Category: London

Lon­don

BP and Culture – time to break it off!

A week of action to kick BP out of our cul­tur­al spaces
14–20 April 2011

A week of action to kick BP out of our cul­tur­al spaces
14–20 April 2011

In the week between BP’s AGM and the one-year anniver­sary of the Gulf of Mex­i­co oil spill, we are call­ing for actions and cre­ative inter­ven­tions to show the true nature of BP’s dam­ag­ing activ­i­ties around the world, and to per­suade our most pres­ti­gious gal­leries and cul­tur­al spaces to lib­er­ate them­selves from BP’s dirty mon­ey.

Spon­sor­ship of gal­leries, muse­ums and oth­er cul­tur­al spaces is one of the most impor­tant ways BP tries to pro­tect its rep­u­ta­tion and buy our accep­tance. By break­ing off BP’s rela­tion­ship with our most pres­ti­gious cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions, we strike a blow to BP’s pre­cious brand, top­ple BP’s pow­er­ful posi­tion in our soci­ety, and reclaim our pub­lic spaces. On the anniver­sary of the Gulf spill, let’s reveal the sticky black stuff behind BP’s shiny green logo, and pile on the pres­sure to kick BP out of our cul­tur­al spaces for good.

Cre­ative inter­ven­tions will be pop­ping up at spon­sored gal­leries and insti­tu­tions through­out the week, so watch this space, or bet­ter yet plan your own!

This week of action is called by Art Not Oil, Cli­mate Camp Lon­don, Cli­mate Rush, Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work, Lib­er­ate Tate, Lon­don Ris­ing Tide and UK Tar Sands Net­work

More info includ­ing events list, tar­gets and resources:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction
Face­book event: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198819640150485

INCLUDING…
The Great BP-spon­sored sleep-in

Sun­day 17 April 2011, 2PM at Tate Mod­ern, Bank­side, Lon­don, SE1 9TG

To mark the one year anniver­sary of the BP Gulf of Mex­i­co oil spill, join us for ‘The great BP-spon­sored sleep-in’, a 4‑minute flash­mob art instal­la­tion inside Tate Mod­ern. Imag­ine the tur­bine hall of this for­mer pow­er sta­tion filled with BP-brand­ed sleep­ing fig­ures, who will soon wake from their BP-spon­sored coma to sound the cli­mate alarm.

BP’s green­wash is sleep­walk­ing us into the cli­mate cri­sis. BP spon­sors gal­leries like Tate to try and clean up its tar­nished image, and dis­tract us from its dev­as­tat­ing activ­i­ties around the world. Every pound of dirty oil mon­ey accept­ed by Tate helps legit­imise a long lega­cy of envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and human rights abus­es. It’s time to take off the blind­fold, rub the spon­sor­ship sleep from our eyes, and give Tate and BP a wake-up call.

This fam­i­ly friend­ly event will high­light BP’s spon­sor­ship to the pub­lic, and show that we are not pre­pared to stand by as the Tate helps BP green­wash its image… and allow us all a few min­utes to dream of a future free from oil spills and oil spon­sor­ship of the arts.

SIX STEPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SPONSORED SLEEP-IN
1. Syn­chro­nise your watch using this web­site:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fullscreen.html?n=136
2. Enter the build­ing before 2PM
3. Choose your sleep-in spot – café, cor­ri­dor, lift, gift shop, and of course exhibits are all fair game, but please pick some­where on Lev­els 1 (tur­bine hall lev­el), 2 or 3 (this is where our cam­era crews will be to film the fun).
4. At exact­ly 2.15PM, unpack your BP brand­ed sheet, pil­low, pyja­mas, sleep mask, ted­dy bear, alarm clock or any oth­er sleep relat­ed props (see here for ideas and down­load­able props:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction/resources) and start the sleep-in!
5. Exact­ly 4 min­utes lat­er, the flash mob will be over as alarm clocks sound the wake-up call through­out the gallery. Take off your spon­sored blind­folds and bed­ding, leave them behind if you wish, and head out­side to…
6. Post-slum­ber par­ty on the South Bank. Lis­ten to speak­ers from BP-affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties from the Gulf of Mex­i­co and the Cana­di­an Tar Sands, help engage gallery-goers with leaflets and vox pop video mes­sages, and enjoy live music and a ped­al-pow­ered sound sys­tem.

So join us on April 17th, and show the Tate that we won’t take oil spon­sor­ship of the arts lying down!

More info: http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/bpweekofaction/flashmob
Face­book event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137704989634221

The Unfair Fare Dodge! A railway adventure

16 April, 12 noon

16 April, 12 noon

Dressed as The Rail­way Chil­dren (as much tweed as you can man­age!) we will hold a ral­ly at Mon­u­ment sta­tion before tak­ing red flan­nel pet­ti­coats and flags to the rail­way plat­form. From there you’re invit­ed to join the Unfair Fare Dodge as we pay a rea­son­able fare for a 30 mile jour­ney (we’ll pay the amount you would pay for the equiv­a­lent jour­ney in Europe). Our gov­ern­ment plans to increase fares a mas­sive 31% over the next 4 years. To cut car­bon emis­sions, we need to cut — not increase — train fares. We can do some­thing about that.

Organ­ised by Cli­mate Rush
More info: http://www.railwayadventure.wordpress.com

The Climate Renegades are GO GO GO!

At a time when cuts and aus­ter­i­ty are grab­bing the head­lines, the need for action on cli­mate change has nev­er been greater. Floods, heat­waves, ener­gy short­ages, ris­ing food prices – these are just the start if we don’t take action now.

At a time when cuts and aus­ter­i­ty are grab­bing the head­lines, the need for action on cli­mate change has nev­er been greater. Floods, heat­waves, ener­gy short­ages, ris­ing food prices – these are just the start if we don’t take action now.

This sum­mer the Cli­mate Rene­gades will tour the coun­try to sup­port grass-root and com­mu­ni­ty strug­gles, both embry­on­ic and estab­lished, based upon local needs and wish­es. Are you part of a local cam­paign against cuts and/or cli­mate change that wants to do some­thing big this sum­mer? Or per­haps you are some­one who has skills to offer? If so, read on…

We are a roam­ing col­lec­tive of expe­ri­enced envi­ron­men­tal activists with skills to share. We are look­ing to hold events that raise aware­ness of the need for action on cli­mate jus­tice, enable inde­pen­dence from a con­strict­ing eco­nom­ic sys­tem, and empow­er com­mu­ni­ties under threat. These events will cre­ate a space for col­lec­tive cre­ativ­i­ty and free expres­sion, will pro­mote and utilise non-vio­lent direct action as a viable tac­tic for inspir­ing rad­i­cal change, and will act as space for a free exchange of skills, knowl­edge and ideas.

Cli­mate Rene­gades is one of a few projects that came out of the Camp for Cli­mate Action’s Space for Change gath­er­ing.

We wish to pro­mote pro­gres­sive change from peo­ple com­ing togeth­er with­in and across com­mu­ni­ties in the face of dom­i­nant pow­ers, to con­front prob­lems and take their fate into their own hands. Through a diver­si­ty of tac­tics we wish to sup­port this change.

We find repres­sion and abuse of social strug­gles by con­cen­trat­ed pow­er – be that state, big busi­ness or ‘rev­o­lu­tion­ary’ Polit­i­cal par­ties. For this rea­son, we share a tra­di­tion and com­mit­ment to active anti-hier­ar­chy and col­lec­tive deci­sion mak­ing.

Cli­mate Rene­gades is not envis­aged to form a move­ment or a mod­el for future years. Our role is one of facil­i­tat­ing and devel­op­ing the strength of cam­paigns, enabling the vision­ing of com­mon solu­tions and high­light­ing the impor­tance of envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles in this time of forced aus­ter­i­ty.

For more info, e‑mail us or check out our Face­book group!

climaterenegades@riseup.net
http://www.facebook.com/help/?mail_sent#!group.php?gid=116697736256

Standing up to Surveillance Conference, 17 Apr

A Con­fer­ence host­ed by the Net­work for Police Mon­i­tor­ing.
Sun­day 17th April. 10.30am – 5pm.
Venue : Rich Mix 35 – 47 Beth­nal Green Road, Lon­don, E1 6LA

Entry: £5 (unwaged) £10 (waged) dona­tion. This includes tea, cof­fee and a light lunch.
Pri­or reg­is­tra­tion is essen­tial.

A Con­fer­ence host­ed by the Net­work for Police Mon­i­tor­ing.
Sun­day 17th April. 10.30am – 5pm.
Venue : Rich Mix 35 – 47 Beth­nal Green Road, Lon­don, E1 6LA

Entry: £5 (unwaged) £10 (waged) dona­tion. This includes tea, cof­fee and a light lunch.
Pri­or reg­is­tra­tion is essen­tial.

Speak­ers include: Tom Fowler (activist and edi­tor of Rad­i­cal Wales), Marc Vallee (pho­to­jour­nal­ist and inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist), Jason Parkin­son (video­jour­nal­ist), Kevin Blowe (Com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre work­er, writer and com­men­ta­tor), Sam Wal­ton, (activist with green and black cross and cli­mate camp legal teams), Emi­ly Apple (Fit­watch activist) and oth­ers to be con­firmed.

The gath­er­ing of ‘intel­li­gence’ by police on polit­i­cal pro­test­ers and minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties is now a com­mon­place activ­i­ty. Some ini­tia­tives hit the press – the use of under­cov­er police offi­cers to infil­trate paci­fist and envi­ron­men­tal cam­paigns, for exam­ple, or installing ’covert’ cam­eras with counter ter­ror­ism mon­ey to watch the move­ments of Birmingham’s Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion.

Oth­ers have become rou­tine and sys­tem­at­ic; pho­tograph­ing peo­ple attend­ing demon­stra­tions; demand­ing names and address­es; ’map­ping’ com­mu­ni­ties; gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion from uni­ver­si­ties, Mosques and com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions; build­ing up a data­base of pro­test­ers and their activ­i­ties. Intel­li­gence gath­er­ing is big busi­ness, and there are huge sums to be made by the com­pa­nies that pro­duce and sup­ply the lat­est sur­veil­lance equip­ment or ana­lyt­i­cal soft­ware.

What is dri­ving this rapid and seem­ing­ly unstop­pable descent into a sur­veil­lance state? Why are so many of us poten­tial tar­gets for state scruti­ny? Is an increas­ing demand for intel­li­gence dri­ven by a fear of ‘extrem­ism’? Or by the avail­abil­i­ty of tech­nol­o­gy and the mil­lions that can be made from it? And what can be done to stop it?

Many of the speak­ers at the Stand­ing up to Sur­veil­lance con­fer­ence have first-hand expe­ri­ence of the per­son­al and polit­i­cal con­se­quences of intel­li­gence-gath­er­ing by police or secu­ri­ty ser­vices. The aim is to pro­vide a space to share expe­ri­ences, pool knowl­edge, and devel­op a deep­er under­stand­ing of how our soci­ety as a whole is affect­ed.

Every­one is wel­come.

The Net­work for Police Mon­i­tor­ing includes cam­paign groups Fit­watch, CAMPACC, Newham Mon­i­tor­ing Project, Cli­mate Camp Legal Team and The Alder­mas­ton Women’s Peace Camp.

After Space for Change

The ‘dis­cus­sion space’ on crab­grass is the place to share com­ments, con­cerns and ideas about the decision(s) made at Space for Change. Here’s how:

1) Go to https://we.riseup.net/discussion_space.
2) Click ‘log in’ at the top right cor­ner
3) Once logged in, select ‘join group’
4) And you’re in!

The ‘dis­cus­sion space’ on crab­grass is the place to share com­ments, con­cerns and ideas about the decision(s) made at Space for Change. Here’s how:

1) Go to https://we.riseup.net/discussion_space.
2) Click ‘log in’ at the top right cor­ner
3) Once logged in, select ‘join group’
4) And you’re in!

If you don’t already have a crab­grass user­name and pass­word you can quick­ly get one by going to https://we.riseup.net and select­ing ‘new account’.

3) INTERIM WORKING GROUPS — get involved!

The fol­low­ing inter­im work­ing groups were set up at Space for Change:

- Tat and Dosh: to max­imise the use­ful­ness of our mate­r­i­al resources
— Com­mu­ni­ca­tions: to address ongo­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions and media issues. To learn from and doc­u­ment our expe­ri­ences
— New struc­tures: to inves­ti­gate new organ­i­sa­tion­al forms, struc­tures and tac­tics for pos­si­ble next exper­i­ments.
— Next meet­ing: to organ­ise a meet­ing in the next 2–3 months to share ideas about these next exper­i­ments

They each have Crab­grass pages that can be found by putting the fol­low­ing after https://we.riseup.net/
tat_dosh
com­mu­ni­ca­tions
new_structures
next_meeting

Then click ‘request to join group’.

All of these groups are part of the inter­im Crab­grass Net­work ‘After Space for Change’ which you can join here:
https://we.riseup.net/after_space_for_change. Hav­ing groups be part of a net­work is use­ful to be able to see what oth­er groups are doing.

You can either join the whole net­work or just one of the work­ing groups.

If Crab­grass is a bit strange to you, check out the help pages here:
https://we.riseup.net/crabgrass

4) METAMORPHOSIS STATEMENT

In case you missed the state­ment com­ing out of Space for Change at Monk­ton Wyld, it can be read on the Cli­mate Camp web­site here:
www.climatecamp.org.uk/2011-statement

Day of Action against Extraction, April 19/April 20 — 2011

Com­mu­ni­ties around the world are under attack from extrac­tive indus­tries that poi­son our fam­i­lies, kill our loved ones on the job, and destroy the ecosys­tems we cher­ish. The BP oil spill was unfor­tu­nate­ly just one of an end­less string of dis­as­ters born of an eco­nom­ic sys­tem that must end­less­ly con­sume the Earth’s resources.

Com­mu­ni­ties around the world are under attack from extrac­tive indus­tries that poi­son our fam­i­lies, kill our loved ones on the job, and destroy the ecosys­tems we cher­ish. The BP oil spill was unfor­tu­nate­ly just one of an end­less string of dis­as­ters born of an eco­nom­ic sys­tem that must end­less­ly con­sume the Earth’s resources.

Extrac­tion is the act of tak­ing with­out giv­ing any­thing back. Extrac­tion takes work­ers lives so cor­po­ra­tions can make a few more bucks.
Extrac­tion takes clean water and air and gives us black­ened oceans and a cli­mate in chaos. Extrac­tion takes the nat­ur­al wealth of com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems and leaves behind pover­ty and eco­log­i­cal waste­lands.

For a sta­ble cli­mate, clean air and water, we must stop the extrac­tion of fos­sil fuels and oth­er “resources.” From the tar sands of Alber­ta to the Gulf Coast, peo­ple are fight­ing back against the extrac­tive indus­tries that have declared war on our plan­et. Ris­ing Tide is call­ing for a day of direct action against extrac­tion on the 1 year anniver­sary of the BP oil spill. On April 20th take it to the point of pro­duc­tion.
Shut down a well site, occu­py a mine, take over an office, block­ade a bank. Nobody’s com­mu­ni­ty should be a sac­ri­fice zone. For cli­mate jus­tice and a live­able plan­et.

Ris­ing Tide (North Amer­i­ca)

Shell Garage closed near Elephant

26.9.10

Pro­tes­tors in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ross­port layed siege to a Shell garage near Ele­phant and Cas­tle in south Lon­don yes­ter­day evening at 17:00.

26.9.10

Pro­tes­tors in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ross­port layed siege to a Shell garage near Ele­phant and Cas­tle in south Lon­don yes­ter­day evening at 17:00.

The pro­tes­tors, mem­bers of the ‘pet­rosiege crew’ climbed on to the roof of the garage to force its clo­sure on a busy sat­ur­day evening as part of ongo­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty actions over the oil refin­ery and local peo­ple’s strug­gle in Coun­ty Mayo in the north west of Ire­land (Ross­port)

Exact loca­tion:

Shell Wal­worth South

The Passion for Freedom knows no borders

26.9.10

Lon­don, Fri­day 24 Sep­tem­ber: around 2pm. a num­ber of anar­chists and sym­pa­thiz­ers from var­i­ous parts of the metrop­o­lis con­verged on the shop­ping cen­tre in the mid­dle of the busy inter­sec­tion Ele­phant and Cas­tle, cho­sen because of the thou­sands of peo­ple from Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries liv­ing in the area.

26.9.10

Lon­don, Fri­day 24 Sep­tem­ber: around 2pm. a num­ber of anar­chists and sym­pa­thiz­ers from var­i­ous parts of the metrop­o­lis con­verged on the shop­ping cen­tre in the mid­dle of the busy inter­sec­tion Ele­phant and Cas­tle, cho­sen because of the thou­sands of peo­ple from Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries liv­ing in the area.

After drop­ping ban­ners over the main entrance in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Mapuche hunger strik­ers and the 14 anar­chists arrest­ed in Chile, they dis­persed into and around the shop­ping cen­tre and local mar­ket giv­ing out hun­dreds of leaflets in Eng­lish and Span­ish.

Unno­ticed by the State and pri­vate secu­ri­ty who were too intent on defend­ing the boss­es’ wares, the ban­ners stayed in place for hours in full view of hun­dreds of bus pas­sen­gers from almost every coun­try on the plan­et on their way to and from their places of exploita­tion.

Today’s out­ing, cho­sen to coin­cide with the inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty date for our Chilean com­rades, rather than being a fait accom­pli is a call to action every­where, with­out delay.

The Crude Awakening: Mass Action- 16.10.10

Mass Action in Lon­don to switch off oil

Mass Action in Lon­don to switch off oil

Floods in Pak­istan – Drought in Rus­sia – Huge glac­i­ers break­ing up in Green­land

Our cli­mate sys­tem is rapid­ly slid­ing into cri­sis, as oil com­pa­nies destroy people’s lives and the envi­ron­ment to keep suck­ing up their prof­its. Oil sat­u­rates every aspect of our lives. Oil prof­its lubri­cate the finan­cial mar­kets and its spon­sor­ship clings like a bad smell to our cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions. It flows through pipelines to the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries of our cities.

The fail­ure of the UN COP15 process showed us – if there was ever any doubt – that gov­ern­ment and indus­try can’t tack­le cli­mate change. It’s up to us and it’s time to up the ante. As a move­ment, our actions against coal and avi­a­tion have made a real dif­fer­ence. Now oil’s time is up.

Togeth­er, on Octo­ber 16, let’s give the oil indus­try a real­ly Crude Awak­en­ing.

Sign up to receive updates and get more info at

http://www.crudeawakening.org.uk/

Crude Awakening info update

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Have you been think­ing it’s about time a whole load of peo­ple got togeth­er to take mass action against oil in cen­tral Lon­don? We thought so. And so it fol­lowed that the Crude Awak­en­ing was launched. The mobi­liza­tion is now in full swing and every­one is invit­ed to help pub­li­cize and pre­pare. There is loads to do….please have a read through this email and get involved!

The email is in three parts:

Upcom­ing events and how to get involved
Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions
The call out — please copy and paste and help this get all over the Inter­net!

1. How to get involved and build up events you are all invit­ed to.

Events already planned are list­ed bel­low:

In Lon­don……

17th Sep­tem­ber, net­work­ing meet­ing at 6pm just inside the entrance to the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, a meet­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in help­ing to do out­reach in the Lon­don area the Cli­mate Camp out­reach group are meet­ing.

There is going to be a Lon­don coor­di­nat­ing and plan­ning meet­ing for the Crude Awak­en­ing very soon, and the details will be announced short­ly.

Thurs­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber at 7.30pm, Cli­mate Action Film Night, Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre, Whitechapel (for address see www.londonarc.org)

An evening of films and dis­cus­sion about cli­mate activism and the oil indus­try, host­ed by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide.

A screen­ing of two short films of recent actions against BP and Shell by Ris­ing Tide and friends, plus Petrop­o­lis, a visu­al­ly stun­ning and dis­turb­ing doc­u­men­tary about the Cana­di­an Tar Sands. Fol­lowed by a brain­storm­ing ses­sion on tak­ing direct action against the oil indus­try in Lon­don — includ­ing all the lat­est info on the Crude Awak­en­ing, an oily mass action hap­pen­ing on Sat­ur­day 16th Octo­ber. For any­one who believes in cli­mate jus­tice and wants to help make it hap­pen; any­one hacked off with the greed and irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of oil giants like BP; any­one back from the Cli­mate Camp and look­ing to get involved local­ly… every­one welcome.…and there’ll be cake!

The Crude Awak­en­ing Lon­don Rab­ble Rouser – a mass out­door team game, warm­ing us up for the big day– date, place and time to be announced.

Sat­ur­day 2nd Octo­ber. MOLASAPULTPARTY FUNDRAISER .… Venue TBC, more details to fol­low short­ly

Sat­ur­day the 2nd and Sun­day the 3rd Octo­ber Stilt mak­ing work­shop for the stilt block on the mass action!.…
This time we’re think­ing big, we’re think­ing high, we’re think­ing tall.… and we’re going as a Stilt Bloc.

Yep, thats right! On stilts!

So in order for this to hap­pen we’re hav­ing a skill share week­end in Lon­don to build stilts and learn how to walk on them. The week­end is Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd Octo­ber, 10am to 6pm.

And even if you don’t want to be up high, each stilt walk­er will need a bud­dy stay­ing on the ground so there’s a place for every­one, young and old, big or small, high or low.….. we need you at this week­end too!!!

Its all free and lunch is includ­ed.…

We need RSVPs so we know num­bers. Email: stilt.bloc@gmail.com

Oh and its MEXICAN DAY OF THE DEAD theme.….

In Man­ches­ter….

Sat 9th Oct — Mass Action train­ing

Tue 12th Oct — Pub­licly announced rouser for CJA inter­na­tion­al day of action

Crude Awak­en­ing mobil­i­sa­tion

We hope that there will be loads more to fol­low but this is what is lined up so far. If you are plan­ning a build up event let us know so we can adver­tise it please.

There is a huge amount to do to mobi­lize quick­ly for an event this big. Maybe you could organ­ise a film show­ing or talk (we can prob­a­bly send a speak­er if you email us). You could put on an affin­i­ty group or action train­ing work­shop, or host a fundrais­er. You could book a coach and fill it. You could run a work­shop so peo­ple can build prac­ti­cal stuff , for exam­ple a load of dis­pos­able bikes to bring along (email us to let us know if you do make lots of use­ful stuff). You could have a stall and hand out fly­ers at your fresh­ers fair (again email for mate­ri­als). You could make a sten­cil and graf­fi­ti adver­tise for it all across your city/ region. Unless every­one gets involved there is a real dan­ger we won’t get the num­bers we need.
The Crude Awak­en­ing is now on crab­grass! Join it, join a work­ing group and lets get plan­ning! https://we.riseup.net/thecrudeawakening (crab­grass is a lit­tle bit like face­book for activists and is a way of organ­is­ing on line). And sign up for more infor­ma­tion by email and text alerts on the web­site. www.crudeawakening.org.uk. Our face­book page is a lit­tle slow to get off the ground but it will soon be buzzing.

Please also raise The Crude Awak­en­ing as an agen­da point at the next organ­is­ing meet­ing at your Social Centre/ Friends of the Earth Group/ Union/ Cli­mate Camp neighbourhood/ Hous­ing Coop etc. Get peo­ple talk­ing and excit­ed and com­mit­ted to the idea that they are going! If you are not already in a group or affin­i­ty group you are of course still total­ly wel­come. You will prob­a­bly want to make con­tact with some like mind­ed folk to talk things through and make some plans before the big day. For exam­ple you could go to climatecamp.org.uk or risingtide.org.uk and find your local active group, or email us and we can try to sign­post you on. At the least try to get a cou­ple of mates to come with you, so that you have some sup­port as a group of friends (known by activists as an affin­i­ty group).

2. Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions

Q. Nei­ther the web­site nor the fly­er gives much info. What is going on?

A. As you have prob­a­bly twigged there is also a delib­er­ate sense of mys­tery around the action. So often with recent mass actions we have said exact­ly where we are going to go, and the police have had as much time to pre­pare as us, mak­ing things much more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple who want to be involved in mass and effec­tive direct action . With this project we are exper­i­ment­ing a lit­tle bit. The 10 tar­gets are left unspec­i­fied, giv­ing the action more chance of being suc­cess­ful. But at the same time we can open­ly adver­tise that we all need to be in Cen­tral Lon­don so we can get loads of peo­ple togeth­er at the same place at the same time for the mass action. And those peo­ple need to be ready to take action and to have fun. This is not a march and it’s not a camp. This is an action that needs prepa­ra­tion and we can all be involved in most of that preparation….although the tar­gets will be a sur­prise until much lat­er.

We can’t be sure that this mix of secret and pub­lic plan­ning will work, but we can give it a go, have some fun and maybe make some progress…..but maybe, just maybe we have got it total­ly nailed and this will be the best mass action in Lon­don ever! If you don’t show up there it will be dif­fi­cult for you to know. Our advice is don’t miss it 😉

Q. So what do I need to do to pre­pare?

A. Peo­ple need to be ready to move, and to stand their ground. Don’t bring with you any­thing that you can’t eas­i­ly walk with or get on a tube with. But do bring with you stuff that will help you and your affin­i­ty group hold a space in what ever way you feel you want to. Whether you want to bring arm­tubes, dis­pos­able bikes or a huge slow mov­ing met­al and wood­en tow­er with a papi­er-mâché rhi­no head (that can fit on and off a tube!?); diver­si­ty of tac­tics and affin­i­ty group plan­ning are key to this work­ing. Peo­ple can also pre­pare stuff to make this action look beau­ti­ful; pup­pets, masks, ban­ners, a portable molasses fondue……you get the idea.

Q. Why Oil?

A. For a whole host of rea­sons. Here are just a few…..
Because oil com­pa­nies search for new oil reserves to make them­selves rich­er while our cli­mate spins into cri­sis.
Because the UK gov­ern­ment starts wars for oil.
Because of human rights abus­es and mur­der in West Africa.
Because of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon spill.
Because of the destruc­tion of wilder­ness in the Arc­tic and the coast of Rosport in Ire­land.
Because of UK pub­lic mon­ey being used by bailed out banks to fund new oil projects.
Because Lon­don is brim­ming with oil mon­ey, oil spon­sor­ship and oil com­pa­nies.
Because glob­al ener­gy resources are the peo­ples com­mons.
Because oil com­pa­nies and the filthy rich peo­ple who prof­it from them have no place in a sus­tain­able future.
Because Copen­hagen failed and now it’s down to us.
Because oil has had it’s day and it’s time we pulled the plug.

Hope that that made things a lit­tle clear­er. And more spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion will be sent out soon. If you are still strug­gling with the idea, it is a bit like the Great Cli­mate Swoop of 2009, except where we are going is kept secret. Remem­ber, you are being asked to come and move around Lon­don, so stay mobile, be cre­ative, be prepat­ed and be ready to stand your ground. So talk in your affin­i­ty group about the ways in which you are going to be able to hold a space and equip­ment and mate­ri­als that you might want to bring along to help you. The action is open, and will be shaped by the peo­ple who are there. Only the tar­gets and how we are get­ting to them are secret.

3. The call out – please copy and paste and help get this all over the Inter­net!

THE CRUDE AWAKENING

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Floods in Pak­istan, drought in Rus­sia, huge glac­i­ers break­ing up in Green­land…

Our cli­mate sys­tem is rapid­ly slid­ing into cri­sis, as oil com­pa­nies destroy peo­ple’s lives and the envi­ron­ment to keep suck­ing up their prof­its.

Oil sat­u­rates every aspect of our lives. Oil prof­its lubri­cate the finan­cial mar­kets and its spon­sor­ship clings like a bad smell to our cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions. It flows through pipelines to the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries of our cities.

The fail­ure of the UN COP15 process showed us – if there was ever any doubt – that gov­ern­ment and indus­try can’t tack­le cli­mate change. It’s up to us and it’s time to up the ante.

As a move­ment, our actions against coal and avi­a­tion have made a real dif­fer­ence. Now oil’s time is up.

Togeth­er, on Octo­ber 16, let’s give the oil indus­try a Crude Awak­en­ing.

Meet in cen­tral Lon­don. Be ready to move. Be ready to stay and stand your ground.

Be cre­ative. Be pre­pared. Be there.

Find out more, get involved and sign up for text alerts at www.crudeawakening.org.uk
Face­book: http://bit.ly/c6S0kg
Twit­ter: @crudeawake

Part of the CJA glob­al week of action for cli­mate jus­tice
Sup­port­ed by: Space Hijack­ers, Cli­mate Camp, Plane Stu­pid, Ris­ing Tide, Lib­er­ate Tate, Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Insur­rec­tionary Imag­i­na­tion, UK Tar Sands Net­work

Hope to see you on the streets,
Crude Awak­en­ing
crudeawakening.org.uk