Category: East Midlands

East Mid­lands

Coal Gets Left In The Ground A Bit Longer

Activists occu­py­ing Bodge House / Lodge House / Prospect Farm (all the same place) to obstruct its destruc­tion for open­cast coal extrac­tion had a court vic­to­ry on Mon­day.

Activists occu­py­ing Bodge House / Lodge House / Prospect Farm (all the same place) to obstruct its destruc­tion for open­cast coal extrac­tion had a court vic­to­ry on Mon­day.

Har­worth Estates (Agri­cul­tur­al Land) Lim­it­ed, the new green­wash name for the out­fit for­mer­ly known as Har­worth Min­ing Inter­na­tion­al Lim­it­ed were sent pack­ing by the judge with a flea in their ear. They could­n’t prove they actu­al­ly owned the place or had prop­er­ly end­ed the farmer’s ten­an­cy. If they do the all home­work set by the judge prop­er­ly, they’ll be allowed to try again on 18th July.

Mean­time, the occu­pa­tion goes on.

Activists disrupt work at site of opencast coal mine

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.
All remained until the police arrived, which was a con­sid­er­able time lat­er. How­ev­er, the spon­ta­neous action clear­ly delayed their work, as the site fore­man spent much time talk­ing to the police etc.

Con­cerned of Smal­l­ey
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/leaveitintheground/

Anniversary of the first week at Shipley Bodge (& upcoming protest dates)

It has been a week already since cli­mate chaos activists took occu­pa­tion of a farm house on the site of the UK’s newest open cast site. Here is an update. The pos­ses­sion court case was chucked out of court for the moment — more here. Don’t for­get the 14th July noise demo (link to left).

UK Coal have start­ed some prepara­to­ry works at the Ship­ley open cast site. Many Tonnes of con­crete has been cast to rein­force the pub­lic access road near the squat­ted site. This is allow 200 tonne machines to trav­el back and forth with­out doing dam­age to the pub­lic right of way. (I’ll pause here while you un-flab­ber­gast your­self………)

Bodge graffitti 2Bodge flowers 3It has been a week already since cli­mate chaos activists took occu­pa­tion of a farm house on the site of the UK’s newest open cast site. Here is an update. The pos­ses­sion court case was chucked out of court for the moment — more here. Don’t for­get the 14th July noise demo (link to left).

UK Coal have start­ed some prepara­to­ry works at the Ship­ley open cast site. Many Tonnes of con­crete has been cast to rein­force the pub­lic access road near the squat­ted site. This is allow 200 tonne machines to trav­el back and forth with­out doing dam­age to the pub­lic right of way. (I’ll pause here while you un-flab­ber­gast your­self………)

Mean­while, fur­ther along Bell Lane, tele­com engi­neers were busy with their under­ground cable detec­tors. I don’t know why they couldn’t just phone BT and ask where they put them!

Clear­ly the angry own­er of White­house Farm gate­house (map ref SK41619 44026) is grad­u­al­ly get­ting knack­ered from hav­ing to keep open­ing the gate for vehi­cles on UK Coal busi­ness, as he was hav­ing fan­cy new hinges fit­ted to the gateposts.

The route is still pass­able on foot or horse, which is just as well. We have con­firmed with Der­byshire Coun­ty Coun­cil that the path from Smal­l­ey to the gate at White­house Farm is a des­ig­nat­ed foot­path and from there to Ship­ley Park it is a pub­lic bri­dle­way. The Rights of Way Offi­cers at DCC are very keen to hear of any prob­lems mem­bers of the pub­lic expe­ri­ence when try­ing to exer­cise their right to trav­el freely along this path.

There is no prob­lem with vehi­cle access from the Ship­ley Park end, although the gate may be locked on Sun­days (please con­firm before you trav­el)

Mean­while, back at Ship­ley Bodge…

The new res­i­dents have con­tin­ued to mod­ernise the old farm­house so it now boasts a loft apart­ment, new flags and exte­ri­or décor. The gar­den has not been over­looked with nice new fenc­ing, and sev­er­al tree-hous­es under con­struc­tion.

The pro­test­ers are in good spir­its and well stocked but please keep the sup­plies com­ing. Peo­ple are also need­ed, for an hour, a day or prefer­ably longer.

Please bring water, tim­ber and food etc.

See http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20918 for ini­tial occu­pa­tion report, and con­tact, map, wish list, access to the site, court papers & a protest.
See http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20943 for a report of some­one’s vis­it there.

http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

Bodge graffitti 1
Bodge flag
Bodge flowers 1
Bodge flowers 2
Bodge flowers 4

A visit to the Opencast Squat

21.06.2008
I decid­ed to take a trip to Ship­ley today to see how the new res­i­dents of Prospect farm were set­tling in.

Bodge House with roof-tripodBodge fencing21.06.2008
I decid­ed to take a trip to Ship­ley today to see how the new res­i­dents of Prospect farm were set­tling in.

Just to recap the sto­ry so far. In the ear­ly hours of last Wednes­day morn­ing a group of car­ing indi­vid­u­als took pos­ses­sion of a build­ing on the site of UK Coals planned new open cast site in Der­byshire. There aim is to protest/prevent the coun­try­side and wider envi­ron­ment being dev­as­tat­ed by the extrac­tion and burn­ing of the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel.

As if we need­ed any remind­ing of the cli­mate chaos coal burn­ing con­tributes to, when I arrived on Sat­ur­day (21st June!) it was wet and driz­zly and the fore­cast was for storms.

But the rain had not damp­ened the spir­its of the crew now liv­ing at Prospect Farm (now re-chris­tened Bodge farm). While they were still busy with all those jobs that need doing when you move into a new home they had already achieved a great deal and the place was very home­ly. A well-stocked kitchen was set up and a wel­com­ing open fire means there is always a ket­tle on the go.

To the sounds of acoustic gui­tar from one of the tree-hous­es I watched a cou­ple of peo­ple fix­ing fenc­ing and looked up to admire the sus­pend­ed car­go net­ting between the trees.

There have been oth­er vis­i­tors com­ing to show their sup­port includ­ing three gen­er­a­tions of the fam­i­ly who used to live in the house before UK Coal kicked them out.

I was delayed on leav­ing as a large van full of pro­vi­sions had just arrived and need­ed unload­ing. This had been spon­ta­neous­ly arranged and paid for by locals and includ­ed just about every­thing you could think of from tinned beans to cot­ton buds, fresh veg to bot­tled water.

Please get along there and sup­port them, it’s a love­ly loca­tion and the squat/camp has a great feel.

But get along there because at some point we have just got to draw a line. For all our futures and for gen­er­a­tions to come, leave it in the ground.

http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

Climate change protestors occupy Derbyshire open cast coal site — contact, map, wish list, access & court papers

18th June 2008 – For imme­di­ate release
Leave it in the Ground 07852 460871

Today cli­mate cam­paign­ers from ‘Leave it in the Ground’ have occu­pied the UK Coal’s Lodge House site in Der­byshire by bar­ri­cad­ing them­selves in a dis­used farm build­ing and tak­en to the trees on the site of the open cast mine.

Bodge House squatBodge House roof banner18th June 2008 – For imme­di­ate release
Leave it in the Ground 07852 460871

Today cli­mate cam­paign­ers from ‘Leave it in the Ground’ have occu­pied the UK Coal’s Lodge House site in Der­byshire by bar­ri­cad­ing them­selves in a dis­used farm build­ing and tak­en to the trees on the site of the open cast mine.

Under the cov­er of dark­ness activists have secured them­selves in the Prospect Farm build­ing on the site which is about to be dev­as­tat­ed by huge machines. Food and sup­plies have also been tak­en in for a long term occu­pa­tion and bar­ri­cades’ have been set up pre­vent­ing police form bring­ing in spe­cial­ist equip­ment down Bell Lane, Smal­l­ey Der­byshire into the heart of the site. Sim­i­lar­ly, peo­ple are locked on by their necks behind the doors pre­vent­ing force being used to gain entry. The pro­test­ers are claim­ing squatter’s rights.

At Lodge House today, Andy Green said “We are here because the sin­gle great­est threat to the cli­mate comes from burn­ing coal. Coal fired gen­er­a­tion is his­tor­i­cal­ly respon­si­ble for most of the CO2 in the air today – about half of all car­bon diox­ide emis­sions glob­al­ly. Coal form open cast mines is dirt­i­er than that from deep mines, so it is even worse!”

Lodge house is owned by UK Coal, Britain’s largest coal com­pa­ny who plan to extract one mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 122 hec­tor site. Pro­tes­tors claim this will dev­as­tate the area. Local coun­cils, res­i­dents and local envi­ron­men­tal groups have all object­ed to the plans, how­ev­er, the Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary Hilary Benn grant­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion in 2007 and work is set to com­mence immi­nent­ly.

New open cast mines are being active­ly sup­port­ed by the gov­ern­ment and the num­ber of open­cast mines going into the plan­ning process and being approved is on the increase.

The Leave it in the Ground, is part of the Net­work for Cli­mate Action (2) and its allies, has seen over a dozen actions take place around the UK includ­ing the occu­pa­tion of a coal train head­ing for Drax pow­er sta­tion. Protests have focused on the com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for run­away car­bon diox­ide emis­sions, as well as those pro­mot­ing false solu­tions to cli­mate change.

“We are tak­ing action to pre­vent the coal indus­try bent on eco­nom­ic growth from destroy­ing our future,” said Julie Lee from Leave it in the Ground. “If Gor­don Brown gives the go ahead to a new gen­er­a­tion of coal fired pow­er sta­tions begin­ning with Kingsnorth in Kent, it will under­mine – per­haps fatal­ly — Britain’s chances of meet­ing its cli­mate change tar­gets. If Britain is to cut its emis­sions by 80% by 2050, the eight planned new coal pow­er-fired plants alone will wipe out half of our car­bon bud­get.”

A fur­ther demon­stra­tion is planned for 14th July at UK Coal’s Head quar­ters in Don­cast­er.

For inter­views and more infor­ma­tion about today’s action at Lodge House con­tact:
Andy PHONE NUMBER 07852 460871
EMAIL derby@earthfirst.org.uk

** Updates will be avail­able through­out the day at
http://leaveitintheground.wordpress.com or from 07852 460871 **

Notes to edi­tors.

1. UK coal’s head­quar­ters is sit­u­at­ed at Har­worth Park, Blyth Road, Har­worth, Don­cast­er DN11 8DB.

2. To com­bat open-cast min­ing, a new action group “Leave it in the Ground” has formed, sup­port­ed by Earth First! As well as oth­er envi­ron­men­tal groups.

3. UK coal has sub­mit­ted plan­ning appli­ca­tions for 5 new sites:
(Site and Poten­tial Ton­nage)
Pot­land Burn, Northum­ber­land 2,000,000 tonnes
Park Wall North, Co. Durham 1,275,000 tonnes
Bradley, Co. Durham 550,000 tonnes
Hunt­ing­ton Lane, Shrop­shire 900,000 tonnes
Blair House, Fife 700,000 tonnes

It is pro­posed that the 122 hectare site will pro­duce one mil­lion tonnes of coal over five years, after which the land will be ‘returned back to its nat­ur­al state’. How­ev­er, UK Coal will not be able to replace ancient edges and mature trees, and their licence enables the com­pa­ny to expand beyond the 122 hectares with­out need­ing fur­ther per­mis­sion

Coal is the dirt­i­est form of pow­er gen­er­a­tion known to man. Top NASA James Hansen recent­ly remarked: “The only prac­ti­cal way to pre­vent CO2 lev­els from going far into the dan­ger­ous range, with dis­as­trous effects for human­i­ty and oth­er inhab­i­tants of the plan­et, is to phase out use of coal except at pow­er plants where the CO2 is cap­tured and sequestered.”

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The house and site has been dubbed Bodge House.

We need more peo­ple on site to make addi­tion­al prepa­ra­tions and secure oth­er areas to stop open cast­ing and build long term home.

Sup­plies are also need­ed

Site phone 07503 335870

Most of all we need peo­ple to come down and stay on the site. It is a beau­ti­ful area, with much wildlife, and easy access to pub­lic trans­port. Come down and vis­it!

See here for direc­tions & map — take pub­lic trans­port to Ship­ley Coun­try Park or oth­er near­by place, then make for Prospect Farm, marked on the map.

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Wish list:

Water: Please bring lots when you come as there is cur­rent­ly no run­ning water on site.

scaf­fold, tar­pau­lin, planks, large nails, polyprop espe­cial­ly 8mm, 10mm and 12mm (but any rope is good)

sand and cement

Climb­ing tat — ropes, har­ness’ cara­bi­nas, belay plates, d‑locks, pad­locks and chains, car­go net­ting,

Blan­kets, car­pets, quilts, sleep­ing bags, ham­mocks,

bow­saws, burn­ers, plas­tic sheets, shov­els and oth­er tools, torch­es, hur­ri­cane lamps and head torch­es.

Axes, bat­ter­ies (car and torch), bolt crop­pers, buck­ets, can­dles, fish­ing line, flex­i­flue and cut­ting gear,

food (tinned is good, dried food par­tic­u­lar­ly things like fruit and nuts is fan­tas­tic, fresh fruit and veg is real­ly appre­ci­at­ed) cook­ing pans and cut­lery, mugs and plates first aid, gen­er­a­tors, paraf­fin, refuse sacks, rope, string, tents, ther­mos flasks, tin stor­age (ammo) box­es, water butts.

Nylon crane net­ting, pul­leys, loud­hail­ers, para­chutes, ruck­sacks, steel cable,

Clothes, Boots, warm clothes and socks, water­proof cloth­ing, wellies.

Musi­cians, climbers, mechan­ics, car­pen­ters, heal­ers, bak­ers, solic­i­tors, spon­sors, poets, friend­ly shop keep­ers, trad­er exchange, nature-lovers and every­one else too!

Trans­port

Bicy­cles and tools.

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access to site

19th June
The chap at the Lodge on Bell Lane is not let­ting peo­ple past and claim­ing he owns the road (he is an angry farmer with dog).

Alter­na­tive access is from ship­ley — when com­ing from heanor, turn right off A6007 (Ilke­ston rd) as you leave ship­ley (into ‘the field’), turn right onto tar­mac road after the stein­er school (one left) and go up this road. Bear left past bridge and lake on right and turn right through gate just before big house. You are now on Bell lane and site is the house next to road works after bridge.

if you go take lots of water

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Papers served and anoth­er protest

The farm house on the prospec­tive open cast coal site that was squat­ted this week has receieved its papers.

It will be tak­en to court on 30th June at 10 am at Der­by Com­bined Court Cen­tre, Morledge, Der­by, DE1 2XE by Har­worth Estates Agri­cul­tur­al Land Ltd (part of the UK Coal Con­glom­er­ate).

The peo­ple on site are putting a call out for peo­ple to come and stay on the site and help out. If you have ever fan­cied your hand at pro­tect­ing beau­ti­ful land against the cap­i­tal­ist machine, nows your chance!

There will be a protest/show of sup­port is planed for the 30th June at Der­by com­bined courts, The Morledge, Der­by.

Come and show your sup­port with a fun lit­tle protest at 9am.

9th June Noise Demo at UK Coal Head Office Protest — next one 14th July

UK Coal is about to dev­as­tate a beau­ti­ful part of the Der­byshire coun­try­side by start­ing an open cast mine. So ‘Leave it in the Ground’ and Earth First! decid­ed to make some noise over it with peo­ple from Der­by, Not­ting­ham Leeds, Sheffield, Man­ches­ter and Brighton as well as oth­er places, all trav­elled to UK Coals Head office in Don­cast­er to make some noise.

UK Coal 1st noise demo 1UK Coal 1st noise demo 2UK Coal is about to dev­as­tate a beau­ti­ful part of the Der­byshire coun­try­side by start­ing an open cast mine. So ‘Leave it in the Ground’ and Earth First! decid­ed to make some noise over it with peo­ple from Der­by, Not­ting­ham Leeds, Sheffield, Man­ches­ter and Brighton as well as oth­er places, all trav­elled to UK Coals Head office in Don­cast­er to make some noise.

On arrival the police were there as expect­ed, but did lit­tle to engage us and a lit­tle lat­er in the day a 2 police officer’s with a cam­era and a video did appear in a daft attempt to intim­i­date us. UK Coal had there own secu­ri­ty at the gate who just stood there more bored than the police.

The day was hot and very sun­ny at the bleak entrance of UK coals Head Office, a soul less place with noth­ing that said they were very proud of their com­pa­ny, no ornate plants, flow­ers or trees, just a big main­tained hedge for their pri­va­cy. It is no won­der they are hap­py to destroy beau­ti­ful coun­try­side for the dirty coal.

Every one was in high spir­its and chilled as we all made noise for the after­noon in the sun. The plod just looked bored and there faces were get­ting red­der by the hour under the fluro’ jack­ets and hel­mets.

We were fine of course, as we occu­pied the UK Coals sign for the only bit of shade while the plod kept roast­ing; we also sat around eat­ing cake, pasties and sausage roles all from Veg­gies in a take out form, while still mak­ing a din.

At times the noise sound­ed good and they delib­er­ate­ly had to try and play bad­ly just so it was annoy­ing, after all it was no pic­nic. Ban­ners were also hung and a police offi­cer told us we could tie them to a lamp post, not that we need­ed his per­mis­sion. Dri­vers com­ing in or out were also leaflet­ed and many motorists pass­ing the entrance beeped in sup­port (prob­a­bly ex min­ers who hate open cast­ing with a pas­sion)

It’s not just the local open cast, peo­ple are oppos­ing of course but also the UK pol­i­cy on coal that is now out­dat­ed as cli­mate change looms in front of our eyes. Burn­ing coal is threat­en­ing the glob­al envi­ron­ment and all our futures and UK coal are cash­ing in on cli­mate dev­as­ta­tion and destruc­tion. The Lodge House site in Der­byshire is just one of 7 sites and Lodge house will have 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal ripped out of a 122 hectare area in 5 years

Local media had turned out and radio inter­views were done over the phone and there is more stuff to fol­low check http://leaveitintheground.org.uk and http://leaveitintheground.wordpress.com for the lat­est infor­ma­tion

derby@earthfirst.org.uk

Next event: noise demo out­side UK Coal on Mon­day 14th July 2008 — meet 3:30 at Don­cast­er train sta­tion, or 4pm at UK Coal

3rd June Food & Climate Change Day of Action — more actions, in Nottingham, London x3, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool & Amsterdam

Actions co-incid­ing with the UN Con­fer­ence on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate Change got off to an ear­ly start, with Sun­day see­ing the first of an out­break of veg­an food give-aways, in Man­ches­ter, with a spot of guer­ril­la gar­den­ing; the rash spread on Mon­day with GM labs occu­pied. The Ready Steady Skip web­site tried to soothe, but on the day, the action con­ta­gion spread…

Actions co-incid­ing with the UN Con­fer­ence on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate Change got off to an ear­ly start, with Sun­day see­ing the first of an out­break of veg­an food give-aways, in Man­ches­ter, with a spot of guer­ril­la gar­den­ing; the rash spread on Mon­day with GM labs occu­pied. The Ready Steady Skip web­site tried to soothe, but on the day, the action con­ta­gion spread…Nottingham Food & Climate day 1Nottingham Food & Climate day 2
Cli­mate change and ani­mal rights activists joined togeth­er in Not­ting­ham today to give away free veg­an food, plants & skipped veg­eta­bles.

Pass­er-bys were enticed to our stall by the offers of free chips, veg­an pasties and toma­to plants. We hand­ed out leaflets about cli­mate change & food and had lots of chats with peo­ple about the world food cri­sis & our solu­tions of eat­ing a local, organ­ic & veg­an diet. An amaz­ing num­ber of peo­ple already grew there own food & lots more were encour­aged to give it a go. We had a real­ly pos­i­tive response from the pub­lic and peo­ple seemed gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed in the infor­ma­tion leaflets we hand­ed out.

More pho­tos.

The next free veg­an food give­away in Not­ting­ham is going to be on the 4th July.

A hand­ful of us then vis­it­ed Fresh & Ecoworks com­mu­ni­ty gar­den based at St Ann’s allot­ments. We had a tour of the amaz­ing gar­dens & saw a bril­liant exam­ple of local, organ­ic food being pro­duced in the city. See
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2006/08/348168.html
and
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/10/382929.html

We tod­dled off home in the rain, chilli plants in hand, inspired to grow our own.

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London Food not Bombs climate food day
Food & Cli­mate Change Action — Lon­don

For the Food & Cli­mate Change day of action, Whitechapel Food Not Bombs and Brix­ton Reclaim Your Food teamed up to serve free veg­an food in front of a Mac Don­ald’s in Cam­ber­well.

The groups had a stall right in front of a Mac Don­ald in Cam­ber­well for two hours, serv­ing out fresh­ly skipped, lov­ing­ly cooked free veg­an food to passers by, and engag­ing peo­ple in con­ver­sa­tion about the link between the food they eat and cli­mate change. For good mea­sure, the group was accom­pa­nied by a bicy­cle sound sys­tem, to liv­en up the atmos­phere.

All in all, over a hun­dred serv­ings were giv­en out, count­less more peo­ple saw the stall and were giv­en leaflets high­light­ing some of the links between food and cli­mate change on the fol­low­ing top­ics : waste ; veg­an­ism ; organ­ic food ; local­ly pro­duced food.

The menu includ­ed a spicy mash, a cur­ry, a pump­kin soup, a sal­ad, some gua­camole, some stuffed aubergines, some veg­gies burg­ers, an apple cake, a fruit sal­ad and more.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the Mac Don­ald’s man­agers weren’t too hap­py about peo­ple giv­ing out free food in front of their win­dow shop — but the police seemed to decide oth­er­wise. The groups were asked to remove a ban­ner from the Mac Don­ald win­dow shop, but were oth­er­wise per­mit­ted to stay there as long as there was­n’t too much obstruc­tion.

londonfnb@lists.riseup.net
http://www.londonfnb.org

–

25 pro­test­ers organ­ised by Bio­fu­el­watch and Food Not Fuel, Lon­don came togeth­er for a protest out­side Newham town hall in East Ham on Sat­ur­day to raise pub­lic aware­ness of the plan­ning appli­ca­tion for the UK’s first bio­fu­el-fired pow­er plant to be built, in Beck­ton. Ban­ners and plac­ards quot­ed many sta­tis­tics such as the num­ber of peo­ple going hun­gry because of agro­fu­els and the num­ber of peo­ple who could be fed with one tank of bio­fu­el. Over 500 sig­na­tures object­ing to the plant were collected…it appears that Beck­ton, one of the most pol­lut­ed Lon­don bor­oughs, is pre­pared to fight back.

–

In Lon­don, veg­an cam­paign­ers we took to the streets of Chancery Lane to
treat the city work­ers to some veg­an food sam­ples. The response was good,
with a range of inter­est­ed peo­ple com­ing to taste the food. We gave away
hun­dreds of recipe book­lets, and leaflets for this year’s Lon­don Veg­an
Fes­ti­val.

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Bristol biofuels on food & climate day
Bris­tol Protest Over Tesco’s Bio­fu­els Claim

Bio­fu­els far from the panacea to petrol prices and cli­mate change, have added to the glob­al food price hike by tak­ing land pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied by food crops. A study by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta found that grow­ing bio­fu­el on con­vert­ed rain­forests, peat lands, savan­nas or grass­lands cre­at­ed up to 420 times more car­bon diox­ide than it saved.

Wheat Prices have dou­bled in the UK over the past year, and con­sumers and retail­ers have so far man­aged to absorb this. But else­where in the world, peo­ple are going with­out wheat (and oth­er sta­ples) and bak­ers are going out of busi­ness.

To illus­trate this issue, a dozens bak­ers (rather than a bak­ers dozen!) will be fol­low­ing up Bris­tol Ris­ing Tides demo in April of this year to illus­trate the true cost of Agro-fuels. They will be at Tesco, East­ville between 4.30pm and 7pm

Ms Bread of Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide said:

“The ques­tion is do we want do feed our cars or feed our­selves?”

Tesco has made false claims about the source of the fuel sold at its ser­vice sta­tions, accord­ing to an inves­ti­ga­tion that found that the chain sold the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly dam­ag­ing types of biodiesel ‑Palm Oil — whilst claim­ing that it ‘s bio­fu­el was sourced from rel­a­tive­ly sus­tain­able UK-plant­ed rape seed oil.[2]

Mr A.Baker of Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide said:

“Its now clear that we leave big busi­ness to deal with cli­mate change, this is the kind of thing that will hap­pen — a bloody dis­as­ter”

At this years Cli­mate Camp (3rd — 10th August) there will be a nation­al day of action against Agro­fu­els.

[1] Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide is part of the Inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide for Cli­mate Jus­tice net­work
www.risingtide.org.uk
[2] The Times,April 14, 2008 “Tesco green fuel ‘adds to cli­mate change”

Leaflet

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Taste the Waste
Wait­ing for (social) Change!

4/06/2008
Today in the Char­ing Cross area of Glas­gow a group of wait­ers invit­ed passers-by to ‘Taste the waste’ and sam­ple their free food. The menu was made up entire­ly out of skipped goods from super­mar­ket bins and includ­ed such delights as: home­made veg­an fre­quent fly­er banana cake, skipped chip, res­cued roast veg. and binned beans. This was part of the call to action on Food and Cli­mate Change by the Net­work for Cli­mate Action (http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk).

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Liv­er­pool host­ed a free veg­an food fair at its social cen­tre ‘Next to
Nowhere’. Around 50 peo­ple attend­ed and loads of food and infor­ma­tion was giv­en out. The event allowed for a lot of infor­mal dis­cus­sion, with a social area cre­at­ed for this pur­pose. Peo­ple were delight­ed to hear that they can come back for veg­an food every Sat­ur­day after­noon 1–5pm.

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Amsterdam on food & climate change day 1Amsterdam on food & climate change day 2
Pigs say: If you care about cli­mate change, eat less meat, milk and eggs

On Tues­day June 3rd, a group of pigs made a small action for a more veg­an Ams­ter­dam. They hand­ed out veg­an snacks to encour­age peo­ple not to buy that ham for din­ner. It may look like the pigs act­ed out of self-inter­est, but today their mes­sage was that meat pro­duc­tion is a major cause of cli­mate change. While the UN is con­fer­ring in Rome on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate change, the pigs put a focus on that aver­age Euro­peans have a diet of dis­as­ter. Rais­ing ani­mals for food gen­er­ates more green­house gas­es than all the cars and trucks in the world com­bined.

Quite some peo­ple in front of the Albert Hei­jn on Joden­breestraat were hap­py to taste the organ­ic, veg­an falafel and choco­late cake and many said they are veg­e­tar­i­ans already. Peo­ple were sur­prised to hear that pro­duc­ing one kilo of cheese cause as much green­house gas emis­sions as dri­ving a car for 60 km. A Brazil­ian woman had wit­nessed the expand­ing soy fields used for feed­ing ani­mal indus­try.

“Con­sumers can make a huge improve­ment by avoid­ing ani­mal prod­ucts and imports, and by sup­port­ing local, organ­ic farm­ers instead. But humans need to organ­ise them­selves fast against the dom­i­nant cul­ture if they want to save them­selves from cli­mate chaos” the pig­gies stat­ed after all the food had been hand­ed out.

Tonight, Wednes­day June 4 from 19 there will be a film night in Plan­tage Dok­laan 12, with organ­ic veg­an food and ideas on how to com­bat cli­mate change. (See pro­gramme on the web­site)

Web­site: http://www.howtocookaplanet.net

Ready Steady Skip: Trailer and website launched!

Ready Steady Skip — the game show where need­less­ly wast­ed food is recov­ered from the bin and turned into deli­cious dish­es before your very eyes!

Ready Steady Skip — the game show where need­less­ly wast­ed food is recov­ered from the bin and turned into deli­cious dish­es before your very eyes!

And now, the moment you’ve all been wait­ing for: http://www.readysteadyskip.org.uk/

Ready Steady Skip is a bit like “Scrapheap Chal­lenge” meets “Ready Steady Cook” — skip­ping for food and whip­ping up some tasty dish­es, with plen­ty of hilar­i­ty (and peo­ple div­ing into skips).

Every year over 17 mil­lion tons of food are put straight into land­fill sites, yet over 4 mil­lion tons of this is per­fect­ly edi­ble and still well with­in it’s sell-by date. A whop­ping 5 mil­lion tons of food are wast­ed annu­al­ly by con­sumers alone: that is, more than a quar­ter of all food we buy goes into the bin. It’s high time this insan­i­ty stopped!

Skip­ping (aka. “Free­gan­ism” or “Dump­ster Div­ing”) is all about reclaim­ing per­fect­ly edi­ble food “waste” from the jaws of an insane sys­tem found­ed on greed, and mak­ing good use of it.

We’ve launched the Ready Steady Skip trail­er and web­site to coin­cide with the Days Of Cli­mate Action food day (3rd June 2008), which is high­light­ing the fact that the food we eat con­tributes up to a third of the emis­sions that are poi­son­ing the plan­et. When you con­sid­er the amount of food that is just thrown away, it brings home how need­less this luna­cy is. Nobody ever need go hun­gry — yet peo­ple still starve every day.

The pro­gramme was shot here in Not­ting­ham at the begin­ning of March, and the full episode will be released online in July 2008. We’re also try­ing to organ­ise a screen­ing (and pos­si­bly even anoth­er con­test) at the Cli­mate Camp.

Keep an eye on our web­site for updates!

Pre­vi­ous Notts Indy­media piece: Ready, Steady, Skip!! — The Pic­tures 1

info@readysteadyskip.org.uk
http://www.readysteadyskip.org.uk/

Noise demo against imminent open cast coal mine 9th June

A new open-cast coal mine site is about to get under­way in beau­ti­ful Der­byshire, unless we stop it now.

Derbyshire open-cast - beforeDerbyshire open-cast - after?A new open-cast coal mine site is about to get under­way in beau­ti­ful Der­byshire, unless we stop it now. Help us send the mes­sage loud and clear to UK Coal to leave it in the ground!

Noise Demo at UK Coal, nr Don­cast­er
Mon­day 9th June
Meet 12 noon at Don­cast­er train sta­tion.
There will be lifts to UK Coal’s HQ — but bring trans­port if you can.

UK COAL, Har­worth Park, Blyth Road, Har­worth, Don­cast­er DN11 8DB

Bring: ban­ners, things to make noise with, food, peo­ple, tents, room to give peo­ple a lift.

For more info phone 07852 460871 or email derby@earthfirst.org.uk

Down­load leaflet (includes map of pro­posed open-cast) – please print and cir­cu­late

What’s going on?
Lodge House site, which is east of the vil­lage of the Der­byshire vil­lage of Smal­l­ey, is one of sev­en
sites that UK Coal is to open-cast. The area is rich with wildlife and backs onto Ship­ley Coun­try Park. It is about to be dev­as­tat­ed, despite objec­tions from local coun­cils, res­i­dents and local envi­ron­men­tal groups. The Sec­re­tary of State grant­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion in 2007 and work is to com­mence any day now.

More destruc­tion to come?
The 122 hectare site will have one mil­lion tonnes of coal ripped out over five years and ‘returned back to its nat­ur­al state’ accord­ing to UK Coal. How­ev­er, they will not be able to replace ancient edges and mature trees, and they will be able to expand beyond the 122 hectares with­out need­ing fur­ther per­mis­sion. Res­i­dents were exclud­ed from parts of the plan­ning meet­ing on grounds of com­mer­cial con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, which sug­gests that the plans may be big­ger than UK Coal is let­ting on.

A dirty fuel, a chang­ing cli­mate
Coal is not clean ener­gy, and with the new onslaught of pro­posed pow­er sta­tions, UK Coal are look­ing to cash in on cli­mate dev­as­ta­tion and destruc­tion unless we stop them. Burn­ing coal to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty is threat­en­ing the glob­al envi­ron­ment and all our futures..

To com­bat open-cast min­ing, a new action group “Leave it in the Ground” has formed, sup­port­ed by Earth First! and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal groups.

If you can’t make the demo then you could con­tact UK Coal direct­ly to let them know what you think: UK Coal Tel: 01302 751751 Fax: 01302 752420.

Links

Leave it in the Ground
Home­page: http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

Report on pre­vi­ous action http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20727

For a bit of his­to­ry on protests against open cast min­ing see:
http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no7/23–32.html

More info on coal…
http://thecoalhole.org/

03/06/08.…..TAKE ACTION ON FOOD AND CLIMATE CHANGE

With­in the past year, glob­al food prices have risen by 75%. Prices of wheat, soya, oilseeds, maize and rice are now at record lev­els. The World Bank has warned that 100 mil­lion more peo­ple are fac­ing hunger and mal­nu­tri­tion because of ris­ing food prices.

Food not Bombs for Food & Climate action dayWith­in the past year, glob­al food prices have risen by 75%. Prices of wheat, soya, oilseeds, maize and rice are now at record lev­els. The World Bank has warned that 100 mil­lion more peo­ple are fac­ing hunger and mal­nu­tri­tion because of ris­ing food prices.

The green­house gas emis­sions caused by live­stock and indus­tri­al fish­ing account for 18 per cent of glob­al warm­ing; more than the emis­sions from the world’s entire trans­port sys­tem, at 13.5 per cent. Tech­no fix­es such as GM crops and Bio­fu­els are not the answer to cli­mate chaos, we need to change our pat­terns of con­sump­tion and switch to a low impact, cru­el­ty free lifestyle!

With one week to go before the food and cli­mate change day of action; get cre­ative and get involved!

“Live­stock­’s con­tri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems is on a mas­sive scale. The impact is so sig­nif­i­cant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.”
— Unit­ed Nations Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­i­sa­tion 2006

“The grain required to fill a 25-gal­lon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one per­son for a year.” (Lester Brown, Direc­tor of the Earth Pol­i­cy Insti­tute).

The UN Con­fer­ence on World Food Secu­ri­ty and Cli­mate Change runs from 3rd to 5th June 2008. The Net­work for Cli­mate Action is invit­ing you to take action on and around the 3rd of June 2008. There’s stuff hap­pen­ing all over the coun­try, and inter­na­tion­al­ly, on the day itself, and before and after it.

Cli­mate action starts on your din­ner plate, at the super­mar­ket, on your allot­ment and in your back yard, at the food pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres, down on the farm, in your high street, at the air­port and at the lor­ry park. Use this day as a way to high­light the com­plex­i­ty of food relat­ed issues, and also to pro­mote spe­cif­ic cam­paigns..

It’s time to detox the plan­et and take action on food and cli­mate change! Groups all over the coun­try are plan­ning actions, demon­stra­tions, film nights, work­shops and free food events. For more ideas, and resources, vis­it the web­site: http://daysofclimateaction.org.uk; and let us know if you need any­thing else, or if you have resources that could be shared!

Remem­ber, the list below is only a list of pub­lic events, actions to fol­low when announced! If you want infor­ma­tion about whats going on in your area, please get in touch!

MANCHESTER 01/06 Veg­an pic­nic, demo and sur­prise activ­i­ty!
Free veg­an food
12–4, Pic­cadil­ly Gar­dens email: manchester@climatecamp.org.uk

BRISTOL 31/05–01/06 Bris­tol Veg­an Fayre
http://www.bristolveganfayre.co.uk/

SHEFFIELD 31/05 Free veg­an food stall
email:sheffieldanimalfriends@googlemail.com

LIVERPOOL 31/05 Free veg­an food event 12–4 Next to Nowhere, (this event kick starts the veg­an drop in which will hap­pen 1–5 every Sat­ur­day, Next to Nowhere). http://www.liverpoolsocialcentre.org/

LONDON
31/05 Protest against the pro­posed Com­bined Cycle Bio­fu­el Elec­tric­i­ty Gen­er­a­tion Plant. Stall on Myr­tle Road, East Ham from 10:30 to 6:30.
Ban­ner drop from 3:00 to 5:00pm out­side Newham Town Hall, East Ham. 04/06
Protest out­side the final con­sul­ta­tion meet­ing at Newham Town Hall 6:30 to 7:10pm , Bark­ing Road, East Ham.
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/files/thames_gateway_biodiesel_project.pdf
As part of the nation­al day of action on food and cli­mate change called by the Net­work for Cli­mate Action, Food Not Bombs and Reclaim Your Food will be serv­ing *free veg­an food* at a *secret loca­tion* in South Lon­don!
* All the food will be skipped, reclaimed from the waste of an afflu­ent cap­i­tal­ist soci­ety.
* All the food will be veg­an, min­i­miz­ing the cli­mate-impact of the food. Meet on Tues­day the 3rd of June at Cam­ber­well Green (in the Green itself), 2PM sharp to move on to a *secret loca­tion*
Cam­ber­well Green — http://tinyurl.com/5h25yq
Lon­don Food Not Bombs — http://www.londonfnb.org

NOTTINGHAM 24/05–15/06 ‘Green­weeks’: allot­ment open days, organ­ic grow­ing cours­es and more!
http://www.greenweeks.org/

AMSTERDAM: Veg­an­ism and Cli­mate Change film night
http://www.aseed.net/

The food we eat con­tributes up to a third of the emis­sions that are poi­son­ing the plan­et. It’s time for a detox … Chang­ing our diet is one of the most effec­tive steps we can take!

Whether you’re work­ing on local organ­ic food, grow­ing your own, veg­an­ism, per­ma­cul­ture, food secu­ri­ty, human­i­tar­i­an issues, trans­port cam­paign­ing, agro­fu­els, anti — GM food … make the links on cli­mate change … take action on the 3rd of June toward a low-car­bon diet!

What­ev­er your tastes, there’s some­thing for every­one on this action menu! There are many pro­posed solu­tions — we think it’s time to start the debate. Get cre­ative and get involved!

Please let us know what you are plan­ning (if its appro­pri­ate!) or if not, tell us as soon as you’ve done it! Don’t for­get to send us your pho­tos too!

The media phone no for the day will be 07961917535; or you can email food@daysofclimateaction.org.uk.

This Day of Action on Cli­mate Change is called by the Net­work for Cli­mate Action in co-oper­a­tion with the Ris­ing Tide Net­work and the Camp for Cli­mate Action.