Category: Action Reports

Climate Protestors in Court Following Defacing of Canadian Flag

Three cli­mate activists are this morn­ing due in West­min­ster Magistrate’s Court charged with crim­i­nal dam­age against the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don fol­low­ing an action to stop the Tar Sands..

Tar Sands
Three cli­mate activists are this morn­ing due in West­min­ster Magistrate’s Court charged with crim­i­nal dam­age against the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don fol­low­ing an action to stop the Tar Sands..

On Decem­ber 15th, while the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Sum­mit was tak­ing place in Copen­hagen, the pro­test­ers scaled the entrance to the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Grosvenor Square. They cut loose the Cana­di­an flag, before defac­ing it with crude oil while unfurl­ing a ban­ner read­ing “Shut Down the Tar Sands”.

The action was a response to Cana­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harper’s obstruc­tion of the sum­mit in Copen­hagen in order to pro­tect Canada’s Tar Sands Indus­try [1]. Tar Sands are the dirt­i­est fuel known to man, both in terms of its impact on the cli­mate and the dev­as­ta­tion inflict­ed on the
local com­mu­ni­ties [2].

There is an enor­mous open cast mine in the Alber­ta Tar Sands region of Cana­da, where an area the total size of Eng­land will be exploit­ed. This is the largest indus­tri­al devel­op­ment in the world and is dev­as­tat­ing for the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties that live there, not only destroy­ing the land
itself but increas­ing lev­els of can­cer, poi­son­ing much of their tra­di­tion­al food sources and leav­ing the water unsafe to drink [3]. This vio­lates the indige­nous treaty rights legal­ly bound to this region.

Jake Col­man, 20, Bradley Day, 22, and Daniel White­ly, 19, are all par­tic­i­pants in the Camp for Cli­mate Action [4], an action group that occu­pied Trafal­gar Square for the two-week dura­tion of the Cli­mate Sum­mit.

Bradley Day, a wait­er from Oxford, speak­ing after the action:

“This is just the begin­ning of a UK-based direct action cam­paign to stop Cana­di­an Tar Sands. These mur­der­ous ven­tures are being fund­ed from with­in the UK, with the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, now 84%-owned by the pub­lic invest­ing bil­lions, and British Petro­le­um cur­rent­ly prepar­ing to move in
to Tar Sands. [5] We won’t stand by and let these greed dri­ven cor­po­ra­tions cause cat­a­stroph­ic envi­ron­men­tal and human destruc­tion.”

Clay­ton Thomas-Muller, an Indige­nous activist with the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work (IEN), spoke dur­ing the Copen­hagen sum­mit:
“The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to ignore its own laws, which state they must con­sult with Indige­nous Peo­ples who have been try­ing to con­vey con­cerns about Tar Sands devel­op­ment. Tar Sands are killing our com­mu­ni­ties and tram­pling over our rights. Fur­ther­more, the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion wreaked by the Tar Sands is direct­ly threat­en­ing thou­sands of lives now and is dri­ving our cli­mate into chaos. The world has wok­en up to the fact that Cana­da is now Pub­lic Cli­mate Ene­my Num­ber One. It’s time Cana­da did its glob­al duty and shut down the Tar Sands,”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] At the failed Copen­hagen Cli­mate Sum­mit, Cana­da pro­posed an inad­e­quate tar­get for reduc­ing green­house emis­sions by only 3% by 2020 ignor­ing world sci­en­tists’ rec­om­men­da­tions to com­mit to over 40% reduc­tions below 1990 lev­els in order to avoid dan­ger­ous run­away cli­mate change. Cana­da already failed to meet its com­mit­ments to the Kyoto Treaty and refus­es to sign the UN’s Dec­la­ra­tion of Rights for Indige­nous Peo­ples whilst con­tin­u­ing devel­op­ment of Tar Sands oil extrac­tion.

[2] Tar Sands fuel is a way of extract­ing oil who’s ener­gy inten­sive process has not only com­plete­ly destroyed areas of the Bore­al forests the size of Eng­land, burns enough nat­ur­al gas to pow­er 6 hun­dred thou­sand homes a year, pro­duces lakes of tox­ic waste 66km wide ‑which fil­ters into
all local life and drink­ing water- but would itself be enough to push our cli­mate into chaos.

http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/

[3] http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/

[4] http://climatecamp.org.uk

[5] This is the start of a fast grow­ing UK cam­paign against Tar Sands. Although we do not receive oil direct­ly from Cana­di­an Tar Sands, Cor­po­ra­tions such as RBS which is now 84% owned by the British Tax Pay­er invests bil­lions and British Petro­le­um have plans to move in to the ‘Sun Rise’ site in the com­ing months. Action on these issues and these cor­po­ra­tions are soon to become a focus of UK activism as we begin to stand up to Inter­na­tion­al injus­tices such as Tar Sands in Cana­da.

Stop the Tar Sands

Environmental Activists killed by Mining Companies in Latin America

On 26th Decem­ber, Dora Ali­cia Reci­nos Sor­to became the third vic­tim of a wave of vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers in the Cabañas Region of El Sal­vador, where com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are protest­ing against the re-open­ing of a Gold Mine by Cana­di­an Com­pa­ny Pacif­ic Rim.

On 26th Decem­ber, Dora Ali­cia Reci­nos Sor­to became the third vic­tim of a wave of vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers in the Cabañas Region of El Sal­vador, where com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are protest­ing against the re-open­ing of a Gold Mine by Cana­di­an Com­pa­ny Pacif­ic Rim.

Dora Ali­cia was a mem­ber of the Cabañas Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mit­tee, and had been active in oppos­ing the mine. She was eight months preg­nant when she was shot dead, and her two year old son was also wound­ed in the attack.

Her mur­der comes six days after the fatal shoot­ing of Ramiro Rivera Gomez, Vice Pres­i­dent of the Cabañas Envi­ron­men­tal Com­mit­tee, who had sur­vived being shot eight times in August this year. In June, anoth­er envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­er, Gus­ta­vo Marce­lo Rivera Moreno, had been tor­tured and killed. Many oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty have received death threats, includ­ing youth work­ers and jour­nal­ists for the local com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion Radio Vic­to­ria, and the local priest Father Luis Quin­tanil­la nar­row­ly escaped an attempt­ed kid­nap­ping.

In Mex­i­co, Mar­i­ano Abar­ca Rob­lero cam­paigned against the envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive open-pit Bar­i­um mine Black­fire, a World Bank project. He was shot to death on the evening of Novem­ber 27, 2009, in front of his house in Chico­muse­lo, Chi­a­pas. More details.

Whalers and Whale Defenders Clash for the First Time This Season

The first clash between whalers and whale defend­ers took place on Decem­ber 14th when the Steve Irwin and the Shonan Maru #2 exchanged shots with their water can­nons.

Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin & Nisshin Maru playThe first clash between whalers and whale defend­ers took place on Decem­ber 14th when the Steve Irwin and the Shonan Maru #2 exchanged shots with their water can­nons.

The Shonan Maru #2 has been fol­low­ing the Steve Irwin from Fre­man­tle since Decem­ber 9th. At 1400 Hours (Mel­bourne time) the Steve Irwin went around an ice­berg, did a fig­ure eight out of view of the Shonan Maru #2 and re-emerged with­in a quar­ter of a mile of the Japan­ese whaler’s port­side quar­ter catch­ing the whalers com­plete­ly by sur­prise.

A pur­suit began and the Shonan Maru #2 turned on two water can­nons. The crew of the Steve Irwin imme­di­ate­ly respond­ed by plac­ing their water can­non in readi­ness. The Shonan Maru #2 and the Steve Irwin were engaged in a high speed pur­suit for two hours before Cap­tain Wat­son decid­ed to break off the pur­suit to resume course to the coast of Antarc­ti­ca.

The Japan­ese whalers are spend­ing a great deal of mon­ey, first locat­ing the Steve Irwin by air and then direct­ing the Shonan Maru #2 to the coor­di­nates of the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel. By stay­ing on the tail of the Steve Irwin, the har­poon ves­sel is able to keep the rest of the fleet aware of the Sea Shep­herd posi­tion. Cap­tain Paul Wat­son needs to lose the tail of the Shonan Maru #2 in order to locate the whal­ing fleet. He is count­ing on heav­ier ice con­di­tions to assist in this effort.

“We will use the ice­bergs and the ice floes to our advan­tage.” Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I’ve observed today that I am a more expe­ri­enced ice nav­i­ga­tor than the Japan­ese cap­tain chas­ing us. We need to get him to fol­low us into the ice fields and let the ice work for us.”

The Steve Irwin crew were left wet, but in good spir­its after the con­fronta­tion.

—-

Sea Shep­herd Evades Pur­suit by Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet Secu­ri­ty Ves­sel

The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin has suc­cess­ful­ly left the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Zone (EEZ) with­out any sign of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet secu­ri­ty ship Shonan Maru No. 2.

The Steve Irwin depart­ed from Hobart at 1800 Hours on Decem­ber 31st and took advan­tage of gale force winds and heavy swells to slip past the wait­ing Japan­ese ves­sel.

“It’s a big ocean down here they have no idea where we are,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I’m now con­fi­dent that we can pro­ceed with our search for the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet with­out fur­ther inter­fer­ence from the Shonan Maru No. 2.”

The Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Ady Gil is patrolling the South­ern Ocean in advance of the Steve Irwin in search of the fleet.

The Shonan Maru No. 2 was wait­ing for the Steve Irwin when it left Fre­man­tle on Decem­ber 7th. The Japan­ese had char­tered an air­craft out of Albany to locate the con­ser­va­tion ves­sel. They then relayed the Steve Irwin’s posi­tion to the Shonan Maru No. 2 to enable the Japan­ese secu­ri­ty ves­sel to inter­cept the Steve Irwin.

The Steve Irwin was unable to lose the pur­suit of the Shonan Maru No. 2 for more than two weeks. Only by return­ing to Tas­ma­nia was the tail lost because Japan­ese whal­ing ships are pro­hib­it­ed from enter­ing Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.

“Thanks to the stormy weath­er, there was no pos­si­bil­i­ty of a char­tered flight locat­ing the Steve Irwin and we were able to pass back into inter­na­tion­al waters with­out any sign of the Shonan Maru No. 2,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “They will be hard pressed to locate us now and with­out them on our tail, I am con­fi­dent that we will be able to track down the whale poach­ers in the Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­ry.”
“It was awe­some see­ing them run like cow­ards when we turned on them,” said Third Mate Vin­cent Hayes from Williamstown in Vic­to­ria.

Sabotage at Broken Cross Open Cast Coal Mine (Mainshill Solidarity Action)

In the ear­ly hours of the 25th Decem­ber, a group of autonomous activists deliv­ered their Christ­mas present to Scot­tish Coal. Four machines were sab­o­taged at the Bro­ken Cross open cast site, the largest of its type in Europe, just 5 miles from Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

In the ear­ly hours of the 25th Decem­ber, a group of autonomous activists deliv­ered their Christ­mas present to Scot­tish Coal. Four machines were sab­o­taged at the Bro­ken Cross open cast site, the largest of its type in Europe, just 5 miles from Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.
This is a mes­sage to Scot­tish Coal that regard­less of the time of year, we will resist. Not just at Main­shill, but at all of their sites across South Lanark­shire, which is one of the most heav­i­ly mined areas in Europe.
As the “fes­tive” sea­son comes to an end, the destruc­tive work will com­mence again at Main­shill. Evic­tion is loom­ing as their work pro­gress­es. Num­bers are need­ed as ever on site to help out and fill defences.

UK Coal ’ greenwash’ Durham planner’s! OPENCAST looks likely (near where Winter Moot will be in February)

Mon­ey grab­bing UK coal have over­come one of the largest bar­ri­ers in their plans to open­cast the PONT VALLEY,

OPPONENTS of a large open­cast mine in a pic­turesque val­ley fear the worst now that plan­ning per­mis­sion has been grant­ed to move a colony of Great Crest­ed Newts – a pro­tect­ed species.

Mon­ey grab­bing UK coal have over­come one of the largest bar­ri­ers in their plans to open­cast the PONT VALLEY,

OPPONENTS of a large open­cast mine in a pic­turesque val­ley fear the worst now that plan­ning per­mis­sion has been grant­ed to move a colony of Great Crest­ed Newts – a pro­tect­ed species.

Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil plan­ners agreed to an appli­ca­tion by UK Coal to cre­ate four habi­tat ponds for wildlife near Leadgate, Con­sett, Coun­ty Durham.

The com­pa­ny, which plans to extract 556,000 tonnes from the Bradley site, an area of 73,000 square meters in the Der­went Val­ley between the vil­lages of Leadgate and Dip­ton, was hin­dered by the pres­ence of the tiny ani­mals on a pond in the mid­dle of the area where it wants to mine. Now that coun­cil­lors have approved the plans to cre­ate new ponds UK Coal will pro­ceed with its appli­ca­tion to mine.

A spokesman for the com­pa­ny said: “The pro­pos­als are to cre­ate a site of nature con­ser­va­tion involv­ing addi­tion­al plant­i­ng and land­scap­ing and new ponds on part of the site to form an extend­ed wildlife habi­tat from the adja­cent Billing­side Wood Site of Nature Con­ser­va­tion Impor­tance.

“The appli­ca­tion for habi­tat ponds in con­struc­tion terms is rel­a­tive­ly minor in nature and has the poten­tial for sig­nif­i­cant con­ser­va­tion and habi­tat enhance­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for the local area.”

Eight let­ters of objec­tion includ­ing respons­es from the Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship and the Pont Val­ley Net­work were received.

Objec­tors argued that the appli­ca­tion is part of the inten­tion to open­cast the site, known as the Bradley site and should not be treat­ed sep­a­rate­ly.

But senior plan­ning offi­cer Mike Hemp­sall said the two appli­ca­tions had to be treat­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly.

He said: “The pro­pos­al pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for addi­tion­al habi­tats that would be of eco­log­i­cal and land­scape ben­e­fit to the area and can be car­ried out in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly accept­able man­ner.

“The stat­ed grounds of objec­tion con­cern­ing deter­mi­na­tion of the appli­ca­tion sep­a­rate to the sur­face coal mine appli­ca­tion, archae­o­log­i­cal, land­scape char­ac­ter, effects on pub­lic rights of way and wildlife impact are not con­sid­ered suf­fi­cient to lead to rea­sons to refuse the appli­ca­tion.”

UK Coal says the open­cast pro­pos­al would cre­ate 38 jobs, pro­duce 556,000 tonnes of coal need­ed for the British steel or elec­tric­i­ty indus­try, and pro­vide a new con­ser­va­tion area after min­ing is com­plet­ed with­in three years. It intends to for­mal­ly sub­mit a plan­ning appli­ca­tion in the new year.

But Durham Coun­ty coun­cil­lor Watts Stelling said: “This area has been rav­aged by indus­try in the past and should now be allowed to recov­er.

“Every­body knows the two appli­ca­tions are linked. UK Coal is not build­ing new ponds due to any fond­ness for Great Crest­ed Newts. It wants to dig a great big hole in attrac­tive coun­try­side.”

It should be not­ed that Durham wildlife trust did­n’t even respond when asked for an opin­ion by Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil maybe this is because lots of fund­ing for wildlife trusts comes from the aggre­gate indus­try or maybe their just lazy!

GOOD NEWS!!!
FAMILIES in a rur­al ham­let are call­ing on a devel­op­ment com­pa­ny to aban­don its bid for an open­cast mine in the Northum­ber­land coun­try­side after plan­ners firm­ly reject­ed the con­tro­ver­sial scheme.

Cam­paign­ers in tiny Hal­ton Lea Gate near Halt­whis­tle say they are “over­joyed” after coun­ty coun­cil­lors vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to refuse per­mis­sion to dig 140,000 tonnes of coal from a 75-acre site, with­in the North Pen­nines Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.

They urged appli­cant HM Project Devel­op­ments to “get the mes­sage”, admit defeat and not launch an appeal against the deci­sion.

HM Project Devel­op­ments’ agent, New­cas­tle-based firm Black­ett, Hart and Pratt, did not com­ment.

Tree felled despite protesters underneath & protection agreement

23 Decem­ber 2009
A MAJESTIC 350-year-old oak tree in Steep was chopped down just hours after a deal was struck to save it.

Shocked vil­lagers looked on in hor­ror as con­trac­tors reneged on an agree­ment to save the land­mark oak, which has stood in Ash­ford Chace since the time of Oliv­er Cromwell, by clam­ber­ing up into the high­est branch­es and hack­ing it down last Tues­day after­noon.

23 Decem­ber 2009
A MAJESTIC 350-year-old oak tree in Steep was chopped down just hours after a deal was struck to save it.

Shocked vil­lagers looked on in hor­ror as con­trac­tors reneged on an agree­ment to save the land­mark oak, which has stood in Ash­ford Chace since the time of Oliv­er Cromwell, by clam­ber­ing up into the high­est branch­es and hack­ing it down last Tues­day after­noon.

Pro­tes­tors stand­ing under­neath the canopy were forced to take cov­er when it became clear tree sur­geons had no regard for their safe­ty, as parts of the tree came crash­ing to the ground.

Police were called amid con­fronta­tion­al scenes between vil­lagers and con­trac­tors, before the res­i­dents were forced to watch help­less­ly as the oak was sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly dis­man­tled.

Ash­ford Hang­ers Preser­va­tion Soci­ety tree war­den Drake Hock­ing said: “They start­ed off care­ful­ly and slow­ly and then some­time in the mid­dle of the day they changed tack and start­ed butcher­ing it.
“They did not stop.
“It was trag­ic and the vil­lage is now in shock.”

The oak tree is sit­u­at­ed on the Hang­ers Way and forms part of the right of way for a new four-bed­room house, built by Rolls Royce’s head of human resources Avery Duff and wife Elfri­da of Emp­shott Green.

They intend to turn the site where the oak tree stood into a straight tar­mac dri­ve for their prop­er­ty.

The tree was con­sid­ered rot­ten by East Hamp­shire Dis­trict Coun­cil’s arbo­cul­tur­al team, so was not pro­tect­ed by a tree preser­va­tion order.

Mr Hock­ing explained an agree­ment had been thrashed out on Mon­day evening with the Duf­f’s con­trac­tors Pega­sus Builders, which stat­ed it would only remove about a third of the tree.

How­ev­er, the promise was bro­ken with­in 24 hours.

“It appears the Duf­f’s archi­tect went over the head of the con­trac­tor and insist­ed the tree should be cut,” he said.

Kate Burke, of Ash­ford Chace, said: “It is shock­ing, absolute­ly shock­ing.
“I am so upset about it and the way the sit­u­a­tion has been han­dled.
“I can­not under­stand how some peo­ple can have such dis­re­gard for the coun­try­side.
“If it had been a dif­fer­ent own­er or a dif­fer­ent arbi­cul­tur­al offi­cer at the coun­cil then I think the out­come would have been very dif­fer­ent.”

She added when she went to inspect the tree after it was felled, the rot inside was only the size of her cupped hands.

“As a pro­por­tion of the whole cir­cum­fer­ence of the tree, it was noth­ing,” Mrs Burke said.
“It is so, so sad.”

Anoth­er angered res­i­dent, Jes­si­ca Pocock, said: “I think I can speak for all those present when I say that we have all been tru­ly shak­en and appalled by the crass and dis­dain­ful atti­tude dis­played to to the peo­ple of Steep, many of whom tried to nego­ti­ate with the Duffs for over two years, and to the mag­nif­i­cent oak tree, which has been felled for no good rea­son.

“We did con­sid­er tak­ing up a stance again to try and pre­vent the work being done, but in truth, we have no chance of stop­ping such ruth­less behav­iour, and the strain of the last few days has been con­sid­er­able.”

On Mon­day a sign was placed beside the tree which quot­ed the famous war poet Edward Thomas, who lived in Steep 100 years ago.

It read: “In the sun and in the snow, there are no more sins to be sinned on the dead oak tree bough.”

Avery Duff was unavail­able for com­ment when The Post went to press.

New Zealand climate camp report-back

15 Decem­ber 2009

15 Decem­ber 2009
NZ climate camp welcome tentPrepa­ra­tions for New Zealand’s first Cli­mate Camp are going well with peo­ple mov­ing onto the site yes­ter­day. Campers spent the day set­ting up some of the infra­struc­ture required for the camp includ­ing the kitchen and stor­age tents. As the day pro­gressed water lines could be seen snaking across the field, solar pan­els popped up next to tents and by the end of the day hot food was being pre­pared in the kitchen. The site is per­fect, large trees dot the field, a riv­er with swim­ming holes runs beside the camp and there is easy vehic­u­lar access.

NZ climate camp platformCli­mate camp offi­cial­ly kicks off tomor­row (Wednes­day) and will be going until the 21st. The camp will be a work­ing demon­stra­tion of sus­tain­able liv­ing with com­post­ing toi­lets and elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed on site. It will also host work­shops on dozens of sub­jects as well as pro­vid­ing space for peo­ple to organ­ise to take action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change. The 21st will see campers tak­ing to the streets in protests which will be organ­ised at camp. As details of these protests are organ­ised they will be dis­trib­uted wide­ly.

Feel free to bring any­thing you think might be use­ful – tools, bikes, koha to help pay for food and tents etc. The camp is being organ­ised and run by par­tic­i­pants so feel free to make it your own. If you want to run a work­shop or spend a few hours in the kitchen that would be great! Weath­er has been a mixed bag over the past day so a good tent and heaps of warm clothes in case you get wet would be a real­ly good idea. Food will be pro­vid­ed through­out the camp.

So if you have any spare time over the next week be it an after­noon or the entire camp pop on down to Moon­shine park in Upper Hut from today.

For more infor­ma­tion and reg­u­lar updates on how the camp is going please vis­it climatecamp.org.nz

For the days pho­tos please vis­it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45638777@N08/

——
NZ Carbon Exchange conference disrupted
Activists dis­rupt pre­sen­ta­tion by head of the New Zealand Car­bon Exchange.
18 Decem­ber 2009

This action coin­cides with New Zealand’s first cli­mate camp in Upper Hut Welling­ton and pecedes mon­days day of direct action against false solu­tions planned for Welling­ton on mon­day.

Yes­ter­day mem­bers of Car­bon Progress Response (CPR) dis­rupt­ed a pre­sen­ta­tion by Stu­art Fraz­er mem­ber of the New Zealand Car­bon Exchange. The pro­test­ers dis­rupt­ed the meet­ing at three points hold­ing ban­ners say­ing “Our Cli­mate Not Your Busi­ness”, “Food Mar­kets Not Car­bon Mar­kets” as well as talk­ing about why car­bon trad­ing would not result in real action being tak­en to pre­vent cli­mate change. Dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion Stu­art Fraz­er talked of how we need to sta­bilise atmos­pher­ic CO2 lev­els at 450ppm and glob­al tem­per­a­tures at a 2 degrees Cel­sius rise. The pro­test­ers point­ed out that at these lev­els hun­dreds of mil­lions of the worlds poor will be affect­ed by drought and famine.

The action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the 100,000 pro­test­ers in Copen­hagen as well as the 300 civ­il soci­ety del­e­gates which walked out of the con­fer­ence.

The CPR activists involved in the dis­rup­tion explained their actions in this way “Car­bon trad­ing, also known as Cap and Trade, allows wealthy, indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries and com­pa­nies to keep pol­lut­ing at the same rates by trad­ing car­bon cred­its amongst them­selves. This allows busi­ness to con­tin­ue as usu­al and encour­ages the dis­ad­van­taged and poor to sell their liveli­hoods for the gain of the rich.”

After the first two groups of pro­test­ers were removed around a dozen pro­test­ers held ban­ners out­side as well as using a siren to empha­sis that we are fac­ing a cli­mate emer­gency. After the pre­sen­ta­tion had fin­ished an activist slipped back into the meet­ing and dis­rupt­ed it for a third time.

——
NZ climate camp march
21 Decem­ber 2009
About 150 peo­ple took to the streets ear­ly this morn­ing in Welling­ton as two ban­ners were hung overnight in promi­nent loca­tions. First stop was the Stock Exchange, to dis­rupt busi­ness as usu­al and tell the prof­i­teers of cli­mate change that our cli­mate is not their busi­ness. While peo­ple entered the build­ing a sam­ba band, rad­i­cal cheer­lead­ers and a kids block were out­side all main entrances. There was also a vocal bunch from a group claim­ing to be counter-protest­ing for the right to prof­it from exploit­ing the envi­ron­ment. Nine peo­ple were arrest­ed in a sit-in block­ade but lat­er released with no charge.

After 9 arrests the protest took over Lamp­ton Quay to go and sup­port two climbers occu­py­ing the out­side of the Min­istry for For­eign Affairs and Trade with a giant ban­ner denounc­ing Foter­ra for its part in New Zealand’s high emis­sions from agri­cul­ture. The action was tak­en to draw atten­tion to the fact that 51% of New Zealand’s cli­mate chang­ing emis­sions come from agri­cul­ture. The pro­test­ers who were ini­tial­ly at the stock exchange, marched down Lambton Quay to sup­port the two activists hang­ing off MFAT. The two climbers came down lat­er and were not arrest­ed. A Reclaim the Streets style protest con­tin­ued for over half and hour.

The nine from ear­li­er are com­ing out of the police sta­tion now, some or all with­out charge…

OUR CLIMATE IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS!!

http://climatecamp.org.nz/

Copenhagen failure sparks coal terminal blockade

Updates:

4:30pm:

The Koor­a­gang rail line has just reopened, 7.5 hours after the block­ade began

3:00pm:

Australian Copenhagen rail blockade banners 4Australian Copenhagen rail blockade banners 1Updates:

4:30pm:

The Koor­a­gang rail line has just reopened, 7.5 hours after the block­ade began

3:00pm:

Australian Copenhagen rail blockadePolice have removed the final pro­test­er blockad­ing a coal rail bridge in New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia, more than six hours after pro­test­ers shut down the coal deliv­ery line into the world’s biggest coal port.

There were twen­ty three arrests in total at the protest, includ­ing an 86 year old man, a Bud­dhist priest , and an elect­ed New­cas­tle city coun­cil­lor.

12:00pm:

Police have made their first arrests at a dra­mat­ic coal train block­ade on a bridge in New­cas­tle – the world’s biggest coal port.

Australian Copenhagen rail blockade tripodAustralian Copenhagen rail blockade climberThree hours into the block­ade, police have arrest­ed ten peo­ple who were sit­ting on the rail bridge and refus­ing to move. Pro­test­ers expect the block­ade to last for the remain­der of the day and per­haps into the night, with a fur­ther 15 peo­ple still block­ing the bridge in dif­fi­cult to remove posi­tions.

Australian Copenhagen rail lock-onsActivists shut down the rail line at 9am this morn­ing to protest the fail­ure of the UN cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen to pro­duce a just, effec­tive, and legal­ly bind­ing treaty.

9am, Sun­day 20th Decem­ber 2009, New­cas­tle Aus­tralia: Forty cli­mate activists have closed down the rail line into the world’s biggest coal port this morn­ing, protest­ing the fail­ure of the UN cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen to pro­duce a just, effec­tive, and legal­ly bind­ing treaty.

Twen­ty five of the diverse group – aged from 19 to 86 years and includ­ing a Bud­dhist priest, and an elect­ed local coun­cil­lor – are occu­py­ing a rail bridge in New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia, and refus­ing to leave. They have hung large ban­ners read­ing “Greed wrecked Copen­hagen: Now it’s up to us all”, and “You could have done some­thing great.”

“The US, Aus­tralia, and oth­er wealthy coun­tries wrecked the Copen­hagen cli­mate talks,” said Steve Phillips, spokesper­son for protest organ­is­ers Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle.

“They refused to lift their pal­try green­house pol­lu­tion tar­gets to the lev­els required to avoid cat­a­stro­phe. They could have done some­thing great, but they failed. They let greed and self inter­est take prece­dence over the sur­vival of life on earth, and we are here today to con­demn them in the strongest pos­si­ble terms.”

Australian Copenhagen rail blockade banners 2“We put world lead­ers on notice that their con­tin­u­ing fail­ure to solve the cli­mate cri­sis will result in wide­spread direct action against the caus­es of cli­mate change, as we are see­ing here today. We’re tak­ing this action because we have had enough. We’ve seen too much grand­stand­ing, and pre­cious lit­tle action. We won’t con­tin­ue to watch as peo­ple die, as species go extinct because of cli­mate change, while emis­sions con­tin­ue to rise. Politi­cians are fail­ing to act against the caus­es of cli­mate change, so we have come here today to take action our­selves. New­cas­tle coal exports are Aus­trali­a’s sin­gle biggest con­tri­bu­tion to the cli­mate cri­sis.”

Australian Copenhagen rail blockade banners 3New­cas­tle City Coun­cil­lor Michael Osborne is among those occu­py­ing the rail bridge. He explained why: “The peo­ple of New­cas­tle and the Hunter expect­ed a fair, ambi­tious, and bind­ing treaty at Copen­hagen. They have been let down. Aus­tralia has failed to take lead­er­ship on this issue, so now peo­ple from the Hunter are tak­ing it them­selves. It is time we moved away from the fos­sil fuels that are caus­ing this cri­sis and embraced the renew­able indus­tries that can solve it.”

“Our elect­ed lead­ers are fail­ing to take action against the coal indus­try that is caus­ing the cli­mate cri­sis, so we are tak­ing that action our­selves,” con­clud­ed Steve Phillips.

Save Titnore Woods!

With the threat of devel­op­ment on Tit­nore Woods, one of the two remain­ing semi-ancient wood­lands left on the West Sus­sex coastal plain fast approach­ing, now is the time to rise up and resist the destruc­tion of our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment by cor­po­rate greed.

With the threat of devel­op­ment on Tit­nore Woods, one of the two remain­ing semi-ancient wood­lands left on the West Sus­sex coastal plain fast approach­ing, now is the time to rise up and resist the destruc­tion of our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment by cor­po­rate greed.

West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium, which con­sists of Per­sim­mon Homes, Tay­lor Wimpy and Heron Homes could be giv­en the go ahead to build a 1250 home devel­op­ment and a road in the new year. Pre­vi­ous­ly 875 homes where to be built, so clear­ly their eyes are see­ing more pound signs as they envi­sion more clear­ance of the pre­cious land. The project is esti­mat­ed to cost over 3 bil­lion pounds to build and take 6 years to com­plete which is utter mad­ness when Wor­thing is report­ed to have over 1000 emp­ty build­ings! If plan­ning per­mis­sion is grant­ed West Dur­ring­ton will no longer home a semi- ancient wood­land with it’s rich diver­si­ty in rare species, flo­ra and fau­na or it’s sur­round­ing farm­land but a mas­sive hous­ing devel­op­ment, road, a giant Tesco and pos­si­bly 2 schools and a health cen­tre.

Already the destruc­tion is evi­dent when you vis­it Tit­nore. Just across the field from the protest site the eye sore that will be Tesco is well under way and is due to open in February/March 2010. West Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil gave per­mis­sion on Decem­ber 9th 2009 to close the pub­lic foot­path reach­ing Tinore woods from Full­beck Avenue. No per­sons are allowed to use this right of way to vis­it the woods now as it is viewed as a pub­lic safe­ty haz­ard until the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium project is com­plet­ed. Also trees and bush­es have been cleared here, although none are of the semi ancient woods this is still a haunt­ing reminder that con­struc­tion is immi­nent.

On Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 28th 2010 at 6pm the West Dur­ring­ton Con­sor­tium will meet at Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil’s Con­trol Com­mit­tee to push for per­mis­sion to begin devel­op­ment. If they win then it’s full steam ahead for the bull­doz­ers and a very sad day for the hard work­ing folk of Camp Tit­nore who have occu­pied the woods in resis­tance of the destruc­tion for the last 3 and a half years, and also for the local Wor­thing res­i­dents who strong­ly oppose the plans and wish to see their ancient wood­land left stand­ing.

To show that you oppose their plans to tear down an irre­place­able nat­ur­al space come and join the counter demo at 5.30pm out­side Assem­bly Hall, Stoke Abbott Road, Wor­thing on Jan­u­ary 28th 2010.
Please vis­it Camp Tit­nore. Enjoy its beau­ty, help to build new defences and walk­ways. Dona­tions of wood, nails, polyprop and cor­ru­gat­ed iron would be much appre­ci­at­ed.

Camp Tit­nore needs you!

See Tit­nore con­tact links for direc­tions and so on

Climate Camp Trafalgar- Ice Bear action & Copenhagen solidarity demo at Embassy & Copenhagen climate camp

As Copen­hagen refus­es entry to NGO’s and del­e­gates from around the world, Cli­mate Camp Trafal­gar enter anoth­er day of sol­i­dar­i­ty action. This time, the tar­get.…. The Lon­don Ice Bear.… He just did­n’t see it com­ing.

ice bear protestAs Copen­hagen refus­es entry to NGO’s and del­e­gates from around the world, Cli­mate Camp Trafal­gar enter anoth­er day of sol­i­dar­i­ty action. This time, the tar­get.…. The Lon­don Ice Bear.… He just did­n’t see it com­ing.

The team at Cli­mate Camp Trafal­gar square saw anoth­er day of actions this wednes­day 16th. This time tar­get­ing a (cor­po­rate, aka M&S, spon­sored http://plana.marksandspencer.com/we-are-doing/climate-change/stories/82/) ice sculp­ture.

The Lon­don Ice Bear ( http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/tackling_climate_change/the_london_ice_bear.cfm) has been attract­ing the atten­tion of passers by in Trafal­gar Square since fri­day the 11th of Decem­ber. WWF (who are back­ing the ice bear) state, on their web page, that “every­one is invit­ed to touch the ice sculp­ture. Artist Mark Coreth hopes that by touch­ing this sculp­ture audi­ences can become sculp­tors them­selves and make a direct con­nec­tion with the bear and its icy Arc­tic king­dom, now under threat from man-made cli­mate change.”

Here at Cli­mate Camp, we took this state­ment rather lit­er­al­ly. Though, obvi­ous­ly, we felt the need to direct the focus away from the rather sweep­ing state­ment of “man made” cli­mate change and give it a shove towards the more fit­ting state­ment of cor­po­rate fund­ed cli­mate chaos.

At around 4pm on Wednes­day the 15th of decem­ber, Cam­paign­ers took a ban­ner stat­ing “This isn’t just cli­mate change, this is RBS fund­ed cli­mate chaos” and a ket­tle full of hot water (also brand­ed with the RBS sym­bol) to the ice bear and pro­ceed­ed to melt the bear with the ‘hot water of cap­i­tal­ism’.

Artist and sculp­tor Mark Coreth was more than please to see his project “inter­act­ed” with in this way.

—-

On Thurs­day Decem­ber 17, approx­i­mate­ly 50 demon­stra­tors gath­ered out­side the Dan­ish Embassy in Sloane Street, Lon­don, to object to the Dan­ish police’s harsh treat­ment of demon­stra­tors at the COP Sum­mit in Copen­hagen.

After a spir­it­ed ral­ly, demon­stra­tors occu­pied the road in front of the embassy before lead­ing a roam­ing traf­fic block­ade up Sloane Street and onto Bromp­ton Road, before even­tu­al­ly halt­ing out­side Har­rods depart­ment store.

There were no arrests.

—-

A cli­mate camp to occu­py a vital loca­tion in Copen­hagen was announced. 100 peo­ple with 4 pop-up tents gath­ered in a cen­tral square and decid­ed to stay for two hours — full report and pho­tos