Category: South East England

South East Eng­land

SmashEDO protest in Brighton — links to timelines

May Day, 4th May 2009: Hun­dreds of peo­ple from all over the coun­try met in Brighton today to protest against the war, cap­i­tal­ism, and the arms trade.

Smash EDO Mayday 1Smash EDO Mayday 2Smash EDO Mayday 3May Day, 4th May 2009: Hun­dreds of peo­ple from all over the coun­try met in Brighton today to protest against the war, cap­i­tal­ism, and the arms trade. Organ­ised by the Smash EDO move­ment, which for years has been cam­paign­ing against the EDO/ITT weapons fac­to­ry based in Brighton, the protest start­ed off very peace­ful­ly and remained gen­er­al­ly pos­i­tive through­out the day.

After meet­ing by the Palace Pier, the protest moved through the cen­tre of Brighton cheer­ing and chant­i­ng. Four young anar­chists climbed to the top of the Bar­clays build­ing, where they hung a ban­ner read­ing “Arms Deal­ers Out Of Brighton’. Bar­clays is noto­ri­ous for being one of the banks most com­plic­it in the inter­na­tion­al arms trade. The peo­ple respon­si­ble for the ban­ner were wel­comed into the crowd as heroes, and avoid­ed arrest.

After pass­ing peace­ful­ly past the Clock tow­er, down Queens Road and through North Laine, the protest clashed with police on Lon­don Road. A heavy police pres­ence blocked part of the road out­side McDon­alds, and minor scuf­fles quick­ly esca­lat­ed as mount­ed and riot police forced through crowds to pro­tect the build­ing. A smoke-bomb lit by pro­test­ers, com­bined with a push for­ward from mount­ed police, fright­ened shop­pers and near­ly split the protest in two.

From then on, the protest became a game of cat-and-mouse — although it was some­times hard to tell who was the cat and who the mouse. Pro­test­ers man­aged to force back mount­ed police sev­er­al times, while police hasti­ly re-grouped around the protest as it moved into res­i­den­tial dis­tricts and through Pre­ston Park. How­ev­er, nei­ther pro­test­ers nor police seemed to have a plan as such, and after much walk­ing and a few minor scuf­fles — includ­ing the arrest of one man by riot police — the protest moved back into the town cen­tre.

On the seafront, for the first time in the day the police attempt­ed to ‘ket­tle’ pro­test­ers by sur­round­ing them on all sides. How­ev­er, pro­test­ers quick­ly skirt­ed down onto the beach and back onto the road behind police lines. The protest moved on peace­ful­ly and, after more skirt­ing through nar­row lanes and mov­ing around police lines, set­tled on the grass out­side St. Peter’s Church to dance and relax.

http://www.smashedo.org.uk/

Time­lines:

Indy­media
The Brighton & Hove Argus

Last Hours twit­ter

Camp Bling announces ‘the end’ as road scheme stopped.

Press release:

Camp Bling ‘Save Pri­o­ry Park!’ road cam­paign

Thurs­day 30th April 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

—————————————————————————————

Camp Bling announces ‘the end’ as road scheme stopped.

Press release:

Camp Bling ‘Save Pri­o­ry Park!’ road cam­paign

Thurs­day 30th April 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

—————————————————————————————

Camp Bling announces ‘the end’ as road scheme stopped.

Long run­ning road protest and counter-cul­tur­al cam­paign site Camp Bling, based in the mid­dle of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, is set to be decom­mis­sioned by the sum­mer, after the long await­ed announce­ment that the con­tro­ver­sial Pri­o­ry Cres­cent road widen­ing has now offi­cial­ly been can­celled. (1)

Mem­bers of the camp met with Coun­cil lead­ers last night with a view to resolv­ing the sit­u­a­tion, after the pub­li­ca­tion of an open let­ter from Trans­port Coun­cil­lor Anna Waite, stat­ing that £5m in cen­tral gov­ern­ment fund­ing would be spent sole­ly on the Cuck­oo Cor­ner round­about, with pos­si­ble junc­tion improve­ments — but no widen­ing — to fol­low at the Prit­tle Brook indus­tri­al site at a lat­er date. (2)

As a result, cam­paign­ers intend to hon­our their pub­lic pledge to clear and vacate the camp, now that their objec­tive to stop the road has been met com­plete­ly. It is expect­ed that it will take a num­ber of weeks to ful­ly return the East Sax­on king’s bur­ial to its for­mer con­di­tion, with all struc­tures and mate­ri­als on the site to be removed by the group, with the objec­tive of incur­ring no cost to the local tax­pay­er.

Speak­ing from the camp Gin­ger said, ‘We would like to thank each and every one of the peo­ple who have been involved, not just with Camp Bling, but also with the ongo­ing cam­paign which ran from 2001 in oppo­si­tion to the scheme. It’s not every day that you get to be part of an effort to stop a £25m road widen­ing, with the added oppor­tu­ni­ty to warn peo­ple of the cul­mi­na­tion of envi­ron­men­tal and social crises that we now all face.’

‘For many of us this has been our first taste of an alter­na­tive, low­er impact, and more com­pas­sion­ate lifestyle. We have shared our expe­ri­ences — both good and bad — along the way, and often got peo­ple to acknowl­edge the real choic­es that we all have. It is time for every­one to con­front real­i­ty, as west­ern indus­tri­al soci­ety con­tin­ues to over­shoot the eco­log­i­cal lim­its of the Earth.’ (3)

Peo­ple are still wel­come to vis­it the camp whilst decom­mis­sion­ing is under­way, and are also encour­aged to check out some of the alter­na­tives at: www.campbling.org

—————————————————————————————

ENDS.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

(1) Camp Bling was first set up by local activists on 23rd Sep­tem­ber 2005. For more info about both the camp, and the long run­ning cam­paign, go to: www.campbling.org

(2) See full con­tents of let­ter at: http://www.southend.gov.uk/news/default.asp?id=2835

(3) Cli­mate, Peak Oil, Over­pop­u­la­tion, Mass Extinc­tion, Over­con­sump­tion, etc.

Camp Bling ‘Save Pri­o­ry Park!’ road cam­paign
www.campbling.org

Con­tact Camp Bling direct­ly on 07866 967601

Or e‑mail camp.bling@yahoo.co.uk

Why climate camping & other protest? Ecological debt day for your city…coming soon!

Eco­log­i­cal debt: no way back from bank­rupt

3 planetsEco­log­i­cal debt: no way back from bank­rupt

While most gov­ern­ments’ eyes are on the bank­ing cri­sis, a much big­ger issue — the envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis — is pass­ing them by, says Andrew Simms. In the Green Room this week, he argues that fail­ure to organ­ise a bailout for eco­log­i­cal debt will have dire con­se­quences for human­i­ty.

“Nature Does­n’t Do Bailouts!” said the ban­ner strung across Bish­ops­gate in the City of Lon­don.

Civil­i­sa­tion’s biggest prob­lem was out­lined in five words over the entrance to the small, par­al­lel real­i­ty of the peace­ful cli­mate camp. Their tents bloomed on the morn­ing of 1 April faster than daisies in spring, and faster than the police could stop them.

Across the city, where the world’s most pow­er­ful peo­ple met simul­ta­ne­ous­ly at the G20 sum­mit, the same prob­lem was almost com­plete­ly ignored, mer­it­ing only a sin­gle, after­thought men­tion in a long com­mu­nique.

World lead­ers dropped every­thing to tack­le the finan­cial debt cri­sis that spilled from col­laps­ing banks.

Gripped by a pan­ic so com­plete, there was no pol­i­cy dog­ma too deeply engrained to be dug out and instant­ly dis­card­ed. We went from tri­umphant, finance-dri­ven free mar­ket cap­i­tal­ism, to bank nation­al­i­sa­tion and mov­ing the dec­i­mal point on indus­try bailouts quick­er than you can say sub-prime mort­gage.

But the eco­log­i­cal debt cri­sis, which threat­ens much more than pen­sion funds and car man­u­fac­tur­ers, is left to lan­guish.

It is like hav­ing a Com­mis­sion on House­hold Ren­o­va­tion ago­nise over which expen­sive design­er wall­pa­per to use for paper­ing over plas­ter cracks whilst ignor­ing the fact that the walls them­selves are col­laps­ing on sub­sid­ing foun­da­tions.

Beyond our means

Each year, human­i­ty’s eco­log­i­cal over­draft gets larg­er, and the day that the world as a whole goes into eco­log­i­cal debt — con­sum­ing more resources and pro­duc­ing more waste than the bios­phere can pro­vide and absorb — moves ever ear­li­er in the year.

The same pic­ture emerges for indi­vid­ual coun­tries like the UK — which now starts liv­ing beyond its own envi­ron­men­tal means in mid-April.

Because the glob­al econ­o­my is still over­whelm­ing­ly fos­sil-fuel depen­dent, the accu­mu­la­tion of green­house gas­es and the prog­no­sis for glob­al warm­ing remain our best indi­ca­tors of “over­shoot”.

World famous French free-climber Alain Robert, known as Spi­der­man, climbed the Lloyds of Lon­don build­ing for the OneHundredMonths.org cam­paign as the G20 met, to demon­strate how time is slip­ping away.

Using thresh­olds for risk iden­ti­fied by the Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC), on cur­rent trends, in only 92 months — less than eight years — we will move into a new, more per­ilous phase of warm­ing.

It will then no longer be “like­ly” that we can pre­vent some aspects of run­away cli­mate change. We will begin to lose the cli­mat­ic con­di­tions which, as Nasa sci­en­tist James Hansen points out, were those under which civil­i­sa­tion devel­oped.

Small div­i­dend

As “nature does­n’t do bailouts”, how have our politi­cians fared who ripped open the nation’s wal­let to save the banks?

Not good.

Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF), the UK spent a stag­ger­ing 20% of its GDP in sup­port of the finan­cial sec­tor.

Yet the amount of mon­ey that was new and addi­tion­al, announced in the “green stim­u­lus” pack­age of the Trea­sury’s Pre-Bud­get Report, added-up to a van­ish­ing­ly small 0.0083% of GDP.

Glob­al­ly, the green shade of eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus mea­sures has var­ied enor­mous­ly. For exam­ple, the shares of spend­ing con­sid­ered in research by the bank HSBC to be envi­ron­men­tal were:

* the US — 12%
* Ger­many — 13%
* South Korea — 80%

The inter­na­tion­al aver­age was around 15%. HSBC found the UK planned to invest less than 7% of its stim­u­lus pack­age (dif­fer­ent from the bank bailout) in green mea­sures.

Com­par­ing the IMF and HSBC fig­ures actu­al­ly reveals an inverse rela­tion­ship — pro­por­tion­ate­ly, those who spent more on sup­port for finance had weak­er green spend­ing.

So here we are, faced with the loss of an envi­ron­ment con­ducive to human civil­i­sa­tion, and we find gov­ern­ments pros­trate before bare­ly repen­tant banks, with their backs to a far worse eco­log­i­cal cri­sis.

Extreme mar­kets

On top of low and incon­sis­tent fund­ing for renew­able ener­gy, the shift to a low car­bon econ­o­my is being fur­ther frus­trat­ed by anoth­er mar­ket fail­ure in the trade for car­bon seen, for exam­ple, in the EU’s Emis­sions Trad­ing Scheme.

Bad mar­ket design, fee­ble car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets and the reces­sion have all con­spired to dri­ve down the cost of car­bon emis­sion per­mits, wreck­ing eco­nom­ic incen­tives to grow renew­able ener­gy.

Worse still, the dif­fi­cul­ty of account­ing to ensure that per­mits rep­re­sent real emis­sions has led both ener­gy com­pa­nies and envi­ron­men­tal­ists to warn of an emerg­ing “sub-prime car­bon mar­ket”.

Rely­ing on mar­ket mech­a­nisms is attrac­tive to gov­ern­ments because it means they have less to do them­selves. But they will fail if car­bon mar­kets are just hot air.

There seems to be a hard-wired link between mem­o­ry fail­ure and mar­ket fail­ure.

As the his­to­ri­an E J Hob­s­bawm observed in The Age of Extremes: “Those of us who lived through the years of the Great Slump still find it almost impos­si­ble to under­stand how the ortho­dox­ies of the pure free mar­ket, then so obvi­ous­ly dis­cred­it­ed, once again came to pre­side over a glob­al peri­od of depres­sion in the late 1980s and 1990s”.

Per­haps the great­est fail­ure is one of imag­i­na­tion.

Some peo­ple alive today lived through those past reces­sions and depres­sions. They know they can be nasty and need avert­ing.

But the last time the Earth­’s cli­mate real­ly flipped was at the end of the last Ice Age, more than 10,000 years ago. No one can remem­ber what that felt like.

Lessons of his­to­ry

Look­ing for­ward, the IPC­C’s worst case sce­nario warns of a max­i­mum 6C rise over the next cen­tu­ry.

Look­ing back, how­ev­er, indi­cates that an unsta­ble cli­mate sys­tem holds worse hor­rors.

Work by the sci­en­tist Richard Alley on abrupt cli­mate change indi­cates the plan­et has pre­vi­ous­ly expe­ri­enced a 10C tem­per­a­ture shift in only a decade, and pos­si­bly “as quick­ly as in a sin­gle year”.

And, around the turn of the last Ice Age, there were “local warm­ings as large as 16C”.

Imag­ine that every day of your life you have tak­en a walk in the woods and the worse thing to hap­pen was an acorn or twig falling on your head.

Then, one day, you stroll out, look up and there is a threat approach­ing so large, unex­pect­ed and out­side your expe­ri­ence that can’t quite believe it, like a mas­sive goth­ic cathe­dral falling from the sky.

In tack­ling cli­mate change we need urgent­ly to recal­i­brate our respons­es, just as gov­ern­ments had to when they res­cued the reck­less finance sec­tor.

Then offi­cials had to ask them­selves “is what we are doing right, and is it enough?”

They must ask them­selves the same ques­tions on the eco­log­i­cal debt cri­sis and cli­mate change.

The dif­fer­ence is, that if they fail this time, not even a long-term busi­ness cycle will come to our res­cue. If the cli­mate shifts to a hot­ter state not con­vivial to human soci­ety, it could be tens of thou­sands of years, or nev­er, before it shifts back.

Remem­ber; nature does­n’t do bailouts.

Andrew Simms is pol­i­cy direc­tor of the New Eco­nom­ics Foun­da­tion (nef), and author of Eco­log­i­cal Debt: Glob­al Warm­ing and the Wealth of Nations

——

One Plan­et Liv­ing http://www.oneplanetliving.org

Your city’s Eco­log­i­cal Debt Day:

Using the lat­est data avail­able WWF has cal­cu­lat­ed when res­i­dents of British cities will have con­sumed their fair share of nat­ur­al resources for 2008 – or when their eco­log­i­cal debt day is.

City Eco­log­i­cal debt day

Win­ches­ter 10 April
St Albans 13 April
Chich­ester 14 April
Brighton & Hove 14 April
Can­ter­bury 17 April
Oxford 17 April
Southamp­ton 21 April
Durham 22 April
Cam­bridge 23 April
Portsmouth 23 April
Edin­burgh 23 April
Chester 24 April
Aberdeen 24 April
Ely (East Cambs) 26 April
Here­ford (Coun­ty of Here­ford­shire) 28 April
Stir­ling 28 April
Lon­don 29 April
Lich­field 29 April
Lan­cast­er 30 April
New­cas­tle upon Tyne 30 April
Wells (Bath and NE Som­er­set) 1 May
Bath (Bath and North East Som­er­set) 1 May
Ripon (Har­ro­gate) 2 May
Man­ches­ter 2 May
Inver­ness (High­land) 2 May
Pre­ston 2 May
Nor­wich 2 May
Peter­bor­ough 2 May
Dundee City 3 May
Leeds 3 May
York 3 May
Sheffield 3 May
Der­by 4 May
Carlisle 4 May
Leices­ter 4 May
Worces­ter 4 May
Ban­gor (Gwynedd) 4 May
St Davids (Pembrokeshire)4 May
Not­ting­ham 4 May
Liv­er­pool 4 May
Bris­tol 5 May
Birm­ing­ham 5 May
Lin­coln 5 May
Brad­ford 5 May
Glas­gow 6 May
Cardiff 6 May
Exeter 6 May
Coven­try 7 May
Swansea 8 May
Sal­ford 8 May
Wolver­hamp­ton 8 May
Truro (Car­rick) 8 May
Sun­der­land 8 May
Wake­field 9 May
Glouces­ter 9 May
Stoke on Trent 10 May
Kingston upon Hull 10 May
Sal­is­bury 10 May
Ply­mouth 11 May
New­port 11 May

April 1st 2009 — Fossil Fools’ Day goes global

Today saw not only mass protests in Lon­don ahead of the G20 sum­mit, but local demon­stra­tions in cities around the UK and across the globe. Under the ban­ner of Fos­sil Fools Day, activists held protests at banks, ener­gy com­pa­nies and pow­er sta­tions across the UK, the USA, Cana­da and South Africa to high­light the twin eco­nom­ic and cli­mate crises.

'It's Going to Get Worse' placardToday saw not only mass protests in Lon­don ahead of the G20 sum­mit, but local demon­stra­tions in cities around the UK and across the globe. Under the ban­ner of Fos­sil Fools Day, activists held protests at banks, ener­gy com­pa­nies and pow­er sta­tions across the UK, the USA, Cana­da and South Africa to high­light the twin eco­nom­ic and cli­mate crises.

For more pho­tos vis­it here and if your action isn’t in the list below email us and we’ll add it to the site.

In the UK …

On the eve of the G20, activists descend­ed on Lon­don to high­light the links between the finan­cial and the cli­mate cri­sis. While the ‘Finan­cial Fools Day’ Street Par­ty got under­way out­side the Bank of Eng­land, the Camp for Cli­mate Action set up camp out­side the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange. Their mes­sage: “Stop­ping car­bon mar­kets — because nature doesn’t do bailouts”. It was­n’t until the evening that the police cleared the space — full sto­ry here. Mean­while over at the Excel Cen­tre, the Cam­paign Against Cli­mate Change is hold­ing an Ice-berg “Cli­mate Emer­gency” demo.

Ear­li­er in the week, the Oil Goliath BP was felled by Fos­sil Fools Day’s David as BP post­poned its cen­te­nary par­ty at the British Muse­um to be held on April 1st, due to a demon­stra­tion orga­nized by Art Not Oil and Ris­ing Tide.

Plymouth RBS glued for FFDIn Ply­mouth, Ris­ing Tide pen­guins super-glued them­selves to the entrance of RBS to high­light RBS’s fund­ing of fos­sil fuels projects. RBS are one of the biggest investors in the fos­sil fuel indus­try and pro­vid­ed $16 bil­lion to coal-relat­ed com­pa­nies in 2007 alone. Ann Smith of Ris­ing Tide Ply­mouth today said: “RBS is now 57% owned by the UK tax­pay­er. Cli­mate change requires a move to renew­able ener­gy, not con­tin­ued sup­port for the expan­sion of the fos­sil fuel indus­try”. For more pho­tos vis­it This is Ply­mouth

In Oxford­shire, the ear­ly hours of April 1st saw local activists hang­ing ban­ners from bridges over the A34 between Oxford and Did­cot. Ban­ners read “Cau­tion: Cli­mate Change Ahead”, “Give Way to Wind” and “Fos­sil Fool: 3rd exit” com­plete with pic­tures of Did­cot Pow­er Sta­tion. With Did­cot (run by RWE NPow­er) due for de-com­mis­sion­ing in a few years, it is time to pur­sue renew­able options local­ly. One of the activists said: “We want not only Did­cot, but also the gov­ern­ment and the G20 to see the fol­ly of their actions in pur­su­ing unsus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy. We have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue safe, cheap alter­na­tives and ensure a clean­er future. The wise choice would be to grasp this oppor­tu­ni­ty”.

In Portsmouth, mem­bers of Portsmouth Cli­mate Action Net­work and the University’s Peo­ple & Plan­et group took up posi­tion out­side the Nat West Bank in Com­mer­cial Road to encour­ag­ing shop­pers to tell Roy­al Bank of Scot­land — NatWest to stop fund­ing cli­mate chaos. Activists said: “It is our mon­ey that RBS-NatWest is using to extract tar sands, burn coal and fuel cli­mate chaos. We believe that the only way to pre­vent dan­ger­ous cli­mate change is by invest­ment in renew­ables, not in dirty coal. We are call­ing on the pub­lic to con­tact RBS-NatWest and the UK gov­ern­ment and tell them what they think about them bankrolling cli­mate chaos.”

In Bournemouth, mem­bers of direct action group Plane Stu­pid turned up at Bournemouth Air­port to give them a Fos­sil Fool Award for ‘Out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to local, nation­al and glob­al pol­lu­tion’. Tara Bosworth said, “Bournemouth Air­port may well be the biggest sin­gle source of green­house gas emis­sions in Dorset and they are expand­ing their oper­a­tions, more than dou­bling the num­ber of flights, now that’s plane stu­pid and why they are get­ting our Fos­sil Fool award.” A mem­ber of the air­port staff accept­ed the award but declined hav­ing his pic­ture tak­en.

Fos­sil fool themed street the­atre took place in both Frome in Som­er­set and Totnes in Devon. In Totnes, the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Crim­i­nal known as ‘Old King Coal’ was put on tri­al. The pris­on­er, who is not in good health, was led from The Plains up to the Civic Square where he was tried before a jury of local cit­i­zens and school­child­ren. Unfor­tu­nate­ly oth­er mem­bers of the Fos­sil Fools Gang, includ­ing Oil and Gas, remain at large and are a con­tin­ued dan­ger to the plan­et.

In South Africa …

FFD in South Africa - SasolIn Johan­nes­burg, Earth­life Africa award­ed Sasol (the South African Coal, Oil and Gas Cor­po­ra­tion) the pres­ti­gious 2009 Fos­sil Fool of the Year Award for pro­duc­ing 72 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 per year (over 15% of South Africa’s total emis­sions) and for try­ing to build a new coal-to-liq­uid pow­er plant. Although Sasol ini­tial­ly resist­ed accept­ing the award (one can only imag­ine why), the efforts of a deter­mined group of pro­test­ers final­ly forced the taint­ed tro­phy to be accept­ed.
For more infor­ma­tion vis­it: here or here.

In the USA …

Boston Mannequins on FFD 09In Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, the “Man­nequins For Cli­mate Jus­tice” shut down the Ken­more Square branch of Bank of Amer­i­ca. A man­nequin was chained to the doors of the bank short­ly before open­ing this morn­ing. The lone man­nequin pro­test­er, Guy Fox, said, “Even a dum­my like me can see that Bank of America’s mas­sive loans to coal com­pa­nies and sup­port for the epi­dem­ic of fore­clo­sures and evic­tions has to stop now.” Fox fur­ther said, “Bank of Amer­i­ca seems deter­mined to be so evil it’s almost com­i­cal, but peo­ple resist­ing the bank’s prac­tices will have the last laugh. Hap­py April Fools to all the cap­i­tal­ist fos­sil fools!”

In Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia, a bike ride/march high­light­ed BP’s $500 mil­lion deal with Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia. Under this deal, the oil giant BP is invest­ing $500 mil­lion for the uni­ver­si­ty to research bio­fu­els, rais­ing issues of green­wash­ing, false solu­tions, and the inter­ac­tion between a pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty and a pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion.

Asheville FFD 09In Asheville, North Car­oli­na, pro­test­ers declared Gov­er­nor Pur­due to be in bed with Duke Ener­gy, and demand­ed the can­cel­la­tion of the Cliff­side coal plant. In response to the North Car­oli­na Divi­sion of Air Qual­i­ty (DAQ) rul­ing that Duke Energy’s Cliff­side coal plant is a “minor source of emis­sions”, pro­test­ers gath­ered at noon out­side Gov­er­nor Purdue’s West­ern North Car­oli­na office in down­town Asheville to demand that she revoke the plant’s per­mit. In a demon­stra­tion orga­nized by Asheville Ris­ing Tide, pro­test­ers set up a bed in front of Gov­er­nor Purdue’s office with peo­ple in busi­ness suits rep­re­sent­ing Duke CEO Jim Rogers, DAQ head Kei­th Over­cash, and Gov­er­nor Pur­due under sheets and cov­ered in mon­ey. A ban­ner read­ing, “Gov­er­nor Pur­due in bed with Duke Ener­gy” pro­vid­ed a back­drop to the under-the-sheets liai­son.

In Den­ver, Col­orado, a Fos­sil Fools Day ral­ly of con­cerned cit­i­zens, health experts, and envi­ron­men­tal and neigh­bor­hood lead­ers demand­ed a tran­si­tion to clean ener­gy. The ral­ly, led by WildEarth Guardians, and joined by Sier­ra Club, Green­peace, Clean Ener­gy Action, Safe­Minds, stu­dents, church mem­bers, and affect­ed near­by com­mu­ni­ties, was held in the shad­ow of the Chero­kee coal burn­ing pow­er plant at Denver’s Heron Pond Nat­ur­al Area, and called upon Gov­er­nor Rit­ter to help Col­orado seize clean ener­gy solu­tions and keep Col­oradoans safe from coal. Car­ry­ing hand­made signs and hold­ing pin­wheels to sym­bol­ize a tran­si­tion to clean ener­gy, dozens of cit­i­zens demon­strat­ed their frus­tra­tions with the sta­tus quo and their hope for pro­tect­ing their future.

In New Orleans, con­ser­va­tion groups, stu­dents, and con­cerned cit­i­zens joined forces at Entergy’s head­quar­ters to protest about the company’s plans to expand their use of coal pow­er in Louisiana. “Louisiana’s coast is ground zero for cli­mate change impacts,” said ral­ly orga­niz­er Jonathan Hen­der­son. “Enter­gy should be a respon­si­ble neigh­bor and work to lim­it coast-destroy­ing pol­lu­tion and pro­tect rate-pay­ers from future car­bon price increas­es”.

In the spir­it of the “Coal Cir­cus,” stu­dents from Bowl­ing Green, Ken­tucky organ­ised a ‘Mon­ster Mash’ and a crit­i­cal mass bike ride.

Stu­dents in Tempe, Ari­zona, also hopped on their bikes and declared them­selves “too cool for fos­sil fools.”

In Cana­da …

Five actions in one day in down­town Toron­to? No foolin!
Today Rain­for­est Action Net­work activists kicked Fos­sil Fools Day off with a bang, drop­ping ban­ners off of a high­way, greet­ing over 4,000 cars (we count­ed) stuck in dead­lock traf­fic over a peri­od of two hours. From bridges, we broad­cast mes­sages about Roy­al Bank of Cana­da (RBC)’s financ­ing of the Cana­di­an Tar Sands from our makeshift Pirate Radio sta­tion. Our ban­ners read “Pirate Radio 89.9 FM Tune in now” and “Roy­al Bank cre­ates cli­mate chaos. Renew­ables not tar sands.” The pour­ing rain didn’t block our view of car after car reach­ing for the radio dial as they drove under us.

We began by dress­ing up and imper­son­at­ed bank employ­ees. About 16 of us rode ele­va­tors for up to two more hours, chat­ting up oth­er RBC per­son­nel — “Hey, on my way to work today I heard about how RBC is financ­ing the destruc­tion of Native ter­ri­to­ries in Alber­ta, caus­ing peo­ple can­cer and pol­lut­ing the water! Tar Sands are the world’s dirt­i­est oil. Did you know that? I had no idea! I’m telling my man­ag­er right away!”

Mean­while, out­side the HQ, sev­er­al more of us leaflet­ed and held ban­ners read­ing “RBC Cre­ates poi­soned water in our com­mu­ni­ty,” “Renew­ables not tar sands” and “RBC: financ­ing can­cer and tox­ic sludge.”

Back inside, a lone Torontan walked inside the main office with a beau­ti­ful bou­quet of bal­loons. I don’t know where he got the idea to release them in the atri­um, or how a ban­ner read­ing “ROYAL BANK CREATES CLIMATE CHAOS” got attached….I also don’t know how they’re gonna get it down. Watch him do it.

Lat­er that evening, dozens of activists recon­vened out­side RBC head­quar­ters along­side “Tar­bie,” an oil-soaked ver­sion of RBC’s prized mas­cot “Arbie” who explained to passers­by that he and RBC are help­ing finance one of the fastest grow­ing sources of water pol­lu­tion and green­house gas emis­sions on the plan­et, and how they con­flict with the finan­cial giant’s PR promis­es to pro­mote clean water.

To read more on RBC and the Cana­di­an Tar Sands, vis­it It’s Get­ting Hot in Here.

www.fossilfoolsday.org

500th day celebration for keeping Tescos off Mill Road, Cambridge

Today, 21st March 2009, a small mile­stone in com­mu­ni­ty activism was reached when the 500th day of being able keep Tescos off Mill Road was reached.

To mark this occa­sion, tables, chairs and stalls were set up in front of the old Wilco premis­es and a street par­ty took place, replete with music.

Today, 21st March 2009, a small mile­stone in com­mu­ni­ty activism was reached when the 500th day of being able keep Tescos off Mill Road was reached.

To mark this occa­sion, tables, chairs and stalls were set up in front of the old Wilco premis­es and a street par­ty took place, replete with music.

Alas I missed the music, so if any­one out there took some pic­tures of any of these per­for­mances, please feel free to post them here, but please remem­ber to resize them.

Tescos has now had two plan­ning appli­ca­tions turned down in the last year for set­ting up shop in the for­mer Wilco premis­es, which for a cou­ple of months last year was also Mill Road Social Cen­tre, before Tescos saw fit to issue an evic­tion order and have the Social Cen­tre’s world­ly goods uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly dumped by bailiffs in the car park behind the build­ing.

There are rumours that they may have have ditched their orig­i­nal plan to extend the build­ing and install refrig­er­a­tion (any addi­tion­al info confirming/denying this please post here), but we shall see what takes place over the com­ing months.

In the mean­time, let’s try and make it 1,000 days with­out Tescos on Mill Road!

Stop the Rot, Squat the Lot — new Brighton social centre

An attempt to cre­ate a social space in Brighton out­is­de of the banal injus­tice of land­lord­ship and cap­i­tal­ism, and all the highs and lows that come with it!

squat logo 1An attempt to cre­ate a social space in Brighton out­is­de of the banal injus­tice of land­lord­ship and cap­i­tal­ism, and all the highs and lows that come with it!

A cou­ple of weeks ago, in the depths of night, a small group of pesky squat­ters approached Van­tage Point with the intent of enter­ing and occu­py­ing one of the emp­ty ground floor shop fronts. After a suc­cess­ful entrance, the prop­er­ty was secured and some of our last remain­ing civ­il rights cel­e­brat­ed.

The occu­pied prop­er­ty, the old ‘Gamer Heav­en’ games café (7 – 8 Cir­cus Parade), is part of a large build­ing owned by St. James’ Invest­ments, a May­fair based prop­er­ty devel­op­er who buy up the hous­es, shops or any oth­er build­ing of those in finan­cial cri­sis for cash, but for sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than it’s actu­al val­ue. It is they that are build­ing the new Tesco super­store to the west of Lon­don Road, thus dis­plac­ing a mul­ti­tude of small busi­ness­es and gen­er­al­ly gen­tri­fy­ing the area.
The inten­tion of those involved was to open up the space as a social cen­tre, using it as a blank slate for any­one and every­one to get involved, so artists and musi­cians were invit­ed to come and make the one room as cre­ative and com­fort­able as pos­si­ble. After a fran­tic week of tat­ting, paint­ing, build­ing and gen­er­al­ly organ­is­ing with ridicu­lous­ly low funds, the space was opened to the pub­lic on Fri­day the 27th of Feb­ru­ary. There was live music, a con­tin­u­a­tion of the Smash EDO ‘Art not War’ art gallery, food and a small info shop, as well as some oth­er bits ‘n’ bobs. The whole event went down in a beau­ti­ful­ly hap­haz­ard way, and despite every­thing hap­pen­ing in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent man­ner to what was expect­ed, the con­sen­sus was that a good thing had hap­pened.
There was no con­tact for a week, despite the par­ty going on until 4am, but on Mon­day the 2nd of March, the build­ing man­ag­er attempt­ed to enter. After the briefest of con­ver­sa­tions through the door, with his con­tri­bu­tion being ‘f***ing squat­ters!’, a hand­ful of suits turned up. They did­n’t want to talk, and it was obvi­ous that they did­n’t know the law, but it was explained to them that there were prop­er legal chan­nels through which they had to go in order to evict the occu­piers.

Accu­sa­tions of sex­u­al abuse!

Despite this, on Thurs­day the 5th of March Rossendales secu­ri­ty, whose slo­gan is ‘Proud to be Pro­fes­sion­als’, issued the occu­pants with a ‘Notice to Quit’, pre­car­i­ous­ly claim­ing that under sec­tion 33 of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Act 1994 (CJA), and sec­tion 61 of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994 (CJPOA), they had the right to remove any peo­ple or vehi­cles still resid­ing in the prop­er­ty after twen­ty-four hours of issu­ing the notice.

How­ev­er, a quick liai­son with the the fan­tas­ti­cal­ly use­ful and great­ly appre­ci­at­ed Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters (ASS) revealed that there is no sec­tion 33 of the CJA, but sec­tion 33 of the CJPOA deals with the “Abo­li­tion of cor­rob­o­ra­tion require­ments under the Sex­u­al Offences Act 1956”. Now, despite the squat­ter stereo­type, we are not sex­u­al offend­ers, so it is hard to see where Rossendales were going with this!

Fur­ther on, and the ASS revealed that sec­tion 61 of the CJPOA deals with “Pow­ers to remove tres­passers on land”, but sub­sec­tion (9) makes it clear that this only refers to tres­passers on com­mon land, and since the occu­pied prop­er­ty is not com­mon land but pri­vate prop­er­ty, the sec­tion does not apply, and the mat­ter is only resolv­able in a court of law, as the suits were told when we first spoke to them!

Any­way, the mat­ter was resolved by the ASS fax­ing a let­ter explain­ing this to Rossendales secu­ri­ty, as well as con­tact­ing Brighton police to con­firm that any attempt at forced entry would result in a swift arrest, and guess what…the bailiffs nev­er showed.

Same old abstrac­tion bol­locks

To con­tin­ue the bom­bard­ment Brighton squat­ters receive by var­i­ous author­i­ties, the police reared their ugly head on Mon­day (the 5th) accus­ing those inside of abstrac­tion (the ille­gal use of elec­tric­i­ty). When an occu­pant asked who was at the door, one pig called him­self Phil and asked to be let in, but when they were refused entry they pro­ceed­ed to try and kick the door in, an ille­gal act con­sid­er­ing they did­n’t have a war­rant.

How­ev­er, due to this com­mon attempt by the cops at a quick an easy evic­tion, Brighton squat­ters have got quite savvy with the legal­i­ties of elec­tric­i­ty, and quick­ly pro­duced a let­ter from the occu­pants to the sup­pli­er con­firm­ing their intent to pay for any elec­tric­i­ty they used, and a reply from the sup­pli­er to the occu­pants accept­ing this affir­ma­tion. Even­tu­al­ly the police left, but what was inter­est­ing was that both of them were recog­nis­able by a num­ber of the squat­ters as the team that had ille­gal­ly evict­ed them from a res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty ear­li­er in the year. Nice try Sergeant Bell­field and the ille­gal squat evic­tion team, but you won’t get us out this time!

After all this malarkey, the space is still there and wait­ing to be used by any­one, for what­ev­er you want. So far we have had acoustic music nights, films, food, as well as ever-chang­ing art­work and an infos­hop. We still have not received court papers but are expect­ing them in the next few days, so come along and enjoy the space whilst it is still there! Just pop down, or email brightonfreespace@riseup.net.

Brighton Free­Space
http://www.brightonfreespace.webs.com

Fossil Fools Day 2009, 1st April — actions & resources

FFD is only five weeks away! We know of var­i­ous affin­i­ty group actions around the UK but thought we’d upload some inspi­ra­tional pub­lic actions you can get involved with on the April 1st and some resources to help inspire you to take action in you local area.

PUBLIC ACTIONS

12 Noon

FFD 09FFD is only five weeks away! We know of var­i­ous affin­i­ty group actions around the UK but thought we’d upload some inspi­ra­tional pub­lic actions you can get involved with on the April 1st and some resources to help inspire you to take action in you local area.

PUBLIC ACTIONS

12 Noon

Help build a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the City of London.Stopping car­bon mar­kets — because nature does­n’t do bailouts. Meet at the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, Hasil­wood House, 62 Bish­ops­gate, EC2N 4AW. Bring a pop-up tent, sleep­ing bag, wind tur­bine, mobile cin­e­ma, action plans and ideas … let’s imag­ine anoth­er world. Don’t let the finan­cial and fos­sil fools make the rules!

For more details vis­it — http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

6PM — *** POSTPONED by BP fol­low­ing police advice. ***

For rea­sons unfath­omable yet deeply pleas­ing, BP* has cho­sen Fos­sil Fools Day to cel­e­brate its cen­te­nary. This will take place at the British Muse­um, where the not-so-great and the far-from-good will quaff cock­tails, snaf­fle canapes and watch a cel­e­bra­to­ry film. And Ris­ing Tide and Art Not Oil will be there too, between 6–7pm, to say ‘Your Par­ty’s Over!’ Bring ban­ners, musi­cal instru­ments, a sense of cli­mate jus­tice and a non­sense of fool­ery. Meet at 6pm at the British Muse­um’s Gt. Rus­sell St. gate. * BP = Burn­ing Plan­et, British Plun­der, Bloody Prof­its, Bro­ken Promises,Boring Par­ties, Breath­tak­ing Protests and..? Send your unrav­elled acronyms to info@artnotoil.org.uk

RESOURCES

Media — Ris­ing Tide has pro­duced an 11 page Media Q&A for Fos­sil Fools Day. If you think you’ll be talk­ing to the media on the day and want a few tips for tricky ques­tions send us an email (info@risingtide.org.uk) and we’ll email you a copy.

Action Ideas — For a short guide on why and how to take direct action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try … includ­ing plan­ning tips, tar­get loca­tions, exam­ples of suc­cess­ful actions and much more vis­it the RT Resources page were you can down­load ‘15 Actions to Top­ple the Fos­sil Fuel Empire’.

FFD is only 5 weeks away so whether you’ve been look­ing for a chance to dip a toe into the grow­ing cli­mate action move­ment, or have had your kick-ass action planned since last year, now is the time to do it — what­ev­er it is. On April 1st, join the glob­al day of resis­tance and pull a prank that packs a punch.

http://risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday2009

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 86, February 2009

————————————
UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————————

1. ARTIVISM, Smash EDO’s week of anti-war cre­ativ­i­ty — Brighton – 24.02.09–01.03.09
2. Cli­mate Rush – Lon­don and Man­ches­ter – 26.02.09
3. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing – Not­ting­ham – 7–8.03.09

————————————
UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————————

1. ARTIVISM, Smash EDO’s week of anti-war cre­ativ­i­ty — Brighton – 24.02.09–01.03.09
2. Cli­mate Rush – Lon­don and Man­ches­ter – 26.02.09
3. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing – Not­ting­ham – 7–8.03.09
4. Earth First! & Treespon­si­bil­i­ty Tree Plant­i­ng week­end – Heb­den Bridge – 13–15.03.09
5. Peo­ple’s Block­ade of the World’s Biggest Coal Port – New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia — 21.03.09
6. Direct action and car­bon trad­ing edu­ca­tion week­end – Lon­don and Brighton – 21–22.03.09
7. Fos­sil Fools Day – all over – 01.04.09
8. Coal Car­a­van – Mid­lands, York­shire and North East – 24.04.09–04.05.09

——————
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
——————

1. Bio­fu­elled attacks in Suma­tra, Indone­sia – 18.12.08
2. Plane Stu­pid turns Southamp­ton air­port into a refugee camp — 17.01.09
3. Cli­mate Rush activists lock on to Par­lia­ment — 20.01.01
4. E.On Ref Off! – 24.01.09
5. A not-so-Roy­al wel­come for the nuclear indus­try — 09.02.09
6. Man­ches­ter RBS branch roof occu­pa­tion — 11.02.09
7. Occu­pa­tion of Kel­ster­back For­est, Frank­furt Air­port, Ger­many — Ongo­ing
8. New report – Cater­ing for the Coal Indus­try

————————————
UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————————

1. ARTIVISM, Smash EDO’s week of anti-war cre­ativ­i­ty — Brighton – 24.02.09–01.03.09
Includ­ing an Art Exhi­bi­tion, Music & Voic­es in Exile, Peace Choir, Images from the Smash EDO cam­paign and the world events that inspired the resis­tance to Brighton’s local bomb builders. Events include Guy Small­man, inter­na­tion­al pho­to-jour­nal­ist; on the ground pho­tog­ra­phy from Israel’s inva­sion of Lebanon in 2006; the clas­sic draw­ings of John Catt, vet­er­an anti-war activist; pho­tog­ra­phy by Medyan Dairieh, Al-Jazeera jour­nal­ist; ‘On the Verge’ the film they tried to ban; Clan­des­tine Rebel Clown Train­ing; Rad­i­cal Cheer­lead­ing: make pom-poms, write cheers and prac­tice your moves; car­ni­val cre­ations and mask mak­ing; and Ben­e­fit Finale at the Albert Pub.
www.smashedo.org.uk

2. Cli­mate Rush – Lon­don and Man­ches­ter – 26.02.09
Cli­mate Rush cor­dial­ly invites you to an awards cer­e­mo­ny for the coal indus­try, to hon­our the world’s great­est emit­ters of CO2, on THURSDAY 26TH FEBRUARY at THE LANDMARK HOTEL. Dress for­mal­ly for cock­tails in the Win­ter Gar­den at 6.30 prompt.
www.climaterush.co.uk

And in Man­ches­ter, North­ern Cli­mate Rush will be pay­ing a vis­it to the UK’s largest coal com­pa­ny – UK Coal. Meet in front of the Stu­dent Union build­ing at 1pm.
www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com

3. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing – Not­ting­ham – 7–8.03.09
With the G20, cli­mate crim­i­nals and COP 15 in mind, be part of the gath­er­ing – inspi­ra­tion, action and sol­i­dar­i­ty guar­an­teed.
www.climatecamp.org.uk/?q=node/468

4. Earth First & Treespon­si­bil­i­ty Tree Plant­i­ng week­end – Heb­den Bridge – 13–15.03.09
The annu­al and socia­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First! activists in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Calderdale com­mu­ni­ty group Treespon­si­bil­i­ty. Based in Heb­den Bridge in Calderdale. A week­end of hard but sat­is­fy­ing work plant­i­ng native wood­land com­bined with good food and social­is­ing.
More info: treesponsibility@yahoo.co.uk or 07983743894

5. Peo­ple’s Block­ade of the World’s Biggest Coal Port – New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia — 21.03.09
Coal exports are Aus­trali­a’s sin­gle biggest con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al cli­mate change, and the fastest grow­ing. In New­cas­tle, the world’s biggest coal port, com­mu­ni­ty groups have been cam­paign­ing against the dou­bling of coal exports from New­cas­tle Har­bour. There have been three com­mu­ni­ty block­ades of New­cas­tle Har­bour now, and each of them has man­aged to keep coal ships from enter­ing or leav­ing for most of the day. The next one is on Sat­ur­day 21 March 2009.
www.risingtide.org.au

6. Direct action and car­bon trad­ing edu­ca­tion week­end – Lon­don and Brighton – 21–22.03.09
Cli­mate Camp Car­bon Trad­ing Edu­ca­tion Week­end, Lon­don. With Cli­mate Camp tar­get­ing car­bon mar­kets this year, find out every­thing you ever want­ed to know about car­bon trad­ing and more but were afraid to ask! More info:international@climatecamp.org.uk

Also this week­end, a two-day direct action train­ing at the Cow­ley Club, Brighton. 10 AM start.
www.cowleyclub.org.uk

7. Fos­sil Fools Day – all over – 01.04.09
Cli­mate Camp at the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, fol­lowed by a “cel­e­bra­tion” of BP’s cen­te­nary at the British Muse­um; inter­spersed with local actions all over the coun­try and the world!

Cli­mate camp hits the city: stop­ping car­bon mar­kets // because nature doesn’t do bailouts
On April 1st the G20 lead­ers arrive in Lon­don. At a time of cli­mate cri­sis their response to the mar­ket melt­down is emer­gency loans to car man­u­fac­tur­ers, increased spend­ing to encour­age con­sump­tion, and bailouts for the very peo­ple who got us into this mess — just the thing that will make the cli­mate cri­sis worse. Don’t let them get away with it: join our camp in the Square Mile! Gath­er at noon, April 1st, at the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, Hasil­wood House, 62 Bish­ops­gate, EC2N 4AW.
www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

“Cel­e­brate” BP’s cen­te­nary: Tell them the party’s over!
For rea­sons unfath­omable yet deeply pleas­ing, BP has cho­sen Fos­sil Fools to cel­e­brate its cen­te­nary. This will take place at the British Muse­um, where the not-so-great and the far-from-good will quaff cock­tails, snaf­fle canapes and watch a cel­e­bra­to­ry film. Join us between 6–7pm, to say ‘Your party’s over!’ Bring ban­ners, musi­cal instru­ments, a sense of cli­mate jus­tice and a non­sense of fool­ery. Meet at 6pm at the British Museum’s Gt. Rus­sell St. gate.
www.fossilfoolsday.org
www.artnotoil.org.uk

8. Coal Car­a­van – Mid­lands, York­shire and North East – 24.04.09–04.05.09
The fab­u­lous cli­mate car­a­van lives on, as the COAL CARAVAN, walk­ing and cycling between the sites for pro­posed open cast mines and new pow­er sta­tions in the Mid­lands, York­shire and North East. On our route we’ll be talk­ing to local peo­ple, organ­is­ing bicy­cled pow­er films and events, hold­ing pub­lic dis­cus­sions and dis­plays, and link­ing groups from dif­fer­ent areas to help strength­en iso­lat­ed cam­paigns. For route details see:
www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21915
More info or to get involved: caravan@climatecamp.org.uk.

——————
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
——————

1. Bio­fu­elled attacks in Suma­tra, Indone­sia – 18.12.08
In the rush to clear sub­sis­tence farms and for­est for agro-fuel plan­ta­tion, local vil­lages in the glob­al South are suf­fer­ing. On 18th Decem­ber 2008 the vil­lage of Suluk Bongkal in Suma­tra, Indone­sia was attacked by hun­dreds of armed police and para­mil­i­taries with fire-arms and tear­gas and was also fire-bombed from a heli­copter. Hun­dreds of hous­es were burned down and lat­er bull­dozed. Most of the vil­lagers fled into the forests and oth­ers were arrest­ed. The attack is linked to a sub­sidiary com­pa­ny of Sinar Mas, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) which is clear­ing land for pulp and paper tree plan­ta­tions. Sinar Mas is one of the biggest own­ers of palm oil and pulp and paper plan­ta­tions in Indone­sia. A protest let­ter is col­lect­ing sig­na­to­ries to send to the Indone­sian author­i­ties.
To sign and for more info: www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/index.php

2. Plane Stu­pid turns Southamp­ton air­port into a refugee camp — 17.01.09
Activists chained them­selves to the entrance of Southamp­ton air­port and erect­ed tents at the main entrance in a bid turn the region­al air­port into a cli­mate refugee camp. In addi­tion to set­ting up camp, activists for­mal­ly sub­mit­ted a plan­ning appli­ca­tion with East­leigh Bor­ough Coun­cil to turn the air­port into refugee hous­ing.
www.planestupid.com

3. Cli­mate Rush activists lock on to Par­lia­ment — 20.01.01
On the day that Par­lia­ment vot­ed about the third run­way, nine Cli­mate Rush activists high­light­ed the high farce that is UK democ­ra­cy by chain­ing them­selves to the gates of Par­lia­ment. Despite stay­ing for hours and enter­tain­ing tourists and the press, when the police final­ly cut them out, the activists walked away scot free.
www.climaterush.co.uk

4. E.On Ref Off! – 24.01.09
On Sat­ur­day 24th Jan­u­ary a group of Lon­don Cli­mate Camp activists turned up at Stam­ford Bridge dressed as foot­ball ref­er­ees to show E.ON the red card. Over 40,000 Chelsea and Ipswich fans arriv­ing for the game heard us blow­ing the whis­tle on E.ON’s dirty FA Cup spon­sor­ship mon­ey, and thou­sands of them were per­son­al­ly hand­ed an “E.ON F.OFF” red card explain­ing how the com­pa­ny is mak­ing foul prof­its from the cli­mate cri­sis. It was all good fun and reac­tions were pret­ty pos­i­tive — E.ON them­selves would have paid tens of thou­sands to get the oppo­site pub­lic­i­ty for their brand!
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/420346.html

5. A not-so-Roy­al wel­come for the nuclear indus­try — 09.02.09
Hun­dreds of tourists, vis­it­ing the Palace for the Chang­ing of the Guard, were amused to see “nuclear guards” tak­ing their place at the gates. They held up a large ban­ner read­ing “Nuclear Pow­er is Not the Answer to Cli­mate Chaos!” and a plac­ard read­ing “Roy­al Nuclear Fam­i­ly? No Thanks!”, draw­ing atten­tion to the fact that Prince Andrew, the UK’s Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Inter­na­tion­al Trade and Invest­ment, was host­ing a gala lunch at the Palace for the nuclear indus­try, pre­sum­ably to plot how best to pro­mote their tox­ic green­wash agen­da at home and abroad.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/421693.html

6. Man­ches­ter RBS branch roof occu­pa­tion — 11.02.09
Around 35 stu­dents held a cli­mate change ‘Evic­tion Demon­stra­tion’ out­side (and on top of) a Roy­al Bank of Scot­land branch at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union. The group from Peo­ple and Plan­et also sub­mit­ted a motion to the Union Gen­er­al Meet­ing propos­ing that the Union does not renew the lease for RBS’ branch when it expires in Jan­u­ary 2010. Stu­dents climbed up on to the roof of the branch, and dropped ban­ners adver­tis­ing RBS’ fos­sil fuel invest­ments. Oth­ers engaged in ‘rapid infor­ma­tion dessim­i­na­tion’, rac­ing off to speak to as many peo­ple as they could in 20 min­utes before return­ing back to the RBS branch to com­pare scores.
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22169

7. Occu­pa­tion of Kel­ster­back For­est, Frank­furt Air­port, Ger­many — Ongo­ing The occu­pa­tion of the threat­ened Kel­ster­back For­est con­tin­ues. This is a large and beau­ti­ful for­est that has already been encroached upon for exist­ing air­port infra­struc­ture and is “in the way” of a planned, addi­tion­al run­way.
http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

8. New report – Cater­ing for the Coal Indus­try A per­son­al account from an activist on the ground in Columbia,documenting resis­tance to exploita­tion in Columbia’s’ coal industry.The report is focused on the lives of those who pre­pare and serve the food nec­es­sary for the mine to func­tion. They want peo­ple out­side of La Loma to hear of their inhu­mane, dan­ger­ous and humil­i­at­ing work­ing con­di­tions. Read­ing and shar­ing this report helps to break the invis­i­bil­i­ty of the exploita­tion with­in the glob­al coal infra­struc­ture.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/419675.html

———-

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Upcoming action dates, activist gatherings, & the official meetings en route to the Copenhagen climate summit, 2009 — updated

‘Offi­cial’ meet­ings on the Road to Copen­hagen:

31 March to 8 April 2009
First Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meet­ing), Bonn, Ger­many

‘Offi­cial’ meet­ings on the Road to Copen­hagen:

31 March to 8 April 2009
First Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meet­ing), Bonn, Ger­many
The first meet­ing on the “road to Copen­hagen” and first inter­na­tion­al cli­mate meet­ing for the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion. Expect­ed Out­come: Broad dis­cus­sions on respec­tive mit­i­ga­tion goals for devel­oped and devel­op­ing coun­tries. How­ev­er, it is unclear whether Pres­i­dent Oba­ma will have a cli­mate nego­tia­tor and under sec­re­tary in place at this time so there will real “nego­ti­at­ing” at this meet­ing. http://unfccc.int/meetings/items/2654.php

2 April 2009
G20 Meet­ing, Lon­don, Eng­land
This will like­ly be Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s first large-scale meet­ing with oth­er world lead­ers. The agen­da will like­ly look to tack­le the finan­cial cri­sis, but the G20 web­site men­tions the need to “make progress on long-term issues such as cli­mate change and inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment.” Expect­ed Out­come: Devel­op a com­mit­ment that the glob­al eco­nom­ic recov­ery will fac­tor in car­bon emis­sions. http://www.g20.org/

24–26 May 2009
World Busi­ness Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change, Copen­hagen, Den­mark
The Copen­hagen Cli­mate Coun­cil is orga­niz­ing the World Busi­ness Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change, which will bring togeth­er the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, top sci­en­tists, econ­o­mists and oth­er lead­ing thinkers. Expect­ed Out­come: Issue rec­om­men­da­tions for the next inter­na­tion­al glob­al warm­ing agree­ment. http://www.copenhagenclimatecouncil.com/

1–12 June 2009
Sec­ond Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meet­ing), Bonn, Ger­many
Draft nego­ti­at­ing text is expect­ed to be issued before or dur­ing this meet­ing and will like­ly be very gen­er­al with all the con­tentious items placed in brack­ets, but it will be the basis for actu­al nego­ti­a­tions. Expect­ed Out­come: Draft nego­ti­at­ing text. http://unfccc.int/meetings/items/2654.php

8–10 July 2009
G8 Sum­mit, La Mad­dale­na, Italy
The host, Ital­ian Prime Min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni, does not share the com­mit­ment to address­ing cli­mate change of pre­vi­ous G8 hosts. Address­ing cli­mate at this meet­ing will be crit­i­cal for keep­ing momen­tum toward Copen­hagen. Expect­ed Out­come: G8 Agree­ment set­ting the stage for Copen­hagen
http://www.g8italia2009.it/G8/G8-G8_Layout_locale-1199882116809_Home.htm

31 August – 4 Sep­tem­ber 2009
World Cli­mate Con­fer­ence Three, Gene­va, Switzer­land
The World Cli­mate Con­fer­ences (WCC) is the major “sci­en­tif­ic” meet­ing for 2009 and is the third in a series of inter­na­tion­al meet­ings, orga­nized by the World Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Orga­ni­za­tion
about glob­al cli­mate issues. The sec­ond WCC in 1979 result­ed in the cre­ation of the U.N.‘s Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change. http://www.wmo.int/pages/world_climate_conference/index_en.html Expect­ed Out­come: Group will address cli­mate pre­dic­tion, dis­as­ter risk reduc­tion and adap­ta­tion to cli­mate change.

August 2009 (date not set)
Third Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meet­ing), Bangkok, Thai­land
This is the third meet­ing on the “road to Copen­hagen” and, by this point, par­i­ties should have set their nego­ti­at­ing posi­tions so the frame­work for the next inter­na­tion­al treaty can start to be craft­ed. Expect­ed Out­come: Nation’s set nego­ti­at­ing posi­tions. http://unfccc.int/meetings/items/2654.php

21–25 Sep­tem­ber 2009
Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly Cli­mate Sum­mit, Copen­hagen
New York, New York — *UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Bon Ki Moon has indi­cat­ed that he plans to hold a spe­cial ses­sion with heads of state to address cli­mate change. Expect­ed Out­come: Indi­ca­tions of nation’s nego­ti­at­ing posi­tion for

Octo­ber 2009 (date not set)
Fourth Post-Kyoto Cli­mate Nego­ti­a­tions (UNFCCC Inter­ces­sion­al Meeting/Minister’s Meet­ing), Loca­tion to be deter­mined
Expect­ed Out­come: Final draft text agreed to. This is the final nego­ti­at­ing ses­sion before Copen­hagen and may be attend­ed only by envi­ron­ment min­is­ters mak­ing it a closed door meet­ing designed to set the stage for COP 15.

7–18 Decem­ber 2009
UNFCCC Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties 15, Copen­hagen, Den­mark
If there is to be no gap between the Kyoto Pro­to­col and a new agree­ment, a frame­work must be agreed to at this meet­ing. Expect­ed Out­come: New inter­na­tion­al glob­al warm­ing treaty. http://www.cop15.dk/en

2010 (dates uncon­firmed)
UNFCCC Con­fer­ence of the Par­ties 16, Jamaica

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

Old dates from this cal­en­dar:

Com­piled at the recent EF! Win­ter Moot (scroll down for your sum­mer of fun — dates up until Decem­ber ’09):

21–22 Feb­ru­ary 2009
No Bor­ders UK gath­er­ing, Bris­tol

26 Feb­ru­ary 2009
Demon­stra­tions at UK Coal Awards (www.climaterush.co.uk) & at UK Coal HQ (www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com)

5 March 2009
Next Cli­mate Rush, Lon­don
> http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22254

13–15 March 2009
EF! Treeplant­i­ng, Heb­den Bridge
(trees@riseup.net > www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22158)

13–15 March 2009
COP15 Inter­na­tion­al Mobil­i­sa­tion Net­work meet­ing, Copen­hagen, Den­mark (www.climateaction09.org)

14–15 March
Nation­al squat meet­up, Bris­tol
(www.squatmeet09.wordpress.com)

21–22 March 2009
Cli­mate Camp Car­bon Trad­ing Edu­ca­tion Week­end, Lon­don
(international@climatecamp.org.uk)

21–22 March 2009
Direct Action train­ing, 10am at Cow­ley Club, Brighton
(www.cowleyclub.org.uk)

1 April 2009 Fossil/Financial Fools Day
G20 Protests + Events List + Loca­tions Map
Squar­ing up to the Square Mile: the Lon­don G20 map

Cli­mate Camp in the City, Lon­don (www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20)
G20 Melt­down at the Bank of Eng­land (www.g20meltdown.org)
Fos­sil Fools’ Day, every­where (www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday2009)
Times & resource links > http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22258

* G20 Crit­i­cal Mass
9:00 AM Meet at Bank Junc­tion (Bank tube sta­tion) EC2

* Finan­cial Fools Day Street Par­ty
Assem­ble at Can­non Street, Moor­gate, Liv­er­pool Street or Lon­don Bridge sta­tions 11am to form four march­ing blocks head­ing towards the Bank of Eng­land for 12-noon, in the ‘Square Mile’ of the City of Lon­don.
See: http://www.g‑20meltdown.org/
Bring a portable radio!

* Cli­mate Camp in the City
The cli­mate camp are camp­ing in the Euro­pean Car­bon Exchange, Hasil­wood house, City of Lon­don 12-noon.
See: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20
Final update on what to bring and what to do where at http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22291

* Fos­sil Fools Day: ‘Your Par­ty’s Over!’ *** POSTPONED by BP fol­low­ing police advice. ***
Cli­mate Crim­i­nal BP is cel­e­brat­ing its cen­te­nary with cock­tails and canapes at the British Musem. And we will be there too, between 6–7pm, to say ‘Your party’s over!’
Meet at 6pm at the British Museum’s Gt. Rus­sell St. gate
See: http://www.fossilfoolsdayofaction.org
Bring ban­ners, musi­cal instru­ments, a sense of cli­mate jus­tice and a non­sense of fool­ery.

2 April 2009
* Crash the Stock Exchange
Eat cap­i­tal­ism for break­fast. Dis­rupt the traders whose finan­cial ego­ma­nia per­pet­u­ates glob­al injus­tice: let’s shut­down trad­ing for the day.
Meet out­side the Lon­don Stock Exchange, 10 Pater­nos­ter Square, City of Lon­don, Lon­don EC4M. 7am (traders arrive at 7am, trad­ing com­menc­ing 8am). Near­est tube: St Pauls — have a pleas­ant jour­ney in… tubes might be busy.
* Excel Cen­tre
Direct action all day against the Excel Cen­tre, Can­ning Town where the G20 will be meet­ing
ExCeL Lon­don, One West­ern Gate­way, Roy­al Vic­to­ria Dock, Lon­don, E16 1XL
A coali­tion of groups includ­ing: The Pales­tine Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign, Stop the War Coali­tion, The British Mus­lim Ini­tia­tive, and CND have called two protests at the G20; a march and ral­ly in cen­tral Lon­don on the after­noon of April 1st, and a protest to the con­fer­ence itself on April 2nd.

3–5 April 2009
Demon­stra­tions at NATO 60TH Anniver­sary Sum­mit, Baden-Baden, Ger­many & Stras­bourg, France
http://dissent.fr/taxonomy/term/165

24 April‑5 May 2009
Coal Car­a­van, cycling from Not­ting­ham, through Der­byshire, York­shire & .
Stop­ping off at a vari­ety of open-cast sites, pow­er sta­tions and oth­er beau­ti­ful places! Full details of how to book, itin­er­ary for where to join.
(caravan@climatecamp.org.uk > www.coalcaravan.org.uk)

25/26th April 2009
Sizewell anti-nuclear Camp and Demo

2–3rd May 2009
Anti-mil­i­tarist con­fer­ence, Brighton
(http://antimilitaristnetwork.noflag.org.uk)

4th May 2009
Smash EDO May­day! May­day! Street par­ty against war and greed, Brighton.
(http://www.smashedo.org.uk)

6 May 2009
A Wake for BP at the oil behe­moth­’s cen­te­nary par­ty

29 May‑1 June
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp sum­mer gath­er­ing

1 June
Cli­mate Rush Ped­al Pow­er
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22611

6 June 2009
Eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion, SW Lon­don
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22593

6–7 June 2009
Nation­al Anar­chist Gath­er­ing, Lon­don
www.conference09.org.uk

11–14 June 2009
Scot­tish Cli­mate Camp Con­ver­gence
(http://climatecampscotland.org.uk)

23th-29th June 2009
Calais No Bor­ders Camp
(http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/)

3–5 July
For­est Cir­cus fes­ti­val, Lap­pers­fort, Bel­gium

8–10 July 2009
Demon­stra­tions at G8 Sum­mit, La Mad­dale­na, Italy

11–12 July 2009
Anti-Mil­i­tarist Net­work Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham
(http://www.antimilitaristnetwork.org.uk)

11–19 July 2009
Dan­ish Cli­mate Camp, near Copen­hagen
(http://camp09.dk/)

12–19 July 2009
Das Kli­ma Work­shop Festival/Le camp cli­ma­tique, near Berne, Switzer­land
(http://www.netzwerkzeug.org/)

18th-? July
Sav­ing Ice­land Sum­mer Mobil­i­sa­tion 2009
(www.savingiceland.org)

20–26 July 2009
NO to Ura­ni­um Pow­er — Anti­nu­clear Cli­mate Camp, Ter­vola, Fin­land
(http://www.hyokyaalto.org/category/english)

23rd-27th July 2009, Oxford­shire.
You are invit­ed to Peace News’ first ever sum­mer camp.
(http://www.peacenewscamp.info)

3–9 August 2009
French Camp Action Cli­mat, Notre Dame des Lan­des, Nantes
(www.campclimat.org)

3–9 August 2009
Dutch/Belgian Cli­mate Camp
(www.klimaatactiekamp.org)

3–10 August 2009
Scot­tish Camp for Cli­mate Action
(http://climatecampscotland.org.uk)

13–16 August 2009
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru, Near Merthyr Tyd­fil, South Wales
(http://climatecampcymru.org)

15–23 August 2009
Irish Cli­mate Camp
(http://www.climatecamp.ie)

18–24 August 2009
Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Cum­bria
(www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk)

20–23 August 2009 IN SALENTO, NUCLEAR CLIMATE CAMP, Italy – Lec­ce
More info

21–23 August 2009
Beyond Bor­ders week­end, Not­ting­ham
A week­end of skill­shar­ing and dis­cus­sion about fight­ing bor­der con­trols and show­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with migrants
(http://beyondbordersweekend.wordpress.com)

27 August‑2 Sep­tem­ber 2009
UK Camp for Cli­mate Action — con­ver­gence with­in the M25/London (www.climatecamp.org.uk)

Sep­tem­ber 2009 (dates uncon­firmed)
Cli­mate Camp, South Aus­tralia
(http://climatecampsa.org)

North Amer­i­can action camps sum­mer 2009
inter­na­tion­al list of Con­ver­gences for Cli­mate Action

12–20 Sep­tem­ber 2009
Bris­tol Co-Mutiny

18–19 Sep­tem­ber 2009
squats and autonomous spaces — 2 days of direct action around hous­ing and the cre­ation of more autonomous spaces at this time of cri­sis. See link

10–11 Octo­ber
Work­ers’ Cli­mate Action con­fer­ence, Lon­don

12–16 Octo­ber 2009
Glob­al Mobil­i­sa­tion in Defence of Moth­er Earth and the Peo­ples
called by the 4th Con­ti­nen­tal Sum­mit of Indige­nous Peo­ples Abya Yala (”Amer­i­ca”)
More info/resources

16–18 Octo­ber 2009
COP15 Inter­na­tion­al Mobil­i­sa­tion Net­work meet­ing
(www.climateaction09.org)

17–18 Octo­ber 2009
The Great Cli­mate Swoop, clos­ing down Rat­cliffe-on-Soar coal-fired pow­er sta­tion
More info

24 Octo­ber 2009
Lon­don Anar­chist Book­fair
(http://www.anarchistbookfair.org)

24 Octo­ber 2009
Inter­na­tion­al Day of Cli­mate Action
http://www.350.org/

31 October‑1 Novem­ber
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/23245

31 Oct‑1 Nov 2009
Gath­er­ing Against the Prison Soci­ety, Brighton
Dis­cus­sions & pre­sen­ta­tions about the strug­gle for lib­er­a­tion, inside and out­side of the prison walls
More info

21–22 Novem­ber 2009
No New Nuclear. Plan­ning to win strate­gis­ing week­end, Lon­don

28 November‑1 Decem­ber 2009
Week­end of Action and Work­shops at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp

5 Decem­ber 2009
COP15 OUT, a secret plan to take a space in the City of Lon­don away from and after the Wave. It’s time to show our ‘lead­ers’ how we’re going to take action to reduce emis­sions our­selves.

3–9 Decem­ber 2009
Social and Cli­mate Jus­tice Car­a­van from the WTO Min­is­te­r­i­al in Gene­va to the COP15 sum­mit in Copen­hagen.
http://www.climatecaravan.org

7–18 Decem­ber 2009
Demon­stra­tions at COP15 Sum­mit, Copen­hagen, Den­mark
(www.climateaction09.org)
See this arti­cle for back­ground & links to Action Guide & Map

7–18 Decem­ber 2009
Kli­mafo­rum: Peo­ple’s Cli­mate Sum­mit
http://www.klimaforum09.org

11 Decem­ber 2009
* Our Cli­mate! Not Your Busi­ness! (organ­ised direct action to stop Cor­po­ra­tions tak­ing part in COP process)
http://notyourbusiness.hacklab.dk/

12 Decem­ber 2009
* Flood for Cli­mate Jus­tice (demon­stra­tion by FoE)
http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/un-climate-talks/global/2009/the-flood-is-coming
* Glob­al day of Action
http://www.globalclimatecampaign.org/
* March for Cli­mate Jus­tice (includ­ing sys­tem change, not cli­mate change bloc)
* Don’t Nuke the Cli­mate! Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action
http://www.dont-nuke-the-climate.org/index.php?lang=en

13 Decem­ber 2009
Hit the Pro­duc­tion of Cli­mate Chaos
http://htp.noblogs.org/
* Farm­ers action (Via Campesina against agro-indus­try)

14 Decem­ber 2009
* No Bor­ders, No Cli­mate Refugees! (Day of action in Copen­hagen. Call to action to inter­na­tion­al no bor­ders groups dur­ing the COP 15 in Copen­hagen)
http://info.interactivist.net/node/13135
* Repa­ra­tions for Cli­mate Debt

15 Decem­ber 2009
* Resis­tance is Ripe! Agri­cul­ture Action Day (Change the food sys­tem not the cli­mate)
http://www.climate-justice-action.org/mobilization/agriculture-action-day/

16 Decem­ber 2009
* RECLAIM POWER! — Push­ing for Cli­mate Jus­tice! (Mass action to enter the COP15 con­fer­ence area and dis­rupt the ses­sions in order to hold a Peo­ple’s Sum­mit for Cli­mate Jus­tice. Con­fronta­tion­al civ­il dis­obe­di­ence)
http://www.climate-justice-action.org

18 Decem­ber 2009
* (last offi­cial day of the sum­mit) — “Nev­er Trust a COP” actions through­out the city
http://www.nevertrustacop.org/

Plane Stupid turns Southampton Airport into climate refugee camp

17th Jan­u­ary: A group of activists from local anti-avi­a­tion group Plane Stu­pid Southamp­ton have just chained them­selves to the entrance of Southamp­ton air­port and erect­ed tents at the main entrance in a bid turn the region­al air­port into a cli­mate refugee camp.

Southampton airport climate refugee camp17th Jan­u­ary: A group of activists from local anti-avi­a­tion group Plane Stu­pid Southamp­ton have just chained them­selves to the entrance of Southamp­ton air­port and erect­ed tents at the main entrance in a bid turn the region­al air­port into a cli­mate refugee camp. In addi­tion to set­ting up camp today, activists have for­mal­ly sub­mit­ted a plan­ning appli­ca­tion with East­leigh Bor­ough Coun­cil to turn the air­port into refugee hous­ing.

The planned expan­sion of Southamp­ton air­port, along with 34 oth­er region­al air­ports in the UK, will do enough dam­age to the cli­mate to force an esti­mat­ed 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple in impov­er­ished parts of the world to flee rais­ing sea lev­els, flood­ing, drought and famine.

Increased fly­ing is one of the main cul­prits of cli­mate change. While the gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted the UK to reduc­ing CO2 emis­sions by 80% by 2050, the expand­ing avi­a­tion indus­try alone would destroy any hope of hit­ting this tar­get. BAA hopes to increase pas­sen­ger traf­fic for Southamp­ton Air­port form 1.5 mil­lion pas­sen­gers a year to 3 mil­lion by 2015.

In order to get fly­ing under con­trol, the gov­ern­ment needs to halt all air­port expan­sion, and encour­age peo­ple to take the train. Train jour­neys are ten times less dam­ag­ing to the cli­mate, and Southamp­ton has excel­lent rail links to the rest of the UK, mak­ing fly­ing unnec­es­sary.

“Peo­ple in the UK fly more per capi­ta than any­one else, so the UK avi­a­tion indus­try has the great­est respon­si­bil­i­ty for the con­se­quences of cli­mate change. It makes per­fect sense for Southamp­ton to take on the bur­den of hous­ing some of the world’s cli­mate refugees”, said Pete Bark­er of Plane Stu­pid. “It’s crazy to imag­ine that we can tack­le the seri­ous threat posed by run­away cli­mate change whilst still allow­ing air­ports to expand.”

info@planestupid.com
http://www.planestupid.com