The latest EF! Action Update is out, bringing you reports of eco-resistance for the darkening days…

Bring­ing light & inspi­ra­tion to the dark­er evenings are the action sto­ries in the lat­est Earth First! Action Update.

Block­ades of nuclear pow­er, roads & rivers around the world were joined “with this Shell-blockad­ing D‑lock I thee wed”.

Adjustable spanner photoBring­ing light & inspi­ra­tion to the dark­er evenings are the action sto­ries in the lat­est Earth First! Action Update.

Block­ades of nuclear pow­er, roads & rivers around the world were joined “with this Shell-blockad­ing D‑lock I thee wed”.

And if anti-fas­cist action, quar­ry sab­o­tage, squats, tree plat­forms, wrekin’ open­casts, scal­ing lux­u­ry hotels & the lat­est protest camp news was­n’t enough for you, chuck in some glue, arm tubes, a pool of oil, stink bombs, air­borne rape alarms and a Lego-sized occu­pa­tion, then there’s full reports from this sum­mer’s antics at the Camp for Cli­mate Action, Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp, EF! sum­mer gath­er­ing and Sav­ing Ice­land camp, plus a crop of glob­al cli­mate camps & news of protest & resis­tance from all 5 con­ti­nents.

“No nukes, no coal, no kid­ding” — with peo­ple dying (both lit­er­al­ly & sym­bol­i­cal­ly) from the activ­i­ties of the Earth-destroy­ers, peo­ple have been shout­ing to just “Leave it in the Ground”, drag­on boats have clashed with navy gun­boats in Ire­land, an oil war was declared in Nige­ria, and ‘moles’ spent a week under­ground dig­ging fur­ther and fur­ther away from the forces of dark­ness at an open-cast coal site.

Details of the new Coal Action Net­work, upcom­ing dates & a full con­tact list should help launch (or boost) you into the orbit of eco-resis­tance.

Sub­scribe and get it sent direct to a let­ter­box near you — you’d also be sup­port­ing the EF!AU to get print­ed and sent out to pris­on­ers & protest camps. If you want some to dis­trib­ute, con­tact us at: actionup­date (AT) earthfirst.org.uk

Down­load the lat­est issue or past issues here.

The EF!AU is there to inspire peo­ple to take eco­log­i­cal direct action, to pro­vide info to help you just get out and do it. Don’t feel shy, put your best foot for­ward.

The EF!AU is the quar­ter­ly newslet­ter of peo­ple tak­ing eco­log­i­cal direct action — send us news of your action or cam­paigns, and come along to the Win­ter Moot if you want to get involved in any of the cam­paigns you’ve read about.

What is Earth First!?

Shell Pulling Out of Glengad till early Spring

Impor­tant Update from Erris.
The word is – Shell are pulling out of Glen­gad and sus­pend­ing work till ear­ly Spring. Shell ‘con­sul­tants’ are inform­ing local res­i­dents that the beach is being ‘rein­stat­ed’ and the work will take a num­ber of weeks.

The Soli­taire has moved on and is ‘off hire’ to Shell.

Impor­tant Update from Erris.
The word is – Shell are pulling out of Glen­gad and sus­pend­ing work till ear­ly Spring. Shell ‘con­sul­tants’ are inform­ing local res­i­dents that the beach is being ‘rein­stat­ed’ and the work will take a num­ber of weeks.

The Soli­taire has moved on and is ‘off hire’ to Shell.

No press release has issued from Shell and they are behind in their week­ly ‘progress’ reports to the PAD (Petro­le­um Affairs Divi­son) of Min­is­ter Eamon Ryan’s Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Ener­gy and Nat­ur­al Resources, which can nor­mal­ly be read here: http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Natural/Petroleum+Affairs+Division/Corrib+Gas+Field+Development/SEPIL+Weekly+Progress+Reports+to+PAD.htm

It appears that Shell are wrap­ping up oper­a­tions at the pro­posed land­fall site in Glen­gad. The trench exca­vat­ed through the cliffs into the pro­tect­ed areas is being back­filled, and the cause­way built out into Broad­haven Bay is being removed. Also one side of the site fenc­ing on the beach has been removed. And the cable drum has been removed from the winch.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly the com­mence­ment of remov­ing the cause­way will not be able to remove the hun­dreds of tonnes of fine mate­r­i­al, which has been washed away, pol­lut­ing the local sea area for miles. Fish­er­men have said they can see the dis­coloura­tion in the water 5 or 6 miles away from the Shell beach com­pound.

Var­i­ous mate­ri­als which Shell were sup­posed to have kept stored and sep­a­rate in the com­pound, have in fact been mixed and stored on the beach and much of this, as well as unsuit­able cause­way mate­ri­als, has been wash­ing away for months now, through high tides and rain.

Bro­ken con­crete and steel have also been added to these mate­r­i­al heaps, which I would assume will be dumped or buried on site, whether on the beach or inside the com­pound in the SAC/SPA. It appears that this ‘for­eign rub­ble’ is now being used to fill the trench which was dug through the cliff to take the pipe.

The Soli­taire has left Scot­land for the Span­ish port of Algee­rias, near Gibral­tar, a main bunker port, sev­er­al days ago.

For unknown rea­sons Shell con­tin­ue to employ boats to sit in the bay a few hun­dred metres from the land­fall site, with 3 boats there this morn­ing, includ­ing a small tug / winch boat. Its not clear what if any­thing they are doing.

The road widen­ing and upgrades to facil­i­tate Shell have con­tin­ued, with Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil clos­ing or block­ing the road for long peri­ods despite vehe­ment local objec­tions to these upgrade works, with peo­ple liv­ing along the route being forced to block the sides of the road at their prop­er­ties to pre­vent the Coun­cil steal­ing their mar­gins to widen the road for Shell.

I would remind peo­ple who are inter­est­ed that AFRI are hold­ing a Hedge School, which looks to be even bet­ter than last year’s with a week­end of talks from some very rel­e­vant peo­ple, http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=515&event=1 or http://www.afri.ie for details. That’s the 24th, 25th & 26th Oct.

Spirit of Freedom (October 2008) — support the eco-prisoners

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Octo­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. The last month has been a month of mixed emo­tions for ELP. On the one hand we heard the bril­liant news that the Dutch ani­mal rights activist, Ger­ben Jan, was found not guilty of assault­ing a police offi­cer, caus­ing the offi­cer to break his leg, dur­ing an ani­mal rights demo in Swe­den. Instead Ger­ban was found guilty of resist­ing arrest for which he was fined and deport­ed. Also in an unex­pect­ed move, all the Aus­tri­an Ani­mal Rights pris­on­ers were released from prison pend­ing their tri­al! Plus, the Amer­i­can veg­an, Nathan Kno­erl, was grant­ed bail in his case where he is accused of involve­ment in an anti-vivi­sec­tion protest. Fol­low­ing Nathans release a sup­port cam­paign has been set up to try and help raise mon­ey for Nathan’s forth­com­ing legal case. For more info please e‑mail supportnathan@gmail.com. How­ev­er, just as ELP start­ed to think our pris­on­er lists might start to go down, we received news of fur­ther police raids in Aus­tria. ELP also learnt that, due to Frank Ambrose, grass­ing every­one up, the Amer­i­can’s Marie Mason, Stephanie Lynne Fultz, and Aren Burth­wick, have all had to enter Plea Bar­gains and admit some of the charges set against them. In Marie’s case she has admit­ted her direct role in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing involved with GM crop tests, whilst Stephanie and Aren have admit­ted not report­ing a fire (Stephanie has admit­ted cut­ting Marie’s hair which was burnt fol­low­ing the arson). We don’t know what sen­tences Stephanie and Aren are like­ly to receive, but Marie is look­ing at 15 to 20 years and has been remand­ed into cus­tody. This is real­ly bad news, espe­cial­ly as it was hoped Marie might remain free until her sen­tenc­ing ear­ly next year. Around the world, peo­ple are being impris­oned for stand­ing up for what they believe in and try­ing to
help the ani­mals and the earth. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. And no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, #70936–065, (in tran­sit), USA. Serv­ing 78 months for his involve­ment in two ELF arsons. 1) an arson on log­ging trucks 2) an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. (Tre is a raw ener­gy veg­an — He has asked that his let­ters of sup­port are writ­ten on scrap paper or tree-free paper).

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Bor­der Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Burla 59, 43100 Par­ma, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI El Reno, PO Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036, USA. Serv­ing one-year impris­on­ment after he informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Meat eater).

Francesco Gioia, C.C. Sol­lic­ciano, Via Giro­lamo Min­ervi­ni 2/R, 50142 Firen­ze Sol­lic­ciano (FI), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Pao­la Gori, Via delle Mac­chie 9, 57124 Livorno, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of allow­ing her house to be used to plan ille­gal activ­i­ty. (Pao­la is a veg­an).

Bryan Lefey #38664–086, FDC SeaT­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. On remand accused of an ELF action that saw the dam­ag­ing of GM trees and the dam­ag­ing of US Forestry Ser­vice vehi­cles. (Diet unknown).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Marie Jeanette Mason, Neway­go Coun­ty Jail, PO Box 845, White Cloud, MI 49349, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing plead­ed guilty to involve­ment in ELF arson against a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing car­ry­ing out Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied crop tests. Marie also plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing to car­ry out ELF actions and also admit­ted involve­ment in 12 oth­er ELF actions. Marie is expect­ed to receive a sen­tence of between 15–20 years. (Marie is a veg­an).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097. FCI Vic­torville Medi­um II, PO BOX 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, USP Mar­i­on, US Pen­i­ten­tiary, PO Box 1000, Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters 36432–086, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route 37, Dan­bury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Jon is a veg­an).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter SO22 5DF, Eng­land.
On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment.
(Mel is a veg­an).

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Jake is a veg­an).

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS. (Don is a veg­an).

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Josh is a veg­an).

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HMP Stafford, 54 Gaol Road, Stafford, ST16 3AW, Eng­land. Serv­ing four and a half years for run­ning an anti-vivi­sec­tion cam­paign web­site. (Sean is a veg­an).

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (Heather is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

John Smith, TB4887, HMP Lind­holme, Bawtry Road, Hat­field Wood­house, Don­cast­er, DN7 6EE, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (John is a veg­an).

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, USP Mar­i­on, P.O. Box 1000 Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Andrew is a veg­an).

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE DEFENDANTS
The Lec­ce Defen­dants have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack. (Diet unknown).

Fabio Milan, C.C. via Pianez­za 300, 10151 Tori­no, Italy. On remand accused of fight­ing with the police after an anti-fas­cist protest. (Diet unknown).

Andrea Neff, Bnr: 746/07/2, Jus­tizvol­lzugsanstalt fur Frauen in Berlin, Arkonas­trasse 56, 13189 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 14 months for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ty. (Diet unknown).

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557
Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self. (Tomasz is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Yuri Yure­vich Milevskiy, SIZO #7 kam­era 38, g. Brest, ul. Kar­la Mark­sa 86, 224000 Belarus. On remand for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown).

OTHER PRISONERS

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009. (Diet unknown).

Vagge­lis Botzatzis, Komo­ti­ni Juridi­cal Prison (“Dikastikes Fylakes Komo­ti­nis”), T.K. 69100, Greece. On remand accused of set­ting fire to two com­pa­ny cars owned by a energy/power com­pa­ny. It is believed that the per­son or per­sons unknown who car­ried out the arson did so in protest at the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and in sup­port of two work­ers who died at the pow­er plant. Vagge­lis is also accused of set­ting fire to a bank and start­ing a fire inside a car yard. (Meat Eater).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they didn’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Michael W. Sykes, 696693, 3855 Coop­er St, Jack­son, MI 49201, USA. Youth held on remand accused of anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age, spray-paint­ing an anar­chist sign and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA. Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE

MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp4321@hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail
yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
elp4321@hotmail.com
http://spiritoffreedom.org.uk

SWOMP — A freestate in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Intro­duc­tion

It is the fourth time activists have squat­ted a piece of land in the Pijp (an area of Ams­ter­dam) and by far the most suc­ces­ful action. They are protest­ing against unnec­es­sary demo­li­tion and spec­u­la­tion as well as tak­ing action in sup­port of local neigh­bour­hoods for a sus­tain­able future.

Intro­duc­tion

It is the fourth time activists have squat­ted a piece of land in the Pijp (an area of Ams­ter­dam) and by far the most suc­ces­ful action. They are protest­ing against unnec­es­sary demo­li­tion and spec­u­la­tion as well as tak­ing action in sup­port of local neigh­bour­hoods for a sus­tain­able future.

swomp solar

Some his­to­ry

On July 11, 2008, a group of peo­ple from the Pijp squat­ting group and Groen­front! Ams­ter­dam squat­ted a vacant lot at Rusten­berg­er­straat 438–440. A school had pre­vi­ous­ly stood on the land and was demol­ished against the wish­es of the neigh­bour­hood, prob­a­bly to pre­vent it being squat­ted. There are cur­rent­ly no plans for the site, which has a tree which is pro­tect­ed by per­mits. Pre­vi­ous land squats had been evict­ed quite bru­tal­ly by police so this time the activists were pre­pared — they were in large num­bers, had the sup­port of local res­i­dents and made sure their car­a­vans were well secured in the ground!

After one month, the project declared itself a free state and the res­i­dents pledged to live in a car­bon neu­tral fash­ion on the site. Instead of wait­ing for local gov­ern­ment to decide what to do with the land they decid­ed to take action them­selves! Per­ma­cul­ture gar­dens were set up and solar pan­els were installed. Local squat cafes are doing ben­e­fits in sup­port of the project. In Sep­tem­ber an open day was held with a tour speak­ers and dis­cus­sions

swomp soil

Liv­ing at SWOMP (in the words of one res­i­dent)

The whole thing has grown into a cli­mate friend­ly exper­i­men­tal gar­den. Every day we are learn­ing more about the prob­lems you encounter when hav­ing to pro­vide for your­self (doing it in a way which means in the future you can keep pro­vid­ing your­self). These are the same prob­lems soci­ety / the com­mu­ni­ty will faces soon. We are exper­i­ment­ing with per­ma­cul­tures, we have a ground­wa­ter­pump and a solar­cell and are plan­ning to build our own eco toi­let.

Being busy with this I’m meet­ing a lot of oth­er peo­ple being busy with sim­i­lar stuff, and sud­den­ly the feel­ing of being an activist call­ing out in the land of the deaf is chang­ing. More and more peo­ple seem to be real­is­ing some­thing has to be done, and most impor­tant­ly, we can do it (we are going to win)!

We stum­bled across the con­cept of tran­si­tion towns. Appar­ent­ly oth­ers are doing the same as us. Oth­ers, not activists just com­mu­ni­ties. Com­mu­ni­ties that stop and think: how are we going to deal with the upcom­ing (unavoid­able) oil-cri­sis and cli­mate change? What hap­pens when the trucks stop dri­ving and bring­ing us food and pro­duce from all over the world? Loot­ing, only the fittest will sur­vive? Or can we as a com­mu­ni­ty pre­pare our­selves and equip our­selves with work­able solu­tions. We should start prepar­ing: Where do we get food? Who heals the sick, how do we trans­port? How do make tools with­out our cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy? And most impor­tant of all how do we pre­vent future cri­sis? How can we find a bal­anced way of liv­ing with­out wear­ing out our own sur­round­ings?

New ethics will have to be devel­oped. This all might seem a dis­tant dream or fan­ta­sy but it is already hap­pen­ing all over the world. With 33 tran­si­tion towns in Eng­land and 77 world­wide. And four times more being set up world­wide. It is actu­al­ly a very acces­si­ble way of chang­ing, it’s real­is­ing that we our­selves need to do it and nobody else. It starts with cre­at­ing con­scious­ness. Not about the upcom­ing cri­sis, every­body knows about that by now and activists all over the world feel frus­trat­ed about every­body know­ing but nobody act­ing on it.

We need to grow con­sciousnes about self-deter­mi­na­tion, and about the pos­si­bil­ties that you have as an indi­vid­ual and a com­mu­ni­ty. Of course the gov­ern­ment and cor­po­ra­tions won’t change by them­selves. We don’t need to wait for them, we should even exclude them. The steps seem so big but are actu­al­ly small and achiev­able. It starts with grow­ing con­scious­ness, its almost like a sect man! Wher­ev­er some peo­ple start being busy with tran­si­tion towns, all the peo­ple around them get infect­ed and enthu­si­asm soon grows a net­work. A net­work starts hav­ing meet­ings, and in the meet­ing real­is­tic goals will be set. “In how­ev­er many years we should be able to get at least 50% of our food from our own lands, by then we need to have reduced our oil-depen­dence, at least by the year of XXXX, we shall be total­ly inde­pen­dent”.

Stuff like that, read it, it’s inspir­ing. In Eng­land ther are some towns, vil­lages, dwellings, but also neigh­bour­hoods that start­ed think­ing about the future. These towns or dwellings will be the pio­neers in the time of tran­si­tion which pret­ty soon every­body is going to expe­ri­ence. We can wait till our wal­lets force us to change, or we can be the ones who will lat­er have the advan­tages of hav­ing start­ed off ear­ly. It’s just a log­i­cal step to take in a time like this.

Links

http://swomp.wordpress.com/>Home web­site
http://www.steenbreek.org/img/pers/DeMorgen_20080906.pdf>In the Bel­gian press

E.ON Targeted in Sweden in Solidarity with the Climate Camp

29.09.2008
An E.ON facil­i­ty in the work­ing class dis­trict of Moll­e­van­gen, Mal­mo was tar­gat­ed to high­light E.ON’s plans to build the UK’s first new coal fired pow­er sta­tion for 30 years.

eon grafittied in Sweden29.09.2008
An E.ON facil­i­ty in the work­ing class dis­trict of Moll­e­van­gen, Mal­mo was tar­gat­ed to high­light E.ON’s plans to build the UK’s first new coal fired pow­er sta­tion for 30 years.

Despite E.ON work­ing exten­sive­ly on renew­ables and reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions in Swe­den, the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to push coal in the UK.

The build­ing of Kingsnorth coal fired pow­er sta­tion on the Hoo penin­su­lar in Kent will cause res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems and haz­ardous wastes in the local area, raise the coun­try’s emis­sions to unsus­tain­able lev­els, swerve ener­gy sup­ply into non-renew­able dirty fos­sil fuels rather than renew­ables, and feed a com­mu­ni­ty-frac­tur­ing and pol­lut­ing glob­al coal mar­ket which along with the expan­sion of oth­er fos­sil fuels threat­ens the ecosys­tems of the plan­et.

The cam­paign against kingsnorth, like the poten­tial effects of the 8 new coal fired pow­er sta­tions the UK gov­ern­ment could sanc­tion this Autumn, is glob­al.

Swedish sol­i­dar­i­ty steps up to sup­port this cam­paign in the UK.

The grafit­ti is at a promi­nent inter­sec­tion in the city and will be seen by thou­sands of peo­ple who will ques­tion E.ON’s green spin and con­tra­dic­tion between its’ work in Swe­den and its new coal plans for the UK.

For more infor­ma­tion about the stop kingsnorth cam­paign see www.climatecamp.org.uk

Saving Iceland Targets International Aluminium Conference

Today, Sep­tem­ber 25, the 11th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Alu­mini­um Aloys (ICAA) met with angry protests. Activists from the envi­ron­men­tal­ist net­work Sav­ing Ice­land dis­rupt­ed the pro­ceed­ings at the Uni­ver­si­ty in Aachen.

Today, Sep­tem­ber 25, the 11th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Alu­mini­um Aloys (ICAA) met with angry protests. Activists from the envi­ron­men­tal­ist net­work Sav­ing Ice­land dis­rupt­ed the pro­ceed­ings at the Uni­ver­si­ty in Aachen. Ear­ly this morn­ing, dur­ing one of Rio Tin­to Alcan’s lec­tures, the fire alarms in the build­ing were put on. Lat­er today — again dur­ing Rio Tin­to Alcan’s lec­ture — stink bombs were thrown and a high vol­ume rape alarm was put on and sus­pend­ed out of reach by green and black heli­um baloons. The audi­to­ri­um was also strewn with infor­ma­tion leaflets. The aim was to call atten­tion to the industry’s sin­gu­lar involve­ment in eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion in Ice­land, as well as on a glob­al scale.

The ICAA con­fer­ence is a week­long event held at a dif­fer­ent inter­na­tion­al loca­tion every 2 years. This is its first appear­ance in Ger­many and as such is run in par­al­lel to the Alu­mini­um trade fair in Essen, about 80 km away. This dou­ble event is sure to call togeth­er all major play­ers of an indus­try that still tries to present itself as hav­ing a green con­science, and with some suc­cess: Alcoa has been includ­ed in the Dow Jones Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Index, for the 7th year run­ning. [1] Envi­ron­men­tal­ists dis­pute this depic­tion in the strongest terms.

Glob­al Impacts
“There is no lev­el on which the con­tin­ued expan­sion of the alu­mini­um indus­try can be pur­sued sus­tain­ably” says Andreas Jager of Sav­ing Ice­land,” In India, for exam­ple, the pri­ma­ry mate­r­i­al, baux­ite, is open-cast mined and refined into alu­mi­na, strip­ping rain­fores cov­ered moun­tains, dis­plac­ing trib­al peo­ple from their land and pol­lut­ing the water sup­ply with “red mud” residue [2, 3]. In Aus­tralia and Jamaica, vir­gin forests are also destroyed for the same prize — and with the same tox­ic con­se­quences [4].

Destruc­tion of Ice­landic Wilder­ness, for weapons
“ In Ice­land, the country’s unique nat­ur­al land­scape is being raid­ed for its ener­gy poten­tial by these multi­na­tion­al invaders: at a time when the world is final­ly wak­ing up to cli­mate change, the effect of our high ener­gy depen­dence, the process of alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion requires colos­sal quan­ti­ties of elec­tric­i­ty, for which it plans to block and har­ness every glacial riv­er, exploit every geot­her­mal field and trans­form Iceland’s wild beau­ty into a spent and pol­lut­ed waste­land, dot­ted with smelters. This does not equate to green ener­gy, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sid­er­ing that the planned Ice­landic alu­mini­um smelters will far exceed the gen­er­ous 1,600,000 tonnes of emis­sions per­mit­ted to that coun­try under the Kyoto Con­ven­tion [5].

“And the end prod­uct? For the most part, mil­i­tary hard­ware used for destruc­tion of every imag­in­able kind, avi­a­tion, which is increas­ing­ly being shown to be incom­pat­i­ble with a sta­ble cli­mate, and dis­pos­able pack­ag­ing, a symp­tom of our waste­ful soci­ety. There can be no future for this indus­try, above all oth­ers, if we are to avoid envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis.”

Rio Tin­to Alcan’s Envi­ron­men­tal and Human Crimes
Sav­ing Ice­land protests Rio Tinto’s invest­ments in Ice­land and in Africa. In Ice­land the RT-Alcan smelter in Haf­nar­fjor­dur, south­west Ice­land is being upgrad­ed to increase pro­duc­tion. The Budarhals dam is cur­rent­ly being con­struct­ed to pow­er the smelter expan­sion.

“The peo­ple of Haf­nar­fjor­dur vot­ed against expan­sion of the smelter in a local ref­er­en­dum, but still pro­duc­tion is being increased,” says Jager. “The smelter dis­cards its tox­ic spent potlin­ings in a land­fill in the sea that floods at high tide [6]. We do not want more pol­lu­tion and we do not want more dams here in Ice­land, which are destroy­ing our beau­ti­ful wilder­ness. Espe­cial­ly for a com­pa­ny with the most abysmal record in human rights,” states Jager.

Rio Tin­to has been accused of sub­ject­ing it’s work­ers to poi­son­ing in mines, of hav­ing secu­ri­ty guards shoot­ing locals look­ing for small amounts of gold in one of it’s mines and hav­ing union-mem­bers spied upon and fired [7, 8]. It has also hired mer­ce­nary forces against local pop­u­la­tions protest­ing it’s oper­a­tions in Papua and Bougainville [9, 10, 11].

The Nor­we­gian gov­ern­ment has sold its shares in Rio Tin­to because it’s Gras­berg mine in West Papua has dev­as­tat­ed the land of the Amungme and Kamoro tribes. Nor­way sold its almost £500 mil­lion shares in Rio Tin­to fol­low­ing rec­om­men­da­tions from its Coun­cil on Ethics to exclude the com­pa­ny from its gov­ern­ment pen­sion fund [12].

Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty
Peo­ple all around the world are wak­ing up and becom­ing aware of the destruc­tion caused by the alu­mini­um indus­try, as well as the sit­u­a­tion in Ice­land. Last week, big ban­ners were hanged up in Copen­hagen say­ing: “The Alu­mini­um Indus­try is Destroy­ing All Major Ice­landic Rivers!” [13].

Foot­notes and fur­ther ref­er­ence:

[1] http://savingiceland.puscii.nl/?p=3182&a…
[2] http://savingiceland.puscii.nl/?p=602&am…

[3] http://savingiceland.puscii.nl/?p=2607&a…
[4] http://savingiceland.puscii.nl/?p=2233&a…
[5] http://savingiceland.puscii.nl/?page_id=…
[6] Rio Tin­to Alcan (2008). Alcan Envi­ron­ment: Potlin­ings. http://www.riotintoalcan.is/?PageID=111 [Accessed Sep­tem­ber 24th, 2009].
[7] SBS Aus­tralia (200). Date­line, Report on Rio Tin­to, August 2000.
[8] Asia-Pacif­ic Human Rights Net­work, “Rio Tinto’s Record and the Glob­al Com­pact,” July 13th 2001.
[9] Wikipedia Ger­many (22–7‑2007), http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandline-Af…
[10] Con­tract between PNG Gov­ern­ment and San­d­line: http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/PNG….
[11] Sarei v Rio Tin­to, 456 F.3d 1069 (9th Cir. 2006), USA.
[12] Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al (2008). Nor­we­gian gov­ern­ment – Rio Tinto’s Papua mine uneth­i­cal. http://www.survival-international.org/ne… [Accessed Sep­tem­ber 24th, 2008]
[13]

rossport solidarity action at irish consulate in cardiff & Shell in London

Whilst the soli­taire is in for repairs, we’d thought we’d remind the gov­ern­ment that activists haven’t tak­en their eye off the ball. We also thought we would ded­i­cate this action to Mau­ra.

Cardiff Rossport solidarityWhilst the soli­taire is in for repairs, we’d thought we’d remind the gov­ern­ment that activists haven’t tak­en their eye off the ball. We also thought we would ded­i­cate this action to Mau­ra.

About 12 cli­mate activists from the West­side (thats south wales, bris­tol & bath) occu­pied the irish con­sulate in cardiff for an hour or two today (wednes­day 24th sept). About 5 got into the recep­tion and altered the dec­o­ra­tions, and demand­ed to see the con­sul, who was­n’t at home (to us any­way). Mean­while, out­side a ban­ner pre­vi­ous­ly used on the welsh pipeline cam­paign was held on the steps of the con­sulate, ignor­ing the ridicu­lous­ly irate secu­ri­ty chief :“calm down mate, we are only hold­ing a ban­ner”. Most staff from the build­ing hap­pi­ly took leaflets.

—-

Ban­ner Dropped in Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ross­port & Mau­ra

On Wednes­day evening a women’s col­lec­tive climbed 2 lamp­posts direct­ly out­side of Shell’s head­quar­ters in Lon­don. After unfurl­ing the ban­ner the police came in large num­bers and harassed the sup­port­ers on the ground. A live­ly protest ensued for about 20 min­utes whilst the climbers stayed up and peo­ple on the ground chant­ed. Infor­ma­tion was giv­en to the folks walk­ing near the area about Ross­port & Shell’s cam­paign of destruc­tion in Coun­ty Mayo.

The police even­tu­al­ly man­aged to cut the ban­ner down. The climbers were arrest­ed and lat­er released with­out charge.

We did this action to show sup­port for the ongo­ing strug­gle of res­i­dents and sup­port­ers in Mayo to send Shell to Hell (or to Sea, depend­ing on when and who). Since late 2000 there has been an on-going attempt by mul­ti-nation­als and the Irish state to destroy a beau­ti­ful remote coastal area in the coun­ty Mayo with a tox­ic refin­ery and high pres­sure pro­duc­tion gas pipeline. The local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers have lead an inspir­ing and sus­tained cam­paign against this con­struc­tion. In the last few weeks there has been a wave of action to stop the pipe-lay­ing ship, the soli­taire, from build­ing. Includ­ed in this was the inspir­ing hunger strike of local school teacher Mau­ra Har­ring­ton.

At the end of last week the soli­taire left the bay for ‘essen­tial repairs.’ Mau­ra came off hunger strike and the cam­paign is work­ing on ensur­ing that it does not come back. For more infor­ma­tion see:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/409002.html
http://struggle.ws/rsc/

Ryanair AGM disrupted by climate activists

Sep­tem­ber 18, 2008
Today a group of cli­mate activists dis­rupt­ed the AGM of Ryanair at the Radis­son Hotel, Dublin Air­port. Cam­paign­ers dropped a ban­ner from the hotel with a sub­ver­tised Ryanair logo read­ing ’ LYINAIR.CON’. One cam­paign­er con­front­ed a dumb-struck Michael O’Leary at the podi­um, while oth­er eco-clowns jug­gled out­side.

Lyin'airSep­tem­ber 18, 2008
Today a group of cli­mate activists dis­rupt­ed the AGM of Ryanair at the Radis­son Hotel, Dublin Air­port. Cam­paign­ers dropped a ban­ner from the hotel with a sub­ver­tised Ryanair logo read­ing ’ LYINAIR.CON’. One cam­paign­er con­front­ed a dumb-struck Michael O’Leary at the podi­um, while oth­er eco-clowns jug­gled out­side.

The PLANE MAD cam­paign­ers are cam­paign­ing for respon­si­ble avi­a­tion. By pio­neer­ing the cheap flights mod­el Ryanair have been respon­si­ble for a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of the mas­sive growth in the avi­a­tion indus­try. Avi­a­tion is cur­rent­ly the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas­es. While gov­ern­ments and indi­vid­u­als are gear­ing up to tack­le their car­bon emis­sions it is nec­es­sary to accept the real­i­ty that fly­ing is the most pol­lut­ing form of trans­port.

Plane Mad is an Irish cam­paign­ing group tak­ing action against the unsus­tain­able nature of avi­a­tion in Ire­land. To find out more vis­it www.planemad.org

Today a group of cli­mate activists dis­rupt­ed the AGM of Ryanair at the Radis­son Hotel, Dublin Air­port.

Mem­bers of Plane Mad entered the meet­ing as share­hold­ers and told Michael O’Leary direct­ly that he was lying about cli­mate change. The Cam­paign­er, Rob Mac, told the AGM that he was cam­paign­ing for the respon­si­ble use of avi­a­tion. He also stat­ed that avi­a­tion would negate all oth­er reduc­tions in green­house gas emis­sions in Ire­land if cur­rent growth con­tin­ues. A men­tion was also made of the unfair tax breaks that avi­a­tion enjoys.

A brief­ing was dis­trib­uted in the AGM from a mys­te­ri­ous ‘M. O’Liary’ out­lin­ing a cli­mate change denial strat­e­gy, appar­ent­ly already being rolled out.

A ban­ner that read “Lyin Air” in the Rynair liv­ery was dropped form the roof ini­tial­ly. Find­ing the con­di­tions a bit windy the activist moved the ban­ner to a bal­cony at the front of the hotel, where it remained for near­ly an hour.

A pair of “Eco-Clowns” turned up near the ban­ner and jug­gled for a while. The clowns were wear­ing Pinoc­chio noses to rep­re­sent the lies being told by Michael O Leary.

One of the ‘Eco-clowns’, Ian Clot­wor­thy, said ‘O’Leary is clear­ly mis­lead­ing the pub­lic to try to pro­tect his prof­its. Ask any sci­en­tif­ic insti­tu­tion from NASA to MET Eire­ann and they will tell you cli­mate change is real. Cli­mate change can’t be denied any­more and nei­ther can avi­a­tion’s con­tri­bu­tion to the green­house gas emis­sions that cause it’.

The cam­paign­ers are mem­bers of the Irish group Plane Mad. The action was designed to draw atten­tion to denial of cli­mate change by the CEO of Ryanair in recent press and radio state­ments. Plane Mad believe that cli­mate change is the defin­ing chal­lenge of our gen­er­a­tion. The group believes that there are solu­tions to this chal­lenge and that we need to face them head on as soon as pos­si­ble.

One of the cam­paign­ers at the air­port, Tara Shee­hy from Tip­per­ary said, ‘By dis­miss­ing the clear­ly proven link between man-made emis­sions and our chang­ing cli­mate, Michael O Leary is run­ning from the truth. Stick­ing our heads in the sand and try­ing to deny that there is a prob­lem will not make cli­mate change go away. Michael O Leary claims not to be “a cloud bun­ny”, its time then for him to come down to earth about the sci­ence of cli­mate change and admit to the dam­age his air­line is caus­ing.’

‘By pio­neer­ing the cheap flights mod­el Ryanair have been respon­si­ble for a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of the mas­sive growth in the avi­a­tion indus­try. Avi­a­tion is cur­rent­ly the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas­es. While gov­ern­ments and indi­vid­u­als are gear­ing up to tack­le their car­bon emis­sions it is nec­es­sary to accept the real­i­ty that fly­ing is the most pol­lut­ing form of trans­port.’

‘Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now. It is neg­a­tive­ly affect­ing the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple all over the world. Avi­a­tion is the fastest grow­ing con­trib­u­tor to it. Try­ing to claim any­thing else is just plane mad.’

Plane Mad is an Irish cam­paign­ing group tak­ing action against the unsus­tain­able nature of avi­a­tion in Ire­land. To find out more vis­it www.planemad.org

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion or com­ment,

Con­tact: Tara Shee­hy 086 8581605

Mol­ly Walsh 00353879252820

Ryanair Agm

Sep­tem­ber 18, 2008

Spoof Brief­ing to Investors,

Dear Share­hold­er,

As I’m sure you are aware, a key threat to our rev­enue is the pos­si­bil­i­ty that pas­sen­gers would heed envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns and fly less. We clear­ly need a strat­e­gy to avoid con­sumers becom­ing aware of the cli­mate impact we have.

I want to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to assure you that I will not let this eco-bol­locks affect our prof­it, and to out­line my strat­e­gy for deal­ing with it.

The tac­tics of denial employed by the tobac­co indus­try proved suc­cess­ful for decades after the health impacts were proven. Exxon have suc­cess­ful­ly used the same tac­tics and many of the same per­son­nel to deny the real­i­ty of cli­mate change.

Cur­rent­ly very few pas­sen­gers know that fly­ing is the most car­bon inten­sive way to trav­el. We need to direct atten­tion away from the sci­ence by fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of doubt around the facts. The eco-loonies may attempt to cling to peer-reviewed sci­ence, but we don’t need to be able to refute their facts, all we need is to spread enough mis­in­for­ma­tion for doubt to linger.

I have already been active in nation­al news­pa­pers and on radio ques­tion­ing whether cli­mate change is caused by car­bon diox­ide. In the let­ters pages of the Irish Times on July the 17th, I used the cur­rent inclement weath­er to sug­gest that the cli­mate could not be warm­ing. The lib­er­al idiots who read the Irish Times will believe any­thing.

The Inter­na­tion­al Avi­a­tion and Trans­port Asso­ci­a­tion (IATA) have done com­mend­able work sup­press­ing infor­ma­tion on the dam­age caused by avi­a­tion. There are cer­tain con­crete facts that we can­not afford to allow to become accept­ed. If they did so envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness could become a tick­ing time bomb for the health of our prof­its. The fol­low­ing facts will be denied by me, like lying is going out of fash­ion.

1. The reduc­tions in emis­sions per pas­sen­ger are mean­ing­less due to our growth.

2. Due to the addi­tion­al pol­lu­tants released by air­planes and the alti­tude at which they are released the total warm­ing effect of avi­a­tion emis­sions is 2.7 times greater than the warm­ing effect of the car­bon diox­ide alone.

3. The 2 per cent fig­ure I always use for the share of car­bon that avi­a­tion accounts for, con­ve­nient­ly ignores the whole sto­ry of oth­er pol­lu­tants and recent growth.

Despite their san­dal-wear­ing, mues­li eat­ing car­ry-on, these eco-loons have the poten­tial to mess up our mar­ket­ing. I’m just a lad from a farm in Mullingar, but I know how to put bums on seats. Peo­ple want to fly, they want to fly cheap­ly and they don’t want to have to deal with the guilt ped­dled by those eco fun-police. All we need to do is to make it seem like the sci­ence might not be sol­id and our mon­ey will keep rolling in.

I know that you are ratio­nal peo­ple who under­stand busi­ness. I hope that you can stand behind my bla­tant lies, as I am work­ing to pro­tect our prof­its.

The 12 mil­lion or so pas­sen­gers I car­ry around Europe on cheap flights may well be caus­ing cli­mate change but it’s putting mon­ey in my pock­et. I am mak­ing mon­ey today. It is not my busi­ness to care about tomor­row.

And who do these eco-loons think they are any­way, dent­ing the bot­tom line of the com­pa­ny I’ve been tying my ego to for years? I lie very hard every day so my kids can be rich­er than their friends. Will I be spar­ing a thought for those who are now dying as a result of cli­mate change? You must be eco-jok­ing!

Screw the Bangladeshis.

Screw the next gen­er­a­tion.

Deny cli­mate change.

Fly Ryanair.

Yours sin­cere­ly,

M. O Liary

Chief Exec­u­tive

Film of dis­rup­tion

Roof top occupation of Shell offices in Belmullet

18.9.2008
Yes­ter­day after­noon in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, Shell to Sea activists occu­pied the roof of Shel­l’s offices in bel­mul­let hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing: ‘Soli­taire Out Now’. They were accom­pa­nied by a demo of around 40 peo­ple.

Shell rooftop occupation, Bellmullet18.9.2008
Yes­ter­day after­noon in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, Shell to Sea activists occu­pied the roof of Shel­l’s offices in bel­mul­let hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing: ‘Soli­taire Out Now’. They were accom­pa­nied by a demo of around 40 peo­ple.

At about 4pm, three Shell to Sea activists occu­pied the roof and dropped a ban­ner read­ing ‘Soli­taire Out Now’. The ban­ner remained there for over an hour and a half, while shell to Sea sup­port­ers protest­ed out­side the front of the Shell offices. More ban­ners were draped across the entrance area, and when the shell employ­ees left work at 5:30 they were hailed with a cho­rus of boos from the assem­bled pro­tes­tors.

Two of the three Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers who had been on the roof were arrest­ed when they descend­ed to the ground. The two arrestees were released quick­ly after­wards.

Out­side the gates of the Shell land­fall site com­pound in Glen­gad, Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s hunger strike entered its ninth day today. She remains in good spir­its, but the strike is slow­ly exact­ing its toll. She remains in her car, under the glare of pow­er­ful arc lights and with a con­stant heavy pres­ence of Gar­daí near­by. The 24-hour pro­tec­tive vig­il of Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers con­tin­ues to watch over her. Mau­ra’s hunger strike will end when the Shell pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire leaves Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. The Soli­taire remains at anchor in St. John’s Bay, Killy­begs, Co. Done­gal at the time of writ­ing.

Solidarity Actions in Copenhagen — No More Dams; No More Smelters!

Today, 18 Sep­tem­ber, we received a let­ter from Den­mark:

This morn­ing, big ban­ners were hanged on a build­ing in Copen­hagen say­ing: „Alu­mini­um Indus­try is destroy­ing all major Ice­landic rivers!” A big adver­tis­ment from Ice­landair Air­line Com­pa­ny, show­ing Ice­landic rivers, was hang­ing on this same wall last week.

Copenhagen Saving Iceland banner hangToday, 18 Sep­tem­ber, we received a let­ter from Den­mark:

This morn­ing, big ban­ners were hanged on a build­ing in Copen­hagen say­ing: „Alu­mini­um Indus­try is destroy­ing all major Ice­landic rivers!” A big adver­tis­ment from Ice­landair Air­line Com­pa­ny, show­ing Ice­landic rivers, was hang­ing on this same wall last week.

The con­struc­tion of the planned new Cen­tu­ry alu­mini­um smelter in Hel­gu­vík and Alcoa’s smelter in Húsavík, will lead to damming of more glacial rivers and geot­her­mal areas. Today it looks like dams will be built in Þjórsá Riv­er, Tung­naá, Skjál­fandafljót and Jökul­sá á Fjöl­lum; only for fur­ther heavy indus­try projects.

To sup­ply ener­gy for Alcoa’s 346 thou­sand tons smelter in Húsavík, a reser­voir big­ger than the infa­mous Hál­slón in Kárah­n­júkar will be need­ed; 72 km² (1).

There is no rea­son for feed­ing com­pa­nies like Alcoa with more cheap ener­gy. Alcoa is a arms pro­duc­er, direct­ly work­ing with the Amer­i­can army, the weapon pro­duc­er Lock­heed Mar­tin and oth­er mean com­pa­nies (2).

Alcoa is also well known for it’s human right crimes in the company’s fac­to­ries in Hon­duras and Guatemala. In Hon­duras work­ers often have to uri­nate and defe­cate in their clothes because they are not allowed to go to the toi­let more than two times a day; women have to take down their pants to prove they are hav­ing peri­od; and work­ers who plan to form unions get fired. These are just few exam­ples (3).

Ice­landic nature and soci­ety are in dan­ger!

No more Dams! No more Smelters!


Resources:

(1) Jaap Krater, Morgun­blaðið, Bak­ki Impact Assess­ment Should Include Dams, 22. Ágúst 2008.

(2) Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son, Morgun­blaðið, Lygar og Útúrsnúningar, 24. Júní 2008.

(3) Nation­al Labor Com­mit­tee with Com­mu­ni­ty Comu­ni­ca­tion Hon­duras (2007). The Wal­mart-iza­tion of Alcoa. http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=447.