Category: Climate Chaos

Friends Of The Earth Cymru information stall against the Monster Incinerator at Ffos-y-fran

Friends Of The Earth CYMRU are hav­ing an infor­ma­tion stall in Merthyr precinct this Fri­day.
Join the Face­book page “No Mon­ster Incin­er­a­tor in Merthyr Tyd­fil” for a pow­er­point pre­sen­ta­tion on the Health Impact of incin­er­a­tors by world renown expert Prof Paul Con­nett!

Friends Of The Earth CYMRU are hav­ing an infor­ma­tion stall in Merthyr precinct this Fri­day.
Join the Face­book page “No Mon­ster Incin­er­a­tor in Merthyr Tyd­fil” for a pow­er­point pre­sen­ta­tion on the Health Impact of incin­er­a­tors by world renown expert Prof Paul Con­nett!
It looks as if Cov­an­ta are going for­ward with sub­mit­ting plan­ning appli­ca­tion on Novem­ber 1st — Direct Action and Aware­ness needs to be ramped up as much of the com­mu­ni­ty of Merthyr Tyd­fil are bliss­ful­ly igno­rant of the sci­en­tif­ic facts on the impact of diox­ins, nano-par­tic­u­lates and oth­er very nasty shit such as “Fly Ash”!

Happendon Wood Occupied! New Direct Action Camp Against Scottish Coal

Ear­ly evening on Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber a group of autonomous indi­vid­u­als suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied a new site in Hap­pen­don Wood, South Lanark­shire!

Ear­ly evening on Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber a group of autonomous indi­vid­u­als suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied a new site in Hap­pen­don Wood, South Lanark­shire!

Coal Action Scot­land are invit­ing peo­ple to join The Hap­pen­don Wood Action Camp (THWAC) to help defend the wood from destruc­tion by Scot­tish Coal, and to take action in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in the area resist­ing the expan­sion of the coal indus­try in the Dou­glas Val­ley.

You can find out more about the camp at http://happendon.coalactionscotland.org.uk — and more infor­ma­tion about why we’re at Hap­pen­don and what we’re doing there will be com­ing very soon.

In the mean­time, check our press advi­so­ry, for imme­di­ate release, below:

Con­tact:
Sam Mac­don­ald (Off-site Con­tact: Infor­ma­tion and Pho­tos) 07984706188
Jo Reed (On-site Con­tact: Vis­its and Inter­views) 07806926040
media@coalactionscotland.org.uk

Scot­tish Coal’s
Hap­pen­don Wood Occu­pied

Last night (12/9/10) a group of peo­ple occu­pied areas with­in Hap­pen­don Wood, South Lanark­shire (1) to defend it from destruc­tion by Scot­tish Coal, part of the Scot­tish Resources Group. They have begun to build shel­ters and defences on the site, with large ban­ners hung from trees at the front of the site that say: “Defend­ing the Dou­glas Val­ley” and “No Open­cast Here”. The Hap­pen­don Wood Action Camp has come out of a long-term strug­gle by the local com­mu­ni­ty and Coal Action Scot­land (2) to halt coal expan­sion in the Dou­glas Val­ley which is already one of the most heav­i­ly mined areas in Europe.

The Scot­tish Resources Group have applied for plan­ning per­mis­sion for a mixed use devel­op­ment (3) on this land (which is in an area of Great Land­scape Val­ue) in the Dou­glas Val­ley, but they intend to open­cast the area first. The South Lanark­shire min­er­als plan high­lights areas with­in the new devel­op­ment as hav­ing recov­er­able coal deposits that can be exca­vat­ed dur­ing the cur­rent local plan. Scot­tish Coal actu­al­ly wouldn’t be allowed to build on the land with­out open cast­ing it first, oth­er­wise this would be “ster­il­is­ing the nations asset” and there­fore ille­gal. (4)

Scot­tish Coal have not yet pub­licly declared their inter­ests in open­cast­ing Hap­pen­don Wood but many mem­bers of the local com­mu­ni­ty have expressed deep con­cerns that they will be blight­ed with yet anoth­er open­cast coal mine. In a recent meet­ing about the devel­op­ment, MSP for Clydes­dale Karen Gillon told local res­i­dents that she did not doubt that they would remove the coal, in spite of the fact that the area that SRG wish to devel­op takes in the open­cast work­ings at Poniel, which are cur­rent­ly due to be restored. Local res­i­dent and Dou­glas and Gle­spin Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Chair­per­son Lind­say Addi­son is enraged by the behav­iour of Scot­tish Coal in South Lanark­shire:

“We have seri­ous con­cerns that this is an excuse for anoth­er open­cast. We do not want this devel­op­ment, let alone anoth­er mine. We will fight it all the way and sup­port the efforts of the wider com­mu­ni­ty in its oppo­si­tion to new coal in the Dou­glas Val­ley.”

SRG’s appli­ca­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion for this devel­op­ment is ongo­ing; the deci­sion by the coun­cil will like­ly be made in the com­ing months. Ques­tions have been raised about the close rela­tion­ship between Scot­tish Coal and South Lanark­shire Coun­cil (SLC) result­ing in SLC issu­ing each mem­ber of the Dou­glas and Gle­spin Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil legal notices stat­ing that pro­ceed­ings against them are to begin at Lanark Sher­iff Court over alleged libel claims. This move is seen by the com­mu­ni­ty as an attack on their free­dom of speech. (5)

Notes to Edi­tors:

1. Loca­tion: In South Lanark­shire, about 30 miles south of Glas­gow, Hap­pen­don Wood is an area just off the B7078, sur­round­ing the Dew­ers ware­house site and Poniel Open­cast work­ings. To reach the site, dri­ving south along the B7078 from Les­ma­hagow (run­ning along­side the M74), take the first left after Hap­pen­don Ser­vices onto the C‑road; the site front is on your left after about half a mile. A map is avail­able at http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?page_id=1974#Where

2. Work­ing with and sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ties across Scot­land, the Coal Action Scot­land col­lec­tive exists to chal­lenge the advance­ment of coal as an ener­gy source by inform­ing peo­ple about the dan­gers posed by new coal, pro­mot­ing alter­na­tives, work­ing with those involved, and direct­ly chal­leng­ing new coal exploita­tion from source to point of use. Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was set up just along the road from Hap­pen­don Woods last year where peo­ple stayed for over sev­en months, end­ing in a five day evic­tion and a total of 45 arrests. See: http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/

3. This appli­ca­tion is Poniel / Hap­pen­don Mixed Use Devel­op­ment appli­ca­tion from the Scot­tish Resources Group (Scot­tish Coal). It is for “Mixed use devel­op­ment com­pris­ing indus­tri­al and stor­age and dis­tri­b­u­tion ware­hous­ing, busi­ness units/office accom­mo­da­tion, hotel with con­fer­ence and com­mer­cial leisure facil­i­ties, retail/restaurant floor­space, land­scap­ing, open space and asso­ci­at­ed infra­struc­ture (plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ci­ple)”, but it is expect­ed that once they get per­mis­sion for this they will actu­al­ly be bound to open­cast the area for coal. The plan­ning ref­er­ence for the appli­ca­tion is: CL/10/0180.

4. The Coal Author­i­ty issue licences to coal com­pa­nies. The fol­low­ing was dis­cov­ered in cor­re­spon­dence between them and Scot­tish Coal:
‘Where devel­op­ment is pro­posed over areas of coal and past coal work­ings at shal­low depth, The Coal Author­i­ty is of the opin­ion that appli­cants should con­sid­er wher­ev­er pos­si­ble remov­ing the rem­nant shal­low coal. This will enable the land to be sta­bilised and treat­ed by a more sus­tain­able method; rather than by attempt­ing to grout fill any voids and con­se­quent­ly unnec­es­sar­i­ly ster­il­is­ing the nation’s asset.’

5. For arti­cles and quo­ta­tions on the legal threats to the Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil see:
http://www.lanarkgazette.co.uk/news/South-Lanarkshire-Council-copyright-threat.6526004.jp
http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=1966
http://www.jonathanmitchell.info/2010/09/02/whats-wrong-with-south-lanarkshire/

Bath Bomb #33 Out Now!

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #33
free/donation
Sep­tem­ber 2010

“More rusty barbed wire than cut­ting edge”

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The First Cut Is The Deep­est

Whilst we’ve nev­er claimed to be the cut­ting edge of jour­nal­ism, the Bath Bomb has become privy to a series of unpleas­ant plans from coun­cils in the south­west:

THE BATH BOMB

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #33
free/donation
Sep­tem­ber 2010

“More rusty barbed wire than cut­ting edge”

*

The First Cut Is The Deep­est

Whilst we’ve nev­er claimed to be the cut­ting edge of jour­nal­ism, the Bath Bomb has become privy to a series of unpleas­ant plans from coun­cils in the south­west:

Somerset’s most ded­i­cat­ed N.H.S. pro­fes­sion­als are being “strong-armed and rail­road­ed” into defect­ing from the Pri­ma­ry Care Trust to join social enter­prise ven­tures, with­out the chance of a prop­er con­sul­ta­tion. But at a meet­ing filled with angry health vis­i­tors, school nurs­es, local hos­pi­tal and oth­er work­ers in Bridg­wa­ter on Wednes­day 1st Sep­tem­ber, they vot­ed “No!” to pri­vati­sa­tion. Their cam­paign is now seek­ing pub­lic sup­port for the P.C.T. meet­ing at Wyn­ford House, Lufton Way, in Yeovil on Wednes­day 15th Sep­tem­ber from 10am, where the deci­sion is expect­ed to be made.

Employ­ment Min­is­ter Chris Grayling has start­ed a cru­sade to force the 260 young Inca­pac­i­ty Ben­e­fit claimants in B.&N.E.S. (and a fur­ther 530 in Wilt­shire) into work – regard­less of whether they’re fit to or not. There are already wider moves to slash the Wel­fare Bill, and expand the con­tro­ver­sial Work Capa­bil­i­ty Assess­ment health test, but Grayling some­how seeks to frame this witch-hunt as a form of phil­an­thropy: “Thou­sands of young peo­ple with their lives ahead of them just parked on sick­ness ben­e­fits with no way out.” A big man with a big heart.

Three out of sev­en youth key work­ers in the Bath area are to be cut, along­side their youth cen­tres. Youth work­ers who have been col­leagues for years are now being turned against each oth­er, anx­ious­ly com­pet­ing to not put a foot wrong and lose their jobs, or be ‘matrix’ed. Whether crime rates will go up as deprived kids are alien­at­ed even fur­ther, is hard to say.

Waste man­age­ment ser­vices in the vil­lage of Old Wel­ton are to be cut and shipped out to Bath. As they share the Trans­fer Sta­tion site with oth­er pub­lic ser­vices, there is expect­ed to be a knock-on ‘tip­ping point’ effect where more ser­vices are sent off to the big city, even­tu­al­ly drain­ing the area of a large por­tion of its employ­ment, and its econ­o­my.

Mean­while G.M.B. union work­ers in Bris­tol are being ille­gal­ly threat­ened with dis­ci­pli­nary action for shar­ing news of intend­ed cuts with their unions.

But peo­ple aren’t just gonna sit and take it: a noisy 40-strong demo out­side Bris­tol City Coun­cil took place on Tues­day 7th Sep­tem­ber, with many a union ban­ner and speak­er. Sat­ur­day the 4th saw the Bath Stop The War Coali­tion find unan­i­mous con­sen­sus from the 90 bal­lot­ed on their reg­u­lar vig­il, who would rather cut Tri­dent than ser­vices. On Wednes­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber, from 7.30pm, a ‘Fight the Cuts’ pub­lic meet­ing will take place, down­stairs at Friends Meet­ing House on York Street. Though speak­ers will be present from the tra­di­tion­al unions – such as the N.U.T., G.M.B., Uni­son, U.C.U. and Bath Trades Coun­cil – we need a wider pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion from oth­er affect­ed peo­ple, so we can sort this crap out! You owe it to your­self to come along!

Who knows? Per­haps we might take a livre out of France’s book, where 2.5 mil­lion took to the streets on Tues­day the 7th, against Sarkozy’s aus­ter­i­ty plans. No to Job Cuts! No to Pen­sion Cuts! No to Ser­vice Cuts! Cut Tax Eva­sion! Cut I.D. Cards! Cut Tri­dent! Cut the Pay Gap! Cut a Tory! Vive La Strike!

http://bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/260–25s-sickness-benefit-B-NES/article-2602689-detail/article.html
http://bristol.indymedia.org.uk/article/693333

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Tory Scum, Out Of Brum!

ACTION STATIONS! ACTION STATIONS! EVERYONE TO THE STREETS! Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber will be our first chance to show our anger at the Con-Dem cuts. As the Tories kick off their par­ty con­fer­ence in Birm­ing­ham, they will be met by thou­sands of angry pro­test­ers from the diverse sec­tions of soci­ety that are being forced to bear the brunt of the cuts onslaught. The mes­sage will be clear: this cri­sis was caused by the rich, and we refuse to pay for it with job loss­es, pay reduc­tions, ser­vice cuts and hiked V.A.T., while the toffs at the top con­tin­ue to line their pock­ets. Plans for the protest are shap­ing up nice­ly, with many unions, com­mu­ni­ty groups and oth­ers gear­ing up to make some noise. Those angry pranksters over at Class War have booked them­selves a team at the Tory Par­ty pub quiz, and are call­ing for as much help (with the ques­tions of course!) as pos­si­ble. There is also a ‘direct action’ bloc shap­ing up, which promis­es to dis­rupt pro­ceed­ings nice­ly. So, whether you want to peace­ful­ly protest, or have some­thing a bit more live­ly in mind, there will be some­thing for you on the day. This will be the start of a mas­sive cam­paign against the cuts and there will even be trans­port run­ning to the demo from Bath — leav­ing at 9am from Lau­ra Place foun­tain (though details may change), tick­ets are £10 waged or £5 unwaged, and to get yours, e‑mail either bathagainstcuts[at]yahoo.co.uk or tel 07908 355456.

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Get Shorty

Kil­ter, Bath’s unique out­door the­atre com­pa­ny, plants the seeds of change with their play­ful, engag­ing ‘Roots Replant­ed’ show, inves­ti­gat­ing food-secu­ri­ty in the fast approach­ing post-oil world. Elope to the Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments from Fri­day 10th to Sun­day 12th of this month, down the bean-rows, for an inti­mate tale of love and veg­eta­bles. Times are 6.30pm Thurs­day to Sat­ur­day, and addi­tion­al show­ings at 2.30pm on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Or catch them lat­er at Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm or Bloom­field Allot­ments at Bear Flat. Book­ings can be made by ring­ing 01225 386777.

On invi­ta­tion from Frome Friends of Pales­tine, “Israel’s bravest, most prin­ci­pled” his­to­ri­an Ilan Pappe will be speak­ing at the Mason­ic Hall on North Parade on Fri­day 17th Sep­tem­ber at 8pm. His talk will exam­ine the ongo­ing his­to­ry of Zion­ism, from its roots in the racist soils of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry to the sit­u­a­tion today. His book The Eth­nic Cleans­ing of Pales­tine, effec­tive­ly cost him his job at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Haifa four years ago. Admis­sion is £5.

B.&N.E.S. Coun­cil seem to final­ly be doing some­thing right, as, from 4th Octo­ber, week­ly col­lec­tions of food waste will reach 72,000 house­holds, con­vert­ing the £48+ per tonne tax­pay­er bur­den to agri­cul­tur­al com­post in Glouces­ter­shire. With any luck, the £400,000 imple­men­ta­tion cost will come straight from John Everit­t’s pock­et? And maybe sort­ing out a por­tion of the annu­al 20 mil­lion tonnes of super­mar­ket and indus­try U.K. waste will be next, right?

A gang of racists attacked the Indi­an Cur­ry Nights restau­rant in Augus­ta Place, off Upper Bris­tol Road, on Tues­day 24th August. Two wait­ers were minor­ly hurt, and a win­dow was tar­get­ed by thrown rocks. Con­sid­er­ing attacks on take­aways and mosques in the city over the last cou­ple of years, per­haps it’s way past time that local anti-fas­cists stepped it up?

Police Sergeant Mark Andrews showed his true colours back in July ’08, when he smashed 59-year-old Pamela Somerville’s face against the cell floor at Col­erne cop­shop. Recent­ly sent down this week for six months for Actu­al Bod­i­ly Harm, for once a cop­per has paid a price for his actions. But can we all rest easy now that the friend­ly bob­bies have cleaned them­selves up once more? Or are cas­es like Andrews and (Ian Tom­lin­son’s killer) Simon Har­wood per­haps not just a cou­ple of bad eggs, but instead symp­to­matic of a wider insti­tu­tion­al vio­lence, and near-com­plete free­dom from con­se­quence, infect­ing the whole of the force?

Rad­i­cal cam­paign­ing groups such as Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide have called for an inter­na­tion­al day of action against the coal indus­try on Tues­day 12th Octo­ber; more details to fol­low

http://www.kiltertheatre.org
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5245/is_7840_231/ai_n29412429/
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Council-gears-food-waste-scheme/article-2604136-detail/article.html
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Police-appeal-waiters-attacked-Bath-park/article-2603995-detail/article.html
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/news/Police-officer-faces-sack-cell-brutality-woman-59/article-2607007-detail/article.html

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GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress[at]yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request. And for more info on any of our sto­ries, check out http://www.thebathbomb.blogspot.com

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Fash In The Pan

The August bank hol­i­day week­end was due to be a big day for the British far-right, with two high-pro­file demos designed to put racist thug­gery firm­ly back on the map; but unfor­tu­nate­ly for them, it was­n’t to be.

The week­end start­ed off with media rev­e­la­tions that, far from being a grow­ing dynam­ic par­ty, as fuhrer Grif­fin would have us believe, the fas­cist B.N.P. is in fact falling apart. On the verge of bank­rupt­cy due to finan­cial mis­man­age­ment, lack of sup­port and a cost­ly law­suit (filed by Unilever when Grif­fin used the Mar­mite logo in a par­ty broad­cast), the rats are well and tru­ly flee­ing the ship. First to go was Richard Barn­brook, ama­teur gay porn direc­tor and the B.N.P.‘s sole mem­ber on the Greater Lon­don Assem­bly, who quit after call­ing for a “full inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion” into cor­rup­tion in the par­ty. He was fol­lowed short­ly by Lee Barnes, the par­ty legal offi­cer and ‘unsteady’ Eddy But­ler, for­mer Nation­al Front full-timer and B.N.P. press offi­cer, both of whom assert­ed that Grif­fin was exer­cis­ing a dic­ta­to­r­i­al stran­gle­hold over the par­ty. Just to prove them wrong, Grif­fin expelled a fur­ther 30 high-rank­ing par­ty mem­bers for chal­leng­ing his abil­i­ty to lead the par­ty. So, with the B.N.P. slid­ing off the scene, the stage was set for the thick-as-shit boot boys of the Eng­lish Defence League to take the far-right lime­light.

They intend­ed to do this with a mass march through Brad­ford on Sat­ur­day 28th, in the hope of ignit­ing fur­ther Asian riots to jus­ti­fy their anti-immi­grant agen­da. Deter­mined to cause a ruckus, the E.D.L. banned women from the demo, pre­dict­ed a turnout of 5,000, and dubbed the demo “the big one”. In the event, the ‘Bat­tle of Lit­tle Big One’ was a dis­ap­point­ing washout, with only 700 fas­cists being dwarfed by sev­er­al thou­sands of com­mu­ni­ty and anti-fas­cist activists, who told the E.D.L. in no uncer­tain terms that they would not be goad­ed into full-scale riot­ing. How­ev­er, that did­n’t stop a few naughty lads and ladies smash­ing up the E.D.L. coach­es as they fled the scene. The high point of the day came when a sym­pa­thet­ic cop­per forced a lone E.D.L. skin­head into a crowd of locals, despite his tear­ful protes­ta­tions. Appar­ent­ly no-one saw exact­ly what hap­pened, but an ambu­lance was observed speed­ing away from the scene short­ly after­wards!

So, on to bank hol­i­day Mon­day, and sun­ny Brighton, where fringe fas­cist group the ‘Eng­lish Nation­al Alliance’ had called a ‘March for Eng­land’ (their stat­ed tar­gets were mus­lims, immi­grants, stu­dents and paci­fists — nice!). They pre­dict­ed a turnout of over 300 patri­ot­ic war­riors, which turned out on the day to be around 50 jug-eared Burber­ry mod­els scream­ing racist slo­gans at any­one unfor­tu­nate enough to be in earshot. The turnout then pro­ceed­ed to get turned over by 300 assem­bled anti-fas­cists who dis­rupt­ed the march con­tin­u­ous­ly until the police called full-time and escort­ed the fas­cists home for their own safe­ty!

What was billed as being a week­end that would put racist pol­i­tics back on the map, end­ed in two woe­ful­ly under-attend­ed demos, vast­ly larg­er anti-fas­cist counter-events, unan­i­mous rejec­tion of the fas­cists by local com­mu­ni­ties and the vir­tu­al dis­in­te­gra­tion of the far-right’s bright­est star, the B.N.P. It may be too ear­ly to cheer, as a dying beast still has fangs, but the news is encour­ag­ing and sug­gests that a few hard shoves could boot these groups to where they belong — the dust­bin of his­to­ry.

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Bath Activist Net­work are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce the Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als and greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, e‑mail bathactivistnet[at]yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

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UPCOMING EVENTS

 

draw­ing class­es: ‘Remem­ber­ing the Present’, Mon­days & Tues­days, Stokes Croft Muse­um, 81–83 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, http://www.stokescroftmuseum.info

 

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road, http://www.londonroadfoodcoop.blogspot.com

 

exhi­bi­tion: ‘Remem­ber­ing the Present’, Wednes­days, Thurs­days & Fri­days, 11am-3pm, Stokes Croft Muse­um, 81–83 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, http://www.stokescroftmuseum.info

 

Bathamp­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Grow­ers work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Mill Lane, Bathamp­ton, e‑mail thelostplot[at]googlemail.com/ tel Chris 07792 444628

 

Bathamp­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture project: fruit pick­ing, Thurs­days and Sun­days, http://www.transitionbath.org/bathampton-csa-news

 

Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard

 

Brad­ford-On-Avon peace vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, by the peace stat­ue oppo­site West­bury Gar­dens by the Town Bridge, Brad­ford-On-Avon

 

exhi­bi­tion: ‘Remem­ber­ing the Present’, Sat­ur­days, 12–4pm, Stokes Croft Muse­um, 81–83 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, http://www.stokescroftmuseum.info

 

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­days, 10.30am, starts Abbey Church­yard, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, http://www.bathrys.org.uk/ tel Hazel 01225 469199

 

one year part-time ‘Prac­ti­cal Sus­tain­abil­i­ty’ course, starts Sep­tem­ber 2010, Bris­tol; explor­ing per­ma­cul­ture design, organ­ic hor­ti­cul­ture, wood­land man­age­ment, green build­ing, eco­log­i­cal inter­ac­tions, ener­gy, group dynam­ics, re-local­i­sa­tion, cre­at­ing change, com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and more; http://www.shiftbristol.org.uk

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Fri­day 10th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

‘Bris­tol Green Doors’: 52 peo­ple will open their homes show­cas­ing ener­gy waste reduc­tion, Sat­ur­day 11th to Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, http://www.bristolgreendoors.org

 

Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber, 10.30–6pm, Hamil­ton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bris­tol; e‑mail bristolanarchistbookfair[at]riseup.net; http://www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

 

Stop Hink­ley ‘C’ talks and work­shops, Sat­ur­day 11th, 11–5pm, Trin­i­ty Hall, St Sav­iours Avenue, Bridg­wa­ter, http://www.stophinkley.org

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 2.30pm & 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Stop Hink­ley ‘C’ protest/guided tour, Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, 12 mid­day, Hink­ley Point pow­er sta­tion, near Bridg­wa­ter, http://www.stophinkley.org

 

‘The Atmos­phere Of Heav­en’:  his­to­ry walk, Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, 12 mid­day, walk begins 3 Rod­ney Place, off Cliftin Down Road, Bris­tol, http://www.brh.org.uk/misc/gas.html

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, Hamp­ton Row Allot­ments, Bath­wick, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

film: ‘Grass’, Sun­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, 7.30pm, Pier­ian Cen­tre, 27 Port­land Square, St Pauls, Bris­tol, £5 entry, http://www.pieriancentre.com

 

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Mon­day 13th Sep­tem­ber, 8–9pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street, e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk; http://www.bathanimalaction.blogspot.com

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 16th to Fri­day 17th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Taunton Wom­ens Refuge punk ben­e­fit gig, Thurs­day 16th Sep­tem­ber, 7pm, Road­house, taunton, free entry, feat. Rat Attack, As We Sink!, Fights & Fires, Sub­gen­er­ates & Bats About Bats; http://www.tauntonwomensrefuge.org.uk

 

‘Wild Food in Autumn’ walk & for­ag­ing course, Fri­day 17th to Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Char­mouth, Brid­port, Dorset, £215 residential/£145 non-res­i­den­tial, http://www.monktonwyldcourt.co.uk/

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 2.30pm & 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Bris­tol Free Veg­an Food Fair ben­e­fit gig, Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, 7.30pm, the Black Swan pub, 438 Sta­ple­ton Road, Bris­tol, feat Dad­dy Long Bones, Budd, Mol­ly Sam­son, Ren, D.J. Dub Simi­an & The Long Dead Beat, £3/£4 entry

 

Region­al South West Ani­mal Rights Coali­tion meet­ing, Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, 12–5pm, Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Co-op, 14 Robert­son Road, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, e‑mail regionalarc[at]googlemail.com

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, Pease­down St John Com­mu­ni­ty Farm, Dunker­ton Hill, BA2 8PJ, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Seed Sav­ing work­shop, Sun­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, 2.30–5pm, put on by Bath Organ­ic Group, places are lim­it­ed, tel 01225 319117, £2.50 entry

 

‘The Glob­al Cir­cle of Peace’: mul­ti­me­dia work of art to cel­e­brate U.N. World Peace Day, Tues­day 21st Sep­tem­ber, 6.30–8.00pm, Kingston Parade Gar­dens, http://www.theglobalcircleofpeace.com

 

two-day work­shop: ‘Hold­ing the Vision’, Wednes­day 22nd to Thurs­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber, 10–4.30pm, Bris­tol, £45–75 entry, with Starhawk; e‑mail shiftbristol[at]yahoo.co.uk; http://www.starhawk.org

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Thurs­day 23rd to Fri­day 24th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

‘An Old Home Fit for the Future’: vis­it to vic­to­ri­an eco-effi­cient house, Fri­day 24th Sep­tem­ber, 3–7pm, 16 Pul­teney Gar­dens, Wid­combe, Bath, BA2 4HG,  http://www.transitionbath.org/old-home-fit-for-the-future

 

Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride, Sat­ur­day 25th Sep­tem­ber, meet 1pm, Kingsmead Square, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

 

‘An Old Home Fit for the Future’: vis­it to vic­to­ri­an eco-effi­cient house, Fri­day 25th to Sun­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, 11–6pm, 16 Pul­teney Gar­dens, Wid­combe, Bath, BA2 4HG,  http://www.transitionbath.org/old-home-fit-for-the-future

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sat­ur­day 25th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 2.30pm & 6.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Bath Ani­mal Action info stall, Sun­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, 2–4pm, Stall Street, e‑mail bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk; http:///www.bathanimalaction.blogsppot.com

 

Kil­ter the­atre: ‘Roots: Replant­ed’ (per­for­mance about food secu­ri­ty issues), Sun­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, Bloom­field Allot­ments, Bear Flat, 2.30pm, £9 (£7 con­ces­sions), tel 01225 386777 to book, http://www.kiltertheatre.org

 

Tran­si­tion Bath Social, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 7.15pm, the Love Lounge/ back room of the Bell, Wal­cot Street; bring food to share; http://www.transitionbath.org

 

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 7.30pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

 

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ing, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 8–9pm, The Bell, tel Justin 07854 062336

 

Bath Social­ist Forum meet­ing, Mon­day 27th Sep­tem­ber, 8pm, upstairs St James Wine Vaults, pre­sent­ed by Ken Loach

 

speak­ers & dis­cus­sion: ‘Cli­mate Jus­tice: Think Glob­al, Act Local’, Tues­day 28th Sep­tem­ber, 7–9pm, Uni­tar­i­an Meet­ing House, Brunswick Square, Bris­tol; F.F.I. e‑mail Katharine[at]wdm.org.uk / tel Katharine 020 7820 4900; http://groups.wdm.org.uk/bristol

 

No Bor­ders Camp Bel­gium, Wednes­day 29th Sep­tem­ber to Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber, Brus­sels, http://www.noborderbxl.eu.org/?lang=en

 

‘Low Car­bon Bath Con­sul­ta­tion’: Thurs­day 30th Sep­tem­ber, 6.30–8.30pm, Build­ing of Bath Col­lec­tion, The Count­ess of Huntington’s Chapel, The Vine­yards, Paragon, Bath, for a book­ing, e‑mail gkillick[at]bptrust.org.uk, or ring 01225 338727

 

Nation­al March for Farmed Ani­mals, Sat­ur­day 2nd Octo­ber, 12pm start, Cavendish Square, Lon­don

 

anti-Tory demon­stra­tion, Sun­day 3rd Octo­ber,  Tory Par­ty Con­fer­ence, Birm­ing­ham more details tbc

 

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 7th Octo­ber, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at the Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade, http://ww.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

 

Legal fees ben­e­fit punk gig: ‘SUBVERT 2010 — A Fes­ti­val Of Resis­tance’, Fri­day 8th to Sun­day 10th Octo­ber, Bris­tol, feat Hel­lkrush­er, Rui­dosa Immu­ni­di­cia, War All The Time, Ignosy, The Wankys, The Extin­guish­ers & Bul­letrid­den, as well as veg­an cafés/ stalls/ films/ work­shops & pic­nic; more details tbc

 

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, 8pm, the Ris­ing Sun, Grove Street

 

Region­al day of action against the cuts, Sat­ur­day 23rd Octo­ber

 

Lon­don Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 23rd Octo­ber, 10am-7pm, Queen Mary’s, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don, Mile End Road, Lon­don, http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk

 

Bris­tol Free Veg­an Food Fair, Sat­ur­day 30th Octo­ber, 12–5pm, Broad­mead Bap­tist Church, Union Street, Bris­tol, BS1 3HY, http://www.bristolanimalrights.org.uk/veganfoodfair

 

Coali­tion of the Resis­tance Con­fer­ence, Sat­ur­day 27th Novem­ber, Lon­don, more details tbc

 

Camp for Cli­mate Action Aus­tralia, Wednes­day 1st to Sun­day 5th Decem­ber, Bayswa­ter Pow­er Sta­tion, http://www.climatecamp.org.au

 

Cli­mate Camp Aotearoa, Thurs­day 16th to Tues­day 21st Decem­ber,  Welling­ton New Zealand, http://www.climatecamp.org.nz/node/51

 

*

‘Fat­cat Boss­es Get The Cream’ Shock­er!

Insult has been added to injury once again, as a G.M.B. union sur­vey scru­ti­nised 151 coun­cil and met­ro­pol­i­tan accounts and dis­cov­ered how 129 chief execs are paid more than £150,000 a year. It went on to note how two earned more than £300,000, and 76 earned between £200,000 and £300,000. In the south­west, B.&N.E.S. Coun­cil head hon­cho John Everitt net­ted a com­fy £211,859 this year, includ­ing pen­sion con­tri­bu­tions and expens­es; though his rivals at Corn­wall Coun­ty and Bris­tol City did bet­ter. Life’s hard, eh?

And this is at a time when coun­cils claim to be hard up, slash­ing jobs, ser­vices, and hand­ing out pay freezes like they were sweets to kids. Stand­ing there shiv­er­ing in the play­ground, in their plas­tic mac. Local gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Bob Neill makes an inter­est­ing point: “We need to stamp out a cul­ture of dupli­ca­tion, which is why, in many cas­es, coun­cils should be look­ing towards shar­ing chief exec­u­tives.” But actu­al­ly stamp­ing on the guy seems a bit harsh; instead of cut­ting the 300 out of 7,000 coun­cil jobs, sure­ly it would make more sense to cut just one… After all, the dole queue is nice this time of year, John.

*

Grub Street Mee­ja

Pity the shit-upon peo­ple of Bath, whose local lose-papers, the Bath Com­ic and the West­ern Dai­ly Piss, are two of the apolo­gies for jour­nal­ism in the city.

Time was when the Com­ic would give reg­u­lar and gen­er­ous cov­er­age to anti-war, anti-coun­cil and anti-devel­op­er stunts, but since the lat­est edi­tor took over, it looks as if any­thing like­ly to rock the boat gets packed off on an extend­ed Hol­l­i­day. The big trou­ble with the Com­ic is that it has its head well and tru­ly up the rec­tums of cor­po­rate crooks and shys­ters like B.&N.E.S., Bath Rug­by, First­Bus, Crest Nichol­son (West­ern River­side), Mor­ley Fund Man­age­ment (South­gate), and oth­ers. Proof that the Com­ic had aban­doned any pre­tence of seri­ous news report­ing and had achieved full Beano sta­tus, came with its hilar­i­ous but read­er­ship-insult­ing ‘Attack of the giant seag­ulls’ front-page last month.

The Piss, part of the same bar­rel-scrap­ing North­cliffe out­fit should, after the appoint­ment of ITS lat­est, yes-man edi­tor, be renamed the West­ern Mil­i­tary Gazette or West­ern Dai­ly War, as all this cur­rent bunch of r‑slickers do is pump out the same tired Cameron-lov­ing war­mon­ger­ing pro­pa­gan­da dri­v­el as their sta­ble­mate the Dai­ly Fail.

All the Com­ic and Piss are good for is wip­ing your arse on; the only fault there is that the print comes off on your bum.

The glossies are no bet­ter. Bath Life, a crim­i­nal waste of newsprint, is stuffed full of estate agent waf­fle and oth­er adver­tis­ing, and page after page of ‘Invi­ta­tion Only’ bash­es fea­tur­ing dozens of Bath Z‑z-z lis­ters grin­ning gorm­less­ly for the cam­eras in a pre­ten­tious par­o­dy of Coun­try Life’s soci­ety columns. Pub­lish­ers guilty of this rub­bish are Media Clash, the same bunch of brown-nosers who churn out the coun­cil’s spin-rag ‘Con­nect’. Some­one should tell them that con­nect­ing is not enough; they should try switch­ing on as well.

As for what lit­tle of inter­est the free­bies Bath Mag­a­zine and Folio con­tain, you’d be bet­ter off buy­ing Venue, which does arts and alter­na­tive far bet­ter. It is pub­lished by the Piss/Comic group, but, hey, nobody’s per­fect!

*

If I Had A Ham­mer…

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful acquit­tal of the nine ‘Decom­mis­sion­er’ activists who smashed up Brighton-based bomb fac­to­ry E.D.O./I.T.T. (see B.B. #31), the Smash E.D.O. cam­paign is call­ing for one last shove to close the fac­to­ry all togeth­er. For six years, the com­pa­ny, which sup­plies bomb com­po­nents to Israel, Afghanistan, the U.S.A. and any­one else who has enough cash, has been under relent­less assault from activists, who have block­ad­ed, protest­ed, smashed and exposed the com­pa­ny’s dodgy deal­ings time and time again. The demo has been called for Wednes­day 13th Octo­ber, and promis­es to be a lit­tle on the tasty side, and as the name ‘I.T.T.‘s Ham­mer­time’ sug­gests, peo­ple may have more than wav­ing plac­ards in mind! Peo­ple have been request­ed to get down and stay at the con­ver­gence space from the night before, but also to help fli­er for the event in their home towns before­hand. For more infor­ma­tion on the cam­paign, check out http://www.smashedo.org.uk, or drop them an e‑mail at smashedo[at]riseup.net.

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Cru­el­ty-Free: You Can’t Say Fayr­er Than That

The sec­ond annu­al Bath Veg­an Fayre 2010 filled a hole on Sat­ur­day 4th Sep­tem­ber, with over 150 pass­ing through the doors. Held at Man­vers Street Bap­tist Church in the cen­tre, free of entry fee and cru­el­ty, the event last­ed from 12 til 4pm. Oth­er­wise, the day stuck to much the same recipe as the pre­vi­ous year: with a tan­ta­liz­ing spread of steam­ing soups, nib­bles, cakes, sweets and savouries – some nut-free, some wheat-free, all meat and dairy-free – fill­ing the bowls and bel­lies of queues of hun­gry fayre-goers. The tea and fruit juices flowed like nev­er before, whilst the tables were filled with relaxed con­ver­sa­tion and ingest­ed edu­ca­tion. As well as the over-bur­dened info tables (with every­thing from nutri­tion, envi­ron­men­tal ethics, recipes, ani­mal rights, med­ical sci­ence and updates for cam­paigns against Noah’s Ark Zoo, hunts, foie gras out­lets and ani­mal labs), free sam­ples table, read­ing cor­ner and chil­dren’s area, there was also a prize raf­fle. Pun­ters includ­ed the usu­al sus­pects of dread­ied and alter­na­tive veg­gie types on the make for free pick­ings, for starters, but also a healthy flow of the unini­ti­at­ed from the street.

By the end of the day, many a hap­py scav­enger got their just desserts, and were heard utter­ing the immor­tal words: “I had no idea veg­an food could taste this good!” Hey, even veg­gies need more than a diet of inde­scrib­able slop every now and again. Next up is the Bris­tol Free Veg­an Fair at Broad­mead Bap­tist Church on Sat­ur­day 30th Octo­ber, from 12 til 5pm, and their ben­e­fit gig at the Black Swan on Sta­ple­ton Road, on the 18th of this month.

http://bathanimalaction.blogspot.com/p/today-uk-is-home-to-around-300000.html
http://www.vegansociety.com/home.php
http://www.bristolanimalrights.org.uk/

*

Cycle-logy 101

Ped­al­phile activists group Bicy­col­o­gy will be crank­ing things up a gear in Bris­tol next week­end, with a trio of car-free fun days for all the fam­i­ly. On Sat­ur­day 18th Sep­tem­ber, they’ll be ‘Doing it with­out a car’ at Mina Park in St Werburgh’s; go sam­ple their col­lec­tion of bike acces­sories, book your ride in with the women bike mechan­ics for free advice and safe­ty checks, or get down to some D.I.Y. cre­ative ses­sions — turn tyres into bike belts, bike chains into bracelets or cob­ble your­self togeth­er a last minute carnie cos­tume. All this just in time for the next day’s ‘Bris­tol Bike Car­ni­val’ — start­ing in the city cen­tre at 12 mid­day, expect day­g­lo, dinosaur skele­ton pup­pets and two-wheeled gonzo weird­ness. Then, after a day’s rest, Tues­day will be ‘Food is our Fuel — Cycle for your Sup­per!’ An explo­ration of mod­ern agri­cul­ture, its prob­lems and its solu­tions, this three-hour long gen­tle cycle starts at 6pm out­side Tesco Metro in Broad­mead, and heads out of the city for black­ber­ry and wild food pick­ing – hot food and drinks will be pro­vid­ed on dona­tion. Bring your bike, lights, ruck­sack or pan­nier, and accom­pa­nied chil­dren.

And in relat­ed Bath news, a bike refurbishment/homelessness fund-rais­ing project has recent­ly re-opened, called ‘ReCY­CLEd’, at 35 Corn Street. E‑mail bikes[at]julianhouse.org.uk, for details.

*

Toys Tory

While the resis­tance against the Con-Dem cuts is shap­ing up nice­ly, the same can­not be said for the cut-crazy coali­tion who have been hit in recent weeks by a string of embar­rass­ing fallings-out. Tories attack­ing Tories, Tories attack­ing Lib-Dems and Lib-Dems attack­ing both each oth­er and the Tories (although we don’t think any­one has noticed or cared). The first of the cracks began to show when odi­ous Osborne informed the press that nuke pro­gramme Tri­dent would have to be fund­ed by the defence bud­get, rather than the tra­di­tion­al fun­ders, the Trea­sury. It turns out Osborne had let every one know his plans – except the Min­is­ter for Defence, Liam Fox. This news came to the delight of T.V. jour­nal­ists as Fox brand­ed the propo­si­tion “ridicu­lous”, assert­ing that after a 20% bud­get cut, there was no way the M.o.D. could pay for Tri­dent. Osborne shot him down on live T.V. as a lit­tle bick­er­ing match erupt­ed before the very eyes of bor­der­line orgas­mic tel­ly journos. The spat has yet to be resolved.

This was quick­ly fol­lowed by bout #2, fea­tur­ing High­er Edu­ca­tion Min­is­ter David Wil­letts in the blue cor­ner vs. Devey boy him­self in the, umm­mm, oth­er blue cor­ner. This time the argu­ment was over milk. Now, some of you may remem­ber that one of Thatch­er’s less pop­u­lar deci­sions was the removal of free milk from schools; so what has Wil­letts done? In the image of the Tory God­moth­er, Wil­letts proud­ly told the assem­bled press pack that under-fives no longer deserved their free milk, and that it was to be cut. After a rapid apol­o­gy at the foot of this Thatch­er shrine, Cameron popped his head out of the door of Down­ing Street to con­tra­dict his edu­ca­tion min­is­ter, prompt­ing oppo­si­tion M.P.s to notice that “This is a coali­tion in chaos, mak­ing pol­i­cy on the hoof. The Gov­ern­ment does­n’t seem to have a clue.” As if Cameron did­n’t have enough trou­ble keep­ing his own house in order, the Lib-Dems have also start­ed hav­ing a pop, with many Lib-Dem M.P.s (in fact almost all of them that don’t have a cab­i­net seat) promis­ing a rebel­lion over Con-Dem V.A.T. increase plans, with promi­nent Lib-Dem­mers such as Charles ‘5 years on the wag­on’ Kennedy and Simon Hugh­es pub­licly crit­i­cis­ing Con-Dem pol­i­cy. To add anoth­er dol­lop of the stinky stuff on the smoul­der­ing feck pile that is the coali­tion, Clegg has crawled out of David’s cosy ori­fice to take the reigns while the Camerons sun them­selves. Like a naughty school­boy, Clegg took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tra­dict key Con-Dem poli­cies relat­ing to immi­gra­tion, Tri­dent and hous­ing ben­e­fits, some­thing that he has been warned about in the past. Looks like some young upstart will be get­ting an Eton-style bot­ty-thrash­ing when dad­dy Cameron rolls back into town!

*

The Filth And The Fur­ry

As men­tioned back in B.B. #30, the U.K. Gov­ern­ment has per­formed a spec­tac­u­lar U‑turn on its pol­i­cy regard­ing bovine tuber­cu­lo­sis, and has cho­sen to go ahead with a nation-wide bad­ger cull. Last week, Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary Car­o­line Spel­man approved the cull for T.B. hotspots, hand­ing the license to kill over to indi­vid­ual farm­ers’ dis­cre­tions.  These wannabe 007’s of the Nation­al Farm­ers Union lob­by will need to prove that a cull is nec­es­sary before being allowed to kill and/or vac­ci­nate (shoot and gas first, a spoon­ful of med­i­cine lat­er?) any­thing black and white in a 50 square mile zone; what sort of proof required is yet to be dis­closed, but a sham of a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion is expect­ed lat­er this month. At least this might stop farm­ers from rolling gunned down bad­gers onto high­ways in the mid­dle of the night, as imi­ta­tion road­kill.

The Welsh Assem­bly were pushed into a U‑turn of their own, of sorts, back in July, when the Bad­ger Trust and oth­er ani­mal ‘wel­fare’ activists won their legal chal­lenge on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty, push­ing kill-crazy plans back for months. These pro-culling deci­sions fly in the face of the ten-year Inde­pen­dent Sci­en­tif­ic Study Group on Cat­tle T.B., who con­clud­ed in 2007 that culling could­n’t mean­ing­ful­ly con­trol the dis­ease, and that car­ri­er bad­gers would dis­perse the dis­ease over a wider area. This posi­tion has been loose­ly cor­rob­o­rat­ed by Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don and the Zoo­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Lon­don. But screw all that, the Con-Dems say – let’s shoot us some varmints! Yee­haw! In a “care­ful­ly man­aged” and “sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-led” man­ner, of course.

As ever, ani­mal right­sies are much-need­ed to save our fur­ry friends – check out http://www.badger-killers.co.uk, or con­tact bathanimalaction[at]yahoo.co.uk for ideas.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7982848/Farmers-to-be-handed-powe
rs-to-cull-badgers.html
http://www.bathanimalaction.blogspot.com

*

First Class News!

In a heart­en­ing bit of news just in, a pub­lic sur­vey has found that sev­en out of every eight peo­ple oppose the pri­vati­sa­tion of the postal ser­vice (one of the Tories’ key poli­cies) and would pre­fer it to be kept pub­lic. Bil­ly Hayes, head of the posties’ union said “This poll reaf­firms what we already knew — the British pub­lic do not want their postal ser­vices sold off. The union and the com­pa­ny have worked hard to agree a ful­ly fund­ed mod­erni­sa­tion plan and that work needs sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment.” How­ev­er, the will of the pub­lic con­tra­dicts Tory plans to put a bill before Par­lia­ment demand­ing the pri­vati­sa­tion of the ser­vice. Will this be anoth­er case of the Tories ignor­ing the opin­ions of the aver­age per­son and try­ing to plough ahead with their agen­da of cuts and pri­va­ti­za­tion? We sus­pect so, so if you like your postal ser­vice pub­lic, lets get ready to fight for it!

*

And now, to the dis­claimer: as any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of all con­trib­u­tors. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat upon. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer do not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect the opin­ions of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor.

Crude Awakening info update

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Have you been think­ing it’s about time a whole load of peo­ple got togeth­er to take mass action against oil in cen­tral Lon­don? We thought so. And so it fol­lowed that the Crude Awak­en­ing was launched. The mobi­liza­tion is now in full swing and every­one is invit­ed to help pub­li­cize and pre­pare. There is loads to do….please have a read through this email and get involved!

The email is in three parts:

Upcom­ing events and how to get involved
Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions
The call out — please copy and paste and help this get all over the Inter­net!

1. How to get involved and build up events you are all invit­ed to.

Events already planned are list­ed bel­low:

In Lon­don……

17th Sep­tem­ber, net­work­ing meet­ing at 6pm just inside the entrance to the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, a meet­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in help­ing to do out­reach in the Lon­don area the Cli­mate Camp out­reach group are meet­ing.

There is going to be a Lon­don coor­di­nat­ing and plan­ning meet­ing for the Crude Awak­en­ing very soon, and the details will be announced short­ly.

Thurs­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber at 7.30pm, Cli­mate Action Film Night, Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre, Whitechapel (for address see www.londonarc.org)

An evening of films and dis­cus­sion about cli­mate activism and the oil indus­try, host­ed by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide.

A screen­ing of two short films of recent actions against BP and Shell by Ris­ing Tide and friends, plus Petrop­o­lis, a visu­al­ly stun­ning and dis­turb­ing doc­u­men­tary about the Cana­di­an Tar Sands. Fol­lowed by a brain­storm­ing ses­sion on tak­ing direct action against the oil indus­try in Lon­don — includ­ing all the lat­est info on the Crude Awak­en­ing, an oily mass action hap­pen­ing on Sat­ur­day 16th Octo­ber. For any­one who believes in cli­mate jus­tice and wants to help make it hap­pen; any­one hacked off with the greed and irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of oil giants like BP; any­one back from the Cli­mate Camp and look­ing to get involved local­ly… every­one welcome.…and there’ll be cake!

The Crude Awak­en­ing Lon­don Rab­ble Rouser – a mass out­door team game, warm­ing us up for the big day– date, place and time to be announced.

Sat­ur­day 2nd Octo­ber. MOLASAPULTPARTY FUNDRAISER .… Venue TBC, more details to fol­low short­ly

Sat­ur­day the 2nd and Sun­day the 3rd Octo­ber Stilt mak­ing work­shop for the stilt block on the mass action!.…
This time we’re think­ing big, we’re think­ing high, we’re think­ing tall.… and we’re going as a Stilt Bloc.

Yep, thats right! On stilts!

So in order for this to hap­pen we’re hav­ing a skill share week­end in Lon­don to build stilts and learn how to walk on them. The week­end is Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd Octo­ber, 10am to 6pm.

And even if you don’t want to be up high, each stilt walk­er will need a bud­dy stay­ing on the ground so there’s a place for every­one, young and old, big or small, high or low.….. we need you at this week­end too!!!

Its all free and lunch is includ­ed.…

We need RSVPs so we know num­bers. Email: stilt.bloc@gmail.com

Oh and its MEXICAN DAY OF THE DEAD theme.….

In Man­ches­ter….

Sat 9th Oct — Mass Action train­ing

Tue 12th Oct — Pub­licly announced rouser for CJA inter­na­tion­al day of action

Crude Awak­en­ing mobil­i­sa­tion

We hope that there will be loads more to fol­low but this is what is lined up so far. If you are plan­ning a build up event let us know so we can adver­tise it please.

There is a huge amount to do to mobi­lize quick­ly for an event this big. Maybe you could organ­ise a film show­ing or talk (we can prob­a­bly send a speak­er if you email us). You could put on an affin­i­ty group or action train­ing work­shop, or host a fundrais­er. You could book a coach and fill it. You could run a work­shop so peo­ple can build prac­ti­cal stuff , for exam­ple a load of dis­pos­able bikes to bring along (email us to let us know if you do make lots of use­ful stuff). You could have a stall and hand out fly­ers at your fresh­ers fair (again email for mate­ri­als). You could make a sten­cil and graf­fi­ti adver­tise for it all across your city/ region. Unless every­one gets involved there is a real dan­ger we won’t get the num­bers we need.
The Crude Awak­en­ing is now on crab­grass! Join it, join a work­ing group and lets get plan­ning! https://we.riseup.net/thecrudeawakening (crab­grass is a lit­tle bit like face­book for activists and is a way of organ­is­ing on line). And sign up for more infor­ma­tion by email and text alerts on the web­site. www.crudeawakening.org.uk. Our face­book page is a lit­tle slow to get off the ground but it will soon be buzzing.

Please also raise The Crude Awak­en­ing as an agen­da point at the next organ­is­ing meet­ing at your Social Centre/ Friends of the Earth Group/ Union/ Cli­mate Camp neighbourhood/ Hous­ing Coop etc. Get peo­ple talk­ing and excit­ed and com­mit­ted to the idea that they are going! If you are not already in a group or affin­i­ty group you are of course still total­ly wel­come. You will prob­a­bly want to make con­tact with some like mind­ed folk to talk things through and make some plans before the big day. For exam­ple you could go to climatecamp.org.uk or risingtide.org.uk and find your local active group, or email us and we can try to sign­post you on. At the least try to get a cou­ple of mates to come with you, so that you have some sup­port as a group of friends (known by activists as an affin­i­ty group).

2. Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions

Q. Nei­ther the web­site nor the fly­er gives much info. What is going on?

A. As you have prob­a­bly twigged there is also a delib­er­ate sense of mys­tery around the action. So often with recent mass actions we have said exact­ly where we are going to go, and the police have had as much time to pre­pare as us, mak­ing things much more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple who want to be involved in mass and effec­tive direct action . With this project we are exper­i­ment­ing a lit­tle bit. The 10 tar­gets are left unspec­i­fied, giv­ing the action more chance of being suc­cess­ful. But at the same time we can open­ly adver­tise that we all need to be in Cen­tral Lon­don so we can get loads of peo­ple togeth­er at the same place at the same time for the mass action. And those peo­ple need to be ready to take action and to have fun. This is not a march and it’s not a camp. This is an action that needs prepa­ra­tion and we can all be involved in most of that preparation….although the tar­gets will be a sur­prise until much lat­er.

We can’t be sure that this mix of secret and pub­lic plan­ning will work, but we can give it a go, have some fun and maybe make some progress…..but maybe, just maybe we have got it total­ly nailed and this will be the best mass action in Lon­don ever! If you don’t show up there it will be dif­fi­cult for you to know. Our advice is don’t miss it 😉

Q. So what do I need to do to pre­pare?

A. Peo­ple need to be ready to move, and to stand their ground. Don’t bring with you any­thing that you can’t eas­i­ly walk with or get on a tube with. But do bring with you stuff that will help you and your affin­i­ty group hold a space in what ever way you feel you want to. Whether you want to bring arm­tubes, dis­pos­able bikes or a huge slow mov­ing met­al and wood­en tow­er with a papi­er-mâché rhi­no head (that can fit on and off a tube!?); diver­si­ty of tac­tics and affin­i­ty group plan­ning are key to this work­ing. Peo­ple can also pre­pare stuff to make this action look beau­ti­ful; pup­pets, masks, ban­ners, a portable molasses fondue……you get the idea.

Q. Why Oil?

A. For a whole host of rea­sons. Here are just a few…..
Because oil com­pa­nies search for new oil reserves to make them­selves rich­er while our cli­mate spins into cri­sis.
Because the UK gov­ern­ment starts wars for oil.
Because of human rights abus­es and mur­der in West Africa.
Because of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon spill.
Because of the destruc­tion of wilder­ness in the Arc­tic and the coast of Rosport in Ire­land.
Because of UK pub­lic mon­ey being used by bailed out banks to fund new oil projects.
Because Lon­don is brim­ming with oil mon­ey, oil spon­sor­ship and oil com­pa­nies.
Because glob­al ener­gy resources are the peo­ples com­mons.
Because oil com­pa­nies and the filthy rich peo­ple who prof­it from them have no place in a sus­tain­able future.
Because Copen­hagen failed and now it’s down to us.
Because oil has had it’s day and it’s time we pulled the plug.

Hope that that made things a lit­tle clear­er. And more spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion will be sent out soon. If you are still strug­gling with the idea, it is a bit like the Great Cli­mate Swoop of 2009, except where we are going is kept secret. Remem­ber, you are being asked to come and move around Lon­don, so stay mobile, be cre­ative, be prepat­ed and be ready to stand your ground. So talk in your affin­i­ty group about the ways in which you are going to be able to hold a space and equip­ment and mate­ri­als that you might want to bring along to help you. The action is open, and will be shaped by the peo­ple who are there. Only the tar­gets and how we are get­ting to them are secret.

3. The call out – please copy and paste and help get this all over the Inter­net!

THE CRUDE AWAKENING

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Floods in Pak­istan, drought in Rus­sia, huge glac­i­ers break­ing up in Green­land…

Our cli­mate sys­tem is rapid­ly slid­ing into cri­sis, as oil com­pa­nies destroy peo­ple’s lives and the envi­ron­ment to keep suck­ing up their prof­its.

Oil sat­u­rates every aspect of our lives. Oil prof­its lubri­cate the finan­cial mar­kets and its spon­sor­ship clings like a bad smell to our cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions. It flows through pipelines to the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries of our cities.

The fail­ure of the UN COP15 process showed us – if there was ever any doubt – that gov­ern­ment and indus­try can’t tack­le cli­mate change. It’s up to us and it’s time to up the ante.

As a move­ment, our actions against coal and avi­a­tion have made a real dif­fer­ence. Now oil’s time is up.

Togeth­er, on Octo­ber 16, let’s give the oil indus­try a Crude Awak­en­ing.

Meet in cen­tral Lon­don. Be ready to move. Be ready to stay and stand your ground.

Be cre­ative. Be pre­pared. Be there.

Find out more, get involved and sign up for text alerts at www.crudeawakening.org.uk
Face­book: http://bit.ly/c6S0kg
Twit­ter: @crudeawake

Part of the CJA glob­al week of action for cli­mate jus­tice
Sup­port­ed by: Space Hijack­ers, Cli­mate Camp, Plane Stu­pid, Ris­ing Tide, Lib­er­ate Tate, Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Insur­rec­tionary Imag­i­na­tion, UK Tar Sands Net­work

Hope to see you on the streets,
Crude Awak­en­ing
crudeawakening.org.uk

A week of Hell for Shell

28th August 2010

After Mon­days suc­cess­ful action stop­ping work for 3 hours the camp was inspired and many actions fol­lowed.

Tues­day marked the start of an oral hear­ing into whether Shell can lay the gas pipe line through the estu­ary. This gave locals and campers the chance to ques­tion Shell and Bord Pleanála about the legal­i­ty of gas pipe line and oth­er issues sur­round­ing the pipe.

28th August 2010

After Mon­days suc­cess­ful action stop­ping work for 3 hours the camp was inspired and many actions fol­lowed.

Tues­day marked the start of an oral hear­ing into whether Shell can lay the gas pipe line through the estu­ary. This gave locals and campers the chance to ques­tion Shell and Bord Pleanála about the legal­i­ty of gas pipe line and oth­er issues sur­round­ing the pipe.
The bore holes that Shell are drilling are to extract infor­ma­tion that will deter­mine whether a tun­nel can be made for the gas pipe line to run through, how­ev­er the fact that this infor­ma­tion hasn’t been col­lect­ed yet did not affect Shells appli­ca­tion or claim that the pipe line will be com­plete­ly safe.
This oral hear­ing com­bined with an action packed week put pres­sure on Shell from all direc­tions.

Wednes­day saw a group occu­py the Shell’s secu­ri­ty com­pound that turned into a pic­nic and rev­e­la­tions of IRMS read­ing mate­r­i­al (mer­ce­nary uk) and eat­ing habits (loads of bis­cuits).

As Thurs­day morn­ing broke a group set off towards the sun­rise (and the drilling rigs) occu­py­ing secu­ri­ty and stop­ping work­ers from get­ting onto the plat­form for over an hour. After the suc­cess of this action a com­mu­ni­ty walk out hap­pened lat­er in the day when low tide allowed peo­ple to walk out under the plat­form. Despite peo­ple gath­er­ing under the plat­form drilling con­tin­ued, which is a breach of health and safe­ty rules.

Attempts to stop the plat­forms being moved on Fri­day were foiled by over zeal­ous secu­ri­ty. Despite many coura­geous endeav­ours to climb the legs of the plat­form secu­ri­ty turned vio­lent and many were thrown to the ground.

Beat the Bore­holes Cam­paign con­tin­ues and we wel­come any­one want­i­ng to get involved.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0825/1.…html

The Sun rises over the 'kayak warriors'

Stopping workers getting on

Shell’s Drilling Work Stopped by Shell to Sea Campaigners in Ireland

Shel­l’s Sur­vey work was stopped for about three hours on Mon­day after­noon when peo­ple walked out at low tide and got under Shel­l’s drilling plat­form. This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the ‘Beat the Bore­holes’ effort by Shell to Sea and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp to get in the way of Shell drilling bore­holes in the Sruwad­da­con estu­ary which is a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion.

Shel­l’s Sur­vey work was stopped for about three hours on Mon­day after­noon when peo­ple walked out at low tide and got under Shel­l’s drilling plat­form. This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the ‘Beat the Bore­holes’ effort by Shell to Sea and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp to get in the way of Shell drilling bore­holes in the Sruwad­da­con estu­ary which is a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion.

At 12:30pm a group of about 15 peo­ple man­aged to get past the 20 or so IRMS Secu­ri­ty guard­ing the plat­form. The group formed a cir­cle around the drill and stayed until the gar­dai arrived on scene and used Sec­tion 8 and a lit­tle bit of force to get peo­ple out from under the drill. One per­son had locked them­self onto the drill with a chain, but even­tu­al­ly they were removed by the gar­dai as well. How­ev­er work still did not resume because peo­ple con­tin­ued to dash back under the plat­form for the next cou­ple of hours, often with­out much resis­tance from IRMS or the gar­dai. The gar­dai did use pres­sure points and some arm twist­ing to get two cam­paign­ers off of one of the drills at one stage, but no one had any last­ing pain or injury.

Over­all spir­its were high, and about forty cam­paign­ers remained either under or around the out­side of the plat­form for the dura­tion of the action. Once the tide came in peo­ple were sat­is­fied at hav­ing stopped work for three hours, and the cam­paign­ers left Shell to con­tin­ue their dirty work in the beau­ti­ful Sruwad­da­con estu­ary.

Monday’s actions from the Camp for Climate Action

Mon­day Morn­ing Cli­mate Camp Action Roundup

For the lat­est, see the Camp for Cli­mate Action twit­ter and the North­ern IMC time­line.

Mon­day Morn­ing Cli­mate Camp Action Roundup
Camp cop RBS stand-off
For the lat­est, see the Camp for Cli­mate Action twit­ter and the North­ern IMC time­line.

Sum­maris­ing some of the mate­r­i­al from twit­ter and IMC time­line.

Today Mon­day 23rd actions against cli­mate change and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land are tak­ing place across Edin­burgh, as well as at their Gog­a­r­burn HQ.

Oil explo­ration com­pa­ny Cairn Ener­gy, off Loth­i­an Road, have tak­en deliv­ery of an oil-like sub­stance from a giant pig, unfor­tu­nate­ly cre­at­ing a 60 litre oil spill. (Obvi­ous­ly Cairn would­n’t be respon­si­ble for such a thing).

Down in Lei­th, the Forth Ener­gy place is the tar­get of agro­fu­els-relat­ed action, with 7 peo­ple atop the build­ing.

The Nichol­son Street branch of RBS is block­ad­ed by folk with signs read­ing “ask me why I won’t bank with RBS”. As at mid­day the two hour long block­ade had result­ed in the bank shut­ting its doors.

And at RBS in South Gyle the exec­u­tive car park is blocked by 7 peo­ple with super­glued hands.

A report has just come in that demon­stra­tors have pitched a tent out­side RBS on North Bridge.

Mean­while the main RBS bank in St Andrews Square is being guard­ed by police, includ­ing a CCTV van, and pri­vate secu­ri­ty. In a neo-lib­er­al ver­sion of 1984 the pub­lic are only being allowed in if they show secu­ri­ty the cor­rect bank card!:

UPDATES 3pm Five arrests at Forth Ener­gy. Action con­tin­ues at RBS Nichol­son Street, with lock-ons and demo out­side. Pro­tes­tors on Roy­al Mile high­light destruc­tive RBS-backed Tar Sands project in Cana­da. Del­e­gates from the indige­nous peo­ple direct­ly affect­ed denounce that “RBS are killing our peo­ple.” More info on Tar Sands project and actions today against it

—

Press release of the day’s actions so far: RBS Oper­a­tions Closed for the Day as Activists Tar­get Sites around Edin­burgh — August 23, 2010

Action Round-up for the Cli­mate Camp day of mass action tar­get­ing RBS
and the fos­sil fuel indus­try: Mon­day 23 August

Activists at the Camp for Cli­mate Action are cel­e­brat­ing a suc­cess­ful day tar­get­ing var­i­ous cli­mate crim­i­nals- hold­ing direct actions, demon­stra­tions and street the­atre con­fronting the role of finan­cial insti­tu­tions like RBS in bankrolling cli­mate change.

A group of pro­tes­tors occu­pied the head offices of Forth Ener­gy, a com­pa­ny plan­ning to build four new bio­mass pow­er sta­tions in Scot­land. Three pro­tes­tors chained them­selves to the front of the build­ing, two occu­pied the inside of the office, and two more dropped a ban­ner from the roof of the office. Five arrests were made.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, sev­en pro­tes­tors block­ad­ed the RBS exec­u­tive carpark at the Gyle Indus­tri­al Estate by super-glu­ing them­selves togeth­er.

A group of demon­stra­tors dropped a two metre long pig­gy bank brand­ed with the RBS logo filled with 60 litres of oil-like sub­stance (molasses) out­side the head­quar­ters of Cairn Ener­gy, a com­pa­ny which is com­ing under fire for its Arc­tic oil drilling oper­a­tions. The Green­peace ship Esper­an­za is cur­rent­ly engaged in a sit­u­a­tion with the Dan­ish Navy off the coast of Green­land with regards to Cairn Energy’s drilling oper­a­tions.

A group of pro­tes­tors, includ­ing Fringe per­form­ers, shut down the Nicol­son Street RBS branch. Three indi­vid­u­als super-glued them­selves across the front door­way, while anoth­er group played music and danced while hand­ing out leaflets. There were three arrests.

After the pre­vi­ous group of pro­tes­tors was removed by police, a group of “tar-cov­ered” pro­tes­tors shut down the Nicol­son St RBS branch a sec­ond time, as sev­er­al activists locked them­selves onto the build­ing.

Activists lay siege to RBS HQ with a six metre tall mock siege tow­er on wheels with a life-size papi­er mache rhi­noc­er­os head mount­ed on the front.

A ban­ner was dropped from a build­ing read­ing “oil tar sands = envi­ron­men­tal chaos”, there were two arrests.

Anoth­er ban­ner was dropped over the A8 which read “RBS: using our mon­ey to fuck the plan­et”

Above a tent protest by North Bridge, demon­stra­tors scaled two storeys of scaf­fold­ing to drop a ban­ner which read “RBS funds and prof­its from cli­mate chaos”

Actions in pre­vi­ous days have includ­ed:

* Hun­dreds of activists in boil­ers suits stormed the RBS head­quar­ters, cat­a­pult­ing oil-like sub­stance (molasses) onto the build­ing and attempt­ing to get inside the build­ing. There were two arrests.
* A group of activists caused the clo­sure of RBS bank branch­es in town by per­form­ing a spoof song-and-dance ver­sion of Lady Gaga’s num­ber one hit “Pok­er­face”, rewrit­ing the lyrics to talk about RBS’ fund­ing of fos­sil fuels. They invad­ed an RBS-spon­sored stage on the Roy­al Mile and per­formed the rout­ing for passers by.
* A group of 40–50 street the­atre activists exposed how RBS’ PR masks the real­i­ty of its invest­ments by per­form­ing “Green­wash Guer­ril­la” street the­atre at Gog­a­r­burn and the Roy­al Mile.
* On Sat­ur­day, sev­er­al hun­dred activists launched an incur­sion into the RBS HQ com­plex and held a dance par­ty in the foy­er as one activist gained access to the recep­tion area and super­glued her­self to the front desk.

So far, there have been 14 arrests through­out the dura­tion of the camp (from Wednes­day evening through Mon­day after­noon).

The Cli­mate Camp have expressed bewil­der­ment as to police claims of oil being spilled on a main road, and have no knowl­edge who was respon­si­ble for it if the inci­dent did take place.

Har­ry Reynolds who took part in the actions said:

“No one came to work today at the RBS Gog­a­r­burn head­quar­ters. Since we had already effec­tive­ly shut that down, we decid­ed to con­cen­trate our ener­gies tar­get­ing RBS and its fos­sil fuel affil­i­ates in the Edin­burgh city cen­tre. We’ve done a lot to dis­rupt RBS dirty ener­gy oper­a­tions today, but we are com­mit­ted to keep­ing up the pres­sure until we man­age to cut off the flow of cap­i­tal from the banks to the fos­sil fuel indus­try.”

Natal­ie Swift, a spokesper­son for Cli­mate Camp, com­ment­ed on the day of action:

“Today we have seen peo­ple tack­ling RBS’ respon­si­bil­i­ty for the bil­lions of pounds it pro­vides to envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive and dan­ger­ous fos­sil fuel projects. We are being failed by the gov­ern­ment and finan­cial insti­tu­tions, and we are cre­at­ing a vibrant social move­ment that takes direct action against the caus­es of cli­mate change when politi­cians and bankers fail to do so.”

Pho­tos:
Pho­tos of the camp and actions are avail­able at:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010/photography
They will be updat­ed through­out the day with fur­ther pho­tos from actions.

Videos:
The mak­ing of the Tro­jan Pig used at Cairn Ener­gy action
http://www.youandifilms.com/2010/08/ribs-the-trojan-pig-makes-a-mess-at-cairn-energy/
Rais­ing a Ruckus- a short film cov­er­ing the site take and the first
incur­sion into RBS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATJwdb4b2Tc&feature=player_embedded

Twit­ter:
Updates from actions through­out the day of action, includ­ing pho­tos
and videos, are avail­able on the Cli­mate Camp Twit­ter stream:
twitter.com/climate camp

Press releas­es from through­out the day can be found at:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/press

Main­stream TV footage
—

Tar Cov­ered Cli­mate Activists Shut Down Bank

A group of ‘tar’ cov­ered activists from the Camp for Cli­mate Action have locked them­selves to the RBS branch on Nichol­son Street, shut­ting the bank down. This is the sec­ond time that the Nichol­son Street bank branch has been shut down by protests today, as sev­er­al activists who had block­ad­ed the bank entrance by super­glu­ing them­selves togeth­er in front of it had just been removed by the police, result­ing in three arrests.

Anoth­er group of activists is demon­strat­ing with ban­ners and leaflets out­side the bank branch and on the streets of Edin­burgh today tar­get­ing RBS branch­es and spon­sored events to expose the extent of Fes­ti­val spon­sor RBS’s involve­ment in cli­mate crimes.

The activists are call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on all new invest­ment and loan financ­ing in Tar Sands and oth­er fos­sil fuels projects. Roy­al Bank of Scot­land is the UK’s largest investor in com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the Tar Sands and financed 7.5 bil­lion US dol­lars worth of loans between 2007 and 2009. One of these com­pa­nies is Enbrgide, whose con­tro­ver­sial pro­posed North­ern Gate­way Pas­sage would be laid through British Colum­bia, across more than fifty First Nation ter­ri­to­ries and pris­tine eco-sys­tems.

The Gate­way project will cross over 1000 rivers and streams. No oil extrac­tion is safe and secure but giv­en Enbridge has a his­to­ry of spills from its pipelines this project pos­es a seri­ous risk to endan­gered salmon pop­u­la­tions which use these rivers to spawn. Any spill will also con­t­a­m­i­nate the plants and ani­mals that local First Nations depend upon for food and med­i­cine.

The action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with First Nation peo­ples who expe­ri­ence the harsh­est and most imme­di­ate effects of RBS’s invest­ments. The activists are con­cerned that any con­t­a­m­i­na­tion could mir­ror the hor­rif­ic health impacts, includ­ing rare can­cers, seen in First Nation com­mu­ni­ties who live near Tar Sands extrac­tion zones. Two mem­bers of the First Nation com­mu­ni­ties have been at Cli­mate Camp this week, speak­ing of the destruc­tion of their ter­ri­to­ry and the trag­ic human cost of the Tar Sands mega project.

Jas­mine Thomas, a mem­ber of the frog clan from Saik’uz, which is part of the Car­ri­er Nation, said “Tar Sands is a glob­al phe­nom­e­non. It is the largest indus­tri­al project in the world. It is also the dirt­i­est. Tar Sands pro­duces three times as much CO2 per bar­rel as con­ven­tion­al oil. There’s enough under­ground to push us over the edge into run­away cli­mate change. It should be every­one’s con­cern”.

Daniel Bal­la, one of the activists involved, com­ment­ed “We feel com­pelled to take action against RBS as it is now 84% owned by the UK tax­pay­er. Peo­ple may be unaware that the insti­tu­tion using vast amounts of pub­lic mon­ey is invest­ing in the most destruc­tive car­bon-emit­ting indus­tries in the world. Since the bank was bailed out by the British Gov­ern­ment, 99% of RBS’s financ­ing of the ener­gy sec­tor has been pumped into fos­sil fuels. The future RBS is cur­rent­ly fund­ing will be fur­ther pol­lut­ed,
oil-addict­ed and incur a trag­ic loss of Indige­nous Peo­ples and degra­da­tion of the envi­ron­ment”.

—

RBS branch shut down with super­glue and music

Peo­ple opposed to Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s invest­ments in oil tar sands have super-glued them­selves to its Edin­burgh Nichol­son Street branch, sit­u­at­ed at the cen­tre of the City. They were joined by per­form­ers angry at RBS’ spon­sor­ship of the Edin­burgh Fringe.

One par­tic­i­pant, Jen­ny South, said “Cli­mate change kills 400,000 peo­ple every year. RBS invests in oil from Cana­di­an tar sands – the most cli­mate-bust­ing fuel on the plan­et, and one which is dev­as­tat­ing local indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties. We are stand­ing togeth­er with those com­mu­ni­ties to resist this 21st cen­tu­ry atroc­i­ty, to make a pas­sion­ate call for cli­mate jus­tice, and to has­ten a much-need­ed fos­sil fuel-free future.”

The action is one part of a mass day of direct action called by The Camp for Cli­mate Action, which has been camped oppo­site RBS’ glob­al head­quar­ters in Gog­a­r­burn for the last week.

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion about Cli­mate Camp and RBS’ invest­ment in tar sands vis­it www.climatecamp.org.uk

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Cairn trojan pigCairn trojan pig 2Cairn trojan pig 3
Cli­mate Camp art activists cause ‘oil’ spill out­side Cairn Ener­gy

An ‘oil’ spill was caused out­side the offices of Cairn Ener­gy in cen­tral Edin­burgh this morn­ing. Activists tar­get­ed the Scot­tish ener­gy com­pa­ny because it used pub­lic mon­ey from RBS to help it start drilling for oil off the coast of Green­land last month.

The art activists who met at the Cli­mate Camp car­ried a two metre long pig­gy bank brand­ed with the RBS logo filled with 60 litres of an oil like sub­stance towards Cairn Ener­gy’s offices. Trig­gered by a gold­en coin rep­re­sent­ing the pub­lic mon­ey used to bail out the bank, the RBS ‘pig­gy bank’ unleashed its con­tents, believed to be molasses, cov­er­ing the entrances and the street. Activists also sprayed ‘oil’ on the out­side of the build­ing with fire extin­guish­ers.

It was revealed yes­ter­day that Cairn Ener­gy received £117 mil­lion of loans and equi­ty last year from RBS, almost half of which direct­ly enabled the drilling off the Green­land coast to start. This drilling is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­tro­ver­sial because the area has­n’t been exploit­ed for oil before and has only been made pos­si­ble as cli­mate change has caused ice­bergs in this region to melt. The BP Deep­wa­ter oil spill has clear­ly shown the dan­gers of off­shore drilling and it’s argued that Cairn don’t have the expe­ri­ence to deal with acci­dents in the pre­vi­ous­ly pris­tine and extreme­ly envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive Arc­tic. (A spill in the area would be almost impos­si­ble to clean up due to the thick ice.)

Alex Wil­son, one of the activists who under­took the action said:

“RBS does­n’t just spon­sor the Edin­burgh Fringe, it spon­sors the oil com­pa­nies who destroy the lives of hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple around the world through oil spills, war, drought and floods.

“Risky drilling in the Arc­tic by Cairn Ener­gy has only been made pos­si­ble by finan­cial involve­ment by RBS. This is an out­ra­geous use of over a hun­dred mil­lion pounds of pub­lic mon­ey giv­en the eco­nom­ic and cli­mate crises that we are fac­ing.”

The activists say that this is the start of a new focus on tak­ing direct action against the oil indus­try. A mass day of action dubbed ‘The Crude Awak­en­ing’ is already being planned and is set to take place in Octo­ber in Lon­don.

Rachel Stone said:

“We have got the oil indus­try in our sights. We will be tar­get­ing the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries that oil flows through. We will be tak­ing direct action to switch off oil because it is at the heart of the cli­mate cri­sis that we are all fac­ing.”

ENDS

For more infor­ma­tion, inter­views or print qual­i­ty pho­tos please call 07040 900 905

Pho­tos: http://tweetphoto.com/40862372

Notes to edi­tors

* Accord­ing to Bloomberg fig­ures released yes­ter­day Cairn Ener­gy received £117 mil­lion in equi­ty and loans.
* For more infor­ma­tion on the Camp for Cli­mate Action see www.climatecamp.org.uk.
* For more infor­ma­tion about the Crude Awak­en­ing – day of action in Octo­ber go to www.crudeawakening.org.uk

—

DAY OF MASS ACTION BEGINS WITH CAR PARK BLOCKADE AND OFFICE OCCUPATION

The day of mass action tar­get­ing RBS and the fos­sil fuel indus­try is kick­ing into full swing as two groups of pro­tes­tors stage direct actions at the site of two cli­mate crim­i­nals. Sev­en pro­tes­tors have super­glued them­selves to the exec­u­tive car park of the RBS indus­tri­al estate, while anoth­er group of sev­en have tak­en over the offices of Forth ener­gy in Lei­th.

PROTESTORS RISK ARREST TO DROP BANNERS AND OCCUPY FORTH ENERGY HEAD OFFICE UNTIL DEMANDS ARE MET

Video live stream of the action is avail­able at qik.com/sinbad68

Leith—A group of 7 activists have just tar­get­ed the office of the head­quar­ters of Forth Ener­gy. Two have scaled the roof of the build­ing and have hung ban­ners read­ing ‘BIO MASS HEALTH HAZARD’ and ‘BIO MASS = CLIMATE CHANGE’. Three are inside, and two have chained them­selves to the front of the build­ing. The activists, part of the Cli­mate Camp out­side of RBS head­quar­ters in Edin­burgh, are tar­get­ing Forth Ener­gy because of their plans to build four envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive bio­mass (wood-burn­ing) ener­gy pow­er sta­tions in Scot­land. The office takeover began at 8 am this morn­ing.

Loca­tion: 1 Prince of Wales, Dock, Lei­th, EH6 7DX

Why are envi­ron­men­tal activists risk­ing arrest by tak­ing such dras­tic action? Forth Ener­gy, which labels itself a ‘green’ ener­gy com­pa­ny, is mis­lead­ing­ly push­ing bio­mass as a solu­tion to cli­mate change. In real­i­ty these pow­er sta­tions will increase car­bon emis­sions, pol­lute local air, increase defor­esta­tion and lead to the dis­place­ment of native peo­ples in the glob­al south. Wood burned in the pro­posed Lieth, Grange­mouth, Rosyth Port and Dundee Port sites will be fed pri­mar­i­ly from wood chip freight­ed in from abroad.

Bio­mass pow­er sta­tions are more cli­mate dam­ag­ing than tra­di­tion­al fos­sil fuel pow­er sta­tions because of the destruc­tion of vir­gin wood­lands that they inevitably require. If built these pow­er sta­tions will mean even more wood imports from abroad and even more destruc­tion of rain­forests and old growth forests to be replaced with plan­ta­tions of euca­lyp­tus in places like South Amer­i­ca. For exam­ple, the smoke­stack CO2 emis­sions from a bio­mass pow­er sta­tion are com­mon­ly around 1.5 times greater than those from a coal pow­er sta­tion with the same ener­gy out­put.

In addi­tion to harm­ing the glob­al cli­mate, these pow­er sta­tions will severe­ly impact the health of the com­mu­ni­ties where they are built. All bio­mass burn­ing releas­es sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ties of nitro­gen oxides, sul­phur diox­ide, car­bon monox­ide, volatile organ­ic com­pounds and haz­ardous air pol­lu­tants (HAPs). Such pol­lu­tion increas­es the risks of res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, heart dis­ease, can­cer and pre­ma­ture mor­tal­i­ty includ­ing infant mor­tal­i­ty and mis­car­riage. Lei­th pow­er sta­tion alone would gen­er­ate nitro­gen oxide and par­tic­u­lates equiv­a­lent to 100,000 more cars while Edin­burgh and Grange­mouth pow­er sta­tions are 200m to the near­est home and Dundee pow­er sta­tion just 100m.

Demand for import­ed wood will also mean native peo­ples and peas­ant farm­ers could be dis­placed from their land and intim­i­dat­ed, killed, injured or enslaved to make room for new mono cul­ture wood plan­ta­tions as rou­tine­ly hap­pens in many devel­op­ing coun­tries.

Despite all the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence to the con­trary, the UK and EU gov­ern­ments class bio­mass pow­er sta­tions as renew­able, green ener­gy. Forth ener­gy will receive £300 mil­lion in sub­si­dies annu­al­ly for their four bio­mass pow­er sta­tions and this is to be fund­ed through an increase on util­i­ty bills.
Mary­la Hart, spokesper­son for the group of Cli­mate Camp activists “Bio­mass is exac­er­bat­ing cli­mate change, destroy­ing pre­cious forests and pulling mon­ey away from real, sus­tain­able solu­tions like ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures, wind, solar and tidal pow­er. Forth Ener­gy can expect grow­ing oppo­si­tion until they scrap the idea of bio­mass alto­geth­er’.

For more infor­ma­tion about bio­mass and the cam­paign against it, please vis­it www.biofuelwatch.org.uk, http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/Biomess.

Notes to edi­tor:
— The four pow­er sta­tions which will pro­duce a total 560MW will burn a total of 5.6 mil­lion tones of wood a year.
— The four pow­er sta­tions would burn approx­i­mate­ly the equiv­a­lent of 2/3 of all the wood the UK cur­rent­ly pro­duces every year.
— The UK’s total demand for wood for pulp, paper and bio­mass is already alto­geth­er unsus­tain­able as the UK relies on net imports for over 80% for its wood and wood prod­ucts.

Sunday stroll through RBS’ HQ and other climate camp actions so far — updated

For the lat­est action & oth­er news from the Camp for Cli­mate Action, read their twit­ter.

Mid Sun­day after­noon (22.8.10), 100s of peo­ple attempt­ed to stroll over the bridge from the Cli­mate Camp to the HQ of RBS. Police tried to stop them.

For the lat­est action & oth­er news from the Camp for Cli­mate Action, read their twit­ter.

RBS Sunday strollRBS HQ windows smashedMid Sun­day after­noon (22.8.10), 100s of peo­ple attempt­ed to stroll over the bridge from the Cli­mate Camp to the HQ of RBS. Police tried to stop them.

From the North­ern Indy­media time­line:

August 22, 2010 17:29 — Cli­mate Camp pro­tes­tors have now crossed the bridge and marched on to RBS build­ings.

August 22, 2010 17:17 — Green­wash gueril­la activists are going across the main bridge.

August 22, 2010 17:11 — two hun­dred activists in green­wash gueril­la out­fits are march­ing onto the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land Head Quar­ters site.

August 22, 2010 13:50 — “Bring­ing three vans down Gog­ar Sta­tion Road”

August 22, 2010 13:39 — Most of the Cli­mate Campers have moved away, but 4 or 5 are being searched on Sta­tion Road while head­ing back to the main Camp area. Legal Observers are with those Campers who have been stopped.

August 22, 2010 13:36 — Forty Police are now present in the same area as the Cli­mate Campers who are try­ing to enter RBS grounds. Police are now threat­en­ing to invoke Sec­tion 60 on any­one wear­ing a face mask.

August 22, 2010 13:32 — Cli­mate Campers are mov­ing back through the hedge.

August 22, 2010 13:30 — Twelve Police are stood behind the crowd.

August 22, 2010 13:27 — Push­ing match has end­ed. Police are watch­ing Cli­mate Campers dance!

August 22, 2010 13:26 — Police do not have a rea­son for why they are not let­ting Cli­mate Campers cross the bridge. No com­mand­ing offi­cer present to give a rea­son. Push­ing match between Campers and police has begun.

August 22, 2010 13:23 — Police and two vans have met Cli­mate Campers on the bridge and are try­ing to pre­vent them cross­ing the bridge.

August 22, 2010 13:22 — For­ward Intel­li­gence Team (F.I.T.) of the Police have joined the Cli­mate Campers. Police have made attempts to stop the group enter­ing RBS land. We think the police have been unsuc­cess­ful in stop­ping the Cli­mate Campers gain access to the land.

August 22, 2010
There are also a cou­ple of videos avail­able online, one of which appears to show Campers on top of the RBS build­ing (and anoth­er video, slight­ly ear­li­er).

Sunday RBS invasion 1Sunday RBS invasion 2Sunday RBS invasion 3From the Camp twit­ter feed:

* After a pro­longed stand off with the police we are now in a mass ple­nary hear­ing from two Cana­di­an #tarsands activists. #cli­mate­camp 2 min­utes ago via Tweet­Deck
* In an unre­lat­ed inci­dent two activists were also arrest­ed. Molasses rep­re­sent­ing dirty oil was flung at RBS HQ in cater­paults #cli­mate­camp 3 min­utes ago via Tweet­Deck
* dur­ing the ear­li­er site incur­sion two win­dows were smashed by activists angry about RBS fos­sil fuel invest­ments #cli­mate­camp #tarsands
* Overheard_it Over­heard police say­ing an offi­cer had lost their radio in scuf­fles with #Cli­mate­Camp pro­test­ers about 1 hour ago via twit­ter­feed Retweet­ed by cli­mate­camp
* Sophi­aCR Bal­loons full of ‘oil’ just burst on the RBS build­ing. #cli­mate­camp about 3 hours ago via txt Retweet­ed by cli­mate­camp and 4 oth­ers
* Pic­tures from our incur­sion onto RBS HQ. Cur­rent­ly a stand off and bridge and peo­ple up tripods too http://tweetphoto.com/40722969 about 2 hours ago via Tweet­Deck
* Mass incur­sion at RBS HQ. Hun­dreds threat­ened with arrest if they don’t cross back over the bridge #cli­mate­camp

—

Lady Oily GagaActivists Force RBS Branch­es to Close Over Week­end
August 22, 2010

* Cli­mate pro­test­ers use super­glue and stink bombs to close branch­es
* Lady Gaga song per­formed on hijacked Fringe stage

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land came under attack from pro­test­ers this week­end, who are demon­strat­ing against its invest­ment in dan­ger­ous fos­sil fuels.

Activists super­glued shut RBS branch doors on Fri­day night, and graf­fi­tied RBS logos around the city. RBS branch­es were forced to close on Sat­ur­day as Cli­mate Camp pro­tes­tors tar­get­ed city cen­tre branch­es.

One set of pro­test­ers per­formed ‘Dirty Oil’, a spoof ver­sion of the Lady Gaga song ‘Pok­er­face’ with the words changed to high­light RBS’ invest­ments in the Tar Sands. The St Andrew’s Square branch was closed to pre­vent activists per­form­ing inside. The group lat­er hijacked an RBS-spon­sored stage at the Edin­burgh Fringe.

The song includ­ed the lyrics:

“It’s get­ting hot, the plan­et’s near­ly shot
We’ll make ’em stop, we’re putting up a block.
Can’t deny, can’t deny that tar sands is dirty oil
Tar Sands is dirty oil.”

A dif­fer­ent group set off stink bombs in RBS branch­es, forc­ing them to close for the day.

Ruth McTer­nan from the Cli­mate Camp said:

“These invest­ments are fill­ing the atmos­phere with the stench of car­bon and has­ten­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, so we gave RBS a sam­ple of their own smelly emis­sions.”

—

Greenwash Guerillas 2Greenwash Guerillas 3Police Search Street The­atre Activists Under New Pow­er
August 21, 2010

A group of street the­atre activists plan­ning on demon­strat­ing against RBS lat­er today have been stopped and searched by Loth­i­an and Bor­ders Police under Sec­tion 60.

A team of 30–40 peo­ple gath­ered at the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land HQ in Gog­a­r­burn, Edin­burgh this morn­ing. Dressed in white foren­sics bio­haz­ard suits and car­ry­ing “green­wash detec­tor” probes they enact­ed street the­atre to poke fun at RBS’ attempts to spin their image away from their sta­tus as the oil and gas bank.

The pro­test­ers were searched under a sec­tion 60 pow­er which has been in place on Edin­burgh and sur­round­ing area since 10.30 am on Sat­ur­day morn­ing and will remain so for 48 hours. The group were stopped and searched for offen­sive weapons just out­side the Cli­mate Camp at Gog­a­r­burn. For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams took pho­tographs of the pro­tes­tors. All refused to give their details and there were no arrests.

This move accom­pa­nies the instal­la­tion of flood­lights on the roof of RBS HQ, and the intro­duc­tion of mount­ed police in the area sur­round­ing the camp.

The pro­tes­tors from Camp for Cli­mate Action plan on head­ing into the Roy­al Mile at 3pm for more green­wash bust­ing.

Char­lotte Wirth, one of the pro­tes­tors who was stopped and searched, said:
“Street the­atre is a great way to high­light how what RBS says about its envi­ron­men­tal record doesn’t match up with the real­i­ty. RBS is financ­ing bil­lions of pounds worth of coal, oil and gas both across the world and here in the UK.

“It’s ridicu­lous that the police are using stop and search pow­ers across Edin­burgh on street per­form­ers just because our mes­sage is polit­i­cal.”

More pho­tos

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Activist super-glued to RBS front desk as 150 Cli­mate Campers mount an incur­sion into RBS
August 20, 2010

At noon today, approx­i­mate­ly 150 activists breached the secu­ri­ty between the Cli­mate Camp (which is on the grounds of Roy­al Bank of Scot­land head­quar­ters) and the build­ings com­plex which hous­es the head­quar­ters.

As the activists com­plet­ed their tour of the grounds, one pro­tes­tor dis­guised as a banker gained entry to build­ing and super-glued her hands to the front desk. She was arrest­ed, and an ambu­lance was called to facil­i­tate removal.

The activists invit­ed the bankers to lunch to find out more about the Cli­mate Camp and the role of RBS in financ­ing cli­mate chaos at the many work­shops and train­ings planned for this week­end, before the day of mass action.

The activists man­aged to enter the revolv­ing doors of the RBS build­ing, where they held a dance par­ty and held a ban­ner declar­ing “we won‘t pay for their cri­sis”. They then moved to the front of the build­ing, where there were speech­es about RBS’ destruc­tive invest­ments into fos­sil fuels.

One of the speak­ers said:
“This is a call to action because RBS is financ­ing fos­sil fuel projects around the world. They are know­ing­ly dis­plac­ing and endan­ger­ing com­mu­ni­ties, destroy­ing ecosys­tems and lead­ing us towards cli­mate chaos. We’re hear to join with those com­mu­ni­ties in oppos­ing a finan­cial sys­tem which pri­ori­tis­es prof­its for the few over all of our futures”

People Unite in Opposition to Scottish Coal’s Open Cast Plans in Midlothian

22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

Growing Resistance22/08/2010
Yes­ter­day around 185 peo­ple gath­ered in Cous­land, Mid­loth­i­an, to show their unit­ed oppo­si­tion to Scot­tish Coal’s plans to mine 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 154-hectare site at Air­field Farm – the size of Edin­burgh’s old and new towns com­bined – just 500 metres from the vil­lage. Many vil­lagers and their fam­i­lies came to the Vil­lage Hall and were met by 20 cyclists who cycled from Cli­mate Camp in Gog­ar and a fur­ther 60 from the Cli­mate Camp and beyond who came to show their sup­port for the cam­paign.

The protest start­ed in the Vil­lage Hall, with peo­ple gath­er­ing for a speech and wel­come by CAAOC Chair­per­son Dougie McKen­zie. The group then marched through the vil­lage the short dis­tance to the pro­posed open cast site, set in Mid­loth­i­an’s beau­ti­ful coun­try­side, and through the right of way to the cen­tre of the open cast area. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers explained the extent of the bound­aries of the site and the dev­as­ta­tion that would be caused by it.

Fiona Reed, of Coal Action Scot­land, speak­ing to the con­gre­gat­ed crowd, said: “We’ve come here today to con­tin­ue our long term com­mit­ment to sup­port and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with this com­mu­ni­ty and their strug­gle against open cast coal. Across Scot­land com­mu­ni­ties are blight­ed by com­pa­nies like Scot­tish Coal, whether its the health impacts, eco­nom­ic degra­da­tion or the destruc­tion of their local envi­ron­ment they suf­fer. Togeth­er we are stronger!”

Dougie McKen­zie, chair of the cam­paign­ing group, Com­mu­ni­ties Against Air­field Open Cast (CAAOC), said, “We are delight­ed that Coal Action Scot­land is sup­port­ing our cam­paign. Local peo­ple have real con­cerns not only about the impact this mine will have on local busi­ness­es, but also on our safe­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of our chil­dren — the area sur­round­ing the vil­lage of Cous­land is rid­dled with old lime­stone mine work­ings, and we have seri­ous con­cerns about the impact blast­ing will have on the already unsta­ble ground. Already this year we believe there have been 2 land col­laps­es into old mine work­ings in the fields around Air­field, and a few years pre­vi­ous­ly a 15-year old boy nar­row­ly escaped death when the ground in the local play­ing field col­lapsed beneath him .”

“We hope this rur­al protest march will raise aware­ness of our cam­paign and will encour­age more peo­ple to object to Scot­tish Coal’s appli­ca­tion. We sus­pect that there will be many peo­ple in Edin­burgh unaware of this pro­posed blot on the beau­ti­ful land­scape so close to the city.”

Huntington Lane needs YOU!

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site.

UPDATE ON THE HUNTINGTON LANE OPEN CAST COAL MINE PROTEST SITE
It’s approach­ing six months since camp was set up at Hunt­ing­ton Lane open cast coal mine site and as the ‘anniver­sary’ approach­es things are begin­ning to speed up. With a lot of defen­sive work being car­ried out on site by pro­test­ers, UK Coal have been been mak­ing prepa­ra­tions of their own; it has been con­firmed that an Envi­ron­men­tal License will be issued by the end of the month to allow UK Coal to begin work, the water sup­ply has been con­nect­ed and farm­ers are being asked to remove stock from the south­ern site. It has also been dis­cov­ered that jobs at the mine site are being advertised/allocated and local firm McPhilips will begin work­ing on the site infra­struc­ture very soon.
Time is fast run­ning out before an evic­tion notice is served and the camp would like to issue a call out for peo­ple, tools, lock on gear of all kinds (padlocks,D‑locks etc), water and food. If you’re unable to offer any of these things but would like to sup­port the camp, words of sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port are also very grate­ful­ly received 🙂
Camp

OPEN CAST COAL IN THE SHADOW OF THE WREKIN
In Octo­ber of 2009 UK Coal were grant­ed per­mis­sion by the then Sec­re­tary of State, John Den­ham to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal from a site called ‘Hunt­ing­ton Lane Sur­face Mine Site’ near Telford, Shrop­shire – this beau­ti­ful 230 acre site near The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills AONB and is home to a sced­uled ancient mon­u­ment. At least one Coun­ty Wildlife Site and the flo­ra and fau­na of the borough’s largest and most valu­able areas of ancient wood­land are threat­ened by the sur­face mine. The devel­op­ment also involves the dis­tur­bance of four bad­ger setts and the for­ag­ing ter­ri­to­ries of a fur­ther two bad­ger clans.

Not only does the pro­posed mine rep­re­sent a major blot on the beau­ti­ful rur­al land­scape, being clear­ly vis­i­ble from the Wrekin and many oth­er local areas, and also cre­ate three years of noise and dust for local res­i­dents – the sub­se­quent burn­ing of the mined coal will release a min­i­mum of 2,430,000 tonnes of cli­mate chang­ing CO2 emis­sions into the atmos­phere.

In March 2010 pro­test­ers moved onto the site in an effort to resist this destruc­tion at the hands of UK Coal.

huntingtolane1

HOW TO GET THERE
The entry point is actu­al­ly on New Works Lane, New Works, Telford, Shrop­shire. The near­est train sta­tion is Welling­ton (Telford West).

For a map view go to:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tf6+5bs&sll=52.675432,-2.498875&sspn=0.005738,0.013797&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Telford+TF6+5BS,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.675174,-2.499985&spn=0.000724,0.001725&t=h&z=19

The mark­er on the map is not quite in the right place but is very close to the entry point for camp – the stile is actu­al­ly on the oth­er side of New Works Lane, just before the hous­es begin, in the bush­es to the right of a shon­ky old gate! (Please don’t block the gate if you’re com­ing by car/van as it’s still in use by the farmer – park at the side of the road if you can. There is more space to park head­ing north up New Works Lane) If you zoom right in on the map you can see the entrance on Streetview, but be warned – the green­ery around the stile has grown sub­stan­cial­ly since this pic­ture was tak­en! Once over the stile just fol­low the path; it breaks off to the left behind the hous­es and also to the right a lit­tle fur­ther along; ignore these turn­ings and fol­low the straight path which bears to the left after them. Con­tin­ue to fol­low the path until you reach the sign direct­ing you to camp.

HOW TO CONTACT THE CAMP
Tel: 07503 583419 or 07727 295232
Email: defendhuntingtonlane@hushmail.com
Web: http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com

*PLEASE PASS THIS INFOMATION ON TO ANY PERSONS OR GROUPS YOU THINK MAY BE INTERESTED*

Many Thanks!