Category: Yorkshire & The Humber

York­shire & the Hum­ber

Council’s £50,000 attack on volunteer-run social centre

Press release from The Com­mon Place, for imme­di­ate release 7pm 27th Feb 2009

The Common Place logoPress release from The Com­mon Place, for imme­di­ate release 7pm 27th Feb 2009
Today Leeds city cen­tre’s vol­un­teer-run com­mu­ni­ty space The Com­mon Place lost the court bat­tle to keep its enter­tain­ment licence (1). After three prob­lem-free years the licence was with­drawn by Leeds City Coun­cil in July 2008 leav­ing the social cen­tre with­out its main income. Leeds City Coun­cil per­ceived The Com­mon Place as not being a true mem­bers club as we are open to huge vari­ety of events and types of peo­ple. This open­ness had also led to lax pro­ce­dures when sign­ing non-mem­bers in, a con­di­tion of the licence.

The Com­mon Place is a space used by many of the most mar­gin­alised and vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of soci­ety (2). Carl Gal­lager of Zer­man­sky and Part­ners, act­ing for The Com­mon Place esti­mates that Leeds City Coun­cil have spent in excess of £50 000 bring­ing this case to court in a attempt to shut down the cen­tre, despite a cho­rus of sup­port from dozens of groups who use the cen­tre and over 1000 mes­sages of sup­port (3).

Com­mon Place Vol­un­teer Amy Stephen­son said, “It beg­gars belief that despite the deep­en­ing reces­sion and the lack of afford­able, social city cen­tre venues that the coun­cil has spent so much time and effort on the clo­sure of this much-loved resource.”

Dom Marsh said, “The Com­mon Place is exact­ly the sort of place that the coun­cil should be encour­ag­ing. It pro­vides free space to groups who might strug­gle to find afford­able spaces as well as an amaz­ing gig venue for up-and-com­ing local per­form­ers.”

The Com­mon Place Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee repeat­ed­ly attempt­ed to meet with the Coun­cil licens­ing depart­ment to avoid a court case and to reas­sure them of our sta­tus and capa­bil­i­ty as a mem­bers’ club. How­ev­er, this attempt to iden­ti­fy and rec­ti­fy any per­ceived prob­lems was reject­ed out­right by the coun­cil.

The future of the Com­mon Place is now under seri­ous threat. With­out licensed events the abil­i­ty of the social cen­tre to pro­vide a resource to the peo­ple of Leeds is uncer­tain.

Notes
1) The Com­mon Place is a vol­un­teer run mem­bers club and social cen­tre at Wharf Street LS1 — details at www.thecommonplace.org.uk
2) The Com­mon Place is used by groups includ­ing the award win­ning Com­mon Con­ver­sa­tion, The Per­ma­cul­ture Asso­ci­a­tion, The Unit­ed Refugee Organ­i­sa­tion, TIDAL (a Leeds-based fair trade asso­ci­a­tion), The­atre Under Fire, St. Anne’s Home­less Sup­port, Leeds Domes­tic Vio­lence Part­ner­ship
3) The com­mon place received over 1100 on-line sig­na­tures on it’s peti­tion and over 30 let­ters of sup­port from indi­vid­u­als and groups includ­ing The Refuge Coun­cil, Leeds Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty Union, Leeds Uni­ver­si­ty Union, Church Action on Pover­ty, Leeds Step­ping Out, Ladyfest Leeds, The Healthy Liv­ing Net­work.
4) Con­tact: Paul Chat­ter­ton 07894340531

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 Rush at UK Coal HQ & coal awards — Doncaster & London — and next one 5th March at RBS

North­ern Cli­mate Rush vis­it to UK coal head­quar­ters

UK Coal rush 1UK Coal rush 2North­ern Cli­mate Rush vis­it to UK coal head­quar­ters

Around 15 cli­mate activists from the North of Eng­land vis­it­ed the head­quar­ters of UK Coal near Don­cast­er yes­ter­day, 26th Feb­ru­ary, in a protest against new coal and call­ing for tougher mea­sures to con­trol CO2 emis­sions.

Two peo­ple climbed up lam­posts to sus­pend a 6m ban­ner read­ing ‘Leave it in the Ground’, while on the ground below the pro­tes­tors played a bit of sam­ba, danced, and had a pic­nic. The pro­tes­tors wore Edwar­dian themed dress includ­ing red sash­es with the words ‘No New Coal’ writ­ten across them.

UK Coal is the UK’s largest coal com­pa­ny. The Don­cast­er protest was timed to coin­cide with the Cli­mate Rush at the UK Coal Awards, host­ed by UK coal, in Lon­don.

The police reac­tion was fair­ly low-key and non-obstruc­tive, although they did take an awful lot of pho­tos (I sup­pose they had noth­ing else to do). A van dri­ver was has­sled by cops, had his details checked and was told he was not insured to dri­ve the vehi­cle (which was not the case).

—

Thurs­day 26th Feb­ru­ary 2009
PRESS RELEASE: North­ern Cli­mate Rush vis­its UK Coal head­quar­ters

Cli­mate activists from the North vis­it­ed the head­quar­ters of UK Coal near Don­cast­er today in a protest against new coal and call­ing for tougher mea­sures to con­trol CO2 emis­sions. The protest coin­cid­ed with the ‘Cli­mate Rush’ in Lon­don where peo­ple intend­ed to gate­crash the Coal UK Con­fer­ence and Awards 2009 at the Land­mark Hotel in Regents Park. How­ev­er, the Lon­don pro­test­ers arrived to find the Con­fer­ence had moved venue at the last minute. Around 200 pro­test­ers in Lon­don occu­pied the lob­by of the Land­mark and dropped ban­ners. They asked that the hotel to refrain from host­ing any future events with fos­sil fuel indus­tries such as UK Coal, to which the man­age­ment agreed.

The pro­tes­tors of both demon­stra­tions wore Edwar­dian themed dress includ­ing red sash­es with the words ‘No New Coal’ writ­ten across them. In Don­cast­er two female pro­test­ers scaled lamp-posts to hang a ban­ner read­ing ‘Leave it in the ground’ across the entrance to the UK coal head­quar­ters.

Coal is the dirt­i­est form of ener­gy pro­duc­tion yet the gov­ern­ment has plans to expand the coal indus­try, includ­ing a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in Kent. UK Coal are respon­si­ble for oper­at­ing sev­er­al open cast mines across the UK. Open cast coal min­ing is par­tic­u­lar­ly dam­ag­ing to the local envi­ron­ment since it involves scalp­ing the land­scape and typ­i­cal­ly pro­vides an aver­age of only 40 jobs per site, for a hand­ful of years only.

Vanes­sa Hall, spokes­woman for the North­ern Cli­mate Rush said, “It is essen­tial that we take cli­mate change seri­ous­ly and move away from dirty fos­sil fuels like coal. There is no way we can avoid run­away cli­mate change if we con­tin­ue to burn coal.”

Megan Beech, 24, said, “The coal indus­try talk about Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age (CCS) as the mag­ic bul­let that will allow us to keep burn­ing coal. How­ev­er CCS is as yet an unproven tech­nol­o­gy. You don’t start a fire on the promise that one day we”ll invent a fire extin­guish­er with which to put it out.”

ENDS

Notes to Edi­tors

This is the third major ‘Cli­mate Rush’ event, fol­low­ing from the first in Par­lia­ment square in Octo­ber 2008 on the cen­te­nary of the Suf­fragette rush on Par­lia­ment. Pro­test­ers demand­ed ‘Deeds Not Words’ on cli­mate change, includ­ing an end to air­port expan­sion and no new coal. The sec­ond was at Heathrow and Man­ches­ter air­ports to draw atten­tion to the threat of avi­a­tion and cli­mate change.

The North­ern Cli­mate Rush is made up of cam­paign­ers from Man­ches­ter, Leeds, Hud­der­s­field, Brad­ford and Liv­er­pool.

www.climaterush.co.uk
www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com

———
'Coal: so last century' banner
Coal canary climate rush
Cli­mate Rush host­ed cock­tail par­ty for the coal indus­try out­side of the Land­mark Hotel on Maryle­bone Road, Lon­don.

Coal UK planed to pre­sent­ed cel­e­bra­to­ry awards to the most dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies in the coal indus­try. Cli­mate Rush offered an alter­na­tive awards based on the eco­log­i­cal dam­age that the coal indus­try is inflict­ing on the envi­ron­ment.

How­ev­er after sev­er­al tries at rush­ing the hotel peo­ple dis­cov­ered that the award din­ner had been can­celled.

Brochure for the awards din­ner:
http://conf.mccloskeycoal.com/journals/McCloskey/Conferences/Conferences/attachments/Coal%20UK%20Brochure%20web.pdf

Cli­mate Rush calls for:

1. No new coal to avoid run­away cli­mate change

Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel, and by far the dirt­i­est way to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty. We must leave coal in the ground and not build any new coal fired pow­er sta­tions if we want to avoid run­away cli­mate change. CCS is an unproven tech­nol­o­gy that may nev­er be a viable option. Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now and we must act now to stop it.

2. We can’t have infi­nite growth on a finite plan­et

At this out­dat­ed and fos­silized awards cer­e­mo­ny UK Coal is cel­e­brat­ing the worst excess­es of our fail­ing eco­nom­ic sys­tem. Just like over­paid bankers these heads of cor­po­ra­tions are receiv­ing plau­dits for plun­der­ing the plan­et.

3. A tran­si­tion to a low car­bon soci­ety with sus­tain­able jobs

We must coun­ter­act any jobs loss­es from the coal indus­try with a major re-skilling pro­gram in sus­tain­able trades. Many more jobs will be cre­at­ed by a huge retro­fitting pro­gram of old hous­ing stock and in the new renew­able ener­gies sec­tor than in new coal. The Ger­man clean ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion has seen the cre­ation of 250,000 new jobs.

More pho­tos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/filkaler/tags/climaterush/

—

Land­mark Deci­sion Against Coal Indus­try
For imme­di­ate release: 26 Feb­ru­ary 2009

LANDMARK DECISION

A top class Lon­don hotel has vowed com­pa­nies and organ­i­sa­tions which con­tribute to cli­mate chaos will no longer be wel­come to use their facil­i­ties for cor­po­rate pro­mo­tion and enter­tain­ment

The move fol­lows a Cli­mate Rush action on the Land­mark Hotel in Maryle­bone, where hun­dreds of pro­test­ers con­verged on Thurs­day to halt a coal indus­try awards cer­e­mo­ny.

Coal is acknowl­edged among sci­en­tists and cli­mate change activists as the world’s worst con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change in the form of CO2 emis­sions.*

The coal indus­try under the ban­ner of UK Coal were booked into the Land­mark to host an awards cer­e­mo­ny with five star food and drink where they planned to hand out gongs for UK coal per­son­al­i­ty of the year and the best open cast min­ers among oth­er cat­e­gories.

Pro­test­ers dropped ban­ners and staged a peace­ful sit-in to speak out at the hotel’s sup­port and the coal industry’s insis­tence of “busi­ness as usu­al” in the face of evi­dent esca­lat­ing cli­mate chaos.

The Landmark’s land­mark deci­sion has been applaud­ed by activists. “At Last! For too long prof­i­teer­ing from cli­mate change has been sold to the pub­lic as a neces­si­ty of ‘busi­ness as usu­al’. But with glob­al tem­per­a­tures ris­ing and cli­mate chaos run­ning riot in the form of drought (Africa and Aus­tralia) and flood­ing (low lying lands all over), we all need to work togeth­er.

“ We applaud the Land­mark for their good sense and the vision to say ‘enough is enough’. They right­ly don’t want to be asso­ci­at­ed with the cor­rupt sys­tem that needs over­turn­ing. We wel­come the Land­mark to play their role in the new way of doing things so need­ed.”

The Land­mark now plans to deny com­pa­nies such as the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (the biggest sin­gle investor in coal and oil indus­tries) and oil com­pa­nies, such as ESSO, BP and Shell, as well as the coal indus­try from using their ball­rooms and ban­quet halls to pro­mote their cause.

The hotel has also pledge to com­mu­ni­cate with the 24 oth­er five star hotels in its’ group to sug­gest they do the same.

Cli­mate Rush has pledged to work with the Land­mark Hotel to ensure the right com­pa­nies are blocked, to send a clear mes­sage to pol­luters: they’re not wel­come.

ENDS
Notes and foot­notes to Edi­tors

Coal is respon­si­ble for 50 % of the cli­mate change gas­es in the atmos­phere caused by human activ­i­ty.

Cli­mate Rush is a cut­ting edge move­ment of car­bon cut­ting indi­vid­u­als who have seen the light and want to spread the word through their remit: Deeds not words, based on the clar­i­on call of the suf­fragettes

For high qual­i­ty pho­tos and fur­ther com­ments please ring 075 2839 8441 or email media@climaterush.co.uk

For com­ments from the land­mark hotel please ring Fran­cis T Green 0207 631 8000

–

UK No New Coal Awards

Cli­mate Rush is delight­ed to announce that it will be pre­sent­ing the fol­low­ing “Canary in the Coalmine” awards:

Sci­ence Fic­tion award
goes to the most unbe­liev­able tech­nol­o­gy not yet avail­able to stop CO2 emis­sions, Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age.

Finan­cial Fool award
goes to the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, for help­ing to raise $16 bil­lion in loans to finance the world­wide coal indus­try over the past two years.

Life­time Achieve­ment award
goes to Drax coal fired pow­er sta­tion, for the Great­est Emis­sions in the UK, equiv­a­lent to that of the 54 poor­est coun­tries in the world.

Best Sup­port­ing Role
goes to the biggest Cli­mate Cow­ard, Gor­don Brown, for his use­less lead­er­ship over Cli­mate Change.

Best New­com­er
goes to the next like­ly “fac­to­ry of death”, Kingsnorth coal fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent.

and final­ly…

UK Coal Per­son­al­i­ty of the Year
goes to Paul Gol­by, CEO of ener­gy com­pa­ny E.ON, for out­stand­ing ser­vices to Green­wash (whilst plot­ting to build Kingsnorth)

——

CLIMATE RUSH: THURSDAY 5TH MARCH, 1PM, RBS HQ

GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK and STOP TRASHING THE PLANET

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land: £33 bil­lion in bail outs SO FAR!

Using OUR MONEY!

RBS boss 50-year-old Sir Fred: retires ear­ly with a whop­ping £16 mil­lion pen­sion fund.

Using OUR MONEY!

OUR bank: arranges £16 bil­lion in loans to the coal indus­try in just two years.

RBS: the BIGGEST investor in cli­mate chaos.

FOR THE LOVE OF OUR MONEY, WHAT PLANET ARE THEY ON?

Grab your mates, bring some lunch and get down to the bank to demand OUR mon­ey back.

Roy­al Bank of Scot­land HQ

Thurs­day 5th March

1.OOPM PROMPT: think flash­mob…

280 Bish­ops­gate, near Liv­er­pool Street Sta­tion

ANGRY? You bet­ter believe it: Let’s rush!

See what they’re say­ing about the RBS Cli­mate Rush in the Guardian here

Face­book invite here: invite ALL your friends

Please help spread the word by down­load­ing the poster as a pdf here to print out and stick up wher­ev­er you go!

Be sure to keep check­ing the site for updates… and don’t for­get to sub­scribe and join our face­book group!

Protestors To Go Bananas at Leeds Tesco

Banana flash­mob at Leeds Tesco in protest of Tesco refus­ing to stock only Fair­trade bananas.

Banana flash­mob at Leeds Tesco in protest of Tesco refus­ing to stock only Fair­trade bananas.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift, a move­ment of young agi­ta­tors, is demand­ing that Tesco ban the sale of non-Fair­trade bananas for good. At 1pm on March 3rd 2009, Pro­tes­tors will stage a flash­mob protest at Tesco Metro in Leeds city cen­tre. Using Fair­trade bananas as dum­my phones, the pro­tes­tors will hold loud phone con­ver­sa­tions about the poor eth­i­cal stan­dards that Tesco main­tains. A viral video and social net­work cam­paign will run over the inter­net in the run up to the event.

Leaflet link here

Over the last five years, British super­mar­kets have engaged in banana price wars, match­ing each other’s price cuts to such a low lev­el that it is now impos­si­ble for many plan­ta­tion work­ers to earn a liv­ing — or even a legal min­i­mum – wage.

Han­nah Mar­tin who is part of Ctrl.Alt.Shift and helped organ­ise the Leeds flash­mob said ‘It’s a scan­dal that a com­pa­ny as pow­er­ful as Tesco refuse to ful­ly sup­port an organ­i­sa­tion as sig­nif­i­cant as Fair­trade, Ctrl.Alt.Shift want to show Tesco we wont sit back and let this con­tin­ue’.

In 2007, both Sainsbury’s and Wait­rose agreed to sell Fair­trade-only bananas. But Tesco refuse to fol­low suit. As the nation’s largest retail­er, it is Tesco’s duty to sup­port Fair­trade prac­tices with­in the World’s sup­ply chains. As a result, many plan­ta­tion work­ers are still paid less than $2 per day.

Ctr­lAlt­ShiftLeeds
flash@ctrlaltshift.co.uk
http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk

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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newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

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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.

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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/

26th Feb Climate Rushes — north and south

North­ern Cli­mate Rush — Rush on UK Coal!

North­ern Cli­mate Rush — Rush on UK Coal!

Fresh from their Man­ches­ter Air­port incur­sion, North­ern Cli­mate Rush is back, and we are pay­ing a vis­it to the UK’s largest coal com­pa­ny! We will be trav­el­ling by minibus to the head­quar­ters of UK Coal in Don­cast­er. Meet in front of the Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dent Union build­ing at 1pm on Thurs­day Feb 26. Dress in Edwar­dian fash­ion (if you so desire) and bring food to share, ban­ners, and musi­cal instru­ments.

WHAT IS NORTHERN CLIMATE RUSH?

It’s a group of intre­pid activists who, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from the suf­fragettes, use civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to bring about a tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my. We believe that, giv­en gov­ern­men­t’s total fail­ure to take mean­ing­ful action on cli­mate change, a cam­paign of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence is nec­es­sary, and in fact it is the only respon­si­ble way for­ward, giv­en that the fate of all future gen­er­a­tions rests on the deci­sions that are made now and in the next cou­ple of years.

Our sis­ter group of Cli­mate Rush­ers in the South will be pay­ing a vis­it to a coal indus­try awards cer­e­mo­ny in Lon­don on the same day.

WHY UK COAL?

Coal com­pa­nies such as UK Coal are active­ly stand­ing in the way of the nec­es­sary tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my based on renew­ables. They invest in new coal mines, and by lob­by gov­ern­ment against the changes need­ed for a tran­si­tion to alter­na­tives.

HOW CAN WE LIVE WITHOUT COAL?

Var­i­ous recent sci­en­tif­ic reports* have shown how the UK could tran­si­tion from fos­sil fuels, to a low-car­bon econ­o­my. We would have to switch to renew­able pow­er sources (main­ly wind and wave) and reduce our ener­gy con­sump­tion by fly­ing much less, by reduc­ing the use of pri­vate cars by cre­at­ing a vast­ly improved pub­lic trans­port sys­tem, by ensur­ing that with­in the next few years all UK homes and build­ings are prop­er­ly insu­lat­ed, and by requir­ing all appli­ances to have the high­est stan­dard of ener­gy effi­cien­cy.

WHAT ABOUT JOBS?

Dur­ing the min­ers’ strikes of the 70’s and 80’s most coal mines in the UK were deep pit mines, which required hun­dreds of min­ers to work them. But now most of the coal that can be deep-mined has already been dug up, and new UK coal mines are open-cast — huge dig­gers are used to rip the top off a hill, and then coal is sift­ed from the rub­ble. It is tremen­dous­ly destruc­tive to local ecolo­gies, and also employs far few­er work­ers.

By con­trast the cre­ation of new wind and wave-pow­er infra­struc­ture, a pro­gram of build­ing insu­la­tion instal­la­tion, and lay­ing on more trains, trams and bus­es, would all cre­ate new, sus­tain­able jobs. We are call­ing for gov­ern­ment to pro­vide train­ing pro­grams so that work­ers from fos­sil fuel indus­tries which need to be phased out can move direct­ly into posi­tions in the new, sus­tain­able indus­tries.

It’s now or nev­er time for the cli­mate, join us!

All gen­ders wel­come.

* See for exam­ple:
— Nico­las Stern, “Stern Review of the Eco­nom­ics of Cli­mate Change”, http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/stern.htm

- Tyn­dall Cen­tre for Cli­mate Change Research, “Decar­bon­is­ing the UK”, http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/media/news/tyndall_decarbonising_the_uk.pdf

northernclimaterush@googlemail.com
http://www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com

————-

UK Coal will be pre­sent­ing cel­e­bra­to­ry awards to the most dam­ag­ing com­pa­nies in the coal indus­try on Feb­ru­ary 26th Feb­ru­ary at the Land­mark Hotel on Maryle­bone Road, Lon­don. Cli­mate Rush will be in atten­dance to offer alter­na­tive awards based on the eco­log­i­cal dam­age that the coal indus­try is inflict­ing on the envi­ron­ment.

We invite you to join us in your best cock­tail fin­ery (fab­u­lous hats a rec­om­men­da­tion, and sooty styling a sug­ges­tion) to show UK Coal pre­cise­ly what “indus­try play­ers can expect to chal­lenge them in 2009.”

NO NEW COAL AWARDS

THURSDAY 26TH FEBRUARY

THE LANDMARK HOTEL
Dress for­mal­ly for cock­tails in the Win­ter Gar­den at 6.30 prompt.

WHAT CLIMATE RUSH SAYS TO THE UK COAL AWARDS

No new coal to avoid run­away cli­mate change
Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel, and by far the dirt­i­est way to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty. We must leave coal in the ground and not build any new coal fired pow­er sta­tions if we want to avoid run­away cli­mate change. CCS is an unproven tech­nol­o­gy that may nev­er be a viable option. Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now and we must act now to stop it.

We can’t have infi­nite growth on a finite plan­et
At this out­dat­ed and fos­silized awards cer­e­mo­ny UK Coal is cel­e­brat­ing the worst excess­es of our fail­ing eco­nom­ic sys­tem. Just like over­paid bankers these heads of cor­po­ra­tions are receiv­ing plau­dits for plun­der­ing the plan­et.

A tran­si­tion to a low car­bon soci­ety with sus­tain­able jobs
We must coun­ter­act any jobs loss­es from the coal indus­try with a major re-skilling pro­gram in sus­tain­able trades. Many more jobs will be cre­at­ed by a huge retro­fitting pro­gram of old hous­ing stock and in the new renew­able ener­gies sec­tor than in new coal. The Ger­man clean ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion has seen the cre­ation of 250,000 new jobs.

http://climaterush.co.uk/

Photographers turn out in solidarity against new “terror law”.

Repost­ed: 16.02.2009: every­one knows Indy­medi­a’s a cop­per’s favourite read, but after a cou­ple of hun­dred snap­pers turned up out­side the yard this morn­ing they’ll be queu­ing up today to see whose mug’s on the wire.

Photographing gun copsRepost­ed: 16.02.2009: every­one knows Indy­medi­a’s a cop­per’s favourite read, but after a cou­ple of hun­dred snap­pers turned up out­side the yard this morn­ing they’ll be queu­ing up today to see whose mug’s on the wire.

Because snuck in today under the usu­al cov­er of the war against ter­ror came Sec­tion 76 of the Counter-Ter­ror­ism Act 2008.

This crim­i­nalis­es any­one ‘elic­it­ing, pub­lish­ing or com­mu­ni­cat­ing infor­ma­tion on mem­bers of the armed forces, intel­li­gence ser­vices and police offi­cers which is “like­ly to be use­ful to a per­son com­mit­ting or prepar­ing an act of ter­ror­ism”.

But giv­en the police’s reg­u­lar and bla­tant mis­use of oth­er laws such as Sec­tion 44 of the exist­ing Ter­ror­ism Act and Sec­tion 1 of PACE, pho­tog­ra­phers feel it’s a rac­ing cer­tain­ty that it’ll get used to sup­press evi­dence the police don’t want used against them.

“I can see it now”, wrote pho­tog­ra­ph­er Marc Vallee in Thurs­day’s Guardian ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/11/police-terrorism-photography-liberty-central) “If you don’t stop tak­ing pic­tures of me hit­ting this pro­test­er on the head, I’m going to nick you under sec­tion 76 of the Counter-Ter­ror­ism Act 2008.”

At least three legal cas­es are cur­rent­ly pend­ing relat­ing to such police over-exu­ber­ance at last year’s Cli­mate Camp in Kingsnorth, Kent. Almost two thou­sand cops from 26 forces assem­bled at a cost of over 6 mil­lion quid and — hav­ing first harassed and delayed the press — chose to lay in on a reg­u­lar basis on campers with steel batons.

Sad­ly for them these attacks were nev­er­the­less filmed and pho­tographed and this evi­dence stands ready to dis­prove the lies they make in jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for that behav­iour. Imag­ine how much eas­i­er life will be for them in future if those news­gath­er­ers can be tak­en away from the scene under threat of a ten year stretch.

High up behind the mir­rored win­dows of New Scot­land Yard the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team will have been at work pho­tograph­ing the pho­tog­ra­phers for their records.

And they’ll have noticed some­thing new — as well as the usu­al twen­ty or so pho­tog­ra­phers they always tar­get for “report­ing the news the wrong way” there were a cou­ple of hun­dred new faces: work­ing news pho­tog­ra­phers who’ve had it up to the back teeth with being pushed around ille­gal­ly on threat (and some­times the real­i­ty) of arrest.

It’s no longer just an activist minor­i­ty that sees through this sham of repres­sion pre­sent­ed almost as a health and safe­ty issue (keep­ing us safe from the bad men). Polit­i­cal police intru­sion is becom­ing ever more inva­sive, is affect­ing all our lives and fuck­ing up the free­doms we’re sup­posed to believe are (were?) our right.

This new law is just one more sub­tle tool in the armoury of pub­lic repres­sion and this extra­or­di­nary turnout by what is nor­mal­ly an apa­thet­ic and polit­i­cal­ly care­less bunch of pho­tog­ra­phers sends a clear sig­nal that the worm is final­ly turn­ing.

Earth First! tree planting weekend in Pennines Fri 13th-Sun 15th March

The annu­al and occa­sion­al­ly hedo­nis­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First!

EF! fist tree 1The annu­al and occa­sion­al­ly hedo­nis­tic 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 we will be based in Heb­den Bridge in Calderdale. If you fan­cy a week­end of hard but sat­is­fy­ing work plant­i­ng native wood­land com­bined with good food and social­is­ing put the week­end of the 13–15th March in your diary.

Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end…

Date: Fri­day 13th — Sun­day 15th March

Venue: We will be stay­ing in a camp­ing barn with com­fy beds and heat­ing. Bring a sleep­ing bag.

Trans­port: Get your­self to Heb­den Bridge train sta­tion for a pick up at 6pm or 8pm on the 13th. Pick­ups are avail­able by arrange­ment at oth­er times if you e‑mail in advance.

Food: All food will be cooked col­lec­tive­ly and will be veg­an.

Cost: £25 for the week­end. This includes all food and acco­mo­da­tion. You’ll have to sup­ply you own beer. We will be vis­it­ing the famous Blue Pig pub­lic house on the Sat­ur­day night.

Need more info? Con­tact: treesponsibility@yahoo.co.uk or call 07983743894

Call out for solidarity anti-nuke actions on 26th April (Chernobyl Day)

A call out for com­mon actions against the con­struc­tion of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion

A call out for com­mon actions against the con­struc­tion of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion

Present-day Belarus is a post sovi­et coun­try, on which ter­ri­to­ry a regime, police state in form and neolib­er­al in essence, for­ti­fied its posi­tion. For already 14 years the coun­try is run by one and the same per­son Alexan­der Lukashenko, a pop­ulist at the begin­ning of his gov­ern­ing and open­ly pur­su­ing anti­so­cial reforms now. The free­dom of speech, free­dom of the press, free­dom of assem­bly is not about our coun­try. These basic val­ues as well as the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion are sup­pressed. Peace­ful gath­er­ings dis­per­sions, polit­i­cal tri­als, pre­ven­tive deten­tions all this has become a norm of polit­i­cal prac­tice in Belarus.

A few years ago the rul­ing top start­ed to con­sid­er anoth­er ven­ture­some project the con­struc­tion of a nuclear pow­er sta­tion (NPS). Lukashenko took a deci­sion regard­less of the pub­lic wish­es and com­mon sense. The deci­sion was made with the active sup­port of the inter­na­tion­al nuclear lob­by. The con­struc­tion is to be under­tak­en by a Russ­ian cor­po­ra­tion Rosatom. It is to be held in a seis­mi­cal­ly active zone, in a dozen kilo­me­ters away from Lake Naroch the largest lake in Belarus, which is eco­log­i­cal­ly unique for our coun­try and is a tourists and hol­i­day-mak­ers attrac­tion. On the con­struc­tion will be spent $4 bil­lion, which oth­er­wise could be out­laid for alter­na­tive ener­gy means devel­op­ment.

But the above-list­ed points pale before the fact that Belarus shared 70% of radioac­tive con­t­a­m­i­na­tion after Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent. But the gov­ern­ment and the pres­i­dent are absolute­ly not con­cerned about that. They want to cre­ate a delayed-action bomb in the coun­try, where one third of the ter­ri­to­ry is unfit for farm­ing and berries/mushrooms gath­er­ing.

We, Anti­nu­clear resis­tance, an anar­chy group, come out against nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing on the whole and against the NPS con­struc­tion specif­i­cal­ly in Belarus. A part of polit­i­cal forces in Belarus, includ­ing oppo­si­tion, sup­port­ed the NPS con­struc­tion. Unlike them we do not believe in NPS safe­ty irre­spec­tive of the polit­i­cal regime, with­in which it is func­tion­ing and being con­struct­ed. Our activ­i­ty is based upon non-author­i­tar­i­an prin­ci­ples, we do not coop­er­ate with any polit­i­cal par­ties on a reg­u­lar base, but with eco­log­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions and grass­roots ini­tia­tives.

On 26 April, the anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent, an annu­al demon­stra­tion Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path) takes place in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the acci­dent and the peo­ple who fell the imme­di­ate and lin­ger­ing vic­tims of it. Start­ing with the year of 1996 anar­chists take part in the demo with eco­log­i­cal and anti­nu­clear slo­gans. But nowa­days the demon­stra­tion, instead of just mourn­ing and com­mem­o­ra­tive event, is
gain­ing a protest mood: in the coun­try, where dozens of thou­sands peo­ple have died as a result of the nuclear acci­dent after­maths and hun­dreds of thou­sands have acquired acci­dent-caused ill­ness­es or become hand­i­capped, a new NPS is to be con­struct­ed! And that is done accord­ing to the com­mon reg­u­la­tions of an author­i­tar­i­an police state not ask­ing the peo­ples opin­ion, but just con­fronting them with the fact.

On 26 April we will again take a most active part in the Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path), well try to pass along to every­one our clear anti­nu­clear posi­tion, will inform as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble of the approach­ing dan­ger. But now it is not enough! As an instru­ment of strug­gle against the state law­less­ness we rely on the inter­na­tion­al sup­port. We urge anar­chists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­ans of the world to car­ry out sol­i­dar­i­ty actions on 26 April 2009. We call for a decen­tral­ized day of action of any form, which could help peo­ple learn some­thing about our prob­lem and stop the impu­dent author­i­ty and their spon­sors from IAEA.

If you already take actions on 26 April on your local prob­lems con­cern­ing nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing, please put on your list the demand for abo­li­tion of the NSP con­struc­tion in Belarus. You are also wel­come to par­tic­i­pate in The Cher­nobyl Path in Min­sk and oth­er actions in Belarus.

Togeth­er we will be able to stand up for the right for life on a clean and eco­log­i­cal­ly safe plan­et!

If you have any inten­tion to make sol­i­dar­i­ty actions with the Belaruss­ian anti­nu­clear move­ment or par­tic­i­pate in the demon­stra­tion in Belarus please con­tact us:

antiatombel@riseup.net

Spread out the call out through any acces­si­ble for you infor­ma­tion chan­nels

belarus anar­chists
http://belarus.avtonom.org