Category: North West England

North West Eng­land

Something’s Brewing.…come on down to the 11th OKasional cafe in Manchester

Novem­ber 30, 2010

After a 8 year absence the OKa­sion­al Cafe is back in Man­ches­ter!

The squat­ted space will hold a dai­ly café, reg­u­lar veg­an meals and func­tion as a rad­i­cal space for meet­ings, organ­is­ing, inter­ven­tions, work­shops and events.

Novem­ber 30, 2010

After a 8 year absence the OKa­sion­al Cafe is back in Man­ches­ter!

The squat­ted space will hold a dai­ly café, reg­u­lar veg­an meals and func­tion as a rad­i­cal space for meet­ings, organ­is­ing, inter­ven­tions, work­shops and events.

Come down on the 3rd of Decem­ber. Meet at 12 at Peace Gar­dens to help spruce up the space and join us for our first evening of counter cuts food, drinks, dis­cus­sion and more.

The non-prof­it, vol­un­teer led project already has 2 weeks of work­shops already booked up but still has space for more, so to offer events, work­shops, dis­plays, actions, and any kind of help­ing hand get in con­tact!

mcrokcafe@gmail.com
http://okcafe.wordpress.com

Season of the Climate Trials

RATCLIFFE ON TRIAL ‘SHOW OF SOLIDARITY’
9am, 22nd Novem­ber
Out­side Not­ting­ham Crown Court

RATCLIFFE ON TRIAL ‘SHOW OF SOLIDARITY’
9am, 22nd Novem­ber
Out­side Not­ting­ham Crown Court

Next Mon­day 20 activists begin their long await­ed tri­al. Accused of con­spir­ing to shut down Rat­cliffe on Soar pow­er sta­tion, they don’t deny this was their inten­tion. How­ev­er they are plead­ing Not Guilty on the grounds that they planned to act to pre­vent loss of life and seri­ous injury caused by cli­mate change.

With the tri­al due to begin Mon­day morn­ing, we are ask­ing sup­port­ers from far and wide to con­gre­gate out­side the Crown Court at 9am for a Show of Sol­i­dar­i­ty before the tri­al gets under­way. You don’t need to bring any­thing but your­selves, and we will be invit­ing you to hold ban­ners read­ing “I’d Stop Emis­sions Too”.

We ask for a calm pres­ence that doesn’t dis­rupt the tri­al. But the more atten­dees the bet­ter. This is the cul­mi­na­tion of an exhaust­ing 18 month process for the defen­dants, who face a max­i­mum sen­tence of three months in prison. A big show of sup­port would make their day.

Get book­ing your trav­el, or organ­ise a mini-bus with your local group. For more infor­ma­tion, email info@ratcliffeontrial.org

See you next Mon­day,
Rat­cliffe on Tri­al cam­paign sup­port group

PS: Join the Face­book Event: http://on.fb.me/92y0Yx

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THE INSTANT INFO BOARD: PRINT IT OUT, STICK IT UP

A few of the Rat­cliffe on Tri­al sup­port­ers have been hard at work over the last few days, putting togeth­er an “instant info board”. This 8‑page doc­u­ment explains, briefly, the var­i­ous dif­fer­ent aspects of the tri­al, the con­text, the neces­si­ty defence and how to help. We’d love it if sup­port­ers around the coun­try could print it out and stick it up in your local social cen­tre, stu­dents union, work­place or any­where else you can think of. Thanks!

Down­load it here:
http://ratcliffeontrial.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/ratcliffeontrial.pdf

***************

MANCHESTER AIRPORT ON TRIAL

In May 2010, sev­en­teen peo­ple staged a protest/direct action at Man­ches­ter Air­port, tem­porar­i­ly shut­ting it down. They did this to stop some of the 5 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon emis­sions that the air­port is respon­si­ble for annu­al­ly and in oppo­si­tion to plans to destroy local homes and bio­di­ver­si­ty spots to expand the World Freight Cen­tre.

Mis­sion:

17 peo­ple are now fac­ing two tri­als as a result of this action. 11 peo­ple will be tried for ‘obstruc­tion of the high­way’ in Dec 2010. The remain­ing 6 will face a tri­al in ear­ly 2011.

Please
‑Email state­ments of sup­port to manchesterairportontrial@gmail.com
‑Like the Face­book page: http://on.fb.me/92b4jo
‑www.manchesterairportontrial.org/

******************

Update:
On 25 Novem­ber 2010, the Copen­hagen Dis­trict Court found Stine Gry Jonassen and Tan­nie Nyboe guilty in charges of being organ­is­ers and insti­ga­tors of vio­lence and van­dal­ism. The inci­dent took place on 16th of Decem­ber at Bel­la Cen­tre last year dur­ing the cli­mate sum­mit in Copen­hagen. The two women were sen­tenced to four months of pro­ba­tion. One out of three judges dis­agreed with the ver­dict and thought the women were inno­cent of all charges.

Stine Gry and Tan­nie Nyboe both act­ed as spokesper­sons for the Glob­al Net­work “Cli­mate Jus­tice Action” (CJA).

Dur­ing the Cop15 last year, CJA organ­ised sev­er­al non-vio­lent civ­il
dis­obe­di­ence protests, includ­ing the “Reclaim Pow­er — Push for Cli­mate Jus­tice” ral­ly on 16th of Decem­ber. The two women were both the pub­lic faces of the move­ment and they are now found guilty in charges of being organ­is­ers and insti­ga­tors of vio­lence and riots. They are both deeply shocked by the out­come of the tri­al and are now con­sid­er­ing an appeal.

More: http://www.climatecollective.org/post/151

CLIMATE DEFENCE IS NOT AN OFFENCE!

Crude Awakening info update

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

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

The email is in three parts:

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

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

Events already planned are list­ed bel­low:

In Lon­don……

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yep, thats right! On stilts!

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

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

Its all free and lunch is includ­ed.…

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

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

In Man­ches­ter….

Sat 9th Oct — Mass Action train­ing

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

Crude Awak­en­ing mobil­i­sa­tion

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

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

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

2. Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions

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

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

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

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

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

Q. Why Oil?

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

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

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

THE CRUDE AWAKENING

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be cre­ative. Be pre­pared. Be there.

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

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

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

Stop Nuclear Power gathering, 23–24 October 2010

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Sat 23 — Sun 24 Oct 2010, Bris­tol

Meet, make plans, take action

Stop Nuclear Pow­er is a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als tak­ing action against nuclear pow­er. If EdF get their way, Hink­ley C will become the first nuclear pow­er sta­tion built in Britain for 20 years and will sit next to two oth­er radioac­tive and dan­ger­ous sites. Stop Hink­ley is a long run­ning com­mu­ni­ty cam­paign to stop dead­ly nuclear reac­tors oper­at­ing near their homes.
Their strug­gle is our strug­gle. Let’s sit down togeth­er in Bris­tol and make some plans togeth­er.

Hink­ley is the bat­tle­ground, if they get one in there, it opens the door for at least nine oth­er nuclear pow­er sta­tions across the coun­try. This Autumn, the gov­ern­ment is tak­ing its pro-nuclear pro­pa­gan­da on tour around the UK. We’ll be there. Come to the gath­er­ing or send us an email to find out how you can get involved.

www.boycottedf.org.uk

Info for the week­end:

Meet­ing space dur­ing the day on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day tbc but will be in Bris­tol.
Crash space is avail­able on a dry, warm and qui­et floor space.
If you need a bed please get in con­tact with us as soon as pos­si­ble and will try and help you out.
Lunch and din­ner will be done com­mu­nal­ly on Sat­ur­day and lunch on Sun­day.

For a tele­phone num­ber to con­tact dur­ing the week­end send us an email.

Please help by let­ting us know you are com­ing so we can plan for space, food and logis­tics.

Email: nonewnuclear@aktivix.org

Trashing, dashing, bashing, mashing: the new EF! Action Update

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

Maybe you’re in need of a break. But if you’re not, and are just champ­ing at the bit, the return of AUn­tie MIffy’s prob­lem page might help, address­ing what to do if there’s no local group near you. There’s an arti­cle about the begin­nings of EF! in this coun­try, look­ing for­wards to the next 20 years, to help inspire. If you need sup­port to get things going where you live, do get in touch. And if all that’s not enough, here’s a quo­ta­tion, from Paul Wat­son, the Sea Shep­herd cap­tain:

“Future gen­er­a­tions will not have the chance and those that came before us did not have the vision nor the knowl­edge. It is up to us — you and I.”

Print ver­sion
Oth­er issues and extra info

Earth First! Summer Gathering set-up plans announced

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We also have a mobile num­ber for set­up which is 07766 947852. This will be on-site from Sat­ur­day lunchtime, and may well get answered in the few days before­hand but please don’t try ring­ing until then — e‑mail will remain the main con­tact point until near­er the time — sum­mer­gath­er­ing -{at}- earthfirst.org.uk

What we need to know:

*Please can you let us know when you are com­ing? — this helps us plan foods, facil­i­ties and what jobs to do when.

*It is also help­ful if you can let us know if you have any par­tic­u­lar skills or inter­ests with respect to set-up — we might need dri­vers, so if you are over 25, hold a clean licence, are con­fi­dent dri­ving a 3.5 tonne Luton AND can bring along both parts of your dri­ving licence please let us know.

*Sim­i­lar­ly if you are arriv­ing in a vehi­cle and could poten­tial­ly pro­vide lifts, trans­port equip­ment en route or run errands from site once you arrive please let us know. In this case it is very help­ful if you are able/willing to sup­ply us with a con­tact phone num­ber.

How to get there

As you maybe aware that we do not announce the exact site of the gath­er­ing until one week before the main event, this means direc­tions will be avail­able on the web­site http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/ from Wednes­day, 27 July. We realise this will be short notice for peo­ple arriv­ing on the Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er to make things eas­i­er we will e‑mail direc­tions to set-up crew on that day (that still 4 days to check a map!).

The near­est train sta­tion is Der­by if you want to pre-book train tick­ets, you will also need to take a local bus ser­vice from Der­by (these are fre­quent). We are aim­ing to have a vehi­cle on site that can assist if peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ties between Der­by and the site, so hope­ful­ly every­one will be able to get there okay.

There may be a very small num­ber of lifts avail­able from the Not­ting­ham area across the week­end of Sat­ur­day 31st July/Sunday first of August. There may also be lifts from the Leeds area first thing on 31 July. Let us know if this may be of inter­est to you.

What to bring

*Every­thing you need to the gath­er­ing, tent sleep­ing bags etc. and espe­cial­ly a torch

*It may be wise to come a bit more self-suf­fi­cient in food and snacks than you would need to for the main gath­er­ing — we will have a basic kitchen but Veg­gies and the tuck shop are not arriv­ing until Wednes­day

*If you are able to bring any tools, espe­cial­ly for basic car­pen­try, these are often use­ful

Big thanks for offer­ing to help out

Do get in touch if you have any ques­tions

Love & rage

The EF! Gath­er­ing crew

Sabotage the Machines! Cutacre coal mine visit

21 July 2010
Activists entered the Cutacre coal mine in the ear­ly hours of a June morn­ing, & sab­o­taged 7 mon­ster-trucks, used to trans­port coal around the site.

Sabotage arm21 July 2010
Activists entered the Cutacre coal mine in the ear­ly hours of a June morn­ing, & sab­o­taged 7 mon­ster-trucks, used to trans­port coal around the site.

They report that met­al hair-pins were cut to length, coat­ed in super­glue & insert­ed deep into the locks of the vehi­cles. Anoth­er healthy dose of glue fol­lowed for good mea­sure.

It is not known how long the vehi­cles were out of action- odd­ly nobody hung around long enough to find out.

The site is locat­ed in the Greater Man­ches­ter area, & is oper­at­ed by “lets trash the plan­et” UK Coal. It is on land owned by ” lets sell our mums for mon­ey” Peel Hold­ings.

The activists say they were inspired by fine exam­ples of sab­o­tage at Main­shill, & hope that all over the coun­try, peo­ple will resist the destruc­tion, & sab­o­tage machin­ery.

Nobody was arrest­ed.

Peat Bog protesters found not guilty & coal train stoppers mixed result

Two envi­ron­men­tal activists who chained them­selves to machin­ery at a peat bog extrac­tion site at Chat Moss, Sal­ford, Greater Man­ches­ter were acquit­ted by Sal­ford mag­is­trates court last Mon­day 5th July 2010.

BBC News cov­er­age: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI9U5rcrK2w

Peat bog activists and supporters outside Salford Magistrates court - 5th July 2010Peat bog extraction halted - April 2010 - SalfordPeat bog extraction halted - April 2010 - SalfordTwo envi­ron­men­tal activists who chained them­selves to machin­ery at a peat bog extrac­tion site at Chat Moss, Sal­ford, Greater Man­ches­ter were acquit­ted by Sal­ford mag­is­trates court last Mon­day 5th July 2010.

BBC News cov­er­age: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI9U5rcrK2w

Iain Hilton from Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action and Son­ny Khan from Earth First! North West were accused under Sec­tion 4a of the 1986 Pub­lic Order Act for alleged­ly caus­ing “harass­ment, alarm or dis­tress” against employ­ees of Joseph Met­calfe Hor­ti­cul­tur­al Ltd and AW Jenk­in­son For­est Prod­ucts Ltd for their part in a peace­ful protest on Thurs­day 15 April 2010.

http://manchesterclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/action-aginst-peat-bog-destruction-in-greater-manchester/

Dur­ing the protest, the court heard how Khan climbed up and locked onto a JCB dig­ger to pre­vent it load­ing peat into a deliv­ery lor­ry. Hilton mean­while scaled and locked him­self to the deliv­ery lor­ry to pre­vent it leav­ing the site. The two defen­dants were protest­ing against the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of peat extrac­tion – which caus­es 3 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 emis­sions per year in the UK accord­ing to Nat­ur­al Eng­land – the equiv­a­lent to the aver­age emis­sions of 350,000 house­holds. [1]

Upon hear­ing evi­dence from three employ­ees who appeared in court as pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es, the Dis­trict Judge Jonathan Finestein said that while the protest was “cer­tain­ly an irri­ta­tion and cer­tain­ly cost [the com­pa­nies] mon­ey” he had seen no evi­dence that the defen­dants intend­ed to, or did cause har­ras­ment, alarm or dis­tress as the pros­e­cu­tion had alleged and found them not guilty with­out wait­ing to hear evi­dence from the defence.

A request for a restrain­ing order ban­ning the two defen­dants from peat bog site in Chat Moss was also reject­ed by the Judge.

The pro­tes­tors were joined inside and out­side court by local cam­paign­ers from Save Our North West Green­belt. [2]

Speak­ing out­side court after the ver­dict, Iain Hilton said, “We’ve very pleased with the ver­dict. Our actions were rea­son­able, peace­ful and jus­ti­fied. The entire demo­c­ra­t­ic process of the City of Sal­ford from the Coun­cil to local MPs is against peat extrac­tion and have called for it to stop. The peo­ple of Sal­ford don’t want the peat to be extract­ed, so all we did was enforce everyone’s wish­es.”

Peat bogs are formed over thou­sands of years by the decay­ing rem­nants of plant mat­ter and active­ly soak up car­bon from the atmos­phere, mak­ing them extreme­ly valu­able in the fight against cli­mate change.

Over 94 per cent of the UK’s low­land peat bogs have been dam­aged or destroyed, most­ly in the last 50 years. The pro­tes­tors argue that pro­tect­ing the remain­ing intact peat bogs and restor­ing dam­aged or degrad­ed ones could lock car­bon in the soil and help to active­ly reduce the UK’s car­bon foot­print, as well as help­ing to pro­tect many rare species of plants and ani­mals, pro­tect­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty and a wild and rare habi­tat.

Sal­ford Coun­cil agree that peat extrac­tion must stop and are propos­ing a ban on future extrac­tion at Chat Moss.[3] Plan­ning lead mem­ber Coun­cil­lor Derek Antrobus said: “Curb­ing cli­mate change is a cen­tral aim of the plan­ning sys­tem and peat bog­land is an impor­tant car­bon sink. The Gov­ern­ment has announced the phas­ing out of peat for gar­den­ing so there can be no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for its con­tin­ued exploita­tion.”

The site at Chat Moss, as well as oth­er peat extrac­tion loca­tions in the area, is owned by cor­po­rate giant Peel Hold­ings, the empire of tax-shy bil­lion­aire John Whit­tak­er. Backed by oil mon­ey of the pow­er­ful Sau­di Olayan fam­i­ly, the group var­i­ous­ly owns: the Traf­ford Cen­tre, Man­ches­ter Ship Canal and three oth­er ports, four air­ports and MediaC­i­tyUK in Sal­ford, just a few famous names with­in a huge prop­er­ty port­fo­lio. They also have a large stake in UK Coal, involved in the con­tro­ver­sial Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age coal pow­er plant pro­posed in Ayr­shire in Scot­land, where a direct action cam­paign is also expect­ed by envi­ron­men­tal­ists. Peel are dis­put­ing the ban, which they claim is unjus­ti­fied.

Rachel Dawes from Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action said, “Peel Hold­ings have huge polit­i­cal pow­er in the North­west. Finan­cial gain is their only inter­est and this comes at the expense of the envi­ron­ment, local­ly and glob­al­ly. Tak­ing direct action is an essen­tial part of the strug­gle against big busi­ness and in sit­u­a­tions like this we have to stand up and say enough is enough.”

Hilton added, “The release of green­house gas­es through peat bog extrac­tion has a dev­as­tat­ing effect on the world’s cli­mate and the destruc­tion of green belt land is deplorable. These are places that should be enjoyed by every­one and not carved up for the sake of prof­it.”

Also speak­ing out­side court Khan said, “We’re hap­py with the sup­port of the local Save Our North­west Green Belt group. We hope it encour­ages more peo­ple to stand up and take action to stop envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion.”

Notes
—————————–

[1] Nat­ur­al Eng­land report — http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/regions/north_east/press_releases/2010/180310.aspx

[2] Save our North West Green Belt and Green Spaces face­book
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&viewas=0&gid=201970218853

[3] http://manchesterclimatefortnightly.blogspot.com/2010/05/mcfly-047-peat-leave-it-as-ground.html

e‑mail: manchester@climatecamp.org.uk
Home­page: http://manchesterclimateaction.wordpress.com/

Oth­er press links
——————————–
The Mule — http://manchestermule.com/article/climate-activists-found-not-guilty

Sal­ford Star — http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=618

——–
Coal Train Court Ver­dict
July 09, 2010

Eigh­teen peo­ple from Bris­tol and Bath were in court yes­ter­day to answer two charges of obstruct­ing the rail­way at Ffos-y-Fran open-cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil. Sev­en peo­ple who had chained them­selves to the track and six who had been act­ing as sup­port and legal observers all plead­ed guilty to Sec­tion 36 of the Mali­cious Dam­ages Act 1861, and not guilty to Sec­tion 35 of the same act (the sec­tion car­ry­ing the infa­mous life penal­ty). Five peo­ple includ­ing a legal obvser­er and dri­vers plead­ed not guilty to both charges.

Sec­tion 35 was dropped against all 18, cru­cial­ly acknowl­edg­ing that this was not a mali­cious action as orig­i­nal­ly alleged, and Sec­tion 36 was dropped against the 5 who had plead­ed not guilty to it and had clear­ly had noth­ing to do with the obstruc­tion.

Five of the eigh­teen walk out of court with no con­vic­tion. For the oth­er thir­teen, sen­tenc­ing will be on August 13th at Merthyr Crown Court. There will be no prison sen­tences, how­ev­er it appears restrain­ing orders and an £8000 com­pen­sa­tion claim are being con­sid­ered.

Those involved are very grate­ful for the con­tin­ued sup­port of friends in Merthyr Tyd­fil, Bris­tol, Bath, nation­wide and beyond. Hope­ful­ly there will be a big turnout for sen­tenc­ing, when those fac­ing restrain­ing orders will explain for the record why they felt it nec­es­sary to block­ade a coal train.

This Sun­day, Bris­tol & Bath Ris­ing Tide host an evening at Kebele Social Cen­tre in Eas­t­on, recount­ing train block­ades car­ried out by Bris­to­lians over the past 30 years oppos­ing social injus­tices from cli­mate chaos to nuclear waste. Film, food and dis­cus­sion from 6:30pm.

Manchester Plane Stupid Breach Airside Security in Airport Protest

Update: Ten peo­ple from the Tri­pod part of the action were arrest­ed on Mon­day morn­ing around 11am — hav­ing been there since 6.30am.

Manchester aiport lock-onManchester airport protest tripodsUpdate: Ten peo­ple from the Tri­pod part of the action were arrest­ed on Mon­day morn­ing around 11am — hav­ing been there since 6.30am.

They were held for rough­ly 10 hours in cus­tody. They have been charged with obstruc­tion of the high­way and bailed to appear at Traf­ford Mag­is­trates court at 9.45am on Thurs­day 3rd June.

The six peo­ple who went air­side were arrest­ed for crim­i­nal dam­age, con­spir­a­cy to com­mit crim­i­nal dam­age and enter­ing a restrict­ed air­field. They were held for around 13 hours in cus­tody and had their hous­es searched. They have not yet been charged, but bailed to return to Altrin­cham police sta­tion on 20th August.
–
24.05.2010
Activists from the group Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid have breached air­side secu­ri­ty at Man­ches­ter Air­port today in a protest against the expan­sion of the air­port. The protest involves two groups. The first group of 6 peo­ple cut through the perime­ter fence and cre­at­ed a human cir­cle around a sta­tion­ary plane using arm tube lock-ons.

A sec­ond group have used tripods to block­ade the road entrance to the World Freight Ter­mi­nal pre­vent­ing air­freight­ed goods from being tak­en in or out. They have unfurled a ban­ner read­ing: “More air freight = more cli­mate change. Stop all air­port expan­sion now.”

The group are protest­ing against the recent deci­sion to expand the World Freight Ter­mi­nal which will involve the demo­li­tion of his­toric homes on Hasty Lane.

Lisa Jame­son from Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid said, “This isn’t just about air­port expan­sion or ris­ing car­bon emis­sions. This is about chal­leng­ing an eco­nom­ic sys­tem based on the absur­di­ty of infi­nite growth on a plan­et of finite resources, a sys­tem which pri­ori­tis­es bail-outs for the banks and then makes us pay for it in pub­lic ser­vice cuts. Cap­i­tal­ism is the cause of the prob­lem, cli­mate change is just a symp­tom.”

Fol­low­ing the recent deci­sion to stop expan­sion at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead air­ports, the avi­a­tion indus­try is like­ly to look to region­al air­ports such as Man­ches­ter to increase prof­its.

“The third run­way at Heathrow was stopped because ordi­nary peo­ple stood up to the gov­ern­ment at the time and the avi­a­tion indus­try using a broad range of tac­tics. Direct action has his­tor­i­cal­ly played an impor­tant role in cre­at­ing social change and will con­tin­ue to do so.”

The avi­a­tion indus­try con­sis­tent­ly over­state their impor­tance in cre­at­ing jobs and their con­tri­bu­tion to the econ­o­my.

The lack of tax on avi­a­tion fuel is cost­ing the UK econ­o­my £9 bil­lion per year. There is also a tourism deficit in the North West region of £2.2 billion.[1] That is the dif­fer­ence between what Britons fly­ing abroad spend in for­eign coun­tries and what for­eign vis­i­tors spend in the North West.

Each round of air­port expan­sion is jus­ti­fied on the promise of more and more jobs. In the 1990s Man­ches­ter Air­port promised to cre­ate 50,000 jobs with the sec­ond run­way – but the actu­al num­ber was far low­er. We need to begin a just tran­si­tion to a low car­bon econ­o­my by cre­at­ing jobs in sus­tain­able indus­tries such as rail and renew­ables”

Annie McLaugh­lin said, “Recent­ly, we’ve seen attempts by British Air­ways to use the courts to over­turn work­ers’ right to strike. We sup­port the rights of all work­ers to fight for good con­di­tions. It is essen­tial that the changes need­ed to pre­vent cli­mate change are not used as an excuse to restrict work­ers rights.”

The air­port, which is owned by local coun­cils, has kept local res­i­dents in the dark about the pro­posed expan­sion plans, fail­ing to ade­quate­ly inform them that their homes face demo­li­tion.

McLaugh­lin con­tin­ued, “The pro­posed expan­sion of the freight ter­mi­nal makes no sense, eco­nom­i­cal­ly or envi­ron­men­tal­ly. The exist­ing capac­i­ty is not ful­ly uti­lized and an expan­sion would sim­ply be a step­ping stone to expan­sion of the air­port as a whole, which would be an envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter.”

“ With the plan­et on the verge of cli­mate break­down it is essen­tial that the real cost of avi­a­tion expan­sion is tak­en seri­ous­ly – cur­rent­ly emis­sions from avi­a­tion are not includ­ed in Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil’s Cli­mate Change Action Plan.”

The pro­test­ers say they are locked on to halt emis­sions and are pre­pared to stay for as long as it takes to get their mes­sage across.

Notes to Edi­tors

[1] Bren­dan Sewill, ‘Air­port Jobs: False Hopes, Cru­el Hoax’
http://www.aef.org.uk/uploads/Airport_jobs___false_hopes_cruel_hoax.pdf

Plane Stu­pid / Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action
info@planestupid.com
http://www.planestupid.com

Giant Elephant attacks Manchester Council meeting

……well sort of. New coun­cil­lors were remind­ed yes­ter­day that Man­ches­ter Air­port is still the ‘ele­phant in the room’ when it comes to the local Cli­mate Change Action Plan – since the Coun­cil have refused to include the flight emis­sions from the Air­port in their car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets.

……well sort of. New coun­cil­lors were remind­ed yes­ter­day that Man­ches­ter Air­port is still the ‘ele­phant in the room’ when it comes to the local Cli­mate Change Action Plan – since the Coun­cil have refused to include the flight emis­sions from the Air­port in their car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets. The 9ft inflat­able ele­phant high­light­ed that the Coun­cil’s much-laud­ed plans are total­ly under­mined by the omis­sion of the Air­port– espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil own 55% of Man­ches­ter Air­ports Group.

As Coun­cil­lors met alto­geth­er for the first time since the elec­tion, a trail­er bike soundsys­tem played a set of air­craft nois­es as a reminder of what life under the flight path can be like for com­mu­ni­ties in Stock­port and Knutsford.
Air­craft Noise — audio/x‑ms-wma 4.4M

In Novem­ber 2009, Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil released ‘Man­ches­ter: a Cer­tain Future’ which laid out plans to reduce the city’s CO2 emis­sions by 41% by 2020. These cal­cu­la­tions did not include the full impact of the air­port. The next day the Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved pro­pos­als to bull­doze res­i­dents homes at Hasty Lane, to expand the World Freight Cen­tre at Man­ches­ter Air­port. [1]

A report by the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change (Decem­ber 2009) has pre­dict­ed that Man­ches­ter Air­port could become as busy as Heathrow with the num­ber of flights dou­bling by 2050, lead­ing to a flight tak­ing off or land­ing every 70 seconds.[2]

Recent­ly, the new coali­tion Lib­er­al Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment in Lon­don have blocked expan­sion plans at Heathrow, Stanst­ed and Gatwick. It seems the avi­a­tion indus­try will be look­ing to expand region­al air­ports like Man­ches­ter to increase their prof­its.

Alex Foun­tain from the Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port coali­tion said, “The new coun­cil­lors need to take a fresh approach to air­port expan­sion. The coun­cil can­not con­tin­ue to ignore its effects on local com­mu­ni­ties – such as ris­ing car­bon pol­lu­tion and noise impacts.”

He con­tin­ued, “There is a tourism defecit in the North­west of Eng­land amount­ing to £2.2 bil­lion. [2] That’s £2.2 bil­lion more being tak­en out of the region than being brought in by air­ports. The argu­ment that air­port expan­sion is good for jobs and the econ­o­my is unfound­ed. We need an update assess­ment of the air­port’s role in the region.”

Man­ches­ter Air­port plan to become car­bon neu­tral by 2015 — but this will not include emis­sions from flights.

A ren­di­tion of ‘Nel­lie the Ele­phant’ by the Toy Dolls was also heard play­ing out the soundsys­tem.
TUNE: Nel­lie the Ele­phant by the Toy Dolls — mp3 3.1M

Notes
————————–

[1] Coun­cil Approve Expan­sion Plans — Man­ches­ter Evening News — 21st Novem­ber 2009 http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1183425_fury_over_airports_move_to_demolish_family_homes

[2] Man­ches­ter Air­port to be as busy as Heathrow — Man­ches­ter Evening News – Mon­day 8th March 2010
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1194908_manchester_airport_to_be_as_busy_as_heathrow

[3] Bren­dan Sewil­l’s ‘Air­port Jobs: Cru­el Hoax, False Hopes’ – page 21.
Avail­able here:
http://www.aef.org.uk/uploads/Airport_jobs___false_hopes_cruel_hoax.pdf

http://www.stopmanchesterairport.org.uk