her­itage Area. (Watch Great Bar­ri­er Grief)

In the 12 hours fol­low­ing the air­ing of the pro­gram some 19,000 peo­ple signed an online Get­up! peti­tion to Save the reef.

There are six major port devel­op­ments already planned or under­way along the Queens­land coast to export coal and coal seam gas.

“ABC has report­ed that the chair of the Great Bar­ri­er Reef Marine Park Author­i­ty expressed ‘extreme con­cern’ to the Gov­ern­ment about the dredg­ing and its unac­cept­able impacts on marine life with­in the World Her­itage area,” said Sen­a­tor Laris­sa Waters from the Greens.

“We now have a huge spike in marine ani­mal deaths up and down the coast, a fish dis­ease epi­dem­ic in Glad­stone har­bour and the fish­ing indus­try on its knees, after just 1.5 mil­lion of the 46 mil­lion cubic metres have been dredged. The tur­bid­i­ty con­di­tions imposed by the fed­er­al Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter for the dredg­ing are being con­tin­u­al­ly breached, and now we learn that three heavy met­als – alu­mini­um, cop­per and chromi­um – are exceed­ing the nation­al safe­ty guide­lines. And still the dredg­ing con­tin­ues.” Sen­a­tors Waters said in a media release.

Mr Hut­ton said the dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of marine ani­mal deaths and dis­eased fish in Glad­stone har­bour reflect­ed an ecosys­tem under extreme stress and his organ­i­sa­tion had no faith in the Queens­land Gov­ern­men­t’s pre­pared­ness to look seri­ous­ly for the caus­es.

“This is an issue of con­cern to all Aus­tralians who believe the Great Bar­ri­er reef should not be sac­ri­ficed for fleet­ing eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. The coal seam gas indus­try, once again, has demon­strat­ed what a detri­men­tal impact it is hav­ing on rur­al and region­al Queens­land.” said Drew Hut­ton.

Accord­ing to Drew Hut­ton in a report on Lock the Gate, nei­ther the Queens­land gov­ern­ment nor the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment were trust­ed by most peo­ple to get to the bot­tom of the prob­lem because they had too strong a vest­ed inter­est in see­ing these projects go ahead.

“So far all we have seen from the Bligh gov­ern­ment is flawed water qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing, con­stant asser­tions that the prob­lems of marine species’ deaths and fish dis­ease have noth­ing to do with devel­op­ments in the har­bour and the desire to see devel­op­ments pro­ceed at break­neck speed.”

“The Glad­stone Port Corporation’s dredg­ing pro­gram is one of the biggest in our his­to­ry and we need to know if dredg­ing up his­toric lay­ers of indus­tri­al pol­lu­tants as well as the acid sul­phate soils that are known to be in the area are linked with this cat­a­stro­phe.”

Drew Hut­ton has high­light­ed the links between the reck­less pace of devel­op­ment in Coal Seam Gas wells, with the port expan­sion threat­en­ing major impacts to fish­eries and tourism indus­tries asso­ci­at­ed with the Great Bar­ri­er Reef.

“Coal seam gas is, in all like­li­hood, linked with the prob­lems in Glad­stone har­bour but you can fol­low the trail of destruc­tion and pos­si­ble cat­a­stro­phe back to the tens of thou­sands of hectares of bush­land being cleared for gas pipelines and the long-term destruc­tion of under­ground water.” he said, “It is only peo­ple pow­er that will force recal­ci­trant gov­ern­ments to act respon­si­bly to bring the coal seam gas indus­try under con­trol and to act to pro­tect the Great Bar­ri­er Reef from high-impact devel­op­ment..”

Friends of the Earth is call­ing for a dredg­ing halt, inde­pen­dent test­ing in Glad­stone har­bour, and the cur­rent enquiry announced by Fed­er­al and State Gov­ern­ments to widen its terms of ref­er­ence to include all aspects of indus­tri­al devel­op­ment in the region.

Aus­tralia failed to noti­fy the World Her­itage Com­mit­tee ear­li­er this year regard­ing the port devel­op­ments and their pos­si­ble impact on the World Her­ti­age sta­tus of the Great Bar­ri­er Reef. They have called for a strate­gic assess­ment of all coastal assess­ments impact­ing on the reef. The reef may be in dan­ger of los­ing its World Her­itage sta­tus.

“Aus­tralians have to ask right now – are we pre­pared to lose one of our great­est nation­al assets so we can turn the Great Bar­ri­er Reef into a coal and gas high­way?” con­clud­ed Sen­a­tor Waters.

Earth First! Winter Moot 2012 — 24–26th February 2012. Updated: location & what to expect

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

A week­end of dis­cus­sion and net­work­ing for those tak­ing direct action against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. 

Please note date & loca­tion change (due to date clash & venue prob­lems):

24–26th Feb­ru­ary 2012, near Glas­gow

Near­est train sta­tion: Lanark.

See earthfirstgathering.org.uk for fur­ther infor­ma­tion about loca­tion,  pro­gramme and con­tact details

Update:

Where — this years Earth First Win­ter Moot will take place in Gle­spin Vil­lage Hall, South Lanark­shire. Gle­spin is a small vil­lage about 14 miles south of Lanark, and 35 miles south of Glas­gow. South Lanark­shire also has many beau­ti­ful areas with rivers, hills, forests and peat bogs.  Full direc­tions

What to expect — this years Earth First! Win­ter Moot takes place in South Lanark­shire, Scot­land. In a months time envi­ron­men­tal­ists from across the UK and beyond will con­verge to dis­cuss and debate. Below is an update from the organ­is­ing col­lec­tive who are work­ing on the pro­gram.

The Moot 2012 col­lec­tive has felt that at pre­vi­ous EF! Gath­er­ings groups have pri­mar­i­ly attend­ed to recruit for their respec­tive cam­paigns. Yet those who attend EF! Gath­er­ings are pre­dom­i­nant­ly already active, mak­ing them good places for net­work­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly for out­right recruit­ment. We recog­nise the effort gath­er­ing organ­is­ers put into plan­ning agen­das but often the more dis­cur­sive aspects of the gath­er­ings focus on larg­er,  abstract ques­tions and debates have often been framed by self-appoint­ed experts. We feel that these dis­cus­sions inef­fec­tive­ly attempt to find answers or reach con­sen­sus where this is inap­pro­pri­ate.

For exam­ple at the first EF! Gath­er­ing 20 years ago the ques­tion was asked: ‘What is EF!?’ 20 years lat­er in 2011 at the last Moot the same ques­tion was still being asked …

The answer is EF! is what we make it, and this year we are going to make it a space in which we can approach our cam­paigns both crit­i­cal­ly and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly by ask­ing more spe­cif­ic and prac­ti­cal ques­tions. Our activism should be con­stant­ly evolv­ing not stuck in a rut ask­ing the same ques­tions again and again.

The agen­da will be designed to ask ques­tions around four key issues: the tac­tics we use; the strate­gies that we employ in our cam­paigns; com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty; and sus­tain­able activism. There will be no attempt to reach con­clu­sions or con­sen­sus espe­cial­ly about what EF! is. Instead we want to have dis­cus­sions that lead to new ideas that could evolve ongo­ing cam­paigns or give cre­ative inspi­ra­tion to ones that are just get­ting start­ed.

A free space will be pro­vid­ed in which cam­paigns will be able to hold meet­ings and have fur­ther dis­cus­sions if they wish, and there will also be some space giv­en for cam­paign updates with an empha­sis on hon­est analy­sis rather than pro­mo­tion.

For updates and more info check the web­site or email us.

efwintermoot@noflag.org.uk

Natural Gas Drilling Rig Stormed by Anti-Fracking Protesters

2.11.11

2.11.11

This morn­ing nine peo­ple, from the nation­al anti- frack­ing net­work from Frack Off, have halt­ed work at Cuadrilla Resources drilling site in Hes­keth Bank, Lan­cashire. They ran on to the Frack­ing site ear­ly this morn­ing and scaled the drilling rig using climb­ing equip­ment. They aim to sit on top of the drilling rig for as long as pos­si­ble to stop the drilling.

The action is aimed at high­light­ing the hypocrisy behind the ‘Shale Gas Envi­ron­men­tal Sum­mit’ start­ing today in Lon­don: a con­fer­ence spon­sored by a host of com­pa­nies involved in the oil and gas indus­try who are try­ing to spin the rapid expan­sion into the untapped fos­sil fuel as ‘green’ [1].

Cam­paign­ers are act­ing in sup­port of the ‘Frack Mob’ mass action hap­pen­ing out­side the sum­mit at 3pm lat­er today [2].

Both actions aim to counter the PR offen­sive of the shale gas indus­try and bring pub­lic atten­tion to the harm frack­ing has been linked to.

Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing, or ‘frack­ing’ is a con­tro­ver­sial method of nat­ur­al gas extrac­tion, in which a mix­ture of water, sand and chem­i­cals is inject­ed into the ground at high pres­sure, crack­ing shale rock and releas­ing the gas [3]. It has been the sub­ject of much con­tention due to numer­ous reports link­ing the method to water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, health prob­lems and earth­quakes [4]. The indus­try is in its infan­cy in the UK, and there are plans for up to 800 wells in Lan­cashire alone [5].

Jen­ny Boykin, a spokesper­son for Frack Off, said “Frack­ing uses huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals, a large frac­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. The frack­ing flu­id also leach­es chem­i­cals like arsenic out of the rocks when it is used mak­ing it even more tox­ic and so the flu­id that is recov­ered becomes a big dis­pos­al prob­lem. The con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of irri­ga­tion water means that everyone’s food sup­plies could poten­tial­ly be affect­ed. Frack­ing in the Unit­ed States has already result­ed in numer­ous spills of these flu­ids.”

Col­in East­man, one of the climbers, said, “Con­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels have begun to run out and the sys­tem is mov­ing towards more extreme forms of ener­gy like frack­ing, tar sands, and deep water drilling. The move towards ‘extreme ener­gy’ is lit­er­al­ly scrap­ping the bot­tom of the bar­rel, suck­ing the last most dif­fi­cult to reach fos­sil fuels from the plan­et at a time when we should be rapid­ly reduc­ing our con­sump­tion alto­geth­er and look­ing for sus­tain­able alter­na­tives. In the UK frack­ing for shale gas is planned along­side, not instead of, extrac­tion of con­ven­tion­al fos­sil fuels like coal.”

Pic­tures are being uploaded here:  http://s.coop/7hwi

Look at the web­site for more info: www.frack-off.org
Fol­low us on twit­ter: @frack_off
Fol­low us on Face­book: www.facebook.com/frackoffuk
Or e‑mail:  media@frack-off.org
Phone: 07931195505

Notes:
[1] Envi­ron­men­tal sum­mit details:  http://www.smi-online.co.uk/events/overview.asp?is=0&ref=3742

[2] press release for the frack mob:  http://frack-off.org.uk/press-release-anti-fracking-protesters-plan-to-shut-down-an-industry-environmental-summit/

[3] short film explain­ing what frack­ing is:
 http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-hell/watch-the-film/

[4]  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050025/Earthquakes-Lancashire-coast-WERE-caused-drilling-gas-experts-warn-energy-operation-threatened-closure.html

[5]  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/21/gas-field-blackpool-dallas-sea

Frack Mob at Industry Greenwash Conference

Action: Frack Mob
Tar­get: Indus­try green­wash­ing con­fer­ence
Date: Weds 2nd Novem­ber
Time: 3–6pm
Loca­tion: Copthorne Tara Hotel, Scars­dale Place, Kens­ing­ton, Lon­don

Action: Frack Mob
Tar­get: Indus­try green­wash­ing con­fer­ence
Date: Weds 2nd Novem­ber
Time: 3–6pm
Loca­tion: Copthorne Tara Hotel, Scars­dale Place, Kens­ing­ton, Lon­don

Be part of the UK’s first mass-action against frack­ing.

Do you care about where you live, your health and the plan­et?

Then Join us on the 2nd of Novem­ber for a mas­sive ‘frack mob’. This will be the UK’s first mass-action against frack­ing, and what bet­ter tar­get than an indus­try green­wash love-in?

Frack­ing is in it’s infan­cy in this coun­try, if we are going to kill this thing it has to be now.

This con­fer­ence is all about large com­pa­nies shaft­ing the plan­et in the name of prof­it. We still have time to cut through the bull­shit, scare the investors and tell the com­pa­nies to FRACK OFF!

Lets expose this Green­wash. Bring:

-Gas masks
-Fracked water ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/54095609@N00/sets/72157627591245355/with/6166727923/)
-Any­thing that makes a loud noise
-Green body/face paint
-Chalk/giant chalk ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npcInClZKUI)
-A desire to have FUN

Frack­ing com­pa­nies drill for gas by blast­ing water, sand and cor­ro­sive chem­i­cals deep into the ground to crack the bedrock. Frack­ing poi­sons tap­wa­ter, caus­es earth­quakes and releas­es more green­house gas­es than coal.

Invite your friends and get informed:
- Fol­low @Frack_off on twit­ter
- Go to www.frack-off.org

See you on the streets (near­est tube Kens­ing­ton High St).

info@frack-off.org