North East England – Page 8

Activist Tat training week

There will be a free AT Co-op training week in Nottingham, from Thursday 6th of May to Monday 10th of May 2010.

This will include putting up marquees, erecting and mending the flat pack toilets and painting them for beauty and durability, as well as all the technical and theoretical (power, plumbing etc) skillsharing that launched the site crews of the No Borders Camp in Calais, and the Camp for Climate Action in Blackheath in 2009.

We would like to see 50 new people there. We can cope with 70 if they are
considerate and co-operative.

You can come for the whole week or just a couple of days. We’ll share the cost of excellent vegan food, and bring sleeping bags for the friendliest floors in Forest Fields, Nottingham. E-mail jed2f4[at]yahoo.co.uk if you’re coming.

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Do you have equipment? Spaces activist groups can use? Skills you would like to share with others? ATC are currently doing an audit of grassroots movements to see what materials we have and what we have to offer each other. Please take part in our questionnaire, and help us create a strong network where we share skills and materials.

The AT Cooperative (commonly known as ‘activist tat collective’) is a group of people who have come together to provide equipment, transport and training for grassroots movements. The aims of the group are as follows:

1. To source and provide equipment for events to grassroots campaigns at below commercial rates, by using existing resources and purchasing new materials.

2. To train people up in essential skills for putting on outdoor events.

3. To be a point of contact for individuals and groups seeking who are happy for others to use their equipment or who want to pass on their skills.

In all this, ATC aims to be as professional as possible, maintaining and storing equipment responsibly and ensuring that it is returned or replaced. This will reduce waste and free up valuable time for actual campaigning!

There is a lot more information on our website, so please read on.

http://www.atcoop.org.uk

Earth First! Summer Gathering, 4th – 9th Aug 2010, Derbyshire – location & programme announced/set-up plans & call-out

Ecological Direct Action without Compromise

5 days of workshops, skill sharing and planning action, plus low-impact living without leaders.

Meet people, learn skills, take action.

For latest details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Location
Programme

Ecological Direct Action without Compromise

5 days of workshops, skill sharing and planning action, plus low-impact living without leaders.

Meet people, learn skills, take action.

For latest details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Location
Programme
Want to do something to stop our planet from getting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruction of the Earth. It’s about doing it yourself rather than relying on leaders, governments or industry. Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re standing in front of a bulldozer, shutting down an open-cast mine or ripping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose network of people, groups and campaigns coming together for ecological direct action.

Join us for 5 days of workshops, networking and planning actions, run without leaders by everyone who comes along. The gathering is also a practical example of low-impact eco-living and non-hierarchical organising.

What’s happening?
Over 80 workshops, discussions, planning, strategy and ‘where next’ sessions:

*Share and learn skills for kick-ass actions on land and water.
Small boat handling and blockading using kayaks / Blockading – tripods, lock-ons/ Fences / Climbing skills / Action reconnaissance / Security for Activists / Strategy and tactics / How to research corporations /

*Network current campaigns against ecological destruction
Open-cast mining / Genetic engineering / Agrofuels / Saving Iceland / Climate actions / Pipeline resistance in Rossport / Anti-nuclear / Airport expansion/ Tar Sands

*Think about eco-centric ethics and alternative ways of organising
Deep green ethics / Anarchist economics / Anarchist history / Radical Politics / Working without leaders/ Consensus decision-making

*Practical skills for ecological restoration and sustainable living.
Introduction to Ecology / Restoration ecology / Flora and Fauna identification / Vegan Cake making / Power from solar and wind / wild food / Squatting / Bike maintenance

As well as international campaigns round-up, networking and planning for future actions.

Cost and practical things
£20-30 according to what you can afford.
The gathering is in Derbyshire, the exact location will be announced the week before. More info on our website.

Find out more and join in!

Email us if you can offer a workshop, want to help out with the gathering or if you would like posters and leaflets to distribute.

We have now a stack of freshly printed posters advertising the gathering. If you’d like to send you some to stick up in your area or to take to events, festivals and the like, please email us. Alternatively you can also download the files and print your own. They are fairly large files! EF! gathering poster (A4)

We are now looking for people to run workshops and discussions at the gathering. Please contact us if you can offer something. Have a look at our programme page to see the kind of thing we’re looking for.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, summergathering _ NOSPAM _ @ _ NOSPAM earthfirst.org.uk

Plane Stupid issues 48hr subvertising challenge

It’s that time of year when every airline starts aggressively advertising for your business. Well, we’ve had enough. Plane Stupid is inviting all of you to take part in its very own subvertising competition. From Thursday 22nd April – Friday 23rd April, we’ll be launching 48 hours of sticker-whacking, subvertising, adbusting pandemonium.

The aviation industry spends millions every year telling us that we’re no good to anyone unless we keep flying with them. So it’s time to hit back! Like tobacco adverts, aviation advertising needs to become a thing of the past. But until then, let’s subvertise. Any poster, advert or billboard is fair game.

Whether you’re a first time activist looking for an easy way-in, or an old timer looking for some light relief………it’s time to take to the streets and reclaim some public space. Taking part is easy:

1. You can download a choice of designs from our Flickr site, or use your design skills to make your own.
2. Print them out on standard, non divided, A4 sticker paper (available from most printers and stationers).
3. Then find your nearest aviation advertisement.
4. Stick ’em up punk!
5. Take photographs, set up a new temporary email address in an internet cafe (under a pseudonym) and email your images to info@planestupid.com.

The group who stickers the most adverts in the 48 hour period wins. Wins what? Prizes! We got the bumper crop of 5 spray cans, Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn, Do It Yourself, A handbook for changing our world, by the Trapese Collective and Scribbleboy by Philip Ridley to give away.

Of course don’t feel limited to individual stickers, think big! You can write your own message on large stretches of blank wall paper to cover whole bill boards. Make up some wall paper paste, get a paint roller, a stick it up. If necessary – attach the roller to a broom handle for those hard to reach places. Helpfully, there’s some great how-to guides on t’internet.

One last point. Please be respectful about where you sticker. Corporate nasties are fine…..but the local old people’s homes may not appreciate your art on their walls!

Use your head, and remember to dress well for the occasion – caps and scarves are the in thing this subvertising season. Some officers of the law may be convinced that subvertising is borderline illegal, so take a friend as lookout, keep an eye open for CCTV and don’t get caught.

Social Centres in a Time of Crisis

A weekend of workshops, discussions and socialising for everyone with an interest in radical autonomous social centres.

• How can a new generation of social centres learn from the successes and failures of established ones? What are the ways in which we can best face up to the challenges?

A weekend of workshops, discussions and socialising for everyone with an interest in radical autonomous social centres.

• How can a new generation of social centres learn from the successes and failures of established ones? What are the ways in which we can best face up to the challenges?

• How can we sustain energy and dynamism? Can we stop the daily grind of actually running a social centre from eclipsing the politics and passion behind it

• Is there a way in which we can capitalise on the current widespread disaffection with mainstream politics? What is the role of social centres in a time of crisis?

• What is the current situation with your social centre? What’s going right, what’s going wrong, and what support do you need?

At the Common Place, Leeds 17-18th April 2010
http://www.thecommonplace.org.uk/

Saturday: 10am – 6pm, followed by dinner and entertainment
Sunday: 10am for brunch, 11am – 4pm

Lunch available on both days.

socialcentres2010@googlemail.com

BP Fortnight of Shame

The BP Fortnight of Shame is a call to action from the UK Tar Sands Network, Rising Tide and the Camp for Climate Action to force BP to reverse their crazy plans to move into Canada’s tar sands.

The BP Fortnight of Shame is a call to action from the UK Tar Sands Network, Rising Tide and the Camp for Climate Action to force BP to reverse their crazy plans to move into Canada’s tar sands. It runs between the annual Fossil Fools Day on April 1st, which in recent years has seen a flurry of action against the fossil fuels industry, and BP’s Annual General Meeting on April 15th. Grassroots groups across the UK, in solidarity with First Nations indigenous peoples, will be taking action to stop BP’s deadly plans in their tracks. This will include a global day of action on Saturday 10th April. All are encouraged to get involved.

Why Tar Sands?

Attempts to avert the planet from sliding into climate crisis are being threatened by a single massive project in the Canadian wilderness. Already, millions of barrels of tar sands oil are being extracted every day, producing three to five times as many greenhouse gas emissions as conventional oil. The extraction process is immensely resource-intensive, currently using enough natural gas every day to heat 3.2 million Canadian homes. Add to this the mass deforestation the projects are causing, ridding us of desperately needed carbon sinks, then it becomes clear this project cannot be allowed to continue if we are serious about preventing runaway climate change.

The effects tar sands are having on local First Nations indigenous communities are devastating. The tar sands development in Alberta covers an area the size of England, with toxic tailing ponds so huge they are visible from space, leaking poisons into the local water supply. Not only are indigenous livelihoods and futures being destroyed, but communities on land where tar sands extraction has been imposed are experiencing disturbingly high rates of rare forms of cancer and auto-immune diseases.

Why BP?

BP are the only major oil company with no tar sands extraction projects currently in operation. This is about to change. Since 2007, BP have quietly ditched the ‘Beyond Petroleum’ sham, because investing in renewables simply wasn’t making them enough profit. They have decided to go Back to Petroleum, with a vengeance, under the leadership of new Chief Executive Tony Hayward.

Moving into tar sands was one of the first steps Tony Hayward took, acquiring a half share in the Sunrise Project with Husky Energy. The Sunrise Project will be huge, producing 200,000 barrels of filthy oil a day, and using Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), an extraction process even more energy and water intensive than the more visible surface-mining operations.

The recession has given us a window of opportunity. BP have been forced to postpone their final decision on whether to go ahead until the second half of 2010. This means it is not too late for us to stop this outrageous project. BP are desperate for Sunrise to go ahead, and will certainly not go down without a fight, but with effective and sustained action we can win this one.
What can I do?

Local groups across the UK, from Brighton to Scotland, are already engaged in plotting and planning for the Fortnight of Shame. If your local group isn’t already planning something, then get suggesting ideas. If you haven’t already got a local group, then check out the local groups that form the Camp for Climate Action network. All are open to everyone to join.

Coal Action Scotland InfoTour dates

The Mainshill Solidarity Camp is going on tour! Check our list of dates below to see if we’re coming anywhere near you. If you’d like us to to a talk where you are and its not on the list, email us at mainshill [at] riseup.net and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

10th March
Brighton
7pm at the Cowley Club
London Road

12th March
Leeds
7pm at the Bandstand Community Allotments
Woodhouse Ridge, Meanwood Road
15th March
Bradford
7pm at the 1 in 12 Club
21-23 Albion Street

16th March
Lancaster
7pm at the Lancaster Action Resource Centre
78a Penny Street

Fossil Fools Day 2010

Climate change is no laughing matter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t confront the Fossil Fuel Empire with subversive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, practical jokes and throwing a spanner in the works to stop the fossil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

Climate change is no laughing matter – but that doesn’t mean we can’t confront the Fossil Fuel Empire with subversive humour.

WHAT: Direct actions, practical jokes and throwing a spanner in the works to stop the fossil fools.
WHERE: Your street, town or city.
WHEN: April 1st, 2010.

Last December in Copenhagen, the politicians sold us out to the fossil fools, corporate lobbyists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green capitalism,” a deeply unjust carbon market and continued assaults on our communities and ecosystems. If we’re going to stop climate chaos, the only real solution is to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

The stakes couldn’t be higher: destabilisation of the global climate, local communities destroyed by dirty energy extraction and combustion, devastating freak storms, droughts, floods, the list goes on …

This April 1st, join Rising Tide in some creative direct action … use the simply subversive to the downright disruptive: office occupations, banner drops, clownish parades, road blockades, spoof websites, subvertising, street theatre, leaflets, lock-ons or laugh-ins. Whatever works for you and your group.

Join us this Fossil Fools Day and hatch some harebrained schemes that will strike a blow to climate criminals everywhere!

WANT MORE? Fossil Fools Day also marks the launch of the BP Tar Sands Fortnight of Shame: a two-week campaign culminating in actions surrounding BP’s AGM on April 15th. The goal? To stop BP from going into the Canadian Tar Sands – the biggest, dirtiest fossil fuel project on earth. Find out more: Tar Sands in Focus.. And a word to BP: be afraid… be very afraid.

NEED A HAND? If you would like ideas for actions, graphics for leaflets or websites, advice on dealing with the press, etc., send us an email and we’ll do our best to help out: info@risingtide.org.uk

For more information see: Fossil Fools Day.

In the words of that master of pranks: “That’s All Folks”.

Support the Local Campaign Against Bradley Proposed Open-cast

This years EF! winter moot was held in Dipton Community Centre, which looks over the proposed site for an open-cast at Bradley. Members of the local campaign against the mine have asked if people who attended the moot, (as well as those who didn’t) would write in their objection to the development.

UK Coal’s application is expected to be heard by the planning officials in the near future. The local campaign would appreciate it if people would write in letters of objection to the following address, stating the APPLICATION No. CMA/1/37

Mrs C.L.Teasdale
Plannng Development Control Team
Regeneration and Economic Development
Durham County Council
Durham
DH1 5UQ

Apparently letters hold more weight if you say that you have visited the area.

The facts about this proposed mine:
UK Coal has applied to surface mine 556,000 tonnes of coal from a coal seem covering 22,000 acres.
The current version of the application is has not yet gone to the Planning Authority.
The application is being resisted by The Pont Valley Network www.pontvalley.net
If the application goes ahead the residents are particularly concerned about the loss of their heritage sites.
The final destination for the coal is either the steel industry or a power station generating electricity.
Burning this coal will release over 2 million tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere.
UK coal say the mine will create 38 jobs. Mr Cory of UK Coal says that there will be no new jobs but people will be transferred to this site.
The mine will need 3 lorry trips per hour, each way.
UK coal and other surface mining companies have applications at the planning stages for a further 13 mines in the area and a further 5 have been granted in the area.
The nearest planned site also currently at the planning stages is Skons Park, which Hall construction are applying to extract half a million tonnes of coal fire clay. This application was last refused in 2007 but Halls have since reapplied this year.

The Bradley site is 10 miles south of Newcastle in a beautiful area. The proposed site can be seen from Newcastle and Cheviot on a clear day. A mine would scar the landscape; cause habitat destruction which would affect many species, including Great Crested Newts and Red Kites; contribute to global warming; increase traffic locally and destroy the remains of wagon-ways and bell pit and shaft mines in the area. Residents are also concerned that if the mine is given the go ahead then they will see further extensions applied for and granted.

For more information about the site and to add strength to letters of objection please see http://pontvalley.net under NOTT campaign on the left hand side.

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.

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

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

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)

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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/