Category: London

Lon­don

Tar Sands protests (Brighton & London)

Cli­mate Camp Invades BP Petrol Sta­tions Over Tar Sands

Cli­mate Camp Invades BP Petrol Sta­tions Over Tar Sands
On Sat­ur­day 13th Feb­ru­ary activists from the South Coast neigh­bour­hood of the Camp for Cli­mate Action invad­ed the three BP petrol sta­tions in Brighton, on the Lewes Rd, Ditch­ling Rd and Lon­don Rd, to protest at BP’s plans to invest in the Alber­ta Tar Sands in Cana­da. Mov­ing by bicy­cle 8 activists car­ried a ban­ner read­ing ‘Tar Sands Oil Is Blood Oil’. They hand­ed out infor­ma­tion on the Cana­di­an tar sands and BP’s plans to invest in it to cus­tomers and urged them to boy­cott BP.

Many of BP’s cus­tomers where shocked to hear about BP’s pro­posed involve­ment in one of the dirt­i­est busi­ness­es on earth, espe­cial­ly in the light of its past attend to project a green image, and in some cas­es left imme­di­ate­ly left to get their fuel some­where else. This action is the start of a cam­paign, which is hoped will spread across the UK. A one of the Brighton activists said: “We hope that oth­er con­cerned local peo­ple across the UK will fol­low our exam­ple and begin putting the pres­sure on BP in their areas. Tar sands are an appalling exam­ple of plac­ing insane greed ahead of the whole plan­et and every­one on it.”

Tar sands are deposits of tar, sand and clay under the forests of Alber­ta in west­ern Cana­da. Tar sands extrac­tion is an eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ter, some­times referred to as ‘The biggest envi­ron­men­tal crime in his­to­ry’. Oil pro­duced from tar sands is the filth­i­est most car­bon inten­sive oil (over 3 times as much CO2 to pro­duce as con­ven­tion­al oil). The Athabas­ca tar sands oper­a­tions are the largest sin­gle indus­tri­al emit­ter of CO2 on the plan­et. Enough nat­ur­al gas is used every day extract­ing this oil to heat 3.2 mil­lion Cana­di­an homes.

Tar sands extrac­tion involves the whole­sale destruc­tion of vast tracts of ancient for­est over an area the size of Eng­land and Wales and the use of huge amounts of water that is left so con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed that it must be stored in giant ponds. The tox­ic tail­ings ponds are so vast they can be seen from space. Leaks for these ponds are poi­son­ing local rivers and the indige­nous peo­ples that live there. The rush to extract oil from tar sands is also tram­pling on the rights of the local indige­nous peo­ples.

While the tar sands are in Cana­da, much of the financ­ing is com­ing from UK com­pa­nies. BP which once tried to rebrand itself as ‘Beyond Petro­le­um’ to give itself a green image is plan­ning on invest­ing $10billion in the Sun­rise Project a tar sands extrac­tion project in Alber­ta. This week a num­ber BP’s share­hold­ers have start­ed a revolt and are pres­sur­ing BP to stop. Oth­er UK com­pa­nies that are involved in tar sands include Shell, RBS and Bar­calys.

Pho­tos:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4354992582_a300eeb4fb_b_d.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4354252823_1123bd6cd9_b_d.jpg

Tar sands info:
http://www.ienearth.org/tarsandsinfo.html

Press:
BP faces protest over oil sands devel­op­ment
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7018483.ece
Share­hold­er group calls on BP to rethink oil sands project
http://business.scotsman.com/business/Shareholder-group-calls-on-BP.6050650.jp

Con­tact:
E‑mail: southcoast@climatecamp.org.uk
Web: http://climatecamp.org.uk/get-involved/local-groups/south-coast

—

Tar Sands banner LondonOil-ympics Come To Trafal­gar Square
On Sat­ur­day, 13 Feb­ru­ary at 12 noon, UK and Cana­di­an envi­ron­men­tal activists opened the ‘Oil-ympics’ at Cana­da House in Trafal­gar Square. The event, timed to coin­cide with the open­ing of the 2010 Win­ter Olympics in Van­cou­ver, high­light­ed the role of British com­pa­nies in the sin­gle biggest indus­tri­al project on earth, the Cana­di­an Tar Sands (1).

The Oil-ympics event saw activists divid­ed into three teams: BP, Shell and RBS, all ready to ‘Race to the Tar Sands’. Tra­di­tion­al win­ter sports were sub­vert­ed to illus­trate the irony of Cana­da por­tray­ing the Van­cou­ver Win­ter Olympics as an event which cel­e­brates Cana­di­an indige­nous cul­ture and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, while in the neigh­bour­ing province of Alber­ta, Cana­di­an First Nations are find­ing that their lands, com­mu­ni­ties and health are being dev­as­tat­ed by the Tar Sands (2).

BP received spe­cial atten­tion after it recent­ly unveiled plans to embark on its first Tar Sands extrac­tion project. BP had pre­vi­ous­ly sold its poten­tial stake in Alber­ta in 1999, when BP’s chief exec­u­tive at the time, Lord Browne, deemed Tar Sands extrac­tion to be eco­nom­i­cal­ly unvi­able and envi­ron­men­tal­ly unpleas­ant. How­ev­er, BP’s new chief exec­u­tive, Tony Hay­ward, is now set to make BP a major play­er in the Tar Sands with a part­ner­ship with Canada’s Husky Ener­gy – a ven­ture that is fac­ing sharp crit­i­cism from BP’s own share­hold­ers (3, 4).

Alice Har­g­reaves, of the UK Tar Sands Net­work, said: “BP has been try­ing to prove that they are ‘Beyond Petro­le­um’ for years, but with their entry into the Tar Sands project, we can see the truth: Beyond Petro­le­um is noth­ing more than a Bro­ken Promise.(5) BP share­hold­ers are rebelling over this betray­al, and so are we. Over the next two months, we’ll be putting the pres­sure on to make sure BP get the mes­sage – stay out of the Tar Sands!”

Shell has been sin­gled out as it is already a major oper­a­tor in the Tar Sands, and RBS as it is the 7th biggest glob­al investor in the Tar Sands. (6)

tarsandsinfocus@gmail.com

http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/

(1) Deposits of Tar Sands are spread out over 54,000 square miles of prime for­est in north­ern Alber­ta, an area the size of Eng­land and Wales com­bined. Pro­duc­ing crude oil from the Tar Sands gen­er­ates up to five times more car­bon diox­ide, the prin­ci­pal glob­al warm­ing gas, than con­ven­tion­al drilling: see

Envi­ron­ment Cana­da, 2007, Nation­al Inven­to­ry Report Green­house Gas Sources and Sinks in Cana­da 1990–2005, http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2006_report/som-sum_eng.cfm

(2) This action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Cana­di­an First Nations who have called for a mora­to­ri­um on the Tar Sands. For more infor­ma­tion see the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work: http://www.ienearth.org/cits.html

(3) BP has entered a joint ven­ture with Husky Ener­gy to devel­op a Tar Sands facil­i­ty which will be capa­ble of pro­duc­ing 200,000 bar­rels of crude a day by 2020. In return for a half share of Husky’s Sun­rise field in the Athabas­ca region of Alber­ta, the epi­cen­tre of the Tar Sands indus­try, BP has sold its part­ner a 50 per cent stake in its Tole­do oil refin­ery in Ohio. The com­pa­nies plan to invest $10 bil­lion in the project, mak­ing BP a major play­er in Tar Sands extrac­tion. The final invest­ment deci­sion will be made in the next few months.

http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7038865

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aGw2sL7JwHG8

(4) A coali­tion of share­hold­ers has tabled a res­o­lu­tion for BP’s AGM on April 15 high­light­ing the envi­ron­men­tal and social risks of Tar Sands extrac­tion. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7018483.ece

(5) http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/bpbrokenpromises/

(6) For Shell Invest­ments see http://www.foei.org/en/resources/publications/pdfs-members/economic-justice/shells-big-dirty-secret/view?searchterm=shell%27s%20big%20dirty%20secret

For RBS invest­ments see http://understory.ran.org/2010/01/31/banks-ranked-and-spanked-on-tar-sands/

UK Tar Sands Net­work
tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://www.tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com

TAR SANDS — OILYMPICS — CALL TO ACTION — solidarity actions against green washing, 13th Feb

*Call to Action*

The Cana­di­an Tar Sands Oil-ympics — The Race to the Tar Sands is On!
Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 13th, is the open­ing day of the 2010 Win­ter Olympics in Van­cou­ver, Cana­da. That’s right, it’s time for the Oil-ympics, and you can par­tic­i­pate!

*Call to Action*

The Cana­di­an Tar Sands Oil-ympics — The Race to the Tar Sands is On!
Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 13th, is the open­ing day of the 2010 Win­ter Olympics in Van­cou­ver, Cana­da. That’s right, it’s time for the Oil-ympics, and you can par­tic­i­pate!

All you need to bring is ‘sports cloth­ing’ (win­ter if pos­si­ble) and a sense of mis­chief and fun to Cana­da House in Trafal­gar Square, this Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 13th at 12:00 pm. Atten­dees will be divid­ed into three oily teams: ‘BP’, ‘Shell’ and ‘Total’, all ready to ‘Race to the Tar Sands’?

Ever tried curl­ing? Come along and and help sweep out BP, Shell, and RBS as they all race head­long into the Tar Sands.

The Cana­di­an Tar Sands in Alber­ta is one of the sin­gle biggest indus­tri­al projects on earth, the envi­ron­men­tal and social night­mare that is the Tar Sands – is cur­rent­ly pro­duc­ing the dirt­i­est oil on the plan­et. There is cur­rent­ly a glob­al “race to the tar sands” and the main com­peti­tors Shell, Total and BP are all rac­ing ahead to extract uncon­ven­tion­al oil from the Cana­di­an Tar Sands, regard­less of the envi­ron­men­tal and social costs of extrac­tion and oppo­si­tion from local com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the
extrac­tion.

Although the oil is being extract­ed in Cana­da, there are direct links to the UK. Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, HSBC and Bar­clays are all invest­ed in the tar sands. Britain’s very own BP are about to reverse their deci­sion to stay away from the destruc­tive project, mak­ing ‘Beyond Petro­le­um’ noth­ing more than a Bro­ken Promise.

This action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Cana­di­an First Nations groups whose lands and com­mu­ni­ties are being dev­as­tat­ed in the name of cor­po­rate prof­it, and who have called for a mora­to­ri­um on the tar sands.

For more info about the Cana­di­an Tar Sands, the Oil-ympics and the UK Tar Sands Net­work check out these links.

http://www.tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com
http://oilsandstruth.org/topics/2010-olympics
http://olympicresistance.net/
http://www.ienearth.org/cits

Kew Bridge Eco-Village update (+ Seedy Sunday)

There’ll be a seed swap day on 14th Feb, inspired by Brighton’s orig­i­nal Seedy Sun­day — details here.

There’ll be a seed swap day on 14th Feb, inspired by Brighton’s orig­i­nal Seedy Sun­day — details here.

On June 6th 2009, near­ly a hun­dred activists con­verged on a piece of derelict land at Kew Bridge in south west Lon­don to cre­ate an eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty based entire­ly on sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy and con­struc­tion tech­niques.

This eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion is inspired by cam­paigns like The Land is Ours which cam­paigns peace­ful­ly for access to the land, its resources, and the deci­sion-mak­ing process­es affect­ing them, for every­one, irre­spec­tive of race, gen­der or age. for more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it:

Please post any seeds or post­cards or any­thing you like to:

The Eco Vil­lage
2 Kew Bridge Rd
Brent­ford
TW8 0JF
site phone num­ber — 07967864370

In Decem­ber we had a six month cel­e­bra­tion and invit­ed peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty to a fire par­ty. It was a great suc­cess.

In Sep­tem­ber last year, vil­lagers cheered when Houn­slow coun­cil­lors put off a plan by St George to build 164 flats, a river­side pub, a busi­ness hub and a piaz­za on the site.

The devel­op­ment is not due to be dis­cussed by a coun­cil com­mit­tee before March and, with local elec­tions tak­ing place in May, a meet­ing may not take place until June – mean­ing the eco-vil­lage may remain for anoth­er six months.

Over the last 4 months we have grad­u­al­ly improved our liv­ing con­di­tions on the site. We have a full work­ing com­post toi­let, a kitchen and a round­house. Still 100% rely­ing on dona­tions and the rub­bish you throw away, we have built up our com­mu­ni­ty from noth­ing!

The best improve­ment so far is def­i­nite­ly our homes. You may have gone past us on the bus and seen a tarp vil­lage, assum­ing that it was all tents — but its not! We have learnt to build our own hous­es out of hazel wood poles. By bend­ing them into arch­es, tying them down and then insu­lat­ing with blan­kets and tarps, we have cre­at­ed won­der­ful lit­tle liv­ing spaces that are easy peasy to do!

We still main­tain that we are essen­tial­ly a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den. We encour­age every­one from the local area to pay us a vis­it and share their ideas about what we should do with the land, as well as get­ting them to help us plant our veg­eta­bles and also just to chill out and get to know us all.

We will hold a pub­lic meet­ing every Thurs­day night at 7pm on site, and we shall try to make every Sun­day an event filled open day.

Need­less to say, we still wel­come every­body from all over Lon­don and the world. We have had quite a few inter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors late­ly! Every­one is wel­come to come and stay as long as they fol­low site rules which include no drugs and alco­hol, as well as being con­sid­er­ate to oth­ers and you must active­ly par­tic­i­pate as a mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty.

We espe­cial­ly wel­come any­one with any skills or knowl­edge which may be use­ful or inter­est­ing. We encour­age peo­ple to hold work­shops to share their skills, whether it is about com­mon law, herbal reme­dies, yoga, or even how to make didgeri­doos or repair bicy­cles! Or even if you know noth­ing but just want to learn, come along too!

Our week:

Mon­days — Closed (we go and protest out­side MOD and down­ing street)

Tues­days — Fri­days — Open 11–1 and 5–7pm

Every Thurs­day — 7pm Pub­lic meet­ing

Every Fri­day — Wild Food Fri­day 10am — a walk around Rich­mond park tast­ing and learn­ing berries nuts and mush­rooms

Sat­ur­days and Sun­days — Open 11–6

(By ‘Open’ I mean the gate is open and we give tours. If you want to come and help us then please just come in any­way!)

.….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…

You are wel­come to come and vis­it us and stay over if you like, but:

1. You must sleep in the Hexiyurt guest­house as we don’t have the room for any more tents. The guest­house can acco­mo­date about 6 peo­ple, so it may be best to ring us pri­or to your vis­it to check if there is enough room for you!

2. The Hexiyurt has to be cleared of your stuff by 10am so it is open for vis­i­tors and as a work­shop space. (you can store your things in the man­sion shed instead dur­ing the day)

3. You are wel­come to stay up to 7 days, after which time you must leave as to give oth­ers the chance to stay over.

4. If, after stay­ing for 7 days, you wish to move in per­ma­nent­ly, we will have a meet­ing to dis­cuss it, to deter­mine if we have enough room, and then shall hope­ful­ly wel­come you in!

Capac­i­ty is a big issue on site at the moment and we are unlike­ly to allow many more peo­ple to move in on a per­ma­nent basis. How­ev­er as win­ter freezes over we might lose a few mem­bers and have room for some more. If you are des­per­ate to stay with us then show­ing us that your are a good, hard work­er who gets along with most peo­ple on camp and who is polite and cour­te­ous to all will defi­ant­ly help you 🙂

Soon after it start­ed

Non Commercial House is gone again…

On Wednes­day 3rd Feb at 9.20 am, High Court Bailiffs came round the Non Com­mer­cial House Free Shop, armed pre­sum­ably with a resti­tu­tion war­rant, and evict­ed the place and i

Non-Commercial House 1Non-Commercial House 2Non-Commercial House 3On Wednes­day 3rd Feb at 9.20 am, High Court Bailiffs came round the Non Com­mer­cial House Free Shop, armed pre­sum­ably with a resti­tu­tion war­rant, and evict­ed the place and its occupiers.Owners and Bailiffs seemed quite hap­py to pre­vent us from run­ning a FreeShop (oooooh, scary, giv­ing out shit for free!!!!) and mak­ing some more peo­ple home­less because they want to keep their build­ing emp­ty for anoth­er cou­ple of years.

Once a per­son com­ing into the shop sim­ply asked: “but why do they want to evict you?” Thats a very good ques­tion isn’t it? Why? Prob­a­bly hun­dreds of rea­sons, just pick your favorite one. Maybe the rea­son they want us out is exact­ly why we’re mov­ing in! 🙂

So the Non Com­mer­cial House Free Shop is gone. It’s been an amaz­ing project, so many peo­ple just pass­ing by, com­ing in, hav­ing a quick chat, being so shocked that this was a squat and that some of the peo­ple they were talk­ing to were actu­al­ly here in rela­tion to their anar­chist pol­i­tics, tak­ing a cou­ple of cool things they liked, promis­ing to bring some of their own unused stuff (and some­times actu­al­ly doing it!!!!).

Apart from hav­ing loads of peo­ple giv­ing and tak­ing the most incred­i­ble stuff on open­ing days, many com­ple­men­tary activ­i­ties hap­pened in the house: bike repairs, par­ties, Span­ish lessons, moth­ers’ gath­er­ing, work­shop of noth­ing, polyamory work­shop, squat­ting meet­ings, wire­less hack­ing, queer fash­ion show, film screen­ings and box­ing in the base­ment, etc

It’s also been so much fun for every­one involved that it would be sur­pris­ing not to see some more FreeShop blos­som­ing lat­er this year…

https://london.indymedia.org/groups/non-commercial-house
email: non­com­mer­cial­house at riseup.net

The new EF! Action Update — bursting onto the seams…

In the Spring edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, see how King Coal is being con­front­ed — chim­neys climbed, con­vey­ors locked-on to, mines invad­ed, machin­ery occu­pied, eco­tage, and more.

EF! AU logo 1In the Spring edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, see how King Coal is being con­front­ed — chim­neys climbed, con­vey­ors locked-on to, mines invad­ed, machin­ery occu­pied, eco­tage, and more.

Mar­vel at the Main­shill strat­e­gy of con­tin­u­ous action, look with awe at the range of tac­tics they used in the many months before eviction…and then think about what you can do, with who, where and when.

“If not you, who? If not now, when?”

The Main­shill fea­ture includes an action time­line, local com­mu­ni­ty links and ideas for the future.

The Nuclear New Build CON­sul­ta­tion is over on 22nd Feb­ru­ary — read about what hap­pens next, who’s involved, and an anti-nuclear camp in April.

“in the end we just need rebel­lion. Every­where.” — what was your response to the Copen­hagen cli­mate chaos, whether you went or stayed at home?

Be inspired by an inter­view with “D Lock,our mys­tery dig­ger div­ing activist” — get out there, bicy­cle lock in hand. In Jan­u­ary, one per­son so-armed brought a whole coal ter­mi­nal to a halt for many hours.

And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against high-speed train destruc­tion in Italy, high-volt­age pow­er lines in Cat­alo­nia, and whale hunt­ing on the High Seas.

And if you don’t get high on all that, try not to be inspired by con­fer­ences block­ad­ed, dams delayed, earth-trash­ing machin­ery sab­o­taged, trees hugged, archi­tects impost­ed, genet­ics roofed, bio­mess bio­massed and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10.pdf

European protests to stop bulldozers on uncontacted tribe’s land

26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Pro­tes­tors gath­ered in Lon­don, Madrid and Paris today to oppose the destruc­tion of land belong­ing to one of the world’s last uncon­tact­ed tribes.

26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Pro­tes­tors gath­ered in Lon­don, Madrid and Paris today to oppose the destruc­tion of land belong­ing to one of the world’s last uncon­tact­ed tribes.

The pro­tes­tors stood out­side the Paraguayan embassies in Madrid and Lon­don hold­ing plac­ards read­ing, ‘Save the Ayoreo.’ The Ayoreo-Toto­biegosode are los­ing their for­est to a Brazil­ian com­pa­ny bull­doz­ing it to graze cat­tle for beef.

In Paris, a let­ter was hand­ed in to UNESCO’s head office express­ing their con­cern for the Toto­biegosode. The for­est being destroyed by the cat­tle-ranch­ers is part of a UNESCO ‘bios­phere reserve’, but despite pleas from the Toto­biegosode to stop the destruc­tion UNESCO has yet to respond.

The com­pa­ny, Yaguarete Pora S.A., recent­ly won Survival’s ‘Green­wash­ing Award 2010’ for its deci­sion to cre­ate a ‘nature reserve’ on the Totobiegosode’s land while destroy­ing thou­sands of hectares of their for­est. Yaguarete denies it is act­ing ille­gal­ly and claims the land it is destroy­ing does not belong to the Toto­biegosode, despite the fact that many stud­ies prove it belongs to them and a legal claim made by the Toto­biegosode is based on one of those stud­ies.

See the company’s defor­esta­tion plans.

Satel­lite pho­tos clear­ly show the destruc­tion of the Totobiegosode’s for­est. They are the only uncon­tact­ed tribe in the world los­ing their land to beef.

Sur­vival direc­tor, Stephen Cor­ry, said today, ‘Peo­ple all over the world are begin­ning to wake up to what is hap­pen­ing to the Toto­biegosode. Paraguay risks being more famous for this tragedy than any­thing else.’

2 anti-nuke protests against new build plans

Anti-nuclear activists dis­rupt Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee
27.1.2010

Nukes not the answerAnti-nuclear activists dis­rupt Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee
27.1.2010

This morn­ing in West­min­ster, dur­ing the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Par­lia­men­tary Select Com­mit­tee on the pro­posed nuclear and oth­er ener­gy Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments, two anti-nuclear activists stood and unfurled a ban­ner in the cen­tre of the com­mit­tee room read­ing “Local Democ­ra­cy Dumped.” The ban­ner also fea­tured radi­a­tion sym­bols and drums of radioac­tive waste. A third activist hand­ed out brief­in­gs on why they believe nuclear pow­er is unac­cept­able and an inap­pro­pri­ate tech­nol­o­gy for tack­ing cli­mate change. The three activists were tak­en away and detained inside the House of Com­mons, along with a forth man who was tak­ing pho­tographs. The four were held for over two hours for alleged breach­es of the House reg­u­la­tions, before being released and banned from the Par­lia­men­tary estate for the rest of the day.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of ener­gy giants EDF, E.ON and RWE npow­er and of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Elec­tric­i­ty Pro­duc­ers were giv­ing evi­dence before the com­mit­tee of MPs. The pro­test­ers were high­light­ing the lack of local democ­ra­cy asso­ci­at­ed with the new fast-track plan­ning process, which will be used to silence dis­sent­ing local voic­es on major infra­struc­ture projects such as new nuclear pow­er sta­tions and nuclear waste dumps.

Yes­ter­day the four protest­ed with oth­ers out­side the Nuclear New Build Con­fer­ence at Char­ing Cross Hotel (see below)

Nuclear Peo­ple Pow­er / No New Nuclear
http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com

—

Lon­don Con­fer­ence Protest Expos­es Nuclear Green­wash
26.1.2010

A group of nine anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers staged a two-hour protest out­side the Nuclear New Build Con­fer­ence in cen­tral Lon­don this morn­ing in protest at indus­try attempts to paint nuclear pow­er as a “green” tech­nol­o­gy and win pub­lic sup­port for new nuclear reac­tors.

Stand­ing out­side the Guo­man Hotel adja­cent to Char­ing Cross rail­way sta­tion in the morn­ing rush hour dressed in white over­alls and masks, the pro­test­ers dis­played a large ban­ner read­ing “Nuclear Pow­er is Not the Answer to Cli­mate Chaos”, hand­ed out leaflets and detailed brief­in­gs explain­ing why they believe nuclear pow­er to be a false solu­tion to cli­mate change and detail­ing oth­er prob­lems with this form of ener­gy. Dur­ing the demon­stra­tion, the con­fer­ence’s keynote speak­er, for­mer ener­gy min­is­ter Mal­colm Wicks MP, exchanged views on nuclear pow­er and ener­gy pol­i­cy with one of the cam­paign­ers.

The Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change is cur­rent­ly under­tak­ing a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on its draft nuclear Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ment (NPS). Once this is approved, deci­sions on new nuclear reac­tors will be left to an unelect­ed quan­go called the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion, with no fur­ther oppor­tu­ni­ty for local objec­tions to be heard.
The Gov­ern­ment is keen to push through a new gen­er­a­tion of cost­ly and high­ly con­tro­ver­sial nuclear reac­tors, despite wide­spread oppo­si­tion and the lack of any long-term solu­tion for over 50 years’ worth of high lev­el radioac­tive waste from exist­ing reac­tors. Cam­paign­ers are con­cerned that the high cost of build­ing new reac­tors would divert essen­tial invest­ment from renew­able and decen­tralised ener­gy and ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures. They say that new reac­tors take too long to build and would not in any case make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion towards meet­ing the UK’s car­bon emis­sion reduc­tion tar­gets. They also remain con­cerned about the health effects of radioac­tive emis­sions, such as the can­cer and leukaemia clus­ters found near nuclear pow­er sta­tions, as indi­cat­ed by the 2007 Ger­man-gov­ern­ment spon­sored KiKK study, and the risk of a ter­ror­ist attack or cat­a­stroph­ic Cher­nobyl-type reac­tor melt­down. A for­mer direc­tor of the Fors­mark nuclear plant in Swe­den said of an inci­dent at the site in 2006: “It was pure luck that there was not a melt­down.”

Daniel Vies­nik, 35, a Lon­don-based activist, said “The nuclear industry’s long his­to­ry of secre­cy, cov­er-ups and shod­dy and dan­ger­ous prac­tices stretch­es back over fifty years. It wants us to believe that a leop­ard can change its spots, but the only thing that real­ly seems to change is the indus­try’s PR tac­tics.”

Ian Mills, 44, a long-term anti-nuclear activist from Chip­pen­ham, Wilt­shire said, “Nuclear pow­er is a dirty, dan­ger­ous and expen­sive dis­trac­tion from the major invest­ment need­ed for a rad­i­cal tran­si­tion to a safe and sus­tain­able low-car­bon future and green indus­try, based on more mod­est con­sump­tion, ener­gy effi­cien­cy and con­ser­va­tion, and renew­able and decen­tralised ener­gy.”

Mell Har­ri­son, 38, East­ern Region CND’s cam­paigns offi­cer, who lives near Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Suf­folk, said: “It is frus­trat­ing that we are not includ­ed in the talks hap­pen­ing at the con­fer­ence, espe­cial­ly as the ener­gy needs of the UK con­cerns us all. A seat at the con­fer­ence costs over £1300 and the future costs if new nuclear goes ahead are far greater. Sure­ly now it is time for the nuclear indus­try to be open and account­able? But yet again as we have seen time and time again, all the ‘real’ talk goes on behind closed doors.’ Mell added ’ This protest is just the start- we need real solu­tions to cli­mate change — not nuclear green wash.’

Con­tact: vd2012-npp [at] yahoo.co.uk or mell­c­n­deast [at] cnduk.org
Tel: 07760 161 755 or 07506 234 091
http://stopnuclearpower.blogspot.com
Twit­ter: http://twitter.com/nukepeoplepower

London squatting news

Non Com­mer­cial House is Back!

Non Com­mer­cial House is Back!

The Non Com­mer­cial House was a squat­ted autonomous space on 165 Com­mer­cial Street, Lon­don, E1. The project  con­sist­ed of a giant Free Shop for peo­ple to share, recy­cle what they dont need and take what they need. After sev­er­al attempts that were resist­ed, the space was final­ly evict­ed on 30th Novem­ber 2009 by high court bailiffs, on behalf of the own­er The City of Lon­don. 

But the place has been tak­en back!! and on Sat­ur­day 16th of Jan­u­ary there was the Grand Re-Open­ing. Apart from the FreeShop itself and some free food and loads of cup­pas, there was also skill­shar­ing ses­sions and some music in the evening to enjoy the space at its best. [Event]

“We live in a soci­ety of over con­sump­tion and waste. Non Com­mer­cial House aims to offer an alter­na­tive based upon coop­er­a­tion, mutu­al respect and sus­tain­able liv­ing. It is not only about objects but about shar­ing!”

Address: 165 Com­mer­cial Street E1 (next to Bish­ops­gate, Liv­er­pool st tube sta­tion)
Email: noncommercialhouse..at..riseup.net
Web­site: http://london.indymedia.org.uk/groups/non-commercial-house

Chil­dren are very wel­come with­in the space. We are hop­ing to have a kids sec­tion of the free shop with free toys / clothes and hold fam­i­ly friend­ly events. The ground floor is wheel­chair acces­si­ble. How­ev­er, the only toi­let in the build­ing is on the top floor and not.

This is a non-prof­it, non-hier­ar­chi­cal space open to all and your input is val­ued so drop by some time to get involved and let us know what your ideas / thoughts are.

The Non Com­mer­cial House col­lec­tive

Email Con­tact: noncommercialhouse@riseup.net

——

100 flow­ers [Bel­grade Road] evict­ed
19 Jan­u­ary 2010

The 100 flow­ers squat on Bel­grade Road [Hack­ney] has been evict­ed this morn­ing

There were about 30 peo­ple out­side, and a num­ber of peo­ple inside the place which had been bar­ri­cat­ed.

Sev­er­al vans of riot cops came [in full gear] and even­tu­al­ly man­aged to remove the peo­ple out­side, before break­ing in and evict­ing the place.

No arrests that Im aware of.

climate camp ‘where next?’ regional gatherings and reader

PROPOSALS FOR 2010 SO FAR

We’ve got a new dis­cus­sion board up on the Cli­mate Camp web­site with all the pro­pos­als for the region­al gath­er­ings received so far, plus some oth­er use­ful texts from the Where Next? dis­cus­sions. Join the dis­cus­sion here:

http://discussion.climatecamp.org.uk

REGIONAL GATHERINGS IN JANUARY

PROPOSALS FOR 2010 SO FAR

We’ve got a new dis­cus­sion board up on the Cli­mate Camp web­site with all the pro­pos­als for the region­al gath­er­ings received so far, plus some oth­er use­ful texts from the Where Next? dis­cus­sions. Join the dis­cus­sion here:

http://discussion.climatecamp.org.uk

REGIONAL GATHERINGS IN JANUARY

Here are the lat­est con­firmed details of our region­al gath­er­ings in Jan­u­ary…

(More details as we have them will be post­ed at:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/get-involved/national-gatherings/next)

—

Cli­mate Camp Read­er

Dysophia and Shift Mag­a­zine have joined forces to put togeth­er a Cli­mate Camp Read­er, “Crit­i­cism with­out Cri­tique”, pub­lished in Jan­u­ary 2010. This read­er hopes to encour­age and facil­i­ate debates at the next cli­mate camp gath­er­ings. To down­load it fol­low this link:
http://dysophia.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/cca_reader.pdf
The edi­to­r­i­al is post­ed below:

Edi­to­r­i­al

In Jan­u­ary & Feb­ru­ary 2010, the Camp for Cli­mate Action will go through a peri­od of intro­spec­tion as it works out where it shall go next. While in some ways the Camp has been a suc­cess, it has also come under a bar­rage of crit­i­cism from some quar­ters with­in the rad­i­cal move­ments that spawned it.

To help this debate we have put togeth­er a set of resources and rel­e­vant arti­cles to inform and spark dis­cus­sion relat­ing to this crit­i­cism. Our bias is obvi­ous, though the opin­ions expressed are those of the authors alone. Whether you agree with them or not, we believe they are worth tak­ing on board. We hope at least that you feel con­fi­dent answer­ing their chal­lenges, rather than just dis­miss­ing them.

Now is the time for the Camp to exam­ine its pol­i­tics in more depth, to work out just what it stands for. This is a cross-roads in its devel­op­ment, to con­tin­ue down a path of ever increas­ing lib­er­al, reformist approach, or to be the noisy rad­i­cal, point­ing out all the white ele­phants in the cli­mate change debate. The future of the move­ment around the camp is being shaped here. The deci­sions being made now will have pro­found impacts on who is and who is not involved in the future.

The Camp for Cli­mate Action grew out of the rad­i­cal anar­chist and envi­ron­men­tal move­ments, a syn­the­sis of the organ­i­sa­tion­al skills devel­oped at the Anti-G8 protest camp at Stir­ling, and the eco­log­i­cal direct action move­ments such as Earth First! The per­cep­tion that emerges from these crit­i­cisms is this has been lost along the way.

We accept that this book­let makes chal­leng­ing read­ing and that we offer lit­tle in the way of solu­tions. These, we believe, must come from with­in the camp itself. How­ev­er, it is appar­ent that there is a need for two things. First­ly, a greater vis­i­bil­i­ty for the anar­chist roots with­in the day to day life of the CCA process and pro­pos­als. Sec­ond­ly, and just as impor­tant, a more open and explic­it cri­tique of cap­i­tal­ism and how it is the root cause of cli­mate change.

If we do nei­ther out of fear of a main­stream media back­lash, then we are reduced to being anoth­er NGO. Yet, the pow­er of the Camp has always been the promise of a gen­uine alter­na­tive action in the face of pre­var­i­ca­tion and obstruc­tion from gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions – now is the time to spell that cri­tique out and use it to build real alter­na­tives, not legit­imis­ing the sys­tem we com­plain of. It was the strength of the Camp’s found­ing cri­tiques that gave it the bold­ness its sub­se­quent suc­cess­es have rest­ed on.

Ulti­mate­ly, the mes­sage of the Camp is a very rad­i­cal one – that rad­i­cal social change is need­ed, espe­cial­ly if we are to tack­le of the root caus­es of cli­mate change. The answer is not to water down our actions and our mes­sages, but to be bold­er than ever. That is the excite­ment and pow­er that gives the Camp its life.

To down­load the read­er fol­low this link:
http://dysophia.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/cca_reader.pdf

http://dysophia.wordpress.com/
http://www.shiftmag.co.uk/

Climate Protestors in Court Following Defacing of Canadian Flag

Three cli­mate activists are this morn­ing due in West­min­ster Magistrate’s Court charged with crim­i­nal dam­age against the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don fol­low­ing an action to stop the Tar Sands..

Tar Sands
Three cli­mate activists are this morn­ing due in West­min­ster Magistrate’s Court charged with crim­i­nal dam­age against the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don fol­low­ing an action to stop the Tar Sands..

On Decem­ber 15th, while the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Sum­mit was tak­ing place in Copen­hagen, the pro­test­ers scaled the entrance to the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion in Grosvenor Square. They cut loose the Cana­di­an flag, before defac­ing it with crude oil while unfurl­ing a ban­ner read­ing “Shut Down the Tar Sands”.

The action was a response to Cana­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harper’s obstruc­tion of the sum­mit in Copen­hagen in order to pro­tect Canada’s Tar Sands Indus­try [1]. Tar Sands are the dirt­i­est fuel known to man, both in terms of its impact on the cli­mate and the dev­as­ta­tion inflict­ed on the
local com­mu­ni­ties [2].

There is an enor­mous open cast mine in the Alber­ta Tar Sands region of Cana­da, where an area the total size of Eng­land will be exploit­ed. This is the largest indus­tri­al devel­op­ment in the world and is dev­as­tat­ing for the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties that live there, not only destroy­ing the land
itself but increas­ing lev­els of can­cer, poi­son­ing much of their tra­di­tion­al food sources and leav­ing the water unsafe to drink [3]. This vio­lates the indige­nous treaty rights legal­ly bound to this region.

Jake Col­man, 20, Bradley Day, 22, and Daniel White­ly, 19, are all par­tic­i­pants in the Camp for Cli­mate Action [4], an action group that occu­pied Trafal­gar Square for the two-week dura­tion of the Cli­mate Sum­mit.

Bradley Day, a wait­er from Oxford, speak­ing after the action:

“This is just the begin­ning of a UK-based direct action cam­paign to stop Cana­di­an Tar Sands. These mur­der­ous ven­tures are being fund­ed from with­in the UK, with the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, now 84%-owned by the pub­lic invest­ing bil­lions, and British Petro­le­um cur­rent­ly prepar­ing to move in
to Tar Sands. [5] We won’t stand by and let these greed dri­ven cor­po­ra­tions cause cat­a­stroph­ic envi­ron­men­tal and human destruc­tion.”

Clay­ton Thomas-Muller, an Indige­nous activist with the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work (IEN), spoke dur­ing the Copen­hagen sum­mit:
“The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to ignore its own laws, which state they must con­sult with Indige­nous Peo­ples who have been try­ing to con­vey con­cerns about Tar Sands devel­op­ment. Tar Sands are killing our com­mu­ni­ties and tram­pling over our rights. Fur­ther­more, the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion wreaked by the Tar Sands is direct­ly threat­en­ing thou­sands of lives now and is dri­ving our cli­mate into chaos. The world has wok­en up to the fact that Cana­da is now Pub­lic Cli­mate Ene­my Num­ber One. It’s time Cana­da did its glob­al duty and shut down the Tar Sands,”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] At the failed Copen­hagen Cli­mate Sum­mit, Cana­da pro­posed an inad­e­quate tar­get for reduc­ing green­house emis­sions by only 3% by 2020 ignor­ing world sci­en­tists’ rec­om­men­da­tions to com­mit to over 40% reduc­tions below 1990 lev­els in order to avoid dan­ger­ous run­away cli­mate change. Cana­da already failed to meet its com­mit­ments to the Kyoto Treaty and refus­es to sign the UN’s Dec­la­ra­tion of Rights for Indige­nous Peo­ples whilst con­tin­u­ing devel­op­ment of Tar Sands oil extrac­tion.

[2] Tar Sands fuel is a way of extract­ing oil who’s ener­gy inten­sive process has not only com­plete­ly destroyed areas of the Bore­al forests the size of Eng­land, burns enough nat­ur­al gas to pow­er 6 hun­dred thou­sand homes a year, pro­duces lakes of tox­ic waste 66km wide ‑which fil­ters into
all local life and drink­ing water- but would itself be enough to push our cli­mate into chaos.

http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/

[3] http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/

[4] http://climatecamp.org.uk

[5] This is the start of a fast grow­ing UK cam­paign against Tar Sands. Although we do not receive oil direct­ly from Cana­di­an Tar Sands, Cor­po­ra­tions such as RBS which is now 84% owned by the British Tax Pay­er invests bil­lions and British Petro­le­um have plans to move in to the ‘Sun Rise’ site in the com­ing months. Action on these issues and these cor­po­ra­tions are soon to become a focus of UK activism as we begin to stand up to Inter­na­tion­al injus­tices such as Tar Sands in Cana­da.

Stop the Tar Sands