Category: Climate Chaos

3 days of action for Beat the Boreholes in Rossport

Shell drilling stopped for an hour and a half

6.08.2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers go out before 7am and suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent work­ers from access­ing the drilling plat­forms.

rossport-wadersShell drilling stopped for an hour and a half

6.08.2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers go out before 7am and suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent work­ers from access­ing the drilling plat­forms.

9 Campers wadded and kayaked out to the plat­forms this morn­ing and halt­ed work for 1 and half hours. IRMS work­ers even­tu­al­ly secured the area by push­ing peo­ple away and drag­ging their kayaks down the estu­ary. Kayaks were deflat­ed by secu­ri­ty and some peo­ple were dan­ger­ous­ly forced to swim in high cur­rents. There were no arrests.

We real­ly need more peo­ple to come and take part in actions over the next two months. Please get in touch if you think you would be able to come down and help stop Shell.

http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

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Shell drilling stopped for 5 hours – as Beat the Bore­holes con­tin­ues

05.08.2010
Yes­ter­day morn­ing 11 peo­ple from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp wad­ed and kayaked out from the camp to again delay Shell’s sur­vey work in Sruwad­da­con Estu­ary. Over­all drilling work was stopped for over 5 hours, with one per­son climb­ing up one of the legs of the drilling plat­forms. Sev­er­al peo­ple also attached them­selves to the 2 out­er drilling poles which are under the plat­forms.

The campers went out before 7am to pre­vent work­ers get­ting access to the plat­form and held the plat­form for about 4 hours before being removed by IRMS secu­ri­ty. Despite only 11 pro­test­ers being present, it took 50 IRMS to come before they could secure the area. After about 5 hours the drilling work­ers got on board and start­ed prepar­ing the drilling oper­a­tion. Even­tu­al­ly they start­ed drilling at around 1pm, despite the climber still being perched at the side of the plat­form. They drilled for approx­i­mate­ly an hour before the climber came down and swam back to shore.

The drilling plat­forms are cur­rent­ly in a vital part of the SAC; close to bird feed­ing and nest­ing sites. At this time the estu­ary is also used as a migra­tion route for Atlantic Salmon which are an Annex 1 species (the most pro­tect­ed EU cat­e­go­ry). They are very vul­ner­a­ble to suf­fo­ca­tion by sus­pend­ed solids in the water clog­ging their gills and today we saw evi­dence of sed­i­ment spew­ing into the estu­ary from the bore­holes. Move­ment of the plat­forms will also release sus­pend­ed solids; endan­ger­ing the sup­pos­ed­ly pro­tect­ed salmon. This direct­ly con­tra­venes the pur­pose of the SAC which Min­is­ter Gorm­ley seems to con­ve­nient­ly for­get when it comes to facil­i­tat­ing big busi­ness here in Mayo but likes to remind us at oth­er times such as on 2nd August in rela­tion to restrict­ing leisure activ­i­ties to pro­tect SAC’s, the Min­is­ter said;
“Along with oth­er EU States, Ire­land has des­ig­nat­ed cer­tain areas for nature pro­tec­tion and, in those areas, that must be our pri­or­i­ty. Many peo­ple, indeed, find recre­ation in the enjoy­ment of undis­turbed nature,” he con­clud­ed .
Indeed Gorm­ley, that is what the peo­ple of Erris have been say­ing for 10 years; its time to pro­tect this SAC from Shell!

John Gorm­ley’s recent press release:
http://www.environ.ie/en/Heritage/NationalParksandWildl…n.htm

rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org, www.shelltosea.com

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Shell dis­rupt­ed — Beat the Bore­holes con­tin­ues

9.8.2010
Yes­ter­day at about 2.30pm Shell began to low­er “Jack — 1” — one of two sur­vey barges cur­rent­ly in Sruth Fha­da Chonn estu­ary SAC (Spe­cial Area of Pro­tec­tion) — in order to tug it to anoth­er part of the estu­ary.

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was ready and will­ing to claim free pas­sage of the pub­lic estu­ary and in the process upset the oper­a­tion. Over a dozen Shell secu­ri­ty boats and two Gar­da RIBS could­n’t keep the 6 kayk­ers out, with two of them reach­ing the mov­ing barge after an hour and a half of chase.

Shel­l’s jack-up barges are dam­ag­ing Sruth Fha­da Chonn estu­ary SAC (Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion) by drilling sur­vey bore­holes for the pro­posed Onshore Cor­rib Gas Pipeline tun­nel — the lat­est route offered by Shell as a means to hook up the refin­ery to the well. At each new loca­tion the barges mas­sive legs are low­ered into the estu­ary crush­ing life beneath the sand. Estu­ary water is being used to lubri­cate the work, and and out­fall pipe is dis­charg­ing it back in to the sup­pos­ed­ly pro­tect­ed waters.

The Gar­daí seemed hap­py to let IRMS do as they pleased on the water, with kayak­ers being unlaw­ful­ly rammed, grabbed, towed against their will — all on a pub­lic water­way. At one stage an IRMS boat stole one kayak from under its own­er, cap­siz­ing him into the water. The Gar­daí issued many Sec­tion 8 warn­ing under the pub­lic order act (to the kayk­ers) but no arrests were made, despite one kayak­er mak­ing it onto the mov­ing rig.

Beat the bore­holes con­tin­ues, now both rigs are in the upper estu­ary — on the sand at low tide and acces­si­ble by walk­ing.

rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org, www.shelltosea.com

Trashing, dashing, bashing, mashing: the new EF! Action Update

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

Maybe you’re in need of a break. But if you’re not, and are just champ­ing at the bit, the return of AUn­tie MIffy’s prob­lem page might help, address­ing what to do if there’s no local group near you. There’s an arti­cle about the begin­nings of EF! in this coun­try, look­ing for­wards to the next 20 years, to help inspire. If you need sup­port to get things going where you live, do get in touch. And if all that’s not enough, here’s a quo­ta­tion, from Paul Wat­son, the Sea Shep­herd cap­tain:

“Future gen­er­a­tions will not have the chance and those that came before us did not have the vision nor the knowl­edge. It is up to us — you and I.”

Print ver­sion
Oth­er issues and extra info

Anti-Coal Protest raft sails down River Seven

On Sun­day 31st res­i­dents from the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp took their mes­sage onto the riv­er Sev­en and sailed it down­stream. The six per­son raft com­plete with a big “No New Coal” ban­ner and UK Coal dig­ger fig­ure­head sailed down the Riv­er Sev­en and past EON’s Build­was B coal fired pow­er sta­tion which is where the coal from Hunt­ing­ton Lane will even­tu­al­ly end up. It then sailed fur­ther down­stream and under the famous Iron Bridge where it was meet with cheers from a crowd of locals and tourists who had gath­ered on the bridge.

No New Coal Raft
On Sun­day 31st res­i­dents from the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp took their mes­sage onto the riv­er Sev­en and sailed it down­stream. The six per­son raft com­plete with a big “No New Coal” ban­ner and UK Coal dig­ger fig­ure­head sailed down the Riv­er Sev­en and past EON’s Build­was B coal fired pow­er sta­tion which is where the coal from Hunt­ing­ton Lane will even­tu­al­ly end up. It then sailed fur­ther down­stream and under the famous Iron Bridge where it was meet with cheers from a crowd of locals and tourists who had gath­ered on the bridge.

There was also a team on land who were rais­ing aware­ness of the camp by talk­ing to the peo­ple on the river­side and bridge about what they were doing and why they where doing it. Gen­er­al­ly most peo­ple were sup­port­ive and pos­i­tive about the cam­paign. The event also had a fair bit of local media over­age with the Shrop­shire Star and Mid­lands Today both cov­er­ing it.

The camp has now been stop­ping work at Hunt­ing­ton Lane almost six months, if you want to help then dona­tions of food, tools and water are always appre­ci­at­ed as are new faces at the camp

West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action
http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/
http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/protest-raft-river-seven/

Waders tie down Shell testing rig in Mayo, Republic of Ireland

30.07.2010
10 peo­ple from the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp delayed Shell’s sur­vey work for the dan­ger­ous and exper­i­men­tal Cor­rib gas pipeline yes­ter­day. The cam­paign­ers wad­ed out to one of the rigs drilling bore­holes in the Sruwad­da­con estu­ary the rig at high tide, fixed rope around the legs of the rig, and occu­pied the space under­neath it to pre­vent the being moved to a new site. Work was delayed for around two hours.

Beat the Boreholes banner30.07.2010
10 peo­ple from the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp delayed Shell’s sur­vey work for the dan­ger­ous and exper­i­men­tal Cor­rib gas pipeline yes­ter­day. The cam­paign­ers wad­ed out to one of the rigs drilling bore­holes in the Sruwad­da­con estu­ary the rig at high tide, fixed rope around the legs of the rig, and occu­pied the space under­neath it to pre­vent the being moved to a new site. Work was delayed for around two hours.

Shell’s secu­ri­ty guards IRMS cut the ropes around the rig, but did not try to remove the pro­test­ers so the occu­pa­tion of the area under the rig con­tin­ued until the Gar­dai arrived. Six of the waders were arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let police sta­tion. Three oth­ers returned to the water in kayaks to make a fur­ther attempt to stop the rig but were blocked by secu­ri­ty in speed­boats – one kayak­er was also arrest­ed. All those arrest­ed were lat­er released with­out charge.

Shell is cur­rent­ly drilling sur­vey bore­holes to gath­er infor­ma­tion to sup­port its plan to put the gas pipeline through a tun­nel run­ning up the estu­ary. Cam­paign­ers from the local com­mu­ni­ty and the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp have been obstruct­ing the test­ing in a series of protests and actions on water and on land.

‘Beat the Bore­holes’ cam­paign is up and run­ning, invit­ing groups to the camp to take on an action against one of the esti­mat­ed 80 bore­holes. To get involved in the cam­paign, call or email the camp. The ‘Beat the Bore­holes’ guide will be pub­lished soon.

Yesterday’s action coin­cid­ed with Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp mem­ber Niall Harnett’s 100th day in prison. Niall was sen­tenced to five months in prison on a trumped-up charge of assault­ing a police offi­cer, after mak­ing him­self a thorn in Shell’s side with his work on the cam­paign over sev­er­al years.

rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

Beat the Boreholes continues!!

27.7.10
The com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign against Shel­l’s work in the estu­ary is going strong with reg­u­lar actions hap­pen­ing. Last week locals viewed the bore­hole-drilling rigs dur­ing a walk on the strands of the estu­ary at low tide. Shell moved the rigs yes­ter­day but were slowed down by kayak­er action.

Beat Boreholes27.7.10
The com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign against Shel­l’s work in the estu­ary is going strong with reg­u­lar actions hap­pen­ing. Last week locals viewed the bore­hole-drilling rigs dur­ing a walk on the strands of the estu­ary at low tide. Shell moved the rigs yes­ter­day but were slowed down by kayak­er action.

Secu­ri­ty around the rigs has been mas­sive — 6–10 secu­ri­ty boats includ­ing a con­stant day­light-hours watch on the shore near the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp, plus two so-called ‘safe­ty boats’.

Mem­bers of the local com­mu­ni­ty walked close to the drilling barges at low tide and showed their oppo­si­tion to Shel­l’s destruc­tion of Sruwad­da­con estu­ary. The estu­ary is not only a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion and Spe­cial Pro­tect­ed Area – it has been an inte­gral part of life in the com­mu­ni­ty for gen­er­a­tions. Despite this, Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley has giv­en the go-ahead for Shell to dam­age it.
John Gorm­ley minister@environ.ie

Last week 8 com­mu­ni­ty sup­port­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp took their kayaks for a spin out on the water — and were met by a dozen secu­ri­ty boats while hav­ing a clos­er look at the barges.

Yes­ter­day signs that Shell were prepar­ing to move the rigs to a new posi­tion led to a spon­ta­neous action by a small group of kayak­ers from the camp. Although they were pre­vent­ed from get­ting near the rig by the mas­sive secu­ri­ty pres­ence, work seemed to stop while the kayaks were in the water.

Both rigs have now been moved a few miles upriv­er towards Aghoos, and are posi­tioned oppo­site the house of Ross­port 5 mem­ber Willy Cor­duff — a move some peo­ple are view­ing as provoca­tive.

Come to sup­port and be part of com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance. Beat the Bore­holes is up and run­ning, sign up for your bore­hole or find out how you can help – get in touch with Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp!

Beat the Bore­hole guide com­ing soon.

For more info www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

Beat the bore­holes land divi­sion — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KULXgsqD18w
Beat the bore­holes water divi­sion — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsuLn6iiWuw

European Climate Exchange (ECX) target of decocidio hacktivists against carbon trading scam

On Fri­day, July 23 at 23:23 UTC, the pub­lic web­site of the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange (ECX),
the lead­ing mar­ket­place for trad­ing CO2 emis­sions in Europe, has been tar­get­ted by hack­tivists
of the autonomous tech col­lec­tive *deco­cidio* (#ϴ).

On Fri­day, July 23 at 23:23 UTC, the pub­lic web­site of the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange (ECX),
the lead­ing mar­ket­place for trad­ing CO2 emis­sions in Europe, has been tar­get­ted by hack­tivists
of the autonomous tech col­lec­tive *deco­cidio* (#ϴ).

In a pub­lic act of dig­i­tal direct action, the ECX web­site was tak­en offline and replaced with our mes­sage in an effort to try to raise aware­ness about car­bon trad­ing as a dan­ger­ous false solu­tion
to the cli­mate cri­sis, in sup­port of the grass­roots activists aim­ing to oppose the pow­er struc­tures and com­pa­nies prof­i­teer­ing from the dys­func­tion­al Cap & Trade scheme.
+ ECX web­site: http://www.ecx.eu
+ Mirror(s) of our mes­sage at: , http://nassibou.atspace.org

Earth First! Summer Gathering set-up plans announced

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We also have a mobile num­ber for set­up which is 07766 947852. This will be on-site from Sat­ur­day lunchtime, and may well get answered in the few days before­hand but please don’t try ring­ing until then — e‑mail will remain the main con­tact point until near­er the time — sum­mer­gath­er­ing -{at}- earthfirst.org.uk

What we need to know:

*Please can you let us know when you are com­ing? — this helps us plan foods, facil­i­ties and what jobs to do when.

*It is also help­ful if you can let us know if you have any par­tic­u­lar skills or inter­ests with respect to set-up — we might need dri­vers, so if you are over 25, hold a clean licence, are con­fi­dent dri­ving a 3.5 tonne Luton AND can bring along both parts of your dri­ving licence please let us know.

*Sim­i­lar­ly if you are arriv­ing in a vehi­cle and could poten­tial­ly pro­vide lifts, trans­port equip­ment en route or run errands from site once you arrive please let us know. In this case it is very help­ful if you are able/willing to sup­ply us with a con­tact phone num­ber.

How to get there

As you maybe aware that we do not announce the exact site of the gath­er­ing until one week before the main event, this means direc­tions will be avail­able on the web­site http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/ from Wednes­day, 27 July. We realise this will be short notice for peo­ple arriv­ing on the Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er to make things eas­i­er we will e‑mail direc­tions to set-up crew on that day (that still 4 days to check a map!).

The near­est train sta­tion is Der­by if you want to pre-book train tick­ets, you will also need to take a local bus ser­vice from Der­by (these are fre­quent). We are aim­ing to have a vehi­cle on site that can assist if peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ties between Der­by and the site, so hope­ful­ly every­one will be able to get there okay.

There may be a very small num­ber of lifts avail­able from the Not­ting­ham area across the week­end of Sat­ur­day 31st July/Sunday first of August. There may also be lifts from the Leeds area first thing on 31 July. Let us know if this may be of inter­est to you.

What to bring

*Every­thing you need to the gath­er­ing, tent sleep­ing bags etc. and espe­cial­ly a torch

*It may be wise to come a bit more self-suf­fi­cient in food and snacks than you would need to for the main gath­er­ing — we will have a basic kitchen but Veg­gies and the tuck shop are not arriv­ing until Wednes­day

*If you are able to bring any tools, espe­cial­ly for basic car­pen­try, these are often use­ful

Big thanks for offer­ing to help out

Do get in touch if you have any ques­tions

Love & rage

The EF! Gath­er­ing crew

Sabotage the Machines! Cutacre coal mine visit

21 July 2010
Activists entered the Cutacre coal mine in the ear­ly hours of a June morn­ing, & sab­o­taged 7 mon­ster-trucks, used to trans­port coal around the site.

Sabotage arm21 July 2010
Activists entered the Cutacre coal mine in the ear­ly hours of a June morn­ing, & sab­o­taged 7 mon­ster-trucks, used to trans­port coal around the site.

They report that met­al hair-pins were cut to length, coat­ed in super­glue & insert­ed deep into the locks of the vehi­cles. Anoth­er healthy dose of glue fol­lowed for good mea­sure.

It is not known how long the vehi­cles were out of action- odd­ly nobody hung around long enough to find out.

The site is locat­ed in the Greater Man­ches­ter area, & is oper­at­ed by “lets trash the plan­et” UK Coal. It is on land owned by ” lets sell our mums for mon­ey” Peel Hold­ings.

The activists say they were inspired by fine exam­ples of sab­o­tage at Main­shill, & hope that all over the coun­try, peo­ple will resist the destruc­tion, & sab­o­tage machin­ery.

Nobody was arrest­ed.

Oil Spill at the British Museum

13.07.2010
This morn­ing three mem­bers of the art activist group Cul­ture Beyond Oil poured non-tox­ic black oil around the British Museum’s world famous East­er Island sculp­ture, in protest at BP’s spon­sor­ship of the muse­um. Emi­ly James, Direc­tor of Just Do It, hap­pened to be there and cap­tured the action.

BP British Museum 1BP British Museum 2BP British Museum 313.07.2010
This morn­ing three mem­bers of the art activist group Cul­ture Beyond Oil poured non-tox­ic black oil around the British Museum’s world famous East­er Island sculp­ture, in protest at BP’s spon­sor­ship of the muse­um. Emi­ly James, Direc­tor of Just Do It, hap­pened to be there and cap­tured the action.

Fol­low­ing sim­i­lar actions at the Tate Mod­ern, Tate Britain and Nation­al Por­trait Gallery in recent weeks, the activists tar­get­ed the British Muse­um because of the annu­al spon­sor­ship it receives from the infa­mous oil com­pa­ny.

A recent report called ‘Licence to Spill’ from the cam­paign group Plat­form has point­ed to the ben­e­fits of cul­tur­al spon­sor­ship for oil com­pa­nies, stat­ing that “the finan­cial sup­port that the com­pa­nies [like Shell and BP] pro­vide [to cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions] strength­ens their posi­tion as a part of Britain’s cul­tur­al and social elite, and cre­ates a per­cep­tion of mak­ing a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to our soci­ety”, thus giv­ing them a “social license to oper­ate”.

The stat­ue around which the oil was poured* is known as Hoa Hakananai’a, a 2000 year old rel­ic tak­en from East­er Island by Euro­pean explor­ers. The sto­ry of the East­er Island stat­ues is often cit­ed as an exam­ple of the speed with which once strong civ­i­liza­tions have sud­den­ly col­lapsed.

Ben Coop­er, who is also part of Lib­er­ate Tate, said: “Oil spon­sor­ship of pub­lic insti­tu­tions is a prob­lem that stretch­es way beyond BP and the cat­a­stro­phe in the Gulf of Mex­i­co. The oil indus­try has a long his­to­ry of envi­ron­men­tal and human rights abus­es, and is cur­rent­ly pulling us clos­er and clos­er to a poten­tial cat­a­stro­phe on a glob­al scale.

“Just like the forests on East­er Island, oil rep­re­sents a resource being over-exploit­ed despite mas­sive­ly increas­ing risks. With our relent­less search for oil we are risk­ing the col­lapse of the ecosys­tems on which we depend — just as the inhab­i­tants of East­er Island did 2000 years ago”.

VIDEO AND PICTURES HERE: http://just-do-it.org.uk/oil-spill-at-the-british-museum

just.do.it.film@googlemail.com
http://just-do-it.org.uk/

summer camps in the UK & Merthyr coal train action sentencing — solidarity demo

The next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

Climate Camp Cymru 2010 logoThe next month and a half are busy times if you like camp­ing and pol­i­tics! Peace News, EF! gath­er­ing, Welsh & UK cli­mate camps.…

The Peace News Sum­mer Camp is almost upon us in sun­ny Oxford­shire, “an inclu­sive, demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-run five-day expe­ri­ence-in-minia­ture of the kind of world we are try­ing to bring about”. This year, fem­i­nism joins our stand­ing themes of peace and jus­tice.
http://peacenewscamp.info/

The EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is of course in ear­ly August in the beau­ti­ful Peak Dis­trict. “5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low- impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers. Meet and share skills with oth­ers who care. Plan actions and cam­paigns. Have fun. We’ve got over 80 work­shops, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘Where Next’ ses­sions planned, get in touch if you want to offer a work­shop! ”
A tonne of var­ied and amaz­ing work­shops and train­ing ses­sions, full details at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2010/front.html

And the Welsh Cli­mate Camp is in mid-August (see call­out below), “a basic ‘lite’ action-focused camp in South Wales; with its atten­tion fixed firm­ly on coal. This will be linked to a sis­ter-site /in­fo-shop in Cardiff which will act as a point of con­tact before and dur­ing the camp. Work­shops will be most­ly lim­it­ed to action-based train­ing and infor­ma­tion although there will be space to hear from com­mu­ni­ty cam­paigns and open dis­cus­sion forums through­out the camp.”
http://climatecampcymru.org/?page_id=1000

The UK Camp for Cli­mate Action is head­ing north to Edin­burgh at the end of August, “Our sus­tain­able and col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised base­camp will give you the chance to learn, train up, and meet like mind­ed indi­vid­u­als. Excit­ing action plans are cur­rent­ly in the plot­ting stages, so watch this space.”
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010

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Open cast is trash­ing the south Wales land­scape
It’s time to take action
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru
13 – 17 August

A momen­tum is build­ing. Last year we camped next to Ffos y Fran — one of the largest open­cast mines in Europe — for a week of work­shops and sus­tain­able liv­ing. This sum­mer we’re going back to basics with a light action-based camp, tar­get­ing coal some­where in south Wales.

Our cur­rent eco­nom­ic sys­tem is based on an addic­tion to fos­sil fuels and on max­imis­ing prof­it at the expense of peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. Fos­sil fuel cor­po­ra­tions can­not be allowed to progress unchecked. We need green jobs for Wales, not dirty destruc­tion.

On the 13th we’ll meet in Cardiff and make our way from there to the site.
Things to bring:

> Tent
> Sleep­ing bag
> Warm clothes and water­proofs
> Plate, bowl, mug and cut­lery
> and a bike could be use­ful too

Burn­ing coal is destroy­ing our cli­mate, while open­cast min­ing dam­ages the earth and the health of local peo­ple. We must leave it in the ground.

Join a grow­ing num­ber of ordi­nary peo­ple tak­ing direct action, and explor­ing alter­na­tives, to stop the mad­ness that is destroy­ing the earth. This August 13th ‑17th come to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru.

www.climatecampcymru.org
info@climatecampcymru.org
07040 909 147

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Head­ing to Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru on August 13th? 13 peo­ple who block­ad­ed the rail­way at Ffos y Fran open­cast mine in April are being sen­tenced at Merthyr Crown Court that day at 2pm. Why not drop by around 1pm for a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo.