UK No Borders Gathering 8–9 November

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

The Gath­er­ing is a col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised event with shared respon­si­bil­i­ty for con­tent and organ­i­sa­tion, being co-ordi­nat­ed this time by peo­ple in New­cas­tle. It will take place on Sat­ur­day 8th and Sun­day 9th Novem­ber, start­ing 9am for break­fast for a 10am start each day, end­ing at 6pm on the Sat­ur­day and 2pm on the Sun­day. Venue details and direc­tions will be post­ed near­er the time. Accom­mo­da­tion will be avail­able on request.

You can con­tact us at whydontyou@post.com if you’d like more info, would like to sug­gest items for dis­cus­sion at the Gath­er­ing or would like to get involved.

No Bor­ders is a net­work of groups strug­gling for the free­dom of move­ment for all and an end to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tem of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens.
We demand the end of the bor­der regime for every­one, includ­ing our­selves, to enable us to live anoth­er way, with­out fear, racism and nation­al­ism.
Vis­it the web­site www.noborders.org.uk

new­cas­tle plan­ning group
whydontyou@post.com

Stalking the Solitaire

29.09.2008
Shell to Sea Kayak­ers vis­it the Soli­taire in Scot­land

29.09.2008
Shell to Sea Kayak­ers vis­it the Soli­taire in Scot­land

At the crack of dawn on Sun­day two Shell to Seas Kayak­ers, the James Con­nel­ly and the Ken Saro Wiwa paid an auda­cious vis­it to the Soli­tiare cur­rent­ly lying 1.5 nau­ti­cal miles off the banks of the Clyde, Scot­land. The kayak­ers want­ed to estab­lish for defi­nate whether the ship was return­ing to Ire­land for a sec­ond attempt at lay­ing the pipe or was to return to Rot­ter­dam for repairs. Ini­tial­ly radio con­tact was made with the ship whose bridge crew refused to dis­close its inten­tions. The activists attempt­ed to board the Soli­taitre but were thwart­ed by secu­ri­ty pres­ence on the pon­toon lying along­side the accom­mo­da­tion lad­der. They then pad­dled around to the Stinger where they were only feet away from a high ten­sion cable that was being winched onto a near­by barge. Work con­tin­ued with com­plete dis­re­gard for the health & safe­ty of the kayak­ers. The kayak crew con­tin­ued to attempt com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the ship’s crew for over an hour in order to estab­lish the next des­ti­na­tion of the Soli­tiare but to no avail.

Mean­while back in Mayo some equip­ment has been removed from the Glen­gad com­pound and the boats that were dredg­ing the bay last Thurs­day have gone back to Bal­ly­glass, an anchor­age just around the head­land. How­ev­er the com­mu­ni­ty in Mayo and its sup­port­ers remain on high alert for the pos­si­ble return of the Soli­taire this year.

Leave it in the Ground – Scotland organising meeting

Stop new coal devel­op­ments in Scot­land! Leave it in the Ground

Tues­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber, 7–9pm, Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh (17 West Mont­gomery Place)

Leave it in the Ground banner logoStop new coal devel­op­ments in Scot­land! Leave it in the Ground

Tues­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber, 7–9pm, Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh (17 West Mont­gomery Place)

Cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us. Burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Yet every day more coal is burned, and the coal indus­try and the gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

33 new open­cast coal mines and six coal fired pow­er sta­tions are at the plan­ning stage in the UK alone. In Scot­land, the out­look is bleak – many of these new coal mine projects are planned for the cen­tral belt, and two pow­er sta­tions are to be rebuilt.

Rum­blings of an effort to resist these new projects have begun. Leave it in the Ground is a net­work sup­port­ing and devel­op­ing groups across the UK as part of the cam­paign to stop new coal, and is grow­ing in strength. As a net­work, Leave it in the Ground is run by and for the groups that make it up, exist­ing as a way to estab­lish com­mon ground, facil­i­tate net­work­ing and share infor­ma­tion and skills.

This meet­ing aims to get every­one inter­est­ed in stop­ping new coal devel­op­ments in Scot­land togeth­er, and talk about what we want to do about them, under the ban­ner of ‘Leave it in the ground / No New Coal’. And there’s an awful lot to do — from research to com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and organ­is­ing to tak­ing direct action — its real­ly impor­tant that we get on the case now!

In addi­tion, there is a Leave it in the Ground nation­al net­work­ing meet­ing in Man­ches­ter on the 11th and 12th Octo­ber. We thought it would be good to have a meet­ing in Scot­land before this in the hope that peo­ple would be up for going to Man­ches­ter with feed­back and get Scot­land more involved in the net­work. Please come along!

11th October day of action against surveillance — Freedom not Fear + ANPR news for car drivers

Call to mass action Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber against the sur­veil­lance state in sol­i­dar­i­ty with activists around the world http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/242/144/

Freedom not Fear banner logoCall to mass action Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber against the sur­veil­lance state in sol­i­dar­i­ty with activists around the world http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/242/144/

A broad move­ment of cam­paign­ers and orga­ni­za­tions is call­ing on every­body to join action against exces­sive sur­veil­lance by gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es. On 11 Octo­ber 2008, con­cerned peo­ple in many coun­tries will take to the streets, the mot­to being “Free­dom not fear 2008”. Peace­ful and cre­ative action, from protest march­es to par­ties, will take place in many cap­i­tal cities.

—————

Sur­veil­lance mania is spread­ing. Gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es reg­is­ter, mon­i­tor and con­trol our behav­iour ever more thor­ough­ly. No mat­ter what we do, who we phone and talk to, where we go, whom we are friends with, what our inter­ests are, which groups we par­tic­i­pate in — “big broth­er” gov­ern­ment and “lit­tle broth­ers” in busi­ness know it more and more thor­ough­ly. The result­ing lack of pri­va­cy and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty is putting at risk the free­dom of con­fes­sion, the free­dom of speech as well as the work of doc­tors, helplines, lawyers and jour­nal­ists.

The man­i­fold agen­da of secu­ri­ty sec­tor reform encom­pass­es the con­ver­gence of police, intel­li­gence agen­cies and the mil­i­tary, threat­en­ing to melt down the divi­sion and bal­ance of pow­ers. Using meth­ods of mass sur­veil­lance, the bor­der­less coop­er­a­tion of the mil­i­tary, intel­li­gence ser­vices and police author­i­ties is lead­ing towards the con­struc­tion of “Fortress­es” in Europe and on oth­er con­ti­nents, direct­ed against refugees and dif­fer­ent-look­ing peo­ple but also affect­ing, for exam­ple, polit­i­cal activists, the poor and under-priv­iledged, and sports fans.

Peo­ple who con­stant­ly feel watched and under sur­veil­lance can­not freely and coura­geous­ly stand up for their rights and for a just soci­ety. Mass sur­veil­lance is there­by threat­en­ing the fab­ric of a demo­c­ra­t­ic and open soci­ety. Mass sur­veil­lance is also endan­ger­ing the work and com­mit­ment of civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions.

Sur­veil­lance, dis­trust and fear are grad­u­al­ly trans­form­ing our soci­ety into one of uncrit­i­cal con­sumers who have “noth­ing to hide” and — in a vain attempt to achieve total secu­ri­ty — are pre­pared to give up their free­doms. We do not want to live in such a soci­ety!

We believe the respect for our pri­va­cy to be an impor­tant part of our human dig­ni­ty. A free and open soci­ety can­not exist with­out uncon­di­tion­al­ly pri­vate spaces and com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

The increas­ing elec­tron­ic reg­is­tra­tion and sur­veil­lance of the entire pop­u­la­tion does not make us any safer from crime, costs mil­lions of Euros and puts the pri­va­cy of inno­cent cit­i­zens at risk. Under the reign of fear and blind action­ism, tar­get­ed and sus­tained secu­ri­ty mea­sures fall by the way­side, as well as tack­ling peo­ples’ actu­al dai­ly prob­lems such as unem­ploy­ment and pover­ty.

In order to protest against secu­ri­ty mania and exces­sive sur­veil­lance we will take to the streets in cap­i­tal cities in many coun­tries on 11 Octo­ber 2008. We call on every­body to join our peace­ful protest. Politi­cians are to see that we are will­ing to take to the streets for the pro­tec­tion of our lib­er­ties!

There are plans for a demo with music and noise at New Scot­land Yard. Are oth­ers else­where up for doing demos else­where in the UK at oth­er police sta­tions?

Wiki for info and dis­cus­sion re Lon­don / UK actions
at http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2008/London
and http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Diskussion:Freedom_Not_Fear_2008/London

It would be good to have a con­ver­sa­tion about this as we need to get some­thing good start­ed. Octo­ber 11th Vid-Fly­er http://www.ecln.org

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Vehi­cle spy-cam data to be held for five years

Author­i­ties will store details of car jour­neys sur­veilled by the new nation­al Auto­mat­ic Num­ber Plate Recog­ni­tion (ANPR) sys­tem for five years, the Home Office has revealed.

Senior police offi­cer had said the data on mil­lions of vehi­cles would only be kept for two years, the Guardian reports. The Infor­ma­tion Com­mis­sion­er’s Office (ICO) is exam­in­ing a com­plaint by Pri­va­cy Inter­na­tion­al over the extend­ed reten­tion peri­od. The pri­va­cy advo­ca­cy group described it as “unnec­es­sary and dis­pro­por­tion­ate”.

The ICO said: “Pro­longed reten­tion would need to be clear­ly jus­ti­fied based on con­tin­u­ing val­ue not on the mere chance it may come in use­ful.”

The ANPR sys­tem, head­quar­tered in Hen­don, north Lon­don, will be ful­ly oper­a­tional in the new year. Half of Eng­lish and Welsh police are already sup­ply­ing it with data from their upgrad­ed CCTV net­works.

Forces are being encour­aged to “ful­ly and strate­gi­cal­ly exploit” its poten­tial for track­ing sus­pects and vehi­cles by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Chief Police Offi­cers. It’s envis­aged that ANPR will be used as part of “main­stream polic­ing”, rang­ing from clamp­ing down on unin­sured dri­vers to counter-ter­ror oper­a­tions.

Cam­paign­ers have called for the gov­ern­ment to more clear­ly define which oth­er agen­cies will be allowed to inter­ro­gate the data­base and for what rea­sons.

‘Leave it in the ground’ national meeting on 11 and 12 October in Manchester

Announce­ment – ‘Leave it in the ground’ nation­al meet­ing

Cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us, and burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Every day more coal is burned, yet indus­try and gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

Announce­ment – ‘Leave it in the ground’ nation­al meet­ing

Cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us, and burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Every day more coal is burned, yet indus­try and gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

‘Leave it in the ground’ is the slo­gan of a new net­work for groups tak­ing action oppos­ing new coal devel­op­ments in the UK, includ­ing the 30+ planned open­cast sites and sev­en new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions. Added to those already oper­at­ing, and the coal import and trans­port facil­i­ties, these projects rep­re­sent a mas­sive threat to our abil­i­ty to cut green­house gas emis­sions to safe lev­els, and would be a dis­as­ter for the cli­mate as well as for local areas.

The first ‘Leave it in the ground’ meet­ing will be held at the Yard The­atre, 41 Old Bir­ley
Street, Hulme, Man­ches­ter M15 5RF, on 11 and 12 Octo­ber.

The net­work plans to be a way for groups to share skills and expe­ri­ence in dif­fer­ent areas and to encour­age col­lab­o­ra­tion on com­mon goals. It is a loose net­work of equals, and is not affil­i­at­ed to any polit­i­cal par­ty or NGO.

The pro­posed agen­da for this meet­ing includes:

Sat­ur­day 11th

§ Intro­duc­tion to the UK coal indus­try
§ Updates on oppo­si­tion to coal devel­op­ments in the UK, includ­ing the cam­paigns against the Ffos-y-Fran (near Merthyr Tyd­fil) and Lodge House (Der­byshire) open­cast sites, the 2008 Cli­mate Camp and the pro­posed Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion block­ade.
§ Dis­cussing cli­mate change solu­tions, includ­ing the impor­tance of a social­ly just tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my.
§ Think­ing about how our net­work will func­tion, its deci­sion-mak­ing struc­ture, name and com­mu­ni­ca­tions
§ Plan­ning ini­tial events and strat­e­gy for the net­work
§ Region­al net­work­ing between groups

Sun­day 12th

§ Media train­ing
§ Intro­duc­tion to direct action plan­ning
§ Fur­ther dis­cus­sions on cli­mate change, cli­mate jus­tice and inter­na­tion­al net­work­ing

If you can only make one day of the meet­ing, please try to come on Sat­ur­day. We will aim to start at 10:00 and to fin­ish by 18:00 to allow for trav­el. The meet­ing will free, lunch and evening meal on Sat­ur­day and lunch on Sun­day will be avail­able for dona­tions.

If you would like to attend, please reg­is­ter by email­ing info@leaveitintheground.org.uk, with ‘meet­ing’ in the sub­ject line, stat­ing how many of your group wish to attend, any spe­cial dietary or access require­ments and whether you want accom­mo­da­tion for Sat­ur­day night. Free accom­mo­da­tion will prob­a­bly be ‘crash­pad’ only, but we can pro­vide details of near­by hotels etc.

For those trav­el­ling from far off, we will oper­ate a ‘pool fare’ sys­tem to even out the costs of trav­el. The venue is about ten min­utes walk from Man­ches­ter Oxford Road sta­tion, and is served by num­ber 54 and 86 bus­es, with many oth­ers serv­ing the near­by Stret­ford road. More details on the GMPTE web­site.

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 82, AUGUST 2008

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UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
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1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK, 13–14.09.08

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK, 13–14.09.08
6) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER, 26–28.09.08
7) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
8) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY 2009, 01.04.09

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
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1) CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION, KINGSNORTH, KENT, 3–11.08.08
2) DERBYSHIRE COAL MINE EVICTED, 14.08.08
3) US CLIMATE CAMPS, JULY/AUGUST
4) SAVING ICELAND CAMP, JULY/AUGUST
5) AIRPORT OCCUPATION, GERMANY, ONGOING
6) STICKING IT TO THE PM, LONDON, 22.07.08
7) 32 4x4s DISARMED, OXFORD, 18.07.08
8) NEW RISING TIDE LEAFLET
9) NEW REPORT: CASHING IN ON COAL

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UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
‘These camps are going to take place in or near Ham­burg. It’s two dif­fer­ent camps, but prob­a­bly on the same camp site and doing togeth­er at least two mass actions like block­ades: on 22nd August at the depor­ta­tion air­port of Ham­burg and on 23rd at the har­bour or at the new coal pow­er plant. http://klimacamp08.org

2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
The Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Mem­bers of the ‘Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta’ recent­ly deployed at the E.ON coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in
Kent, Eng­land, have made their way from Cli­mate Camp UK to Erris, in order to assist Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers in their oppo­si­tion to this pipeline con­struc­tion at Glen­gad.

3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions in a beau­ti­ful field in Nor­folk. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing. www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk

4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
St Wer­burghs Cen­tre, 10am to 5pm, free entry. With a work­shop by Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide: Why direct action? Social change not cli­mate change? www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK 13–14.09.08
Join the first inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing in Copen­hagen from the 13–14th of Sep­tem­ber 2008. The meet­ing aims at prepar­ing a large mobil­i­sa­tion for direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change in Copen­hagen and through­out the world dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence (30 Nov-11 Dec 2009). More info:
http://klimax2009.org/?p=33&langswitch_lang=en Tell them you’re com­ing:
sept08@klimax2009.org

6) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER 26–28.09.08
All are invit­ed to the first Post-Cli­mate Camp Nation­al Gath­er­ing. The gath­er­ing will offer a chance to reflect on where we are at, decide where we go from here, and pro­vide info as to how to get involved in the ongo­ing direct action cam­paign to stop Kingsnorth.
Ques­tions? Email process@climatecamp.org.uk

7) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
A meet­ing to bring togeth­er groups and com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing coal in the UK – from open cast and deep coal mines, to pow­er sta­tions and coal imports. Share infor­ma­tion, plan for action, and build a strong net­work of resis­tance. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

8) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY 2009, 01.04.2009
Four con­ti­nents, 150 actions, and an April Fool’s Day with a fan­tas­ti­cal­ly sub­ver­sive (and rad­i­cal­ly nec­es­sary) twist – we’re def­i­nite­ly doing that again! So Fos­sil Fools Day 2009 is a go – start pick­ing your fos­sil fuel tar­get now! Info and resources will be post­ed on the web­site soon, and look out for leaflets to dis­trib­ute in Decem­ber.

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

1) CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION, KINGSNORTH, KENT, 3–11.08.08
From the Heathrow Con­fer­ence to the Car­a­van, from the work­shops to beau­ti­ful camp life, from the GRRR pirates to the fence breach­ers to the bail break­ers, and the flur­ry of affin­i­ty group actions before, dur­ing and after the camp, the 2008 Camp for Cli­mate Action was a roar­ing suc­cess. We out­smart­ed 26 police forces to run the biggest cli­mate camp ever. We cov­ered the riv­er in boats, filled the streets with peo­ple, cov­ered the pow­er sta­tion gates with ban­ners and hit at least eight oth­er tar­gets with autonomous actions. We flood­ed the nation­al, local and inde­pen­dent media with our sto­ries and mes­sages. E.ON and the Gov­ern­ment threw every­thing they could at us, and they still couldn’t hold us back. Actions, in no par­tic­u­lar order, includ­ed: an office inva­sion of min­ing com­pa­ny BHP Bil­ton, tak­ing over an incin­er­a­tor site in Newhaven, a block­ade of Cargill over its rain­for­est destruc­tion and land-grab­bing, a pro-veg­an roof occu­pa­tion and ban­ner drop at Smith­field Meat Mar­ket, a protest at US air base Milden­hall to high­light mil­i­tary CO2 emis­sions, a ban­ner drop from an elec­tric­i­ty pylon, a naked protest at DBERR, the world’s small­est pro­test­ers climb­ing E.ON’s smoke­stack (at Legoland), actions at Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (not once but twice – stu­dents do a die-in and Ris­ing Tiders bust out the super­glue), a demo at Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion in Fife, a mul­ti-pronged attack on Gatwick by Plane Stu­pid, the shut­ting down of the South’s biggest bio­fu­el stor­age facil­i­ty, and in
a sin­gle day of may­hem in the City, the Cli­mate Car­a­van tar­get­ed RBS and the PR firms for Shell, BAA & E.ON.
www.climatecamp.org.uk
Pho­to slide show: http://blip.tv/file/1167973
Video: http://www.undercurrents.org/visionon/

2) DERBYSHIRE COAL MINE EVICTED, 14.08.08
The squat in Der­byshire, a protest on the site of a pro­posed new open-cast coal mine, came to end with the evic­tion of the remain­ing two pro­test­ers, who had res­olute­ly resist­ed attempts to clear the site by furi­ous­ly dig­ging for vic­to­ry. Come to the nation­al Leave it in the Ground meet­ing in Octo­ber to help with the next steps. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

3) US CLIMATE CAMPS, JULY/AUGUST
All three US Cli­mate Camps have now wound down, with action high­lights includ­ing the South­east Cli­mate Con­ver­gence occu­py­ing a nuclear facil­i­ty in Vir­ginia, the Bil­lion­aires for Coal strik­ing Bank of Amer­i­ca 4 times in 3 days and a protest at NW Nat­ur­al Gas fol­low­ing the West Coast Con­ver­gence. And check out http://www.uncampement.net/?q=en/node/775 for
the ongo­ing (8–24 August) camp in Que­bec, Cana­da.

4) SAVING ICELAND CAMP, JULY/AUGUST
Sav­ing Iceland’s fourth action camp is now over but the fight goes on. The three-week camp was at Hell­isheiði, where Reyk­javík Ener­gy is expand­ing their geot­her­mal pow­er plant, first of all to sup­ply ener­gy to alu­mini­um smelters. Actions includ­ed: work on the Cen­tu­ry Aluminum’s exist­ing smelter as well as a steel fac­to­ry were block­ad­ed, hold­ing up a shift
change for sev­er­al hours. A Reyk­javik Ener­gy geot­her­mal drill site at Hell­ishei­di, being built for Cen­tu­ry, was com­plete­ly shut down for a day as activists locked to machines, climbed the drill and occu­pied the pow­er con­trol room. The nation­al pow­er com­pa­ny Landsvirkjun had it’s office invad­ed, and it’s CEO Fridrik Sophus­son had his home vis­it­ed. Sav­ing Ice­land nailed an evic­tion notice to his door. www.savingiceland.org

5) AIRPORT OCCUPATION, GERMANY, ONGOING
In Ger­many cli­mate activists have been squat­ting a wood­land since the begin­ning of June to stop the con­struc­tion of yet anoth­er new run­way for the already mas­sive Frank­furt air­port. The camp con­tin­ues to grow with over 30 peo­ple liv­ing on site and has the sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty. Demos and actions are being organ­ised togeth­er with local res­i­dents’ groups
against air­port expan­sion. Amaz­ing tree­hous­es, walk­ways and funky ground shel­ters have been con­struct­ed to make life pleas­ant in the woods and to resist evic­tion as long as pos­si­ble. Peo­ple are wel­come to join in. www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

6) STICKING IT TO THE PM, LONDON, 22.07.08
On 22nd July a Plane Stu­pid cam­paign­er super­glued him­self to Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown in 10 Down­ing Street. He’d been invit­ed to receive an award for protest­ing, so prompt­ly decid­ed to car­ry on in that vain! Whilst ask­ing Gor­don about refus­ing to meet West Lon­don
res­i­dents opposed to the con­struc­tion of a third run­way at Heathrow, the intre­pid pro­test­er put his super­glue cov­ered hand onto Brown’s poly­ester suit. When Brown went to turn away he found he was stuck and for once had no option but to lis­ten. www.planestupid.com

7) 32 4x4s DISARMED, OXFORD, 18.07.08
32 SUV own­ers woke up in Oxford on 18th July to dis­cov­er that their envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive vehi­cles had been dis­abled using the ‘mung bean trick’ to let down their tires.

8) NEW RISING TIDE LEAFLET
At long last, Ris­ing Tide has a new leaflet – who we are, what we do and why we do it, wrapped up in an inspir­ing pho­to col­lage pack­age. Sneak a peak at , or email info@risingtide.org.uk to get a bunch post­ed to you for dis­tri­b­u­tion in your local area.

9) NEW REPORT: CASHING IN ON COAL
High street banks are mak­ing mil­lions by pro­vid­ing the finan­cial fuel that dri­ves the expan­sion of coal extrac­tion and com­bus­tion. This report exam­ines the role in the last two years of the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (RBS), HSBC and Bar­clays in pro­vid­ing and arrang­ing the finan­cial means to the coal indus­try to extract and burn vast quan­ti­ties of coal. The report reveals that RBS has helped lend more mon­ey to the coal indus­try, in more deals, than any oth­er major UK bank. www.carbonweb.org

—————–
Ris­ing Tide UK,
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street,
Lon­don E1 1ES
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk
www.fossilfoolsday.org
Tel: 07708 794665

See also the Camp for Cli­mate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk), Net­work for Cli­mate Action (www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk) and Cli­mate Indy­media (www.climateimc.org)

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

Earth First! gathering — programme and travel directions

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk
Join us for 5 days of work­shops and plan­ning actions

Trav­el direc­tions:

Earth First! Gathering 2008 - print sizeEarth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk
Join us for 5 days of work­shops and plan­ning actions

Trav­el direc­tions:
The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop. The Grid Ref­er­ence of the site is TM130819. The post code is IP22 5SY.

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich or vice ver­sa — this route goes right past the site and we’ll be ask­ing the local bus com­pa­ny if they will stop right out­side the site on request. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .
We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). Ring the Gath­er­ing mobile on 07789 331857

For a map and fur­ther details on trav­el includ­ing bus times and direc­tions for dri­vers check out http://earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html

Pro­gramme
This year’s pro­gramme focuss­es on info and plan­ning for actions, direct action skills as well as spaces to dis­cuss how we can respond to and deal with the widen­ing eco­log­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and soci­etal crises. We hope there’s some­thing for every­one.
We rec­om­mend that you arrive Tue evening, as work­shops will start on Wednes­day morn­ing and run until Sun­day evening

For more info about the gath­er­ing check out our web­site or email us (though we won’t be able to answer email after 21 Aug, as we’ll be on site set­ting up)

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

The work­shops

Wednes­day

12:00
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the gath­er­ing
Deal­ing with the main­stream media — how to get your mes­sage across
Basic electrics — for squats and homes.
Cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change — how to make the links vis­i­ble in actions
Queer net­work­ing ses­sion

2:30
Self-defence — mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting FAQ — shar­ing tips and tricks
Action Recon­nais­sance for begin­ners
Intro­duc­tion to the root caus­es of eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and an explo­ration of alter­na­tives
Advanced Nav­i­ga­tion

4:30
Sav­ing Ice­land — Intro­duc­tion to the cam­paign
Nuclear waste and nuclear weapons
Con­sen­sus Deci­sion-mak­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy
Con­fronting Abu­sive Behav­iours with­in our Com­mu­ni­ties — with­out the police/prison.

6:00
Library Space: Nego­ti­at­ing Safer Sex: tips on putting the the­o­ry into prac­tice, and mak­ing your sex life more fun as well as safer!

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Talk with video on resist­ing rain­for­est destruc­tion in Tas­ma­nia

Thurs­day

10:30
Deal­ing with Pub­lic Order sit­u­a­tions — under­stand­ing police tac­tics and how we can deal with to them/turn them to our advan­tage (runs until lunch)
State and cor­po­rate oppres­sion of the Aus­tralian Abo­rig­ines
Action recon­nais­sance — advanced skill­share, share your most clever tips and tricks for get­ting info for actions
Prac­ti­cal plant iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (begin­ners)
Activist trau­ma and recov­ery

12:00
Sav­ing Ice­land — an eval­u­a­tion of the camp this sum­mer
Secu­ri­ty for Activists Part I: Do’s and don’ts of organ­is­ing action, from arrang­ing to meet, plan­ning and what hap­pens after
Arrest sup­port for actions — how to pro­vide sup­port for your affin­i­ty group, medi­um sized actions or mega camps and gath­er­ings.
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing

2:30
Wom­en’s self-defence — intro­duc­to­ry ses­sion
Food and Cli­mate Action: info for action
How to plan an action
Police liai­son for actions — what it is, its uses and lim­i­ta­tions and how to make it work.
Chang­ing light bulbs or smash­ing the sys­tem. Shar­ing +/- expe­ri­ences of work­ing within/outside the sys­tem

4:30
Oppos­ing nuclear expan­sion: plan­ning for action
How to plan and run a suc­cess­ful medi­um to long-term cam­paign
Night time skills Part I: intro­duc­tion (fol­lowed by prac­tise ses­sion at 8.30pm)
Legal and arrest work­shop
Intro­duc­tion to anar­chist history/potted anar­chist his­to­ries

6:00
Library space: open dis­cus­sion ?Direct action or pub­lic­i­ty stunt??
8:00

Cin­e­ma: Seashep­herd film and talk
8:30

Night time skills Part II — prac­tice your skills in the field.

Fri­day

10:30
Blockad­ing tac­tics
Cli­mate Camp debrief: a crit­i­cal look at the cli­mate camp, its achieve­ments and pol­i­tics
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Com­put­er Secu­ri­ty for the non-tech­ni­cal
Prison Abo­li­tion: what’s wrong with prison? what do we mean by abo­li­tion and how can we make it hap­pen?

12:00
Food and cli­mate change: action and cam­paign plan­ning
Self-defence mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting to resist — occu­pa­tions to resist the pow­ers of dark­ness
His­to­ry of Earth First!

2:30
The Earth First! Action Update and web­site: feed­back and get­ting involved
Resist­ing agro­fu­els — update on the sit­u­a­tion and action plan­ning
Sea Shep­herd — an intro to its cam­paigns and how to support/get involved.
Grow your own food — share you skills and expe­ri­ence
Queer Activist Forum: Rad­i­cal queers organ­ise for the future!

4:30
Queer Self-Defence: an intro to basic self-defence skills (ver­bal and phys­i­cal)
Set­ting up new direct action groups
Sav­ing Ice­land ? plan­ning actions for the com­ing year
Tech­no-fix­es and cli­mate change ? report by Cor­po­rate Watch
Urban self-reliance and self-suf­fi­cien­cy

7:30
Library: Pris­on­er Sup­port — An infor­mal get togeth­er to dis­cuss the state of pris­on­er sup­port in our move­ments, find out news and get advice on writ­ing to pris­on­ers, as well as mak­ing and writ­ing cards to send to pris­on­ers.

8:00
Cin­e­ma: A talk and film by a trib­al activist from Oris­sa oppos­ing min­ing

Sat­ur­day

10:30
Cam­paigns and Actions Round-up: UK and inter­na­tion­al news (no oth­er work­shops)

12:00
Wom­en’s self-defence prac­tise ses­sion plus run­ning along­side — intro­duc­tion to wom­en’s self-defence
Stop­ping GM test fields — dis­cus­sion on future campaign/actions
Research and destroy — how to research cor­po­ra­tions
Future mod­els of soci­ety — find­ing a path to sus­tain­able liv­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Using tripods for blockad­ing

2:30
Leave it in the ground — build­ing resis­tance to new coal min­ing and pow­er sta­tions
Facil­i­ta­tion of meet­ings
Activist Secu­ri­ty Part III: doing actions with­out leav­ing traces
Restora­tion Ecol­o­gy
Cre­at­ing safer spaces
Vis­it to Burston Strike School

4:30
Region­al meet­ings and action plan­ning (no oth­er work­shops)

6:00
Library Space: Work­ing with­out lead­ers — dis­cus­sion about core val­ues of anar­chism

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Smash Edo film and talk

Sun­day
11:00
Self defence mixed prac­tice ses­sion
Sort­ing out ways of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in EF!
Using radios on actions
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Fences: get­ting over them/taking them down

12:15
The sum­mer gath­er­ing: feed­back on this year’s and get­ting involved in organ­is­ing the next one

2:30
Con­doms, cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change
Smash Edo
Intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion
What’s new in the world of law?
Fem­i­nist Health
Climb­ing trees, lamp posts and any­thing else

4:30
Rad­i­cal pol­i­tics in the age of col­lapse
The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land and Fos­sil Fuel Financ­ing
Get­ting your elec­tric­i­ty from solar pow­er and wind
Rad­i­cal Par­ent­ing
Look­ing after our men­tal health — shar­ing ideas and expe­ri­ences

8:00
Cin­e­ma: films — cli­mate camp footage, ready steady skip etc

Mon­day
Take-down: please stay for a day or two to help take down the site. If you’ve got access to a vehicle/van, it’d be great if you could help trans­port­ing mar­quees, recy­cling etc to the places they need to go. Cheers!

More info about the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try.
Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.
We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.
Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

Direct actions by people from the Camp for Climate Action

Cli­mate activists at Lon­gan­net call for clo­sure date
6.08.2008
One-night mini Scot­tish camp out­side UK’s dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion. SNP Gov­ern­ment urged to set ear­ly clo­sure date for plant and guar­an­tee green jobs for coal work­ers in the grow­ing renew­ables rev­o­lu­tion.

No New Coal bannerCli­mate activists at Lon­gan­net call for clo­sure date
6.08.2008
One-night mini Scot­tish camp out­side UK’s dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion. SNP Gov­ern­ment urged to set ear­ly clo­sure date for plant and guar­an­tee green jobs for coal work­ers in the grow­ing renew­ables rev­o­lu­tion.

A group of cli­mate pro­tes­tors were at Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion in Fife this morn­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Camp for Cli­mate Action near to Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion in Eng­land.

Lon­gan­net coal plant, which pro­duces a quar­ter of Scot­land’s elec­tric­i­ty, pro­duces around 10 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide every year — rough­ly equiv­a­lent to the annu­al emis­sions of 2.5 mil­lion cars.

Eight sci­ences stu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh pre­sent­ed Scot­tish Pow­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives with the recent respect­ed ‘Zero Car­bon Britain’ report from CAT.

Daniel Abra­hams, a physics stu­dent, told Scot­tish Pow­er, who run the plant:
‘Any talk of ‘clean coal’ or car­bon cap­ture is a total dis­trac­tion. We need to rad­i­cal­ly reduce emis­sions in less than a decade and we just don’t have the time to wait for unproven tech­nol­o­gy when we already have renew­able solu­tions ready to roll. Lon­gan­net must close by 2015.’

Sarah Hol­l­i­day, a chem­istry stu­dent from the Isle of Tiree said:
‘The SNP must urgent­ly fund a tran­si­tion deal for all those in the coal indus­try. All those employed in the car­bon sec­tor must be guar­an­teed green jobs in the renew­ables rev­o­lu­tion.’

Notes to edi­tors:

1. Lon­gan­net ranked as the UK’s dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion in a 2007 WWF report:
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/european_dirty_thirty_may_2007.pdf

2. The Scot­tish Cli­mate Bill will bind Min­is­ters to a tar­get of an 80% in green­house gas­es by 2050. An 80% cut in car­bon diox­ide would mean total emis­sions for the whole nation of 10–13 mil­lion tonnes a year. Lon­gan­net pro­duces 10 mil­lion tonnes now.

3. Alex Salmond recent­ly described coal as a ‘fuel of the future’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7487184.stm

————

Cli­mate Activists Shut Down South’s Biggest Bio­fu­el Base, Thur­rock
Vopak biofuel action 2Vopak biofuel action 4
Vopak biofuel action 5

7.08.2008
This morn­ing cli­mate activists from around the coun­try have shut down the South’s biggest agro­fu­el depot.

The cam­paign­ers, who say that agro­fu­els will cause run­away cli­mate change if left unchecked, have dropped a 35 foot ban­ner from the top of one of the site’s biggest oil con­tain­ers and are block­ing fuel lor­ries from leav­ing or enter­ing the base.

Dean Rivers, who is cur­rent­ly chained to the roof of the oil depot said: “com­pa­nies like Green­er­gy and Tescos who use Thur­rock are prof­i­teer­ing out of the rush to bio­fu­els caus­ing food price ris­es, hunger for mil­lions, ecosys­tem destruc­tion and accel­er­at­ed Cli­mate Change. These are crimes against human­i­ty and the earth from which we may nev­er recov­er.” The protest is cur­rent­ly stop­ping one truck from leav­ing the Thur­rock site every 90 sec­onds.

George Mon­biot, who is at the Cli­mate Camp said “far from being a solu­tion to Cli­mate Change, agro­fu­els are so dam­ag­ing they make petro­le­um look green. They threat­en both to accel­er­ate Cli­mate Change and to trig­ger a glob­al human­i­tar­i­an dis­as­ter. I’m delight­ed that this depot has been block­ad­ed and I hope it sends a strong sig­nal that agro­fu­els are a part of the prob­lem not of the solu­tion.”

Last month, it was revealed that the US had buried a report from the World Bank which shows that agro­fu­els are respon­si­ble for 75% of recent food price ris­es. Despite this, both Europe and the USA con­tin­ue to invest bil­lions into the fuels, which under UK and EU law con­tin­ue to make up 2.5% of the UK fuel mix at the pump.

Julia Brown­low, who is block­ing lor­ries from enter­ing or leav­ing the site said “Agro­fu­els are destroy­ing the very ecosys­tems which can sta­bilise the cli­mate — with the col­lapse of the Ama­zon pos­si­bly just a few years away I am left with no choice but to take action.”

The protest will con­tin­ue for the rest of the day.

NOTES TO EDITORS

Agro­fu­els are bio­fu­els derived from plant mate­r­i­al grown in exten­sive mono­cul­tures.

what hap­pened & bio­fu­els explained — audio/x‑wav 7.0M
————

Anoth­er cli­mate camp action — Stu­dents Killed at Roy­al Bank of Scot­land’s HQ.
RBS die-in 2RBS die-in 17.08.2008
Fif­teen dead bod­ies are cur­rent­ly lying in a pool of oil block­ing the entrance to RBS Lon­don HQ at Liv­er­pool Street [1]. Stu­dents are stag­ing a ‘die-in’ block­ade to high­light the dev­as­tat­ing effects of cli­mate change. The pro­test­ers are demand­ing RBS stop fund­ing destruc­tive fos­sil fuel projects which will cre­ate cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe. The action is tak­ing place as part of the cli­mate camp and is co-ordi­nat­ed by the stu­dent action net­work PANDA [1].

A report released today by a coali­tion of envi­ron­men­tal NGOs [2] reveals that RBS is esti­mat­ed to have been involved in pro­vid­ing loans of over $20 bil­lion to coal-relat­ed com­pa­nies in the last two years – includ­ing the ener­gy com­pa­ny E.ON.

Head of Cli­mate Change Cam­paigns at Peo­ple & Plan­et, Bron­wen Thomas said

“Thou­sands of cli­mate change activists are cur­rent­ly gath­ered at the Cli­mate Camp in Kingsnorth to oppose E.ON’s plans to build the first coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the coun­try for 33 years. Coal is the dirt­i­est fuel there is. Open­ing coal fired pow­er sta­tions is mad­ness — We should be stop­ping cli­mate change not mak­ing it worse”

PANDA stu­dent activist Alex Wood, 22, is cur­rent­ly chained to oth­er activists in front of RBS. He explained his rea­sons: “I’m risk­ing arrest today because RBS must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the emis­sions caused by their invest­ments. Cli­mate change caus­es the death of 150, 000 peo­ple per year – each one of the fif­teen bod­ies lying out­side RBS rep­re­sents 10, 000 deaths. To stop this num­ber increas­ing RBS must act now.”

RBS, who refer to them­selves as ‘the oil and gas bank’ has also loaned mon­ey to com­pa­nies like Arch Coal, who are involved in the con­tro­ver­sial tech­nique of coal min­ing called Moun­tain Top Removal. This destroys the tops of entire moun­tains and pro­duces large quan­ti­ties of tox­ic sludge.

PHOTOS ON REQUEST: pandapress@hushmail.com

NOTES:

[1] RBS Lon­don HQ address is 250 Bish­ops­gate, Lon­don, EC2M 4NR

[2] PANDA is Peo­ple & Plan­et’s Asso­ci­at­ed Net­work for Direct Action. For more details see:
http://peopleandplanet.org/ditchdirtydevelopment

[3] The coali­tion of groups con­sists of Friends of the Earth Scot­land, Peo­ple & Plan­et, Plat­form, Bank­Track, Stop Cli­mate Chaos and Scot­tish Edu­ca­tion and Action for Devel­op­ment.

[4] For more info on the Cli­mate Camp vis­it www.climatecamp.org.uk

[5] For more info on the Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s financ­ing of fos­sil fuel extrac­tion see: www.peopleandplanet.org/ditchdirtydevelopment

————

Plane Stu­pid leaves Camp for Cli­mate Action for protest at Gatwick
7.08.2008
Nine pro­tes­tors from the anti-avi­a­tion group ‘Plane Stu­pid’ have left the Kingsnorth Cli­mate Camp to mount a protest against short-haul flights from the near­by Gatwick Air­port. The nine cli­mate activists had been plan­ning to protest against the government’s plans to expand Kingsnorth coal fire pow­er sta­tion. How­ev­er con­tin­u­al police intim­i­da­tion and vio­lence forced them to leave the camp, choos­ing instead to protest against the pop­u­lar­i­ty of short-haul flights, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the Edin­burgh Fes­ti­val, from Gatwick air­port.

The nine activists arrived at the air­port at 7.50am. They then split into three groups. The first group scaled the wall next to the esca­la­tor above the train sta­tion, occu­py­ing the roof struc­ture and drop­ping a ban­ner: ‘SHORT-HAUL FLIGHT? LET THE TRAIN TAKE THE STRAIN.’ The sec­ond group mount­ed the mez­za­nine above the arrivals lounge, hand­cuffed them­selves to a rail­ing and dropped a ban­ner: ‘STOP SHORT-HAUL’. The third group, dressed as ‘infor­ma­tion points’, with t‑shirts ask­ing, ‘can I hin­der?, leaflet­ed the sur­prised crowd with infor­ma­tion about the eco­log­i­cal cost of avi­a­tion and the irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of those who fly short-haul.

Lot­ti Rut­ter, one of those hand­cuffed to the rail­ing, said:

‘It’s ter­ri­fy­ing – we’re approach­ing a cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe yet the Depart­ment for Trans­port do absolute­ly noth­ing to pro­vide us with a low car­bon trans­port pol­i­cy – there are a total of 139 flights from Lon­don to Edin­burgh as opposed to just 22 trains. We’re here today to protest against short-haul flights. We’re well aware that a lot of peo­ple will be choos­ing to go to the Edin­burgh Fes­ti­val and we’re here to ask them to make the right deci­sion – to take the train. In a time of cli­mate cri­sis any­thing else is more than irre­spon­si­ble: it’s Plane Stu­pid.’

Gatwick flies 26 times dai­ly to Edin­burgh. The same route is cov­ered by a four hour train ride from Lon­don King’s Cross. How­ev­er there are only 22 trains per day. The route from Lon­don to Edin­burgh (by air) is also cov­ered by Heathrow (66 flights), Stanst­ed (31 flights), Luton (12 flights) and Lon­don City Air­port (4 flights).

The activists are present­ly at Gatwick con­tin­u­ing their protest, after which those not arrest­ed will return to the Cli­mate Camp to con­tin­ue their envi­ron­men­tal action.

http://www.planestupid.com

————

World’s small­est cam­paign­ers scale Kingsnorth smoke­stack
Lego Kingsnorth occupation7.08.2008
E.ON’s repli­ca of the Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion has been occu­pied by one inch tall cli­mate change cam­paign­ers. The dra­ma unfold­ed at the Legoland park in Wind­sor – spon­sored by E.ON – where the Lego Kingsnorth is giv­en pride of place next to Big Ben and Canary Wharf.

The Lego cam­paign­ers struck as hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­er at this year’s Cli­mate Camp to protest the planned new coal plant at Kingsnorth in Kent.

The six cam­paign­ers appeared at the top of the con­struc­tion at around 11am this morn­ing, before unveil­ing a ban­ner say­ing STOP CLIMATE CHANGE down the length of the tow­er. Lego police are in atten­dance at the foot of the tow­er, along with a Lego police heli­copter.

E.ON proud­ly announced the con­struc­tion of Britain’s newest coal-fired sta­tion at Legoland in 2006. The Ger­man util­i­ty giant is Britain’s sin­gle biggest green­house gas pol­luter. The com­pa­ny is aim­ing to have Kingsnorth 2 built by 2012. Despite claims that the new plant will be more effi­cient, it is esti­mat­ed that it will emit 8.4 mil­lion tonnes of cli­mate chang­ing pol­lu­tants every year, com­pared to the 8.7 mil­lion tonnes the exist­ing plant releas­es annu­al­ly, and nowhere near the 80% reduc­tions need­ed to com­bat glob­al warm­ing.

Nei­ther the cam­paign­ers nor the police would com­ment, because they’re made of Lego and there­fore can’t talk.

legoactivist@googlemail.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/legoactivist

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Cli­mate Camp activists super­glue them­selves to RBS
8.08.2008
This morn­ing at 8.30 AM, activists from the Camp for Cli­mate Action super­glued them­selves to the front doors of the Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s Oil and Gas Divi­sion in Bish­ops­gate, Cen­tral Lon­don wield­ing a ban­ner read­ing “RBS: Cash­ing In On Coal”.

The fol­low­ing is tak­en from the Cam­p’s press release:

“Loca­tion: 199 Broadgate Court, Bish­op’s Gate, near Liv­er­pool Street sta­tion.

Roy­al Bank Of Scot­land Tar­get­ed By Cli­mate Camp Activists For The Sec­ond Day Run­ning

Activists from the Camp for Cli­mate Action have super­glued them­selves to the front doors of the Roy­al Bank of Scotland’s Oil and Gas Divi­sion in Cen­tral Lon­don [1]. Wield­ing a ban­ner read­ing “RBS: Cash­ing In On Coal”, the cam­paign­ers are stag­ing this protest to high­light the links between the finan­cial sec­tor, the fos­sil fuel indus­try, and dis­as­trous cli­mate change.

This action fol­lows the protest at RBS’s head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, when 15 stu­dents staged a “die-in” block­ade [2] to demand that the bank stop fund­ing fos­sil fuel projects includ­ing the pro­posed new coal pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth. Today’s action, which takes place as part of the cli­mate camp and involves mem­bers of the cli­mate action net­work Ris­ing Tide [3], will show the bank that this cam­paign pres­sure is not going to go away.

In 2007, projects financed by RBS were respon­si­ble for more emis­sions that the whole of Scot­land. Along with oth­er banks, RBS par­tic­i­pat­ed in financ­ing E.ON – the own­ers of Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion — $70 bil­lion over the course of 2007 [4]. RBS has financed com­pa­nies like Arch Coal, who are engag­ing in con­tro­ver­sial moun­tain top removal min­ing in the US [5], and are also financ­ing com­pa­nies like Dyn­e­gy [6] who are look­ing to roll out new coal pow­er sta­tions across Amer­i­ca.

Sarah Horne, who is at the Cli­mate Camp in Kent, said:
“The Cli­mate Camp has always been about far more than just stop­ping a new pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth. The fact that the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land has been tar­get­ed twice in as many days high­lights the inti­mate involve­ment of well-known high street banks in the destruc­tion of our cli­mate, thanks to the bil­lions of pounds they invest in fos­sil fuel projects each year. We need to shift to a dif­fer­ent kind of econ­o­my – one that doesn’t rely on end­less eco­nom­ic growth at all costs, and respects the nat­ur­al lim­its of the plan­et.”

Sam Har­ri­son, who is cur­rent­ly super­glued to the entrance of RBS’s oil and gas divi­sion, said “The fact that RBS have a spe­cial office ded­i­cat­ed entire­ly to fund­ing oil and gas projects shows exact­ly where their pri­or­i­ties lie. We need to rad­i­cal­ly reduce our use of fos­sil fuels to have any chance of avoid­ing dis­as­trous cli­mate change, so it is com­plete­ly per­verse for RBS to keep pour­ing so much mon­ey into oil, gas and coal. We’re here to make them to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their actions.”

PHOTOS ON REQUEST: press@climatecamp.org.uk.

For updates and inter­views about the action con­tact Sam Har­ri­son on 07939 142072. For infor­ma­tion about the Camp for Cli­mate Action, call 07531396232 or see www.climatecamp.org.uk.

NOTES:

[1] RBS London’s Oil and Gas Divi­sion address is at 199 Broadgate Court, Bish­op’s Gate, near Liv­er­pool Street sta­tion.

[2] The stu­dents posed as oil-cov­ered dead bod­ies to block the entrance to RBS’s HQ. For more details on yesterday’s RBS action, con­tact Richard Roaf on 07801140192

[3] For more infor­ma­tion about Ris­ing Tide see www.risingtide.org.uk

[4] Project Finance, Issue No. 287, Feb­ru­ary 2008

[5] Bank Track, Mind The Gap, 2007, pp 124–5

[6] www.banktrack.org”

————

Naked protest at BERR
Naked BERR climate action 1
Naked BERR climate action 2
Pho­tographs of pro­test­ers super­glued to the sign of the Depart­ment for Busi­ness Enter­prise and Reg­u­la­to­ry Reform, 1 Vic­to­ria Street, Lon­don. August 8, 2008.

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Cli­mate campers tar­get min­ing cor­po­ra­tion
BHP action 1BHP action 211.08.2008
An affin­i­ty group from Thames Val­ley Cli­mate Action, inspired by this year’s cli­mate camp, occu­pied the lob­by of BHP Bil­li­ton today, super­glu­ing them­selves to the doors and win­dows and climb­ing onto part of the archi­tec­ture. After sev­er­al hours, they man­aged to nego­ti­ate leav­ing with­out any arrests.

BHP are the world’s biggest min­ing cor­po­ra­tion. Based in Aus­tralia, they are respon­si­ble for min­ing hun­dreds of tonnes of coal, as well as for human rights abus­es world­wide. One exam­ple is their involve­ment in Cer­re­jón, the world’s biggest open­cast mine, in Colom­bia, which has dis­placed 14’000 peo­ple.

With all this in mind we decid­ed to dis­rupt busi­ness as usu­al at BHP’s head offices in Lon­don. We scat­tered coal in the lob­by, glued to the revolv­ing doors and near­by win­dows, while a sec­ond door near­by was D‑locked. Mean­while a team of mis­chie­vous fer­rets slipped upstairs in suits to see what else could be done, while oth­ers held a ban­ner out­side say­ing ‘BHP: Under­min­ing the future’ (a play on their vac­u­ous cor­po­rate slo­gan) and leaflet­ed the intrigued passers-by.

When the ‘fer­rets’ were dragged back down to the lob­by, they joined the rest of us. One of them also glued to the revolv­ing door, while the oth­er held a ‘Coal Heart­ed Killers’ ban­ner and even­tu­al­ly man­aged to scram­ble up onto a bit of the struc­ture.

A cou­ple of cops even­tu­al­ly showed up, but there was a tan­gi­ble reluc­tance on the part of BHP to esca­late the sit­u­a­tion; they seemed to want to do any­thing nec­es­sary to get us to qui­et­ly go away! It was main­ly because of this (and because they did­n’t have any easy way of get­ting the climber down) that we were able to nego­ti­ate get­ting every­one away with­out arrest, after the glued on folk had been unglued by the police using a spe­cial chem­i­cal solu­tion.

We adjourned to a near­by pub where we sat in mild shock at hav­ing done what we planned to do with­out the expect­ed has­sle of arrests..

We can hearti­ly rec­om­mend pay­ing them a vis­it! The mas­sive plate glass win­dows pro­vide a good view for passers-by, media etc.

BHP Bil­li­ton Plc
Neathouse Place
Vic­to­ria
Lon­don SW1V 1BH

There are also plen­ty of oth­er sim­i­lar­ly evil out­fits around cen­tral Lon­don — do your own research!

http://tvca.atspace.com/
http://leaveitintheground.org.uk/
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

————

Cli­mate Cam­paign­ers Tar­get Mil­i­tary Base
Mildenhall climate action 111.08.2008
At USAF Milden­hall today, activists linked to the cli­mate camp made a sur­prise appear­ance. Dressed as mil­i­tary air­craft and traf­fic jam both with CO2 tech­ni­cians. They attempt­ed to enter­tain whilst defi­ant­ly edu­cat­ing the troops and passers by. They said they where there to raise aware­ness of the large CO2 emis­sions cre­at­ed by Mil­i­tary air­craft.

A sin­gle KC135 plane uses 44 gal­lons of fuel per minute, emit­ting approx­i­mate­ly the same amount of CO2 as 2000 cars. The planes are used for air-to-air refu­elling and can car­ry 30,000 gal­lons of fuel – enough to dri­ve a car over 30 times around the earth.

One of the activists, Mell Har­ri­son said ‘We are here to show that mil­i­tary air­craft are not only com­mit­ting war crimes, but cli­mate crimes also. You very rarely hear about the vast amounts of CO2 emit­ted by the mil­i­tary and at a time when all should be account­able for their car­bon foot­print now is the time to put our efforts and resources into tack­ling cli­mate change not fight­ing wars over oil resources. ’

Richard Jack­son dressed as KC-135 58–0036 said, ‘Nweeeeeeeeearhh­h­h­h­hh phut phut phut phut’

Whilst dressed as an ‘allur­ing’ car sales girl, Pete Lux said, “Even if you do not believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are counter pro­duc­tive as we do, there is still the large amount of unnec­es­sary fly­ing. Often the planes will do ‘touch and goes’ where they land and then take off sev­er­al times. This is a need­less emis­sion of car­bon diox­ide, in fact dur­ing the 2 hours of our pres­ence here we have had the same two air­craft tak­ing off and land­ing con­tin­u­al­ly. ”

Milden­hall is one of the major logis­tic bases for US Air Force and plays a major role in sup­port­ing com­bat air­craft in both Afghanistan and Iraq. US planes car­ry out about 40 ‘close air sup­port’ mis­sions every day in Iraq and a sim­i­lar num­ber in Afghanistan. Each KC-135 flies on aver­age, for 435 hours each year. There are 15 KC ‑135s at this US base alone. This results in over 160 mil­lion Kg of CO2 per year.

Whilst at the US air base some­body with the group was told by a female Suf­folk police offi­cer that if she did not tell them who they were, how long they would be there and num­bers expect­ed, she, as the ‘nice police’ , would have to call in ‘ the ones with shields and dogs’. So looks like the police tac­tics of the last few days con­tin­ue……
We did not see any pup­pies though.

As Cli­mate Camp fin­ish­es, the group say that the cam­paign against cli­mate crim­i­nals will con­tin­ue all year round.

The KC-135 uses 2650 gal­lons per hour = 44.16666667 gal­lons per minute
Car­ries 90700 kg of avi­a­tion fuel = 126000 litres = 27800 gal­lons.
Aver­age new car cre­ates 140g CO2 per km = 12.6 kg CO2 per hour = 0.21 Kg CO2 per minute.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/kc-135e.htm
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=110
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas

————
Cli­mate camp activists tar­get envi­ron­men­tal­ly ‘irre­spon­si­ble’ meat indus­try
Climate camp activists target environmentally ‘irresponsible’ meat industryClimate camp activists target environmentally ‘irresponsible’ meat industryThis morn­ing, 11th August 2008, six Cli­mate Camp activists climbed the roof of Smith­field meat mar­ket to high­light the links between cli­mate change and meat con­sump­tion. The activists dropped a ban­ner bear­ing the mes­sage “Fight cli­mate change — Go Veg­an”.

The activists also quot­ed the 2007 UN Food and Agri­cul­ture report that found that 18% of glob­al green­house emis­sions are caused by ani­mal farm­ing – more than the entire trans­port sec­tor world­wide. The pro­tes­tors argue that all major polit­i­cal par­ties have failed to address this seri­ous prob­lem and as a con­se­quence the pub­lic have not been encour­aged to adopt an envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble diet.

The group is call­ing for more peo­ple to choose a veg­an diet, which excludes all ani­mal prod­ucts includ­ing meat, eggs and dairy, in order to mas­sive­ly reduce cli­mate alter­ing emis­sions. “An ani­mal-based diet is no longer sus­tain­able with cli­mate change threat­en­ing the plan­et, its ecosys­tems, and the peo­ple who depend on them,” said Clare Whit­ney, one of the activists.

The fos­sil fuel input to pro­duce a day’s food for a veg­an is just under 10,000 calo­ries, com­pared to 34,000 calo­ries for a meat eater – the equiv­a­lent of near­ly 1.5 tonnes more car­bon diox­ide per per­son per year. As such, the cli­mate camp pro­tes­tors main­tain, chang­ing the way we eat is one of the most pow­er­ful ways for indi­vid­u­als to reduce their car­bon foot­print.

Smith­field mar­ket is one of the largest whole­sale trad­ing places for meat prod­ucts in the UK. Eighty-five thou­sand tonnes of pro­duce pass through it each year includ­ing meat, poul­try and cheese.

Phil Mur­ray, 22, not­ed: “the meat indus­try is up there with short-haul flights as one of the most envi­ron­men­tal­ly irre­spon­si­ble sec­tors.”

The action took place as part of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, a week-long protest against the build­ing of a new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in Kent, which, if built, will emit between 6 and 8 mil­lion tons of CO2 every year.

(This is actu­al­ly just our press release but since the back light on our lap­top just van­ished we’re going to have to leave it as that…)

Cli­mate Camp Veg­an Action Group
angelo.b@talk21.com

URGENT CALL OUT: MAYO NEEDS YOU! NOW IS THE TIME

Dur­ing the next 2 weeks, the Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

Dur­ing the next 2 weeks, the Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

After the suc­cess of Cli­mate Camp, come over to Ire­land and sup­port a com­mu­ni­ty deter­mined to resist Shell…but they need your help!
Although local resis­tance has been ongo­ing, the police and a hired secu­ri­ty force have meant it is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult. A few weeks ago 13 peo­ple were arrest­ed in Glen­gad (1 man remains in hos­pi­tal). How­ev­er the police are now just escort­ing peo­ple from the site and not arrest­ing peo­ple.

There­fore there is a real need for clever actions to help delay cur­rent con­struc­tion at the land­fall area in Glen­gad and the planned off­shore pipe lay­ing. The local peo­ple are call­ing for your assis­tance at this time.

It is expect­ed that once the off-shore pipe lay­ing is done, there will be anoth­er qui­et peri­od for sev­er­al months before con­struc­tion is due on the onshore sec­tion pos­si­bly next spring or sum­mer, so NOW IS THE TIME TO COME!

If you can­not come over please do what you can from home …organ­ise Ross­port film nights, protest at Shell garages & offices, con­tact the Irish Embassy & media.

Trav­el details on camp web­site www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com
The cheap­est and eas­i­est way to trav­el from Eng­land-Ire­land is to get a coach or train tick­et that includes fer­ry too. www.sailandrail.com — 08705 455 455 www.coachacross.com
Acco­mo­da­tion is avali­able at the camp house
we can win but we need you
e‑mail: rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
Home­page: http://www.shelltosea.com, www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com, www.indymedia.ie/mayo

Bardon Hit Again

Inspired by an action ear­li­er this year we decid­ed to hit Bar­dons quar­ry in Bur­to-on-trent. Bar­don are part of a group respon­si­ble for the destru­tion of moun­tains at the Glen­san­da Quar­ry in Scot­land. This is one of the largest quar­rys in Europe and exports stone for road con­struc­tion.

Inspired by an action ear­li­er this year we decid­ed to hit Bar­dons quar­ry in Bur­to-on-trent. Bar­don are part of a group respon­si­ble for the destru­tion of moun­tains at the Glen­san­da Quar­ry in Scot­land. This is one of the largest quar­rys in Europe and exports stone for road con­struc­tion.

This can not be allowed. As the secu­ri­ty watched TV we slashed tyres, stripped paint jobs, Glued locks and trashed con­va­y­or belts. All the earth movers were hit and many of the cement and agr­re­gate trucks. This action cost us very lit­tle but should cost bar­don thou­sands.

We all know lob­by­ing gets us lit­tle, we all know that once a moun­tain is gone it is gone for­ev­er, we all know time for the earth is run­ning out. We all have fear that stops us act­ing but we must act.