UK Rossport Solidarity Gathering Feb 12–14th, Sumac Centre, Nottingham (incl.agenda)

Find out more about the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in Co.Mayo, Ire­land & how to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shell in 2010.

Shell&BonesFind out more about the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in Co.Mayo, Ire­land & how to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shell in 2010.

UK sup­port­ers of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp are hold­ing a gath­er­ing at the Sumac Cen­tre in Not­ting­ham from the 12th-14th Feb­ru­ary. Any­one who has been active in the cam­paign or who would like to find out more is wel­come to join us for the week­end. There will be food by dona­tions & accom­mo­da­tion. We will be dis­cussing how to sup­port the strug­gle in Ross­port over the next year as the project moves to the on-shore pipeline stage.

The project has recent­ly been fur­ther delayed, with half of the pro­posed on-shore pipeline route deemed as pos­ing an unac­cept­able risk to the local com­mu­ni­ty. Shell have been asked by the plan­ning board to go away & design a new route by Feb­ru­ary. This will prob­a­bly go through the bay which they had pre­vi­ous­ly ruled out on envi­ron­men­tal & tech­ni­cal grounds.

There is still a lot of fight left in this cam­paign & works on a new route; if giv­en per­mis­sion prob­a­bly won’t start till June. That gives us lots of time to plan & pre­pare a sol­id resis­tance. The local com­mu­ni­ty need our help as much as ever so please come along to the gath­er­ing; meet peo­ple involved in the strug­gle & plot how to take on one of the biggest multi­na­tion­als in the world!!

www.indymedia.ie
www.shelltosea.com

Week­end Itin­er­ary.
Fri 12th: 12–5pm. Cycle car­a­van meet­ing. For those peo­ple inter­est­ed in help­ing to organ­ise a spring ride to Mayo around com­mu­ni­ties in Ire­land.
6pm: Intro­duc­tion to Shell to Sea & the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.
Sat 13th: 10–6pm. Main meet­ing to dis­cuss sup­port­ing the cam­paign both in the UK and the camp.
8pm ‑1am: Ben­e­fit night at the Sumac Cen­tre
Sun 14th: 10am onward. Brunch & space for infor­mal chats/more meet­ings

Veg­an food will be avail­able for dona­tions. Sleep­ing space also pro­vid­ed.
Tel: 07510285458

Fur­ther gath­er­ing details at http://www.veggies.org.uk/event.php?ref=1664

RE-OKUPATION OF THE LAPPERSFORT, CALL OUT FOR SUPPORT

The Lap­pers­fort for­est has been okupied again,
and is now under evic­tion threat.

Come and stay if you like!
Aktion & Evik­tion Prac­tice Week­end 4–6 Decem­ber

Lappersfort December 09 weekend flyerThe Lap­pers­fort for­est has been okupied again,
and is now under evic­tion threat.

Come and stay if you like!
Aktion & Evik­tion Prac­tice Week­end 4–6 Decem­ber

In the dark chilly woods, a new wind is stir­ring; win­ter is mov­ing in, and with the cold nights come a new band of pirates and elves tip­toe­ing their way between the trees.

After 14 months of oku­pa­tion, and a point­less pact with the dev­il signed by 3 pre­vi­ous oku­pants stat­ing that the for­est should be vol­un­tar­i­ly packed up by Novem­ber the 30th, it seemed that the strug­gle to save the Lap­pers­fort was com­ing to an end…

But all ends are new begin­nings in dis­guise, and a new seed of mutiny has been sewn in the fer­tile soil of the forest.As long as it stands threat­ened, the Lap­pers­fort will be okupied by humans to defend it.

Grown over the ruins of an old ammu­ni­tions fac­to­ry, the Lap­pers­fort for­est stands as a sym­bol for the re-growth and re-wild­ing of nature and for the heal­ing of the wounds left by indus­tri­al and sub­ur­ban civil­i­sa­tion.

The action camp is as of now under direct EVICTION THREAT, and we are now busy with bar­rikad­ing, dig­ging in, and get­ting ready every way we can, while still try­ing to reach out for more humans to come and help pro­tect this beau­ti­ful piece of for­est from falling vic­tim to anoth­er point­less project of the kap­i­tal­ist death machine.

For a free­space in the woods and for the woods, for life and wilder­ness every­where, Lap­pers­fort stays until the bit­ter or bet­ter end……

On the week­end of the 4–6th of decem­ber (hop­ing that the camp still exists by then), there will be work­shops on evik­tion and aktion relat­ed stuff, includ­ing climb­ing, tun­nel­ing, lock­ons, freeclimb­ing etc. There will obvi­ous­ly be food and music, and we are still look­ing for indi­vid­u­als or bands to come and play, and oth­er peo­ple with ideas for work­shops are also wished for.

Lap­pers­fort stays!

lappersfort@riseup.net
http://lappersfort.freehostia.com

forest occupation

resis­tance to evic­tion of for­est occu­pa­tion in bel­gium

Dear friends of one of Bel­gium’s last remain­ing forests

The shit is about to hit the fan
the investor’s greedy eyes are cast­ing their long shad­ows over the Lap­pers­fort’s few trees;
their low wages pup­pets are sharp­en­ing their knives and lick­ing their fin­gers

resis­tance to evic­tion of for­est occu­pa­tion in bel­gium

Dear friends of one of Bel­gium’s last remain­ing forests

The shit is about to hit the fan
the investor’s greedy eyes are cast­ing their long shad­ows over the Lap­pers­fort’s few trees;
their low wages pup­pets are sharp­en­ing their knives and lick­ing their fin­gers
We expect the evic­tion of our beloved home with­in the next short month, the 30th/Nov, the 1st and 2nd/Dec so far being the dates of the high­est evic­tion threat
I wished to be able to tell u dif­fer­ent­ly but this place once buzzing with peo­ple is now pret­ty low in num­bers. ‑BUT there are still peo­ple will­ing to fight, so this is a call-out
WE NEED MORE PEOPLE
prefer­ably to stay

what else u can do:
20th/Nov gath­er in the for­est
21st/Nov use medi­a’s cor­rupt­ed minds and play or don’t play along with their stu­pid game once more (details to be explained in case u come)
pass this mes­sage on to any­one u think appro­pri­ate
see u in the trees

http://lappersfort.freehostia.com/en/index/index.html
tele­phone-num­ber: 0032 470 — 96 86 51
lappersfort@gmail.com

Buy Nothing Day (Bristol, Birmingham, Falmouth, Leeds, Lincoln, Sheffield…) — Steal Something Day (everywhere)

Bris­tol: To buy, or not to buy…

Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 28th is Buy Noth­ing Day (UK). It’s a day where you chal­lenge your­self, your fam­i­ly and friends to switch off from shop­ping and tune into life. The rules are sim­ple, for 24 hours you will detox from shop­ping and any­one can take part pro­vid­ed they spend a day with­out spend­ing!

Shop Less Live MoreBris­tol: To buy, or not to buy…

Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 28th is Buy Noth­ing Day (UK). It’s a day where you chal­lenge your­self, your fam­i­ly and friends to switch off from shop­ping and tune into life. The rules are sim­ple, for 24 hours you will detox from shop­ping and any­one can take part pro­vid­ed they spend a day with­out spend­ing!

Every­thing we buy has an impact on the envi­ron­ment. Buy Noth­ing Day high­lights the envi­ron­men­tal and eth­i­cal con­se­quences of shop­ping. The devel­oped coun­tries — only 20% of the world pop­u­la­tion are con­sum­ing over 80% of the earth­’s nat­ur­al resources, caus­ing a dis­pro­por­tion­ate lev­el of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and an unfair dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth.

As con­sumers we need to ques­tion the prod­ucts we buy and chal­lenge the com­pa­nies who pro­duce them. What are the true risks to the envi­ron­ment and devel­op­ing coun­tries? The argu­ment is infi­nite — while it con­tin­ues we should be look­ing for sim­ple solu­tions and Buy Noth­ing Day is a good place to start.

As last year’s buy noth­ing day was a huge suc­cess in the city cen­tre, we will be doing the same event again — a free shop, where peo­ple can take away things for free. We will be right at the heart of the mad shop­ping world that is Broad­mead.

Help­ing peo­ple think about the mate­r­i­al world we live in, and mak­ing con­scious deci­sions in the way we exploit the world, its peo­ple and the nat­ur­al resources.

Bring musi­cal instru­ments, things to give away in the free shop, chalk, and your love­ly self!

Hope to see you there.

Hap­py 10th Buy Noth­ing Day!

Buy Noth­ing Day start­ed in North Amer­i­ca in the ear­ly 90’s and has grown to an inter­na­tion­al day cel­e­brat­ed in over 50 coun­tries. The Buy Noth­ing Day UK web­site went online in Jan­u­ary 2000. We’re not quite 10 years old, but on Novem­ber 28th Buy Noth­ing Day will be just 10 days young — anoth­er rea­son to cel­e­brate the fru­gal fes­ti­val.

http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/

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Birm­ing­ham: We are hold­ing our 8th annu­al San­ta Parade in Birm­ing­ham City Cen­tre for Buy Noth­ing Day on 28th Novem­ber at 12:00 noon. Email: joe (at) birminghamfoe.org.uk. For last years parade click here.

============

Fal­mouth:
Free Shop
Ker­now Action Now! a new direct action group in Corn­wall will be launch­ing what will become a reg­u­lar Freeshop on Buy Noth­ing Day. The Freeshop will be from 1pm out­side the old Wool­worths in Fal­mouth, Corn­wall.

============

Leeds:

Buy Noth­ing Day is try­ing to make peo­ple think about the goods they buy — think before you shop!  We are NOT ask­ing you to go with­out milk if you run out. Instead, before you buy think about where things come from, how they got here, what resources were used to make them and: do you REALLY need them?

The idea is to encour­age peo­ple that instead of buy­ing some­thing for Christ­mas they could make some­thing (see our alter­na­tive Christ­mas gifts for ideas).  There is so much adver­tis­ing say­ing BUY THIS we thought that there should be some say­ing BUY NOTHING.

Last year we had Christ­mas Car­ols, a free shop, food and all for free in Brig­gate.  Lots of peo­ple inter­est­ed in the con­cept and lots of cups of tea.

Join us.

See web­site below for meet­ings or come to Brig­gate — 11am

http://www.greenactionleeds.org.uk/buy-nothing-day-09

============

Lin­coln:

My Dads Strip Club out again on Buy-Noth­ing-Day-Release, this time three events in three days in the city of Lin­coln.

Thurs 26 Nov 2009 8–10pm Dog and Bone, St Johns St, Lin­coln.
BITE THE HAND feeds thoughts of break­ing con­di­tioned respons­es … sub­vert­ing sys­tems upon them­selves… inter­rupt­ing need­less con­sump­tion… and cut­ting off the pow­er. Enjoy an evening at the Dog and Bone with My Dads Strip Club as they demon­strate to you ‘the art of reclaim­ing space’. Putting embar­rass­ment aside, they will address the del­i­cate sub­ject of car­nal knowl­edge of Coke machines. The com­e­dy in the work runs very close to anger, and excites all kinds of stuff in on-look­ers.

Fri 27 Nov 2009 5.30–7.30 pm at the Healthy Hub cafe Beau­mont Fee
(after The 4pm Mini-Wave hap­pen­ing at the cathe­dral )
FROM DIRTY CASH TO CLEAN GREEN come watch us try to nav­i­gate our way out of the chaos of cli­mate change through draw­ing and per­for­mance cap­tur­ing the con­nec­tions between slag heaps and super­mod­els green-wash­ing and the titan­ic and our flood­ed out cum­bri­an towns. Sound by FLOTEL.

Sat 28 Nov 2009 at var­i­ous loca­tions in the city of Lin­coln.
GOOD SHIT DOESN’T HAVE TO COST THE EARTH Mak­ing our annu­al dis-func­tion­al attempt to relate to the shop­ping expe­ri­ence MDSC will try to coerce inno­cent shop­pers to break their addic­tion to mass pro­duced poor­ly made prod­ucts (cheap-shit) instead offer­ing for sale alter­na­tive organ­ic and sus­tain­able high-priced mer­chan­dise. Meet us for a report back at the Dog and Bone pub 1pm sharp.

______________________

Lin­coln Mini Wave — meet Fri­day 4pm out­side Lin­coln Cathe­dral. The event is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with mobil­i­sa­tions around the UN con­fer­ence in Copen­hagen www.ecolincs.org
Buy Noth­ing Day — sab­o­tage the shop­ping
www.buynothingday.co.uk
www.dogandbonelincoln.co.uk — Best com­mu­ni­ty pub in Great Britain award 2009

http://www.mydadstripclub.com

============

Con­sumer Virus Out­break, Sheffield

Meet by the stat­ue in the main Mead­owhall con­course at 1pm and do any­thing but shop!
We know that sweet tasty braaaains will be short sup­ply dur­ing the run up to Christ­mas, but let’s see what we can do … Zom­bies and out­break cleanup crew are all wel­come : bring friends, cos­tumes, signs and fake blood aplen­ty!!!
A face­book event page can be found here : www.facebook.com
FEEL FREE TO INVITE FRIENDS : ALL ARE WELCOME IN THE ZOMBIE HOARD!!!

============
Steal Something Day
Steal Some­thing Day

“…Unlike Buy Noth­ing Day, when peo­ple are asked to “par­tic­i­pate by not par­tic­i­pat­ing,” Steal Some­thing Day demands that we “par­tic­i­pate by par­tic­i­pat­ing.” Instead of down­play­ing or ignor­ing the cap­i­tal­ists, CEOs, land­lords, small busi­ness tyrants, boss­es, PR hacks, yup­pies, media lap­dogs, cor­po­rate bureau­crats, politi­cians and cops who are pri­mar­i­ly respon­si­ble for mis­ery and exploita­tion in this world, Steal Some­thing Day demands that we steal from them, with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion.…

…Unlike the mis­placed Buy Noth­ing Day notion of con­sumer empow­er­ment, Steal Some­thing Day pro­motes empow­er­ment by urg­ing us to col­lec­tive­ly iden­ti­fy the greedy bas­tards who are actu­al­ly respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing mis­ery and bore­dom in this world. Instead of ignor­ing them, Steal Some­thing Day encour­ages us to make their lives as uncom­fort­able as pos­si­ble.

As we like to say in Mon­tre­al: diranger les rich­es dans leurs nich­es!

And remem­ber, we’re talk­ing about steal­ing, not theft. Steal­ing is just. Theft is exploita­tive. Steal­ing is when you take a yup­pie’s BMW for a joyride, and crash into a parked Mer­cedes just for the hell of it. Theft is when you take can­dy from a baby’s mouth.

Steal­ing is the re-dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth from rich to poor Theft is mak­ing prof­its at the expense of the dis­ad­van­taged and the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment. Steal­ing is an unwrit­ten a tax on the rich. Theft is tax­ing the poor to sub­si­dize the rich. Steal­ing is noth­ing more than a tax on the rich. There is sol­i­dar­i­ty in steal­ing, but prop­er­ty is noth­ing but theft.…”

For the full orig­i­nal text and call-out, go to http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/432

Copenhagen COP15 Logistics — addresses — Locations — accomodation

This is a newslet­ter on the logis­tics con­cern­ing COP15, regard­ing what we know so far and what we are plan­ning. Some things still haven’t been sort­ed out yet as bureau­cra­cy in Den­mark works very slow.
[For the fullest most cor­rect set of dates for protests dur­ing the con­fer­ence go to the Action dates & gath­er­ings link]

This is a newslet­ter on the logis­tics con­cern­ing COP15, regard­ing what we know so far and what we are plan­ning. Some things still haven’t been sort­ed out yet as bureau­cra­cy in Den­mark works very slow.
[For the fullest most cor­rect set of dates for protests dur­ing the con­fer­ence go to the Action dates & gath­er­ings link]

1) ACCOMMODATION
2) FOOD
3) INFO POINTS
4) CONVERGENCE CENTRES
5) LEGAL TEAM
6) BORDER CONTROL
7) VISAS

8) VOLUNTEERS
9) MEDICS & TRAUMA
10) KIDS

11) WHAT TO BRING
12) TRANSPORT
13) MAPS
14) PLEDGING AND DONATIONS
15) MORE INFO

This is the sec­ond edi­tion, we’ll be doing at least a third one just before the COP. Don’t pan­ic if you arrive in CPH dur­ing COP15 not know­ing how every­thing works. Just go to an info-point, all of which are cur­rent­ly being fig­ured out; some will be cen­tral­ly locat­ed around the Klimaforum09 and cen­tral sta­tion and some in Chris­tia­nia and in the con­ver­gence cen­ter in Nør­re­bro. See map below for details.

If you have any ques­tions con­cern­ing logis­tics, inputs, requests or any­thing else that we haven’t thought of, please don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact us at logistics.cop15@gmail.com

Best regards,
Logis­tic-group of Cli­mate Col­lec­tive, Den­mark
www.climatecollective.org // www.climate-justice-action.org

1) ACCOMMODATION:

To bet­ter orga­nize accom­mo­da­tion for all of you, we would love if you could let us know you are com­ing, if you need us to pro­vide you with a sleep­ing place. We are not ask­ing you to reg­is­ter! You just have to tell us how many peo­ple you are com­ing with, from when to when, and, only if you like to, you can leave us a name, a con­tact and your coun­try of ori­gin. Please fill the form in only if you need to be accom­mo­dat­ed by us! You can find the form here:
http://www.climate-justice-action.org/practical-info/let-us-know-youre-coming/

As it looks right now there are 3 dif­fer­ent pos­si­bil­i­ties con­cern­ing accom­mo­da­tion.

Com­mu­nal accom­mo­da­tion:
The sit­u­a­tion is that we are (still) nego­ti­at­ing with the local munic­i­pal­i­ty of Copen­hagen in order to get access to big sports halls and schools in the area of Copen­hagen to use for accom­mo­da­tion. We are doing it on a non-reg­is­tra­tion base. Accom­mo­da­tion will be free, but of course always hap­py about dona­tions, as there will be some expens­es for e.g. heat­ing and elec­tric­i­ty. The sites will fea­ture the basics; heat and prop­er san­i­tary con­di­tions. Not all sites may have access to show­ers, but in that case show­er loca­tions will be made avail­able else­where in the city, although this might include a small user pay­ment.

Cur­rent­ly, we have sev­er­al sites on our hands:

a. Two vacant schools, Fred­erikssundsve­jen and Vold­parken schools, both with show­ers, toi­lets and heat­ing and Fred­erikssundsve­jen will host a kitchen.
— At the moment it looks like there’ll be some addi­tion­al fund­ing, ear­marked for us, from the munic­i­pal­i­ty for rent­ing addi­tion­al sites.
— We’re map­ping and work­ing on vacant build­ings in Copen­hagen and estab­lish­ing con­tact with Copen­hagen Project House, already work­ing with this.

b. Rooms at unions, some with show­ers.
— Among oth­er, we have con­firmed space at the union of the chil­dren’s social work­ers.
— We’re still col­lect­ing sup­port and build­ing rela­tions with unions, so hope­ful­ly more to come.

c. Fly­dende By, Float­ing City, has final­ly been grant­ed a num­ber of large indus­tri­al halls and build­ings in Copen­hagen’s South Har­bour and we will be turn­ing these into accom­mo­da­tion and social sites.

d. Rooms in com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters, both in Nør­re­bro and the South Har­bor.

In the near­est future, we will com­pile the dif­fer­ent sites, get an overview and dis­trib­ute more spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion.

Dur­ing the sum­mit, you can always just go to an info point (see below), when you arrive to Copen­hagen to know where accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able. The info points will also be reach­able by phone, again details will ome out in a lat­er update.

We expect the halls to open for accom­mo­da­tion from when the sum­mit starts, but we’ll also be able to accom­mo­date peo­ple in the run up – so you’re more the wel­come to come ear­ly and help out. Con­tact us by mail if you need accom­mo­da­tion before the COP starts.

“Ung­domshuset”
Dortheavej
a.k.a The Youth House. A social cen­ter which will fea­ture a kitchen, work­shops, meet­ing rooms and more.

Kapelve­jens med­borg­er­hus,
Kapelvej 44
Emer­gency sleep­ing place, show­ers etc

Pri­vate accom­mo­da­tion with (ran­dom) locals:
If you want to sleep pri­vate­ly, sent an email to: (the dead­line for sign up is the 8th of Novem­ber) contact@newlifecopenhagen.com

It’s an art project, in order to get peo­ple togeth­er. Every­one with­in an hour of trans­porta­tion from Copen­hagen can sign up as a host. The host and guest are put togeth­er ran­dom­ly, so you can’t choose your host. Go to the web­site www.newlifecopenhagen.com to check out details. This option involves some reg­is­tra­tion and cen­tral­ized, bureau­crat­ic dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Pri­vate accom­mo­da­tion with Dan­ish activists:
If you have par­tic­u­lar rea­sons for not want­i­ng to use the com­mu­nal accom­mo­da­tion, which we advise you to as much as pos­si­ble, you can stay with local Dan­ish activists and avoid to go through the gen­er­al pub­lic sign-up (New Life Copen­hagen, see above), you are asked to use the fol­low­ing email-address.

privateaccommodation.cop15@gmail.com

Please send us an e‑mail, con­tain­ing name, how many you will like to stay togeth­er (if you don’t mind stay­ing indi­vid­u­al­ly, please state so in the mail), if pos­si­ble the dura­tion of your stay and con­tact infor­ma­tion. You will then receive a mail with con­tact info of your host a few weeks before the COP15, so you can do the actu­al arrang­ing your­self. We can­not guar­an­tee peo­ple a spot though.

Please note, that the Dan­ish scene can only pro­vide sleep­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for a lim­it­ed num­ber of guests.

2) FOOD:

People’s kitchens will be set up on cen­tral spots in Copen­hagen, such as info points, accom­mo­da­tion spaces, when pos­si­ble, and in areas of activist activ­i­ties. The biggest kitchen will be placed close to Kli­maFo­rum, and the Cen­tral sta­tion, at an info­point. Oth­er big kitchens will be at Folkets in Nør­re­bro and at Nemoland in Chris­tia­nia. All kitchens will need vol­un­teers dur­ing the hole peri­od. Food will be brought out to the larg­er demos and actions. We will have to ask for dona­tions, around 20 DKK (2–3 Euros) per meal.

Also we are send­ing a call out to all veg­e­tar­i­an restau­rants, cafe’s and walk by shops, to have spe­cial low cost offers.

If you’re part of a people’s kitchen plan­ning to come for the COP15 and have not been in con­tact with us yet, please con­tact the logis­tics-group at: logistics.cop15@gmail.com for coor­di­na­tion.

3) INFO POINTS:

Info points will be set up sev­er­al places in Copen­hagen and we are try­ing to mobi­lize Dan­ish orga­ni­za­tions and groups to help out, but inter­na­tion­al vol­un­teers will be need­ed, espe­cial­ly as groups tak­ing on orga­niz­ing the man­age­ment of a spe­cif­ic site.

Sites: (see map below for exact loca­tion)
— On the Cen­tral Sta­tion, pri­mar­i­ly as an infor­ma­tion and “redi­rec­tion” stand
— In Råhuset next to one of the com­mu­nal kitchens by KlimaForum09 near­by the Cen­tral Sta­tion
— In the con­ver­gence cen­ter Støberi­et on Nør­re­bro
— In Chris­tia­nia, near the com­mu­nal kitchen
— On the social cen­ter Bol­sje­fab­rikken, The Can­dy Fac­to­ry in Copen­hagen North-West area

So far we’re think­ing that the info points would be places with:
— Infor­ma­tion on var­i­ous prac­ti­cal mat­ters and con­tacts, fur­ther­more info on the fol­low­ing:
— Food and accom­mo­da­tion space
— Geog­ra­phy of Copen­hagen (maps)
— Legal rights, trau­ma and medics
— Free inter­net ser­vices, with some com­put­ers avail­able
— Hot drinks for freez­ing tem­per­a­tures
— Free shop (with warm clothes, etc.)

… Please send logistics.cop15@gmail.com any more fea­tures you would sug­gest.

4) CONVERGENCE CENTERS:
We are work­ing with a few con­ver­gence cen­ters spread around the cen­tral parts of Copen­hagen. To clar­i­fy, when speak­ing of a con­ver­gence cen­ter we talk of both a social space to relax, dis­cuss and research, a space for prac­ti­cal and oth­er prepa­ra­tions and con­tain­ing facil­i­ties like medics and trau­ma.

Folkets Hus, Sten­gade 50
Key point of activ­i­ties for activists dur­ing COP15 includ­ing a peo­ples kitchen. The non-com­er­cial cafe will be run­ning as nor­mal dur­ing the entire peri­od. Here you can get cheap cof­fee and oth­er nice organ­ic things.

Sites: (see map for exact loca­tions)

- The “main” con­ver­gence, Støberi­et on Blågårds Plads 3 on Nør­re­bro, which will fea­ture medics, trau­ma sup­port, legal aid, meet­ing and social spaces and info point.

- Bol­sje­fab­rikken, The Can­dy Fac­to­ry, Laekevej 11 which is a social cen­ter in Copen­hagen NW (next to Nør­re­bro). This will be a more prac­ti­cal cen­ter fea­tur­ing work­shop areas with tools and acces­sories, kitchen, social and meet­ing spaces and an info point.

- A small­er con­ver­gence, Råhuset by KlimaForum09 on Vester­bro. This will pri­mar­i­ly fea­ture a social space and info point, also some KlimaForum09 activ­i­ties and more. It is locat­ed next to the main com­mu­nal kitchen.

- The House of Sol­i­dar­i­ty — Sol­i­daritet­shuset, Grif­f­en­feldts­gade 41 — Activist media cen­ter on Nør­re­bro will fea­ture a be-the-media activist cen­tre open for every­one. It’s locat­ed very close to the “main” con­ver­gence, Støberi­et.

5) LEGAL TEAM
A legal team of law-stu­dents has been set up in Copen­hagen. They have worked out a paper on basic rights in Den­mark for Danes and for­eign­ers, see attached file. They are in con­tact with lawyers and will work from their office dur­ing the whole peri­od of the COP.

Mean­while we are set­ting up a prison sol­i­dar­i­ty sup­port group, that will do the over­all coor­di­na­tion of legal aid and prison sup­port. They will be based in Støberi­et, the main info­point at Nør­re­bro. So if you have any legal issue or ques­tion, go to Støberi­et. Then they can redi­rect you to the office of the legal team if it’s need­ed (which is very close to Støberi­et).

If you or your group wants to work on legal aid dur­ing the COP, please con­tact climate09legalaid@gmail.com, for coor­di­na­tion.

6) BORDER CONTROL
We strong­ly rec­om­mend you to bring your pass­port even though you are trav­el­ling from a coun­try mem­ber of Schen­gen. Peo­ple going to the G8-sum­mit in Ros­tock in 2008 were checked at the Danish/German bor­der and peo­ple not pos­sess­ing a pass­port were imme­di­ate­ly sent back. We expect the same to hap­pen dur­ing the COP15.

Bor­der sup­port teams are being set up at the German/Danish bor­der and the Swedish/Danish bor­der, togeth­er with lawyer sup­port from Copen­hagen. There will be orga­nized pick up spots for peo­ple being denied entrance. We will have more spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion on this in the final newslet­ter, such as phone num­ber, etc.

If you’re a group work­ing with bor­der issues, please con­tact climate09legalaid@gmail.com, for coor­di­na­tion.

7) VISAS
From some coun­tries, includ­ing all Schen­gen coun­tries, you don ́t need a visa. See the list in the fol­low­ing link to see if you need one:

http://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-us/coming_to_dk/visa/who_needs_visa.htm

PLEASE BE AWARE: It can take up to 8 weeks to get a visa, and costs around 60 Euros. If you need a visa then you need to start the process imme­di­ate­ly.

How to apply, go to:
http://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-us/coming_to_dk/visa/how-to/how_to_app.htm

To get a visa you need a ref­er­ence in Den­mark. The eas­i­est and most direct way to get a visa is to go through Kli­maFo­rum, it doesn’t mat­ter if you don’t intend to par­tic­i­pate in the forum. You need to fill out the attached spread­sheet in this mail and send it to: klimaforum09@klimaforum09.org
It would ease the process a lot if you reg­is­ter in groups. The dead­line for reg­is­ter­ing is already the 6th of Novem­ber.

If you have any ques­tions or con­cerns, please write us at climatevisa@gmail.com
To get a more detailed guide on how to apply for a visa, please write the email address above.

8) VOLUNTEERS
We need your vol­un­teer help to make our con­ver­gence on Copen­hagen suc­cess­ful. Sign up both as an indi­vid­ual and even bet­ter as a group that is pre­pared to take on coor­di­nat­ing the logis­tics of a spe­cif­ic site for a spe­cif­ic peri­od of time:

- Keep­ing an eye on accom­mo­da­tion areas, media cen­ters, etc.: Look after an area, give out basic infos and make sure every­thing runs smooth­ly (both day and night shifts will be need­ed)

- Cook­ing food: chop veg­gies in one of the many com­mu­nal kitchens and save the starv­ing activists!

- Work­ing in an Info point: Give out info of all kinds about town and COP15. You will be giv­en all the info you might need, but it might help if you know Copen­hagen, COP15 or the alter­na­tive activ­i­ties a bit before­hand.

- Work­ing as IT and tech­ni­cal sup­port (media cen­ter): help solv­ing any kind of IT cri­sis we might face

- Coor­di­nat­ing vol­un­teers: You will be in charge of coor­di­nat­ing one group of vol­un­teers con­nect­ed to one spe­cif­ic place/role. Coor­di­nate and smoothen up shifts, time tables and so forth.

- Driving/being a run­ner: Dri­ve food around, go buy­ing stuff or mate­ri­als, etc

- Mak­ing Pro­pa­gan­da, hand out fly­ers, put up posters

- Trans­la­tion: help us trans­lat­ing from and to dif­fer­ent lan­guages, both spo­ken and writ­ten (press releas­es etc.)

You can sign up here: http://www.climate-justice-action.org/mobilization/volunteer/
If you have ques­tions write an email to climatevolunteers@gmail.com

9) MEDICS AND TRAUMA SUPPORT
For both the medics and trau­ma sup­port, there are Dan­ish groups coor­di­nat­ing affin­i­ty groups from a series of coun­tries. Both groups will have a cen­tral area in the con­ver­gence cen­ter Støberi­et, as well as oth­er loca­tions.

Are you an affin­i­ty group or indi­vid­ual doing medic work, please write streetmedics-d09@aktivix.org.

Are you an affin­i­ty group or indi­vid­ual doing trau­ma sup­port, please write efa-cop@activix.org.

10) KIDS
There will so far be one medi­um sized space for kids to hang out. This space will be orga­nized in col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Bot­tom meet­ing in Chris­ta­nia, and will need some par­ents to help out, take turns etc. We don’t real­ly have an overview of what is need­ed in rela­tion to kids, so if you’re inter­est­ed — send an email to logistics.cop15@gmail.com. We hope to make anoth­er space for kids if it’s need­ed.

We are plan­ning to reserve some accom­mo­da­tion places/room for fam­i­lies, see more on accom­mo­da­tion above.

11) WHAT TO BRING
— Warm clothes, aver­age tem­per­a­ture in DK in Decem­ber is between 5 and 0 degrees Cel­sius, and at night below zero.

- Rain clothes, as it can be rain­ing a lot, but usu­al­ly snow will not come until Jan­u­ary.

- Mon­ey for dona­tions for food and to cov­er oth­er needs.

- Sleep­ing bag and sleep­ing pad (if sleep­ing pri­vate­ly, ask your host what’s nec­es­sary)

12) TRANSPORT

Trans­port to Copen­hagen:

UK Realt­ed info (trav­el, what to bring, legal etc):
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/copenhagen-2009/coaches
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/copenhagen-2009/logistics
http://www.blackcross.dk/bustcards/la_english.asp
http://www.climate-justice-action.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Your_legal_rights_in_Denmark.pdf

Peo­ple are com­ing from all direc­tions to the COP, try to hook up with some­one already plan­ning to come. The web­site is gath­er­ing all infor­ma­tion on how peo­ple come here if they have place for oth­ers. So if you have place for oth­ers, (for instance) with a bus, down­load the form here http://www.climate-justice-action.org/media/documents/ fill it out, and send it to convergence@climate-justice-action.org. Then peo­ple have the pos­si­bil­i­ty to find you.

If you want to hook up with oth­er to come, check out the prac­ti­cal info sec­tion in a few days or click on the “Con­verge on CPH” but­ton on the web­page. Infor­ma­tion will be updat­ed con­stant­ly, so keep your eyes open and let us know how you are com­ing as soon as you decide.

Trans­port with­in Den­mark:
Dan­ish Rail­ways: www.dsb.dk . Right cor­ner to switch to Eng­lish. It’s eas­i­est to use the “jour­ney plan­ner”.

In order to go to KlimaForum09, get off at “Hov­ed­banegår­den”, which is the main sta­tion.
In order to go to Nør­re­bro with con­ver­gence cen­ters, info points etc. get off at “Nør­re­port st.” (but be aware that all trains don’t stop there). See map for details.

13) MAPS
Go to this web­site to see overview of loca­tions of inter­ests dur­ing COP15. The map will be updat­ed con­tin­u­ous­ly.

http://tiny.cc/cop

14) PLEDGING AND DONATIONS
In order to set up this infra­struc­ture in Copen­hagen and plan the dif­fer­ent CJA actions it requires quite a lot of mon­ey. Con­tri­bu­tion is always need­ed, you can of course make a con­tri­bu­tion when com­ing to COP15, but it’s actu­al­ly a big­ger help for us if we have it before­hand.

Organizations/groups/network/individuals can trans­fer mon­ey using this infor­ma­tion:

IBAN: DK2484010001125014
SWIFT-code:
VEHODK22 for inter­na­tion­al cur­ren­cy except Euros
MEKUDK21 for Euros

As an indi­vid­ual it might be eas­i­er just using pay­pal, se more here:
http://www.climate-justice-action.org/donate/

If you’re hav­ing prob­lems trans­fer­ring mon­ey or so, please write to: climate09accountancy@gmail.com

15) WHERE TO FIND MORE INFORMATION

www.climatecollective.org
Cli­mate Col­lec­tive is a net­work of Dan­ish groups and indi­vid­u­als that coor­di­nate and orga­nize activ­i­ties and actions relat­ed to cli­mate change from an ant cap­i­tal­is­tic stance. Towards COP15, Cli­mate Col­lec­tive is mobi­liz­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Den­mark, and is orga­niz­ing and coor­di­nat­ing logis­tics.

www.climate-justice-action.org
CJA is a broad inter­na­tion­al net­work, with mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions from all over the world. They are plan­ning actu­al actions in Copen­hagen dur­ing the COP and putting an effort to coor­di­nate mobi­liza­tion world­wide along with doing sol­i­dar­i­ty work with the Glob­al South.

www.klimaforum09.dk
Klimaforum09 is also referred to as “The alter­na­tive sum­mit”. It will take place dur­ing the same time as COP15. Klimaforum09 is orga­nized by a broad coali­tion of Dan­ish and inter­na­tion­al envi­ron­men­tal move­ments and civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions. Go to their web­site to learn more about the dec­la­ra­tion-process and the pro­gram.

http://nevertrustacop.org/
The Nev­er Trust A COP net­work was formed in April 2009 by indi­vid­u­als who want to link social strug­gles and cli­mate activism based on an anti-cap­i­tal­ist analy­sis to mobi­lize against the COP15 sum­mit.

Global Minga Round-up (AKA Mobilisation in Defence of Mother Earth and the Peoples)

Octo­ber 12 (the 517th anniver­sary of Colum­bus’ land­ing in the West­ern Hemi­sphere) marked the first day of the Glob­al “Minga”/Mobilisation in Defence of Moth­er Earth and the Peo­ples, called by the IV Con­ti­nen­tal Sum­mit of Indige­nous Peo­ples Abya Yala.

Octo­ber 12 (the 517th anniver­sary of Colum­bus’ land­ing in the West­ern Hemi­sphere) marked the first day of the Glob­al “Minga”/Mobilisation in Defence of Moth­er Earth and the Peo­ples, called by the IV Con­ti­nen­tal Sum­mit of Indige­nous Peo­ples Abya Yala. Ral­lies, protests and oth­er actions are being car­ried out around the world in response to the call, includ­ing (infra­struc­ture-relat­ed actions high­light­ed):

Labrador, Cana­da: Inuu elder and activist Eliz­a­beth Penashue launched a week-long walk along the Mit­sa-Shipu (Churchill Riv­er) from Hap­py Val­ley-Goose Bay to Gull Island, in oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed Low­er Churchill Hydro Project. If built, the two dams would cause vast envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion and irrepara­ble loss of Innu land, his­to­ry and cul­ture.

USA: The Com­mit­tee in Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Peo­ple of El Sal­vador (CISPES) is hold­ing a week­long mobi­liza­tion against the North Amer­i­can and Cen­tral Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ments (NAFTA/CAFTA) and against gold min­ing in El Sal­vador. Events are planned for Seat­tle, Olympia, Port­land (OR), San Fran­cis­co, Wash­ing­ton (DC), Mil­wau­kee, Los Ange­les, Boston, New York, Bal­ti­more and Philadel­phia. Find out more infor­ma­tion here.

On Octo­ber 16, the Duran­go, Col­orado chap­ters of Earth First! and Root Force are pre­sent­ing the Bee­hive Design Col­lec­tive on their True Cost of Coal graph­ic tour.

Lon­don, Eng­land: Protests were held at the Colom­bian, Peru­vian and Span­ish embassies, the UK For­eign Office and the Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate change, demand­ing and end to EU-Latin Amer­i­ca free trade agree­ments and an end to UK agro­fu­el sub­si­dies.

Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia: A Latin Amer­i­can Sol­i­dar­i­ty Net­work space was launched at Trades Hall. A doc­u­men­tary film night will be held Octo­ber 15.

Guatemala: Social move­ments marked the Min­ga with a non­vi­o­lent demon­stra­tion. An assas­sin dressed in black fired on the crowd, killing a 19-year-old and seri­ous­ly injur­ing a 16- and a 65-year-old.

Colom­bia: More than 25,000 indige­nous Peo­ple have begun to March to the city of Cali to protest for respect for their ter­ri­to­ry and against the harm­ful social poli­cies main­tained by the Uribe gov­ern­ment. The pro­test­ers are expect­ing to arrive on Octo­ber 16. 115 indige­nous coun­cils have ceased ongo­ing dia­logues with the gov­ern­ment for the occa­sion. (For updates, keep an eye on: www.cric-colombia.org, www.onic.org.co). Approx­i­mate­ly 2000 Uwa have also begun an “armed strike in oppo­si­tion to Ecopetrol, who has been exploit­ing nat­ur­al resources from their ances­tral sanc­tu­ary for the past 13 years.

Paris, France: Social groups have orga­nized a week of sol­i­dar­i­ty actions for the Min­ga, includ­ing pub­lic debates, forums, a one-day fes­ti­val, and protest ral­lies in sup­port of Indige­nous Peo­ples.

Argenti­na: A Glob­al Week of Action against Debt and Inter­na­tion­al Finance Insti­tu­tions (IFI’s) is run­ning in con­junc­tion with the Min­ga. Oppos­ing the new agree­ment between the Gov­ern­ment and the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, par­tic­i­pants will be ral­ly­ing for cli­mate jus­tice (Octo­ber 13), rur­al women and the repu­di­a­tion of debt (15 Octo­ber), food sov­er­eign­ty (16 Octo­ber) and the erad­i­ca­tion of pover­ty (Octo­ber 17). A memo­r­i­al was also held on Octo­ber 11, hon­or­ing the mar­tyrs of resis­tance.

Cuba: A one day event http://www.movimientos.org/defensamadretierra/show_text.php3%3Fkey%3D15924&rurl=translate.google.ca&usg=ALkJrhgIwwHDwwtuTEeL6TgbGl3sC3Ef7g” target=“_blank”>commemorating the tenth anniver­sary of the Cry of the Exclud­ed was held in Havana.

Bolivia: The First hear­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Cli­mate Jus­tice will be run­ning at the Uni­ver­si­dad May­or de San Simón in Cochabam­ba, from Octo­ber 13 to 17. The event will be trans­mit­ted LIVE on the inter­net. An Assem­bly of Social Move­ments will also be held in Cochabam­ba on the 15th, imme­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by a Region­al Meet­ing Against Cli­mate Change.

Peru: Del­e­ga­tions from around the coun­try marched to the head­quar­ters of the UN in Lima on Octo­ber 12, to present a series of demands and pro­pos­als by indige­nous peo­ples to stop glob­al warm­ing. This will be fol­lowed by 3 days of work­shops led by indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

Oth­er events, includ­ing fes­ti­vals, work­shops, protests, Cer­e­monies and oth­er actions are tak­ing place in Spain, Ecuador, Uruguay, Brazil, and else­where.

Via Campesina has also called for an Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Multi­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tions for the final day of the Min­ga: Octo­ber 16, 2009.

Defend­ers of the Land, a cross-Cana­da net­work of First Nations in land strug­gle, is also putting togeth­er a week of edu­ca­tion­al events on Indige­nous Rights and strug­gles, from Octo­ber 25–31, 2009.

More infor­ma­tion and reports are avail­able (in Span­ish) here.

Phoenix, AZ — The week was kicked off with a protest at Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty against the recog­ni­tion of “Colum­bus Day,” along with edu­ca­tion about the true (geno­ci­dal) nature of Colum­bus. The rest of the week con­sists of a media ini­tia­tive to spread the truth about Colum­bus Day. It will cul­mi­nate on Fri­day with a mass march to protest the racist and human rights-abus­ing poli­cies of Mari­co­pa Coun­ty Sher­riff Joe Arpaio.

Tuc­son, AZ — A ban­ner was sus­pend­ed from a down­town bridge in oppo­si­tion to min­ing (pos­si­bly a ref­er­ence to planned cop­per mines in Ari­zona).

Anoth­er anti-mines ban­ner, this one read­ing “No New Mines on Apache Land! Ya Bas­ta!” was hung in Tuc­son, AZ on Octo­ber 16 (this time from the “Snake Bridge” over Broad­way Boule­vard). It was in oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed mine in Supe­ri­or, Ari­zona on sacred Apache land.

Also in Tuc­son, activists held a Fair Trade fair. In Tuc­son and New York City, activists dis­trib­uted infor­ma­tion on the con­nec­tion between the North Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ment (NAFTA) and swine flu.

MOVEMENT #1 — No Borders Newsletter

The new free month­ly newslet­ter fea­tur­ing news and updates from the No Bor­ders Net­work and beyond.

Down­load the .pdf

Join the mail­ing list

MOVEMENT 1The new free month­ly newslet­ter fea­tur­ing news and updates from the No Bor­ders Net­work and beyond.

Down­load the .pdf

Join the mail­ing list

The re-nam­ing and re-launch­ing of the newslet­ter is part of an attempt to to cre­ate a more reg­u­lar and broad based peri­od­i­cal, draw­ing in oth­er groups, organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als that work for free­dom of move­ment and equal­i­ty for all.

More details

Blockade of UN’s Climate Change Conference in Barcelona

Wednes­day 4th Novem­ber in the morn­ing — Eco Activists block for one hour the main entrance to the UN’s Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence tak­ing place in Barcelona.

UN Barcelona blockadeWednes­day 4th Novem­ber in the morn­ing — Eco Activists block for one hour the main entrance to the UN’s Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence tak­ing place in Barcelona.

This morn­ing more than forty activists blocked the entrances to the main halls of the con­fer­ence cen­tre where the BARCELONA CLIMATE TALKS are tak­ing place. Their action involved shut­ting and lock­ing many of the main entrances, tap­ing build­ing tape X´s across shut doors, plac­ing stick­ers on doors say­ing entrances closed. Their action had a ban­ner that read that “With­out a dras­tic reduc­tion, there is no solu­tion.”

There was quite a lot of press cov­er­age, includ­ing Cata­lan TV3 and Japan­ese nation­al TV. They chant­ed songs about cli­mate change, read out state­ments and spoke from the heart as to the rea­sons for their actions in Cata­lan, Span­ish and Eng­lish. At one point an excel­lent eco rap tune was sung.

Amongst oth­er things men­tioned was the fol­low­ing; the fact that Africa feel they have to boy­cott the talks due to lack of seri­ous­ness from the rich coun­tries, the fact that peo­ple were there to speak on behalf of indige­nous in Bagua, Peru who are defend­ing their land, which has been sold off by Peru­vian state along with 70 of the coun­tries Ama­zon­ian rain­for­est area, all com­mu­ni­ties in strug­gle around the plan­et, try­ing to defend their resources and com­mu­ni­ties against multi­na­tion­al cli­mate injus­tice, includ­ing the Ross­port com­mu­ni­ty in North West­ern part of Ire­land.

There was no police or secu­ri­ty attempts to remove the activists. After an hour they stood up and left. They had much sup­port and were applaud­ed from peo­ple out­side.

The action was organ­ised by the group ‘El Cli­ma no esta en Ven­da” (Cli­mate is not for Sale)

More info: http://www.elclimanoestaenvenda.wordpress.com

UN climate delegates Barcelona dinner spoilt — no carve up with dam execs!

3.11.09

UN Barcelona blockade 23.11.09
This evening there was a protest out­side a posh restau­rant where del­e­gates were meet­ing with hydropow­er cor­po­ra­tions. Del­e­gates & execs were harangued as they made their way from their bus­es & posh cars to dine togeth­er. Ban­ners added to the yelling of ‘no more dams no more lob­bies, cli­mate jus­tice!’, that quite spoilt the appetite of those try­ing to carve up the envi­ron­ment inside. Even­tu­al­ly the police came and tried to ID every­one, but we stayed a bit longer, and a bit more, till they left and we decid­ed to move on…

Press release:

On the occa­sion of the Barcelona sum­mit 2 to 6 Novem­ber, the last prepara­to­ry ses­sion of the UN Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change in Copen­hagen (COP15)

Under the slo­gan “Dams kill rivers and peo­ple, they are not a Clean Devel­op­ment Mech­a­nism!” activists denounce cor­po­rate lob­by­ing in cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions

· Dams and reser­voirs are impor­tant gen­er­a­tors of green­house gas­es, and respon­si­ble for almost one quar­ter of the methane emis­sions caused by humans

· Nasa’s lead­ing cli­mate sci­en­tist James Hansen has warned that cor­po­rate lob­by­ing is grave­ly under­min­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic attempts to curb car­bon emis­sions.

Barcelona, 03 Novem­ber. The aim of today’s action against cor­po­rate lob­by­ists is to make noise to wake the world up, to express out­rage at the ques­tion­able legit­i­ma­cy of today’s meet­ing between major hydro-elec­tri­cal cor­po­ra­tions (Richard Tay­lor, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Inter­na­tion­al Hydropow­er Asso­ci­a­tion and Jose Maria Cal­vo-Sote­lo, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent Reg­u­la­tion and Cor­po­rate Devel­op­ment, Ende­sa Lati­noaméri­ca) and del­e­gates from the nego­ti­a­tions in par­al­lel to the offi­cial UNFCC.

Accord­ing to Olivi­er Hoede­man from lob­by­ing watch­dog Cor­po­rate Europe Obser­va­to­ry “From Wash­ing­ton DC to Ottawa, Brus­sels to Tokyo, the most influ­en­tial gov­ern­ments in the cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions are fac­ing an unprece­dent­ed cor­po­rate lob­by­ing offen­sive, aim­ing to weak­en green­house gas reduc­tion tar­gets.”

The Clean Devel­op­ment Mech­a­nism (CDM) is a mar­ket-based tool that allows indus­tri­al­ized nations – oblig­ed to reduce their emis­sions by the Kyoto Pro­to­col ‑to avoid cut­ting excess emis­sions by pay­ing devel­op­ing coun­tries to make the emis­sions reduc­tions in the form of sup­pos­ed­ly ‘clean ener­gy’.

The cre­ation of an arti­fi­cial ‘cli­mate’ mar­ket means large cor­po­ra­tions are able to buy car­bon cred­its issued by the UN. Thus, busi­ness groups that are expect­ed to reduce emis­sions are linked to ques­tion­able projects in devel­op­ing coun­tries in the name of “sus­tain­able devel­op­ment” and con­tin­ue to pol­lute in devel­oped coun­tries.

The CDM actu­al­ly increas­es emis­sions because the cred­it­ed projects often do not deliv­er the expect­ed emis­sions reduc­tions. Com­pa­nies rep­re­sent­ed by cor­po­rate lob­by­ists such as the Inter­na­tion­al Hydropow­er Asso­ci­a­tion are receiv­ing bil­lions of dol­lars through this instru­ment.

Hydro­elec­tric projects have quick­ly become the num­ber one tech­nol­o­gy in the CDM, despite their high cli­mate impact. Dams and reser­voirs are impor­tant gen­er­a­tors of green­house gas­es, besides being respon­si­ble for almost one quar­ter of the methane emis­sions caused by humans, specif­i­cal­ly 104M tonnes, cor­re­spond­ing to 4 ‑5% of all induced warm­ing.

Anoth­er ter­ri­ble con­se­quence is the dis­place­ment of over 80M peo­ple, an over­whelm­ing num­ber of vic­tims, flood­ing of many places of great social and cul­tur­al val­ue, in addi­tion to the irre­versible destruc­tion of riv­er ecosys­tems.

Today we denounce the death and destruc­tion caused by large dams, and pro­mot­ed by promi­nent lob­by­ists in Asia, Africa and Latin Amer­i­ca. Today we say, NO MORE DAMS! LOBBIES OUT OF OUR CLIMATE! THE CLIMATE IS NOT FOR SALE!

Rossport update

‘Gagged’ protest high­lights lack of democ­ra­cy in Mayo Forum

3 Novem­ber 2009

‘Gagged’ protest high­lights lack of democ­ra­cy in Mayo Forum
Rossport silenced banner invasion
3 Novem­ber 2009
This morn­ing An Bord Pleanala have announced that they are defer­ring the deci­sion on the onshore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline. Bord Pleanala says that approx­i­mate­ly 5.6km (or 62% of the whole onshore pipeline) is con­sid­ered unac­cept­able because of its prox­im­i­ty to dwelling hous­es locat­ed with­in its haz­ard range should a pipeline fail­ure occur. See the lat­est RTE news report on this here: http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1103/corrib.html or Irish Times report: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1103/…0.htm
More on the Bord Pleanala deci­sion will fol­low lat­er, this is a report on yes­ter­days Peo­ple’s Forum in Bel­mul­let and Min­is­ter’s Forum in Cor­ran Buí.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, saw the return of the People’s Forum to Bel­mul­let, which was attend­ed among oth­ers by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Gar­da Ombuds­man. Dur­ing, this mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty who oppose the impo­si­tion of the Cor­rib Gas Project on the area, out­lined some of the issues they have had with the polic­ing of the protests and the sub­se­quent efforts and fail­ures of the Gar­da Ombuds­man. In the after­noon, the com­mu­ni­ty moved and went to hold a silent protest at the Min­is­ters Forum. Some peo­ple taped their mouths shut to show how the com­mu­ni­ty have been silenced to facil­i­tate Shell. This forum is offi­cial­ly called the “North West Mayo Devel­op­ment Forum” but is known local­ly as the “Fun­ny Forum” and it cer­tain­ly lived up to this local name, and it tru­ly was cringe wor­thy to see some of sup­pos­ed­ly most pow­er­ful peo­ple in the Mayo and the coun­try per­form in this cha­rade.

The point has been made numer­ous times that the Fun­ny Forum is pure­ly for media spin and to project the image to the wider pub­lic that the pow­ers that be are address­ing the con­cerns of the com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. In the Mayo News today, a quote from a spokes­woman for Eamon Ó Cuív stat­ed “The min­is­ters were delight­ed that Shell to Sea attend­ed the forum, even if they had their mouths taped and did not par­tic­i­pate”. Per­haps what she could have real­ly added was “This is exact­ly the type of par­tic­i­pa­tion we real­ly want from the com­mu­ni­ty”. See: http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&tas…id=38

In a joint state­ment from Pobal Chill Chomáin and Pobal le Chéile, they state “the so-called forum is com­plete­ly ignor­ing the health and safe­ty issues sur­round­ing the Cor­rib gas project, yet these are the spe­cif­ic issues that are con­tin­u­ing to give rise to con­flict and dis­agree­ment in Erris’. It con­tin­ued: “The Min­is­ters’ forum is wide­ly regard­ed with­in our com­mu­ni­ty as a sham, and is being used not as an instru­ment of con­flict res­o­lu­tion but as an instru­ment for Cor­rib project advance­ment.”

The Min­is­ters forum had a pre­sen­ta­tion from Dept of Ener­gy & Nat­ur­al Resources as well as the Gar­da Ombuds­man, a short speech from Eamon Ó Cuív about the mon­ey they have giv­en recent­ly to the area. Final­ly Denise Horan who has recent­ly joined Shel­l’s PR team from the lofty post of Edi­tor of the Mayo News then gave a pre­sen­ta­tion of the bribes Shell had also hand­ed out.

The Gar­da Ombuds­man pre­sen­ta­tion, was giv­en by the Ombuds­man­’s head of com­mu­ni­ca­tions Kier­an FitzGer­ald and he told the Min­is­ter’s Forum that 111 com­plaints had been received in rela­tion to the Cor­rib protests. Of these 78 were deemed admis­si­ble and 33 were deemed inad­mis­si­ble for inves­ti­ga­tion. Some 55 files were “closed”– i.e. the inves­ti­ga­tion had been com­plet­ed – and 23 cas­es were still open. How­ev­er his pre­sen­ta­tion was met with more or less silence from the assem­bled forum mem­bers. This was in marked con­trasts with the ear­li­er Peo­ple’s Forum.

The People’s Forum got off to a slow start, but when Gra­ham Doyle, com­mu­ni­ca­tions offi­cer for the Gar­da Ombuds­man arrived things livened up. He was a last minute stand in for head of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the Ombuds­man Kevin Fitz­patrick (who mys­te­ri­ous­ly was able to make the “Fun­ny Forum”), and as such didn’t have any of the sta­tis­tics about com­plaints relat­ing to the Cor­rib Gas Project. Mr Doyle did engage well with the forum, how­ev­er it became clear very quick­ly that a lot of the peo­ple present were over­all fair­ly dis­il­lu­sioned with the effec­tive­ness of the Gar­da Ombuds­man. A lot of the speak­ers present made the point that the Gar­da Ombuds­man seems to be try­ing inves­ti­gate the com­plaints but at the end of the weren’t achiev­ing any results. A few peo­ple quot­ed cas­es where they’re was very strong evi­dence (one had 5 eye­wit­ness and par­tial video evi­dence of an assault, anoth­er had clear foren­sic evi­dence of crim­i­nal dam­age) and that the Ombuds­man had sent the cas­es for­ward to the DPP for pros­e­cu­tion how­ev­er the DPP refused to pros­e­cute. This bot­tle­neck at the DPP, who refuse to pros­e­cute with any cas­es against Gar­daí involv­ing Shell to Sea protests seem to be a par­tic­u­lar point of con­tention. Mr Doyle admit­ted that the Gar­da Ombuds­man had a lot of work to do to prove their cred­i­bil­i­ty.

One, very mov­ing speech came from Win­fred Mack­lin, who spoke of her involve­ment in the after­math of a gas explo­sion in Scot­land of a pipeline which was run­ning at between 4 & 9 bar pres­sure. The Cor­rib Gas Pipeline is designed to run up to 345 bar pres­sure until Glen­gad and up to 144 bar between Glen­gad and Bel­lan­aboy. Ms Mack­lin also urged the Ombuds­man to speak out against the Gar­da vio­lence and quot­ed Man­dela who said that “silence is col­lab­o­ra­tion”. See a clip from Ms Mack­lin speech here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w21g0QVOio

The Ombuds­man rep­re­sen­ta­tive told the forum that they had sought per­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate the polic­ing of crowds under Sec­tion 106 of the Gar­da Síochá­na Act, how­ev­er this had been refused by the Min­is­ter for Jus­tice, Der­mot Ahern. After Mr Doyle stat­ed that he didn’t want to com­ment on indi­vid­ual cas­es, one con­trib­u­tor state that peo­ple weren’t ask­ing the Ombuds­man to com­ment on indi­vid­ual cas­es but they should be com­ment­ing on the over­all vio­lence of the Gar­daí and that silence thus far by the Ombuds­man Com­mis­sion was rep­re­hen­si­ble.

One point made was that the way the Ombuds­man was ini­tial­ly set up, they were con­strict­ed on all sides from the DPP, the Min­is­ter for Jus­tice, Gar­da Com­mis­sion­er and then infor­mal­ly by pres­sure brought to bear by the Gar­da Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Asso­ci­a­tion.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1103/1224257962988.html

More pho­tos at http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94646