Respect existence or expect resistance!
On Tuesday, Sept. 23rd, three brave “chipmunks” stopped word at US Oil Sands construction site, on the East Tavaputs Plateau, by physically putting their bodies in front of the machines being used to destroy this amazing land in order to strip-mine tar sands.
On Tuesday, Sept. 23rd, three brave “chipmunks” stopped word at US Oil Sands construction site, on the East Tavaputs Plateau, by physically putting their bodies in front of the machines being used to destroy this amazing land in order to strip-mine tar sands.
There will be a press release, and a statement from the “chipmunks” will be available on Sept. 30, 2014 at: http://www.tarsandsresist.org/chipmunks/
from Hambach Forest(en)
Yesterday (23rd September), around noon, an excavator was stopped which was working at the old railway of the lignite industry close to Cologne, Germany. The railway as well as the open pits and the power plants belongs to the company RWE.
The railway was used for the transport of the lignite directy from the pits to the power plants. But now, parts of the railway and the highway A4 were build new some kilometers more south to make space for the growing mine.
The company H.-B. Kaiser, Abbruch und Erdbewegungen, in 52388 Nörvenich“ is in charge of removing the old railway.
Furthermore, the security company KÖTTER Security and the foresting company Krobbach“ from Melsbach are taking part in the destruction of the nature that RWE is commiting.
These companies are also to mark, to block and to sabotage!
Every day is an action day! – Earth First!
September 18th, 201
September 18th, 2014
Clatskanie, OR—Climate justice activists, local Clatskanie farmers, and oil train opponents from all over Columbia County are blockading the tracks that lead to Port Westward on the Columbia River. The blockade consists of a 20-foot-high tripod of steel poles, its apex occupied by 27-year-old Portland Rising Tide activist Sunny Glover.
Any train movement would risk her life, as would any attempt to remove her from the structure. A banner suspended from the tripod reads: “Oil trains fuel climate chaos.” She has vowed to stay as long as she is able. Massachusetts-based Global Partners ships oil by rail from the fracking fields of the Bakken Shale to the blockaded facility.
From there, it is loaded onto oceangoing vessels bound for West Coast refineries. The facility was constructed with public clean energy loans and tax credits to manufacture ethanol in 2008. The owners declared bankruptcy almost immediately, and in a twist of savage irony, it became a crude oil terminal.
“Fossil fuels are catastrophically destructive,” Glover said. “Extraction ravages land, water, and the health of local communities – transport results in deadly explosions, toxic spills and dust – and as they are burned, the Earth is forced ever deeper into immense climate instability. Fossil fuel production is violence, and on an incredibly vast scale.”
Dozens are joining Glover on the tracks.
The increase in US oil production in recent years, and the consequent rise in oil train traffic, has outraged a diversity of groups and communities. Rising Tide activists, hoping to deter the most severe effects of climate change, are demanding a rapid dismantling of fossil fuel infrastructure throughout the region and the world.
Residents of areas effected by oil train traffic are horrified by the propensity of Bakken crude trains to derail in fiery explosions—a May, 2014 emergency order by the US Department of Transportation describes the trains as an “imminent hazard.”
Residents of the patchwork of farms, dikes, and waterways north of Clatskanie are fighting to protect agricultural land and salmon habitat from industrialization.
“When the crude oil trains began rolling through Columbia County, we had no prior warning—not from DEQ, not from the Port of St. Helens, not from the county, and not from the State of Oregon,” said Nancy Whitney.
“With the close proximity of our towns, and particularly our schools, and considering the track record of crude oil derailments, my fear is that the potential devastation from leakage or explosion could be astronomical—and it will happen unless these trains are stopped.”
This is the fifth oil train blockade in the Pacific Northwest since June.
“This is only the beginning,” said Noah Hochman. “We will continue to blockade until it is financially, logistically, and politically untenable for oil trains to threaten climate and communities.”
Update:
Yesterday afternoon, climate justice group Portland Rising Tide and allies from Columbia County erected a 20-foot-tall tripod of steel poles to blockade the Port Westward oil terminal. Dozens of police, working at night under floodlights, were mobilized to remove 27-year-old Sunny Glover from the tripod’s apex. After an initial attempt to remove her with a bucket truck—which she foiled by locking her neck to one of the tripod’s poles—the police resorted to far more drastic and perilous measures.
In a surreal scene, the amassed law enforcement officers began using a circular saw to cut through the tripod’s legs in approximately foot-long increments, gradually lowering the structure to the ground amidst a shower of sparks from the saw. Glover’s neck remained locked to a pole the entire time. Each precarious cut threatened to topple the structure. About 40 protesters shouted words of encouragement from a nearby road until she was arrested and driven from the scene around 11:30pm.
“The courage my friend Sunny exhibited tonight was tremendous,” Scott Schroder said. “Unfortunately, she lives in a world of terrifying scenarios. She can either have her life jeopardized by the police or by catastrophic climate change and exploding oil trains. She chose to resist because she understands acquiescence is the greater peril.”
The terminal, operated by Massachusetts-based Global Partners, has been controversial since its inception. At the protest today were residents of the Columbia County towns of St. Helens, Scappoose, and Clatskanie, whose homes and businesses are within the blast zone should an oil train derail and explode. Rising Tide activists are demanding a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels in order to avert a climate catastrophe that would be felt for millennia.
Protesters were critical of the tremendous mobilization of public resources to dismantle the blockade—there were approximately 40 combined fire, police, and medical personnel on site—saying it amounted to essentially another subsidy for the fossil fuel industry.
“Taxpayers have already given Global Partners millions of dollars in clean energy construction subsidies, when we thought their facility was going to be an ethanol plant,” said David Osborn. “Now the public is handing over thousands more to keep the train tracks free of people outraged by their bait-and-switch.”
This summer, Rising Tide collectives have blockaded oil train facilities in Washington and Oregon five times. The groups say they are working toward mass mobilizations that will significantly impede the ability of oil to be transported by rail in the Pacific Northwest.
“We will be back,” Schroder said. “Over and over again. And we’re bringing more people every time.”
PHOTOS, VIDEO, AUDIO: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8Tw30qC0uQib2xlLXk0cERaeVk&usp=sharing_eil
09/18 ACTION PRESS RELEASE: https://drive.google.com/?usp=folder&authuser=0#folders/0B8Tw30qC0uQib2xlLXk0cERaeVk
BACKGROUND ON OREGON OIL TRAINS AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS:http://portlandrisingtide.org/oil-trains-oregon-bakken-shale-uinta-basin-climate-crisis/
September 17th, 2014
September 17th, 2014
Two men were arrested on September 16 after chaining themselves to pipe being laid for Vermont Gas’ fracked gas pipeline. The action took place a day before the Vermont Public Service Board begins a process which could result in the revoking of the permits required for Vermont Gas to continue construction.
“Vermont Gas lied,” said Will Bennington, a spokesperson for Rising Tide Vermont. “They’ve lied about the climate and environmental impacts of the project, they’ve lied to landowners and broken promises, and now they’ve lied about the cost of this project. The Public Service Board, and ultimately Governor Shumlin, have no reason to believe Vermont Gas is acting in the public good.”
Demonstrators oppose the pipeline because it will lock Vermont communities into decades more of dirty fossil fuel use, at a time when a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and extreme energy use is needed. They are also concerned with impacts to local landowners and the lack of transparency surrounding the permitting process.
The Public Service Board is hosting a hearing tomorrow in Montpelier to decide whether or not to re-open the company’s Certificate of Public Good.
The Hambach is a forest in Germany proposed for lignite (brown coal) strip mining. There is currently a forest occupation underway, as well as an action camp, and action days at the end of every month.
September 16th, 2014
from Hambach Forest
Today, the new part of the Autobahn, which they built to help further the expansion of the mine, will be opened with an official celebration. Apparently, the police chose the same day to disturb our resistance in the forest and on the meadow. They appeared as early as 8:00h this morning and are giving us trouble since then. Follow us here today, we will regularly publish new updates, ticker-style.
8:00 First appearance of cops in the forest and on the meadow, building up to around 100 cops at 8:30
8:20 Person attacked by police for now reason, except asking what they want
8:30 Removal of barricades on the forest paths, takes them about 2 hours
10:20 Police are trying to evict beech town (tree occupation) destroying everything on the ground – climbing units are present
10:30 Police are amassing at plane hangar close to meadow – we‘re no longer reachable by car
11.20 Police van by the meadow occupation
11.40 Police and RWE on way to destroy kitchen near meadow
11.50 Food packs for the police (it locks that they want to work longer)
12.00 The opening of the highway A4 starts – 400 people on official opening (honored guests) The demonstration against it with 50 people works, but not directly by the opening party, 50 police are there – traffic minister talking shit
12.10 the barricades to düren are evicted and the police are blockading the way to beech town
12.28 the police start to come on the meadow occupation, hiding duty numbers. Policeblock from Aachen: (License Plate NRW-4-4623, picture of police standing on the meadow )
12.50 the official opening at the highway is over.
13.10 police „retreats“ a bit, leaving oaktown, a treehouse occupation, for now.
13:20 Police no longer visible on the meadow
13:25 News from the forest – one harvester (machine for cutting trees) is damaged (fluids leaking out)
13:30 People are doing a sitting blockade in the Forest, on the way to beech town occupation
13:40 A small group of people got controlled by Police, one person arrested for lack of I.D.
13:40 Harvester is driveable again, but is leaving the Forest, protected by RWE and Police
15:00 No more police or other enemies in the Forest – one security car was passing through the removed barricades, but left again quite quickly. The ticker will go on break for now, if there’s any more action we‘ll be updating again.
some pictures of today: 16.09.14
Last week, occupiers buried themselves in the ground to defend La ZAD du Testet. Photo from @seamymsg
September 16th, 2014
Occupied since October 2013, the ZAD du Testet is one of the many “zones a defendre” which were created after the mediatization of the ZAD at Notre-Dame-des Landes in October 2012. The collective in Testet, a valley in the Tarn region of southeast France, is a mix of “zadistes, farmers, clowns and people in revolt”, resisting a dam project which would destroy a wooded, wetland area with over 100 threatened species, to supply 24 agro-industrial farms with water.
The squatted forest was violently evicted in February 2014, the 10–20 opponents chose to use nonviolent tactics, and then reoccupied. They were evicted again in May of 2014.
August 15, a larger re-occupation was organized, under heavy police and military attention, with arbitrary arrests and road blockades preventing building material from arriving on site. August 25th, biologists came to give their expertise and fill out paperwork to approve the project, and evictions began. People resisted with burning barricades and molotovs, and there has been almost daily confrontation ever since. The region went under martial law on August 31st, with the police chief declaring- “the law must remain strong”, and workers began cutting the forest on September 1. A press release from the collective against the dam- “Tant qu’il y aura des Bouilles” said- “…these new events show the disdain that the Tarn Regional Council shows for dialogue and for the opponents of this project. We condemn this show of force. This kind of behavior breeds rage, even in the most pacifist of opponents, and so one can understand that actions will become more and more radical.”
People have resisted in a variety of ways- a hunger strike by locals in their 50s and 60s, numerous blockades using tractors, fire, buried people, tripods, bulls, human chains etc, a 24/7 occupation of the square in front of the city council, climbing on machines and in trees, and fighting on the ground. There are about 800 people against the project currently in and around the forest, and they frequently encounter tear gas, concussion grenades and rubber bullets. Today (September 15th) action centered around the Gaza(d) treehouse, which still hasn’t been evicted, although 5 people were hospitalized (no thanks to the police, who blocked the ambulances). There are still quite a lot of people in the trees, and the actions are slowing or blocking work every day.
There have also been numerous solidarity actions, from a high school walkout in Gaillac to occupying the offices of the dam construction company in Nantes. The bourgeois media, perhaps afraid of another snowball effect like in October 2012, has kept almost total silence about Testet, despite countless reports of police brutality. In addition to the theft or destruction by the police of medical supplies, food, vehicles, tents, sleeping bags, anything they can get their hands on, the farmers who stand to benefit from the dam and local suspected facists have formed a gang with iron bars, rocks, dogs, molotovs and hunting rifles- with as of yesterday about 80 people, and they are patrolling the roads.
A last word from those on the ground: “Thank you to all who are mobilizing in solidarity with the struggle in Testet, everywhere it’s the same thing, everywhere the same system of rotten politicians who decide amoungst themselves what they’re going to do and call it “democracy”, and who have only one goal: develop their businesses to strengthen the chokehold of this system of machines and technology on the natural environment and people. Those who think they are protected are already dead. We refuse to be isolated and so we struggle, we humbly resist.”
On the 1st of August this year several actions took place against brown coal mining in the rhineland in germany.
On the 1st of August this year several actions took place against brown coal mining in the rhineland in germany.
One of the biggest open cast mines of europe are located in the midwest of germany. Near to Cologne RWE, the biggest energy provider of germany runs three open cast mines with an area of 160 km². With an emission of ca. 100 million CO2 per year RWE is the biggest emittent of CO2 in whole Europe. Enough Profit for the highly indepted enterprise, the loss of natural resources for millions of people of the global south
The local consequences of the brown-coal-minig are desastrous. Highly fertile soil gets digged away. Tens of thousands of people get resettled. Important ecosystems like the hambach forest get cut down. To prevent the mines from flooding the groundwater gets pumped down. The negative effects for the agriculture and wetlands can be located even in the netherlands which are ca. 60 km away. The grit and fine dust which are produced by the biggest diggers of the world, which work 24/7 includes even radioactive particles.
There was Resistance against the gigantic project for the whole time of RWEs economic activity since the beginning of 1900. Sometimes bigger sometimes smaller the resistance moreover collapses because of the power RWE develops with lobbyism, corruption and the undercutting of administrations, courts and local social communities.
For about 4 years a constantly growing grassrootsmovement tries to power up the resistance against the power generation of coal on a local and nationwide scale. With constant crystallisation points like the hambach forest occupation and a house project in the area, with climate camps and helping to empower the local resistance movement with supporting citizen initiatives.
Embedded in the climate camp this year a powerful action day took place.
The coal train which transports the coal from the hambach open cast mine to the power plant was blocked two times. On the the first blockade chained themselves to the rails of the coal train which transports the coal of the mine called hambach to the power plant and the second time two people roped down from a bridge above the rails.
Nearly at the same time about 80 people moved the other big mine Garzweiler to block the infrastructure. 2 Diggers were blocked 3 times with lock-on-actions and squattings.From 8 o’clock in the morning to 10 in the evening the drivers of the diggers and the other personal in the mine had no calm minute.
It seems that more and more people want to take responsibility for themselves to protect ecosystems and natural resources and begin to stop the worst effects of climate change with direct actions against fossil infrastructure.
Photos of the action day:
Lock-on-action and climbing action (with other photos of the hambach forest occupation)
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/hambacherforst/with/14797606761/
Blockade of diggers:
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/100963658@N02/sets/72157645681194248/
Mobilisation for a big infrastructure blockade simultaneously to the COP21
According to the next COP-meeting in Paris 2015 we want to invite people from all over europe to think about what to do. As we don’t want to have such a big depression after the COPs 2009 in Copenhagen again there is a tendency to organise a big blockade of infrastructure of fossil fuel energy production simultaneously somewhere centrally located in Europe. If you have ideas and want to distribute them you can come to Cologne/Germany from the 3rd to the 5th of octobre. There will be accomodation and board.
English callout for the action plenary:
http://ekib.blogsport.eu/2014/08/23/invitation-action-plenary-meeting‑3–5‑oct-2014-in-cologne/
Earth First!
An activist from ausgeco2hlt
Unfortunately the websites are not in english or the english blogs are not well operated
www.hambacherforst.blogsport.de / http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/
18.8.14
Six protesters dressed in toxic hazard suits talked to to passers-by and office workers who share the PPS building about the environmental dangers of fracking, fuel poverty, and the government’s recent report, showing that a reliance on fossil fuels would lead to a rise in domestic fuel bills over the next four decades, in contrast to a focus on sustainable energy, which would lead to lower bills.
Rathlin Energy fracking site blockaded at Crawberry Hill – Security Guards use extreme and brutal force against protestors
This morning, a group of campaigners have occupied and shut down a new fracking site at Crawberry Hill, East Yorkshire. Three protestors are locked and and two are superglued onto the outside gate. Security guards have used brutal and disproportionate force, in one case, pulling an older woman with so much force that they grabbed her shirt and exposed her body and pouring water over protestors. The protest follows a number of safety breaches committed by Rathlin Energy at nearby West Newton drilling site. A number of local residents are on site, showing their support for the protest.
IGas HQ occupied by protesters
15 Campaigners from Balcombe, Barton Moss and across the country have blockaded both entrances to the iGas headquarters, 7 Down Street, Westminster, London, W1J 7AJ. Police have arrived at the site alongside security, but look unlikely to act soon.
IGas were responsible for exploratory drilling at Barton Moss. The drilling saw over 6 months of local protests.
Swansea University Bay Campus shut down by residents and students campaigning against Fracking research
Today at 6am, as part of the Reclaim the Power camp, concerned residents from Swansea, students and graduates, dressed as mad scientists, shut down construction of Swansea University’s Bay Campus.
There are two protestors locked on, one up a tripod and a number of the group are inside the site and have dropped a banner which says ‘No Fracking’. Outside the site the banner reads ‘Dim Ffracio’. The protesters were angered by tens of millions of public money being funnelled into research on fracking via Swansea University’s new Energy Safety Research Institute.
Fracking protesters occupy DEFRA
Campaigners from the Reclaim the Power camp at Blackpool are this morning occupying the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in London, following the release of a government report released last week containing 63 redactions on the potential impacts of shale gas exploration on rural communities. The Metropolitan Police are already onsite at DEFRA.
At 8am three activists superglued themselves to the doors of DEFRA’s main entrance and deployed reinforced arm tubes to prevent access. Two activists each insert an arm into opposite ends of the same pipe, “locking on” to each other’s hands in various ways. Another activist climbed the building and unfurled a banner reading: ‘WHAT’S TO HIDE DEFRA? – DON’T FRACK WITH OUR FUTURE’. Some of the activists wore black tape across their mouths, highlighting the vital information which blacked out in the report.
Families’ Radioactive response to fracking
At 6.45am this morning, a number of families and their children placed 88 ‘atoms’ of Radium around Lytham as a temporary art installation to highlight concerns about negative impacts of fracking on public health and the environment from radioactive discharge.
Radium is just one of the radioactive materials released from the earth when it is fractured in the fracking process. The “atoms” will be placed around Lytham and each one will have a message attached with the website www.frack-off.org.uk guiding the public to all the latest research. The atoms are made entirely from biodegradable materials.
Frackstons are out in Preston, offering once in a frack-time deals on home sales & insurance
14 August 2014
14 August 2014
At midday today, protestors from Reclaim the Power set up camp at Preston New Road, at fracking company Cuadrilla’s proposed drilling site. Approximately 1000 attendees will stay for six days, to take direct action and share skills and knowledge. They do so in support of the local community’s fight against Cuadrilla’s plans to drill for shale gas in Lancashire.[1]
Last year, the Reclaim the Power camp shut down Cuadrilla’s operations in Balcombe, Sussex for a week. The company later announced that they would not frack the site, and the Balcombe community has set up an initiative to supply their area with renewable energy.[2]
In 2011, Blackpool experienced earthquakes caused by fracking. Hannah Jones from Reclaim the Power said:
“Blackpool is where the fracking industry started in the UK, and this is where it has to stop. Besides the damage it can cause to water and air locally, fracked gas can be as bad for the climate as coal. We need energy that’s sustainable, democratic, and affordable, instead of corporate controlled fossil fuels.”
Since August 7th, a group of Lancashire grandmothers, mothers, and children have been occupying a field on Preston New Road – one of Cuadrilla’s proposed drill sites. Local residents handed in a record-breaking 14,000 objections to a council consultation on Cuadrilla’s plans.[3] When asked why the local women are occupying the field, Tina Louise from Lancashire said,
“The shale gas industry and Cuadrilla in particular have not acted honestly in their dealings with our community and are not to be trusted with the health and well-being of our children. We do not want them here and so are gathering to make sure we are heard and we are calling others to help us amplify this. As air and water do not recognize county boundaries, the defence is for everybody in the UK.”
[1] Press pack with more detailed camp information available. [2] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/17/balcombe-fracking-energy-community-renewables [3]http://www.foe.co.uk/news/14000-people-call-frack-free-lancashire
Programme (including march on Sunday, day of action on Monday)
The world’s leading warmongers will meet this summer in Wales. A week of action is planned to oppose and stop them, from August 30th to September the 5th.
The world’s leading warmongers will meet this summer in Wales. A week of action is planned to oppose and stop them, from August 30th to September the 5th.
Two organisations are planning actions against the summit, inclusing mass demonstrations and days of action on different aspects of militarism. This promises to be a massive focal point for the movement against miliarism this summer. Details of can be found here:
https://network23.org/stopnatocymru/
Please get involved and spread the word! Help raise our profile by linking to stopNATOCymru on blogs etc., and more importantly, come along to the events and show your support.