Category: Unnecessary Developments

Residents protest at Manchester Airport

On Sat­ur­day 3rd Novem­ber around 100 local res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers took part in a protest walk against the pro­posed World Logis­tics Hub at Man­ches­ter Air­port. The pro­test­ers braved the cold to take a route around the 90 acre for­mer green­belt site, which is threat­ened by the plans to build 43 car­go sheds and almost 1,500 car park­ing space

Local res­i­dents, wildlife enthu­si­asts and envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers spoke at var­i­ous points along the walk, shar­ing their expe­ri­ences of fight­ing Man­ches­ter Air­port expan­sion and high­light­ing the numer­ous ways that the plans would affect local peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.

 

The Wildlife Walk came the week after the Wythen­shawe Area Committee‘recommended for approval’ the World Logis­tics Hub plans, on the 25th Octo­ber.  The appli­ca­tion will now be sent to the Plan­ning and High­ways Com­mit­tee at Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil for a final deci­sion on 22nd Novem­ber 2012. A num­ber of atten­dees at the Wildlife Walk, keen for their con­cerns to be brought to this Com­mit­tee, pledged to attend this Novem­ber meet­ing at Man­ches­ter Town Hall.

Sev­er­al Coun­cil­lors of the Wythen­shawe Area Com­mit­tee backed the Logis­tics Hub plans based on the Air­port’s promis­es of local job oppor­tu­ni­ties. How­ev­er cam­paign­ers argue that

job cre­ation fig­ures pro­posed by the Air­port are inflat­ed.

Jane Beet­son from ‘Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port’ cam­paign  said “When Man­ches­ter Air­port first announced plans for a sec­ond run­way, they claimed 50,000 jobs would be cre­at­ed.  No-where near that num­ber of jobs mate­ri­alised.  Just like then, they are mis­lead­ing the pub­lic now.”

She added, “Local Coun­cil­lors say they will force the Air­port to give jobs to local peo­ple but in prac­tice they will have no way of enforc­ing this on the firms that move into the new office and ware­house spaces.  We need to cre­ate green jobs in sus­tain­able indus­tries not dirty avi­a­tion.” 

The Wildlife Walk was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty for wildlife experts to explain that Air­port’s promis­es of pre­serv­ing wildlife are also unre­al­is­tic, and that cre­at­ing a ‘mit­i­ga­tion zone’ is no sub­sti­tu­tion for leav­ing habi­tats untouched.

Along the route, cam­paign­ers encoun­tered the threat­ened habi­tats of numer­ous plant and ani­mal species. Sev­er­al mature oak trees line Sun­bank Lane, pro­vid­ing nest­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for rare birds, and poten­tial roost­ing spots for endan­gered bat species. The site is also home to 12 ponds occu­pied by Great Crest­ed Newts, an endan­gered species found only in the North West of Eng­land. Walk­ers were also able to spot signs of pro­tect­ed ani­mals for exam­ple bad­ger snuf­fle holes and mole hills in the green space around Sun­bank.

Campaigners prevent carbon emissions in longest-ever power station occupation

Government’s dash for gas brand­ed ‘inde­fen­si­ble’ in wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy

Government’s dash for gas brand­ed ‘inde­fen­si­ble’ in wake of Hur­ri­cane Sandy

EDF has con­firmed that the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion will remain shut down after more than thir­ty No Dash for Gas cli­mate change cam­paign­ers evad­ed secu­ri­ty and entered the site on Mon­day morn­ing. Six­teen of them are spend­ing their third day at the top of two 300 ft smoke­stacks at the West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire, and last night built new bar­ri­cades out of scaf­fold­ing, lad­ders and wood. They have abseiled down inside one of the chim­neys to set up camp in tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. [1] As long as they hold their posi­tion above the fur­nace the plant is unable to oper­ate.

Because the plant was not yet ful­ly oper­a­tional and not con­nect­ed to the grid, the cam­paign­ers claim they have pre­vent­ed 2371 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions a day by shut­ting down the one work­ing chim­ney. This is equiv­a­lent to the ener­gy that an aver­age home uses for 182 years, or tak­ing 465 cars off the road for a year. [2] As the human and eco­nom­ic costs of Hur­ri­cane Sandy become clear­er, the need to take action on cli­mate change and avoid many more instances of such extreme weath­er-relat­ed dis­as­ters has nev­er been more press­ing.

Anneka Kel­ly is one of the activists occu­py­ing one of the chim­neys. Speak­ing on a mobile phone she said:

“Ener­gy bills are going through the roof, the East Coast of the US has been dev­as­tat­ed by Hur­ri­cane Sandy, we’re see­ing droughts and floods across the world and glob­al tem­per­a­tures are ris­ing. Yet the gov­ern­ment, at the behest of the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies, wants to build 20 new gas pow­er sta­tions. This is inde­fen­si­ble. Gas is expen­sive, high­ly pol­lut­ing and we don’t need it. We should be invest­ing in clean high-tech renew­ables that slash pol­lu­tion and in the long run will cost a lot less.”

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire has been tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. [3] The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants – a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills. This deci­sion is like­ly to be con­firmed when the delayed Ener­gy Bill is pub­lished towards the end of Novem­ber. But the activists echo many sci­en­tists and the government’s own advis­ers in call­ing for an end to plans for a new dash for gas and invest­ment in a high-tech car­bon-free elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem instead. [4]

Con­trary to claims by min­is­ters and the indus­try, gas is a dirty fuel that pos­es an unac­cept­able threat to the envi­ron­ment. It’s also expen­sive — offi­cial fig­ures from Ofgem show that the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose £150 last year, with £100 of that due to ris­ing whole­sale gas prices.[5] Only last week EDF raised their prices, fol­low­ing most of the oth­er major com­pa­nies and plung­ing even more peo­ple into fuel pover­ty. Mean­while high-tech renew­able sys­tems are rapid­ly com­ing down in price, mean­ing that soon they will be cheap­er, while com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try are turn­ing their back on the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies in favour of coop­er­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty ener­gy schemes.

The activists have not yet decid­ed when they are going to come down, but have pledged to give the police sev­er­al hours warn­ing, and hand them­selves in. Nev­er­the­less, the police have crit­i­cised them for wast­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey on an expen­sive police oper­a­tion.

Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the activists occu­py­ing one of the chim­neys, said : ‘It’s EDF who are wast­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey. There is no need for such a heavy police pres­ence on the ground and heli­copters in the sky. It’s not like we’re try­ing to escape! We have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the police from the start and assured them this is a respon­si­ble protest, with safe­ty at its heart. We will give them plen­ty of warn­ing when we intend to come down, and will hand our­selves over.’

Find out more at www.nodashforgas.org.uk
Fol­low us on Twit­ter: @nodashforgas
Like us on Face­book: No Dash for Gas

ENDS

Notes to edi­tors:

  1. The night-time incur­sion was launched at 2am when the raiders got through the secu­ri­ty fence. Under cov­er of dark­ness fif­teen of them crossed the expanse to the chim­neys then split into two groups and began the 300ft climb to the top. They are now build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions. They have enough sup­plies with them to last at least a week and say they’re in it for the long haul. The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. A fur­ther team remained on the ground to liaise with the plant’s man­agers. Before launch­ing the protest they engaged in exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion with an expert engi­neer and each under­went inten­sive safe­ty train­ing.
  2. Accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine plants like this emit 353g of CO2 per kilo­watt hour: http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/policy-legislation/emr/2179-eps-impact-assessment-emr-wp.pdf . This plant had been gen­er­at­ing 280 megawatts:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/30/no-dash-for-gas-occupy . 353g per hour for a day is 8.47 kg a day (353 x 24 = 8470g) and 8.47 x 280,000 is 2371 tonnes a day. That’s the same as ener­gy that an aver­age home uses for 182 years, or tak­ing 465 cars off the road for a year. A dri­ver would have to dri­ve their car non-stop, night and day, for ten and a half years to emit that much…
    http://www.yousustain.com/footprint/howmuchco2?co2=2371+tons
  3. West Bur­ton gas pow­er sta­tion is a 1,300MW Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine (CCGT) plant, cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion in Not­ting­hamshire. It is com­prised of three tur­bine hous­es and chim­neys, labelled Units 1, 2 and 3. Unit 2 is com­plete and is oper­at­ing at almost full capac­i­ty. Units 1 and 3 are fur­ther behind, with Unit 1 clos­er to com­ple­tion than 3. When com­plete, the new CCGT plant will emit approx­i­mate­ly 4.5 mil­lion tonnes CO2 per year when oper­at­ing at full capac­i­ty. This is more than the annu­al emis­sions of Paraguay. [i]
  4. The Gov­ern­men­t’s inde­pen­dent cli­mate advis­ers, the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, have called for our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem to be almost entire­ly car­bon free by 2030.[ii] They have defined this as mean­ing that our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem should pro­duce no more than 50g of CO2 for every kilo­watt hour of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed, by 2030. The Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, John Gum­mer, recent­ly wrote to the Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, to warn that George Osborne’s plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of gas pow­er could be ille­gal: “exten­sive use of unabat­ed gas-fired capac­i­ty… in 2030 and beyond would be incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing leg­is­lat­ed car­bon bud­gets.” [iii]
  5. Fig­ures from Ofgem show that in 2011 the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose by £150, with £100 of this due to the ris­ing cost of gas. [iv]

Facts and fig­ures on the dash for gas:

· Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, has called for 20GW of gas pow­er sta­tions to be built by 2030, approx­i­mate­ly 20 new pow­er sta­tions. [v]

· He has also guar­an­teed that gas pow­er sta­tions that already have plan­ning con­sent can, if built, con­tin­ue emit­ting CO2 unabat­ed until 2045, i.e. their full life-span, by exempt­ing them from emis­sions reg­u­la­tions. [vi] There is cur­rent­ly 13GW of gas that has either recent­ly been com­plet­ed, is in con­struc­tion, or has been grant­ed plan­ning con­sent. [vii]

· Lord Turn­er, in his for­mer role as Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, wrote to the Ener­gy Sec­re­tary to warn this would lead to “the risk that there will be too much gas-fired gen­er­a­tion instead of low car­bon invest­ment” and that the pol­i­cy could take emis­sions “beyond the lim­its implied by car­bon bud­gets.”[viii]

· Last week, EDF hiked their ener­gy prices by 10.8%, the high­est of any of the big six ener­gy com­pa­nies so far this win­ter.

· Recent polling by YouGov found that 55% of peo­ple want more wind­farms, com­pared to just 17% who want more gas pow­er sta­tions. [ix]

· An ICM poll found that more than two-thirds of peo­ple would rather have a wind tur­bine than a shale gas well near their home. [x]

· The Off­shore Wind Val­u­a­tion Group found that har­ness­ing just 29% of the prac­ti­cal off­shore renew­able resource by 2050 would gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty equiv­a­lent of 1 bil­lion bar­rels of oil annu­al­ly, match­ing North Sea oil and gas pro­duc­tion and mak­ing Britain a net elec­tric­i­ty exporter. [xi]

[xi] http://offshorevaluation.org/downloads/offshore_valuation_full.pdf

No Dash for Gas 40 hours and counting: Update & Photos

Yes­ter­day more than 20 cli­mate change activists evad­ed secu­ri­ty to shut down the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. 16 of them have remained in the pow­er sta­tion occu­py­ing two of its chim­neys to pre­vent it from being turned on again. They climbed two smoke­stacks at EDF Energy’s West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire and abseiled down the insides of the chim­neys. The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. They’ve now been up there for over 40 hours, they intend to stay there until it is no longer pos­si­ble to remain. They have set up camp with tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. They have also instal­let­ed solar pan­els and are build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions.

The group have come togeth­er under the ban­ner ‘No Dash For Gas’, from across the coun­try to take action against the new wave of invest­ment in gas. Prof­it-hun­gry cor­po­ra­tions have been suc­cess­ful in lob­by­ing politi­cians to replace coal with gas as the new back­bone to our high­ly-pol­lut­ing and inse­cure ener­gy infra­struc­ture, whilst doing noth­ing to tack­le cli­mate change or ris­ing ener­gy bills.

For as long as we have an eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ven by prof­it, our ener­gy sys­tem will con­tin­ue to dri­ve us towards cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change. We’re here to fight back against an eco­log­i­cal­ly irre­versible deci­sion to con­tin­ue with a fos­sil-fuel pow­ered ener­gy sys­tem despite the fact that renew­able tech­nolo­gies are capa­ble of pow­er­ing a sus­tain­able future. The effects of anthro­pogenic cli­mate change have been more wide­spread and more severe this year than any so far on record – the arc­tic melt smashed through all pre­vi­ous records, the drought in the USA has sparked the begin­ning of a world­wide food cri­sis and there has been a marked increase in extreme weath­er events across the globe.

This action is one of many that have tak­en place this year as part of a renewed effort by activists across the UK to take action against cli­mate change and the eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ving it. Dur­ing our time up the chim­ney we want to con­nect with groups and organ­i­sa­tions who share our belief that the time to take rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change is now; and rad­i­cal action stretch­es from find­ing ways for com­mu­ni­ties to adapt and be resilient to cli­mate change, to stand­ing up to the vest­ed eco­nom­ic inter­ests that are pre­vent­ing the tran­si­tion to an eco­log­i­cal­ly viable and more humane soci­ety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire is being tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants—a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills.

Keep in touch with lat­est devel­op­ments by fol­low­ing us on twit­ter: @nodashforgas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protest camp on top of chim­ney

 

 

 

Zombie Roads — Hastings

A Combe Haven Defend­ers protest against not only the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road, but all the ‘zom­bie road’ plans pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be dead and buried but res­ur­rect­ed by the UK coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

A Combe Haven Defend­ers protest against not only the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road, but all the ‘zom­bie road’ plans pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be dead and buried but res­ur­rect­ed by the UK coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

Combe Haven Defend­ers protest­ed in the streets of Hast­ings today, cul­mi­nat­ing in a die-in out­side the offices of local MP Amber Rudd, who is fer­vent­ly in favour of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road which will destroy the beau­ti­ful Combe Haven Val­ley if it is built next year.

The Zom­bie Roads, pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be dead and buried but res­ur­rect­ed by the UK coali­tion gov­ern­ment, did meet with some resis­tance, how­ev­er.…

No Dash For Gas: Campaigners shut down UK’s newest gas plant

Ear­ly on Mon­day 29th Octo­ber, fif­teen peo­ple scaled the chim­neys of West Bur­ton gas-fired pow­er sta­tion, shut­ting it down and halt­ing fur­ther con­struc­tion. West Bur­ton is one of the first of up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions the Gov­ern­ment has planned.

Ear­ly on Mon­day 29th Octo­ber, fif­teen peo­ple scaled the chim­neys of West Bur­ton gas-fired pow­er sta­tion, shut­ting it down and halt­ing fur­ther con­struc­tion. West Bur­ton is one of the first of up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions the Gov­ern­ment has planned.

The new ‘dash for gas’ will leave us depen­dent on a high­ly pol­lut­ing and increas­ing­ly expen­sive fos­sil fuel for decades to come. It would make even our mod­est car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets impos­si­ble to hit, and cause house­hold ener­gy bills to soar even fur­ther. While ener­gy com­pa­nies prof­it, our chances of a secure and sus­tain­able future are slip­ping away.

This action is there­fore in defence of the glob­al com­mons, which are under sus­tained attack by pol­lut­ing fos­sil fuel com­pa­nies. We are here to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er and the rush to fur­ther ingrain an ener­gy sys­tem that puts short term prof­its of the few, above the col­lec­tive needs of the many.

Replac­ing our out­dat­ed ener­gy infra­struc­ture with clean alter­na­tives will gen­er­ate hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs. The tech­nol­o­gy is already pow­er­ing thou­sands of homes across the UK, and enjoys over­whelm­ing pub­lic sup­port.

This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to wrest pow­er from a car­tel of ener­gy com­pa­nies, and back into the hands of com­mu­ni­ties.   The dash for gas makes no sense for any­one except the big ener­gy com­pa­nies. We need a clean­er, more resilient and eco­nom­i­cal­ly just ener­gy sys­tem — and we’re here to fight for it. This is the new bat­tle­ground for our ener­gy future.

Climbers abseil down inside of chim­neys and halt con­struc­tion

 

This morn­ing, more than twen­ty cli­mate change cam­paign­ers evad­ed secu­ri­ty to shut down the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. They have climbed two smoke­stacks at EDF’s West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire and have abseiled down the insides of the chim­neys. They are now set­ting up camp in tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. As long as they hold their posi­tion above the fur­naces the plant is unable to oper­ate.

The occu­pa­tion fires the start­ing gun on a huge nation­wide bat­tle over Britain’s ener­gy future, with activists deter­mined to stop gov­ern­ment plans for a new dash for gas. They are call­ing instead for a high-tech car­bon-free elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem.

The night-time incur­sion was launched at 2am when the raiders got through the secu­ri­ty fence. Under cov­er of dark­ness fif­teen of them crossed the expanse to the chim­neys then split into two groups and began the 300ft climb to the top. They are now build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions. They have enough sup­plies with them to last at least a week and say they’re in it for the long haul.

The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. A fur­ther team remained on the ground to liaise with the plant’s man­agers. Before launch­ing the protest they engaged in exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion with an expert engi­neer and each under­went inten­sive safe­ty train­ing.

 

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire is being tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants – a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills.

Anneka Kel­ly is one of the activists occu­py­ing the chim­ney. Speak­ing on a mobile phone she said:

“Ener­gy bills are going through the roof, peo­ple are get­ting flood­ed out of their homes, we’re see­ing droughts across the world but the ener­gy com­pa­nies are mak­ing a killing. We’re here because we want an elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem that doesn’t cause our world to warm and our bills to rise ever high­er. Gas is expen­sive and high­ly pol­lut­ing, but if the Gov­ern­ment gets its way we’ll be reliant on it for decades. Instead we should be invest­ing in clean high-tech renew­ables that slash pol­lu­tion and in the long run will cost a lot less.”

Con­trary to claims by min­is­ters and the indus­try, gas is a dirty fuel that pos­es an unac­cept­able threat to the envi­ron­ment. It’s also expen­sive — offi­cial fig­ures from Ofgem show that the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose £150 last year, with £100 of that due to ris­ing whole­sale gas prices. Only last week EDF raised their prices, fol­low­ing most of the oth­er major com­pa­nies and plung­ing even more peo­ple into fuel pover­ty. Mean­while high-tech renew­able sys­tems are rapid­ly com­ing down in price, mean­ing that soon they will be cheap­er, while com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try are turn­ing their back on the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies in favour of coop­er­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty ener­gy schemes.

Ewa Jasiewicz is on top of one of the chim­neys. She said:

“A new dash for gas will leave the UK utter­ly reliant on this dirty expen­sive fuel for decades to come. Our ener­gy sys­tem is being run by a car­tel of cor­po­ra­tions that has this gov­ern­ment in its pock­et. As long as we have an eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ven by prof­it, we will have an ener­gy sys­tem that ignores the needs of those suf­fer­ing most from cli­mate change and ris­ing ener­gy bills. With a quar­ter of the UK’s out­dat­ed ener­gy infra­struc­ture need­ing to be replaced, we have a once-in-a-gen­er­a­tion oppor­tu­ni­ty to invest in renew­ables that could gen­er­ate hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs, rad­i­cal­ly cut emis­sions of car­bon diox­ide and sta­bilise ener­gy bills. Clean green tech­nol­o­gy is already pow­er­ing thou­sands of homes across the UK, and enjoys over­whelm­ing pub­lic sup­port.”

Notes to edi­tors: · West Bur­ton gas pow­er sta­tion is a 1,300MW Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine (CCGT) plant, cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion in Not­ting­hamshire. · It is com­prised of three tur­bine hous­es and chim­neys, labelled Units 1, 2 and 3. Unit 2 is com­plete and is oper­at­ing at almost full capac­i­ty. Units 1 and 3 are fur­ther behind, with Unit 1 clos­er to com­ple­tion than 3. · When com­plete, the new CCGT plant will emit approx­i­mate­ly 4.5 mil­lion tonnes CO2 per year when oper­at­ing at full capac­i­ty. This is more than the annu­al emis­sions of Paraguay.[i] · The Gov­ern­men­t’s inde­pen­dent cli­mate advis­ers, the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, have called for our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem to be almost entire­ly car­bon free by 2030.[ii] They have defined this as mean­ing that our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem should pro­duce no more than 50g of CO2 for every kilo­watt hour of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed, by 2030. · The Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, John Gum­mer, recent­ly wrote to the Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, to warn that George Osborne’s plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of gas pow­er could be ille­gal: “exten­sive use of unabat­ed gas-fired capac­i­ty… in 2030 and beyond would be incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing leg­is­lat­ed car­bon budgets.”[iii] · Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, has called for 20GW of gas pow­er sta­tions to be built by 2030, approx­i­mate­ly 20 new pow­er sta­tions. [iv] · He has also guar­an­teed that gas pow­er sta­tions that already have plan­ning con­sent can, if built, con­tin­ue emit­ting CO2 unabat­ed until 2045, i.e. their full life-span, by exempt­ing them from emis­sions regulations.[v] There is cur­rent­ly 13GW of gas that has either recent­ly been com­plet­ed, is in con­struc­tion, or has been grant­ed plan­ning consent.[vi] · Lord Turn­er, in his for­mer role as Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, wrote to the Ener­gy Sec­re­tary to warn this would lead to “the risk that there will be too much gas-fired gen­er­a­tion instead of low car­bon invest­ment” and that the pol­i­cy could take emis­sions “beyond the lim­its implied by car­bon budgets.”[vii] · Fig­ures from Ofgem show that in 2011 the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose by £150, with £100 of this due to the ris­ing cost of gas. [viii] · Last week, EDF hiked their ener­gy prices by 10.8%, the high­est of any of the big six ener­gy com­pa­nies so far this win­ter. · Recent polling by YouGov found that 55% of peo­ple want more wind­farms, com­pared to just 17% who want more gas pow­er sta­tions. [ix] · An ICM poll found that more than two-thirds of peo­ple would rather have a wind tur­bine than a shale gas well near their home. [x] · The Off­shore Wind Val­u­a­tion Group found that har­ness­ing just 29% of the prac­ti­cal off­shore renew­able resource by 2050 would gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty equiv­a­lent of 1 bil­lion bar­rels of oil annu­al­ly, match­ing North Sea oil and gas pro­duc­tion and mak­ing Britain a net elec­tric­i­ty exporter. [xi] [i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2012/jun/21/world-carbon-emissions-league-table-country [ii] http://www.theccc.org.uk/pdf/7980-TSO%20Book%20Chap%205.pdf and http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cc7ad3ee-fd8d-11e1-8e36-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27O6cJ1io [iii] http://hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/EMR%20letter%20-%20September%2012.pdf [iv] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/28/gas-fired-power-stations-uk?INTCMP=SRCH [v] http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_025/pn12_025.aspx [vi] http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy-demand/energy-security/3425-statutory-security-of-supply-report-2011.pdf [vii] http://downloads.theccc.org.uk.s3.amazonaws.com/Letters/EdwardDaveyMP_Letter270312.pdf [viii] http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Markets/RetMkts/rmr/smr/Documents1/SMR%20update%2028–03-12.pdf [ix] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/30/germany-renewable-energy-revolution [x] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/23/wind-shale-gas-icm-poll [xi] http://offshorevaluation.org/downloads/offshore_valuation_full.pdf

(France) La ZAD prepares for another week of eviction NON A LA AEROPORT

In La ZAD, a zone occu­pied to stop the con­struc­tion of a new air­port for Nantes, the evic­tion looks set to con­tin­ue from tomor­row. La Saulce is now evictable and it is pos­si­ble the police will also tar­get some of the places that require spe­cial forces to evict tree­hous­es and such. Call­out for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against VINCI, the com­pa­ny who will be con­struct­ing. Call­out for peo­ple here to help. All means to increase aware­ness.

The police have been evict­ing la ZAD for two weeks now, only stop­ping for lunch­break and the week­ends. and the nights.
We are still expect­ing them to return tomor­row to con­tin­ue. Theyve been pass­ing by with the heli­copter today, hav­ing a look around. Since Sat­ur­day night la saulce has become legal­ly evictable. La secherie won an appeal in court, and is now not evictable till decem­ber, and la rosier also is not evictable til the mid­dle of novem­ber.
But it seems like­ly they will come next week for the places they can already evict, and havent already, most­ly la saulce, sabot, and the oth­er cab­ins that dont have a real ‘house’ on the prop­er­ty.
There is a lot more info on the web­site  http://www.zad.nadir.org if you dont read french you can change the langue to eng­lish.
get in con­tact if you want to come over, or just arrive
or do some­thing in your place, the com­pa­ny which build the aero­port is called VINCI (  http://stopvinci.noblogs.org/ ) and they have many things every­where. They are also respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the khim­ki for­est (  http://www.khimkiforest.org/ ) in rus­sia for the con­struc­tion of a high­way and the evic­tion of the protest camp there. There has already been a lot of stuff done to humil­i­ate them in the last weeks it is very cheer­ing.
Let every­one know.
The resis­tance wont end with evic­tion.
Need peo­ple to help with reoc­cu­pa­tion.
Peace and love.

EF! Winter Moot 2013: 22–24th February, near Preston

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism. This year we’ll be in Lan­cashire…

 

Update: full trans­port details and pro­gramme at link below.

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Under the watchful eye of engaged youth, Pangea and the PLA’s “City Concept” plan was halted by tribal council

Saca­ton, AZ- At the Octo­ber 17, 2012 Gila Riv­er Indi­an Com­mu­ni­ty (GRIC) Trib­al Coun­cil ses­sion, Pangea, LLC and the Pecos Landown­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (PLA) attempt­ed to rush for­ward their plans per­tain­ing to the con­struc­tion of a city and free­way with­in the reser­va­tion. Pangea sought the trib­al council’s approval for a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) which grant­ed Pangea and its investors exclu­sive rights to devel­op over 5500 acres of trib­al land on the reservation’s west­ern end along the route of the pro­posed Loop 202 free­way, which GRIC vot­ed against last Feb­ru­ary. The PLA attempt­ed to pres­sure trib­al coun­cil to approve the Pangea corporation’s ini­tia­tive for yet anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty vote on the Loop 202.

But to their sur­prise, Pangea and the PLA were con­front­ed by young peo­ple wear­ing breath­ing masks and No Build 202 shirts who sought to hold both Pangea and the PLA account­able to last February’s Loop 202 vote. In that vote, GRIC vot­ers vot­ed in favor of the No Build option for the free­way. The Gila Riv­er youth, whose breath­ing masks sym­bol­ized the envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins that free­ways bring to the land and air, were at the trib­al coun­cil meet­ing to demand that their elect­ed offi­cials uphold the No Build voice of the peo­ple.

“I can’t vote yet, but if I could, I would have vot­ed No Build too. The peo­ple who want the free­way should think about what my gen­er­a­tion will go through if all we have to inher­it is free­way pollution”said 14 year old Lily Miles, of Komatke and Vah-ki, who was one of the twelve who wore med­ical breath­ing masks and No Build shirts in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the community’s No Build voice.

Since the his­toric Loop 202 vote, many GRIC mem­bers, espe­cial­ly the youth, have felt their trib­al lead­er­ship has not ful­ly upheld the community’s No Build stance. This sus­pi­cion is height­ened since GRIC Gov­er­nor Men­doza allowed Pangea to con­sult with GRIC’s Office of Gen­er­al Coun­sel for their City Con­cept and free­way plans. In addi­tion, Gov­er­nor Men­doza pre­sent­ed the PLA ini­tia­tive that calls for anoth­er Loop 202 vote at the Sep­tem­ber 26th GRIC Leg­isla­tive Stand­ing Com­mit­tee (LSC).

If approved by the GRIC Trib­al Coun­cil, the mas­sive Pangea City Con­cept, the size of over 5000 foot­ball fields, would be the largest con­struc­tion project in the his­to­ry of the Bureau of Indi­an Affairs (BIA) and the Gila Riv­er Indi­an Com­mu­ni­ty. The GRIC No Build sup­port­ers who attend­ed the Wednes­day coun­cil ses­sion were com­pelled to raise their voic­es against Pangea and the PLA in the trib­al coun­cil cham­bers with­out say­ing one word. Their breath­ing masks and No Build 202 shirts, stat­ing “Bio­haz­ard 202” spoke to the loom­ing des­e­cra­tion of Muhadag Do’ag (South Moun­tain) and to the neg­a­tive impacts the pro­posed free­way would bring to the envi­ron­ment and over­all com­mu­ni­ty health.

“Our trib­al lead­ers must be held account­able for where their alle­giances lie,” said Renee Jack­son of Vah-ki, who was one of the No Build sup­port­ers who wore breath­ing masks and Bio­haz­ard 202 shirts dur­ing the meet­ing. “Our rep­re­sen­ta­tives must be trans­par­ent in where they stand on the issue of the free­way”.

While coun­cil went to exec­u­tive ses­sion to decide the mer­it of Pangea’s MOU and the PLA vot­ing ini­tia­tive, the twelve youth engaged pro-free­way Gila Riv­er landown­ers in the hall­ways out­side coun­cil cham­bers. The youth shared their con­cerns regard­ing the envi­ron­men­tal, health and cul­tur­al impacts the City Con­cept would bring to their future while coun­cil was in exec­u­tive ses­sion and closed to the pub­lic. The mere pres­ence of these twelve helped give a voice to the 720 GRIC mem­bers who vot­ed for No Build, and their breath­ing masks showed the poten­tial dan­ger the free­way would bring.

“Today we showed where the youth stand and we showed that there are youth who care. Pangea and the PLA’s city con­cept is a dan­ger to our future and both are bio­haz­ards to the land and to the moun­tain,” said Andrew Pedro, 18 years old, from Saca­ton, who print­ed the Bio­haz­ard shirts. “Peo­ple were ask­ing me for more t‑shirts, and I believe that this is the first of more visu­al demon­stra­tions to come.”

“I felt like it was my respon­si­bil­i­ty to be here and get informed about what is hap­pen­ing around me and in my com­mu­ni­ty because I will be inher­it­ing this land too.” said Kar­ma Miles, 11 years old, from Komatke and Vah-ki.

Despite the dif­fer­ences the youth had with fel­low GRIC landown­ers, the youth pre­sent­ed them­selves in a respect­ful mat­ter, and even helped PLA elders by set­ting up chairs dur­ing exec­u­tive ses­sion.

After near­ly an hour in exec­u­tive ses­sion, Trib­al Coun­cil decid­ed that eleven key points need­ed to be met before any MOU regard­ing Pangea’s land use plans could be approved. The eleven points cen­ter around pub­lic safe­ty, bud­get­ing, juris­dic­tion, and land man­age­ment issues that were not addressed with­in the MOU sub­mit­ted by Pangea. Coun­cil clear­ly declared that all points must be met before Pangea’s MOU could be brought back before the coun­cil. Addi­tion­al­ly, the mis­lead­ing Save the Moun­tain ini­tia­tive was held to stan­dard GRIC Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Secretary’s Office (CCSO) pro­ce­dure regard­ing sig­na­tures ver­i­fi­ca­tion. The PLA sub­mit­ted their Pangea-backed ini­tia­tive to the GRIC Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Secretary’s Office (CCSO) on Sep­tem­ber 27 with the back­ing of 1,527 landown­er sig­na­tures. Trib­al coun­cil declared that each sig­na­ture must be ver­i­fied first before coun­cil would con­sid­er the ini­tia­tive. As with the per capi­ta ini­tia­tive, a pre­vi­ous people’s ini­tia­tive in Gila Riv­er, the sig­na­tures could take the CCSO four to six months to ver­i­fy, espe­cial­ly with reports of miss­ing trib­al enroll­ment num­bers with the sig­na­tures sub­mit­ted, as report­ed by Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Sec­re­tary Lin­da Andrews at the coun­cil meet­ing. The Save the Moun­tain ini­tia­tive, which Pangea and PLA deemed” first ever Peo­ples Ini­tia­tive through the People’s rights under the GRIC Trib­al Con­sti­tu­tion”, does not save the moun­tain because it calls for the reject­ed free­way to be con­struct­ed on trib­al lands along the foothills of Muhadag Do’ag (South Moun­tain).

Despite the steps that are legal­ly required to approve a vot­er ini­tia­tive, a Pangea rep­re­sen­ta­tive pres­sured coun­cil to move for­ward and approve the pro-free­way ini­tia­tive. GRIC mem­ber Joey Perez of Pangea attempt­ed to have coun­cil set a much short­er time frame for approval, by cit­ing the 14th amend­ment of the GRIC con­sti­tu­tion, which declares coun­cil has 60 days to make a deci­sion on any ini­tia­tive bought forth to them. The Pangea corporation’s inter­pre­ta­tion, as stat­ed by Perez, was that the 60 days start­ed on Sep­tem­ber 27, when the sig­na­tures were sub­mit­ted, which would force coun­cil to pos­si­bly recon­sid­er anoth­er Loop 202 vote by the end of the year. But Perez, Pangea and the PLA were soon con­front­ed with stan­dard GRIC pro­ce­dures regard­ing ini­tia­tives: sig­na­tures must be ver­i­fied before the ini­tia­tive can be con­sid­ered by the coun­cil.

The rea­son why the Pangea cor­po­ra­tion and pro-build sup­port­ers dis­re­gard the No Build vic­to­ry and are attempt­ing to rush the trib­al coun­cil to sched­ule anoth­er vote on the pro­posed free­way is because in 2013 fed­er­al land leas­ing reg­u­la­tions for trib­al allot­ted lands become much more restric­tive. Changes to Title 25 of the BIA’s Code of Fed­er­al Reg­u­la­tions will require 100 per­cent of landown­er con­sents before the BIA will approve any new leas­es per­tain­ing to the use of trib­al allot­ted lands for busi­ness­es. This would make the Pangea City Con­cept, which is cen­tered around the con­struc­tion of the Loop 202, sub­ject to height­ened fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions.

The deci­sion by Coun­cil to hold Pangea and the PLA trans­par­ent and account­able to the process was a long over­due first step in revers­ing its nine months of inac­tion regard­ing the No Build vote. Pangea and the PLA were expect­ing to walk out of the trib­al coun­cil meet­ing with anoth­er Loop 202 vote sched­uled, and their land devel­op­ment plans to be unop­posed. But Pangea and the PLA left the Octo­ber trib­al coun­cil ses­sion in defeat when con­front­ed with the gap­ing holes of their fraud­u­lent cam­paign to bull­doze over 5500 acres for a Pangea city, and by the faces of the young peo­ple whose future health depends on the preser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of Muhadag Do’ag, and their lands.

“It was a won­der­ful day, a small vic­to­ry once again,” said Lori Thomas, of Gila Riv­er Alliance for a Clean Envi­ron­ment. “The youth who were present were awe­some. It was good to see them engage in the issue. A small bat­tle was won but the fight still rages on.”

For the youth who attend­ed this round of the big­ger fight to com­plete­ly stop the Loop 202, it showed that their involve­ment will be cru­cial for the future of the com­mu­ni­ty, and that a new form of expres­sion is need­ed so that their voic­es can be heard by the Pangea cor­po­ra­tion, the PLA, as well as by the GRIC trib­al coun­cil and Gov­er­nor Men­doza.

“We made an impact by rep­re­sent­ing all the No Build sup­port­ers who can’t be here, to go to these meet­ings and be heard,” said Ana Mor­a­go, 18 years old, of Sto­ton­ic. “We aren’t bused in, like the way Pangea brings in their peo­ple. And even though we didn’t speak, our actions and how we pre­sent­ed our­selves spoke loud­er”.

For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing the strug­gle against the Loop 202, please con­tact us at: gricagainst202(at)gmail.com or at our Face­book page: Gila Riv­er Against the Loop 202

More clashes with riot police in Greece over gold mine

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers in Thes­sa­loni­ki have been in involved anoth­er bat­tle with riot police over plans for a gold mine in north­ern Greece’s Halkidi­ki penin­su­la. One police­man and three pro­test­ers were hurt, while 21 pro­test­ers have been detained. Clash­es between protests and local res­i­dents on one side and police and mine work­ers on the oth­er side have become a reg­u­lar occourance since March when plans for the mine were approved. A mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar gold min­ing project in a near­by area was can­celled a decade ago after sim­i­lar protests.

Below is a trans­la­tion of a recent report about the sit­u­a­tion from Indy­media Athens:

In the moun­tains of Halkidi­ki is a huge dis­as­ter at the expense of Moth­er Nature. The Greek state has sold the rights to exploit the gold beneath the pri­mor­dial forests of dark in the com­pa­ny Eldo­ra­do-Greek Gold. That is why the com­pa­ny has already start­ed the despi­ca­ble work: inten­sive defor­esta­tion of 4,000 hectares of for­est and min­er­al pro­cess­ing plant con­struc­tion between vil­lages Olympiad, Stan, Mary and Great Ieris­sos. The state and the com­pa­ny with the work will take away the life of the for­est itself but also by the thou­sands of ani­mals that live in it, clean ground­wa­ter and soil will be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by tox­ic sub­stances such as cyanide. In sim­ple words, a whole liv­ing world would exter­mi­nat­ed for the prof­it of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ment lead­ers, leav­ing behind con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed land and death.

Res­i­dents not com­pla­cent to the dis­as­ter, from pas­sages such as the Olympics and the Great Pana­gia for decades have been strug­gling against min­ing. This year saw the final autho­riza­tion from the gov­ern­ment and the project has now start­ed. From March there have been on going con­flicts with res­i­dents and defend­ers of the for­est on one side and the police and work­ers of the com­pa­ny on the oth­er.

This dom­i­nant behav­ior of cul­ture over nature is a result of the author­i­tar­i­an men­tal­i­ty of anthro­pocen­trism, arbi­trary belief that man is greater than the nat­ur­al ele­ment sur­rounds him. This con­cept is the result of the alien­ation of man from the nat­ur­al world. With the medi­a­tion of the process of civ­i­liza­tion, the build­ing of cities, states and pow­er rela­tions peo­ple ignore the earth-ani­mal-nature, which is direct­ly tied to the exis­tence and devel­op­ment of the nat­ur­al world.

Habi­tats are threat­ened today direct­ly from the mines not only in Halkidi­ki but oth­er parts of north­ern Greece such as Kilkis and Alexan­droupo­lis. But let’s not fool our­selves, the tech­noc­ra­cy and cap­i­tal­ism in today’s world are expressed through a glob­al sys­tem of strik­ing any part of the world over sea or land. But espe­cial­ly in coun­tries of the so-called third world, plun­der of nature and poor peo­ple is unthink­able. Giant multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions with the help of state and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions extort­ing indige­nous pop­u­la­tions by any means (war, food crises, finan­cial mea­sures) to accept invest­ments and work with them in exchange for a mea­ger salary and a short and mis­er­able life. With mod­ern engines cut forests, dis­em­bow­el the earth, pol­lute the air, water and soil. This hunt for “trea­sure” whether min­er­als such as gold or ener­gy (oil, gas, coal) is total­ly dead­locked and destruc­tive. The so-called progress of civ­i­liza­tion and the ide­ol­o­gy of devel­op­ment only serve the tem­po­rary exis­tence of the world’s author­i­tar­i­an sys­tem that dis­solves cul­tures but tens of thou­sands of years, primeval forests, ani­mal com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems that promis­es dystopia.

The destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world not only in Greece but also at the glob­al lev­el does not leave us time tol­er­ances of this sit­u­a­tion. Needs as liv­ing crea­tures to deny us the sys­tem dom­i­nates and fight for its destruc­tion. To rede­fine our rela­tion­ship with the nat­ur­al world and to resist that pre­vents us from liv­ing in har­mo­ny with it. The state, the indus­tri­al sys­tem and mazopoi­isi cities need to be destroyed to flour­ish in the debris an indomitable life for peo­ple, ani­mals and nature.

AGAINST THE RAPE OF THE NATURAL WORLD
ANYPOCHORITOS STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION AND FOR TOTAL ANARCHY

Coal Seam Gas Banner Drop in Australia

Pro­test­ers from the the Lock the Gate Alliance have tak­en part in a ban­ner drop on Brisbane’s Kan­ga­roo Point cliffs with sev­en giant ban­ners with anti-CSG mes­sages were attached to the cliff face.

Lock the Gate spokesman Innes Larkin said the ban­ners were a demon­stra­tion of the depth of com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to CSG min­ing in south­east Queens­land.

‘‘If the gov­ern­ment and min­ers think rur­al com­mu­ni­ties will just take this lying down, they’re wrong,’’ Mr Larkin said. ‘‘Peo­ple in the bush are angry and they are pre­pared to make a stand to pro­tect where they live, their soil and their water.’’ Lock the Gate have been run­ning a week of protests across the state, which began with a march and con­cert at Mur­willum­bah in north­ern NSW last Sun­day.