Category: Oil

Support the Eco-Prisoners — Imbolc 2008 — they’re in there for us out here, please write

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

Earth Liberation Prisoners logoSpir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!”
(For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As we enter Feb­ru­ary so we await three major events. First off, Jeff ‘Free’ Luers is due to be re-sen­tenced. We hope its good news. Sec­ond­ly, Eric McDavid is also due to be sen­tenced. As soon as Eric has been sen­tenced we urge every­one to send him let­ters of sup­port. And third­ly, the police infor­mant Jacob Fer­gu­son is also due to be sen­tenced. His cow­ard­ly deals and treach­ery means he won’t be sent to prison. But we await with inter­est to see what sen­tence this piece of scum does receive. If any­one hears, please do let ELP know. But whilst we await those three sen­tenc­ings, please don’t for­get all the oth­er eco-pris­on­ers. Remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy.

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez — Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Jef­frey Luers, #1306729, Lane Coun­ty Adult Cor­rec­tions, 101 West 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401–2695, USA. Await­ing resen­tenc­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing been found guilty of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Daniel McGowan #63794–053, Unit I, FCI Sand­stone, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Christo­pher McIn­tosh #30512–013, FCI Fair­ton, PO Box 420, Fair­ton, NJ 08320, USA. Serv­ing 8 years for set­ting fire to a McDon­ald’s restau­rant.

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 2½ years. 1) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 2) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Julio Vil­lanue­va, C.P. Pri­sion De Pam­plona, 31080, Iruna (Navar­ra), Spain.
Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to his involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Nathan Block — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment.

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Rod Coro­n­a­do, Voice of the Earth, PO Box 732, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA. Due to be sen­tenced to one-year impris­on­ment after Rod informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing.

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Down­view, Sut­ton Lane, Sut­ton, Sur­rey, SM2 5PD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Joy­an­na Zach­er — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials.

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion that turned into a riot.

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack.

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic.
Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish.

Gub­s­ki Max­im, VK‑2 — 21, Batowa str. 4, Bobruisk, 213800 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Vladislav Vladimirovich Plyashke­vich, IK-10 otryad 4, Novopoltsk‑5 Viteb­skaya oblast, 211440 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, BNR: 727/07/7, JVA Tegel, Sei­del­str. 39, 13507 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties.

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self.

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009.

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA.
Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

Shell to Sea protest at Bellanaboy and Belmullet

Feb­ru­ary 2 2008
To coin­cide with Shell announc­ing their annu­al prof­its (of around €18 bil­lion), yes­ter­day morn­ing around 80 peo­ple gath­ered at Bel­lan­aboy to show their con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion to Shel­l’s plans for Mayo. Fac­ing a bit­ing wind and show­ers of hail and snow, the pro­tes­tors high­light­ed the fact that even with all this prof­it, Shell still haven’t clean up their act. As if the ele­ments weren’t bad enough, the pro­tes­tors also had to con­tend with being out­num­bered by about 2 to 1 by the hero­ic guardians of the State. This local day of protest against Shell was met with a exces­sive Gar­da pres­ence of at least a 150 to act as pri­vate secu­ri­ty for Shell. Of course the whole Cor­rib project fails to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Ire­land and all Shel­l’s con­struc­tion costs are writ­ten off against tax.

Belmullet Shell to SeaFeb­ru­ary 2 2008
To coin­cide with Shell announc­ing their annu­al prof­its (of around €18 bil­lion), yes­ter­day morn­ing around 80 peo­ple gath­ered at Bel­lan­aboy to show their con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion to Shel­l’s plans for Mayo. Fac­ing a bit­ing wind and show­ers of hail and snow, the pro­tes­tors high­light­ed the fact that even with all this prof­it, Shell still haven’t clean up their act. As if the ele­ments weren’t bad enough, the pro­tes­tors also had to con­tend with being out­num­bered by about 2 to 1 by the hero­ic guardians of the State. This local day of protest against Shell was met with a exces­sive Gar­da pres­ence of at least a 150 to act as pri­vate secu­ri­ty for Shell. Of course the whole Cor­rib project fails to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Ire­land and all Shel­l’s con­struc­tion costs are writ­ten off against tax.

At around 9.30am a sec­tion of the pro­tes­tors went in to Bel­mul­let to con­tin­ue their protest and to hand out leaflets regard­ing Shel­l’s dead­ly record. Around 30 peo­ple stood around the main round­about and received a very pos­i­tive response. They wait­ed until all their leaflets were hand­ed out, before retir­ing for some well earned warm tea & cof­fee around 12.30pm. At first, the Gar­dai con­tin­ued to use overkill tac­tics but soon realised they can’t get away with this in the full view of Bel­mul­let. Despite the bit­ter weath­er, there was lots of sup­port and it felt a good suc­cess.

One dis­taste­ful aspect to the day was the fact that, for the first time, mem­bers of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp were pre­vent­ed from mak­ing their way to Bel­lan­aboy gates. On 3 sep­a­rate routes the camp van was blocked from mak­ing their way to the pick­et. Ini­tial­ly the gar­daí sought to open up the back of the camp van with­out quot­ing a nec­es­sary sec­tion of law. Under the Road Traf­fic Act, the guards don’t have author­i­ty to search a vehi­cle even though this has­n’t stopped them doing it on many occa­sions around the Bel­lan­aboy area. At the ini­tial road block, the guard also opened both the dri­vers and a side door before he was told that this behav­iour was not allowed. When ques­tionned, the gar­daí kept on quot­ing the Road Traf­fic Act and gave the dri­ver of the van the choice of either turn­ing around or allow­ing the gar­daí to search the vehi­cle. The dri­ver refused both these options and stayed where he was for a con­sid­er­able time on each occa­sion. As a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, the dri­ver refused to allow a vehi­cle search unless they quot­ed a suf­fi­cient law. On numer­ous occa­sions the gar­daí direct­ed the dri­ver to leave. How­ev­er it shows the shaky ground that the gar­daí knew they were on as they nev­er cau­tioned the dri­ver that he would be arrest­ed.
Over­all the 6 camp mem­bers in the van tried for over 2 hours (from around 7–9am) to try to get to the gates dur­ing which time many cars were sim­ply waved through with­out being searched. They were stopped on 5 dif­fer­ent occa­sions and on each occa­sion any­thing from 3 to 6 gar­da vans and squads were around the van. At the Bel­lan­aboy bridge car park, pas­sen­gers in the van ques­tioned both one of the gar­daí who stopped them and an Inspec­tor in charge. At one stage the gar­da stat­ed the “Offences against the State” gave them author­i­ty to search the vehi­cle, while the Inspec­tor stat­ed that ‘Com­mon Law’ gave them the author­i­ty. The dri­ver con­firmed that the only law quot­ed at him was the Road Traf­fic Act which the Inspec­tor basi­cal­ly admit­ted did­n’t give them the author­i­ty to search.

The gar­daí often claim that they are there to uphold the right to peace­ful­ly protest but this event clear­ly showed a com­plete mis­use of pow­er. How­ev­er this failed to dis­tract pro­tes­tors from high­light­ing Shel­l’s €18bn prof­it at the expense of com­mu­ni­ty’s world­wide. Over­all it was a very pos­i­tive day and a nice start to the spring.

Relat­ed Link: http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/business_money/north+sea+safety+concerns/1460452
————

Leaflet text:

Shell prof­its rise — Ire­land gets 0%

Shell has announced record prof­its of €18 bil­lion for the year, that’s €49.3 mil­lion per day! Shell has stat­ed that it is too expen­sive to refine at sea. How­ev­er, Shell’s prof­its clear­ly show this is untrue and unbe­liev­ably, the Irish law was changed so that all their build­ing costs can be writ­ten off against tax!

Increased cost to refine at sea = €360 mil­lion
That’s about one week of Shell’s prof­its!

It is clear that these vast prof­its come at the expense of the coun­tries, com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ments that Shell oper­ate. Look at the dis­as­ters of Rus­sia and Nigeria…will you allow Shell to do this here?

In Texas, where Shell oper­ates a large oil refin­ery, med­ical sur­veys have found that 70% of the town’s inhab­i­tants have asso­ci­at­ed med­ical com­plaints.

Shell always put prof­its first
Shell in fact has the worse work­force death record of all the major oil com­pa­nies.

Com­pa­ny 2003 Deaths 2004 Deaths 2005 Deaths 2006 Deaths
Exxon Mobil 23 6 8 10
Shell 45 37 36 37
BP 20 11 27 7
Work­force deaths for the 3 biggest oil & gas com­pa­nies

If Shell care so lit­tle for the lives of their own work­ers, do you trust them to pri­ori­tise the safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty?

So far in Erris we know that every sin­gle water mon­i­tor­ing report car­ried out by Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil is above the lim­its for alu­mini­um since Shell removed peat from Bel­lan­aboy. The water from the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site goes direct­ly into Car­row­more Lake. Shell acknowl­edged respon­si­bil­i­ty for this prob­lem and installed the Axon­ics water treat­ment plant. How­ev­er, it was unable to cope with the demand dur­ing Shell’s peat haulage and so the alu­mini­um lev­els have increased and the prob­lem has wors­ened.

The Scot­tish EPA (who has licensed numer­ous refiner­ies in Scot­land) has stat­ed that a refin­ery which falls with­in the catch­ment area of a drink­ing water sup­ply would not get per­mis­sion to oper­ate in Scot­land.

Con­sent can­not be bought
Shell has recent­ly announced their new wish “to be a good neigh­bour”. Send­ing 5 men to jail for try­ing to pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ty was not a great start! And things haven’t improved since then. Shell have not tak­en on board our con­cerns and con­tin­ue to ignore the peo­ple who are threat­ened with this exper­i­men­tal project on their doorstep. Shell is still intent on forc­ing through a raw gas pipeline through unsta­ble land in close prox­im­i­ty of hous­es and a school.

“No oth­er coun­try in the world has giv­en the oil company’s such favourable terms” Mike Cun­ning­ham, for­mer Sta­toil direc­tor

We deserve a bet­ter deal: Don’t take Shell’s crumbs!
Giv­en the obscene­ly gen­er­ous terms at which Shell got the Cor­rib Gas, it’s no sur­prise that Shell are hap­py to give out a few col­lege schol­ar­ships and grants here and there. Instead our nat­ur­al resources should be going to ben­e­fit our edu­ca­tion and health sys­tems and coun­try as a whole.
In the ear­ly 70’s, Nor­way chose to use their nat­ur­al resources to ben­e­fit their peo­ple and today the coun­try ranks as hav­ing the best qual­i­ty of life in the world.
Because all of Shell’s con­struc­tion costs can be writ­ten off against tax, the mon­ey Shell are try­ing to offer to our com­mu­ni­ty belongs to us in the first place! The per­cent­age giv­en back is noth­ing com­pared to the €50 bil­lion worth of Irish gas they own!

For more infor­ma­tion or to request a copy of the Chan­nel 4 ‘Polic­ing the pol­lu­tion’ film, please con­tact 0851141170.

Spring into action (though storms may be at the door) — the latest issue of the EF! Action Update has burst forth

Read all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on w

Rabbit under fenceRead all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on whal­ing boats, Buy­ing Noth­ing, Reclaim­ing the Streets and the unstop­pable singing of Christ­mas songs, not to men­tion skat­ing pen­guins. Even some upcom­ing dates to get stuck in or to meet oth­er direct action cra­zies. We could­n’t make it up even if we tried.

Anoth­er bumper issue, with a spe­cial insert on Agro­fu­els includ­ing a list of refiner­ies ‘in the pipeline’ or already on the ground, plus a legal update about the recent changes to your access to solic­i­tors in police sta­tions.

The lat­est issue of the Earth First! Action Update burst forth at the lat­est nation­al meet­ing of the Camp for Cli­mate Action (see climatecamp.org.uk for how the camp idea is auda­cious­ly mor­ph­ing this year).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here.

Mayo Shell blockade & 15–17th March London demo & action call-out

Block­ade of Shell site, thurs morn­ing, 24/1/8, approx 100 cars blocked for 45 mins

This morn­ing, local res­i­dents’ yet again braved the bit­ter­ly cold wind to show Shell that it will nev­er have their con­sent. Know­ing that only they can pro­tect the health and safe­ty of their com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­ment, peo­ple peace­ful­ly held ban­ners at the gates, shut­ting down the site and pre­vent­ing approx. 100 Shell cars from enter­ing. There were no Gar­dai for approx. 45 mins!

Block­ade of Shell site, thurs morn­ing, 24/1/8, approx 100 cars blocked for 45 mins

This morn­ing, local res­i­dents’ yet again braved the bit­ter­ly cold wind to show Shell that it will nev­er have their con­sent. Know­ing that only they can pro­tect the health and safe­ty of their com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­ment, peo­ple peace­ful­ly held ban­ners at the gates, shut­ting down the site and pre­vent­ing approx. 100 Shell cars from enter­ing. There were no Gar­dai for approx. 45 mins!
Yes­ter­day, peo­ple were stood by the side of gate 2, not block­ing the cars, but were forcibly removed by the Gar­dai, who refused to give a rea­son. As usu­al, there was dis­agree­ment between the Gar­dai them­selves on why we were being removed and some were clear­ly uncom­fort­able with their col­leagues’ unrea­son­able behav­iour (‘pub­lic order act’ ‘Tres­pass’ ‘mis­cel­la­neous hous­ing act’ and my per­son­al favourite, ‘you are caus­ing a destruc­tion’). The morn­ing pick­ets are still hap­pen­ing and there are fre­quent block­ades, so come and sup­port the Kil­com­mon Parish who are sim­ply call­ing for the gas to be refined at sea and to rene­go­ti­ate the deal to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Ire­land. Shell to Sea!
Who’s cops?
It came as no sur­prise to see the recent Shell Project Mon­i­tor­ing Com­mit­tee prais­ing Supt Gan­non for his work in the local­i­ty.

»»»»»»»

hey all, hope you can join us in Lon­don to bring the pipeline back to Shell — 15–17th March.

Glu­aiseacht are mobil­is­ing peo­ple from all over Ire­land to trav­el to Shell Head­quar­ters in Lon­don on St Patrick­’s Day to protest the give­away and mis­man­age­ment of our nation­al resources. We will be car­ry­ing a 200ft pipeline to Shel­l’s front door.

The Irish peo­ple will not ben­e­fit from the Cor­rib Gas Project. We will have to buy back any gas that Shell will sell to us at the ever increas­ing full mar­ket val­ue. As well as this, Shell will destroy a pris­tine envi­ron­ment and the health and safe­ty of the local com­mu­ni­ty.

If you can’t get to Lon­don, there’s a call out for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions to hap­pen at St Pad­dy’s Day parades, Shell offices & garages and Irish Embassies all over the world dur­ing this week­end.

What is Glu­aiseacht?
Glu­aiseacht is a non-hier­ar­chi­cal envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice move­ment bring­ing togeth­er grass­roots organ­i­sa­tions, con­cerned indi­vid­u­als and stu­dent groups from all over Ire­land to take action on social, envi­ron­men­tal and polit­i­cal issues.

For more infor­ma­tion, please email back. many thanks!

http://gluaiseacht.nologic.org/

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 75, JANUARY 2008

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08

CONTENTS:

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH & LONDON, 15.12.07
3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA — DECEMBER 2007
25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — NATIONAL, 1.4.08
Just three months to go — are you out prac­tis­ing your rou­tines? rehears­ing your songs? build­ing your props yet? I should get out more over Christ­mas…
How­ev­er, it will soon be time to hatch your mis­chie­vous scheme, so get your friends round and start plot­ting!
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/

2) LONDON RISING TIDE BENEFIT — LONDON, 11.1.08
In sup­port of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, AMP is organ­is­ing a night of live music at The Oth­ers, Manor Road, Stoke New­ing­ton. Entrance £5.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=38074566

3) NEWQUAY AIRPORT EXPANSION, PUBLIC DEBATE — CORNWALL, 12.1.08
Organ­ised by Ris­ing Tide with speak­ers from Groundswell and Plane Stu­pid.
7pm St. Maw­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Hall, Nr. Newquay, Corn­wall. For more info. email; kernow@risingtide.org.uk

4) RADICAL ACTION VS. CLIMATE CHAOS, NATIONAL MEET — NOTTINGHAM, 12.1.08
11am — 6pm at The Sumac Cen­tre, 245 Glad­stone Street, For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham.
This meet­ing came out of the last Cli­mate Camp gath­er­ing in Novem­ber. It is focussed on grow­ing our move­ment — how can we encour­age more groups to form and more actions/campaigns to hap­pen? What things do we want to do to help build a vibrant net­work of region­al action groups doing actions local­ly and nation­al­ly?
For instruc­tion on how to get there: http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html
Also, 11 peo­ple are going to tri­al in Not­ting­ham on Mon­day 14th for ‘shut­ting down’ the local coal pow­er sta­tion, If any­one wants to stay to sup­port them that would be great!

5) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/nextmeeting.php

6) BIOFUELWATCH WEEK OF ACTION — NATIONAL, 26.1.08 — 1.2.08
Bio­fu­el­watch are call­ing for a nation­al week of local action on agro­fu­els between 26th Jan­u­ary and 1st Feb­ru­ary 2008. We will short­ly update our web­site to pro­vide more back­ground infor­ma­tion about the UK agro­fu­el indus­try and poli­cies, as well as a draft leaflet and oth­er resources. If you would like to get involved or find out more, please email us at info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk.
http://biofuelwatch.org.uk/

7) MANCHESTER CLIMATE FORUM — 1.3.08
Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Forum “Cli­mate Change: it’s time to pre­pare”
9.15am at the Methodist Hall, Old­ham St, Cen­tral Man­ches­ter
http://www.manchesterclimateforum.org.uk/index.html

8) DAY OF ACTION VS. GLOBAL AGRIBUSINESS — INTERNATIONAL, 26.1.08
On Jan­u­ary 26 self-orga­nized groups from all around the world will take cre­ative action in their com­mu­ni­ty. This will man­i­fest in many ways, from non­vi­o­lent direct action, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, street the­atre, con­ver­gences, teach-ins and oth­er activ­i­ties and events. Grass­roots move­ments around the world are mak­ing their voic­es heard and say­ing “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”. In coor­di­na­tion with the World Social Forum.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

9) LOW-IMPACT SMALLHOLDING — BUCKS, 11–13.1.08
Next course by the Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courseoutlinelowimpactsmallholding.htm

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) NEWQUAY AIRPORT ROOFTOP OCCUPATION — 15.12.07
For the recent­ly formed Ker­now and Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide groups, this action marked an esca­la­tion in their fight against cli­mate change and for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. How­ev­er the planned rooftop protest at Newquay air­port was giv­en an unlike­ly boost when builders at the air­port left a lad­der propped up!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/248
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7146159.stm

2) SANTAS AGAINST EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION — NORWICH AND LONDON, 15.12.07
Sub­ver­sive Singing San­tas Spread Sea­son­al San­i­ty in Lon­don and Nor­wich On one of the busiest shop­ping days of the year. Ris­ing Tide activists in both Lon­don and Nor­wich dressed up as San­tas Against Exces­sive Con­sump­tion and hit the high streets to sing a dif­fer­ent tune to the usu­al buy, buy,
buy mad­ness of the hol­i­day sea­son.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/247

3) BRISTOL RISING TIDE TAKES ACTION VS. SHELL GREENWASH — DECEMBER 2007
A series of actions is being tak­en against the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and Bris­tol Muse­um, in protest at the spon­sor­ship of the event by Shell. A grumpy polar bear vis­it­ed the offices of BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine, then activists dis­rupt­ed Bris­tol Muse­um’s posh recep­tion to kick off the exhi­bi­tion with a Yes Men-style inter­ven­tion. And on the open­ing morn­ing, dozens of humans, polar bears, a snow leop­ard and a tiger gath­ered (com­plete with the Shell’s Wild Lie counter-exhi­bi­tion) in front of the muse­um. They hand­ed out leaflets and cre­at­ed quite a spec­ta­cle. Protests are expect­ed to con­tin­ue through Jan. 13th.
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

4) SHELL TO SEA SCALE GOVERNMENT OFFICE — IRELAND, 19.12.07
A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held on 16th Decem­ber at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.
On the 19th, a small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17942
http://www.corribsos.com/

5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MARCH AND ACTIONS — 8.12.07
Over 10,000 cli­mate cam­paign­ers took to the streets to take part in march­es in Lon­don and Glas­gow over the week­end, despite pour­ing rain. Pro­test­ers braved the weath­er in one the biggest demon­stra­tions call­ing for cli­mate jus­tice the UK has ever seen.
http://www.campaigncc.org/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387497.html
Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of the Cli­mate March in Lon­don.
http://www.planestupid.com/
Mean­while, in Man­ches­ter air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to Euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed.

6) DUTCH COAL ACTION — 8.12.07
A col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17893

7) FLIGHT CENTRES SHUT FOR BUSINESS — MANCHESTER, 7.12.07
All Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre were super-glued shut in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et” The UK’s only Hum­mer deal­er­ship, Bauer Mil­lett, was also D‑locked shut.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17887

8) CHEADLE-HIGH-STREET AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE — DECEMBER 2007
Activists from Chea­dle-High-Street Against Cli­mate Change held a “A plan­et is not just for Xmas” cam­paign for a sus­tain­able Xmas.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17917

9) SUBVERTISEMENTS IN LONDON AND MANCHESTER — DECEMBER 2007
Two adverts pro­mot­ing DVD’s by Top Gear’s Jere­my Clark­son now have large stick­ers stuck on declar­ing “This caus­es cli­mate change”. Also, Fly­Be appears to have spot­ted the errors of their ways and can­celled their short-haul sum­mer routes. Bra­vo Fly­Be!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17937

10) WOMEN’S BLOCKADE OF DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT — 7.12.07
Women cli­mate activists block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and coin­cides with the open­ing of their first “con­sul­ta­tion”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17883

11) THE TIDE IS RISING! — 7.12.07
A ban­ner with this warning/statement was dropped to wel­come all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17886

12) CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP WORK AT COAL MINE — SOUTH WALES, 5.12.07
More than thir­ty cli­mate activists, includ­ing mem­bers of the Ris­ing Tide net­work, joined with local res­i­dents from Merthyr Tyd­fil in stop­ping exca­va­tion work for a full day on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. Activists evad­ed police and secu­ri­ty before tak­ing over the 1,000 acre site on a hill­top near Cardiff. Dressed as clowns and polar bears, they chained them­selves to bull­doz­ers and oth­er heavy machin­ery to pre­vent work on the mine.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/242

13) INTERNATIONAL RT HOAX TARGETS BIG CARBON — 3.12.07
Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90
per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/240
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/03/oil.bp

14) HOMELESS POLAR BEARS IN COURT — BRISTOL, 14.11.07
Four home­less polar bears appeared before Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court on 14th Novem­ber. They were arrest­ed after blockad­ing the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land cor­po­rate offices on Avon St. dur­ing the Ris­ing Tide nation­al day of action. After plead­ing guilty to charges of “wil­ful­ly obstruct­ing the pub­lic high­way with a non motor vehi­cle” (i.e. a suit case) they were giv­en a con­di­tion­al dis­charge and went on to pick­et the RBS branch on Bald­win Street!
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/243

15) KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND — DECEMBER 2007
The only way to fight cli­mate change. A new report by Oil­Watch.
http://www.oilwatch.org/doc/documentos/Keep_oil_underground.pdf
http://www.oilwatch.org/

16) SIZEWELL NUCLEAR CLIMATE ACTION — 1.12.07
What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing “nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos” and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17868

17) MANIAC MOTORIST MARS MASS — GLASGOW, NOVEMBER 2007
Unbur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of her car and pulled a cyclist off his bike.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17889

18) VIVA’S ‘HOT!’ CAMPAIGN — DECEMBER 2007
“Livestock’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.” Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006
find out more at
http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/hot/index.php

19) WHAT BETTER TIME? — DECEMBER 2007
A free news sheet from the Scot­tish Cli­mate Activist Net­work.
http://whatbettertime.livejournal.com/

20) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 5 — DECEMBER 2007
Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­bler­ousi­ness.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17905

21) PACIFIC CURRENTS — DECEMBER 2007
For updates on the work of Pacif­ic Envi­ron­ment, a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that pro­tects the Pacif­ic Rim’s wild places and wildlife, see;
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2658

22) A HOUSE OF CARDS — DECEMBER 2007
From fan­ta­sy finance to glob­al crash.
Your guide to under­stand­ing the cri­sis that is sweep­ing through the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem and what it means for ordi­nary peo­ple.
Endorsed by Kevin Smith of Car­bon Trade Watch and film­mak­er Ken Loach.
http://www.aworldtowin.net/about/HouseOfCards.html

23) SOUTH WEST AIR ACTION — DECEMBER 2007
A new web­site.
http://www.swairaction.org.uk/

24) RISING TIDE LEAMINGTON SPA is born — DECEMBER 2007
The group had its first meet­ing on 3rd Jan­u­ary and is now swing­ing into action. If you live in the area and want to find out more or get involved con­tact becqke@riseup.net

25) RISING TIDE ON YOU TUBE
Ris­ing Tide action footage has been spring­ing up all over youtube — check out http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RisingTideNetwork for some RT films, some of the lat­est actions and links to oth­er’s videos of RT actions.

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

END

Ogoni Day remembered as Shell fail to honour promise to halt gas flaring

Today is Jan­u­ary 4th 2008.

On this day in 1993, 300,000 peo­ple in Nige­ria marked the Unit­ed Nations Year of Indige­nous Peo­ples by protest­ing against Shel­l’s activ­i­ties and the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion of Ogo­ni­land in the Niger Delta.

2008 was sup­posed to be the dead­line for the end­ing of gas flar­ing by Shell in Nige­ria, but the com­pa­ny now says that this dead­line will not be met.

Let­ting the com­pa­ny have a taste of its own med­i­cine

Shell Dublin HQ Ogoni Day flaringToday is Jan­u­ary 4th 2008.

On this day in 1993, 300,000 peo­ple in Nige­ria marked the Unit­ed Nations Year of Indige­nous Peo­ples by protest­ing against Shel­l’s activ­i­ties and the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion of Ogo­ni­land in the Niger Delta.

2008 was sup­posed to be the dead­line for the end­ing of gas flar­ing by Shell in Nige­ria, but the com­pa­ny now says that this dead­line will not be met.

Let­ting the com­pa­ny have a taste of its own med­i­cine

At just before 8.30 this morn­ing, as staff were arriv­ing for work at Roy­al Dutch Shel­l’s Irish head­quar­ters in Dublin, they were treat­ed to a taste of what life is like for those who have to live and work near Shell instal­la­tions in oth­er parts of the world.

Short ver­sion of video (45 sec­onds) here: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=u4uZDvA5WY4

Long ver­sion (2 minute) here: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=597hkm9MuTo

More infor­ma­tion on Shell in Nige­ria here: http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2007/May3_DU_Flaring.htm

Gas Flar­ing is sim­ply the releas­ing of excess gas and liq­uids asso­ci­at­ed with oil and gas pro­duc­tion pipelines and refiner­ies into the atmos­phere. The main pur­pose of gas flar­ing is to pro­tect pipelines and infra­struc­ture from over-pres­sur­ing

The released gas­es are burned off, releas­ing any by-prod­ucts into the air. These include nitro­gen diox­ide, sul­phur diox­ide, and volatile organ­ic com­pounds like xylene and hydro­gen sul­fide. Car­cino­gens such as ben­za­pyrene are also released. Peo­ple exposed to these sub­stances can suf­fer from a vari­ety of res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems, which have been report­ed amongst many chil­dren in the Niger Delta but have but have nev­er been sys­tem­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gat­ed. These chem­i­cals can also aggra­vate asth­ma, cause breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties and pain, as well as chron­ic bron­chi­tis.

Ben­zene, which is known to be emit­ted from gas flares in undoc­u­ment­ed quan­ti­ties, is acknowl­edged as being a causative agent for leukemia.

Gas flar­ing of course, also con­tributes to glob­al warm­ing and cli­mate change.

Togeth­er with oil spills, gas flar­ing is seen as a major cause of envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. In Nige­ria, the prac­tice is sup­posed to be ille­gal, but there is no sign of the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment being able to enforce this law. Here in Ire­land we know all about how Shell can manip­u­late the world of pol­i­tics and the legal process to suit the needs of the com­pa­ny’s share­hold­ers.

In Nige­ria in 1995 how­ev­er, it appears that Shel­l’s PR peo­ple slow­ly realised that their part in the hang­ing of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight oth­er activists was a pub­lic rela­tions dis­as­ter, and in the after­math the com­pa­ny made var­i­ous con­ces­sions to its crit­ics, in a vain attempt to undue some of the dam­age it felt had been done to its brand. One of the promis­es made was the announce­ment of an end to gas flar­ing.

Shell of course, is not well known for liv­ing up to its promis­es, and so flar­ing is still going on today. In the year 2000, Shell for­mal­ly announced that it would stop gas flar­ing by 2008. Inter­est­ing­ly, since 2000, gas flar­ing in the Niger Delta has actu­al­ly increased (accord­ing to the 2005 Shell Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Report).

In Novem­ber 2005, the Fed­er­al High Court of Nige­ria stat­ed that Shell and oth­er oil com­pa­nies
should end gas flar­ing in the Niger Delta. In a case brought against Shell, the court ruled that the dam­ag­ing and waste­ful prac­tice of flar­ing could not law­ful­ly con­tin­ue and must stop. Shell appealed against the deci­sion.

At the demon­stra­tion on Jan­u­ary 4th 1993, an Ogo­ni elder said:
“We have wok­en up to find our lands dev­as­tat­ed by agents of death called oil com­pa­nies. Our atmos­phere has been total­ly pol­lut­ed, our lands degrad­ed, our waters con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, our trees poi­soned, so much so that our flo­ra and fau­na have vir­tu­al­ly dis­ap­peared”.

Jan­u­ary 4th became known as Ogo­ni Day.

For more infor­ma­tion see:

www.remembersarowiwa.com

Celebrating the end of the carbon economy

This after­noon, at 5pm. mem­bers of Groen­front will join togeth­er in the cen­tre of cap­i­tal­ism in the Nether­lands: the Beur­splein in Ams­ter­dam. Here they will bring out a toast to the record-high price of oil of $100 per bar­rel. Since 2003 the price of oil has sky-rock­et­ed, with the rate some­times climb­ing sev­er­al dol­lars a day. Groen­Front-activist Rogi­er: “What the earth needs is eco­nom­ic ‘shrink­age’. The cli­mate cri­sis and the peak­ing oil pro­duc­tion show us that we need to adjust to the lim­its of our ecosys­tem”.

This after­noon, at 5pm. mem­bers of Groen­front will join togeth­er in the cen­tre of cap­i­tal­ism in the Nether­lands: the Beur­splein in Ams­ter­dam. Here they will bring out a toast to the record-high price of oil of $100 per bar­rel. Since 2003 the price of oil has sky-rock­et­ed, with the rate some­times climb­ing sev­er­al dol­lars a day. Groen­Front-activist Rogi­er: “What the earth needs is eco­nom­ic ‘shrink­age’. The cli­mate cri­sis and the peak­ing oil pro­duc­tion show us that we need to adjust to the lim­its of our ecosys­tem”.

Peakoil is the geo­log­i­cal­ly deter­mined peak­ing and — after that — shrink­ing of oil pro­duc­tion. The remain­der of oil becomes hard­er and hard­er to retrieve, demand­ing a still greater tech­no­log­i­cal and finan­cial effort.
It looks as if the world­wide pro­duc­tion of oil has reached that peak. Every fol­low­ing year, the pro­duc­tion will decrease. The decreased sup­ply in com­bi­na­tion with an ever increas­ing demand will push up the price of oil. Exec­u­tives of, among oth­ers, Total, Cono­co, Philps, Sau­di Aram­co and the Libyan Nation­al Oil Cor­po­ra­tion have already stat­ed that they are not able to meet the cur­rent demand for oil. The last few years have seen low­er yields from oil fields in the US, Mex­i­co and the North Sea. The Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency expressed its con­cerns over the ever grow­ing gap between sup­ply and demand in the glob­al oil mar­ket.

Whether the record-high price of $100 is ben­e­fi­cial to the envi­ron­ment depends on the way the oil-addict­ed soci­eties react. If the short­age in oil will be com­pen­sat­ed for with pol­lu­tive replace­ments, like agro­fu­els, uncon­ven­tion­al oil and syn­thet­ic diesel from coal and nat­ur­al gas, the world still has not learned its les­son. This record-high price should be used as a wake-up call: fos­sil fuels are lim­it­ed and already we are faced with the con­se­quences.

Fam­i­lies in the Unit­ed States are seri­ous­ly con­cerned with the oncom­ing win­ter because of the great­ly increased cost of petrol. Trans­port and fish­ing sec­tor in Europe are antic­i­pat­ing protests against the risen price of diesel fuel. In Third World coun­tries — where fuels are usu­al­ly sub­sidised — gov­ern­ments are faced with a choice: an emp­ty trea­sury or upris­ing. In Africa and Asia a grow­ing amount of fish­er­men are forced to stay ashore because of the high costs of fuel. Farm­ers are not able to bring their prod­ucts to the mar­ket place. Peakoil starts to rear its ugly head every­where.

“The cli­mate cri­sis and the deple­tion of fos­sile fuels show us that a rad­i­cal change in our eco­nom­ic sys­tem is an absolute neces­si­ty,” says Groen­Front activist Rogi­er. “Fail­ing to do so means wait­ing for an eco­nom­ic reces­sion which will hit the peo­ple who are already hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ties to cope. A redis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth is nec­es­sary, but most of all a choice has to be made for a lit­tle less wealth. We can do that now, vol­un­tar­i­ly and peace­ful­ly, or wait until both econ­o­my and ecol­o­gy force us to do so.” In con­clu­sion, Rogi­er states: “Eco­nom­ic shrink­age is the only real solu­tion to the approach­ing eco­nom­ic and eco­log­ic cri­sis.”

Shell to Sea protesters scale government building to reach Minister’s Office

Wednes­day Decem­ber 19, 2007

A small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources today, to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.

Natural Resources Department roof-top occupationWednes­day Decem­ber 19, 2007

A small group of Shell to Sea activists scaled the heights of the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources today, to place a ban­ner read­ing PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES on the bal­cony out­side Eamon Ryan’s office.

Split­ting into two small teams, the pro­test­ers used advice from Green­Peace to dis­tract the secu­ri­ty and gain access to the Min­is­ter’s top floor office and leave a mes­sage for him.

This action was car­ried out to bring to pub­lic atten­tion the gov­ern­men­t’s sup­port for every aspect of the Ross­port pipeline/refinery scheme, and the give­away of Irish Nat­ur­al resources to multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies like Shell, with no last­ing ben­e­fit for peo­ple in Ire­land. The Green par­ty have now had a full term of the Dáil to hon­our their elec­tion promis­es, but sad­ly, their end of term report is is marked FAIL.

None of the gas or oil in the wells off the west­ern coast of Ire­land will belong to the state, since the gov­ern­ment still plans to give it all away for free to pri­vate com­pa­nies. The recent changes to licens­ing agree­ments won’t apply to the eight bil­lion euro Cor­rib project, and don’t amount to a seri­ous stake for the peo­ple of Ire­land in their own nat­ur­al resources, 100 per cent of which is still being giv­en away to com­pa­nies like Shell and Sta­toil.

None of the mon­ey from these fos­sil fuels will be invest­ed in renew­able sources of ener­gy like wind and wave pow­er, and no thought has been giv­en to the impact that the exploita­tion of these resources will have on cli­mate change.

Áine, one of the Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors, said “The gov­ern­men­t’s supine sup­port for the oil com­pa­nies shows that they pri­ori­tise the wel­fare of Shell share­hold­ers over the well­be­ing of their own cit­i­zens. Shell are being allowed to keep all the gas and sell it to the high­est bid­der, almost cer­tain­ly in Britain. The refin­ing of 4 mil­lion euro worth of raw gas per day will clear­ly degrade the envi­ron­ment, both local­ly for the peo­ple of Mayo, and also in terms of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions when the gas is used. From an Irish point of view, we would be bet­ter off leav­ing the gas where it is, under the sea.”

Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors have also point­ed out that the gov­ern­men­t’s dou­ble talk on cli­mate change can be clear­ly seen when they are sup­port­ing the con­struc­tion of a raw gas refin­ery, and say they are hop­ing for fur­ther exploita­tion of fos­sil fuels in the Atlantic mar­gin.

ÁÍne con­tin­ued: “Until sup­ply-side solu­tions are put in place, the con­tin­u­ing exploita­tion of fos­sil fuels will be adding to car­bon diox­ide emis­sions which is caus­ing cli­mate change. Any pos­si­ble ben­e­fit from this is lost because the gas and oil are sim­ply hand­ed over to the big cor­po­ra­tions. The peo­ple of Ire­land will see no advan­tage, either envi­ron­men­tal or finan­cial, from their own gas and oil resources.”

“Mean­while the cor­po­ra­tions which will see huge prof­its from Irish resources, seek to use the cheap­est and most dan­ger­ous way of exploit­ing them. Our gov­ern­ment is hap­py to see lives of peo­ple in Ire­land put at risk by the use of an onshore pipeline and refin­ery in Mayo, sim­ply to max­imise returns for Shell share­hold­ers. ”

Relat­ed Link: http://www.shelltosea.com

Community Day at Bellanaboy

Sun­day Decem­ber 16, 2007

A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held today at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.

Bellanboy carols 2007 1
Bellanboy carols 2007 2Sun­day Decem­ber 16, 2007

A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held today at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.

A good humoured gath­er­ing of more than 150 local peo­ple braved the bit­ter­ly cold east wind to take part in the occa­sion, which was presided over by local priests Fr. Michael Nallen PP and Fr. Sean Noone.

A ban­ner declar­ing “Gan Cead an Phobail” (No Com­mu­ni­ty Con­sent) was draped over the main gates while peo­ple sang Christ­mas Car­ols to wel­come in the fes­tive sea­son.

Also present was Lelia Doolin, a high pro­file cam­paign­er and mem­ber of the Bur­ren Action Group, who trav­elled from Gal­way espe­cial­ly for the day. Ms Doolin spoke of the sim­i­lar­i­ties between the Clare and Mayo cam­paigns, and how the deter­mi­na­tion of ordi­nary peo­ple can bring about real change.

Relat­ed Link: http://www.shelltosea.com/

Shell Oil and the Institutions Greenwashing Them Feel the ‘Heat’ on Climate Change, in Bristol

Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 15th 2007

Effec­tive Direct Action and Pub­lic Protests Mark Exhibition’s Release in Bris­tol

It hasn’t been an easy week for the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and the Bris­tol Muse­um, or their spon­sor and proud wildlife destroy­er— sug­ar­dad­dy Shell Oil Com­pa­ny. All week, con­cerned indi­vid­u­als from around Bris­tol have been expos­ing the truth about Shell and the pub­lic insti­tu­tions who are help­ing to green­wash them.

Bristol Shell exhibition opening protest 1
Bristol Shell exhibition opening protest 2
Bristol Shell exhibition opening protest 3
Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 15th 2007

Effec­tive Direct Action and Pub­lic Protests Mark Exhibition’s Release in Bris­tol

It hasn’t been an easy week for the organ­is­ers of the Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award and the Bris­tol Muse­um, or their spon­sor and proud wildlife destroy­er— sug­ar­dad­dy Shell Oil Com­pa­ny. All week, con­cerned indi­vid­u­als from around Bris­tol have been expos­ing the truth about Shell and the pub­lic insti­tu­tions who are help­ing to green­wash them.

On Tues­day, activists staged a protest in the nation­al offices of the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine in Broad­mead, bring­ing work to a halt and reviv­ing con­tro­ver­sy with­in the orga­ni­za­tion about their rela­tion­ship with the oil indus­try. See fur­ther details of this action in pre­vi­ous arti­cle

On Fri­day evening, Bris­tol Muse­um host­ed a pri­vate, posh wine and cheese recep­tion to kick off their host­ing of Shell’s exhib­it, with atten­dees includ­ing Dawn Pri­maro­la, Labour MP from South Bris­tol and Helen Hol­land, leader of the Bris­tol City Coun­cil, who were all pat­ting them­selves on the back for car­ing about wildlife. Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide activists, dressed up to the nines, were admit­ted to the event under fake names, with one activist gain­ing access to the mic, and pos­ing as the Shell pub­lic rela­tions direc­tor. He then launched into a two minute speech (in the style of the yes men) thank­ing the city coun­cil and muse­um for help­ing to allow Shell’s destruc­tion of wildlife to con­tin­ue and call­ing the melt­ing of the Arc­tic ice cap a “tremen­dous busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty” by allow­ing access to mil­lions of bar­rels of oil under the ice cap. Amaz­ing­ly the mic was kept on through the entire­ty of the speech. (Full text of speech and video below)

Sat­ur­day saw a high­ly suc­cess­ful and well-attend­ed protest, mark­ing the open­ing of the SHELL spon­sored Wildlife pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the year exhi­bi­tion. Dozens of humans, about a dozen polar bears, a snow leop­ard, and a tiger gath­ered, com­plete with the Wild Lie counter-exhib­it. Pro­test­ers gath­ered in front of the muse­um, hand­ed out leaflets, cre­at­ing quite a spec­ta­cle. Some even­tu­al­ly made their way into the exhi­bi­tion hall, where Shell’s crimes were recount­ed, and a die-in took place to sym­bol­ize all the wildlife who have been killed because of oil greed, and who con­tin­ue to suf­fer the effects of cli­mate change. The protest, orga­nized by Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, Friends of the Earth, and Peo­ple and Plan­et, showed that Bris­to­lians will not be qui­et in the face of cor­po­rate green­wash in our pub­lic insti­tu­tions.

Protests are expect­ed to con­tin­ue at the muse­um through Jan. 13, in an effort to edu­cate the pub­lic about the true nature of Shell’s activ­i­ties, and to main­tain pres­sure on the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine and Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um to drop Shell as a spon­sor. Peo­ple are encour­aged to go and see the pho­tographs and let the muse­um know about their dis­plea­sure about allow­ing a Shell spon­sored exhib­it space in a city-owned muse­um.

The protest today also coin­cid­ed with a shock­ing report in this week­end’s Finan­cial Times. It high­lights Shel­l’s role in the immi­nent dev­as­ta­tion of the athabas­ca tar sands.
See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/53058af8-aaaf-11dc-a779-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Bri­an Straub, Shell Canada’s vice-pres­i­dent for oil sands makes the com­pa­nies posi­tion very clear: “We’re clear­ly putting all we have across the Shell world toward devel­op­ing this resource. If we weren’t here it would just be woods”

Take action:

If you want to protest about Bris­tol Muse­um and the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine green­wash­ing Shell then please write briefly to each of these organ­i­sa­tions. There will be many with­in each organ­i­sa­tion sym­pa­thet­ic to our stance — let­ters will sup­port their posi­tion.

Bris­tol Coun­cil: customer.services@bristol.gov.uk

Bris­tol Muse­um: general.museum@bristol.gov.uk

BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine: wildlifemagazine@bbcmagazinesbristol.com

Edi­tor Evening Post: http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=144933&command=newPage

Read more about Shell’s hor­rif­ic envi­ron­men­tal record and the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing oil com­pa­ny spon­sor­ship of cul­tur­al events:

“Shell Wildlife Destroy­er of the Year”, Friends of the Earth,
Octo­ber 2006
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/shell_wildlife_destroyer.pdf

Arc­tic Ice Free by 2013: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm

Trag­ic His­to­ry Muse­um: http://www.shelloiledwildlife.org.uk/

Art Not Oil: http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/gallery/v/shell

Full text of speech read by Der­rick Leavus­sum, “pub­lic rela­tions direc­tor for Shell”

Good evening my name is Derek Leavus­sum, pub­lic rela­tions direc­tor for Shell. I want to wel­come you all to the 2007 Shell Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award. As you can imag­ine- I don’t have an easy job, what with all this fuss about melt­ing glac­i­ers, extreme weath­er and wildlife extinc­tions. I’d like to thank the Bris­tol City Coun­cil, BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine and the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um for mak­ing my job all that much eas­i­er by allow­ing us to spon­sor your wild lie- I mean wildlife- exhi­bi­tion.

We pre­fer not to see the melt­ing of the Arc­tic ice cap as a threat to human civ­i­liza­tion. We see it as a busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty. After all, there are mil­lions of bar­rels of oil under there just wait­ing to be extract­ed. And we’ll need all the ener­gy we can get since we’ve just aban­doned our solar pro­gram. When you see the Shell logo, we don’t want you to think about the whale habi­tat we’re destroy­ing in Siberia and Ire­land, human rights vio­la­tions in Nige­ria, and espe­cial­ly not cli­mate change. This may all be true but the fact is that the world needs oil and this is sim­ply the price of progress.

Some say it’s iron­ic that the world’s sec­ond largest oil com­pa­ny is spon­sor­ing a wildlife pho­tog­ra­phy exhi­bi­tion- but Shell is tru­ly com­mit­ted to preser­va­tion of the polar bear and oth­er wildlife- in pho­tographs if not in the real world. Some say it’s the end of the oil age- but we say it’s just the begin­ning- we’re thrilled about dig­ging into Canada’s oil sands and with your help we can con­tin­ue to deceive the pub­lic into think­ing we’re a respon­si­ble cor­po­rate cit­i­zen. Thank you all for com­ing tonight and we hope you enjoy view­ing these amaz­ing pho­tographs of wildlife that Shell is destroy­ing- I mean con­serv­ing.

Also a spe­cial thanks to Dawn Pri­maro­la and the Labour par­ty for sup­port­ing a third run­way at Heathrow and ensur­ing that there remains a healthy demand for our prod­ucts.

The rev­o­lu­tion will not be motorised!

Video of Der­rick Leavus­some, Shell “pub­lic rela­tions direc­tor” speaks to the posh recep­tion at Bris­tol Muse­um.

http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol