Category: Yorkshire & The Humber

York­shire & the Hum­ber

Latest Action Update

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Blockad­ing coal in Bangladesh, cop­per min­ing in Peru, Ital­ian eco­tage against incin­er­a­tion, Greek fire­bombs oppos­ing land­fill, pro-rick­shaw car-smash­ing in India, actions and camp­ing to pro­tect the Tas­man­ian forests, and anti-min­ing trash­ing of many things in Indonesia…just a taste from around the world of how peo­ple cam­paign to stop the destruc­tion of the earth and it’s inhab­i­tants.

More news from the front lines: trav­ellers dig­ging in, mobile phone mast torch­ing, a first time hunt sabber’s diary, the lat­est from the GM ‘anti-lob­by’, and track­ing new devel­op­ments — UK frack­ing, FFS!

Plus with the lat­est advice from AUn­tie Miffy, con­tacts and dates to get you in the mood for Cap­tain Swing, down­load, dis­trib­ute, sub­scribe and get out there, and stuck in.

earthfirst.org.uk/efau
[- to sub­scribe & get the EF!AU as soon as it’s pro­duced, rather than when we put it up here!]

Call out for workshops for EF! Summer Gathering 2011

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot.

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot. So if you’ve got an idea you wish to high­light, whether it’s relat­ed to eco­log­i­cal defence or social resis­tance here is your chance. The gath­er­ing is attend­ed by hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­als inter­est­ed and par­tic­i­pat­ing in strug­gles around the UK and Europe.

To get in touch just email efsummergathering2011announce@riseup.net with a blurb of for you work­shop or dis­cus­sion and we’ll do our best to fit you in.

For month­ly email updates for the gath­er­ing sub­scribe to efsummergathering@lists.riseup.net

The Spuds don’t work. *Norwich, noon, 23rd July 2011.*

British tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied blight resis­tant spuds have been fail­ing for the last ten years. But a con­ven­tion­al­ly bred vari­ety of blight resis­tant pota­toes has been avail­able for 3 years. So why are we still pay­ing for their dan­ger­ous exper­i­ment?

British tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied blight resis­tant spuds have been fail­ing for the last ten years. But a con­ven­tion­al­ly bred vari­ety of blight resis­tant pota­toes has been avail­able for 3 years. So why are we still pay­ing for their dan­ger­ous exper­i­ment?

Come ride with us on the back of a trail­er load of safe effec­tive spuds as we go to deliv­er them to the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry out­side Nor­wich. It’s one of only two pos­si­ble open air tri­als for GM crops in Britain this year. Yet despite being pub­licly fund­ed, it’s so secre­tive no one will even say if it’s been plant­ed. Join us for tunes, chips and good cheer as we go and show them that we have already got the answers they say they’re look­ing for.

****************************************

*A tale of two spuds…*
For the last 10 years, researchers at the Sains­bury lab­o­ra­to­ry at the John Innes Cen­tre in Nor­wich have spent 1.7 mil­lion pounds of pub­lic mon­ey fail­ing to devel­op a genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­to resis­tant to the fun­gal dis­ease blight. This project is so secre­tive and unac­count­able that the lab­o­ra­to­ry has refused to even con­firm if a tri­al has been plant­ed this sea­son, or if they’ve been forced to aban­don any hopes of mak­ing the tech­nol­o­gy work. Pub­lic rejec­tion of the risks asso­ci­at­ed with eat­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food means that even if the engi­neer­ing involved was suc­cess­ful, there would be no mar­ket for the crop. Mean­while, 3 years ago a small Welsh research char­i­ty ded­i­cat­ed to con­ven­tion­al breed­ing tech­niques devel­oped a spud that is spec­tac­u­lar­ly resis­tant to blight. Not only does the crop pose no threat to health, the envi­ron­ment, or neigh­bour­ing farm­ers; it works. Over 6 dif­fer­ent vari­eties are now avail­able, and being grown on a com­mer­cial scale.

*Deliv­er­ing the answer to GM crops- *

We think the Sains­bury’s lab­o­ra­to­ry and the gov­ern­ment should be told that we’ve found the pota­toes they’re look­ing for. So we’re going to deliv­er them to the doors of their research cen­tre. We’ll be form­ing a car­ni­val pro­ces­sion of fam­i­lies and farm­ers led by the next gen­er­a­tion on ped­al trac­tors, each tow­ing a mini trail­er of safe spuds. There’ll be ped­al pow­ered tunes, and a full sized trac­tor to jump on. There will almost cer­tain­ly be chips.

*The ratio­nale*
The cam­paign against GM crops ten years ago was so suc­cess­ful that GM almost com­plete­ly van­ished from our fields and super­mar­kets, and many peo­ple have for­got­ten the issues asso­ci­at­ed with the tech­nol­o­gy. But in many oth­er parts of the world peas­ant farm­ers have been des­per­ate­ly fight­ing its spread, and laws are chang­ing in Europe that would make it much eas­i­er for GM to be grown in Britain. Despite pre-elec­tion promis­es to the con­trary the coali­tion claims it intends to be ‘the most pro GM this coun­try has ever seen’.

Let’s call time on an out­mod­ed tech­nol­o­gy that con­tin­ues to waste mon­ey in fail­ing projects, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly threat­en­ing the very sci­ence that’s actu­al­ly pro­duc­ing work­ing alter­na­tives quick­ly and cheap­ly. For too long the biotech com­pa­nies have gone unchal­lenged in their claims that GM can cre­ate gen­uine­ly use­ful crops when in fact all the sig­nif­i­cant advance­ments in the last decade have come through con­ven­tion­al breed­ing. With the renewed threat of GM on the hori­zon cam­paign­ers need to get togeth­er again to show the rest of the coun­try (and each oth­er) that we’re still here, and we’ve got an even bet­ter case than ever. This is a chance to take the ini­tia­tive with the media, to tell a sto­ry which explains clear­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly why the pro GM lob­by is wrong. That it’s us, and not the cor­po­ra­tions that have the answers to the food cri­sis. And we know how to turn them into an irre­sistible pho­to shoot.

*Our Key media mes­sages*
Genet­ic Mod­i­fi­ca­tion is unac­count­able, expen­sive, and it does­n’t work. We need to stop wast­ing pub­lic mon­ey on some­thing that no one wants and start cel­e­brat­ing the real advances in agri­cul­ture.

*What we need*

You, and the peo­ple you know, and any­one you think might be inter­est­ed.

This project is being worked on by Stop GM in con­junc­tion with the Genet­ic Engi­neer­ing Net­work. It’s a grass­roots ini­tia­tive that evolved after one nation­al gath­er­ing, sev­er­al months of pon­der­ing and an over excit­ed long week­end in Wales. Sev­er­al expe­ri­enced grass­roots cam­paign­ers will be work­ing on the project from now until the event, but we need help get­ting the word out. If you think you could help by dis­trib­ut­ing email infor­ma­tion about the event, drop­ping it about in any social media you may be involved in, let­ting your local grow­ing projects or social jus­tice groups know, dis­trib­ut­ing our soon to be pro­duced ‘Lit­tle Red Trac­tor and the Quest of the GM-free Spuds’ leaflet or even orga­niz­ing a coach to attend from your area, we’d love to hear from you.

For more infor­ma­tion please check brief­ing to help you object to pro­posed field tri­al of GM pota­toes (http://www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/63A_spud_briefing_jic_final.pdf), and how to get hold of the solu­tion www.sarvari-trust.org.

Please put it in your diary, for­ward this mes­sage on to any­one who might be inter­est­ed, and hope­ful­ly we’ll see you there.

All the best,

The Stop GM Crew.

http://stopgm.org.uk/

Land is Ours autumn gathering 2011

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gath­er­ing 2011

TLIO are host­ing a week­end gath­er­ing from Sat 8th to Sun 9th Octo­ber this year at Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Axmin­ster, Dorset. Come and enjoy a feast of inspi­ra­tional talks, open dis­cus­sions, work­shops and evening enter­tain­ment in the pleas­ant­ly eccen­tric set­ting of Monk­ton Wyld.

Talks and work­shops will include the fol­low­ing themes:

The Land Is Ours
Autumn Gath­er­ing 2011

TLIO are host­ing a week­end gath­er­ing from Sat 8th to Sun 9th Octo­ber this year at Monk­ton Wyld Court, near Axmin­ster, Dorset. Come and enjoy a feast of inspi­ra­tional talks, open dis­cus­sions, work­shops and evening enter­tain­ment in the pleas­ant­ly eccen­tric set­ting of Monk­ton Wyld.

Talks and work­shops will include the fol­low­ing themes:

• The need for land redis­tri­b­u­tion — post Peak-Oil

• Agri­cul­tur­al sub­si­dies — who for & for what?/Campaigning against Mega­farms.

• The Local­ism Bill and oth­er Plan­ning Reforms — Threats and Oppor­tu­ni­ties.

• Defend­ing pub­lic forests.

• Set­ting up land trusts, for hous­ing and land projects.

• Reclaim the Fields and Via Campesina.

• What future for direct action land cam­paigns?

Oth­er pro­pos­als for work­shops etc are wel­come.

Places are lim­it­ed so please book ear­ly. There is no fee for atten­dance, but lunch and sup­per are pro­vid­ed at £6 per meal, and bed and break­fast costs per night are £25 for a bed, £15 for a yoga mat in the main hall, or £10 camp­ing (there will be a lim­it­ed no of places half-price for the main hall and camp­ing), avail­able Fri­day, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day evening. Please book in advance, by con­tact­ing

info@tlio.org.uk or 01297 561359
http://www.tlio.org.uk/TLIO-autumngathering2011

Please Note: There may be a TLIO Sum­mer Gath­er­ing hap­pen­ing in the West Coun­try area this sum­mer as well. Keep check­ing the web­site for fur­ther announce­ments

squatting stories wanted

Call­ing All Squat­ters!

Got any pos­i­tive, fun­ny or ran­dom sto­ries from your squat­ting expe­ri­ences?

We’re putting togeth­er an exhi­bi­tion and zine with pos­i­tive squat­ting sto­ries to con­tra­dict and show the oth­er side to squat­ting, to the one regur­gi­tat­ed again and again by the main­stream media.

Call­ing All Squat­ters!

Got any pos­i­tive, fun­ny or ran­dom sto­ries from your squat­ting expe­ri­ences?

We’re putting togeth­er an exhi­bi­tion and zine with pos­i­tive squat­ting sto­ries to con­tra­dict and show the oth­er side to squat­ting, to the one regur­gi­tat­ed again and again by the main­stream media.

Wher­ev­er you squat­ted, be it Brix­ton or Kur­dis­tan, or whether you squat now or you did in the 70s, any pos­i­tive sto­ries are wel­comed – the more var­ied in time & place the bet­ter. Some of the sto­ries we have so far include from after the sec­ond world war when fam­i­lies took refuge by squat­ting aban­doned army bar­racks, as so many homes had be bombed in the blitz, as well as some sto­ries of how new­ly arrived Asian fam­i­lies to Britain gave up the coun­cil hous­ing they had received to squat togeth­er in emp­ty estates to avoid the racial abuse they were suf­fer­ing.

Your sto­ries don’t have to be this extreme though, any­thing that is pos­i­tive, fun­ny or in some way a suc­cess of man­ag­ing to stick it up to the land­lords or a suc­cess­ful use of squat­ting for a protest or cam­paign, is very much wel­comed. The sto­ries don’t have to be your own expe­ri­ences but can be ones of friends, or ones you’ve heard, just so long as they are true.

Any good pic­tures you might have that can accom­pa­ny the sto­ries would be bril­liant too. Also, if you have pic­tures of trans­for­ma­tions you’ve made turn­ing a destroyed build­ing into a beau­ti­ful home, they would also be real­ly appre­ci­at­ed. Of course you can be com­plete­ly anony­mous from any­thing you con­tribute.

Email sto­ries & stuff to homemade@lorax.org.uk

Many thanks!

Common Ground For Climate Action, 4–5 June 2011

Com­mon Ground for Cli­mate Action (the meet­ing after CC Space for Change)

A meet­ing facil­i­tat­ed by the Rhi­zome Col­lec­tive

DATE: 10:30am 4th June – 5:30pm 5th June
VENUE: Grow Heathrow, Sip­son, West Lon­don

Who is this meet­ing for?

Peo­ple who:
— have pre­vi­ous­ly been involved in organ­is­ing CFCA or oth­er rad­i­cal grass­roots cli­mate action
AND

Com­mon Ground for Cli­mate Action (the meet­ing after CC Space for Change)

A meet­ing facil­i­tat­ed by the Rhi­zome Col­lec­tive

DATE: 10:30am 4th June – 5:30pm 5th June
VENUE: Grow Heathrow, Sip­son, West Lon­don

Who is this meet­ing for?

Peo­ple who:
— have pre­vi­ous­ly been involved in organ­is­ing CFCA or oth­er rad­i­cal grass­roots cli­mate action
AND
— have ener­gy to pos­i­tive­ly explore options and strate­gies for
co-ordi­nat­ing nation­al­ly into the future.

This meet­ing is NOT:
— A place to revis­it the deci­sion to pause nation­al cli­mate camp
activ­i­ties in 2011 (though we will talk about the var­i­ous reac­tions to that deci­sion)
— A place to talk about what to do with Cli­mate Camp resources (this will need to be lat­er on)

We will be:
— Learn­ing about and explor­ing our com­mon ground in three key areas:
* What is hap­pen­ing in the wider world?
* Where do we fit?
* What future impact could we have?
— Explor­ing ways to man­age dis­agree­ment, live with dif­fer­ence, and build trust

ARE YOU COMING?
If you’re inter­est­ed in com­ing please email
spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk (by 26 May if pos­si­ble for plan­ning).
Fol­low this link for lots more infor­ma­tion about the back­ground to the meet­ing, as well as venue details and the agen­da so far:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/events/2011/06/04/common-ground-for-climate-action

KITCHEN CO-ORDINATORS NEEDED
We are in urgent need of kitchen co-ordi­na­tors, if you think you can do this then please con­tact spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk ASAP

SATURDAY NIGHT SOCIAL
If you would be inter­est­ed in organ­is­ing some live music or a social for this event, then please email spaceforchange@climatecamp.org.uk

WHO ELSE IS COMING?
Please for­ward this mes­sage to any­one you think would be inter­est­ed in com­ing

The first Green and Black Cross Network Gathering

Lon­don June 18th 11–6 Fol­lowed by a social. Venue TBC

Sup­port is attack!

Green and Black Cross were set up after the Mill­bank demon­stra­tion of Novem­ber last year through iden­ti­fy­ing a need for the type of sup­port that had been devel­oped in the Cli­mate Move­ment. Since then we have sup­port­ed hun­dreds of peo­ple from many back­grounds in their rebel­lions and protests.

Lon­don June 18th 11–6 Fol­lowed by a social. Venue TBC

Sup­port is attack!

Green and Black Cross were set up after the Mill­bank demon­stra­tion of Novem­ber last year through iden­ti­fy­ing a need for the type of sup­port that had been devel­oped in the Cli­mate Move­ment. Since then we have sup­port­ed hun­dreds of peo­ple from many back­grounds in their rebel­lions and protests.
From a legal sup­port hot­line to tire­less legal observers on the streets, brave action medics to a kitchen team smug­gling flap­jacks behind police lines. Our empha­sis on sup­port is to allow the poten­tial for fur­ther rebel­lion, for peo­ple to rise up and in doing so take con­trol of the direc­tion of their lives and spread a rela­tion­ship of sol­i­dar­i­ty and mutu­al aid.

It’s time to get involved!

At Lon­don we’ve devel­oped work­ing groups around forms of sup­port includ­ing Legal, Kitchens, Medics, Toi­lets and Rad­i­cal Child Care. We want not only to strength­en these groups in the region but also to expand a sup­port net­work. If you’re from Man­ches­ter and you’ve been legal observ­ing on demon­stra­tions, if your from Leeds and you’re think­ing about pro­vid­ing food at pick­et lines, if you live in Bris­tol and you want to be there when pro­tes­tors get injured, where ever you live and you are think­ing about get­ting involved – come! Share skills, swap sto­ries and find out more. The day will be split between intro­duc­tions to the project, ques­tions and debate on the Green and Black Cross net­work struc­ture, work­ing group time to share and devel­op our prac­tices and end­ing the day with a social event.

Why Lon­don? Unfor­tu­nate­ly GBC is present­ly Lon­don based. We aim to bring about a hor­i­zon­tal net­work that con­tains region­al auton­o­my. To do this though we want to share where we’re at so far and to make this pos­si­ble to organ­ise we’ve called the gath­er­ing in the big smoke.

Want to get involved soon­er but need some skills and or infor­ma­tion? GBC has set up a project to offer info/skill shares for groups who want to be trained up in a par­tic­u­lar sup­port role. We can offer skill shares in your rea. Get in touch with GBC@riseup.net.

We’re trans­form­ing rela­tion­ships, we’re fight­ing destruc­tion. Get involved with GBC and make way for the move­ment! For more info and pos­si­bil­i­ties of crash space email GBC@Riseup.net

Full details — fol­low the link in the Action Dates & Gath­er­ings link, to the left

After Space for Change

The ‘dis­cus­sion space’ on crab­grass is the place to share com­ments, con­cerns and ideas about the decision(s) made at Space for Change. Here’s how:

1) Go to https://we.riseup.net/discussion_space.
2) Click ‘log in’ at the top right cor­ner
3) Once logged in, select ‘join group’
4) And you’re in!

The ‘dis­cus­sion space’ on crab­grass is the place to share com­ments, con­cerns and ideas about the decision(s) made at Space for Change. Here’s how:

1) Go to https://we.riseup.net/discussion_space.
2) Click ‘log in’ at the top right cor­ner
3) Once logged in, select ‘join group’
4) And you’re in!

If you don’t already have a crab­grass user­name and pass­word you can quick­ly get one by going to https://we.riseup.net and select­ing ‘new account’.

3) INTERIM WORKING GROUPS — get involved!

The fol­low­ing inter­im work­ing groups were set up at Space for Change:

- Tat and Dosh: to max­imise the use­ful­ness of our mate­r­i­al resources
— Com­mu­ni­ca­tions: to address ongo­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions and media issues. To learn from and doc­u­ment our expe­ri­ences
— New struc­tures: to inves­ti­gate new organ­i­sa­tion­al forms, struc­tures and tac­tics for pos­si­ble next exper­i­ments.
— Next meet­ing: to organ­ise a meet­ing in the next 2–3 months to share ideas about these next exper­i­ments

They each have Crab­grass pages that can be found by putting the fol­low­ing after https://we.riseup.net/
tat_dosh
com­mu­ni­ca­tions
new_structures
next_meeting

Then click ‘request to join group’.

All of these groups are part of the inter­im Crab­grass Net­work ‘After Space for Change’ which you can join here:
https://we.riseup.net/after_space_for_change. Hav­ing groups be part of a net­work is use­ful to be able to see what oth­er groups are doing.

You can either join the whole net­work or just one of the work­ing groups.

If Crab­grass is a bit strange to you, check out the help pages here:
https://we.riseup.net/crabgrass

4) METAMORPHOSIS STATEMENT

In case you missed the state­ment com­ing out of Space for Change at Monk­ton Wyld, it can be read on the Cli­mate Camp web­site here:
www.climatecamp.org.uk/2011-statement

Day of Action against Extraction, April 19/April 20 — 2011

Com­mu­ni­ties around the world are under attack from extrac­tive indus­tries that poi­son our fam­i­lies, kill our loved ones on the job, and destroy the ecosys­tems we cher­ish. The BP oil spill was unfor­tu­nate­ly just one of an end­less string of dis­as­ters born of an eco­nom­ic sys­tem that must end­less­ly con­sume the Earth’s resources.

Com­mu­ni­ties around the world are under attack from extrac­tive indus­tries that poi­son our fam­i­lies, kill our loved ones on the job, and destroy the ecosys­tems we cher­ish. The BP oil spill was unfor­tu­nate­ly just one of an end­less string of dis­as­ters born of an eco­nom­ic sys­tem that must end­less­ly con­sume the Earth’s resources.

Extrac­tion is the act of tak­ing with­out giv­ing any­thing back. Extrac­tion takes work­ers lives so cor­po­ra­tions can make a few more bucks.
Extrac­tion takes clean water and air and gives us black­ened oceans and a cli­mate in chaos. Extrac­tion takes the nat­ur­al wealth of com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems and leaves behind pover­ty and eco­log­i­cal waste­lands.

For a sta­ble cli­mate, clean air and water, we must stop the extrac­tion of fos­sil fuels and oth­er “resources.” From the tar sands of Alber­ta to the Gulf Coast, peo­ple are fight­ing back against the extrac­tive indus­tries that have declared war on our plan­et. Ris­ing Tide is call­ing for a day of direct action against extrac­tion on the 1 year anniver­sary of the BP oil spill. On April 20th take it to the point of pro­duc­tion.
Shut down a well site, occu­py a mine, take over an office, block­ade a bank. Nobody’s com­mu­ni­ty should be a sac­ri­fice zone. For cli­mate jus­tice and a live­able plan­et.

Ris­ing Tide (North Amer­i­ca)

Crude Awakening info update

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

12 Sept 2010

THE CRUDE AWAKENING MASS OUTREACH EMAIL

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Have you been think­ing it’s about time a whole load of peo­ple got togeth­er to take mass action against oil in cen­tral Lon­don? We thought so. And so it fol­lowed that the Crude Awak­en­ing was launched. The mobi­liza­tion is now in full swing and every­one is invit­ed to help pub­li­cize and pre­pare. There is loads to do….please have a read through this email and get involved!

The email is in three parts:

Upcom­ing events and how to get involved
Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions
The call out — please copy and paste and help this get all over the Inter­net!

1. How to get involved and build up events you are all invit­ed to.

Events already planned are list­ed bel­low:

In Lon­don……

17th Sep­tem­ber, net­work­ing meet­ing at 6pm just inside the entrance to the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, a meet­ing for peo­ple inter­est­ed in help­ing to do out­reach in the Lon­don area the Cli­mate Camp out­reach group are meet­ing.

There is going to be a Lon­don coor­di­nat­ing and plan­ning meet­ing for the Crude Awak­en­ing very soon, and the details will be announced short­ly.

Thurs­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber at 7.30pm, Cli­mate Action Film Night, Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre, Whitechapel (for address see www.londonarc.org)

An evening of films and dis­cus­sion about cli­mate activism and the oil indus­try, host­ed by Lon­don Ris­ing Tide.

A screen­ing of two short films of recent actions against BP and Shell by Ris­ing Tide and friends, plus Petrop­o­lis, a visu­al­ly stun­ning and dis­turb­ing doc­u­men­tary about the Cana­di­an Tar Sands. Fol­lowed by a brain­storm­ing ses­sion on tak­ing direct action against the oil indus­try in Lon­don — includ­ing all the lat­est info on the Crude Awak­en­ing, an oily mass action hap­pen­ing on Sat­ur­day 16th Octo­ber. For any­one who believes in cli­mate jus­tice and wants to help make it hap­pen; any­one hacked off with the greed and irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of oil giants like BP; any­one back from the Cli­mate Camp and look­ing to get involved local­ly… every­one welcome.…and there’ll be cake!

The Crude Awak­en­ing Lon­don Rab­ble Rouser – a mass out­door team game, warm­ing us up for the big day– date, place and time to be announced.

Sat­ur­day 2nd Octo­ber. MOLASAPULTPARTY FUNDRAISER .… Venue TBC, more details to fol­low short­ly

Sat­ur­day the 2nd and Sun­day the 3rd Octo­ber Stilt mak­ing work­shop for the stilt block on the mass action!.…
This time we’re think­ing big, we’re think­ing high, we’re think­ing tall.… and we’re going as a Stilt Bloc.

Yep, thats right! On stilts!

So in order for this to hap­pen we’re hav­ing a skill share week­end in Lon­don to build stilts and learn how to walk on them. The week­end is Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd Octo­ber, 10am to 6pm.

And even if you don’t want to be up high, each stilt walk­er will need a bud­dy stay­ing on the ground so there’s a place for every­one, young and old, big or small, high or low.….. we need you at this week­end too!!!

Its all free and lunch is includ­ed.…

We need RSVPs so we know num­bers. Email: stilt.bloc@gmail.com

Oh and its MEXICAN DAY OF THE DEAD theme.….

In Man­ches­ter….

Sat 9th Oct — Mass Action train­ing

Tue 12th Oct — Pub­licly announced rouser for CJA inter­na­tion­al day of action

Crude Awak­en­ing mobil­i­sa­tion

We hope that there will be loads more to fol­low but this is what is lined up so far. If you are plan­ning a build up event let us know so we can adver­tise it please.

There is a huge amount to do to mobi­lize quick­ly for an event this big. Maybe you could organ­ise a film show­ing or talk (we can prob­a­bly send a speak­er if you email us). You could put on an affin­i­ty group or action train­ing work­shop, or host a fundrais­er. You could book a coach and fill it. You could run a work­shop so peo­ple can build prac­ti­cal stuff , for exam­ple a load of dis­pos­able bikes to bring along (email us to let us know if you do make lots of use­ful stuff). You could have a stall and hand out fly­ers at your fresh­ers fair (again email for mate­ri­als). You could make a sten­cil and graf­fi­ti adver­tise for it all across your city/ region. Unless every­one gets involved there is a real dan­ger we won’t get the num­bers we need.
The Crude Awak­en­ing is now on crab­grass! Join it, join a work­ing group and lets get plan­ning! https://we.riseup.net/thecrudeawakening (crab­grass is a lit­tle bit like face­book for activists and is a way of organ­is­ing on line). And sign up for more infor­ma­tion by email and text alerts on the web­site. www.crudeawakening.org.uk. Our face­book page is a lit­tle slow to get off the ground but it will soon be buzzing.

Please also raise The Crude Awak­en­ing as an agen­da point at the next organ­is­ing meet­ing at your Social Centre/ Friends of the Earth Group/ Union/ Cli­mate Camp neighbourhood/ Hous­ing Coop etc. Get peo­ple talk­ing and excit­ed and com­mit­ted to the idea that they are going! If you are not already in a group or affin­i­ty group you are of course still total­ly wel­come. You will prob­a­bly want to make con­tact with some like mind­ed folk to talk things through and make some plans before the big day. For exam­ple you could go to climatecamp.org.uk or risingtide.org.uk and find your local active group, or email us and we can try to sign­post you on. At the least try to get a cou­ple of mates to come with you, so that you have some sup­port as a group of friends (known by activists as an affin­i­ty group).

2. Fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions

Q. Nei­ther the web­site nor the fly­er gives much info. What is going on?

A. As you have prob­a­bly twigged there is also a delib­er­ate sense of mys­tery around the action. So often with recent mass actions we have said exact­ly where we are going to go, and the police have had as much time to pre­pare as us, mak­ing things much more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple who want to be involved in mass and effec­tive direct action . With this project we are exper­i­ment­ing a lit­tle bit. The 10 tar­gets are left unspec­i­fied, giv­ing the action more chance of being suc­cess­ful. But at the same time we can open­ly adver­tise that we all need to be in Cen­tral Lon­don so we can get loads of peo­ple togeth­er at the same place at the same time for the mass action. And those peo­ple need to be ready to take action and to have fun. This is not a march and it’s not a camp. This is an action that needs prepa­ra­tion and we can all be involved in most of that preparation….although the tar­gets will be a sur­prise until much lat­er.

We can’t be sure that this mix of secret and pub­lic plan­ning will work, but we can give it a go, have some fun and maybe make some progress…..but maybe, just maybe we have got it total­ly nailed and this will be the best mass action in Lon­don ever! If you don’t show up there it will be dif­fi­cult for you to know. Our advice is don’t miss it 😉

Q. So what do I need to do to pre­pare?

A. Peo­ple need to be ready to move, and to stand their ground. Don’t bring with you any­thing that you can’t eas­i­ly walk with or get on a tube with. But do bring with you stuff that will help you and your affin­i­ty group hold a space in what ever way you feel you want to. Whether you want to bring arm­tubes, dis­pos­able bikes or a huge slow mov­ing met­al and wood­en tow­er with a papi­er-mâché rhi­no head (that can fit on and off a tube!?); diver­si­ty of tac­tics and affin­i­ty group plan­ning are key to this work­ing. Peo­ple can also pre­pare stuff to make this action look beau­ti­ful; pup­pets, masks, ban­ners, a portable molasses fondue……you get the idea.

Q. Why Oil?

A. For a whole host of rea­sons. Here are just a few…..
Because oil com­pa­nies search for new oil reserves to make them­selves rich­er while our cli­mate spins into cri­sis.
Because the UK gov­ern­ment starts wars for oil.
Because of human rights abus­es and mur­der in West Africa.
Because of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon spill.
Because of the destruc­tion of wilder­ness in the Arc­tic and the coast of Rosport in Ire­land.
Because of UK pub­lic mon­ey being used by bailed out banks to fund new oil projects.
Because Lon­don is brim­ming with oil mon­ey, oil spon­sor­ship and oil com­pa­nies.
Because glob­al ener­gy resources are the peo­ples com­mons.
Because oil com­pa­nies and the filthy rich peo­ple who prof­it from them have no place in a sus­tain­able future.
Because Copen­hagen failed and now it’s down to us.
Because oil has had it’s day and it’s time we pulled the plug.

Hope that that made things a lit­tle clear­er. And more spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion will be sent out soon. If you are still strug­gling with the idea, it is a bit like the Great Cli­mate Swoop of 2009, except where we are going is kept secret. Remem­ber, you are being asked to come and move around Lon­don, so stay mobile, be cre­ative, be prepat­ed and be ready to stand your ground. So talk in your affin­i­ty group about the ways in which you are going to be able to hold a space and equip­ment and mate­ri­als that you might want to bring along to help you. The action is open, and will be shaped by the peo­ple who are there. Only the tar­gets and how we are get­ting to them are secret.

3. The call out – please copy and paste and help get this all over the Inter­net!

THE CRUDE AWAKENING

A mass action to switch off oil

Sat­ur­day, 16 Octo­ber 2010, Cen­tral Lon­don

Floods in Pak­istan, drought in Rus­sia, huge glac­i­ers break­ing up in Green­land…

Our cli­mate sys­tem is rapid­ly slid­ing into cri­sis, as oil com­pa­nies destroy peo­ple’s lives and the envi­ron­ment to keep suck­ing up their prof­its.

Oil sat­u­rates every aspect of our lives. Oil prof­its lubri­cate the finan­cial mar­kets and its spon­sor­ship clings like a bad smell to our cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions. It flows through pipelines to the pumps, air­ports and fac­to­ries of our cities.

The fail­ure of the UN COP15 process showed us – if there was ever any doubt – that gov­ern­ment and indus­try can’t tack­le cli­mate change. It’s up to us and it’s time to up the ante.

As a move­ment, our actions against coal and avi­a­tion have made a real dif­fer­ence. Now oil’s time is up.

Togeth­er, on Octo­ber 16, let’s give the oil indus­try a Crude Awak­en­ing.

Meet in cen­tral Lon­don. Be ready to move. Be ready to stay and stand your ground.

Be cre­ative. Be pre­pared. Be there.

Find out more, get involved and sign up for text alerts at www.crudeawakening.org.uk
Face­book: http://bit.ly/c6S0kg
Twit­ter: @crudeawake

Part of the CJA glob­al week of action for cli­mate jus­tice
Sup­port­ed by: Space Hijack­ers, Cli­mate Camp, Plane Stu­pid, Ris­ing Tide, Lib­er­ate Tate, Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Insur­rec­tionary Imag­i­na­tion, UK Tar Sands Net­work

Hope to see you on the streets,
Crude Awak­en­ing
crudeawakening.org.uk