Category: Transport

Drax 29 defendants found guilty

News is being tweet­ed out of court — all defen­dants found guilty of obstruc­tion of the train.
Judge has stat­ed that he will be impos­ing com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice type pun­ish­ments and no prison time.
Defen­dants liable for costs and com­pen­sa­tion.

Drax 29 shovelling coalNews is being tweet­ed out of court — all defen­dants found guilty of obstruc­tion of the train.
Judge has stat­ed that he will be impos­ing com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice type pun­ish­ments and no prison time.
Defen­dants liable for costs and com­pen­sa­tion.

The 22 were acquit­ted of actu­al­ly stop­ping the train, after evi­dence that no one knew which of them had donned fake rail­way­men’s uni­forms and used red flags to bring it to a halt (2 ill & 5 ear­li­er admit­ted guilt).

A defen­dan­t’s sum­ming up (3rd July):

“Mem­bers of the jury.

I’m going to try to sum­marise why we feel that we are not guilty, why we feel that what we did was right, despite the very prop­er laws against obstruct­ing trains, why we feel that it was the wrong deci­sion of the Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice to pros­e­cute us in this case, and why we don’t feel that we are guilty of a crime.

I want to start by respond­ing to your request for clar­i­fi­ca­tion yes­ter­day about “law­ful excuse”. His hon­our may say [in his sum­ming up] that it’s true that there are ways in law to make space for cir­cum­stances, to allow a big­ger pic­ture to be con­sid­ered.

These ways can have dif­fer­ent names for dif­fer­ent offences — so for exam­ple “law­ful excuse”, which you asked about yes­ter­day, applies only to the charge of crim­i­nal dam­age. For exam­ple, last Sep­tem­ber, a jury in Kent found six pro­test­ers not guilty of com­mit­ting £30,000 worth of crim­i­nal dam­age to Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion, since the group were act­ing to pre­vent a greater crime. Those on tri­al did not dis­agree that crim­i­nal dam­age is a crime, just that, in cer­tain cir­cum­stances, it may be nec­es­sary and pro­por­tion­ate to cause some dam­age to pre­vent a great crime. That jury agreed.

His hon­our may explain that there is a legal defence of “neces­si­ty”, that applies to most laws, and that it was on the basis of “neces­si­ty” — the fact that we believed our actions were going to save lives and that we had to act — that we pre­pared a legal defence before this tri­al. Along with many legal pro­fes­sion­als we were very dis­ap­point­ed by his hon­our’s deci­sion pri­or to the tri­al that this defence was not avail­able to us in law. Nonethe­less we decid­ed not to appeal against it. We felt that you the jury would be free to decide on the facts of a case as you find them — and not just the ones his hon­our tells you are rel­e­vant.

It’s up to you to decide whether what we did was nec­es­sary. I would like to empha­sise to you that we believed and we still believe that it was urgent­ly nec­es­sary to do what we did, and pro­por­tion­ate to the scale of the prob­lem, that the con­se­quences of that train tak­ing coal into Drax are so seri­ous that any rea­son­able per­son would under­stand our rea­sons for stop­ping it. To help explain why we were so sure of the links between Drax’s activ­i­ties and deaths around the world we had expert wit­ness­es lined up to talk to you about the imme­di­ate and ongo­ing harm that Drax’s emis­sions cause. How­ev­er from what evi­dence we have been able to get across to you, with his hon­our’s indul­gence, we hope that you can see that these facts speak for them­selves, and our actions, though harm­ful, were indeed nec­es­sary to try to stop a greater harm. And if you agree with that then you still have a legal right – as the jury — to find us not guilty.

You’ve heard it said already I think, that the judge decides about the law, but the jury decide about the facts. What does that mean? It means you the jury can decide as you see fit. You the jury have a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to fol­low your own judge­ment and not nec­es­sar­i­ly fol­low the judge’s direc­tions to find us guilty. In oth­er words, you get to make the final deci­sion. In law this prin­ci­ple is called the jury’s pow­er of nul­li­fi­ca­tion, and it’s been a right that has been reg­u­lar­ly used over the years when juries have felt the law has been applied harsh­ly, or inap­pro­pri­ate­ly, or unjust­ly, or incor­rect­ly.

Per­haps I can explain this with a quote from a very senior judge, Lord Den­ning. He said:

“This prin­ci­ple was estab­lished as long ago as 1670 in a cel­e­brat­ed case of the Quak­ers, William Penn and William Mead. All that they had done was to preach in Lon­don on a Sun­day after­noon. They were charged with caus­ing an unlaw­ful and tumul­tuous assem­bly there. The judge direct­ed the jury to find the Quak­ers guilty, but they refused. The Jury said Penn was guilty of preach­ing, but not of unlaw­ful assem­bly. The Judge refused to accept this ver­dict. He threat­ened them with all sorts of pains and pun­ish­ments. He kept them ‘all night with­out meat, drink, fire, or oth­er accom­mo­da­tion: they had not so much as a cham­ber pot, though desired’. They still refused to find the Quak­ers guilty of an unlaw­ful assem­bly. He kept them anoth­er night and still they refused. He then com­mand­ed each to answer to his name and give his ver­dict sep­a­rate­ly. Each gave his ver­dict ‘Not Guilty’. For this the judge fined them 40 marks apiece and cast them into prison until it was paid. One of them Edward Bushell, there­upon brought his (case) before the Court of the King’s Bench. It was there held that no judge had any right to imprison a jury­man for find­ing against his direc­tion on a point of law; for the judge could nev­er direct what the law was with­out know­ing the facts, and of the facts the jury were the sole judge. The jury were there­upon set free.”

This was affirmed as recent­ly as 2005, in rela­tion to the case of Wang, where a com­mit­tee of Law Lords in the high­est court in the land, the House of Lords, con­clud­ed that: “there are no cir­cum­stances in which a judge is enti­tled to direct a jury to return a ver­dict of guilty”. So you do have that right to decide for your­selves. And unlike in 1670, his hon­our won’t be able to fine you, or put you in prison for mak­ing what he sees as the wrong deci­sion.

There have been many cas­es over the years where juries have decid­ed, on reflect­ing more broad­ly, to find peo­ple not guilty despite direc­tions from the judge. For exam­ple, the case of Zel­ter and oth­ers who were accused of dam­age to an air­craft about to be used for bomb­ing civil­ians. In all of these and oth­ers the judge said that the defen­dants admit­ted the offence and so must be found guilty. But the jury chose to look out­side the lim­it­ed view of the court room, and to find them not guilty.

The free­dom that you have is what enables the law, where nec­es­sary, to move for­ward. It is what allows you to look beyond the con­fines of this court to the wider world, and to make a judge­ment based not just on law, but to make a judge­ment based on jus­tice. Jus­tice is the force that under­pins and breathes life into the law, and it is your role as the jury to see that jus­tice as you see it is done.

We all know that times change, and what was accept­able in one era may not be accept­able in anoth­er. You have heard of how it was once legal to own oth­er peo­ple, how it was ille­gal for women to vote. Well one way or anoth­er we are going to have to stop burn­ing coal and move on from the fos­sil fuel era. And that means that the law will even­tu­al­ly have to change and acknowl­edge the harm that car­bon emis­sions do to all of us, by mak­ing them ille­gal. The only ques­tion is whether the law will catch up in time for there to be any­thing left to pro­tect.

We are not try­ing to tell you how to decide. We are only try­ing to say that it is up to you, and we are grate­ful for that.

I want you to think back to that sit­u­a­tion of there being a per­son on the tracks ahead of that train going on its way to Drax. Mem­bers of the Jury, it may sound like a strange thing to say but in truth there is a per­son on the branch line to Drax. The pros­e­cu­tion have not chal­lenged the facts we pre­sent­ed to you on oath about the con­se­quences of burn­ing coal at Drax. 180 human lives lost every year, species lost for­ev­er. There is a direct, unequiv­o­cal, proven link between the emis­sions of car­bon diox­ide at this pow­er sta­tion and the appalling con­se­quences of cli­mate change. That many of those con­se­quences impact on the poor of oth­er nations or peo­ple in Hull we don’t know and should not in any way negate the real­i­ty of this suf­fer­ing. We got on that train to stop those emis­sions, because all oth­er meth­ods in our democ­ra­cy were fail­ing. Just because we don’t know the name of the per­son on the tracks or where they live or the exact time and day of their dying, does not in our view mean they are less wor­thy of pro­tec­tion.

We don’t dis­pute that there’s a law against obstruct­ing trains. We don’t dis­pute that obstruct­ing trains is a crime and should con­tin­ue to be a crime. We just argue that in this case, we should not be found guilty of a crime for try­ing to block this train on its way to Drax.

On Tues­day the pros­e­cu­tion argued that what we did was quite sim­ply a crime, and as a result we should be found guilty. They were try­ing to sug­gest that if you find us not guilty, the whole world would fall apart. We argue that the more like­ly route to the whole world falling apart is if we con­tin­ue burn­ing coal in the enor­mous quan­ti­ties that it is being burnt at Drax.

His hon­our may say that we have been telling you sto­ries, that we are try­ing to intro­duce emo­tions into the tri­al to dis­tort the evi­dence. But we have been telling you the facts. If those facts move you, that’s because they are mov­ing, and they are what moved us to do what we did.

We are hap­py to be judged by you, the jury.

Thank you for tak­ing the time to lis­ten to us.”

bikesnotcars am*dam july3,4,5

In the week­end of july 4th we declare a war on cars. In this week­end there will be a bike fes­ti­val in Ams­ter­dam. On dif­fer­ent loca­tions events, work­shops, info stands, fun & games, par­ties, and direct actions to block and frus­trate the traf­fic will be held. Cars lead to pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change, deaths and injuries.

In the week­end of july 4th we declare a war on cars. In this week­end there will be a bike fes­ti­val in Ams­ter­dam. On dif­fer­ent loca­tions events, work­shops, info stands, fun & games, par­ties, and direct actions to block and frus­trate the traf­fic will be held. Cars lead to pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change, deaths and injuries. They are a nui­sance, and are dom­i­nat­ing the pub­lic space.Where the pub­lic space is not designed to facil­i­tate the ever con­sum­ing shop­ping fren­zy and indus­try it is designed to please fos­sil-fuel-traf­fic.

The pro­gram of the bike fest in ams­ter­dam july 3rd, 4th and 5th is out…

Fri­day, ijs­baan­pad 12, ams­ter­dam
— oppor­tu­ni­ty for those with­out a bike to fix one
— ban­ner paint­ing
in the evening soup and a band

sat­ur­day
— 14.00h crit­i­cal mass, muse­um square, sith bike­po­lo and slow­bik­ing on the way
— 19.00h ijs­baan­pad, voku, folowed by bands:
de fat­was
de reclasser­ing
hys­te­ria
and one more band

sun­day
— info­mar­ket
— work­shops
— car­go bike race
— tall bike joust­ing

please dont bring your dogs to ijs­baan­pad

there is a place for sleep­ing but bring a matres and sleep­ing­bag

to bring list:
bed + sleep­ing­bag
bike(s)
basic repairk­it
ban­ners
no id
no dogs

see you there

bikesnotcars@gmail.com
http://bikesnotcars.wordpress.com

Bath Bomb #23 Out Now

THE BATH BOMB
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #23
free/donation
June 09

“Nick Grif­fin: if you’re read­ing this, we’re in your house”

Pulling A Fash One: Bath 3, BNP 0

THE BATH BOMB
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #23
free/donation
June 09

“Nick Grif­fin: if you’re read­ing this, we’re in your house”

Pulling A Fash One: Bath 3, BNP 0

The BNP went three goals down on Fri­day the 22nd May in the con­tin­u­ing grudge match between them­selves and the peo­ple of Bath. This time the venue was the pres­ti­gious BRL­Si, on Queen Square. Near­ly 100 peo­ple from a vari­ety of back­grounds (includ­ing antifa, anar­chists, greens, IWW, social­ists and a good num­ber of pissed off Batho­ni­ans) respond­ed to a call out from Bath Activist Net­work to protest a hus­tings meet­ing fea­tur­ing the fas­cist BNP.

The demo was a huge suc­cess, see­ing the front doors block­ad­ed for near­ly two hours, pre­vent­ing the meet­ing from going ahead. The major­i­ty of speak­ers due to rep­re­sent their par­ties pulled out of the meet­ing and opt­ed to speak on the street instead, many mak­ing the deci­sion to do so on the night. A tiny mob of eight fas­cists, most from out of town, turned up and made a piti­ful attempt to force their way in before giv­ing up and spend­ing the rest of the night moan­ing to the police (one of whom had an anti-BNP leaflet mys­te­ri­ous­ly taped to his back). Bris­tol-based BNP mem­ber Clive Court­ney was arrest­ed after shov­ing a local man to the ground.

The block­ade end­ed when the 50 police who were even­tu­al­ly draft­ed in demand­ed that the demo move out of the pub­lic view — pro­test­ers unan­i­mous­ly refused, and the pick­et was vio­lent­ly bro­ken up, allow­ing the fas­cists entry to a desert­ed build­ing, as the real democ­ra­cy was in full swing on the streets! While address­ing the emp­ty room, BNP Chip­pen­ham MEP can­di­date Jere­my Wother­spoon denied being racist, said he recent­ly ‘shook hands with a negro’ (his words, not ours).

In an inter­est­ing side note, mem­bers of the pub­lic let pro­test­ers know that the police were describ­ing them as ‘scum’ and activists have some inter­est­ing video footage of angry, rotund Bris­tol BNP high-up Mark War­ren-Clut­ter­buck hav­ing a pri­vate chat and a laugh with senior police. The BNP request­ed that once the block­ade was end­ed, they should be allowed to move in en masse — a request that the police were all too will­ing to facil­i­tate. The back-pat­ting and obvi­ous mutu­al sup­port between the cops and Nazis was sick­en­ing, but on the night the facts spoke for them­selves — pub­lic sup­port was over­whelm­ing­ly in favour of the block­ade, and the ‘no plat­form for fas­cists’ posi­tion.

The BNP still fea­tures hate­mon­ger activists con­vict­ed of bomb­ings, mur­der and assault, inter­nal­ly calls for a reduc­tion in demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion-mak­ing in the par­ty, and only per­mits white eth­nic, ‘indige­nous’ Brits to join as full mem­bers. It is impos­si­ble for the BNP to pub­licly adver­tise, or hold a meet­ing with­out pro­tec­tion from the police and a huge and angry reac­tion from the vast major­i­ty of the pub­lic. Well done to every­one who turned up and showed once again that the BNP are not wel­come in civilised soci­ety, let alone Bath. It’s just a shame that the BRL­Si orga­niz­ers tooth­less­ly felt oblig­ed to pro­vide the BNP the cred­i­bil­i­ty they so crave by invit­ing them; hope­ful­ly, there won’t be a next time. And if you do have any info on BNP activ­i­ty in your area, email either bathac­tivist­net [at] yahoo.co.uk, or phone 08451 265011.

http://bristolantifa.org
http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/inyourtown/corsham/4365146.Corsham_family_stands_as_BNP_candidates/

Eco Bat­tle For Bathamp­ton: Round 2

News has reached us that B&NES Coun­cil has made the pub­lic-friend­ly deci­sion of approv­ing the mas­sive­ly unpop­u­lar drain on finan­cial and envi­ron­men­tal resources that is the park and ride at Bathamp­ton Mead­ows. The park and ride, part of a ludi­crous­ly expen­sive, environmentally/socially destruc­tive and mas­sive­ly flawed trans­port pack­age, is to be built on the ancient mead­ow­lands which are part of the Cotswolds AONB (Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty) and con­tain two ancient mon­u­ments. The loca­tion is poor­ly-cho­sen and the coun­cil them­selves have con­ced­ed that the traf­fic eas­ing effects of the park and ride will be ‘min­i­mal’.

Maybe the coun­cil have for­got­ten the headache that was caused last time the author­i­ties tried to bull­doze the nat­ur­al habi­tats sur­round­ing Bathamp­ton. In 1994, a large tree camp was set up to oppose the Bathamp­ton A36/A46 link road, cost­ing the author­i­ties thou­sands in secu­ri­ty costs and putting the project way behind sched­ule. The same looks set to hap­pen again, with local activists hon­ing their eco-defence skills. Rest assured that if the bull­doz­ers roll in, so will scores of angry locals and activists deter­mined to fight for the mead­ow inch by inch. The council’s dis­re­gard for the envi­ron­ment looks set to ignite a bat­tle that will be giv­ing them seri­ous headaches for years to come. You can still write let­ters of objec­tion to the scheme, and a tem­plate let­ter can be found at http://www.savebathamptonmeadows.org.uk, and, short notice, push a ‘call in’ for a pub­lic enquiry by the 23rd of this month.

Stop the press: at a recent pub­lic meet­ing, we have just heard that the Gov­ern­ment Office for the South West have just ini­ti­at­ed an ‘Arti­cle 14’, a mod­est-sound­ing bit of jar­gon that indi­cates that they now require more time to con­sid­er the scheme – so nothing’s set in con­crete yet.

Debt Advice Cen­tre Opens In Twer­ton

The Bath ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay’ cam­paign has opened a drop-in cen­tre for advice on debts, ben­e­fits, bailiffs and gen­er­al help with the reces­sion – and pos­si­bly any oth­er prob­lems you may have! Pop round the Twer­ton social cen­tre (4 Day Cres­cent, Twer­ton) on Wednes­days between 4pm and 7pm, for a friend­ly cup­pa and a chat with one of our help­ful trained vol­un­teers.

EVENTS

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ings, 2nd and 4th Mon­day of the month, 8pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road

debt advice drop-in, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, Twer­ton social cen­tre, Day Cres­cent

The Lost Plot work­day, Thurs­days, 10am-dusk, Bathamp­ton

anti-foie gras demo, Fri­days, meet Queen Square 7pm

Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard

Bub­bling Under, Sun­day 21st June, 1–4pm, Porter Cel­lar, George Street

Calais No Bor­der Camp, 23rd-29th June, France

Bath Cycling Cam­paign meet­ing, Mon­day 22nd June, venue TBC, 7.30pm, http://www.bathcyclingcampaign.org.uk

Tran­si­tion Bath talk on pub­lic trans­port issues, Wednes­day 24th June, 8pm, Wid­combe Social Club

Tran­si­tion Drinks, Wednes­day 24th June, 8pm, upstairs at The Raven

anar­cho-punk gig, Fri­day 26th June, 8pm, The Porter Butt, Lon­don Road, Bath, feat. Cit­i­zen Fish, A heads, Sur­ren­der, Filthy Habits

ani­mal sanc­tu­ar­ies ben­e­fit gig Sat­ur­day 27th June, 7.30pm, The Plough, Eas­t­on, Bris­tol, feat Babar Luck, Rat­face & Tracey Cur­tis, £4 entry

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­day 28th June, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, www.rysbath.org.uk/Hazel 01225 469199

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Wednes­day 1st July, 7.30–8.30pm, back­room of The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 2nd July, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs at The Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade

Bath Friends of the Earth meet­ing, Mon­day 6th July, 8pm, Still­point, Broad Street Place, Broad Street

Film: ‘Wed­ding in Galilee’, Tues­day 7th July,7.30pm, Mason­ic Hall, Frome, £5/£3 con­ces­sions; pre­sent­ed by Frome Friends of Pales­tine — part of Frome Fes­ti­val

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 8th July, 8.30pm, the Porter, George Street

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 11th July, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Broad­lands Orchard­share Vol­un­teer­ing Day, Sat­ur­day 11th July, 12–4pm, Broad­lands Orchard, Box Road, Bath­ford, email broad­land­sor­chard­share [at] googlemail.com or phone 07532 472 256

Dan­ish Cli­mate Camp, Den­mark, Sat­ur­day 11th July – Sun­day 19th July, http://camp09.dk

Recy­cle Your Sun­days, Sun­day 12th July, the reg­u­lar series of socia­ble, easy-paced cycle rides, www.rysbath.org.uk/Hazel 01225 469199

Bath Green­peace meet­ing, Mon­day 13th July, 7.30–9pm, Still­point, Broad Street Place

Tran­si­tion Open Forum, Tues­day 14th July, 7pm, Wid­combe Social Club

French Cli­mate Camp Mon­day, Mon­day 3rd August – Sun­day 9th August, France, http://www.campclimat.org

Belgian/Dutch Cli­mate Action Camp, Mon­day 3rd August — Sun­day 9th August, near Antwerp, http://www.klimaatactiekamp.org

The Camp for Cli­mate Action in Scot­land, Mon­day 3rd – Tues­day 11th August, Scot­land, http://climatecampscotland.org.uk

Cym­ru Cli­mate Camp, Thurs­day 13th – Sun­day 16th August 2009, Merthyr Tyd­fil, South Wales, http://climatecampcymru.org

Greek No Bor­ders Camp, Tues­day 25th August – Mon­day 31st August, Lesvos, Greece, http://lesvos09.antira.info

The Camp for Cli­mate Action 2009, Thurs­day 27th August and Wednes­day 2nd Sep­tem­ber, Lon­don, http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, Sat­ur­day 12th Sep­tem­ber, The Island, Sil­ver Street, Bris­tol, 10.30am-7pm, http://www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

Bris­tol Co-Mutiny: Social Change Not Cli­mate Change gath­er­ing, Sun­day 13th Sep­tem­ber – Sat­ur­day 19th Sep­tem­ber, http://www.comutiny.wordpress.com

Inter­na­tion­al Day of Cli­mate Action, Sat­ur­day 24th Octo­ber, http://www.350.org/ oct24

Exclu­sive: Dirty Don’s Dodgy Expens­es

With the ample evi­dence pour­ing out of the cash trough that is West­min­ster to attest to the cor­rupt nature of the vast major­i­ty of our MPs, it may come as no sur­prise to many of you that our own ‘Dodgy’ Don Fos­ter MP is also appar­ent­ly on the take. Our favourite every­man has been claim­ing a stag­ger­ing £380 per week allowance for his sec­ond home (£230 above the nation­al aver­age, and work­ing out to a huge £19,760 per year). In addi­tion to this, Mr Foster’s ‘mis­cel­la­neous’ claims per year total over £5,000 and have risen by 60% since 2001. Obvi­ous­ly as Don gets more and more used to rub­bing shoul­ders with the show­er of cheats and liars that pass them­selves off as our lead­ers, he gets more and more com­fort­able with help­ing him­self to a plush life using our cash. But, on a salary of a mere £65,000 a year, can we blame poor Don for claim­ing an addi­tion­al total of £92,000, includ­ing expens­es, sec­re­tar­i­al ser­vices and ‘mis­cel­la­neous’ expens­es in 2007?

As if this weren’t enough, Don makes a nice lit­tle earn­er for his polit­i­cal career by accept­ing huge wedges of cash; £99,015.09 in 2007 alone to be exact, from a shady char­ac­ter with his roots in white col­lar crime. The super rich and super crooked Paul Stras­burg­er is a local mil­lion­aire, own­er of no less than three local estate agents and by far the largest bankroller of the local Lib Dems. While huge­ly dis­taste­ful, being a mil­lion­aire and a land shark is not tech­ni­cal­ly a crime. What IS stray­ing towards the ille­gal how­ev­er is Strasburger’s deal­ings with a cer­tain Michael Brown, anoth­er bankroller of the Lib Dems. While on the run for theft and mon­ey laun­der­ing (Brown is now hid­ing out in the Caribbean) police took an inter­est in search­ing the home of Stras­burg­er who had put his house for­ward as Brown’s bail address. This is just anoth­er exam­ple of big busi­ness scratch­ing the back of politi­cians – the old boys’ club in action – and adds to the image we are see­ing more and more of the rich and polit­i­cal class­es sneer­ing at us while they rob for the poor and keep for them­selves. Yet still, we can’t hold Don and his Dodgy big busi­ness pals sole­ly respon­si­ble; after all, when in Rome…

…And The BNP Are At It, Too!

Wonk-eyed Nazi Nick Grif­fin has gone to great lengths to dis­tance his par­ty from their white suprema­cist, fas­cist image, dress­ing the par­ty up as an alter­na­tive to cor­rupt main­stream politi­cians. But while the par­ty has tem­porar­i­ly un-stiff­ened their arms, and tries not to be open­ly racist (an attempt foiled by even the light­est scruti­ny), a brief look over their expens­es claims show them to be just as bad as the rest. In Bark­ing and Dagen­ham, sev­en BNP coun­cil­lors attend­ed only 27% of meet­ings while still pock­et­ing their full £9,801 allowance. A BNP coun­cil­lor in Sandwell attend­ed none of the meet­ings at which he was expect­ed and took the full allowance while the party’s 2007 accounts failed their audit as sev­er­al grand of expen­di­ture was not prop­er­ly record­ed. They have also been in trou­ble recent­ly after being caught claim­ing some paid-up par­ty mem­bers were self employed to avoid pay­ing income tax and NI con­tri­bu­tions. So, as well as being obvi­ous­ly racist (Nick Grif­fin recent­ly expressed a hope of ignit­ing a racial war while address­ing a KKK ral­ly in the USA, and has pub­lished books deny­ing the Holo­caust), vio­lent and gen­er­al­ly repres­sive and obnox­ious, it turns out that the BNP are just as cor­rupt as the rest of them, and have been join­ing all the oth­er par­ties in wal­low­ing in unearned piles of our cash. Bas­tards, the lot of ‘em!

Nobody Wins Euro Elec­tions

The recent Euro­pean elec­tions were a resound­ing defeat for main­stream polit­i­cal par­ties – and anoth­er exam­ple of how unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment actu­al­ly is. Labour suf­fered their biggest set­back since the birth of Tony Blair, UKIP strug­gled to keep the votes they already had, whilst left­ist main­stream par­ties such as the Greens made sig­nif­i­cant gains. How­ev­er, the real win­ner was Nobody. Europe-wide, an incred­i­ble 57% vot­ed for Nobody – 65% in the UK – an aston­ish­ing man­date for social change on a scale unseen since the incep­tion of the Lib­er­al par­ty in the 1870s.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, and to the dis­gust of a dis­il­lu­sioned elec­torate across the con­ti­nent, the EU REFUSED to acknowl­edge these votes, and declared that all the seats fair­ly won by Nobody would be REDISTRIBUTED amongst the oth­er par­ties. And so we have a sit­u­a­tion where par­ties such as the BNP, who took LESS votes in this elec­tion than the last, have tak­en seats in the EU Par­lia­ment for the first time in his­to­ry.

In France in 2007 the state’s refusal to rec­og­nize a 16% vote for Nobody led to riot­ing in most major cities. Ear­li­er this year, the Ice­landic government’s refusal to allow Nobody to take posi­tions of pow­er demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly theirs con­tributed to the pop­u­lar over­throw of that gov­ern­ment. With the anger cur­rent­ly brew­ing across Europe, can sim­i­lar upris­ings be far away?

Art With A Cap­i­tal ‘F’

Those das­tard­ly john­nies from B.A.D. (Bath Arts Dic­ta­tor­ship) have been up to their old tricks again. This lot make up the secre­tive lit­tle cabal of the Bath Fes­ti­vals com­mit­tee who hide them­selves away in their suite of rooms atop the city’s Tourist Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre, busi­ly mas­sag­ing their fan­tasies and egos, lay­ing down the law to you, the Bath pub­lic, on vot you vill and vill not enjoy, ja?

Their lat­est two fin­gers-up to pub­lic opin­ion came in the form of a pair of mon­strous and ugly mashed-wire-coathang­er ‘sculp­tures’ by Glouces­ter ‘artist’ Sophie Ryder, which were dumped in Abbey Square in ear­ly April. These met­al hor­rors have no link what­so­ev­er to Bath, oth­er than as a shop win­dow for Ms Ryder’s oth­er out­put, cur­rent­ly on sale at extor­tion­ate prices in the city’s Vic­to­ria Art Gallery. Are we see­ing yet anoth­er B&NES-sponsored exam­ple of steal­ing from the poor to give to the rich?

In arguably one of the best and most enjoy­able dis­plays of direct-action ad hoc pub­lic com­ment since the Bush shoe-throw­ing episode, both beasts were pulled (or pushed) over at East­er week­end. The only thing which marred this dis­play of sound artis­tic judg­ment was their mirac­u­lous res­ur­rec­tion by crane soon after­wards. How much pub­lic dosh was wast­ed on hoist­ing them back on their plinths?

Was it just coin­ci­dence that Bugs Bun­ny and pal Bul­ly from TV pro­gramme ‘Bulls­eye’ pitched up at the same time as the Bath Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val? As they formed a back­drop to the com­e­dy stage itself, how could any­body take them seri­ous­ly? So is there a bunch of cul­tur­al wor­thies, not a mil­lion miles from Kingston Build­ings, extract­ing the urine?

Care In The Co-Mutiny

Activists and groups, dream­ers and schemers from across the south­west are com­ing togeth­er from the 12th to the 20th Sep­tem­ber in Bris­tol for a week of themed autonomous days of action and prac­ti­cal skill shares, pro­mot­ing an alter­na­tive fair­er and more pos­i­tive future, in con­trast to the cur­rent night­mare sce­nario of cor­po­rate greed, social injus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. If you want to get involved and join the Co-Muti­neers – you know you do – email comutiny [at] riseup.net.

http://www.comutiny.wordpress.com

Nobody Takes You Seri­ous­ly Until You Have An Insane Arch-Neme­sis

Bath Ani­mal Action’s cam­paign against foie gras – over­priced liv­er from tor­tured ducks and geese, pro­duced under such appalling con­di­tions that only obscure EU trade laws allow its sale in the UK – remains defi­ant and com­mit­ted in the face of one of the most ret­i­cent restau­ra­teurs yet.

Upmar­ket tapas restau­rant Mini­bar are still refus­ing to remove foie gras from their menu, despite bogus claims of eth­i­cal con­cerns, poor sales of the dish, and con­fes­sions to the Chron­i­cle that they have a “ter­ri­ble night” and lose mon­ey when­ev­er pro­test­ers vis­it. The rea­son for this appar­ent­ly sui­ci­dal devo­tion to cru­el cui­sine may be relat­ed to a small, bald­ing and clear­ly unsta­ble man claim­ing to co-own the restau­rant. His com­bi­na­tion of abuse, mock­ery and delib­er­ate­ly run­ning down an activist with his expen­sive 4x4 has bright­ened up sev­er­al dull nights already.

Despite an increas­ing­ly diverse and des­per­ate array of respons­es – push­ing an activist in the road, claim­ing to have proof that the food was eth­i­cal­ly pro­duced and then refus­ing to show it, the afore­men­tioned vehic­u­lar assault, repeat­ed and ground­less threats of arrest from an open­ly one-sided police farce, and being bored to death for hours by an idiot who could bare­ly hold an opin­ion for five min­utes, let alone an argu­ment – the cam­paign­ers have vowed to fight for a foie-gras free Bath!

www.banfoiegras.org.uk/
www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/foiegras/index.html

Upping The Veg-Ante

Last month’s Bris­tol Veg­an Fayre – an annu­al cel­e­bra­tion of veg­an food, health and ani­mal-cru­el­ty-free ethics – went shin­ing­ly on the 30th and 31st May at Bristol’s Har­bour­side. Open to peo­ple of all dietary deci­sions, the food and drink flowed freely, par­tic­u­lar­ly the free sam­ples of choco­late and deli­cious fake meats, and there were stun­ning dis­plays of Sikh sword­fight­ing, and a sol­id line-up of reg­gae and rock over both days. Also on offer were info stalls on nutri­tion, char­i­ties, ani­mal res­cue cen­tres and cam­paign­ing groups – although unfor­tu­nate­ly there were slight­ly few­er ven­dors and high­er costs this year, and a more com­mer­cialised atmos­phere than pre­vi­ous­ly: with stalls reflect­ing the social issues con­nect­ed to veg­an­ism being rel­e­gat­ed to out-of-the-way spots in favour of com­pa­nies intent on tap­ping into the bur­geon­ing veg­an mar­ket. Still, a some­what more grass­roots veg­an fayre is planned for Bath in late Summer/early Sep­tem­ber, so keep your eyes peeled.

http://www.bristolveganfayre.co.uk

Bath Activist Net­work are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, email bathac­tivist­net [at] yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: http://www.bathactivistnetwork.blogspot.com

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bath­bomb­press [at] yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bath­bomb­press [at] yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.thebathbomb.blogspot.com

World Naked Bike Rides UK (& Manchester Critical Mass)

Brighton:

In Brighton, organ­is­ers of the sev­en-mile ride were warned by Sus­sex Police last month that par­tic­i­pants could face pros­e­cu­tion if offi­cers received com­plaints about the nudi­ty.

But, after advice from civ­il lib­er­ties group Lib­er­ty, cyclists entered dis­cus­sions with local police chiefs and resolved the impasse.

Brighton:

In Brighton, organ­is­ers of the sev­en-mile ride were warned by Sus­sex Police last month that par­tic­i­pants could face pros­e­cu­tion if offi­cers received com­plaints about the nudi­ty.

But, after advice from civ­il lib­er­ties group Lib­er­ty, cyclists entered dis­cus­sions with local police chiefs and resolved the impasse.

Co-organ­is­er Dun­can Blinkhorn said: “This is a fun if out­ra­geous way to make the seri­ous point that we should not have to tol­er­ate roads, cities and a plan­et dom­i­nat­ed by the brutish­ness of cars that rou­tine­ly foul the air we all breathe, destroy lives and impov­er­ish the envi­ron­ment.”

—-

Lon­don:

On Sat­ur­day 12 June 2010 the sev­enth Lon­don World Naked Bike Ride will return to the streets of the cap­i­tal, allow­ing rid­ers to see the city sights from the com­fort of a bike or skates. The ride is easy and upbeat, and rid­ers dec­o­rate their bod­ies and bikes with mes­sages of protest against oil depen­den­cy and car cul­ture.

Around 1200 rid­ers turned out for the Lon­don World Naked Bike Ride on Sat­ur­day, com­plet­ing a 10km cir­cuit through some of the major tourist and shop­ping streets of the cap­i­tal and as in pre­vi­ous rides cre­at­ing quite a stir for the five min­utes or so while they passed.

Lon­don police, also on ped­al cycles but ful­ly clothed, accom­pa­nied the cyclists and eased their pas­sage through the traf­fic. Nudi­ty is not in itself an offence and police allow the now annu­al protest to take place.

Crowds sev­er­al deep lined the edge of the road in pop­u­lar tourist spots includ­ing Trafal­gar Square, and even many of the shop­pers in Oxford St stopped con­sum­ing to watch, although from the many com­ments I heard, many were unclear about the pur­pose of the event.

Some rid­ers did have slo­gans on their bod­ies, main­ly about oil and traf­fic, and some bikes car­ried A4 posters read­ing REAL RIGHTS FOR BIKE and CELEBRATE BODY FREEDOM or had flags stat­ing ‘CURB CAR CULTURE’ which made clear the pur­pose of the event to the care­ful onlook­er, but for most peo­ple it seemed sim­ply a spec­ta­cle of naked or near-naked bod­ies. Though of course also a rare treat for any bicy­cle spot­ters.

Rid­ers rode in a vari­ety of dress and undress. Apart from shoes — vir­tu­al­ly essen­tial on a bike — some wore noth­ing, while oth­ers added body paint, cycle hel­mets, hats, shorts or briefs, bras and often a cam­era; a few rode ful­ly dressed. As on pre­vi­ous events there were con­sid­er­ably more men than women, some­thing that isn’t ful­ly reflect­ed in my pic­tures. Although there were few­er women, more of them were in colour­ful body paint or oth­er­wise stood out from the crowd.

This is an event that many — rid­ers and watch­ers — enjoy and some­thing that real­ly does make thou­sands of peo­ple stop and stare, but as in pre­vi­ous years it seems to fail to get a clear mes­sage across, per­haps because those tak­ing part do so for such var­ied rea­sons. This isn’t essen­tial­ly a natur­ist ral­ly and nudi­ty alone just isn’t enough to get the point of the event across.

* Lon­don is the largest day­time WNBR event in the world. We had 1,200 par­tic­i­pants on Sat­ur­day 13 June 2009!!! Pre­vi­ous­ly we had 1,000 (2007 & 2008), 800 (2006), 250 (2005) and 58 (2004).

—-

Man­ches­ter:

The weath­er was per­fect, the rid­ers were excep­tion­al and the start­ing point was love­ly. We rode in joy and fun and lots of noise for almost the whole route and the crowds loved us. It all went a bit pear-shaped on Port­land Street when some well-inten­tioned but sad­ly ill-informed con­stab­u­lary stopped the ride and tried to make us get dressed. We undressed around the cor­ner any­way, and we did get a lot of won­der­ful media cov­er­age. It ain’t gonna hap­pen again folks, we’ll make sure of that! Next year’s going to have the best ride ever!

—-

Sheffield:

There were 18 naked rid­ers which was down from last year’s 27 par­tic­i­pants, although the weath­er was just as nice and sun­ny with a warm gen­tle breeze. The gold­en sun­shine and clear blue skies, made it a won­der­ful day for ever­body. This year, as it was our sec­ond annu­al ride, we were hop­ing for around one hun­dred naked rid­ers. How­ev­er, as the Lon­don WNBR was held in the after­noon, this may have low­ered the turn out as folk thronged to the Lon­don ride which had over one thou­sand rid­ers.

—-

Southamp­ton:

On a dry and ‘warm enough’ evening 150 rid­ers attend­ed. The con­voy was led in fine style by a pair of Pen­ny Far­things dat­ing from the 1890s. We felt that these vehi­cles from a time before the inter­nal com­bus­tion engine neat­ly debunked the fool­ish idea that roads are made for cars! Helped by the state­ly pace of the vin­tage bikes, the ride stayed close­ly bunched togeth­er which gave a sense of uni­ty. We were greet­ed warm­ly by bystanders as we passed, and most car dri­vers were tol­er­ant (though there were the odd few aggres­sive excep­tions). Though num­bers were about the same as last year, it seemed to me there was a greater show of naked­ness this time, so hoorah for Southamp­ton rid­ers!

—-

York:

AN 87-year-old woman was among the par­tic­i­pants in this year’s York Naked Bike Ride.

Mar­garet Dust­man, who lived in Acomb for more than 50 years before mov­ing to Mir­field, said she took part because she was against people’s devo­tion to petrol and fash­ion.

Mrs Dust­man cycled off in the alto­geth­er, but oth­ers were there in var­i­ous states of undress, wear­ing Indi­an head­dress, biki­nis and var­i­ous slo­gans daubed on their bod­ies.

Oth­er reports, pho­tos and things at http://www.worldnakedbikeride.org/uk/

—-

The Crit­i­cal Mass­es in Man­ches­ter have been attend­ed by well over 100 peo­ple each month, for the last cou­ple of years — hoorah!

Videos of May 2009 ride parts 1 2 3 4

See you there — every last fri­day of the month 6pm cen­tral library MCR

—-

3rd, 4th and 5th of july amsterdam cyclist declare a war on cars

When the wars on cars begin we’ll have: crit­i­cal mass­es, alley cat races, tall bike joust­ings, bike wars, bike polo, road block­ades, work­shops, info­s­tands, food not bombs, par­ties and a lot of fun! Bike action days, this sum­mer in ams­ter­dam.

Man­i­festo

Bike powerWhen the wars on cars begin we’ll have: crit­i­cal mass­es, alley cat races, tall bike joust­ings, bike wars, bike polo, road block­ades, work­shops, info­s­tands, food not bombs, par­ties and a lot of fun! Bike action days, this sum­mer in ams­ter­dam.

Man­i­festo

In the week­end of july 4th we declare a war on cars. In this week­end there will be a bike fes­ti­val in Ams­ter­dam. On dif­fer­ent loca­tions events, work­shops, info stands, fun & games, par­ties, and direct actions to block and frus­trate the traf­fic will be held. Cars lead to pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change, deaths and injuries. They are a nui­sance, and are dom­i­nat­ing the pub­lic space.Where the pub­lic space is not designed to facil­i­tate the ever con­sum­ing shop­ping fren­zy and indus­try it is designed to please fos­sil-fuel-traf­fic.

Since there is so lit­tle time left to pre­vent cli­mate change to turn into cat­a­stroph­ic dis­as­ter we con­sid­er it irre­spon­si­ble to invest in any type of fos­sil fuels. To give way to the same cor­rupt­ed indus­tries that got us in this mess in the first place is redicu­lous. Still the gov­ern­ment is con­struct­ing more roads and high­ways, more lanes on exist­ing high­ways, and invest­ing in more indus­try and world trade. Even ‘Agro-fuels’ are not going to save the world. On the con­trairy they will starve most of the world’s pop­u­la­tion. The oil-age is at its end and west­ern soci­ety is clasp­ing on to its unfair­ly acquired con­cen­tra­tion of wealth and lux­u­ry. Now not only dev­as­tat­ing life else­where on this plan­et but with cli­mate change also mak­ing sure that in the future of the whole earth will not be so pleas­ant and bio-divers.

We are not going to take it any­more! When the war on cars begins we will send out a mes­sage to car users that they do not have ulti­mate pri­or­i­ty in pub­lic space any­more, that cars are out­dat­ed tech­nol­o­gy since oil will not be afford­able for ever and that we demand a healthy earth for the next gen­er­a­tions. We will tem­porar­i­ly reclaim some pub­lic space for games and fun, pro­mot­ing bikes and demand­ing more space and facil­i­ties for bikes, and for inform­ing peo­ple about alter­na­tives to an oil-based soci­ety.

Through­out the week­end there will be an ´alley-cat´-race, a car­ri­er bike (bak­fi­ets) race, tall bike joust­ing and bike wars. To enter an event send an email of your team name and which event to enter to or just show up with your (carrier)bike, tall bike or war­bike. Also a lot of help is need­ed in orga­niz­ing, and mobi­liz­ing. Espe­cial­ly out­side Ams­ter­dam and Hol­land! So get in touch, inform your sur­round­ings, get involved, get active!

bikesnotcars@gmail.com
http://bikesnotcars.wordpress.com

Climate Rush Pedal Power

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Mon­day 1st June the UK Par­lia­ment returns from recess for the sum­mer sit­ting.
We want to give them a warm wel­come and remind them of the heat they can expect if they con­tin­ue to ignore cli­mate change.

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Mon­day 1st June the UK Par­lia­ment returns from recess for the sum­mer sit­ting.
We want to give them a warm wel­come and remind them of the heat they can expect if they con­tin­ue to ignore cli­mate change.

Ed Miliband (Sec­re­tary of State Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change) is in Bonn that evening, dis­cussing with oth­er ‘world lead­ers’ the agen­da for the UN Cli­mate Sum­mit in Copen­hagen. Let’s give our ‘lead­ers’ a taste of the civ­il dis­obe­di­ence they can expect if real cli­mate jus­tice fails to mate­ri­alise.

It is also the first evening of a coal con­fer­ence at the illus­tri­ous ‘Chatham House’. Every­one who’s any­one, at least in the coal world, will be there.

We’ll begin our bike-ride out­side their con­fer­ence before wind­ing our way through town.

Meet us from 5pm on St James Square, SW1Y 4LE. We’ll then move off at 6pm and take our bikes for a relaxed tour through Lon­don. Labour might think that invest­ing in elec­tric cars is the solu­tion to cli­mate change but we know that cars using elec­tric­i­ty from coal-fired pow­er sta­tions is yet anoth­er red-her­ring.

The Coal caravan has arrived in West Yorkshire! AND daily blog

29.04.2009
The coal car­a­van is now in West York­shire and has vis­it­ed Fair­burn Ings which is threat­ened with open cast­ing and Fer­rby­bridge pow­er sta­tion which will burn the coal.

The Coal Car­a­van reach­es Fer­ry­bridge

Coal caravan banner at Shipley open-cast siteCoal caravan somewhere under the rainbow29.04.2009
The coal car­a­van is now in West York­shire and has vis­it­ed Fair­burn Ings which is threat­ened with open cast­ing and Fer­rby­bridge pow­er sta­tion which will burn the coal.

The Coal Car­a­van reach­es Fer­ry­bridge

The Coal car­a­van has arrived in West York­shire! After a day of cycling 54 miles in the rain the car­a­van has set up in Pon­te­fract.

Today activists and locals walked from Pon­te­fract to Fair­burn Ings, a site which will be dev­as­tat­ed by open cast coal min­ing if HJ banks and the Led­stone Estate are giv­en the go ahead to remove coal. On the way we passed the mon­stros­i­ty which is Fer­ry­bridge pow­er sta­tion and were able to see exact­ly where the coal from the Fair­burn Ings area will be burned. The coal tak­en from this area will only pow­er the three local pow­er sta­tions for 11 days, yet it is pre­dict­ed to take 50 years for the area to recov­er. The affects on glob­al warm­ing will be felt indef­i­nite­ly if we don’t move away from a coal based pow­er source, to renew­able tech­nol­o­gy fast.

Last night the Car­a­van had an evening of dis­cus­sion around the his­to­ry of coal and the future of coal. The event was booked to take place at Pon­te­fract New Col­lege, but the police leant on the col­lege and then told the pub­lic the event had been can­celled. Thank­ful­ly we were still able to go ahead with the event in the Town Hall instead! The police have been over­ly present at some aspects of the car­a­van, but this has sim­ply increased the public’s curios­i­ty with our events and shown how much the police waste their time.

This evening the Car­a­van will show the Age of Stu­pid in Pon­te­fract Library.

Tomor­row we cycle North, towards events in Durham and the North East. If you are inter­est­ed in the car­a­van there is still time to come along. We have a full timetable over the bank hol­i­day week­end with the local com­mu­ni­ty and extra hands would be wel­come. Please check out our web­site for details of accom­mo­da­tion and ring the car­a­van on 07729575582 to let us know you are com­ing.

caravan@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.coalcaravan.org.uk

Dai­ly blog dur­ing jour­ney — http://coalcaravan.wordpress.com/

Arrest @ CRITICAL MASS in Elephant and Castle in London — ACAB

25.04.2009
One per­son was arrest­ed after the mass today… the cops sur­round­ed us in ele­phant, start­ed being aggres­sive and arrest­ed one per­son…

We were just arriv­ing in ele­phant and cas­tle and the cop­pers sent at least 4 police cars to wel­come us at the ele­phant round­about.

25.04.2009
One per­son was arrest­ed after the mass today… the cops sur­round­ed us in ele­phant, start­ed being aggres­sive and arrest­ed one per­son…

We were just arriv­ing in ele­phant and cas­tle and the cop­pers sent at least 4 police cars to wel­come us at the ele­phant round­about.

After one round of the round­about we all stopped in the green area and we had a 1 min com­mem­o­ra­tion about one cyclist killed in the round­about.
soon after the police come and sur­round us … there are about 15/20 cops… one per­son prob­a­bly piss­ing on the grass has been told off by the police…

the per­son reply with bad words… he does not speak eng­lish well… being from nether­land…

end of the sto­ry police start get­ting vio­lent, oth­er peo­ple try to help… cop­pers take him away…

THERE WERE NO REASON TO COME AND HARASS PEOPLE DOWN AT THE END OF THE MASS WHEN WE WERE JUST HAVING GOOD TIME AND BEING PEACEFUL»> ONCE AGAINST THE POLICE MANAGED TO INSTIGATE VIOLENCE AND REPRESS PEOPLE FREEDOM TO CYCLE…

Cop­pers F.O.

a mass­er.…

Coal caravan coming very soon — route info & how to book if you are coming — & phone number

COAL CARAVAN
24 April‑4 May 2009

Hel­lo !

**Now we’re enroute, con­tact us by phone if you are plan­ning to join us and want to get in touch then please call 07729575582**

Coal caravan headerCOAL CARAVAN
24 April‑4 May 2009

Hel­lo !

**Now we’re enroute, con­tact us by phone if you are plan­ning to join us and want to get in touch then please call 07729575582**

Here is the lat­est route plan and event diary for the coal car­a­van as well as the near­est train sta­tions for peo­ple who wish to join us along the way.

Remem­ber you need to tell us where you are joining/leaving the car­a­van!
http://sounddevastation.co.uk/coalcaravan/booking.html

There is alot of cycling involved! We will be cycling up to 45 miles per day (though usu­al­ly less) and it will not be flat. We will how­ev­er have dif­fer­ent paced par­ties to accom­mo­date the fastest and the slow­est, but this is a great excuse to do some train­ing at get fit!

You will need a work­ing bike (see the Bicy­col­o­gy web­site for advice on on basic main­te­nance www.bicycology.org.uk/guide_pages.htm).

You will also need to be able to car­ry all your belong­ings on your bike (see www.bicycology.org.uk/guide_pages.htm) as there will be no sup­port vehi­cle.

If you plan to join us after the Fri­day night, please make sure you arrive before 8.30am or after 6pm.

You can view a Google map of the route here, though be aware it is sub­ject to change. http://tinyurl.com/coalcaravanroute

There will be some peo­ple trav­el­ling the route by bus, email for more infor­ma­tion.

Fri 24th April
Meet at the Sumac Cen­tre in Not­ting­ham at around 3pm, for a bicy­cle fix-up work­shop, Crit­i­cal Mass, and a great veg­an meal, before a send-off par­ty in co-oper­a­tion with the Demo eth­i­cal night­club project.
Near­est train sta­tion — Not­ting­ham

Sat 25th
Cycle to Ship­ley, Der­byshire, where we will be hold­ing an activ­i­ty after­noon and an evening event.
Near­est train sta­tion — Not­ting­ham (morn­ing) Lan­g­ley Mill (evening)

Sun 26th
A walk with local activists around the Ship­ley open cast site. This will include talks on the nat­ur­al his­to­ry and wildlife of the area.
Near­est train sta­tion — Lan­g­ley Mill (all day)

Mon 27th
Cycle to Don­cast­er
Near­est train sta­tion — Lan­g­ley Mill (morn­ing) Don­cast­er (evening)

Tues 28th
A press call out­side Ed Mil­liband’s con­stituen­cy office at 10am, then cycle to Pon­te­fract doing out­reach and vis­it­ing sites along the way. The evening event is “the His­to­ry of Coal; the future of coal”, at The Main Hall, Pon­te­fract Col­lege. Cur­ry sup­per from 6pm., with dis­cus­sion from 7.
Near­est train sta­tion — Don­cast­er (morn­ing) Pon­te­fract (evening)

Wed 29th
A walk to Fer­ry­bridge pow­er sta­tion, and from there to the site of the pro­posed open-cast near Fair­bairn Ings/Ledstone, then in the evening to Pon­te­fract library for a bicy­cle pow­ered screen­ing of the Age of Stu­pid.
Near­est train sta­tion — Pon­te­fract (all day)

Thurs 30th
Cycling north, vis­it­ing sites and talk­ing to peo­ple all the way.
Near­est train sta­tion — Pon­te­fract (morn­ing) Ripon(evening)

Fri 1st May
Cycling north.
Near­est train sta­tion — Ripon (morn­ing) New­ton Aycliffe (evening)

Sat 2nd
Cycle to Dip­ton, Stan­ley, Co. Durham, where there will be a wel­come event about the Coal Car­a­van 7pm.
Near­est train sta­tion — New­ton Aycliffe (morn­ing) Durham (evening)

Sun 3rd
10.30am meet at Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre for a site walk in the beau­ti­ful area around Bradley. We will have a local his­to­ri­an on the walk which will be 4–5 miles, off road and unsuit­able for bug­gies. The evening event will be “The His­to­ry of Coal; The Future of Coal” at 7.30pm, Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.
Near­est train sta­tion — Durham (all day)

Mon 4th
Work­shops about cam­paign strate­gies and action train­ing in the Church Hut at Cam­bois, North of Blyth. 10- 6pm. There will be chil­dren’s work­shops and games from 11.30am please bring bikes. 7.30pm Cam­bois Min­er’s Insti­tute, a bicy­cle pow­ered screen­ing of the Age of Stu­pid.
Near­est train sta­tion — Durham (morn­ing) Cram­ling­ton (evening)

Tues 5th
Relax then head home by train in the after­noon. You will need to book your train!
Near­est train sta­tion — Cram­ling­ton (all day)

Email: caravan@climatecamp.org.uk
Post: Coal Car­a­van, c/o 245 Glad­stone St, Not­ting­ham, NG7 6HX
www.coalcaravan.org.uk

Why climate camping & other protest? Ecological debt day for your city…coming soon!

Eco­log­i­cal debt: no way back from bank­rupt

3 planetsEco­log­i­cal debt: no way back from bank­rupt

While most gov­ern­ments’ eyes are on the bank­ing cri­sis, a much big­ger issue — the envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis — is pass­ing them by, says Andrew Simms. In the Green Room this week, he argues that fail­ure to organ­ise a bailout for eco­log­i­cal debt will have dire con­se­quences for human­i­ty.

“Nature Does­n’t Do Bailouts!” said the ban­ner strung across Bish­ops­gate in the City of Lon­don.

Civil­i­sa­tion’s biggest prob­lem was out­lined in five words over the entrance to the small, par­al­lel real­i­ty of the peace­ful cli­mate camp. Their tents bloomed on the morn­ing of 1 April faster than daisies in spring, and faster than the police could stop them.

Across the city, where the world’s most pow­er­ful peo­ple met simul­ta­ne­ous­ly at the G20 sum­mit, the same prob­lem was almost com­plete­ly ignored, mer­it­ing only a sin­gle, after­thought men­tion in a long com­mu­nique.

World lead­ers dropped every­thing to tack­le the finan­cial debt cri­sis that spilled from col­laps­ing banks.

Gripped by a pan­ic so com­plete, there was no pol­i­cy dog­ma too deeply engrained to be dug out and instant­ly dis­card­ed. We went from tri­umphant, finance-dri­ven free mar­ket cap­i­tal­ism, to bank nation­al­i­sa­tion and mov­ing the dec­i­mal point on indus­try bailouts quick­er than you can say sub-prime mort­gage.

But the eco­log­i­cal debt cri­sis, which threat­ens much more than pen­sion funds and car man­u­fac­tur­ers, is left to lan­guish.

It is like hav­ing a Com­mis­sion on House­hold Ren­o­va­tion ago­nise over which expen­sive design­er wall­pa­per to use for paper­ing over plas­ter cracks whilst ignor­ing the fact that the walls them­selves are col­laps­ing on sub­sid­ing foun­da­tions.

Beyond our means

Each year, human­i­ty’s eco­log­i­cal over­draft gets larg­er, and the day that the world as a whole goes into eco­log­i­cal debt — con­sum­ing more resources and pro­duc­ing more waste than the bios­phere can pro­vide and absorb — moves ever ear­li­er in the year.

The same pic­ture emerges for indi­vid­ual coun­tries like the UK — which now starts liv­ing beyond its own envi­ron­men­tal means in mid-April.

Because the glob­al econ­o­my is still over­whelm­ing­ly fos­sil-fuel depen­dent, the accu­mu­la­tion of green­house gas­es and the prog­no­sis for glob­al warm­ing remain our best indi­ca­tors of “over­shoot”.

World famous French free-climber Alain Robert, known as Spi­der­man, climbed the Lloyds of Lon­don build­ing for the OneHundredMonths.org cam­paign as the G20 met, to demon­strate how time is slip­ping away.

Using thresh­olds for risk iden­ti­fied by the Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC), on cur­rent trends, in only 92 months — less than eight years — we will move into a new, more per­ilous phase of warm­ing.

It will then no longer be “like­ly” that we can pre­vent some aspects of run­away cli­mate change. We will begin to lose the cli­mat­ic con­di­tions which, as Nasa sci­en­tist James Hansen points out, were those under which civil­i­sa­tion devel­oped.

Small div­i­dend

As “nature does­n’t do bailouts”, how have our politi­cians fared who ripped open the nation’s wal­let to save the banks?

Not good.

Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF), the UK spent a stag­ger­ing 20% of its GDP in sup­port of the finan­cial sec­tor.

Yet the amount of mon­ey that was new and addi­tion­al, announced in the “green stim­u­lus” pack­age of the Trea­sury’s Pre-Bud­get Report, added-up to a van­ish­ing­ly small 0.0083% of GDP.

Glob­al­ly, the green shade of eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus mea­sures has var­ied enor­mous­ly. For exam­ple, the shares of spend­ing con­sid­ered in research by the bank HSBC to be envi­ron­men­tal were:

* the US — 12%
* Ger­many — 13%
* South Korea — 80%

The inter­na­tion­al aver­age was around 15%. HSBC found the UK planned to invest less than 7% of its stim­u­lus pack­age (dif­fer­ent from the bank bailout) in green mea­sures.

Com­par­ing the IMF and HSBC fig­ures actu­al­ly reveals an inverse rela­tion­ship — pro­por­tion­ate­ly, those who spent more on sup­port for finance had weak­er green spend­ing.

So here we are, faced with the loss of an envi­ron­ment con­ducive to human civil­i­sa­tion, and we find gov­ern­ments pros­trate before bare­ly repen­tant banks, with their backs to a far worse eco­log­i­cal cri­sis.

Extreme mar­kets

On top of low and incon­sis­tent fund­ing for renew­able ener­gy, the shift to a low car­bon econ­o­my is being fur­ther frus­trat­ed by anoth­er mar­ket fail­ure in the trade for car­bon seen, for exam­ple, in the EU’s Emis­sions Trad­ing Scheme.

Bad mar­ket design, fee­ble car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets and the reces­sion have all con­spired to dri­ve down the cost of car­bon emis­sion per­mits, wreck­ing eco­nom­ic incen­tives to grow renew­able ener­gy.

Worse still, the dif­fi­cul­ty of account­ing to ensure that per­mits rep­re­sent real emis­sions has led both ener­gy com­pa­nies and envi­ron­men­tal­ists to warn of an emerg­ing “sub-prime car­bon mar­ket”.

Rely­ing on mar­ket mech­a­nisms is attrac­tive to gov­ern­ments because it means they have less to do them­selves. But they will fail if car­bon mar­kets are just hot air.

There seems to be a hard-wired link between mem­o­ry fail­ure and mar­ket fail­ure.

As the his­to­ri­an E J Hob­s­bawm observed in The Age of Extremes: “Those of us who lived through the years of the Great Slump still find it almost impos­si­ble to under­stand how the ortho­dox­ies of the pure free mar­ket, then so obvi­ous­ly dis­cred­it­ed, once again came to pre­side over a glob­al peri­od of depres­sion in the late 1980s and 1990s”.

Per­haps the great­est fail­ure is one of imag­i­na­tion.

Some peo­ple alive today lived through those past reces­sions and depres­sions. They know they can be nasty and need avert­ing.

But the last time the Earth­’s cli­mate real­ly flipped was at the end of the last Ice Age, more than 10,000 years ago. No one can remem­ber what that felt like.

Lessons of his­to­ry

Look­ing for­ward, the IPC­C’s worst case sce­nario warns of a max­i­mum 6C rise over the next cen­tu­ry.

Look­ing back, how­ev­er, indi­cates that an unsta­ble cli­mate sys­tem holds worse hor­rors.

Work by the sci­en­tist Richard Alley on abrupt cli­mate change indi­cates the plan­et has pre­vi­ous­ly expe­ri­enced a 10C tem­per­a­ture shift in only a decade, and pos­si­bly “as quick­ly as in a sin­gle year”.

And, around the turn of the last Ice Age, there were “local warm­ings as large as 16C”.

Imag­ine that every day of your life you have tak­en a walk in the woods and the worse thing to hap­pen was an acorn or twig falling on your head.

Then, one day, you stroll out, look up and there is a threat approach­ing so large, unex­pect­ed and out­side your expe­ri­ence that can’t quite believe it, like a mas­sive goth­ic cathe­dral falling from the sky.

In tack­ling cli­mate change we need urgent­ly to recal­i­brate our respons­es, just as gov­ern­ments had to when they res­cued the reck­less finance sec­tor.

Then offi­cials had to ask them­selves “is what we are doing right, and is it enough?”

They must ask them­selves the same ques­tions on the eco­log­i­cal debt cri­sis and cli­mate change.

The dif­fer­ence is, that if they fail this time, not even a long-term busi­ness cycle will come to our res­cue. If the cli­mate shifts to a hot­ter state not con­vivial to human soci­ety, it could be tens of thou­sands of years, or nev­er, before it shifts back.

Remem­ber; nature does­n’t do bailouts.

Andrew Simms is pol­i­cy direc­tor of the New Eco­nom­ics Foun­da­tion (nef), and author of Eco­log­i­cal Debt: Glob­al Warm­ing and the Wealth of Nations

——

One Plan­et Liv­ing http://www.oneplanetliving.org

Your city’s Eco­log­i­cal Debt Day:

Using the lat­est data avail­able WWF has cal­cu­lat­ed when res­i­dents of British cities will have con­sumed their fair share of nat­ur­al resources for 2008 – or when their eco­log­i­cal debt day is.

City Eco­log­i­cal debt day

Win­ches­ter 10 April
St Albans 13 April
Chich­ester 14 April
Brighton & Hove 14 April
Can­ter­bury 17 April
Oxford 17 April
Southamp­ton 21 April
Durham 22 April
Cam­bridge 23 April
Portsmouth 23 April
Edin­burgh 23 April
Chester 24 April
Aberdeen 24 April
Ely (East Cambs) 26 April
Here­ford (Coun­ty of Here­ford­shire) 28 April
Stir­ling 28 April
Lon­don 29 April
Lich­field 29 April
Lan­cast­er 30 April
New­cas­tle upon Tyne 30 April
Wells (Bath and NE Som­er­set) 1 May
Bath (Bath and North East Som­er­set) 1 May
Ripon (Har­ro­gate) 2 May
Man­ches­ter 2 May
Inver­ness (High­land) 2 May
Pre­ston 2 May
Nor­wich 2 May
Peter­bor­ough 2 May
Dundee City 3 May
Leeds 3 May
York 3 May
Sheffield 3 May
Der­by 4 May
Carlisle 4 May
Leices­ter 4 May
Worces­ter 4 May
Ban­gor (Gwynedd) 4 May
St Davids (Pembrokeshire)4 May
Not­ting­ham 4 May
Liv­er­pool 4 May
Bris­tol 5 May
Birm­ing­ham 5 May
Lin­coln 5 May
Brad­ford 5 May
Glas­gow 6 May
Cardiff 6 May
Exeter 6 May
Coven­try 7 May
Swansea 8 May
Sal­ford 8 May
Wolver­hamp­ton 8 May
Truro (Car­rick) 8 May
Sun­der­land 8 May
Wake­field 9 May
Glouces­ter 9 May
Stoke on Trent 10 May
Kingston upon Hull 10 May
Sal­is­bury 10 May
Ply­mouth 11 May
New­port 11 May