Category: Action Reports

Some­times you’re lucky…

For the recent­ly formed Ker­now and Ply­mouth Ris­ing Tide groups, yes­ter­day 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…which was just as well because ours broke!

Newquay air­port spe­cialis­es in cli­mate-wreck­ing short haul flights and is an obvi­ous legit­i­mate tar­get for envi­ron­men­tal action. How­ev­er, we were also rais­ing the issue of a recent report into the air­port which shows that the eco­nom­ic case for expan­sion is unsound.
http://www.groundswellcornwall.org/newquayairport

Yes­ter­day we arrived at the air­port on the bus. We weren’t the most like­ly look­ing bunch, but as usu­al the place was pret­ty desert­ed and we were able to reach our cho­sen point to access the roof. How­ev­er our lad­der ( from a kid’s bunk-bed ) broke, leav­ing our bird­man dan­gling com­i­cal­ly. Luck­i­ly for us, the builders’ shiny new lad­der was unat­tend­ed, so we used that one instead! The bird­man regained his foot­ing and five activists occu­pied the roof. We had two big ban­ners read­ing; NO PUBLIC DEBATE, NO PUBLIC DEMAND, ALL PRIVATE GAIN and NO MORE HOT AIR ON CLIMATE CHANGE.

We man­aged to get the press there before the police. When the police did arrive they were hap­py to let us have some cov­er­age and even com­plete a TV slot before ask­ing us to get down or get arrest­ed. The five activists on the roof were sup­port­ed with music, danc­ing and pup­petry from the ground. We also had a media team and legal observ­er present.

We made local TV and radio head­lines and expect good cov­er­age in the local papers. All in all it was a fan­tas­tic day, if a bit nip­py! For the groups involved it was an ener­gis­ing, empow­er­ing expe­ri­ence.

We are also arrang­ing a pub­lic meet­ing about the expan­sion plans ( St. Maw­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Hall 12.1.08 at 7pm. ) and are hop­ing to get rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Grounswell and the air­port along­side our­selves.
Here’s a link to a BBC report on the action; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7146159.stm

15.12.2007
PRESS RELEASE

Cli­mate Activists Spot­light Newquay Air­port

Cli­mate activists from Ris­ing Tide[1] have occu­pied Newquay air­port today. The demon­stra­tors are call­ing for an imme­di­ate halt to expan­sion of the airport[2] and a pub­lic debate on its future. With ban­ners, leaflets and cos­tumes — the peace­ful protest calls atten­tion to the air­port as an obsta­cle to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in the Coun­ty.

Avi­a­tion cur­rent­ly accounts for 13% of the UK’s con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change and is the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas emissions[3]. Newquay air­port offers only domes­tic and short haul flights[4], con­demned by MPs[5]. Fly­ing does ten times more dam­age to the cli­mate than tak­ing the train[6], while des­ti­na­tions served from Newquay are easy to reach by train or coach[7].

This year we have seen the worst flood­ing in decades, from cen­tral Africa and South Asia to York­shire and Glouces­ter­shire. Mean­while, Greece, Italy and Cal­i­for­nia have strug­gled with bush-fires in tin­der-dry con­di­tions. Despite these warn­ings, del­e­gates at the UN cli­mate talks in Bali con­tin­ued to resist mean­ing­ful cuts in green­house gas emis­sions.

Today’s demon­stra­tors are also alarmed fol­low­ing the con­clu­sions of a recent report[8] com­mis­sioned by Groundswell[9], which refutes the Coun­ty Coun­cil’s claim that Corn­wal­l’s future devel­op­ment depends upon expan­sion of the air­port. The report con­cludes that the eco­nom­ic case for expan­sion of the air­port is weak and that the air­port’s cur­rent oper­at­ing deficit of around one mil­lion pounds per year is met by Corn­wall Coun­ty Council[10], through high­er coun­cil tax or cuts in ser­vices.

In light of the immi­nent prob­lems of cli­mate change and peak oil it is cru­cial that local gov­ern­ment invest in sus­tain­able pub­lic trans­port. A recent report by Vis­it Scot­land con­cludes: “A tourism econ­o­my with­out a sus­tain­able trans­port pol­i­cy and sys­tem means less tourism in the long term” [11]

Sub­stan­tial pub­lic funds must not be invest­ed in a project which would increase Corn­wal­l’s CO2 emis­sions and dam­age the local envi­ron­ment, under a plan which takes no account of ris­ing oil prices. The expan­sion of Newquay air­port must be stopped.

Notes:

1. Ris­ing tide is a glob­al net­work of local groups, tak­ing action against cli­mate change and build­ing a move­ment based on social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice.
2. Expan­sion plans, backed by…
3. 13% — from Answer to Com­mons Par­lia­men­tary Ques­tion 2 May 2007.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/tags/emissions
4. http://www.flightmapping.com/UK/Newquay/
http://www.newquaycornwallairport.com/index.cfm?articleid=40516
5. The Bat­tle of Newquay: Green lob­by launch­es war to curb domes­tic flights
By Jonathan Brown and Ian Her­bert
http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2366512.ece
6. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/tags/emissions
7. http://www.seat61.com
8. Newquay Air­port Expan­sion The Case Exam­ined
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?9dytjtz5n2v
9. Groundswell is an inde­pen­dent group of Cor­nish deci­sion mak­ers
http://www.groundswellcornwall.org/who
10. Newquay Air­port Expan­sion: The Case Exam­ined, Eliz­a­beth Baines,
Com­mis­sioned by Groundswell Corn­wall. Page 40.
11. Vis­it Scot­land Research ( http://www.visitscotland.org),
Tomorrow’s World: Con­sumer and Tourist, vol. 2, no. 1, May 2006, page 12:
http://www.scotexchange.net/tomorrow_s_newsheet_180506.pdf

NB: Corn­wall Coun­ty Coun­cil became sole own­ers of the air­port in 2004… Newquay Air­port Expan­sion: The Case Exam­ined, Eliz­a­beth Baines, Com­mis­sioned by Groundswell Corn­wall. Page 5.

NB: Ris­ing Tide activists in Corn­wall also took part in a recent nation­al day of action to high­light the cli­mate impact of RBS (Roy­al Bank of Scot­land) invest­ments, RBS brand­ed itself The Oil and Gas bank. The activists appeared with ban­ners and leaflets out­side the RBS branch in Truro.

ker­now [at] risingtide.org.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk

This morn­ing, Tues­day Decem­ber 11th, at 10am, two mem­bers of “Arc­tic Asso­ciates” (aka Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide), and one grumpy refugee polar bear paid a vis­it to the nation­al offices of the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine at the top of Tow­er House in Broad­mead, Bris­tol. More than a hun­dred employ­ees looked on aghast (some wink­ing in sup­port) as “J. Smith” from Arc­tic Asso­ciates, flanked by Mr. Pole R. Bear, made a long and pas­sion­ate speech about the sad and dan­ger­ous irony of allow­ing the world’s sec­ond largest oil com­pa­ny- respon­si­ble for endan­ger­ing thou­sands of species through oil spills, tox­ic pol­lu­tion, and cli­mate change- to spon­sor their Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award Con­test, which is com­ing to Bris­tol Muse­um this Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 15th.

The vis­it evi­dent­ly cre­at­ed quite a stir, as employ­ees of BBC Wildlife gath­ered around to hear what the com­mo­tion was all about, and the press team, direc­tors, and build­ing secu­ri­ty simul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­verged on the pro­test­ers, who were final­ly asked to leave, after cir­cu­lat­ing through both the 9th and 14th floors of the build­ing, and speak­ing to the entire nation­al staff of the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine, who are now more aware than ever of the his­toric blun­der than was made when Shell’s £1,500,000 two year spon­sor­ship deal was accept­ed.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the poster child of this year’s Pho­tog­ra­phy Award is a polar bear stuck on a melt­ing ice­berg, the most vis­i­ble sym­bol of the cli­mate-dam­ag­ing nature of Shell’s core busi­ness.

If you’d like to get involved, come to the sHELL Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­phy Exhib­it PROTEST this Sat­ur­day Dec. 15th start­ing at Noon, in front of the Bris­tol Muse­um at the top of Park St. Please come dressed as any wildlife that sHELL is endan­ger­ing, and invite all your friends- putting a stop to green­wash­ing is a key bat­tle in the war against cli­mate change, and we want to stop our pub­lic muse­ums being used for this pur­pose**

The exhib­it will remain at the Muse­um until the 13th of Jan­u­ary.

**We are hav­ing a cos­tume mak­ing party/ plan­ning ses­sion this Wednes­day the 12th at Kebele- 14 Robert­son Rd. in Eas­t­on from 1700 to 2200 or so, with an open dis­cus­sion hap­pen­ing at 1930. There will be at least one sewing machine there, so bring mate­r­i­al, (fake) fur of the Shell- dam­aged wildlife of your choice- avail­able at all fine fab­ric shops, news­pa­per, black felt, ban­ner and sign mak­ing mate­ri­als, and your favourite bev­er­age to share.**

More infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign:

Despite dozens of peo­ple con­tact­ing the Bris­tol City Coun­cil and the muse­um and ask­ing them to reject the exhi­bi­tion, these requests have been met with excus­es, buck pass­ing, or sim­ply silence. It’s clear that our lead­ers would rather not face up to the fact that our pub­lic muse­um is in fact adver­tis­ing and green­wash­ing one of the worst multi­na­tion­al oil com­pa­nies which is wreak­ing hav­oc on peo­ple, wildlife, and habi­tat the world over (all in the name of wildlife pro­tec­tion?)

Appar­ent­ly the Bris­tol Muse­um, Bris­tol City Coun­cil, the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um, and BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine see no prob­lem with exhibit­ing pho­tographs of endan­gered polar bears on melt­ing ice as part of a pho­tog­ra­phy exhi­bi­tion spon­sored by Shell. Do they think we’re stu­pid?

Our goal is to put pres­sure on the lat­ter two organ­i­sa­tions to reject Shell as a spon­sor, and for Shell to decide that the neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty involved with spon­sor­ing the com­pe­ti­tion sim­ply isn’t worth it any­more.

More infor­ma­tion about Shell:

http://onthelevelblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/shells-wild-lie/

Shell oper­ates in 145 coun­tries world­wide- one of the worst impacts is in Nige­ria, where Shell was com­plic­it in the 1995 mur­der of Ken Saro-Wiwa, an envi­ron­men­tal activist, as well as eight oth­ers by the Niger­ian mil­i­tary jun­ta.

Shell has been work­ing in the Niger Delta since 1956, caus­ing prob­lems to:

• local com­mu­ni­ties — gas flares burn day and night, roar­ing like jet engines and pol­lut­ing the air with thick sooty par­ti­cles that stick to almost every­thing and have seri­ous health impacts

• liveli­hoods — oil is a root of con­flict and suf­fer­ing in Nige­ria. Over 1000 law suits have been filed against Shell, yet it still refus­es to pay com­pen­sa­tion costs.

• the envi­ron­ment — pol­lut­ing oil spills and fires have occurred for decades due to Shel­l’s rust­ing pipes seri­ous­ly affect­ing local vil­lages, bio­di­ver­si­ty, and con­tribut­ing towards cli­mate change.

Come to the protest at noon on Sat­ur­day, and let ‘em know that Bris­to­lians won’t stand idly by while our plan­et is rav­aged, and our muse­um is com­plic­it in cov­er­ing up oil com­pa­ny lies.

The time for blind obe­di­ence has passed- it’s time to start dis­obey­ing.….

“Where oil reigns, life is hell”

-Oron­to Dou­glas, Envi­ron­men­tal Law­er, Niger Delta