Category: Climate Chaos

17th Sep­tem­ber 2009
This morn­ing sev­en activists from Cli­mate Rush on the Run decid­ed to pay Jere­my Clark­son a vis­it.

“Sev­en of our activists dumped dung on Jere­my Clark­son’s front lawn this morn­ing – he can deal with our emis­sions since he won’t deal with his!” — Cli­mate Rush on the Run

“I’m the biggest lib­er­tar­i­an of them all — I’m dump­ing dung at Clark­son’s gates so he might under­stand that his atti­tude will land us all in the shit.” — Tam­sin Omond”
“Jere­my is keen to land us in the shit! So he can have ours … ’ — Cli­mate Rush on the Run

At a cost to the envi­ron­ment of an esti­mat­ed 1.7 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions, petrol head Jere­my Clark­son drove to the Arc­tic to delib­er­ate­ly antag­o­nise envi­ron­men­tal­ists.

The Arc­tic is a frag­ile envi­ron­ment. CO2 emis­sions in the Arc­tic has a dis­pro­por­tion­ate bad impact. The Arc­tic is warm­ing much faster than pre­dict­ed, the ice is melt­ing much faster than pre­dict­ed.

Tem­per­a­tures are ris­ing fastest at the poles. The Arc­tic Ice Sheet is van­ish­ing. Were the Green­land Ice Sheet to melt, sea lev­els would rise by 17 metres. Many coastal cities, includ­ing Lon­don, Bangladesh, South Pacif­ic Islands, would not sur­vive these sea lev­els.

The Arc­tic is expect­ed to be ice free in the sum­mer­time some­time between 2011 and 2015, that is 80 years ahead of what was pre­dict­ed only a few years ago!

Cli­mate Camp on the Run are wend­ing their way through Eng­land from Sip­son near Heathrow to Totnes in Devon. They are high­light­ing and rais­ing aware­ness of cli­mate change with the occa­sion­al direct action against cli­mate crim­i­nals.

17 Sep­tem­ber 2009
Through­out the coun­try today actions are tak­ing place in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the work­ers of the Ves­ta Blades fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight. This morn­ing the offices of the South East Eng­land Devel­op­ment Agency (SEEDA) was tar­get­ted by pro­test­ers who dropped ban­ners and built a mini wind­farm in the lob­by. SEEDA is being pres­sured to with­draw £3m of pub­lic mon­ey they’ve said they’ll give Ves­tas for a R&D facil­i­ty despite the Dan­ish com­pa­ny pulling its man­u­fac­tur­ing from the UK. Tonight there will be a protest at the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Cli­mate Change, in White­hall Place, cen­tral Lon­don.

PRESS RELEASE — CHATHAM OFFICES IN WIND POWER PROTESTS

SEEDA (South East Eng­land Devel­op­ment Agency) offices in Chatham, Kent where today vis­it­ed by pro­test­ers, as part of a nation­al day of action for Ves­tas wind tur­bine work­ers.

Occu­py­ing the lob­by of the build­ing after hang­ing ban­ners from the bal­cony of the top floor, the pro­test­ers built a mini wind farm on the devel­op­ment agency’s mod­el of the Med­way estu­ary.

Paper wind­mills were hand­ed to work­ers along with a satir­i­cal guide on build­ing wind­mills, which instruct­ed SEEDA to cut up the con­tracts promis­ing to give Ves­tas mon­ey for noth­ing.

Pres­sure is mount­ing on SEEDA to with­draw the offer of £3 mil­lion (part of £10 mil­lion of pub­lic mon­ey being giv­en toVes­tas by the gov­ern­ment) unless the Dan­ish multi­na­tion­al stand aside and allow their closed fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight to con­tin­ue to be used for tur­bine blade man­u­fac­ture.

Ves­tas closed the fac­to­ry to move pro­duc­tion to the U.S. and slash­ing 600 green UK jobs. The work­ers then occu­pied the fac­to­ry and are demand­ing that the gov­ern­ment nation­alise the facil­i­ties, the only sig­nif­i­cant blade man­u­fac­tur­ing plant in this coun­try.

“By fail­ing to act on the clo­sure of the Ves­tas Blades fac­to­ry, and sup­port­ing a return to out­dat­ed coal pow­er (like Eon’s Kingsnorth pro­pos­al), the Gov­ern­ment is show­ing it cur­rent­ly has no seri­ous com­mit­ment to build­ing a low car­bon econ­o­my or pre­vent­ing cat­a­stroph­ic run­away cli­mate change.” Anas­taz­ja Jarek, Kingsnorth Cli­mate Action Med­way
“Ves­tas work­ers have fought mag­nif­i­cent­ly to save jobs and essen­tial wind tur­bine man­u­fac­tur­ing in Britain. The gov­ern­ment say that Ves­tas have refused to sell them the fac­to­ry, yet it is still reward­ing Ves­tas with pub­lic mon­ey through SEEDA. The gov­ern­ment needs to stop pussy­foot­ing around big cor­po­ra­tions and take seri­ous action to pro­vide jobs and pre­vent cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.” – Steve Wilkins, Med­way Trades Coun­cil

tippingpointmedway@gmail.com

15.09.2009
Blade Run­ner Protest launched from Pow­er Boat [post-arrest update at bot­tom]

Using Southamp­ton’s Boat Show as cov­er, pro­test­ers have arrived by pow­er-boat this morn­ing to occu­py cranes and ves­sels at the city’s docks.

Com­ing from the Ves­tas fac­to­ry block­ade on the Isle Of Wight, the group aim to pre­vent the load­ing of wind-tur­bine blades from the New­port plant, which was closed in July with the loss of 600 jobs.

“We made these blades, and now Ves­tas want to take their prof­its and leave us high and dry,” said ex-Ves­tas work­er Jamie Rig­by, who is sta­tioned at the dock entrance, Jamie was one of 11 work­ers sacked for occu­py­ing their fac­to­ry after Ves­tas announced the mass lay-off in July. The occu­pa­tion end­ed in August after 18 days, and on that occa­sion Jamie leapt unin­jured from a bal­cony rather than be escort­ed out by bailiffs.

Jamie is joined today by sup­port­ers from the island com­mu­ni­ty, cli­mate activists and work­ers from the main­land, who have hung ban­ners say­ing “Wind pow­er to the peo­ple” and locked them­selves to a crane load­ing blades onto the BBC Ohio in Empress Dock. Oth­ers have occu­pied the so-called ‘Blade Run­ner’ Barge which is need­ed to fetch the remain­ing blades from the St Cross fac­to­ry in New­port. They have a ban­ner which reads, “Our blades, Our pow­er”. The barge is vis­i­ble to the east from the Town Quay, which is also a Red Star Ter­mi­nal for IOW pas­sen­gers.

On the crane at Empress Dock, Jack­ie Sheedy said, “ After the fac­to­ry occu­pa­tion end­ed, Ves­tas and the gov­ern­ment hoped we’d all just qui­eten down. But we’re unit­ed in this block­ade. The island work­ers need those jobs, and we all need them if we want even a chance of com­bat­ing cli­mate change for our chil­dren.”

Speak­ing by phone from the occu­pied Blade Run­ner barge, Robin Siva­palan, a Uni­son mem­ber from the group Work­ers Cli­mate Action, said “Work­ers like Jamie were vic­timised and robbed of their redun­dan­cy pay for tak­ing a stand on behalf of all of us,. If Ves­tas want the block­ade lift­ed, they had bet­ter start talk­ing about re-instate­ment and terms. And if the gov­ern­ment want the protests to end they had bet­ter drop the green­wash and start tak­ing some real action for a renew­able pow­er indus­try in this coun­try”.

Mean­while, oth­er sacked Ves­tas work­ers are at the TUC con­fer­ence in Liv­er­pool, lob­by­ing the labour move­ment for sol­i­dar­i­ty action and sup­port on Thurs­days “Nation­al Day of Action”, while

work­ers from the Lush Cos­met­ics fac­to­ry in Poole, Dorset, are tak­ing part in direct action train­ing at the Ves­tas Marine Gate block­ade on the New­port-Cowes cycle path, New­port IOW.

ENDS

Loca­tion: BBC Ohio and cranes — Empress Dock, East­ern Docks, Southamp­ton

Blade Run­ner barge – Oppo­site Town Quay, (Red Fun­nel Ter­mi­nal)

Best view: Blade Run­ner east from Town Quay;

BBC Ohio and cranes – restrict­ed access through Oceano­graph­ic Cen­tre, or by sea/air.

Con­tacts:

On the Docks protest: Jack­ie Sheedy, 07944 744922;
Jamie Rig­by (sacked Ves­tas work­er), 07875 441668 and Mar­tin Shaw 07950539254 at END OF TOWN QUAY, Southamp­ton.
Robin Siva­palan, 07974 331053

For inter­view off site: Ian Ter­ry at TUC con­fer­ence, 07970 739921
Mark Smith at TUC con­fer­ence, 07980703115
Lush Cam­paigns Man­ag­er: Andrew But­ler on 07876 596541

Back­ground:

http://savevestas.wordpress.com
http://ventnorblog.com

Cam­paign Video includ­ing Jamie’s jump: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4CrTEFtSGU

Ship­ping and Docks info:

http://www.ais-live.co.uk/AIS%20Live/aissolent.html and http://www.abports.co.uk/files/southampton%202008.pdf

workersclimateaction.info@googlemail.com
http://workersclimateaction.wordpress.com

——-

Update: Ves­tas Crane Activists Charged and Released

16th Sep­tem­ber 2009 — 3pm

The four Ves­tas sup­port­ers arrest­ed yes­ter­day have just been released after 17 hours of deten­tion in Southamp­ton police sta­tion. Orig­i­nal­ly threat­ened with arrest under the Ter­ror­ism Act they have now been charged with aggra­vat­ed tres­pass after spend­ing sev­en hours locked on to Ves­tas cranes in Southamp­ton Docks.They have been bailed to return to court on the 29th of Sep­tem­ber. Their bail con­di­tions include non-asso­ci­a­tion with one anoth­er and they have been banned from enter­ing all Ves­tas sites in Southamp­ton and on the Isle of Wight. One of the activists suf­fered minor injuries dur­ing the trau­mat­ic police removal.

The four now intend to press charges against Ves­tas ship­ping man­ag­er for order­ing the two crane dri­vers to reck­less­ly endan­ger their lives by turn­ing on both cranes and mov­ing the boom whilst one pro­test­er was attached to the mov­ing parts that were then pulled voilent­ly through her arms and legs whilst police watched on and videod the inci­dent.

One of the four, Jacque­line Sheedy said: ”Through­out the action we were peace­ful­ly occu­py­ing the crane and Ves­tas arro­gance and quest for prof­its drove them to risk our lives in order to remove us in an attempt to car­ry on load­ing the blades as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. The behav­iour of Ves­tas man­age­ment through­out has shown scant regard for the health and safe­ty of their work­force and lit­tle sign of human­i­ty in deal­ing with the clo­sure of the fac­to­ry. Dock work­ers in Southamp­ton were call­ing us dur­ing this inci­dent incred­u­lous that this could hap­pen, as did the RMT legal team. We were inun­dat­ed with mes­sage­sof encour­age­ment from work­ers and activists around the while on the cranes and this is yet more proof that this cam­paign is far from over and that it is only a small part of what will soon prove to be a much more wide­spread strug­gle for work­ers rights and the envi­ron­ment.”

It has been revealed that the actions have delayed trans­port of the wind tur­bine blades to the US by a day, as was intend­ed. How­ev­er there is lit­tle doubt that the blades will even­tu­al­ly be moved due to the lack of demand for wind farms in the UK. We have the com­po­nents for green ener­gy right here, right now so why are we not using them to full effect?

Ves­tas work­ers have been talk­ing about their strug­gle at the TUC con­fer­ence hap­pen­ing this week in Liv­er­pool. There is also a nation­al day of action tak­ing place in sup­port of Ves­tas work­ers tomor­row, Sep­tem­ber 17th. The protest will con­tin­ue untill the demands of the cam­paign have been met.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please call: 07950 539254 or Jamie ex-ves­tas occupier:07875441668

For fur­ther cam­paign infor­ma­tion see web­site: savevestas.wordpress.com

On the morn­ing of Thurs­day 10 Sep­tem­ber a tri­pod has now suc­cess­ful­ly been erect­ed at the marine gate pre­vent­ing blades from leav­ing the fac­to­ry. A work­er from the orig­i­nal occu­pa­tion is cur­rent­ly stand­ing at the top of the tri­pod as the block­ade pre­pares for an increase in activ­i­ty on both sides.

10th Sep­tem­ber 2009, 7am

After more than a week of blockad­ing the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in New­port, Isle Of Wight, a tri­pod has now been erect­ed at the marine gate pre­vent­ing blades from leav­ing the fac­to­ry. A work­er from the orig­i­nal occu­pa­tion is stand­ing on top of the tri­pod enjoy­ing a stun­ning view of sun­rise over the Riv­er Med­i­na.

This inspi­ra­tional addi­tion to the block­ade fol­lowed a day of police intim­i­da­tion that includ­ed one arrest and one per­son being banned from the site after receiv­ing a dis­per­sal order. Block­aders have also had to deal with the con­fis­ca­tion of one tri­pod before it had been erect­ed and the dis­man­tling of one oth­er block­ade. Work­ers and sup­port­ers worked togeth­er through­out the night to build the replace­ment tri­pod and car­ry it to the site as the sun rose. Tri­pod work­shops have been held through­out the week as cli­mate activists share skills with Ves­tas Work­ers. Oth­er skill­shares have includ­ed 12 volt solar instal­la­tions to pow­er the camp’s office in a car­a­van.

This action comes one week before a nation­al day of action to fur­ther high­light the plight of the 600 work­ers made redun­dant by this multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny.

“We the work­ers see it as our duty to stop our blades from leav­ing as part of the cam­paign to nation­al­ize the fac­to­ry. Ves­tas have told us that there is no demand for our prod­ucts but are still unwill­ing to sell the site to oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties. It is clear the gov­ern­ment must act on such an impor­tant issue as renew­able ener­gy pro­duc­tion. They should not let our future be dic­tat­ed sole­ly by prof­it.’’

‘’We are call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to invest in green jobs on the Isle of Wight and for Ves­tas to rein­state the eleven sacked work­ers who occu­pied the fac­to­ry.’’

The work­ers and their sup­port­ers call on oth­ers to come and join them on the block­ades over the com­ing days as a mat­ter of urgency and to show sup­port on the Nation­al Day of Action on 17th Sep­tem­ber.

PLEASE GET IN TOUCH FOR PHOTOS AND INTERVIEWS

Tele­phone num­ber for tri­pod inter­views with Ves­tas work­er: 07875 098960 or 07935 868009

Web­site: Savevestas.wordpress.com

Email: savevestas@gmail.com