Category: Oil

Greenwash spill at the BP-sponsored National Portrait Gallery

On Tues­day night (22 June 2010) at 6.07 PM the Lon­don brigade of the Green­wash Guer­ril­las got a call from a pan­icked pedes­tri­an out­side the Nation­al Por­trait Gallery.

BP Portrait Gallery greenwash guerrillasOn Tues­day night (22 June 2010) at 6.07 PM the Lon­don brigade of the Green­wash Guer­ril­las got a call from a pan­icked pedes­tri­an out­side the Nation­al Por­trait Gallery. It seemed that the prize­giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny for BP Por­trait Award was about to start, and tox­ic green­wash had begun to gush uncon­trol­lably from the gallery’s front doors.

Arriv­ing on the scene, armed with the lat­est in green­wash detect­ing equip­ment and wear­ing pro­tec­tive bio­haz­ard suits, the Guer­ril­las
imme­di­ate­ly iden­ti­fied sev­er­al sources of the leak. Green­wash lev­els appeared to be the strongest any­where a bright green BP logo was to be
found: from the mas­sive ban­ners fronting either side of the grand entrance, to the micro­scop­ic embroi­dery on a secu­ri­ty guard’s lapel. The
Guer­ril­las were giv­en the run-around by gallery secu­ri­ty and the Met­ro­pol­i­tan police, who escort­ed Britain’s cul­tur­al estab­lish­ment into
the awards cer­e­mo­ny first at the front, then around the side, then back at the front entrance again. By 7 PM, every­one had con­vened at the front entrance, and the Guer­ril­las set to work to con­tain the leak, quar­an­tine the area, and warn atten­dees against enter­ing the build­ing.

Many clean-up efforts were tried, from throw­ing golf balls and old tires at the leak to try­ing to plug it with mud, but for some rea­son the spill just kept gush­ing. Mean­while, some Guer­ril­las attempt­ed to arm the atten­dees – most of whom, inex­plic­a­bly, were deter­mined to enter the
con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed build­ing – with infor­ma­tion about BP, oil indus­try spon­sor­ship of the arts, and the best way to pro­tect them­selves from
green­wash.

Despite the best efforts of the Guer­ril­las, green­wash unfor­tu­nate­ly con­tin­ues to spew forth from the BP-spon­sored Nation­al Por­trait Gallery
and count­less oth­er oil-spon­sored arts insti­tu­tions across Lon­don. But resis­tance is grow­ing, and this sum­mer might just be remem­bered as the
tip­ping point in the cam­paign to free art from oil.

More info:
http://www.risingtide.org.uk
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
BP’s spon­sor­ship of the Nation­al Por­trait Award is green­wash – a way of clean­ing up BP’s tat­tered pub­lic image and cov­er­ing up its shock­ing
envi­ron­men­tal and human rights record.

Green­wash is as tox­ic as oil. With it, BP buys our approval, and hopes we’ll for­get about the gush­er in the Gulf, the 300 000 lives already lost each year due to cli­mate change, and the fact that the com­pa­ny is poised to enter the Cana­di­an tar sands – the most destruc­tive project on earth.

Every pound the Nation­al Por­trait Gallery accepts from BP is taint­ed. In response to chang­ing pub­lic opin­ion, cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions even­tu­al­ly
decid­ed that it was no longer in their best inter­ests to take mon­ey from the tobac­co indus­try. It’s high time we kicked Big Oil out of our
gal­leries too.

Check out a bril­liant video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-adx5mS2klA

london@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk

Protest against BP — This Saturday 26/06 1pm at Tottenham Hale BP Garage, London

Against cli­mate crimes in the name of prof­it and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers exploit­ed by giant cor­po­ra­tion BP, come and protest this Sat­ur­day 26 June, 1pm at Tot­ten­ham Hale BP garage.

Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group have organ­ised a protest against giant cor­po­ra­tion BP this Sat­ur­day 26 June, from 1pm at Tot­ten­ham Hale BP Garage (map here: http://tiny.cc/28p38)

Against cli­mate crimes in the name of prof­it and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers exploit­ed by giant cor­po­ra­tion BP, come and protest this Sat­ur­day 26 June, 1pm at Tot­ten­ham Hale BP garage.

Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group have organ­ised a protest against giant cor­po­ra­tion BP this Sat­ur­day 26 June, from 1pm at Tot­ten­ham Hale BP Garage (map here: http://tiny.cc/28p38)

We aim to draw atten­tion to the many cli­mate crimes BP is respon­si­ble for, all in the name of prof­it, show sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers exploit­ed by the cor­po­ra­tion and encour­age peo­ple to build col­lec­tive and local alter­na­tives to the cli­mate cri­sis.

See the text of the leaflet below.
An on-line ver­sion is avail­able here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4403399/BP_Protest.pdf

Please cir­cu­late wide­ly, come along, bring ban­ners, plac­ards, etc…

—–

BP – Guilty of Cli­mate Crimes!

Called by Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group as part of Haringey Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Month

The dan­ger­ous greed of BP has seen them trash­ing the plan­et in pur­suit of prof­it – across the world, BP is guilty of cli­mate crimes that should all be front page news.

The Gulf of Mex­i­co: BP’s faulty drilling results in one of the worst oil spills in his­to­ry, killing work­ers, endan­ger­ing wildlife across the region and leav­ing a mas­sive clean-up oper­a­tion.

Cana­da: Extrac­tion of mil­lions of bar­rels of tar sands oil, pro­duc­ing 3–5 times the green­house gas­es of con­ven­tion­al oil, caus­ing mass defor­esta­tion and pol­lut­ing indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

Colom­bia In Jan­u­ary, indus­tri­al action organ­ised by trade union­ists in the region of Casanare was severe­ly repressed by BP, with the help of a spe­cial police force known for anti-work­er vio­lence.

Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline: This crude oil pipeline, run­ning through Turkey, Geor­gia and Azer­bai­jan, was financed by BP, vis­i­bly scar­ring the land­scape and wreck­ing areas of great nat­ur­al beau­ty, includ­ing nat­ur­al spring water reserves.

Not to men­tion com­mu­ni­ties across the world! While adding to the wealth of a few, BP is destroy­ing the com­mon wealthe of the many. We need to act local­ly to resist com­pa­nies like BP dic­tat­ing the way our economies are struc­tured – for prof­it and against the envi­ron­ment.

See over for how we can take action col­lec­tive­ly in our com­mu­ni­ties to fight cli­mate change and cre­ate a future sus­tain­able soci­ety.

——————————

Build­ing Alter­na­tives to the Cli­mate Cri­sis

Oppres­sive and destruc­tive cor­po­ra­tions like BP do not serve the gen­er­al inter­est. We need to end our depen­den­cy on oil and fos­sil fuels, which grad­u­al­ly destroys the plan­et and our lives, and aim for the devel­op­ment of renew­able ener­gy man­aged by the com­mu­ni­ty.

We can organ­ise local­ly and take back con­trol of our lives and envi­ron­ment by build­ing sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties for the ben­e­fit of all. Peo­ple in Haringey are get­ting togeth­er to form col­lec­tive, grass­roots alter­na­tives and solu­tions to the cli­mate cri­sis.

See below for how to get involved!

Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group

We are a group of local peo­ple who want to get rid of the cur­rent sys­tem which places prof­it and pow­er before people’s real needs. To do this, we believe we all need to get organ­ised, fight back and take over the deci­sion-mak­ing in com­mu­ni­ties and work­places. We sup­port and par­tic­i­pate in local cam­paigns, spread ideas and help cre­ate effec­tive oppo­si­tion to the pow­ers that be.

www.haringey.org.uk, email info@haringey.org.uk, write to PO Box 2474, Lon­don N8 or call 0845 223 5270

Sus­tain­able Haringey

An inde­pen­dent infor­mal net­work for every­body want­i­ng to make Haringey more sus­tain­able. It brings togeth­er groups and indi­vid­u­als already mak­ing pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions and wel­comes those who would like to find out how to do more. In June there are events hap­pen­ing across the bor­ough as part of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Month.

See www.sustainableharingey.org.uk for fur­ther details

Oil execs gather — we besiege ( + video link)

As oil exec­u­tives gath­ered at a Lon­don hotel for their annu­al strate­gis­ing con­fer­ence on Mon­day 21st June, up to 200 cli­mate activists crossed the riv­er from BP-spon­sored Tate Mod­ern to con­verge on the front entrance with a sam­ba band and a giant p

Drum it Out 1Drum it Out 2As oil exec­u­tives gath­ered at a Lon­don hotel for their annu­al strate­gis­ing con­fer­ence on Mon­day 21st June, up to 200 cli­mate activists crossed the riv­er from BP-spon­sored Tate Mod­ern to con­verge on the front entrance with a sam­ba band and a giant paper-mache oil-cov­ered seabird.

Titled “Drum It Out”, the protest also put the indus­try on tri­al before a Peo­ple’s Court which loud­ly found it guilty of crimes of pol­lu­tion, war crimes, cli­mate crime, and more.

The court heard live tes­ti­mo­ny by wit­ness­es not only from the Gulf, but from Nige­ria, Ghana, Colom­bia, Peru, from Iraq which has suf­fered the dev­as­ta­tion of a war for oil, from Cana­da where indige­nous peo­ple are resist­ing the Tar Sands oil project destroy­ing a land as large as Eng­land, and from Kenya and Chi­na which are suf­fer­ing droughts as a result of the chang­ing cli­mate. “The Gulf of Mex­i­co is not the only dis­as­ter,” the pro­test­ers said — “in fact it’s not even the largest, and in some places this destruc­tion of life has been going on for decades. The oil indus­try is not sus­tain­able. They think they rule the world, but they are fac­ing resis­tance every­where. They can­not come to this hotel and think they will car­ry on busi­ness as usu­al”.

A dead fish award was pre­sent­ed to Bloody Oil in its var­i­ous com­pa­ny guis­es, and a “fish” was deliv­ered to the hotel to be passed on to Con­gress del­e­gates.

Fol­low­ing the tri­al, the main and back entrance were besieged by the drum­ming crowd, with no injuries and no arrests. Two activists who had suc­ceed­ed in pen­e­trat­ing the build­ing were uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly eject­ed. The Drum Out will be fol­lowed this Sat­ur­day by a Teach In, at the School of Ori­en­tal and African Stud­ies, where cam­paign­ers will learn more about the ongo­ing resis­tance by work­ers and com­mu­ni­ties in oil regions, will link-up live with organ­is­ers in Ghana, and will dis­cuss how to work togeth­er to bring the indus­try down. One pro­test­er com­ment­ed, “If even half the mon­ey invest­ed in sub­si­dis­ing oil, clean­ing up its dis­as­ters and fund­ing its wars were devot­ed to alter­na­tive forms of ener­gy, peo­ple would­n’t be suf­fer­ing these out­rages, and the plan­et would be safe.”

london[at]climatecamp.org.uk

Watch the Video http://www.youandifilms.com/2010/06/bloody-oil-drum-em-out/

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

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

Upcoming action dates & activist gatherings, 2010 — updated

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010
Glob­al Min­ga for Moth­er Earth

12–16 Octo­ber 2010
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice, CJA call-out

13 Octo­ber 2010
It’s Ham­mer­time! — Smash EDO

16 Octo­ber 2010
Crude Awak­en­ing — big oil day of action in Lon­don City

23–24 Octo­ber 2010
Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK Gath­er­ing, Bris­tol

10–12 Decem­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

=========

Old dates from this cal­en­dar:

2010

15–17 Jan­u­ary 2010
Peace News Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

23–26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Main­shill Pre-Evic­tion Gath­er­ing

5–7 Feb­ru­ary 2010
EF! Win­ter Moot, North East Eng­land

12–14 Feb­ru­ary 2010
UK Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

19–21 Feb­ru­ary 2010
Camp for Cli­mate Action nation­al ‘where next?’ gath­er­ing, Bris­tol — region­al ones hap­pen­ing over Jan­u­ary & Feb­ru­ary (details here)

26–28 Feb­ru­ary 2010
No Bor­ders Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

14 March 2010
UK Tar Sands Cam­paign Gath­er­ing, York

11am till 6pm (Veg­an lunch by dona­tion)
With BP’s AGM just 1 month away, and 2 weeks of actions planned for 1st to 15th April, come and con­nect with oth­er UK-based Tar Sands cam­paign­ers, share ideas and cre­ate actions. We’ll be look­ing at strate­gies and actions for tar­get­ing Shell, BP and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land — Britain’s Dirty Three­some on Tar Sands invest­ment.

We’re meet­ing in Der­went Col­lege, York Uni­ver­si­ty, room D/056 — from the sta­tion or city cen­tre, take bus num­ber 4 to the very last stop, walk back about 50 meters, and the road entrance to the col­lege is signed on the left. D/056 is accessed from the out­side, beyond the din­ing hall and ponds.

1 April 2010
Fos­sil Fools Day

1–4 April 2010
The Hunt­ing­ton Lane Fos­sil Fools week­end con­ver­gence

1–15 April 2010
BP Fort­night of Shame
includ­ing Lon­don Mass Action

17–18 April 2010
Social Cen­tres in a Time of Cri­sis, Leeds
A week­end of work­shops, dis­cus­sions and social­is­ing for every­one with an inter­est in rad­i­cal autonomous social cen­tres

22–23 April 2010
anti-avi­a­tion 48 hours of stick­er-whack­ing, sub­ver­tis­ing, adbust­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um

23–26 April 2010
Anti-nuclear Camp, Suf­folk — see lat­est EF!AU for details

6–10 May 2010
Activist Tat train­ing week: putting up mar­quees, erect­ing and mend­ing flat pack toi­lets, as well as tech­ni­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal (pow­er, plumb­ing etc) skill­shar­ing

15 May 2010
Par­ty at the Pumps 2

21 May‑5 June 2010
Merthyr to Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty bike ride — Cli­mate Chains

5–8 June 2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Gath­er­ing, Ire­land

11–19 June 2010
World Naked Bike Ride — 11 June: Man­ches­ter, Southamp­ton; 12 June, Cardiff, Edin­burgh, Lon­don; 13 June: Brighton, Bris­tol; 19 June, Sheffield, York

18–21 June 2010
Out­door Skill­share, Scot­land

19 June 2010
Nation­al Gath­er­ing of the Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work, Lon­don

25 June-31 August 2010
Eco­topia Bike­tour, from Crit­i­cal Mass, Towards Car Free Cities Con­fer­ence, to the French & Ger­man cli­mate camps and much in between.

6–12 July 2010
Anti-Indus­tri­al Land Defence Action Camp, Cat­alo­nia
Go only if you can speak Cata­lan or Span­ish — http://acampadaderesistencies.blogspot.com

14–22 July 2010
Nordic cli­mate action camp, South­ern Swe­den

22 July‑1 August 2010
French Camp Action Cli­mat, near Le Havre

22 July‑2 August 2010
Swiss cli­mate camp Fr / De

23–27 July 2010
Peace News Sum­mer Camp, Oxford­shire

29 July‑4 August 2010
Bel­gian Cli­mate Camp, near Liege

4–9 August 2010
EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Der­byshire

12–16 August 2010
Irish Cli­mate Camp, Coun­ty Tyrone

13–17 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru

21–24 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp tar­gets RBS in Edin­burgh: Action Days

21–29 August 2010
Ger­man Kli­macamp, near Erke­lenz

27–30 August 2010
Nation­al Ani­mal Rights Gath­er­ing, near Northamp­ton

27–29 August 2010
Dutch Earth First! Gath­er­ing and CJA meet­ing — Groen Front!

BP hit by tar sands protests in London, Brighton, Oxford and Cambridge

Sat­ur­day April 10th
BP hit by tar sands protests in Lon­don, Brighton, Oxford and Cam­bridge

Oil com­pa­ny tar­get­ed by nation­wide protests in advance of cru­cial AGM vote

Pro­test­ers demand BP pulls out of “the most destruc­tive project on Earth” — the Cana­di­an tar sands

Sat­ur­day April 10th
BP hit by tar sands protests in Lon­don, Brighton, Oxford and Cam­bridge

Oil com­pa­ny tar­get­ed by nation­wide protests in advance of cru­cial AGM vote

Pro­test­ers demand BP pulls out of “the most destruc­tive project on Earth” — the Cana­di­an tar sands

For pho­tos, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/no-tar-sands and http://www.no-tar-sands.org. Brief reports of the Lon­don and Oxford actions can be seen at http://www.demotix.com/news/297925/bp-party-pumps and http://www.demotix.com/news/298075/bp-tar-sands-protest-oxford.

Today, oil giant BP was struck by mul­ti­ple protests over its con­tro­ver­sial plans to extract oil from the Cana­di­an tar sands (1). Hun­dreds of cli­mate activists in Lon­don, Brighton, Oxford and Cam­bridge (2) tar­get­ed the com­pa­ny with simul­ta­ne­ous demon­stra­tions and street par­ties, includ­ing fore­court inva­sions which closed three BP petrol sta­tions in Lon­don and Brighton (3), (4).

Activists hailed the day as a major suc­cess, stat­ing that the protests would send a strong mes­sage to BP and its investors. Sheila Laugh­lin of the UK Tar Sands Net­work said:

“Today, we did exact­ly what we set out to do – we hit BP’s prof­its by shut­ting down their petrol sta­tions, and we hit their brand by inform­ing thou­sands of peo­ple about their destruc­tive tar sands plans. Near­ly every­one we spoke to was shocked and out­raged by the hor­rif­ic cli­mate, eco­log­i­cal and human impacts of tar sands extrac­tion. If BP want to com­plete­ly alien­ate the UK pub­lic, they’re going about it in exact­ly the right way.”

Mean­while, a share­hold­er res­o­lu­tion ques­tion­ing BP’s role in the tar sands, which is due to be dis­cussed and vot­ed on at their AGM lat­er this week (5), con­tin­ues to attract inter­est from share­hold­ers, with a num­ber of major invest­ment funds stat­ing their sup­port for the anti-tar sands res­o­lu­tion in the last few days (6).

ENDS

Notes to Edi­tors

1) Tar sands are a type of oily soil, which requires large amounts of ener­gy, water, and indus­tri­al pro­cess­ing to extract and trans­form into crude oil. Tar sands extrac­tion in Alber­ta, Cana­da is already the world’s largest indus­tri­al project, requir­ing the removal of vast areas of ancient for­est and con­sum­ing enough nat­ur­al gas per day to heat 3.2 mil­lion Cana­di­an homes. The extrac­tion process emits 3 to 5 times as much car­bon diox­ide as con­ven­tion­al oil drilling, the lakes of tox­ic waste it pro­duces are so large they are vis­i­ble from space, and the pol­lu­tion from the project is harm­ing the health of the Indige­nous peo­ple who live in its shad­ow.
See http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2006_report/som-sum_eng.cfm and http://www.ienearth.org/cits.html

BP was the only major oil com­pa­ny not to be in the tar sands, until in 2007 it pur­chased a stake in the ‘Sun­rise Project’, an extrac­tion project that could pro­duce 200,000 bar­rels of tar sands oil per day. Ear­li­er this year it announced its poten­tial involve­ment in two oth­er, sim­i­lar devel­op­ments, although a final deci­sion as to whether or not to go ahead with them has yet to be made. Over the last six months, an unprece­dent­ed coali­tion of UK cli­mate activists, NGOs and Indige­nous Cana­di­an activists has come togeth­er to stop BP’s plans.

2) The April 10th day of action was sup­port­ed by the UK Tar Sands Net­work ( http://www.no-tar-sands.org), Ris­ing Tide UK ( http://risingtide.org.uk), the Camp for Cli­mate Action ( http://www.climatecamp.org.uk) and the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work ( http://www.ienearth.org)

3) A brief sum­ma­ry of each of the actions:

Lon­don: Around 150 peo­ple invad­ed BP’s Shepherd’s Bush petrol sta­tion at around 2pm today. They hung ban­ners off the roof, climbed on the pumps and held a ceilidh in the fore­court. The sta­tion remained closed for the rest of the after­noon. There was a heavy police pres­ence, but no arrests.

Oxford: About 25 peo­ple from the Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action group recon­struct­ed the Cana­di­an tar sands on Oxford’s cen­tral shop­ping parade, includ­ing a pipeline and “tox­ic” tail­ings pond com­plete with toy ducks. They used a cycle-pow­ered sound sys­tem to enter­tain and inform thou­sands of shop­pers with music and speech­es, while activists dressed as Cana­da and BP got friend­ly with each oth­er by the pipeline. Around 5,000 anti-BP leaflets were dis­trib­uted, and video mes­sages were col­lect­ed from the pub­lic to send to BP’s AGM.

Brighton: Activists suc­cess­ful­ly invad­ed and shut down two sep­a­rate BP petrol sta­tions. Pho­tos can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wdmbrightonandhove

Cam­bridge: Local activists from the Cam­bridge Tar Sands Net­work led an uncon­ven­tion­al tour group through the city today. They took in the sights of RBS Branch­es, a Super­drug Loca­tion, and Uni­ver­si­ty Facil­i­ties fund­ed by BP, all of which have links to the Cana­di­an Tar Sands. The event drew the atten­tion of many mem­bers of the pub­lic, who took pho­tos, request­ed more infor­ma­tion, or even joined the tour. The event was hailed as a suc­cess­ful pub­lic expose of Cambridge’s dark tar-sand-stained under­bel­ly.

4) This day of action fell near the end of a full two weeks of action against BP and the tar sands, dubbed the “BP Fort­night of Shame”. Oth­er actions since April 1st have includ­ed:

• 22,000 “rebrand­ed” BP logos were deliv­ered to BP HQ – video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNLzN3zld7o
• A BP petrol sta­tion was block­ad­ed in Ply­mouth, with pro­test­ers chain­ing them­selves to petrol pumps. The sta­tion was closed for an hour and a half, and there were two arrests: http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Greens-protest-closes-petrol-station/article-1992261-detail/article.html
• A demon­stra­tion by Youth Against Cli­mate Change in St. Albans, tar­get­ing RBS, who are one of BP’s key fun­ders in the tar sands: http://www.stalbansreview.co.uk/news/6646160.St_Albans_demo_targets__RBS/
• RBS cash machines were ren­dered tem­porar­i­ly out of order by Brighton Against Tar Sands (BATS): http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/04/448446.html
• A walk­ing tree from Alber­ta, Cana­da, turned up at BP HQ (and oth­er key Lon­don loca­tions) to com­plain about tar sands defor­esta­tion – video here: http://vimeo.com/10630598
• “Free mon­ey” stained with oil was giv­en out at a Natwest (owned by RBS) branch in Nor­wich: http://felixinnorwich.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/fossil-fools-day-in-norwich-tar-sand-protest-at-natwest/

5) BP’s Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing will take place at 11.30am on April 15th 2010 at the Excel Cen­tre, Lon­don. Cam­paign­ers will be speak­ing to share­hold­ers out­side the meet­ing, and chal­leng­ing BP inside the meet­ing. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/04/bp-investors-row-tar-sands

6) See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/bpdot/7568809/US-and-Australian-funds-join-BP-rebellion-on-oil-sands.html and http://nachhaltiger.de/index.php/2010/04/10/apg-may-vote-against-bp-shell-on-tar-sands/

UK Tar Sands Net­work
tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://www.no-tar-sands.org

BP shut down in Plymouth over Tar Sands oil

On Thurs­day 8 April, Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide and Ker­now Anar­chist Net­work block­ad­ed the BP garage in Ridge­way, Ply­mouth, to high­light the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion caused by the Tar Sands project. The garage was closed for an hour and two activists who were locked onto petrol pumps were arrest­ed.

BP Plymouth shut downOn Thurs­day 8 April, Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide and Ker­now Anar­chist Net­work block­ad­ed the BP garage in Ridge­way, Ply­mouth, to high­light the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion caused by the Tar Sands project. The garage was closed for an hour and two activists who were locked onto petrol pumps were arrest­ed.

The Tar Sands are a vast reserve of oil in the Cana­di­an wilder­ness. Extract­ing oil from it pro­duces 3 to 5 times as much green­house gas­es as from con­ven­tion­al oil. (1) The devel­op­ment cov­ers an area the size of Eng­land, with tox­ic ponds so huge they are vis­i­ble from space, leak­ing poi­sons into the local water sup­ply. Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, on whose land the extrac­tion has been imposed, are see­ing high rates of rare forms of can­cer and res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease. (2)

Michelle Roberts from Ker­now Anar­chist Net­work said: “The Tar Sands are the most destruc­tive project on earth, fuelling cli­mate chaos and mass defor­esta­tion, and tram­pling on indige­nous rights. It would be crim­i­nal of BP to go ahead with it.”

This action is part of the BP Tar Sands Fort­night of Shame, a nation­al fort­night of action lead­ing up to BP’s annu­al gen­er­al meet­ing on 15th April, when they will make a final deci­sion as to whether to go into their first Tar Sands extrac­tion project, ‘Sun­rise.’ (3)

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­tact:
plymouth@risingtide.org.uk
kernowaction@gmail.com
Or go to:
http://risingtide.org.uk/plymouth
http://kernowaction.wordpress.com

Notes for edi­tors:
1 http://stoptarsands.wordpress.com/threats/#a
2 http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/
3 http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/bp-fortnight-of-shame/

Earth First! Summer Gathering, 4th — 9th Aug 2010, Derbyshire — location & programme announced/set-up plans & call-out

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme
Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

What’s hap­pen­ing?
Over 80 work­shops, dis­cus­sions, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘where next’ ses­sions:

*Share and learn skills for kick-ass actions on land and water.
Small boat han­dling and blockad­ing using kayaks / Blockad­ing — tripods, lock-ons/ Fences / Climb­ing skills / Action recon­nais­sance / Secu­ri­ty for Activists / Strat­e­gy and tac­tics / How to research cor­po­ra­tions /

*Net­work cur­rent cam­paigns against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion
Open-cast min­ing / Genet­ic engi­neer­ing / Agro­fu­els / Sav­ing Ice­land / Cli­mate actions / Pipeline resis­tance in Ross­port / Anti-nuclear / Air­port expansion/ Tar Sands

*Think about eco-cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tive ways of organ­is­ing
Deep green ethics / Anar­chist eco­nom­ics / Anar­chist his­to­ry / Rad­i­cal Pol­i­tics / Work­ing with­out leaders/ Con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing

*Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy / Restora­tion ecol­o­gy / Flo­ra and Fau­na iden­ti­fi­ca­tion / Veg­an Cake mak­ing / Pow­er from solar and wind / wild food / Squat­ting / Bike main­te­nance

As well as inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns round-up, net­work­ing and plan­ning for future actions.

Cost and prac­ti­cal things
£20–30 accord­ing to what you can afford.
The gath­er­ing is in Der­byshire, the exact loca­tion will be announced the week before. More info on our web­site.

Find out more and join in!

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

We have now a stack of fresh­ly print­ed posters adver­tis­ing the gath­er­ing. If you’d like to send you some to stick up in your area or to take to events, fes­ti­vals and the like, please email us. Alter­na­tive­ly you can also down­load the files and print your own. They are fair­ly large files! EF! gath­er­ing poster (A4)

We are now look­ing for peo­ple to run work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the gath­er­ing. Please con­tact us if you can offer some­thing. Have a look at our pro­gramme page to see the kind of thing we’re look­ing for.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ NOSPAM _ @ _ NOSPAM earthfirst.org.uk

Shell apologises

Shell Apol­o­gis­es for Human Rights Vio­la­tions in Niger Delta

The Hague, 27 March 2010

Today, Roy­al Dutch Shell is hold­ing back the tears no more. Shell apol­o­gis­es to all inhab­i­tants of Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the many years of human rights vio­la­tions, for which Shell takes full respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Shell logo burningShell Apol­o­gis­es for Human Rights Vio­la­tions in Niger Delta

The Hague, 27 March 2010

Today, Roy­al Dutch Shell is hold­ing back the tears no more. Shell apol­o­gis­es to all inhab­i­tants of Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the many years of human rights vio­la­tions, for which Shell takes full respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Con­front­ed with mas­sive evi­dence of human rights vio­la­tions that can only be attrib­uted to its oper­a­tions in the Niger Delta, Roy­al Dutch Shell is extreme­ly proud to be the first inter­na­tion­al petro­chem­i­cal com­pa­ny to pub­licly say:

We are sor­ry.

Since Shell first dis­cov­ered oil in the Niger Delta in 1956, the com­pa­ny has rav­ished the land and pol­lut­ed the envi­ron­ment. “We thought these peo­ple didn’t know what was good for them,” explains Brad­ford Houppe, Vice-Pres­i­dent of Shell’s new­ly estab­lished Eth­i­cal Affairs Com­mit­tee. “We nev­er knew that we were bring­ing them impov­er­ish­ment, con­flict, abuse and depri­va­tion. Now we know.” Shell acknowl­edges that it is respon­si­ble for large-scale oil spills, waste dump­ing and gas flar­ing. Each year, hun­dreds of oil spills occur, many of which are caused by cor­ro­sion of oil pipes and poor main­te­nance of infra­struc­ture. “Our fail­ure to deal with these spills swift­ly and the lack of effec­tive clean-up great­ly exac­er­bate their human rights and envi­ron­men­tal impact,” says Houppe. “And that is wrong. It’s just real­ly wrong.”

More than 60 per cent of the peo­ple in the Niger Delta depend on the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment for their liveli­hood. But due to the oil pol­lu­tion, many of them use pol­lut­ed water to drink and to cook and wash with, and eat fish con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with oil and oth­er tox­ins. Oil spills and waste dump­ing have also seri­ous­ly dam­aged agri­cul­tur­al land.

The destruc­tion of liveli­hoods and the lack of redress have led peo­ple to steal oil and van­dalise oil infra­struc­ture in an attempt to gain com­pen­sa­tion or clean-up con­tracts. Armed groups engage in large-scale theft of oil and the ran­som­ing of oil work­ers. Gov­ern­ment reprisals fre­quent­ly involve exces­sive force and the col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment of com­mu­ni­ties, thus deep­en­ing gen­er­al anger and resent­ment.

Between 2005 and 2008, the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment received around $36 bil­lion in tax­es and roy­al­ties from Shell. “They have nev­er, not in the slight­est, held us to account for all the wrong we did,” says Houppe. “So with­out tak­ing back any of our apolo­gies, by all means: blame them too!”

A com­pre­hen­sive Plan of Action, fea­tur­ing gen­er­al apolo­gies, detailed apolo­gies, apolo­gies in Braille and apolo­gies in rhyme that Shell employ­ees will hang on the walls in their offices, will be pre­sent­ed at Shell’s Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing on 18 May 2010 in The Hague.

http://shellapologises.com/