Category: London

Lon­don

Activists ‘brick up’ Shell HQ as Arctic melt

Activists ‘brick up’ Shell HQ as Arc­tic melts from Small Axe Films on Vimeo.

Activists ‘brick up’ Shell HQ as Arc­tic melts from Small Axe Films on Vimeo.

Ear­ly morn­ing on the 11th Sep­tem­ber 12 a group of 20 cli­mate change activists call­ing them­selves ‘Ice Bloc’ unloaded near­ly two tonnes of ice into the main entrance of Shell HQ. The protest was timed to coin­cide with this week’s impend­ing announce­ment of the low­est sea-ice cov­er­age ever record­ed, a loss of about 50% more ice cov­er­age than the sum­mer ice min­i­mum 30 years ago.

The activists are angry that Shell are set to prof­it from this envi­ron­men­tal catastrophe.The com­pa­ny has this week begun to drill for oil in new­ly exposed areas once cov­ered by ice. The protest hap­pens as news reports that Shell are already hav­ing to delay oper­a­tions due to float­ing sea ice near their drill-site [1].

The group are seek­ing to bring the col­lapse of the Arc­tic ice sheet to the door of Shell because they hold the com­pa­ny part­ly respon­si­ble for the car­bon emis­sions that caused cli­mate change, lead­ing to the melt.

The activists piled the 27kg blocks of ice high in the entrance way, which looks on to the South Bank, cre­at­ing a huge wall of ice to greet Shell exec­u­tives as they arrived at work.

Rachel Grif­fin, involved in today’s action, said:

“Right now the Arc­tic sea ice, a part of the plan­et essen­tial for our sur­vival, is van­ish­ing because com­pa­nies like Shell have filled the atmos­phere with cli­mate-chang­ing gas­es.

“Yet rather than being stopped from trad­ing and held to account, the com­pa­ny have begun drilling in Alas­ka, an area of the Arc­tic once cov­ered with ice. That they are already hav­ing prob­lems there just shows how ludi­crous the plan is.

“The polit­i­cal response has been piti­ful. Peo­ple need to take action now to min­imise this unprece­dent­ed dis­as­ter.”

The activists are part of a big­ger net­work, Cli­mate Jus­tice Col­lec­tive, which grew from the Cli­mate Camp

Climate Sirens drop banner on Tower Bridge

Today Cli­mate Siren activists scaled Tow­er Bridge to drop a mas­sive ban­ner above the Par­a­lympic sym­bol which read “Cli­mate Change our Next Chal­lenge”.

Today Cli­mate Siren activists scaled Tow­er Bridge to drop a mas­sive ban­ner above the Par­a­lympic sym­bol which read “Cli­mate Change our Next Chal­lenge”. Their blog con­tains ‘an open let­ter to the world’ (see below) where they ask us all to focus on the “chang­ing cli­mate and the threat it pos­es to our civilisation’s very exis­tence on this beau­ti­ful plan­et” After the drop Tow­er bridge was evac­u­at­ed for “safe­ty rea­sons” the activist arrest­ed and tak­en to Bish­ops­gate where their sup­port­ers fol­lowed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Peo­ple of the World,

The 2012 Olympics were a huge inspi­ra­tion as to how we can come togeth­er to over­come chal­lenges and achieve suc­cess – at many lev­els; as par­tic­i­pants, as spec­ta­tors, as com­peti­tors, even as a host nation. No doubt the Par­a­lympics will equal or sur­pass this.

But these Games can be an inspi­ra­tion for us to con­front the biggest chal­lenge our species has ever faced – per­haps will ever face: The chang­ing cli­mate and the threat it pos­es to our civilisation’s very exis­tence on this beau­ti­ful plan­et.

Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now. Don’t be fooled by those whose vest­ed inter­ests ensure that they would have you think oth­er­wise. Or by cold­er win­ters. Cli­mate change unfolds uneven­ly over time and is not uni­form across all areas of the globe. Think of the stock mar­ket:

“Any com­pe­tent finan­cial advi­sor will tell you that the road to secure retire­ment is paved with mar­ket drops. Any com­pe­tent cli­mate sci­en­tist will tell you that our road to a hot­ter plan­et will be paved with cold snaps, even record-break­ers.” – Prof. Lau­rence Smith

Even those for­mer­ly scep­ti­cal come round to the irrefutable evi­dence even­tu­al­ly, as Prof. Muller has recent­ly shown. We may not under­stand the phys­i­cal sci­ence of the Earth well enough to accu­rate­ly pre­dict how the cli­mate will change over long peri­ods, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the region­al lev­el, but then we don’t under­stand mete­o­rol­o­gy well enough to deter­mine whether it will be rain­ing or not in Chica­go next 15th April. Doesn’t mean that it will not be rain­ing in Chica­go come 15/04/13!

But our mod­els are get­ting bet­ter. Twen­ty years ago, sci­en­tists had to ‘write-in’ com­plex, irreg­u­lar cli­mate vari­abil­i­ty events such as El Niño/La Niña cycles. Nowa­days, they arise spon­ta­neous­ly with­in our mod­els: a clear indi­ca­tor that we are get­ting more and more accu­rate in our pre­dic­tions.

Even with­out the mod­els, the field of pale­o­cli­ma­tol­ogy gives us irrefutable and chill­ing evi­dence of how rapid­ly and enor­mous­ly the glob­al cli­mate can and has changed. Ice cores tell us that around 11,500 years ago, sur­face tem­per­a­ture in Green­land increased by 8.3°C in a sin­gle decade. In the Pliocene, when sea lev­els were 25 metres high­er than they are now, the C02 con­tent of the atmos­phere was just 100 parts per mil­lion (ppm) more than they are now. Our annu­al rate of increase is cur­rent­ly about 2.07ppm and ris­ing.

We are already com­mit­ted to a 0.6°C rise on 1990 lev­els, sim­ply from the long-term warm­ing effects of what we’ve already put in the atmos­phere. Even the IPCC (noto­ri­ous for under­es­ti­mat­ing glob­al cli­mate change to achieve sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus) in its most opti­mistic SRES sce­nario – known as ‘B1’ – sees us approach­ing close to a 2°C rise in glob­al tem­per­a­ture by 2100. In this mod­el, norther­ly lat­i­tudes, includ­ing the Arc­tic, would see ris­es any­where between 3.5 – 6°C by century’s end. That might not sound like so much until you realise that the tem­per­a­ture dif­fer­ence between a giant ice sheet cov­er­ing Edin­burgh, Berlin, Moscow and New York was only 5°C low­er than now, dur­ing the last Ice Age. 

The biggest chal­lenge is not in phys­i­cal­ly doing what is nec­es­sary – we have the tech­nol­o­gy and skills to tran­si­tion to a sus­tain­able soci­ety with­out a huge amount of dif­fi­cul­ty. The chal­lenge is in over­com­ing the doubts and con­fu­sion sown by those with vest­ed inter­ests in pre­vent­ing change. To over­come our fears and take that first step into new ter­ri­to­ry. It is the chal­lenge of con­fronting the forces of demog­ra­phy, glob­al­i­sa­tion and cli­mate change and ask­ing seri­ous ques­tions about the way we organ­ise our economies, soci­eties and local com­mu­ni­ties, the way we use our Earth’s nat­ur­al resources, how we dis­trib­ute them and how we pre­serve them for future gen­er­a­tions. 

In truth, our biggest chal­lenge is a moral chal­lenge. 

And we face it now.

clisir

Japan Dolphins Day 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around 100–150 pro­test­ers held a ral­ly out­side the Embassy of Japan in Lon­don yes­ter­day (31st August 2012) to send a clear mes­sage to Japan on the eve of the Tai­ji dol­phin slaugh­ter sea­son- END THE UNNECESSARY & CRUEL MURDER OF DOLPHINS IN THE COVE. Sim­i­lar events were held at Japan­ese embassies around the world, with thou­sands of pas­sion­ate  peo­ple from all walks of life and of all ages com­ing togeth­er for the cause and cel­e­brat­ing lives of the beau­ti­ful and intel­li­gent crea­tures on Japan Dol­phins Day. We made a lot of noise and got a lot of atten­tion from embassy staff, secu­ri­ty and impor­tant­ly the pub­lic.

 

For more infor­ma­tion-

http://thecovemovie.com/

http://www.seashepherd.org/

http://savejapandolphins.org/

Twyford Down anti-road protests gathering, September

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There will be a camp run along the same lines as 20 years ago (bring what you expect to find… water butts, tents, food, etc).  That said, there will be some domes and the @ teapot are going to be doing cater­ing (Sat din­ner and Sun break­fast) — hur­rah!  Camp loca­tion to be on top of St Cather­ine’s Hill, near Win­ches­ter.

There will also be a protest / pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ty about this cur­rent Gov­ern­men­t’s mania of road­build­ing. 

 Please spread this amongst your con­tacts who you think may be inter­estd.  There is a Face­book page if you do such things called Twen­ty Years Since Twyford: http://www.facebook.com/events/344190508996315/

More details and fly­er down­load­able at http://bettertransport.org.uk/blogs/roads/100912-twyford-20

Solidarity with Japanese anti-nuclear protests

Six­teen anti-nuclear pro­test­ers — half of them Japan­ese — gath­ered out­side the Japan­ese embassy in Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don on Fri­day morn­ing (10 August), for the sec­ond week run­ning, in a demon­stra­tion organ­ised by Lon­don-based group Kick Nuclear.

Six­teen anti-nuclear pro­test­ers — half of them Japan­ese — gath­ered out­side the Japan­ese embassy in Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don on Fri­day morn­ing (10 August), for the sec­ond week run­ning, in a demon­stra­tion organ­ised by Lon­don-based group Kick Nuclear. This was in sol­i­dar­i­ty with week­ly demon­stra­tions tak­ing place out­side the Prime Min­is­ter’s offices in Tokyo and else­where in Japan against the restart­ing of nuclear reac­tors as the Fukushi­ma cri­sis con­tin­ues. The week­ly num­bers tak­ing part in those protests have now swelled to well over 70,000.

 

All images are Copy­right © 2012 Kick Nuclear, but may be repro­duced free of charge for non-com­mer­cial use if cred­it­ed. For larg­er, high res­o­lu­tion ver­sions, please e‑mail. More pho­tos

See also:

film of anti-nuke protest at japan embassy — by Rik­ki

Upcom­ing actions and events:

- Fri­day 17 August, 9.30–11.30am — Anti-nuclear sol­i­dar­i­ty protest at Embassy of Japan, 101–104 Pic­cadil­ly, Lon­don W1:

- 23 August — 1 Sep­tem­ber — Bud­dhist-led peace walk towards a nuclear-free future, Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment, Berk­shire to Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion, Som­er­set.

- Tues­day 28 August, 7.30–9.30pm — Kick Nuclear open night

- with guest speak­er from Indi­an anti-nuclear move­ment

Venue: Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre (LARC) — (ground floor)
62 Fieldgate Street, (cor­ner of Par­fett Street), Whitechapel, Lon­don E1 1ES
Near­est Sta­tions:- Whitechapel / Aldgate East / Aldgate / Shad­well: Map

This event is open to new folks and old hands alike to come and dis­cuss the lat­est from the murky world of nuclear ener­gy and nuclear new build, share news about protests and actions that have been tak­ing place in the UK and else­where, and plot how we can put a few span­ners in the works.

Come and join us!

- Tues­day 25 Sep­tem­ber — Ben­e­fit gig: David Rovics — Songs of Social Sig­nif­i­cance, with sup­port from The Noo and Mr Creedy — pre­sent­ed by Kick Nuclear and friends

Doors 7pm
Tick­ets: £5 on the door

Venue: Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre (LARC) — (ground floor)
62 Fieldgate Street, (cor­ner of Par­fett Street), Whitechapel, Lon­don E1 1ES
Near­est Sta­tions:- Whitechapel / Aldgate East / Aldgate / Shad­well
Map: http://tinyurl.com/czzkpdg

(Lis­ten to and down­load David Rovics songs for free at http://www.davidrovics.com )

- Stop New Nuclear camp and mass action against nuclear new build at Hink­ley Point, Som­er­set, 5–8 Octo­ber 2012.

http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk

London Critical Mass kettled and arrested

27.7.12

27.7.12

Coin­cid­ing with the Olympics open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, peo­ple are tweet­ing that over 100 cyclists are being put on coach­es and arrest­ed, after being ket­tled and some CS/pepper sprayed for cycling in Olympic-only lanes and break­ing an imposed Sec­tion 12 for­bid­ding going north of the riv­er.  Cops ensured David Beck­ham could get through at one point by punch­ing cyclists. 

Video (dur­ing).  Video (arrest­ed onto bus­es after).  2 reports below, and pre-CM ‘why I’m going’ (& this link to updat­ed report):

More than 100 cyclists were arrest­ed by police close to the Olympic Sta­di­um on the open­ing night of the Games.

There were scuf­fles between police and cyclists on the out­skirts of the Olympic Park, at about 22:30 BST.

Peo­ple tak­ing part in a month­ly mass bike ride held in Lon­don said they were “ket­tled” near the sta­di­um.

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police said they had made arrests for Pub­lic Order offences but have not respond­ed to the ket­tling claim.

The force said two groups had been detained — the first on Bow Fly­over and the oth­er in Warton Road, Strat­ford.

A spokesman for Scot­land Yard said: “A num­ber of peo­ple in breach of reg­u­la­tions imposed on a month­ly cycling event have been arrest­ed.”

In a state­ment, the force said the con­di­tions on the cycle ride had been put in place “to pre­vent seri­ous dis­rup­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty and the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Olympic Games”.

Ker­ry-Anne Men­doza, 31, who describes her­self as a cam­paign­er and writer, said: “We were cycling down the Bow Road [in Strat­ford] and the police direct­ed us down a cul-de-sac.

“Then they ket­tled us in there. There is a line of police cars and vans behind that.”

She added: “They have not com­mu­ni­cat­ed with us or told us why we are being held here or when they will let us out.”

The reg­u­lar Crit­i­cal Mass ride is a pro-cycling event.

Joel Ben­jamin, who has been on a num­ber of Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides pre­vi­ous­ly, said there were 400–500 cyclists who met on the south side of Water­loo Bridge.

“Usu­al­ly there is a light police pres­ence,” he said. “Today there were far more police than I’ve seen before.”

‘Cel­e­bra­tion of cycling’

He said police used a sound sys­tem to tell cyclists there were restric­tions placed on the ride but not what it meant.

“Basi­cal­ly, they did­n’t want us to go north of the riv­er. The police had put a road­block stop­ping all traf­fic going north.”

He said police took a “heavy-hand­ed stance”.

Scene close to Olympic Park
“I saw sev­er­al cas­es of the police being aggres­sive and phys­i­cal, drag­ging peo­ple off their bikes to the ground.

“I did­n’t see any arrests, but my friend, a solic­i­tor was arrest­ed.

“I left at about 8.30pm and man­aged to not get arrest­ed, but I think around 100 peo­ple have been arrest­ed.

“I guess there were peo­ple there who are against the Olympics, but Crit­i­cal Mass is real­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of cycling, there was no need to get so heavy hand­ed. ”

The Met Police said a num­ber of the arrest­ed cyclists had been removed from the area near the Olympic Park.

The arrest­ed cyclists have been detained under Sec­tion 12 of the Pub­lic Order Act.

———————–

The Olympics has start­ed and it seems cycling has become a crim­i­nal offence, wor­thy of police bru­tal­i­ty – I hope the Olympic cyclists are okay tomor­row.

Hang on a minute: this is the same Olympics that politi­cians have been try­ing to brand as the green­est Olympics ever? Also, they did say how this would encour­age peo­ple to get fit and into sport, didn’t they?

Crit­i­cal mass met as it does on a month­ly basis to cycle as a swarm, for com­mu­ni­ty reclaim­ing of streets in Lon­don. It met near Water­loo Bridge, at the South­bank Cen­tre. From reg­u­lars’ accounts, as it is not a “protest”, this is nor­mal­ly free from police sup­pres­sion and it fol­lows the whims of the mass, with no clear direc­tion end­ing its route on the Roy­al Mall.

On this gath­er­ing, the police were there on mass too: an author­i­tar­i­an mass. They announced that under a sec­tion 12 no cyclists were allowed to cross the rivers and go to any of North Lon­don. Like oth­ers there, this was where I live, and haven’t I been bom­bard­ed with Olympics posters encour­ag­ing me to get on my bike.

The over a thou­sand peo­ple assem­bled, did not move for a while. Then we set off first try­ing to cross Water­loo Bridge. The police blocked this route.I moved with the mass and we had sim­i­lar prob­lems at Black­fri­ars, our way blocked by a police line, which was also block­ing the traf­fic. Then we head­ed to try South­wark Bridge, again this was blocked.

Inci­den­tal­ly, it was noticed amongst the crowd that David Beck­ham was stuck the oth­er side of the road­block in a dark SUV head­ing south. His pres­ence stirred rip­ples of excite­ment, although the focus was more about how to head over the riv­er.

As passers­by start­ed to pay a bit more atten­tion, to take pic­tures and look at him, the police react­ed. Or in my inter­pre­ta­tion, unlaw­ful­ly over­re­act­ed a lit­tle like the impo­si­tion of the Sec­tion 12. I saw cyclists thrown off their bikes, hit and man­han­dled for stand­ing still. If the police had not blocked the road, this would not have hap­pened. I report­ed this, moments lat­er, to a senior offi­cer; explain­ing that one of the offi­cers had com­mit­ted assault – he was not inter­est­ed.

I even­tu­al­ly crossed a bridge, as many oth­ers did, and made my way towards Strat­ford; fol­low­ing a pro­ces­sion of riot vans. In Strat­ford, these vans were lined the streets, with offi­cers ket­tling a group of cyclists who had done bet­ter exer­cis­ing their rights to free move­ment.

When I arrived the police had ket­tled around one hun­dred cyclists, also I heard there were oth­er ket­tles else­where and fur­ther arrests and assaults by police offi­cers. These cyclists were tak­en away by the bus load, hand­cuffed with an offi­cer per per­son. I over­heard a senior police­man remark that they were going to var­i­ous police sta­tions, and their bike tagged and tak­en to a depot.

———————–

Why I’m going to the Crit­i­cal Mass this fri­day

Here’s my rea­son why; back in 2005, we found out the news that Lon­don was going to host the Olympic games, lots of peo­ple in the media make com­ments about how much of a shit hole Strat­ford is, but truth is, its not real­ly that shit, it’s just an easy tar­get for the devel­op­ers, there’s no one to defend it. Any­way since 2005 the amount of rede­vel­op­ment with yup­py flats and Tescos pop­ping up all over the town is out of con­trol, the locals have been pushed to once side. I’m mates with a local Tory cam­paign, fun­ny cause he’s a tory, and all his con­stituents hate the Olympics, and he agrees. I’m assum­ing that after the Olympics like the Mil­le­ni­um Dome and Iraq, the top politi­cians will admit it was a bit of sham. Every­where I go I hear peo­ple moan­ing about the Olympics, and then when I turn on the TV, I see noth­ing but smil­ing faces. Even my par­ents who are mis­er­able, Dai­ly Mail types want to see the VIP lanes blocked. We got taxis dri­vers moan­ing, dairy farm­ers out on strike, now its times for the oppo­site end of the spec­trum to join in with the crit­i­cal mass. When I heard about the crit­i­cal mass, I thought it was time to give ‘them’ a her­nia with stress. 130 quid fine for cycling in the VIP lane? that’s an insult to the nor­mal peo­ple who are stuck in Lon­don. Any­way over the years I’ve was part of the Sum­mit Hop­ping move­ment, but no-one in Lon­don has realised all the Olympics is anoth­er polit­i­cal sum­mit, and it should of been treat­ed as such, with mas­sive direct action, ban­ner drops, etc etc. Any­way if your com­ing to the mass on fri­day, expect the police, GCHQ and they’re oth­er resources to real­ly treat us like shit. On sat­ur­day a face­book event was blocked with in one-hour of its cre­ation, I hope the girl who made the event does­n’t use her own ip address. GCHQ are def­i­nite­ly going to watch this one. Prob­a­bly a mas­sive Copen­hagen ket­tle on one of the bridges, or south­bank, so keep your wits about you, ride a blue bar­clays bike, and ditch it if shit gets heavy lets not for­get, the psy­cos of our Armed Forces are in Lon­don in num­bers, and they can’t tell the dif­fer­ence between an Afghan wed­ding and ter­ror­ist camp. Keep telling your mates, and invite them along. See you in the streets.

BP F***ing the Future subverts

6.7.12

6.7.12

With the Olympics now only three weeks away, protests against Olympic spon­sor BP are esca­lat­ing. Today dozens of BP logos across Lon­don were sab­o­taged, includ­ing the UK’s most pres­ti­gious bill­board site at Cromwell Road. Around the cap­i­tal, pro­test­ers hit petrol sta­tions, BP-spon­sored cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions and adver­tis­ing hoard­ings, protest­ing against one of the world’s most envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive com­pa­nies being a major spon­sor of the Lon­don Olympics. Signs were splat­tered with oil and BP’s tagline ‘Fuelling the Future’ was sub­ver­tised with the URL ‘f‑ingthefuture.org.uk’.

BP has con­tin­u­ous­ly been slammed for its sys­tem­at­ic dis­re­gard for the envi­ron­ment, human rights and work­er safe­ty, includ­ing its fail­ure to clean up after the Gulf of Mex­i­co dis­as­ter of 2010, its deci­sion to enter the dev­as­tat­ing Cana­di­an tar sands, and its plans to drill for Arc­tic oil. This crit­i­cism has increased dra­mat­i­cal­ly since BP was announced ‘Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Part­ner’ of the Lon­don 2012 games, and today’s protests fol­low a series of recent actions tar­get­ing BP’s Olympic spon­sor­ship:
* On the eve of BP’s AGM in April, protest group CAMSOL posed online as LOCOG and announced BP had been dropped as Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Part­ner.
* In April, the UK Tar Sands Net­work nom­i­nat­ed BP in the Green­wash Gold cam­paign as ‘worst Olympic spon­sor’.
* Since April, the Reclaim Shake­speare Com­pa­ny has been invad­ing Shake­speare­an per­for­mances across the coun­try to protest against BP’s spon­sor­ship of the Cul­tur­al Olympiad.
* Last week, acclaimed actor Mark Rylance spoke out against BP’s spon­sor­ship of the Games, reveal­ing he had ques­tioned his own involve­ment in the Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny.

One of those tak­ing part in the action, Bren­dan Pierce, said, “BP is pay­ing tens of mil­lions of pounds to clean up its tar­nished image, in what could well be the most expen­sive use of pro­pa­gan­da in his­to­ry. But with even its own busi­ness pro­jec­tions prepar­ing for a six degree tem­per­a­ture rise, BP knows it is damn­ing us to a future of run­away cli­mate change.”

Anoth­er activist, Deb­o­rah Dud­ley, said “Reports sug­gest that BP’s spon­sor­ship of the Olympics has been high­ly effec­tive at laun­der­ing its filthy image, so we’re reveal­ing the dirt behind the glossy brand­ing. I’m proud to be tak­ing direct action as part of a world­wide move­ment for cli­mate jus­tice. I encour­age oth­ers to get involved.”

A web­site, f‑ingthefuture.org.uk, shows pic­tures of the action and out­lines the prob­lems with BP’s spon­sor­ship of the Olympics.

For more infor­ma­tion, inter­views and high-res­o­lu­tion pho­tos, email: f.ingthefuture@gmail.com

 

 

What the web­site says:

——————————————-

Why shouldn’t BP spon­sor the Olympics?

BP’s green logo is plas­tered all over the Olympics. The com­pa­ny is ‘Offi­cial Fuel and Gas Provider’ and also spon­sor of the Cul­tur­al Olympiad and Lon­don 2012 Fes­ti­val.

Worst of all BP is ‘Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Part­ner’. That’s right, the organ­is­ers of the Olympics have decid­ed to allow BP, one of the dirt­i­est com­pa­nies on earth, the oppor­tu­ni­ty to rebrand itself as social­ly respon­si­ble and take an active role in propos­ing how soci­ety should approach cli­mate change.

Do you remem­ber images of oil gush­ing into the Gulf of Mex­i­co from BP’s deep-sea Macon­do well back in 2010, coat­ing the ocean and its inhab­i­tants? Have you heard of BP’s plans in the tar sands, the world’s sec­ond largest oil deposits after Sau­di Ara­bia, that can only be extract­ed by using four times as much green­house gas and have been labelled the most destruc­tive project on earth? Have you heard about BP’s deals to extract oil from the depths of the pris­tine Arc­tic, despite the poten­tial risk of a cat­a­stroph­ic spill even hard­er to clean up than the Gulf?

Do you think BP has earned the right to be ‘Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Part­ner’ to the Lon­don 2012 Olympics?

Does BP have the right to have any asso­ci­a­tion what­so­ev­er with the Games, whose found­ing state­ment speaks of ‘uni­ver­sal fun­da­men­tal eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples’, whose 2011 Char­ter declares that the Games should be ‘pro­mot­ing a peace­ful soci­ety con­cerned with the preser­va­tion of human dig­ni­ty’, and require ‘mutu­al under­stand­ing with a spir­it of friend­ship, sol­i­dar­i­ty and fair play’?

Do you think oil and sport shouldn’t mix?

Do you some­times have the feel­ing that wher­ev­er you turn these days, adver­tis­ing has intrud­ed a lit­tle fur­ther, unin­vit­ed, into your per­son­al space?

BP is a cor­po­ra­tion that feeds off injus­tice and the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world that we and count­less oth­er species rely on. That destruc­tion comes most threat­en­ing­ly from the cur­rent bru­tal desta­bil­i­sa­tion of the world’s cli­mate.

BP is deeply embed­ded in British soci­ety – our ener­gy, our pen­sions, our invest­ments, our cul­ture… It pumps seri­ous mon­ey and effort into keep­ing things this way. Mar­ket­ing works. Shiny adver­tise­ments around the cap­i­tal do change the way peo­ple per­ceive a com­pa­ny. By spon­sor­ing activ­i­ties like the Cul­tur­al Olympiad, the Lon­don 2012 Fes­ti­val, the World Shake­speare Fes­ti­val and the Games them­selves, BP is able to con­tin­ue its cat­a­stroph­ic, though increas­ing­ly prof­itable, oper­a­tions. That’s why we had to act.

Remem­ber, if you see any ‘improved’ BP adver­tise­ments, please take a pho­to and email them to f.ingthefuture@gmail.com – and don’t wor­ry, we won’t assume that you have any respon­si­bil­i­ty for them!

 

Here are a few more things you can do:

  • Take action for cli­mate jus­tice! See Ris­ing Tide UK and Cli­mate Jus­tice Col­lec­tive for ways to get involved.
  • Learn more about BP’s enor­mous envi­ron­men­tal and human rights atroc­i­ties. Start with tar sands.
  • Move your mon­ey away from banks and oth­er insti­tu­tions who will lend it to fos­sil fuel-based projects
  • Har­ness your cre­ativ­i­ty to a more car­ing, con­scious future, pos­si­bly by con­tribut­ing to Art Not Oil‘s ‘Cutur­al or Vul­tur­al 2012?’ gallery.
  • Be part of a move­ment for real, deep, pos­i­tive and last­ing social and eco­log­i­cal change: http://www.occupyuk.info, http://occupylsx.org
  • Cut your car­bon! Cut out short-haul flights, min­i­mize car use, min­i­mize your meat con­sump­tion, insu­late your house. There are plen­ty of things you can do…but what­ev­er you do, try to chal­lenge the over­ar­ch­ing mind­set and sys­tem that’s allowng this insan­i­ty to hap­pen!

(NB. These links are not con­nect­ed to us, we just like ‘em!)

 

Pho­tos

Videos

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update — programme, directions, website and more

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

It’s only weeks until the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing begins.
Five days of work­shops, info shar­ing and learn­ing new skills, 1–5 August.

The Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place each year to pro­vide a space in which the rad­i­cal ecol­o­gy move­ment can share skills and plan for future cam­paigns and actions.

Dis­cus­sions around the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty build­ing in inner cities, the state of the anar­chist move­ment and patri­archy in activism.

Skill shares includ­ing wom­en’s self-defence, research­ing cor­po­ra­tions and nav­i­ga­tion.

Cam­paign round ups from Frack Off! Smash Edo and Lud­dites 2000 amongst oth­ers.

If you have work­shops you like to run or dis­cus­sions you’d like to facil­i­tate then email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

Full pro­gramme.

Camp­ing is on a slid­ing scale of £30 to £15, pay what is gen­uine­ly appro­pri­ate.

Food will be from Anar­chist Teapot and meal tick­ets will be £5 a day.

Kids can have sep­a­rate meals if they want for £3 a day.

There will be a cou­ple of kids spaces, and spe­cial work­shops being ran for kids. If you’d like to run any kids work­shops get in touch at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net.

If you want you dog to come along then you’re going to have to email us at earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

And of course there will be enter­tain­ment and a bar open in the evenings.

The camp is ½ mile from the Berring­ton vil­lage, and 1 mile from the larg­er vil­lage of Cross Hous­es.

We encour­age non-cycling campers to use pub­lic trans­port if pos­si­ble as Cross Hous­es is on a bus route.

BY TRAIN
The near­est train sta­tion is Shrews­bury. You can then get the bus to Cross Hous­es (see below). If com­ing from a long dis­tance it can some­times be cheap­er to get a tick­et to a large sta­tion such as Birm­ing­ham, Wolver­hamp­ton, Man­ches­ter or Crewe and then a sep­a­rate tick­et on to Shrews­bury. Check nation­al rail for train times and prices. If com­ing from the Lon­don direc­tion, it’s gen­er­al­ly cheap­er to buy a Super Off­peak Return, spec­i­fy­ing “Lon­don Mid­land & Arri­va only”.

BY BIKE
See here for direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.

BY BUS
When you arrive at Shrews­bury train sta­tion, ask some­one to point you to the bus sta­tion. It’s only a few min­utes walk from the train sta­tion. The bus ser­vice that runs from town to with­in a mile of Crabap­ple is the 436 towards Bridg­north. It runs every hour from 7.40am to 5.40pm with a “late” one at 7.40pm. The jour­ney to Cross Hous­es is approx 15 mins. You will need to press the stop but­ton when you see the sign for Cross Hous­es. Some of the ser­vices on this route are low-floor acces­si­ble bus­es. Please note that the last bus leaves Shrews­bury at 7.40pm, Mon­day to Sat­ur­day and there are no Sun­day bus ser­vices. For the bus timetable see here http://shropshire.gov.uk/bustimes/timetable.jsc?timetable=436mfi0412.
The camp itself is about 1 mile from the bus stop. From the bus stop at Cross Hous­es, walk back towards Shrews­bury past the petrol sta­tion (on your right) and take the first left turn signed “Berring­ton”. After about ½ mile, the road forks at the edge of the vil­lage. Take the right turn sign­post­ed “Bet­ton Abbots” and we’re about ¼ mile up the road on the right.
If you intend to come by bus but need help get­ting to and from the bus stop, you can arrange a pick up with us: details will be avail­able near­er the time.

BY TAXI
There is also a taxi rank just out­side Shrews­bury train sta­tion. Acces­si­ble taxis can be got from here.- but it is MUCH cheap­er to book a cab from a local com­pa­ny – Comet Cabs 01743 344444, or Vin­cent Cabs 01743 367777. Vin­cents also have a book­ing office just across the road from the sta­tion, which is handy if you don’t have a phone to book a cab in advance.

USEFUL LINKS
See here direc­tions and a map to the camp from Shrews­bury for cyclists and dri­vers.
See a map of where the site is here
See the bus timetable
Direc­tions from places oth­er than Shrews­bury

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Col­lec­tive
earthfirstsummergathering@riseup.net

http://earthfirstgathering.weebly.com

Climate Siren activists scale Palace gates Rio+20

Four mem­bers of the group Cli­mate Siren, which includ­ed Occu­py Lon­don sup­port­ers, chained them­selves to Buck­ing­ham Palace gates on Sat­ur­day 23 June to high­light the biggest threat to our plan­et, cli­mate change. The activists were there for over 4 hours and the stunt attract­ed nation­al and inter­na­tion­al media atten­tion.

Four mem­bers of the group Cli­mate Siren, which includ­ed Occu­py Lon­don sup­port­ers, chained them­selves to Buck­ing­ham Palace gates on Sat­ur­day 23 June to high­light the biggest threat to our plan­et, cli­mate change. The activists were there for over 4 hours and the stunt attract­ed nation­al and inter­na­tion­al media atten­tion. Their ban­ners includ­ed a quote from Prince Charles that the ‘dooms­day clock of cli­mate change was tick­ing ever faster towards mid­night,’ and called for 10% annu­al emis­sions reduc­tions.

The action was timed to coin­cide with the end of the Rio+20 Earth Sum­mit on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, which as pre­dict­ed failed to deliv­er any bind­ing agree­ment to put human­i­ty on a path of true sus­tain­abil­i­ty and peace. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we can­not rely on our elect­ed offi­cials to save the plan­et and the Rio +20 agen­da was dom­i­nat­ed by cor­po­rate inter­ests bent on pre­vent­ing any devi­a­tion from busi­ness as usu­al which will threat­en their prof­its. Peo­ple pow­er is our only hope for sav­ing the plan­et and all its inhab­i­tants.

http://climate-siren.com/

 

Carnival of Dirt

On Fri­day 15 June, Lon­don will expe­ri­ence its first ever Car­ni­val of Dirt, a car­ni­val like no oth­er. More than 30 activist groups from Lon­don and around the world have come togeth­er to high­light the illic­it deeds of min­ing and extrac­tion com­pa­nies.

On Fri­day 15 June, Lon­don will expe­ri­ence its first ever Car­ni­val of Dirt, a car­ni­val like no oth­er. More than 30 activist groups from Lon­don and around the world have come togeth­er to high­light the illic­it deeds of min­ing and extrac­tion com­pa­nies.

Reports and pho­tos from the day: 1 | 2 | 3

http://www.carnivalofdirt.org