Category: Climate Chaos

Shotton opencast coal mine sabotaged

Machines sab­o­taged at Banks Group’s Shot­ton open­cast coal mine near Cram­ling­ton. On the morn­ing of the 24th of May 13 machines were sab­o­taged at Shot­ton open­cast coal mine. One exca­va­tor, two bull­doz­ers and ten heavy earth movers were dam­aged. The dam­age includ­ed cut electrics, cut hydraulics and coal dust in oil tanks. Also 150 meters of water pipe was slashed, flood­ing an area of the mine.

Machines sab­o­taged at Banks Group’s Shot­ton open­cast coal mine near Cram­ling­ton. On the morn­ing of the 24th of May 13 machines were sab­o­taged at Shot­ton open­cast coal mine. One exca­va­tor, two bull­doz­ers and ten heavy earth movers were dam­aged. The dam­age includ­ed cut electrics, cut hydraulics and coal dust in oil tanks. Also 150 meters of water pipe was slashed, flood­ing an area of the mine. Shot­ton open­cast is oper­at­ed by Banks Min­ing and start­ed work­ing in 2008. It is expect­ed to extract 3.4 mil­lion tonnes of coal, two mil­lion tonnes of shale and 750,000 tonnes of fire­clay over an eight-year peri­od. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple resist­ing total envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, cli­mate change and civilised cul­ture, and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all peo­ple who are strug­gling against the coal indus­try.

UK arrests & raids, possibly climate action related

At lunchtime on Wednes­day 26th May two address­es in Belper, Der­byshire, were raid­ed by the North York­shire Counter Ter­ror­ist Unit.

At lunchtime on Wednes­day 26th May two address­es in Belper, Der­byshire, were raid­ed by the North York­shire Counter Ter­ror­ist Unit.

One woman from The Sail­boat Project was arrest­ed on charges of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit crim­i­nal dam­age. She has since been released with­out charge, but bailed to return to the police sta­tion in two months (no bail con­di­tions). Large quan­ti­ties of prop­er­ty was con­fis­cat­ed, includ­ing IT equip­ment and mobile phones belong­ing to the arrestee and to oth­er res­i­dents & vis­i­tors in the house at the time. Anoth­er woman who was away, today hand­ed her­self in to North York­shire police in Sus­sex and has been ques­tioned and released.

One address in Shole­broke Avenue, Leeds was vis­it­ed by police look­ing for spe­cif­ic peo­ple iden­ti­fied as hav­ing tak­en part in kayak train­ing run by the Sail­boat Project in North York­shire in April. The train­ing was pub­licly adver­tised and well attend­ed. The police ques­tioned one indi­vid­ual. Ques­tions includ­ed:
— what oth­er groups are they part of
— why were they on the train­ing
— who else was on the train­ing
— were they plan­ning to take action against pow­er sta­tions

The pre­vi­ous day (Tues­day 25th), police searched the premis­es of a dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tion not involved in boats, but with links to var­i­ous gath­er­ings. Noth­ing was tak­en. The war­rant was under the Ter­ror­ism Act and is pos­si­bly relat­ed.

We are not aware of any oth­er con­tact by the police, but plen­ty of oth­er peo­ple were on the train­ing…

International bike ride links communities in resistance: Merthyr to Mayo cyclist

22.5.2010
Today, a 50-strong inter­na­tion­al bike ride begins the 400 mile jour­ney from a com­mu­ni­ty resist­ing Britain’s largest open cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil, Wales to Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, where local peo­ple have spent the last ten years fight­ing a Shell-led gas devel­op­ment. We aim to offer direct sup­port to these two local cam­paigns resist­ing the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

22.5.2010
Today, a 50-strong inter­na­tion­al bike ride begins the 400 mile jour­ney from a com­mu­ni­ty resist­ing Britain’s largest open cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil, Wales to Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, where local peo­ple have spent the last ten years fight­ing a Shell-led gas devel­op­ment. We aim to offer direct sup­port to these two local cam­paigns resist­ing the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

30 cyclists from the UK will join the “Madrid to Mayo” cycle ride in Cork, and many oth­ers from Ire­land are expect­ed to join on route. We will spend ten days trav­el­ing up the west coast of Ire­land, dis­trib­ut­ing a spe­cial­ly pro­duced news­pa­per, “Chang­ing Times”. Events are being held along the way, each night we’re being host­ed by dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions, and we’ll arrive in Mayo for the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp June Bank Hol­i­day Week­end Gath­er­ing at Glen­gad.

It’s gonna be a good laugh, but hope­ful­ly more than that — the line we are draw­ing from Merthyr to Mayo is a reminder that none of us can afford to see these places in iso­la­tion.

The ride begins today with an event in Merthyr Tyd­fil where local res­i­dents and the sol­i­dar­i­ty cyclists are shar­ing sto­ries, ideas, music and food.

“Our com­mu­ni­ties’ sto­ries are repeat­ed across the globe in the places where fos­sil fuels are sourced. Large cor­po­ra­tions move into areas regard­less of the wish­es of the affect­ed pop­u­la­tion; resources are extract­ed and, whilst the cor­po­ra­tions reap vast prof­its, the local peo­ple have to suf­fer the health and envi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences. And, as the fos­sil fuels are burnt they con­tribute to cli­mate change, affect­ing every­one.” — Merthyr res­i­dent, Alyson Austin.

Both com­mu­ni­ties have a long his­to­ry of resis­tance, and their efforts have result­ed in amaz­ing suc­cess­es. In Erris, Mayo, the cam­paign won a size­able vic­to­ry in Novem­ber last year, when Shell’s appli­ca­tion for their onshore gas pipeline was effec­tive­ly refused by the plan­ning author­i­ties; it is unclear when (or if) per­mis­sion will be grant­ed in the future. In Merthyr Tyd­fil, cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly tak­ing out a Group Pri­vate Nui­sance case against the min­ing com­pa­ny, Miller Argent. Sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of local peo­ple are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the legal action which aims to lim­it the mine’s impact on res­i­dents. Cli­mate activists recent­ly did a sol­i­dar­i­ty action by blockad­ing coal trains head­ed from the mine to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion. In recent months, Mayo has seen string of actions local­ly, nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers Pat O’Don­nell and Niall Har­nett (more infor­ma­tion on the pris­on­ers and how to write to them, and the cam­paign in gen­er­al, on the shell to sea web­site.)

Please join us on the ride, for the gath­er­ing, and in con­tin­ued resis­tance against patri­ar­chal white-suprema­cist cap­i­tal­ist impe­ri­al­ism, and the fight for social and eco­log­i­cal jus­tice!

http://www.merthyrtomayo.org.uk

Giant Elephant attacks Manchester Council meeting

……well sort of. New coun­cil­lors were remind­ed yes­ter­day that Man­ches­ter Air­port is still the ‘ele­phant in the room’ when it comes to the local Cli­mate Change Action Plan – since the Coun­cil have refused to include the flight emis­sions from the Air­port in their car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets.

……well sort of. New coun­cil­lors were remind­ed yes­ter­day that Man­ches­ter Air­port is still the ‘ele­phant in the room’ when it comes to the local Cli­mate Change Action Plan – since the Coun­cil have refused to include the flight emis­sions from the Air­port in their car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets. The 9ft inflat­able ele­phant high­light­ed that the Coun­cil’s much-laud­ed plans are total­ly under­mined by the omis­sion of the Air­port– espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil own 55% of Man­ches­ter Air­ports Group.

As Coun­cil­lors met alto­geth­er for the first time since the elec­tion, a trail­er bike soundsys­tem played a set of air­craft nois­es as a reminder of what life under the flight path can be like for com­mu­ni­ties in Stock­port and Knutsford.
Air­craft Noise — audio/x‑ms-wma 4.4M

In Novem­ber 2009, Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil released ‘Man­ches­ter: a Cer­tain Future’ which laid out plans to reduce the city’s CO2 emis­sions by 41% by 2020. These cal­cu­la­tions did not include the full impact of the air­port. The next day the Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved pro­pos­als to bull­doze res­i­dents homes at Hasty Lane, to expand the World Freight Cen­tre at Man­ches­ter Air­port. [1]

A report by the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change (Decem­ber 2009) has pre­dict­ed that Man­ches­ter Air­port could become as busy as Heathrow with the num­ber of flights dou­bling by 2050, lead­ing to a flight tak­ing off or land­ing every 70 seconds.[2]

Recent­ly, the new coali­tion Lib­er­al Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment in Lon­don have blocked expan­sion plans at Heathrow, Stanst­ed and Gatwick. It seems the avi­a­tion indus­try will be look­ing to expand region­al air­ports like Man­ches­ter to increase their prof­its.

Alex Foun­tain from the Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port coali­tion said, “The new coun­cil­lors need to take a fresh approach to air­port expan­sion. The coun­cil can­not con­tin­ue to ignore its effects on local com­mu­ni­ties – such as ris­ing car­bon pol­lu­tion and noise impacts.”

He con­tin­ued, “There is a tourism defecit in the North­west of Eng­land amount­ing to £2.2 bil­lion. [2] That’s £2.2 bil­lion more being tak­en out of the region than being brought in by air­ports. The argu­ment that air­port expan­sion is good for jobs and the econ­o­my is unfound­ed. We need an update assess­ment of the air­port’s role in the region.”

Man­ches­ter Air­port plan to become car­bon neu­tral by 2015 — but this will not include emis­sions from flights.

A ren­di­tion of ‘Nel­lie the Ele­phant’ by the Toy Dolls was also heard play­ing out the soundsys­tem.
TUNE: Nel­lie the Ele­phant by the Toy Dolls — mp3 3.1M

Notes
————————–

[1] Coun­cil Approve Expan­sion Plans — Man­ches­ter Evening News — 21st Novem­ber 2009 http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1183425_fury_over_airports_move_to_demolish_family_homes

[2] Man­ches­ter Air­port to be as busy as Heathrow — Man­ches­ter Evening News – Mon­day 8th March 2010
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1194908_manchester_airport_to_be_as_busy_as_heathrow

[3] Bren­dan Sewil­l’s ‘Air­port Jobs: Cru­el Hoax, False Hopes’ – page 21.
Avail­able here:
http://www.aef.org.uk/uploads/Airport_jobs___false_hopes_cruel_hoax.pdf

http://www.stopmanchesterairport.org.uk

The new Action Update — full of of action news and analysis

In the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Newcastle flotilla blockadeIn the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Be inspired by our protest camp fea­ture and the recent Tit­nore vic­to­ry. And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against whal­ing ship sab­o­tage, coal port pirates, riots in Zagreb, min­ing firm occu­pa­tions in Bolivia, dam resis­tance in Brazil and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10.pdf

TATE MODERN 10TH BIRTHDAY SEES ACTION AGAINST SLICK BP SPONSORSHIP

DEAD FISH AND OIL-DRENCHED BIRDS HANG FROM TURBINE HALL

Tate Mod­ern was forced to close down parts of its No Soul For Sale tenth anniver­sary exhi­bi­tion on Sat­ur­day (15 May) while it strug­gled to remove dozens of dead fish and oil-soaked birds (1) hang­ing from huge black bal­loons let loose in the Tur­bine Hall.

DEAD FISH AND OIL-DRENCHED BIRDS HANG FROM TURBINE HALL

Tate Mod­ern was forced to close down parts of its No Soul For Sale tenth anniver­sary exhi­bi­tion on Sat­ur­day (15 May) while it strug­gled to remove dozens of dead fish and oil-soaked birds (1) hang­ing from huge black bal­loons let loose in the Tur­bine Hall.

Art activists from LIBERATE TATE, a grow­ing net­work ded­i­cat­ed to ensur­ing the muse­um drop its spon­sor­ship deal with BP, infil­trat­ed Tate Mod­ern’s Tur­bine Hall and released dozens of heli­um-filled black bal­loons with dead ani­mals attached. Crowds of tourists and art lovers gath­ered to watch the bal­loons rise up in the air until they filled the ceil­ing of the Tur­bine Hall.

Josephine Buoys, who took part in the art action, said: “We took this action whilst Tate spon­sor BP is cre­at­ing the largest oil paint­ing in the world. Across the Gulf of Mex­i­co ecosys­tems and liveli­hoods are being dev­as­tat­ed by their oil spill. Every day Tate scrubs clean BP’s pub­lic image with the deter­gent of cool pro­gres­sive art. Yet there is noth­ing
cool about a cor­po­ra­tion that cares more about its prof­its than life or the future of our frag­ile world.”

By late after­noon Tate staff had burst some the oil bub­ble-like black bal­loons by climb­ing onto a high gantry, but many remained out of reach and the rot­ting fish and seabirds hov­ered above the evening’s cel­e­bra­tions head­lined by Thurston Moore of Son­ic Youth. Rumours cir­cu­lat­ed that Tate would com­mis­sion a marks­man to shoot the remain­ing bal­loons down from the top of the for­mer pow­er sta­tion.

LIBERATE TATE said: “Every time we step inside the muse­um Tate makes us com­plic­it with acts that are harm­ing peo­ple and cre­at­ing envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and cli­mate change, acts that will one day seem as archa­ic as the slave trade. We call on Tate to become a respon­si­ble, eth­i­cal and tru­ly sus­tain­able organ­i­sa­tion for the 21st cen­tu­ry and drop its
spon­sor­ship by oil com­pa­nies. As a pub­lic insti­tu­tion the Tate’s Trustees, chaired as they are by an ex-CEO of BP, must aban­don its asso­ci­a­tion with BP. All vis­i­tors to the Tate must be able to enjoy great art with a clear con­science about the impact of the muse­um on soci­ety and the envi­ron­ment.”

LIBERATE TATE dis­trib­uted a com­mu­niqué (online here http://bit.ly/9RFfxJ) through­out the Tate Mod­ern 10th anniver­sary promis­ing fur­ther actions to ‘free art from oil’ by artists and activists across Britain until Tate ends its asso­ci­a­tion with BP.

LIBERATE TATE have issued an open invi­ta­tion for artists, activists, art lovers and oth­er con­cerned mem­bers of the pub­lic to act to ensure that Tate ends its oil spon­sor­ship by the end of 2011 ahead of Tate Mod­ern’s expan­sion into its cleaned-out under­ground oil tanks.

LIBERATE TATE con­tact details:
web: www.twitter.com/liberatetate email: liberatetate@gmail.com

(1) — the ‘seabirds’ were made by mem­bers of Lib­er­ate Tate

Coal Action Network website relaunched!

Check out http://coalaction.org.uk/ for the updat­ed and re-vamped Coal Action Net­work web­site and detailed coal maps of the UK. It is hoped that this web­site will be a use­ful resource to any­one tak­ing action – or think­ing of tak­ing action – to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties, envi­ron­ments and the cli­mate sys­tem from coal projects.

Check out http://coalaction.org.uk/ for the updat­ed and re-vamped Coal Action Net­work web­site and detailed coal maps of the UK. It is hoped that this web­site will be a use­ful resource to any­one tak­ing action – or think­ing of tak­ing action – to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties, envi­ron­ments and the cli­mate sys­tem from coal projects.

The CAN web­site will be kept up-to-date with recent news from cam­paigns and the indus­try. Have a look at The Coal Maps – map­ping coal across the UK, con­tacts page for cam­paigns and groups active on coal, use­ful resources for cam­paign groups, argu­ments against new coal, upcom­ing events and links to infor­ma­tion and oth­er issues. You can get in touch to con­tribute updates and infor­ma­tion and sign up to the CAN email list.

Through this web­site we aim to help link com­mu­ni­ty strug­gles and arm our­selves with the infor­ma­tion we need to resist new open cast coal mines and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions.

party at the pumps

15 May 2010
The shell garage on upper street in isling­ton was closed for sev­er­al hours this after­noon by more than a hun­dred pro­tes­tors.

Shell garage closedShell pumps15 May 2010
The shell garage on upper street in isling­ton was closed for sev­er­al hours this after­noon by more than a hun­dred pro­tes­tors.

at lunchtime around 50 peo­ple gath­ered at oxford cir­cus, watched by quite a large police pres­ence with sev­er­al van-loads on stand-by. the sta­tion was briefly closed ‘due to sheer weight of num­bers’ but re-opened after ten min­utes, and they set off for high­bury and isling­ton.

mean­while, around 40 cyclists met at mar­ble arch and, fol­lowed by a cou­ple of police vans, they took a cir­cuitous route through hyde park, down past buck house, and then for a tri­umphal lap round par­lia­ment square, shout­ing out sup­port over the mobile sound sys­tem to the democ­ra­cy vil­lage and to the decade-long protest by bri­an haw.

the mass then car­ried on up to angel, and then along upper street to the shell garage, which had already been well and tru­ly closed down by the foot-sol­diers and by the rhythms of resis­tance sam­ba band (most­ly deputised by soas mem­bers).

the shell garage looked great! sev­er­al peo­ple held a huge “dan­ger — keep out” ban­ner across one access. a sim­ple “closed” ban­ner was strung across the oth­er. above, anoth­er ban­ner declared “stop shel­l’s tar sands hell”, and some activists found a route up to the roof to drop anoth­er “stop tar sands” ban­ner from there.

a head-count num­bered 125 at one point. an excel­lent turn-out on a day with when there were sev­er­al oth­er protests in town, and most encour­ag­ing, there were many new faces, keep­ing the fit team and police pho­tog­ra­ph­er, neil, busy.

police-wise, there were about a dozen offi­cers around mak­ing notes, and one FIT team. down the road were anoth­er ser­i­al wait­ing in a van, and anoth­er van of TSG fur­ther out of sight.

activists hand­ed out hun­dreds of fliers, and pub­lic response was over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive.

More pho­tos

Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade — Action Report (and ‘Pictures’)

An action report as promised.
All cam­eras were seized by police — instead sketch­es have been drawn to doc­u­ment the action.

An action report as promised.
All cam­eras were seized by police — instead sketch­es have been drawn to doc­u­ment the action.

A group of indi­vid­u­als who met through the Ris­ing Tide net­work and were inspired to take direct action against the route caus­es of cli­mate change. They main­tain an 8‑hour block­ade of coal trains car­ry­ing fuel from Ffos-y-Fran open-cast coal mine to Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion.
Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade 1
An aer­i­al view of the mine, the protest groups and the police response

ACTION

On 26th April 2010 in the ear­ly after­noon a group of indi­vid­u­als made their pres­ence known to staff and secu­ri­ty at Ffos-y-Fran open-cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil. Hav­ing ensured their pres­ence around the tracks was known and no trains would be leav­ing until they were removed, they pro­ceed­ed to lock them­selves to the train track using chains and super glue. This sin­gle track is used to trans­port train-loads of mined coal to Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion, and the first and only train for the day was due to leave soon after. Legal observers and sup­port were present.

It took a long time for police to make the lengthy jour­ney from the near­est police sta­tion, how­ev­er they sent their friend­ly neigh­bour­hood heli­copter on plen­ty of point­less gas-guz­zling jaunts around the area. Once the police prop­er­ly arrived they imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed the four sup­port peo­ple, placed them in hand­cuffs and made them wait beside the track while a cut­ting team arrived to remove the group who had locked on to the rails. Despite the hand­cuffs, the sup­port team con­tin­ued to pro­vide food and water to the lock-on team. Lat­er the police also arrest­ed the legal observ­er who was clear­ly on the oth­er side of the fence and not on the track. After approx­i­mate­ly 4 and a half hours of lengthy response times and a paper-chain of police bureau­cra­cy that group was removed and arrest­ed.

Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade 2The first group locked on com­plete with wash­ing-line ban­ner

As this group of peo­ple were being led off the train tracks they informed the police of some incred­i­bly irri­tat­ing news. A sec­ond group had been hid­ing just round the cor­ner and were as they spoke emerg­ing and lock­ing onto the tracks with heavy duty lock-on tubes. Clear­ly too exhaust­ed from their hard work oper­at­ing bolt crop­pers to take a quick stroll down the line to check this out, the heli­copter took to the skies once more. One quick swoop con­firmed what it had failed to notice on its many swoops ear­li­er — four pro­test­ers with a legal observ­er and sup­port, cheer­ful­ly wav­ing from the train track before, now final­ly sure their pres­ence had been not­ed, calm­ly tak­ing their places on roll mats and rugs and lock­ing on inside two lock-on tubes placed in con­ve­nient gaps under the rail­way line. By this point it was 5.00pm.

A net­work rail engi­neer ran a cou­ple of hun­dred metres down the tracks to check upon the new group. The police drove. Again on arrival they imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed the legal observ­er and sup­port, who were cheer­ful­ly read­ing a nov­el to those locked. Despite fail­ing to pro­duce on demand a Risk Assess­ment of the cut­ting oper­a­tion (but plen­ty of whing­ing about how dan­ger­ous it is) it took the cops until 8pm to cut open the tubes — one of which was mul­ti-lay­ered, and the oth­er of which had a very thick met­al lay­er. A spe­cial groan was reserved for when they realised the pro­test­ers had not just chained but also super­glued their hands togeth­er inside the tubes and had to send for some indus­tri­al glue remover.

Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade 3The sec­ond group flag­ging down the chop­per before lock­ing on

All arrest­ed were tak­en to Ystrad Mynach Police Sta­tion. This includ­ed four peo­ple who were enjoy­ing a nice day out in the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ing coun­try­side, who the police arrest­ed out of some kind of belief that they were in some way involved. In total 18 were arrest­ed and spent 24 hours in the cells. It is believed that no coal left Ffos-y-Fran that day.

Ffos-y-Fran Coal Train Blockade 4The sec­ond group in posi­tion

CONSEQUENCES

All arrest­ed were tak­en to Ystrad Mynach Police Sta­tion. This includ­ed four peo­ple who were enjoy­ing a nice day out in the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ing coun­try­side, who the police arrest­ed out of some kind of belief that they were in some way involved. In total 18 were arrest­ed and spent 24 hours in the cells.

It appears that legal observers and sup­port roles were orig­i­nal­ly arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of con­spir­a­cy, how­ev­er they were sub­se­quent­ly charged with the same charge as those who had locked on. All 18 were even­tu­al­ly charged with “Unlaw­ful Act With Intent To Obstruct The Rail­ways” con­trary to sec­tion 35 of the Mali­cious Dam­age Act 1861. This rather quaint law designed to pro­tect the inter­ests of pri­vate landown­ers over 150 years ago car­ries a rather less quaint max­i­mum sen­tence of life in prison. How­ev­er the pro­test­ers have stat­ed that they are not antic­i­pat­ing any­thing approach­ing that kind of sen­tence as the law is obvi­ous­ly out of date and ample safe­ty mea­sures were tak­en to ensure there would be no dan­ger to the train, the train dri­ver, the police or the pro­test­ers.

All were bailed to return to Merthyr Tyd­fil Mag­is­trates Court at 10am on 10th May 2010. All were bailed “not to be upon or allow your­self to be upon any prop­er­ty owned, leased or rent­ed by British rail net­work”. They were allowed to trav­el home by train that day how­ev­er any future train trips had to be cleared by arrest­ing offi­cers. Those who gave fixed address­es were bailed to reside at those address­es. Those who did not give fixed address­es were bailed to reside at con­tact address­es, despite mak­ing it clear they did not have any per­mis­sion to live there and had no con­nec­tion with those address­es oth­er than being able to receive post from those address­es. Some were also bailed to sign in reg­u­lar­ly at local police sta­tions. One of those arrest­ed was bailed to reside in Corn­wall but sign in dai­ly at Bath Police Sta­tion with­out the use of trains!

CLIMATE PROTESTERS FACE LIFE SENTENCES AFTER COAL TRAIN BLOCKADE

On Mon­day 26th April, peo­ple involved in the Ris­ing Tide Net­work
lit­er­al­ly put their necks on the line by blockad­ing the rail­track which
car­ries coal from the con­tro­ver­sial open-cast mine at Ffos-y-Fran in
Merthyr Tyd­fil to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion.

On Mon­day 26th April, peo­ple involved in the Ris­ing Tide Net­work
lit­er­al­ly put their necks on the line by blockad­ing the rail­track which
car­ries coal from the con­tro­ver­sial open-cast mine at Ffos-y-Fran in
Merthyr Tyd­fil to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion. It took the com­bined efforts
of British Rail Police and South Wales Police over 8 hours to remove the
last of the pro­test­ers at 8.10pm on Mon­day evening.

18 Peo­ple from Bris­tol and Bath are due in court on 10th May, charged
under the Mali­cious Dam­ages Act of 1861, a law to pro­tect the inter­ests
of 19th Cen­tu­ry rail own­ers. If con­vict­ed they face any­thing up to a
life sen­tence in prison. The 18 Peo­ple, who are part of the Ris­ing Tide
(UK) Net­work were held for over 24 hours, and were only allowed to phone
out after 11.00 am yes­ter­day (Tues­day). The house of one of those
involved was raid­ed by 8 police offi­cers who spent 3 hours search­ing
their home.

Kim Green from Ris­ing Tide (UK) said:

“We are protest­ing the con­tin­ued extrac­tion and burn­ing of fos­sil fuels
in the face of a glob­al cli­mate emer­gency. The fail­ure of the Copen­hagen
cli­mate talks to deal with this huge prob­lem, and the obvi­ous pol­i­cy
inad­e­qua­cy the three main UK par­ties con­test­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion to
take the nec­es­sary action to tack­le the prob­lem has high­light­ed the need
for the peo­ple to take grass-roots direct action.”

Kim Green con­tin­ues:

“This action is also in sup­port of the local peo­ple of Merthyr Tyd­fil
whose cam­paign ‘Res­i­dents Against Ffos-y-Fran’ has been fight­ing the
mine for over six years. The mine caus­es noise pol­lu­tion for up to 16
hours a day, dust and dirt are car­ried into the town by the wind, and it
turns the rain black.”

The process by which Miller-Argent were able to get the go ahead to
exploit this resource at the social cost of both the local and glob­al
com­mu­ni­ty failed to take into con­sid­er­a­tion the social-envi­ron­men­tal
impact of such projects, high­light­ing the demo­c­ra­t­ic deficit in the
plan­ning process. The new­ly formed quan­go “The Plan­ning Com­mis­sion” will
only make these things worse, being able to ignore any con­sid­er­a­tion in
favour of prof­it.

Miller Argent have been quick to pres­sure their small work­force into
mobil­is­ing against local con­cerns — but their appar­ent con­cern for their
work­ers is betrayed by the fact that they are actu­al­ly look­ing to sell
the mine as there is only half the quan­ti­ty of high qual­i­ty coal as they
ini­tial­ly believed. They are in fact mak­ing a loss on the project.

On the poten­tial life sen­tence, a spokesper­son for the 18 said:

“We would not antic­i­pate fac­ing any such penal­ty as we took great care
to ensure the safe­ty of all tak­ing part and had made cer­tain that the
coal train would not leave the load­ing area before the line was blocked.”

“This was a care­ful­ly planned action: hence it’s suc­cess. How­ev­er, we
admit that it was a dras­tic course of action but even this bare­ly
match­es the cli­mate cri­sis we will face if much more rad­i­cal mea­sures
are not tak­en now.”

All 18 have been bailed to appear at Merthyr Tyd­fill Mag­is­trates Court
on 10th May at 10.00 am.

*** Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion is the biggest pol­luter in Wales. In 2006 it
released 7.4. mil­lion tonnes of Co2. It is Pro­ject­ed to run until 2025
with NO PLANS to fit car­bon cap­ture stor­age (CCS) tech­nol­o­gy. 40% of the
coal for the pow­er sta­tion is sup­plied by Ffos-Y-Fran. It was tar­get­ed
by Bris­tol & Cardiff Ris­ing Tide in 2008.

*** Miller Argent own and run Ffos-Y-Fran. Argent are in turn owned by
the BT Pen­sions Group. Both of these organ­i­sa­tions make much of their
eth­i­cal and sus­tain­able prac­tices. But in this case they seem to be
plac­ing prof­its over and above any ele­ment of social respon­si­bil­i­ty.