Category: London

Wednes­day 2nd Sep­tem­ber 2009

Activists Invade Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny HQ

Activists from Don’t Build Kingsnorth have today invad­ed the Dart­ford offices of con­struc­tion giant Laing O’Rourke. The protest is against the com­pa­ny’s bid to build Britain’s first coal fired pow­er plant in 30 Years at Kingsnorth in Kent.

A large group of activists entered the offices, hand­ed out leaflets and talked to staff. Mean­while, anoth­er team scaled the build­ing and hung a ban­ner read­ing “Don’t Build Kingsnorth”.

Laing O’Rourke is among six com­pa­nies bid­ding to build the con­tro­ver­sial pow­er sta­tion which would, if built, emit more car­bon diox­ide than the entire coun­try of Ghana[1].

One of the activists, Pietro Tes­ta (35) said, “In their pub­lic­i­ty Laing O’Rourke claim that their peo­ple want to respond to unprece­dent­ed envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges. We’re here today to hold Laing O’Rourke to account and to tell them clear­ly that build­ing Kingsnorth would direct­ly con­tribute to an unprece­dent­ed envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe.”

Anoth­er activist, Han­nah Chisolm (21) added, “Coal is the dirt­i­est form of fos­sil fuel. Cli­mate change is already killing 300,000 peo­ple a year[2]. Build­ing anoth­er coal pow­er sta­tion is clear­ly insan­i­ty. We were inspired by Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action’s action at the offices of anoth­er Kingsnorth bid­der, BAM Nut­tall ear­li­er in the year. Any firm bid­ding to build Kingsnorth needs to know the extent of the oppo­si­tion they will face.”

“A year ago I went to the Cli­mate Camp[3], which was held out­side Kingsnorth. Today’s protest shows that, even though the loca­tion of the Cli­mate Camp has changed, Kingsnorth remains a tar­get for Cli­mate Change cam­paign­ers.”

Con­tact: 07950 457 344 for inter­views and pho­tos

ENDS

Notes to edi­tors

1. Car­bon Diox­ide Infor­ma­tion Analy­sis Cen­ter: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
2. Glob­al Human­i­tar­i­an Forum: http://www.ghf-geneva.org/
3. Cli­mate Camp: http://climatecamp.org.uk/

Leaflet hand­ed out to staff

—–

2.9.09
This morn­ing cli­mate activists entered the Dept of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change [pic], protest­ed out­side [pic] and blocked the door with a canoe [twit­pics 1|2|3|4]

—–

Cli­mate Activists Hit Big Busi­ness and Banks

Tues­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2009

Today over 300 activists from the Cli­mate Camp took action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change.

20 activists block­ad­ed the head­quar­ters of RBS in the City of Lon­don from 8.15am [1]. Sev­en activists glued them­selves to each oth­er in the trad­ing floor inside the offices, and were removed by the police at 1.30pm. One has been arrest­ed. 70 pro­test­ers arrived at 10am and rushed a sec­ond entrance, forc­ing RBS to close the build­ing. As of 4pm, the activists were show­ing no signs of leav­ing. [RBS-spe­cif­ic press release]
[Videos 1 | 2 | 3]

7 naked pro­test­ers demon­strat­ed at the offices of Edel­man PR, expos­ing the naked truth behind E.ON’s green­wash cam­paign around new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions in the UK. [2] The super­glued pro­test­ers were removed at 1pm. [Edel­man-spe­cif­ic press release] [Edel­man protest video]

At 11am activists from Alber­ta, Cana­da, accom­pa­nied by 300 par­tic­i­pants from the cli­mate camp, marched from Trafal­gar square to the Nation­al Por­trait Gallery, the Cana­di­an embassy, and the head offices of BP and Shell. [3] Activists climbed onto the bal­cony of the Shell build­ing in Water­loo and dis­lodged the ‘S’ from the main sign to reveal the word ‘Hell’. [BP protest video] [Shell protest video]

Mad­die Alin­s­ka said: “This shows that peo­ple realise that it is becom­ing nec­es­sary to take action because bankers, cor­po­ra­tions and politi­cians are unwill­ing and unable to meet the great­est chal­lenge human­i­ty has ever faced. We are see­ing first hand how every­body has the right and respon­si­bil­i­ty to take action on cli­mate change.”

Many of the peo­ple who took part in the actions were first time pro­test­ers who took part in Direct Action train­ing at the Camp for Cli­mate Action. [4]

Tra­cy Singh com­ment­ed: “It’s the first time I’ve tak­en to the streets like this. Cli­mate Camp has giv­en me the skills and the con­fi­dence to get involved. I’ve got­ten so tired of wait­ing for gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es to do some­thing – it’s about time we took mat­ters into our own hands.”

Notes for Edi­tors

1. RBS is 70% owned by the UK gov­ern­ment, but is nonethe­less con­tin­u­ing to invest in car­bon-inten­sive indus­tries, includ­ing mil­lions in E.ON since being nation­alised.
2. Edel­man PR have been han­dling E.ON’s account since 2008. E.ON own both Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion in Kent, and the Rat­cliffe-on-Soar plant in Not­ting­hamshire, the 3rd biggest coal sta­tion in the UK.
3. Shell are heav­i­ly com­mit­ted to the min­ing of Tar Sands in Cana­da, which is caus­ing the death and dis­rup­tion of Alberta’s indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties. BP have tak­en a sig­nif­i­cant stake in the oper­a­tions since 2007. The Nation­al Por­trait Gallery is spon­sored by BP.
4. The Camp for Cli­mate Action has tar­get­ed Drax (2006), Heathrow (2007), Kingsnorth (2008) and was held in Lon­don this year August 28th – Sep­tem­ber 2nd.

—–

Con­grat­u­lat­ing eOn for win­ning the Great Cli­mate Swoop vote — videos 1 | 2

—–
Sep­tem­ber 1, 2009
An affin­i­ty group of anar­chists who had been par­tic­i­pat­ing in Cli­mate Camp and had been con­cerned about the tone and low impact of some of the main­stream camp actions decid­ed to vis­it the Dai­ly Mail head office in the hope of hav­ing a few words. The imme­di­ate trig­ger for this was the poor write up the Camp had received in that week’s paper which stereo­typed those at camp as ‘young, posh idiots’, although all the activists involved had many oth­er moti­va­tions for this action. Most of all, as work­ing-class peo­ple with a sense of basic human sol­i­dar­i­ty, all those present detest­ed the Mail for its sex­ist and racist over­tones and long record of con­sis­tent­ly scape­goat­ing and demon­is­ing mar­gin­alised social groups such as immi­grants, queers, trans­peo­ple, the unem­ployed, youth stig­ma­tised as “chavs”, as well as spe­cif­ic instances like the incred­i­bly inac­cu­rate hack job of an arti­cle about anar­chists in the run-up to the G20.

The group locat­ed the Mail’s head office on Der­ry Street in leafy Kens­ing­ton, masked up and attempt­ed to enter the build­ing, fly­ing a red and black flag and shout­ing anti-cap­i­tal­ist and anti-Dai­ly Mail chants. The group approached a door clear­ly marked ‘Vis­i­tors’, but were made to feel rather unwel­come by the reac­tion of sev­er­al secu­ri­ty guards — both uni­formed and plain clothed — who imme­di­ate­ly locked the revolv­ing door and attacked and threat­ened the ‘vis­i­tors’. Pub­lic reac­tion was warm, with some passers-by pho­tograph­ing and film­ing the action and shout­ing their oppo­si­tion both to the Mail and the sever­i­ty of the reac­tion.

There was a dis­pro­por­tion­ate over-reac­tion by armed police, cul­mi­nat­ing in a very vis­i­ble get-togeth­er on the scenic banks of the lake in Hyde Park — sev­er­al police vehi­cles, sev­er­al anar­chists, and sev­er­al swans were in atten­dance. Although the group did­n’t get to have the lit­tle chat they’d intend­ed with the Mail jour­nal­ists, those involved spoke of feel­ing invig­o­rat­ed and empow­ered by the action and its recep­tion — intim­i­dat­ing heav­i­ly armed men just by singing and ask­ing ques­tions, for instance, was a new expe­ri­ence for many of them. And we bet the hacks shit them­selves a lit­tle bit too.

—–

Autonomous Anar­chists for Earth Lib­er­a­tion
1.9.2009
Last night Autonomous Anar­chists took action against some of Lon­don’s biggest cli­mate crim­i­nals.

last nights tar­gets were..

*E.ON — Chains around their door han­dles and expand­ing foam in their locks.
*World Coal Insti­tute — Is now bear­ing a new and more appro­pri­ate slo­gan ‘Stop Cli­mate Change Now’.
*D1 Oils PLC — Expand­ing foam in the locks and also now reads ‘Stop Cli­mate Change Now’.

A hand­ful of Star­bucks also got the expand­ing foam treat­ment, just for good mea­sure. (no cap­i­tal­ist cof­fee for the bankers while they’re wait­ing for their locks to be replaced!)

The actions were in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Cli­mate Camp activists tak­ing direct action on cli­mate crim­i­nals around Lon­don today, we hope you enjoy your ‘ram­bling raf­fle of resis­tance’!

.….

1st Sep­tem­ber 2009

direct action against cli­mate crim­i­nals

Last night between mid­night and 2am a group of autonomous anar­chists tar­get­ted 4 build­ings across cen­tral Lon­don for their con­tin­ued involve­ment with crimes against a plan­et meant to be shared by all of us, not auc­tioned off for prof­it.

The world coal insti­tute had its door han­dles chained togeth­er and expand­ing foam piped into its locks, the activists then went on to tar­get E.ON (the com­pa­ny behind cli­mate camp tar­get Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion) with more expand­ing foam and graf­fi­ti read­ing “stop cli­mate change now A”, an iden­ti­cal attack was then aimed at D1 Oils PLC and one more at a Star­bucks cof­fee out­let (recent­ly slat­ed in the media for keep­ing their taps run­ning 24 hours a day)

Whilst their has been spec­u­la­tion about this being mis­in­for­ma­tion I assure you these attacks DID hap­pen, whilst the graf­fi­ti may well have been scrubbed off this morn­ing the activists did their best to make sure that no one would be able to enter the build­ings and cause even more atroc­i­ties today.

—–

Mes­sages left at Blue NG Bath HQ
Fri­day 4th Sep­tem­ber 2009
It seems that peo­ple have tak­en it upon them­selves to remind Bio­fu­els com­pa­ny Blue NG that Bio­fu­els are caus­ing major eco­log­i­cal and social cat­a­stro­phe through­out the globe.

On my way to work this morn­ing, I noticed that the offices of Bio­fu­els com­pa­ny Blue NG had been redec­o­rat­ed with chalk mes­sages high­light­ing the social and envi­ron­men­tal effects of Bio­fu­el. The mes­sages also showed sup­port for the deci­sion of Southall coun­cil­lors and res­i­dents to reject the build­ing of a Blue NG bio­fu­els refin­ery on their doorstep.

Mes­sages includ­ed -
* Plan­et — 10, Blue NG — 0 (a ref­er­ence to the num­ber of coun­cil­lors who vot­ed against the plant)
* Green­wash won’t bio­fool us

and loads more

—–

Cli­mate Camp Strike Twice

Mon­day 31st August 2009

Cli­mate Campers are head­ing out into Lon­don after sev­er­al days of learn­ing about cli­mate change and tak­ing action at the Black­heath Camp. Activists are launch­ing a ‘clean up oper­a­tion’ of the Trea­sury at 11am today, and a flash mob at Lon­don City Air­port at 12 noon.

Armed with boil­er suits and clean­ing equip­ment, the pro­test­ers will expose the Treasury’s con­tin­ued dirty prac­tice of using tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey to fund fos­sil fuel extraction(1) in spite of the Government’s claim to be a glob­al leader in the fight against cli­mate change. The pro­test­ers will announce their pres­ence on this ‘anti-bank hol­i­day’ by drop­ping a ban­ner pro­claim­ing ‘Cli­mate Change Doesn’t Take Hol­i­days’.
[Clean­ing the Trea­sury video]

Pro­test­er Nimsha Doshi says “We’ve had enough of false solu­tions and false promis­es. We’re here to expose the Gov­ern­men­t’s role as a cli­mate crim­i­nal, and the polit­i­cal sys­tem’s fail­ure to fight against cli­mate change”.

At Lon­don City Air­port, the campers are protest­ing against the recent­ly approved 50% expan­sion of the air­port. Local res­i­dents were out­raged this July as Newham Coun­cil, sup­port­ed by May­or Boris John­son, agreed to allow an extra 50,000 plane jour­neys from the air­port, bring­ing City’s annu­al flight total to 120,000.(2)
[Flash­mob report]

Cli­mate Camper Anna Marko­va said: ‘We will be there to protest against cor­po­ra­tions dri­ving the cli­mate change agen­da. They have pushed through the expan­sion of Lon­don City Air­port against the wish­es of the local com­mu­ni­ty. This Decem­ber the same big busi­ness­es will be fly­ing from here to pro­mote false solu­tions, like car­bon trad­ing, at the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence at Copen­hagen. We can’t afford to let busi­ness­es dri­ve us into cli­mate cri­sis.’

‘Lon­don City Air­port and Newham Coun­cil have coop­er­at­ed to mis­in­form and deceive the res­i­dents of South East Lon­don. The expan­sion means improv­ing trans­port for the rich at the cost of fur­ther wors­en­ing air qual­i­ty and noise pol­lu­tion in the area, and erod­ing the health and well­be­ing of local com­mu­ni­ties.’

Cli­mate Camper Tara Williams said, ‘After a few days of work­shops and train­ing at the Camp, I’m get­ting ready to take direct action. Many of us who have nev­er tak­en part in direct action before are now por­ing over maps and plan­ning the next protests. With Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange and Bar­clays tar­get­ed ear­li­er in the week, it’s now 4 down, 18 to go…’ (3)

Ends

For com­ment or images, please phone 0793 209 6677, 07040900905 or 07772861099.#
Notes to Edi­tors

1. The Gov­ern­ment now has a major­i­ty stake in the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, who fund car­bon-inten­sive indus­tries such as tar sands extrac­tion in Cana­da.
2. The avi­a­tion indus­try is the fastest grow­ing CO2 emis­sions source in the UK. Near­ly 30 air­port expan­sion projects are planned in the UK at the moment. The Gov­ern­ment plans to off­set these emis­sions through the EU Car­bon Trad­ing scheme, which will put the bur­den on devel­op­ing coun­tries instead of actu­al­ly low­er­ing emis­sions.
3. Cli­mate Camp released a tar­get list of 22 ‘cli­mate crim­i­nals’ ear­li­er in the week, con­tain­ing the head offices of some of the country’s most pol­lut­ing cor­po­ra­tions, and depart­ments respon­si­ble for fail­ing cli­mate poli­cies.

—–

Cli­mate pro­test­ers scale Car­bon Exchange — 27th August 2009

—–