Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Fight Speciesism! #8 — Out Now

Spring 2009 issue of the lat­est anti-speciesist, anti-cap­i­tal­ist, abo­li­tion­ist direct action news is out now.

Arti­cles: SHAC 7 sol­i­dar­i­ty, oper­a­tion sink­ing ship, hunt sab­bing, mink released, ‘fash­ion’ shop closed, lib­er­a­tionists arrest­ed, max mara cam­paign, inter­na­tion­al actions, pris­on­er let­ters, police under attack, alf vs wagenin­gen uni, pris­on­er sup­port, mon­keys fight back, netcu, bull­ring riots, aeta 4, earth lib­er­a­tion, mex­i­can actions, whale wars, riot­ing in lon­don and edo smashed.

Fight Speciesism! #8 - Out Now Spring 2009 issue of the lat­est anti-speciesist, anti-cap­i­tal­ist, abo­li­tion­ist direct action news is out now.

Arti­cles: SHAC 7 sol­i­dar­i­ty, oper­a­tion sink­ing ship, hunt sab­bing, mink released, ‘fash­ion’ shop closed, lib­er­a­tionists arrest­ed, max mara cam­paign, inter­na­tion­al actions, pris­on­er let­ters, police under attack, alf vs wagenin­gen uni, pris­on­er sup­port, mon­keys fight back, netcu, bull­ring riots, aeta 4, earth lib­er­a­tion, mex­i­can actions, whale wars, riot­ing in lon­don and edo smashed.

FS! #8 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2009/03//424982.pdf

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Anti­speciesist Action is a col­lec­tive of mil­i­tant anti­speciesists and ani­mal lib­er­a­tionists com­mit­ted to con­fronting ani­mal abuse, suf­fer­ing and exploita­tion of non-human beings through the use of direct action.

Callout for organising! Scottish Camp for Climate Action

Build­ing a more sus­tain­able future in four easy steps:
1. Get out your diary and find a pen
2. Open it at the pages for the 4–16 June and 3–10 August
3. Write in very large, bold let­ter­ing: CLIMATE CAMP SCOTLAND across these dates

Camp for Climate Action Scotland bannerBuild­ing a more sus­tain­able future in four easy steps:
1. Get out your diary and find a pen
2. Open it at the pages for the 4–16 June and 3–10 August
3. Write in very large, bold let­ter­ing: CLIMATE CAMP SCOTLAND across these dates
4. Get involved in this excit­ing move­ment for social change and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice!

What’s the Scot­tish Camp for Cli­mate Action?

Some time between 3–10 August, activists, cam­paign­ers and com­mu­ni­ties from all over Scot­land will set up camp! We will be liv­ing sus­tain­ably and equal­ly, and tak­ing awe-inspir­ing col­lec­tive direct action to hold greedy cli­mate crim­i­nals to account.

In a time of epoch-mak­ing eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal change, we’re going to be mak­ing direct changes for the bet­ter. We’ll be tak­ing con­trol of our lives, of our soci­ety, and stand­ing up for what we believe in. We’ll refuse to believe the greedy pol­luters and financiers, when they say it’s just not the right time to clean up their act. We’ll clean it up for them!

The Camp (whether urban or rur­al) will be a liv­ing exam­ple of col­lec­tive, imag­i­na­tive low-impact liv­ing, full of prac­ti­cal solu­tions. Its not just about plas­tic bags and light bulbs any more, these things iso­late us and dis­tract us from the real prob­lems. Instead, we will work togeth­er to build strong, sus­tain­able and pow­er­ful com­mu­ni­ties.

Whilst we haven’t decid­ed where the camp will be yet, there’s no short­age of options. Whole swathes of air­ports, coal pow­er sta­tions, open cast mines and agro­fu­el instal­la­tions and motor­ways are planned for Scot­land. We also have the lux­u­ry of host­ing the head­quar­ters of inter­na­tion­al banks like RBS and HBOS, whose greed got us into this eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal mess.

What’s hap­pen­ing in the run-up to the camp?

Some time between June 4–16 there will be a Cli­mate Camp Con­ver­gence, with infor­ma­tive and prac­ti­cal work­shops and dis­cus­sions, oppor­tu­ni­ties for build­ing links between cam­paigns, and the chance for us to col­lec­tive­ly plan the future of cli­mate activism across Scot­land. By the time the August Camp rolls around we’ll be a force to be reck­oned with.

How do I get involved now?

Mak­ing this hap­pen needs loads of ideas, ener­gy and input. In short, it needs you. And all your mates!

Come to an organ­is­ing meet­ing!

We organ­ise hor­i­zon­tal­ly, with­out lead­ers, and every­one has input into deci­sions. At the moment, most of the organ­is­ing is being done in Edin­burgh. We want this to change! We plan for local organ­is­ing meet­ings to feed into reg­u­lar Scot­land-wide Gath­er­ings.

Next meet­ing: Edin­burgh, Tues­day 24th March, 7pm
at the Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh (ACE) www.autonomous.org.uk

The fol­low­ing meet­ing will be on April 7th , 7pm, ACE in Edin­burgh.

On the agen­da, Tues­day 24th:

1.What focus each of the sum­mer con­ver­gences will have: direct action, edu­ca­tion, move­ment build­ing etc, And what some of the spe­cif­ic con­tent will be.
2. What the exact dates of each con­ver­gence will be.

Start organ­is­ing in your area!

- Get organ­is­ing with peo­ple in your area and see how much time, ener­gy and resources you can bring to a Cli­mate Camp in Scot­land. To be effec­tive, Cli­mate Camp Scot­land needs to have strong, decen­tralised groups doing the plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion.

- Please get in touch if you want to help organ­ise Cli­mate Camp Scot­land! so we can work togeth­er to find meet­ing times and loca­tions that as many peo­ple can get to from around the coun­try.

- Host the Cli­mate Camp Scot­land Info Tour in your area, to find out what’s hap­pen­ing this sum­mer, what has to be decid­ed and pre­pared, and how you can get involved.

- Email: climatecampscotland@riseup.net to request the Info Tour and with any ques­tions how­ev­er big or small!

Philippines: Thousands protesting open pit gold mine

March 23, 2009

Thou­sands of local vil­lagers in the Mas­bate province of the Philip­pines, are in their sec­ond week of protest­ing the “unwel­come and unsafe” pres­ence of the Filmin­era Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (FMC).

MasbateMarch 23, 2009

Thou­sands of local vil­lagers in the Mas­bate province of the Philip­pines, are in their sec­ond week of protest­ing the “unwel­come and unsafe” pres­ence of the Filmin­era Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (FMC).

Work­ing in part­ner­ship with Aus­trali­a/­Cana­da-based com­pa­ny, Cen­tral Gold Asia (CGA), Filminera’s open pit gold mine in Aro­roy was sched­uled to be ful­ly oper­a­tional on March 20th, but a mas­sive show of local oppo­si­tion halt­ed the com­pa­ny from mov­ing ahead.

On March 14, as many as 4,000 vil­lagers from Aro­roy bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves in front of the mine site.

A bat­tal­ion of sol­diers was flown in to pro­tect the mine site soon after the protest began, reports the CBCP. A sec­ond report from the CBCP explains that, as of March 18, there were “about 50 armed men belong­ing to Alpha Com­pa­ny 22nd CAFGU Bat­tal­ion who are roam­ing around the min­ing site, while three boats of the 9th Infantry Bat­tal­ion of the Philip­pine Army are anchored at the municipality’s shores and most of its men are con­duct­ing check points and search­es.”

For­tu­nate­ly the mil­i­tary hasn’t tak­en any action yet, but they could make a move at any moment.

Mean­while, the com­pa­ny has declared a “five-day work hol­i­day” at the mine, and giv­en away free ban­quets, bin­go socials “and all sorts of sports” to try and hol­low-out the pro­test­ers’ legit­i­mate demands.

The vil­lagers are ask­ing the gov­ern­ment to revoke Filminera’s min­ing per­mit, and to repeal the Min­ing Act of 1995 “which favors for­eign com­pa­nies” over envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, human rights, and indige­nous peo­ples rights.

A num­ber of pri­ma­ry con­cerns are fuel­ing the demands, as the dio­cese of Mas­bate Social Action Foun­da­tion Inc. (DIMASAFI) explains in a recent state­ment:

Cen­tral Gold Asia, at the begin­ning of its activ­i­ty has paint­ed a rosy pic­ture before the eight (8) impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties with promis­es of employ­ment and social devel­op­ment. After years of explo­ration, it began to show its ugly face:

  • An open pit min­ing with wide tracks of land being scraped while moun­tains and hills are being flat­tened, leav­ing the com­mu­ni­ties agape at the unex­pect­ed sight;
  • farm­ers being dis­placed with mea­gre mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion and relo­cat­ed in near­by cat­tle graz­ing land with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of farm­ing activ­i­ties;
  • the small scale min­ers with thou­sands of depen­dents being dri­ven out of their place of work result­ing in their scam­per­ing every­where to dig for their sur­vival;
  • rivers being closed with embank­ment for the con­struc­tion of the tail­ings pond, and some rivers rerout­ed, with the con­se­quent dry­ing up of rice fields and fish ponds and water source of a near­by com­mu­ni­ty;
  • age-old trees being bull­dozed with plants and crops to the dis­ap­point­ment of farm­ers who have tilled the land for many years;
  • the source of drink­ing water that serves the near­by com­mu­ni­ty being cut off;
  • the port of Bar­rera, a long time source of liveli­hood of the peo­ple resid­ing along the coast­lines, now being made the catch basin of the mine tox­ic wastes in case of over­flow and the pos­si­ble con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the 21,000 hectares of 68 fish­pond own­ers in 9 barangays.

The sit­u­a­tion for local com­mu­ni­ties will con­tin­ue to dete­ri­o­rate if the mine becomes ful­ly oper­a­tional.

How­ev­er, if sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty is an indi­ca­tion, it’s that the mine will nev­er see the full light of day.

As of March 23, the protest is attend­ed by at least 7,000 vil­lagers, fish­er­folk, and oth­er con­cerned cit­i­zens. Sev­er­al NGO’s and Ecu­meni­cal groups, includ­ing the Catholic Church, have also expressed their sup­port for the vil­lagers.

It appears that the local gov­ern­ment sup­ports them aswell. Aroroy’s Sang­gu­ni­ang Pan­lalaw­igan (leg­is­la­ture) “has slammed them for lack­ing even the basic require­ment of an Envi­ron­ment Com­pli­ance Cer­tifi­cate,” notes a press release from Alyansa Tig­il Mina, a coali­tion of NGO’s opposed to large scale min­ing. “It was also recent­ly revealed that FMC lacks a Mayor’s per­mit and a busi­ness per­mit.”

Contacts

  • Rodne R. Galicha (ATM Sites of Strug­gles Offi­cer): 09087421905
  • Mar­cial Velasco/Danilo Cor­puz (ACRA Mem­bers of the Board): 09209190274
  • E‑mail: kalikasan101@gmail.com Web­site: www.alyansatigilmina.net

Shell to Sea supporters occupy Shell office in Belmullet in Support of Maura Harrington

Mon­day, 16th March 2009, sev­en mem­bers of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp occu­pied the Shell office in Bel­mul­let, Coun­ty Mayo, for over an hour, in sup­port of Mau­ra Har­ring­ton. Mau­ra has now been in jail for six days of her thir­ty day sen­tence.

Shell office occupationMon­day, 16th March 2009, sev­en mem­bers of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp occu­pied the Shell office in Bel­mul­let, Coun­ty Mayo, for over an hour, in sup­port of Mau­ra Har­ring­ton. Mau­ra has now been in jail for six days of her thir­ty day sen­tence.

The camp mem­bers of the camp entered the office and held up a ban­ner read­ing “Free Mau­ra”. Shell’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tion offi­cer Christy Lof­tus came into the lob­by and field­ed ques­tions from the group for the entire peri­od. Some peo­ple made it into the main part of the build­ing; dur­ing this time the fire alarms went off in the build­ing. Gar­daí were called to the office, came inside and asked the group to leave. The group remained in the build­ing for anoth­er 45 min­utes ques­tion­ing Christy Lof­tus and then left lat­er of their own accord. No one was arrest­ed.

Also this morn­ing, the Shell to Sea trail­er was opened at Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site.
Shell to Sea cam­paign­er Pat O’Donnell awoke this morn­ing to find that the win­dows on his boat had been bro­ken. It is not clear whether the van­dal­ism is relat­ed to the cam­paign against Shell, but it was clear­ly tar­get­ed at O’Donnell’s boat, which was the only one dam­aged out of a boat yard of over 20 boats. This is the sec­ond time his boat has been tar­get­ed in the past two years.

—-

On Wednes­day the 11th of March, Shell to Sea cam­paign­er, Mau­ra Har­ring­ton was sen­tenced to 28 days in prison after Judge Mary Devins found her guilty of assault­ing a Gar­da dur­ing the inci­dent at Pol­lath­omais Pier on the 11th June 2007. For sen­tenc­ing for the Sec­tion 2 assault, Judge Devins sen­tenced her to 28 days in prison along with a €1000 fine along with a €1000 dona­tion to the Gar­da Benev­o­lent Fund and that she be bound to the peace for 1 year. Ms Har­ring­ton how­ev­er refused to sign the bond and so received 2 days in prison for con­tempt to be run con­cur­rent with her oth­er sen­tence. Judge Devins also direct­ed Ms Har­ring­ton to under­go psy­chi­atric assess­ment. Judge Mary Devins is the wife of Gov­ern­ment Min­ster, Jim­my Devins.

On thw 11th June 2007, known local­ly as ‘Black Mon­day’, Gar­dai vio­lent­ly removed pro­test­ers attempt­ing to stop the ille­gal instal­ment of a Shell por­ta­cab­in on the land of pub­li­can Pad­dy McGrath near Pol­lath­omais. Pad­dy suf­fered a stroke and was hos­pi­tal­ized for sev­er­al months. Many peo­ple suf­fered injuries and despite com­plaints, no Gar­da has received even a cau­tion.

Please send mes­sages of sup­port to:
Mau­ra Har­ring­ton
Dochas Cen­tre
Moun­tjoy Prison
N Cir­cu­lar Road
Dublin 7

Shell are due to start work from April onwards, come over if you can!

rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com

History Repeated — Skyr Thrown on Greenwashing PR Managers

March 5 2009
Yes­ter­day three black dressed indi­vid­u­als, masked with alu­mini­um foil, threw green Skyr (tra­di­tion­al Ice­landic dairy prod­uct) on rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ice­landic ener­gy com­pa­nies dur­ing a green­wash pre­sen­ta­tion in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ice­land. In June 2005 Sav­ing Ice­land threw Skyr on rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Alcoa and Bech­tel dur­ing an inter­na­tion­al alu­mini­um con­fer­ence in Reyk­javík.

Skyr chucked on PR greenwashersMarch 5 2009
Yes­ter­day three black dressed indi­vid­u­als, masked with alu­mini­um foil, threw green Skyr (tra­di­tion­al Ice­landic dairy prod­uct) on rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ice­landic ener­gy com­pa­nies dur­ing a green­wash pre­sen­ta­tion in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ice­land. In June 2005 Sav­ing Ice­land threw Skyr on rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Alcoa and Bech­tel dur­ing an inter­na­tion­al alu­mini­um con­fer­ence in Reyk­javík.

Gaia — the stu­dent asso­ci­a­tion of Mas­ter stu­dents in Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, had orga­nized a “Green Week” in the uni­ver­si­ty. Among activ­i­ties was this par­tic­u­lar pre­sen­ta­tion by e.g. Landsvirkjun (Iceland’s nation­al ener­gy com­pa­ny), O.R. (Reyk­javík Ener­gy) and Geysir Green Ener­gy; all com­pa­nies who are involved in the devel­op­ment of the alu­mini­um indus­try in Ice­land.

Green­wash­No­body has claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the action and no press release has been sent to the media. But the his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ence is clear and one does not need a lot of imag­i­na­tion to get in mind what the mes­sage of this action was.

RÚV, Iceland’s nation­al TV sta­tion stat­ed in its evening news that Öskra!, a new­ly formed move­ment of rev­o­lu­tion­aly stu­dents, had claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the action. A lit­tle lat­er Öskra! sent out a press release say­ing:

Yes­ter­day green skyr (tra­di­tion­al Ice­landic food which has been used over the years in direct actions — show­ing dis­re­spect and dis­ap­proval) was thrown on the image man­agers of the ener­gy com­pa­nies that took part in the green-wash­ing days in the uni­ver­si­ty.

Öskra! — The rev­o­lu­tion­ary stu­dents move­ment, is not respon­si­ble for the skyr throw­ing action, and does not know who did it, but under­stands and sup­ports it com­plete­ly.

“Green Ener­gy” is one of the cap­i­tal­ists false solu­tions to the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion which threat­ens all life on earth. If the ener­gy com­pa­nies want to call them self green, they can just be green.

Green­washThe Skyr throw­ers got away and no one was arrest­ed but accord­ing to Ice­land Review, a “uni­ver­si­ty staff mem­ber caught hold of one of the activists, but lost his grip as a spec­ta­tor dis­rupt­ed him. Police are inves­ti­gat­ing the case.”

Like Öskra!, Sav­ing Ice­land announces a com­plete sup­port with this great action!

Shell due to restart work in Ireland soon

Shell will attempt to lay the off­shore pipe this Spring and prepa­ra­tion work both on land and at sea is due to start in the next few weeks. We are deter­mined to stop this prepa­ra­tion work and so peo­ple are need­ed from mid-March — May.
We expect Shell to begin putting up secu­ri­ty fences and build­ing the com­pound very soon, pos­si­bly in the next few weeks…

Don't let Shell destroy this!Rossport Solidarity Camp logoShell will attempt to lay the off­shore pipe this Spring and prepa­ra­tion work both on land and at sea is due to start in the next few weeks. We are deter­mined to stop this prepa­ra­tion work and so peo­ple are need­ed from mid-March — May.
We expect Shell to begin putting up secu­ri­ty fences and build­ing the com­pound very soon, pos­si­bly in the next few weeks…
get on our call out list: rossportsolidaritycamp-subscribe@lists.riseup.net and check www.indymedia.ie/mayo for updates

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp always wel­comes com­mit­ted & moti­vat­ed peo­ple to get more involved in the cam­paign, what­ev­er your expe­ri­ence or skills.
Come over & help out with actions, sup­port, house­keep­ing, equip­ment main­te­nance, PR, office work, media work, gar­den­ing etc

Please con­sid­er doing one of the fol­low­ing:
•Come vis­it Mayo:
You would be more than wel­come to stay at the camp. Find direc­tions here: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/directions.html
There are jobs for every­one to do from mak­ing ban­ners, doing actions or start­ing this year’s gar­den. There real­ly was a good vibe at the camp last autumn and we’re hop­ing for more of the same this time round. Con­tact the camp if you’re com­ing or if you have any ques­tions.

•Take action at Home
There’s a load than can be done from wher­ev­er you are. See http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/support.html for some sug­ges­tions.
sol­i­dar­i­ty actions, info stalls, show­ing the cam­paign films, donate to the cam­paign, think of ideas for actions, put on a fundrais­er…
If you are inter­est­ed in help­ing to do research work about the new onshore pipeline appli­ca­tion please email us.

Win­ter update
Dur­ing the win­ter many court cas­es have been pro­ceed­ing against those who object local­ly, for a vari­ety of charges, from traf­fic offences, pub­lic order breach­es to Gar­da assaults. It goes with­out say­ing that no Gar­dai have been pros­e­cut­ed for their vicious assaults to date. While some fines and sus­pend­ed sen­tences have been hand­ed down, and Gar­dai have per­jured them­selves on the stand and the judges have lapped it up, no one has been found guilty of Gar­da assault to date (some cas­es had to be appealed to secure this). There are still many Shell to Sea cas­es before the courts, from local peo­ple refus­ing to bend to the cor­rupt will of Shell and the state. They need help to con­tin­ue resist­ing!

Shell have recent­ly put in plan­ning appli­ca­tions for the onshore sec­tion of the pipeline which can be seen here www.corribgaspipeline.com

The eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion has utter­ly changed and most peo­ple in the coun­try are seri­ous­ly ques­tion­ing cor­po­rate pow­er and gov­ern­ment sub­servience to that pow­er. Recent­ly even the Gar­daí took to the streets to oppose gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy (and no one threw them off the road!!!).
We are in a lot more favourable times to try to get our mes­sage and points across than this time last year.
We can win but we need your sup­port!

For trav­el direc­tions, leaflets, more info about the cam­paign pls check out:
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com

UK: Traps destroyed, shooting pens trashed, birds set free

“under the pink skies of a set­ting sun and across the rolling hills of the coun­try­side activists found a large shoot­ing estate; two squir­rel traps and a fox trap were destroyed. a lone bird trapped inside a cage was care­ful­ly tak­en from her prison and set free. 4 shoot­ing enclo­sures were destroyed; net­ting cut, wires cut, wood snapped, bat­tery sup­plies cut off, posts torn from the ground. enclo­sures used for shoot­ers to hide their cow­ard­ly faces and shoot ani­mals were destroyed.

UK: Traps destroyed, shooting pens trashed, birds set freeUK: Traps destroyed, shooting pens trashed, birds set free“under the pink skies of a set­ting sun and across the rolling hills of the coun­try­side activists found a large shoot­ing estate; two squir­rel traps and a fox trap were destroyed. a lone bird trapped inside a cage was care­ful­ly tak­en from her prison and set free. 4 shoot­ing enclo­sures were destroyed; net­ting cut, wires cut, wood snapped, bat­tery sup­plies cut off, posts torn from the ground. enclo­sures used for shoot­ers to hide their cow­ard­ly faces and shoot ani­mals were destroyed.

until all are free!”

report­ed anony­mous­ly to http://directaction.info

Climate Rush at UK Coal HQ & coal awards — Doncaster & London — and next one 5th March at RBS

North­ern Cli­mate Rush vis­it to UK coal head­quar­ters

UK Coal rush 1UK Coal rush 2North­ern Cli­mate Rush vis­it to UK coal head­quar­ters

Around 15 cli­mate activists from the North of Eng­land vis­it­ed the head­quar­ters of UK Coal near Don­cast­er yes­ter­day, 26th Feb­ru­ary, in a protest against new coal and call­ing for tougher mea­sures to con­trol CO2 emis­sions.

Two peo­ple climbed up lam­posts to sus­pend a 6m ban­ner read­ing ‘Leave it in the Ground’, while on the ground below the pro­tes­tors played a bit of sam­ba, danced, and had a pic­nic. The pro­tes­tors wore Edwar­dian themed dress includ­ing red sash­es with the words ‘No New Coal’ writ­ten across them.

UK Coal is the UK’s largest coal com­pa­ny. The Don­cast­er protest was timed to coin­cide with the Cli­mate Rush at the UK Coal Awards, host­ed by UK coal, in Lon­don.

The police reac­tion was fair­ly low-key and non-obstruc­tive, although they did take an awful lot of pho­tos (I sup­pose they had noth­ing else to do). A van dri­ver was has­sled by cops, had his details checked and was told he was not insured to dri­ve the vehi­cle (which was not the case).

—

Thurs­day 26th Feb­ru­ary 2009
PRESS RELEASE: North­ern Cli­mate Rush vis­its UK Coal head­quar­ters

Cli­mate activists from the North vis­it­ed the head­quar­ters of UK Coal near Don­cast­er today in a protest against new coal and call­ing for tougher mea­sures to con­trol CO2 emis­sions. The protest coin­cid­ed with the ‘Cli­mate Rush’ in Lon­don where peo­ple intend­ed to gate­crash the Coal UK Con­fer­ence and Awards 2009 at the Land­mark Hotel in Regents Park. How­ev­er, the Lon­don pro­test­ers arrived to find the Con­fer­ence had moved venue at the last minute. Around 200 pro­test­ers in Lon­don occu­pied the lob­by of the Land­mark and dropped ban­ners. They asked that the hotel to refrain from host­ing any future events with fos­sil fuel indus­tries such as UK Coal, to which the man­age­ment agreed.

The pro­tes­tors of both demon­stra­tions wore Edwar­dian themed dress includ­ing red sash­es with the words ‘No New Coal’ writ­ten across them. In Don­cast­er two female pro­test­ers scaled lamp-posts to hang a ban­ner read­ing ‘Leave it in the ground’ across the entrance to the UK coal head­quar­ters.

Coal is the dirt­i­est form of ener­gy pro­duc­tion yet the gov­ern­ment has plans to expand the coal indus­try, includ­ing a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in Kent. UK Coal are respon­si­ble for oper­at­ing sev­er­al open cast mines across the UK. Open cast coal min­ing is par­tic­u­lar­ly dam­ag­ing to the local envi­ron­ment since it involves scalp­ing the land­scape and typ­i­cal­ly pro­vides an aver­age of only 40 jobs per site, for a hand­ful of years only.

Vanes­sa Hall, spokes­woman for the North­ern Cli­mate Rush said, “It is essen­tial that we take cli­mate change seri­ous­ly and move away from dirty fos­sil fuels like coal. There is no way we can avoid run­away cli­mate change if we con­tin­ue to burn coal.”

Megan Beech, 24, said, “The coal indus­try talk about Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age (CCS) as the mag­ic bul­let that will allow us to keep burn­ing coal. How­ev­er CCS is as yet an unproven tech­nol­o­gy. You don’t start a fire on the promise that one day we”ll invent a fire extin­guish­er with which to put it out.”

ENDS

Notes to Edi­tors

This is the third major ‘Cli­mate Rush’ event, fol­low­ing from the first in Par­lia­ment square in Octo­ber 2008 on the cen­te­nary of the Suf­fragette rush on Par­lia­ment. Pro­test­ers demand­ed ‘Deeds Not Words’ on cli­mate change, includ­ing an end to air­port expan­sion and no new coal. The sec­ond was at Heathrow and Man­ches­ter air­ports to draw atten­tion to the threat of avi­a­tion and cli­mate change.

The North­ern Cli­mate Rush is made up of cam­paign­ers from Man­ches­ter, Leeds, Hud­der­s­field, Brad­ford and Liv­er­pool.

www.climaterush.co.uk
www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com

———
'Coal: so last century' banner
Coal canary climate rush
Cli­mate Rush host­ed cock­tail par­ty for the coal indus­try out­side of the Land­mark Hotel on Maryle­bone Road, Lon­don.

Coal UK planed to pre­sent­ed cel­e­bra­to­ry awards to the most dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies in the coal indus­try. Cli­mate Rush offered an alter­na­tive awards based on the eco­log­i­cal dam­age that the coal indus­try is inflict­ing on the envi­ron­ment.

How­ev­er after sev­er­al tries at rush­ing the hotel peo­ple dis­cov­ered that the award din­ner had been can­celled.

Brochure for the awards din­ner:
http://conf.mccloskeycoal.com/journals/McCloskey/Conferences/Conferences/attachments/Coal%20UK%20Brochure%20web.pdf

Cli­mate Rush calls for:

1. No new coal to avoid run­away cli­mate change

Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel, and by far the dirt­i­est way to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty. We must leave coal in the ground and not build any new coal fired pow­er sta­tions if we want to avoid run­away cli­mate change. CCS is an unproven tech­nol­o­gy that may nev­er be a viable option. Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now and we must act now to stop it.

2. We can’t have infi­nite growth on a finite plan­et

At this out­dat­ed and fos­silized awards cer­e­mo­ny UK Coal is cel­e­brat­ing the worst excess­es of our fail­ing eco­nom­ic sys­tem. Just like over­paid bankers these heads of cor­po­ra­tions are receiv­ing plau­dits for plun­der­ing the plan­et.

3. A tran­si­tion to a low car­bon soci­ety with sus­tain­able jobs

We must coun­ter­act any jobs loss­es from the coal indus­try with a major re-skilling pro­gram in sus­tain­able trades. Many more jobs will be cre­at­ed by a huge retro­fitting pro­gram of old hous­ing stock and in the new renew­able ener­gies sec­tor than in new coal. The Ger­man clean ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion has seen the cre­ation of 250,000 new jobs.

More pho­tos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/filkaler/tags/climaterush/

—

Land­mark Deci­sion Against Coal Indus­try
For imme­di­ate release: 26 Feb­ru­ary 2009

LANDMARK DECISION

A top class Lon­don hotel has vowed com­pa­nies and organ­i­sa­tions which con­tribute to cli­mate chaos will no longer be wel­come to use their facil­i­ties for cor­po­rate pro­mo­tion and enter­tain­ment

The move fol­lows a Cli­mate Rush action on the Land­mark Hotel in Maryle­bone, where hun­dreds of pro­test­ers con­verged on Thurs­day to halt a coal indus­try awards cer­e­mo­ny.

Coal is acknowl­edged among sci­en­tists and cli­mate change activists as the world’s worst con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change in the form of CO2 emis­sions.*

The coal indus­try under the ban­ner of UK Coal were booked into the Land­mark to host an awards cer­e­mo­ny with five star food and drink where they planned to hand out gongs for UK coal per­son­al­i­ty of the year and the best open cast min­ers among oth­er cat­e­gories.

Pro­test­ers dropped ban­ners and staged a peace­ful sit-in to speak out at the hotel’s sup­port and the coal industry’s insis­tence of “busi­ness as usu­al” in the face of evi­dent esca­lat­ing cli­mate chaos.

The Landmark’s land­mark deci­sion has been applaud­ed by activists. “At Last! For too long prof­i­teer­ing from cli­mate change has been sold to the pub­lic as a neces­si­ty of ‘busi­ness as usu­al’. But with glob­al tem­per­a­tures ris­ing and cli­mate chaos run­ning riot in the form of drought (Africa and Aus­tralia) and flood­ing (low lying lands all over), we all need to work togeth­er.

“ We applaud the Land­mark for their good sense and the vision to say ‘enough is enough’. They right­ly don’t want to be asso­ci­at­ed with the cor­rupt sys­tem that needs over­turn­ing. We wel­come the Land­mark to play their role in the new way of doing things so need­ed.”

The Land­mark now plans to deny com­pa­nies such as the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (the biggest sin­gle investor in coal and oil indus­tries) and oil com­pa­nies, such as ESSO, BP and Shell, as well as the coal indus­try from using their ball­rooms and ban­quet halls to pro­mote their cause.

The hotel has also pledge to com­mu­ni­cate with the 24 oth­er five star hotels in its’ group to sug­gest they do the same.

Cli­mate Rush has pledged to work with the Land­mark Hotel to ensure the right com­pa­nies are blocked, to send a clear mes­sage to pol­luters: they’re not wel­come.

ENDS
Notes and foot­notes to Edi­tors

Coal is respon­si­ble for 50 % of the cli­mate change gas­es in the atmos­phere caused by human activ­i­ty.

Cli­mate Rush is a cut­ting edge move­ment of car­bon cut­ting indi­vid­u­als who have seen the light and want to spread the word through their remit: Deeds not words, based on the clar­i­on call of the suf­fragettes

For high qual­i­ty pho­tos and fur­ther com­ments please ring 075 2839 8441 or email media@climaterush.co.uk

For com­ments from the land­mark hotel please ring Fran­cis T Green 0207 631 8000

–

UK No New Coal Awards

Cli­mate Rush is delight­ed to announce that it will be pre­sent­ing the fol­low­ing “Canary in the Coalmine” awards:

Sci­ence Fic­tion award
goes to the most unbe­liev­able tech­nol­o­gy not yet avail­able to stop CO2 emis­sions, Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age.

Finan­cial Fool award
goes to the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, for help­ing to raise $16 bil­lion in loans to finance the world­wide coal indus­try over the past two years.

Life­time Achieve­ment award
goes to Drax coal fired pow­er sta­tion, for the Great­est Emis­sions in the UK, equiv­a­lent to that of the 54 poor­est coun­tries in the world.

Best Sup­port­ing Role
goes to the biggest Cli­mate Cow­ard, Gor­don Brown, for his use­less lead­er­ship over Cli­mate Change.

Best New­com­er
goes to the next like­ly “fac­to­ry of death”, Kingsnorth coal fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent.

and final­ly…

UK Coal Per­son­al­i­ty of the Year
goes to Paul Gol­by, CEO of ener­gy com­pa­ny E.ON, for out­stand­ing ser­vices to Green­wash (whilst plot­ting to build Kingsnorth)

——

CLIMATE RUSH: THURSDAY 5TH MARCH, 1PM, RBS HQ

GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK and STOP TRASHING THE PLANET

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land: £33 bil­lion in bail outs SO FAR!

Using OUR MONEY!

RBS boss 50-year-old Sir Fred: retires ear­ly with a whop­ping £16 mil­lion pen­sion fund.

Using OUR MONEY!

OUR bank: arranges £16 bil­lion in loans to the coal indus­try in just two years.

RBS: the BIGGEST investor in cli­mate chaos.

FOR THE LOVE OF OUR MONEY, WHAT PLANET ARE THEY ON?

Grab your mates, bring some lunch and get down to the bank to demand OUR mon­ey back.

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land HQ

Thurs­day 5th March

1.OOPM PROMPT: think flash­mob…

280 Bish­ops­gate, near Liv­er­pool Street Sta­tion

ANGRY? You bet­ter believe it: Let’s rush!

See what they’re say­ing about the RBS Cli­mate Rush in the Guardian here

Face­book invite here: invite ALL your friends

Please help spread the word by down­load­ing the poster as a pdf here to print out and stick up wher­ev­er you go!

Be sure to keep check­ing the site for updates… and don’t for­get to sub­scribe and join our face­book group!

Work Stopped at Shipley Open Cast Coal Mine Site

26th Feb 2009
This morn­ing a group of four ex-local res­i­dents, not affil­i­at­ed with any par­tic­u­lar group went dig­ger div­ing at the Ship­ley Open Cast Coal Mine.

Shipley soul bannerShipley soul security26th Feb 2009
This morn­ing a group of four ex-local res­i­dents, not affil­i­at­ed with any par­tic­u­lar group went dig­ger div­ing at the Ship­ley Open Cast Coal Mine.

Work was stopped for one hour and a half. The pro­tes­tors left when the police turned up.

The police entered into dis­cus­sion with UK Coal about cre­at­ing a more per­me­nant space for peo­ple to protest at, the police sug­gest­ed some kind of shel­ter. UK Coal declined, stat­ing that they were wor­ried the pro­tes­tors would turn the shel­ter into a “con­crete lock-on”.

No arrests were made.

Same ban­ner; dif­fer­ent protest.

Work Stopped at Rosewell Open Cast Coal Mine Site

23.2.2009
At 9am today a group of eco-activists began to dis­rupt the oper­a­tions of Scot­tish Coal at the Rosewell open-cast coal mine in the Mid­loth­i­ans. Some of the 10 activists stop­ping work today are local res­i­dents.

Rosewell coal mine action23.2.2009
At 9am today a group of eco-activists began to dis­rupt the oper­a­tions of Scot­tish Coal at the Rosewell open-cast coal mine in the Mid­loth­i­ans. Some of the 10 activists stop­ping work today are local res­i­dents.

They climbed onto dig­ging machin­ery to pre­vent works and climbed onto trucks to pre­vent coal from leav­ing the Rosewell site for 2 hours this morn­ing. Then police arrived but no-one were arrest­ed.

One activist said “the burn­ing of coal to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty is one of the most pol­lut­ing and destruc­tive of all human activ­i­ties. We can­not deal with cli­mate change while com­pa­nies like Scot­tish coal con­tin­ue to prof­it from coal exploita­tion.”

A local res­i­dent said “With a gov­ern­ment com­mit­ted to expand­ing open­cast, deep mine and new coal pow­er gen­er­a­tion across Scot­land, ask­ing politi­cians will achieve noth­ing. Peace­ful direct action is the only way peo­ple are going to stop coal expan­sion.”

Anoth­er said. “We are opposed to this cli­mate dis­as­ter of an ener­gy pol­i­cy and to the scar­ring of scot­land’s coun­try­side with these hor­ri­ble open-cast coal mines, Rosewell and Scot­tish Coal’s oth­er oper­a­tions have and will con­tin­ue to be met by resis­tance from local peo­ple tak­ing direct action.”

This action was done by indi­vid­u­als who are not affil­i­at­ed to any par­tic­u­lar group.

This is anoth­er exam­ple of the grow­ing resis­tance to new coal in scot­land. For more gen­er­al info on how peo­ple are stop­ping new coal in Scot­land, check out www.coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk