Fossil Fools Day — 1 Month to Go!

Whether you’ve been plot­ting for months or have just been inspired, there’s plen­ty of time left to plan your action. Read on for loads of resources and sup­port…

FFD frontWhether you’ve been plot­ting for months or have just been inspired, there’s plen­ty of time left to plan your action. Read on for loads of resources and sup­port…

With one month to go until April 1st, actions are being plot­ted up and down the coun­try and around the world, rang­ing from street the­atre and town cen­tre demon­stra­tions to high pro­file direct actions tar­get­ing indus­try oper­a­tions and head­quar­ters. Net­works from Earth First! to Peo­ple and Plan­et have got on board in help­ing to spread the word. Nation­al press have been in touch and are plan­ning to cov­er the day. Peo­ple are email­ing from around the coun­try ask­ing for more info on plan­ning their prank, and look­ing for local actions to get involved in.

We are in the mid­dle of an unstop­pable rise of cre­ative, rad­i­cal, nec­es­sary direct action against cli­mate change… be part of it, on Fos­sil Fools Day and beyond.

Whether you’ve been plot­ting for months or have just been inspired, there’s plen­ty of time left to plan your action. Read on for loads of resources and sup­port… and what­ev­er you do, make sure to call or email us on the day so we can add your action to our end-of-day round up, and show the world what grass­roots action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try can achieve.

Hap­py Fos­sil Fools Day every­one!

CONTACTS
www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday
info@risingtide.org.uk
0796 191 7535

RESOURCES AND SUPPORT

Resources avail­able at www.risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday (get in touch if you’d like any­thing mailed to you in hard copy):
‑actions book­let with 15 ideas for action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try, includ­ing plan­ning tips, tar­get loca­tions, exam­ples of suc­cess­ful actions and more
‑posters, leaflets and graph­ics to make your own mate­ri­als
‑com­ing soon: a gener­ic leaflet you can adapt to hand out on the day and a Q&A sheet for answer­ing media ques­tions

Want to find an action to get involved in?
If you’re look­ing to get involved where you live, get in touch and we may be able to link you up with some­thing in your local area… or give you advice on get­ting your own action off the ground… or put you in touch with a local group for future actions!

Pub­lic­i­ty
If you’re plan­ning a pub­licly announced action, let us know ASAP and we can help spread the word.

Media
We’ll be send­ing out a nation­al press release and may be able to direct jour­nal­ists to you on the day if you wish, so any info you can let us know in advance will be real­ly help­ful – and/or a phone num­ber to con­tact you on the day if that’s pos­si­ble. And call or email us as soon as your action’s hap­pened so we can include it in the end-of-day actions round-up, which we’ll be press releas­ing as well. Get in touch if you’d like help writ­ing and/or send­ing your own press release — there’s a great guide here:
http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/toolkit/press_and_media/guides_for_using_the_mainstream_media/short_guide_to_the_media.pdf

And if your action’s all sort­ed and you just can’t get enough of FFD… Help spread the word!
• Send an email or let­ter to every­one who might be inter­est­ed, or who sup­ports your group, let­ting them know about Fos­sil Fools Day and where to find out more.
• Post a Fos­sil Fools Day link or event descrip­tion on your web­site, or to any oth­er lists, blogs or web­sites you can think of.
• Dis­trib­ute Fos­sil Fools Day leaflets and put up posters wher­ev­er you can — mailed to your local groups, in your com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, office, pubs, book­shops, cafes, library, wher­ev­er you can think of. Just let us know how many you need and we’ll send them out to you!

And one last time… the call-out:

FOSSIL FOOLS DAY, April 1st 2008
Pull a prank that packs a punch.

Roll up, roll up! The cli­mate cir­cus is in town. Cli­mate change threat­ens our very sur­vival, but the fools at the head of the fos­sil fuel empire con­tin­ue to plun­der the earth, with gov­ern­ments the will­ing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape cli­mate change with tech­no-fix­es, mar­ket mech­a­nisms and off­set schemes – all tech­no­crat­ic acro­bat­ics that dis­tract us from the truth: the only real solu­tion to cli­mate change is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

For over a cen­tu­ry the fos­sil fuel indus­try has been fool­ing with our lives. From extrac­tion to com­bus­tion they have poi­soned our air, pol­lut­ed our water and ruined our cli­mate. On April 1st, 2008, we’re going to turn the tables and show them who the real fools are.

Find a local fos­sil fool – the coal-min­ing clown, the off­set con­tor­tion­ist, the avi­a­tor trip­ping on the high wire, the super­mar­ket food mile freak show, the oily strong man, or any oth­er fool that deserves your atten­tion – and take direct action to end the fos­sil fuel empire.

On Fos­sil Fools Day, bring the spir­it of car­ni­val and mis­chief to the fight for cli­mate jus­tice.

PS. Don’t for­get, Fos­sil Fools Day kicks off a sea­son of action…
3 MONTHS, 3 DAYS OF ACTION
April 1st: Fos­sil Fuels
May 1st: False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions
June 3rd: Food and Cli­mate Change
www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk
www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk

and…
August 4–11: Camp for Cli­mate Action 2008
www.climatecamp.org.uk

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 77, MARCH 2008

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — INTERNATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS – INT’L, 1.5.08

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — INTERNATIONAL, 1.4.08
2) MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS – INT’L, 1.5.08
3) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — INTERNATIONAL, 3.6.08
4) “PEOPLE ARE STILL THE SAME” — BRECON, 8.3.08
5) PADDY’S DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SHELL — IRELAND AND BEYOND, 17.3.08
6) BIKES NOT BOMBS TOUR — LONDON TO ALDERMASTON, 22–24.3.08
7) TERMINAL 5 FLASHMOB — HEATHROW, 27.3.08
8) CLIMATE BILL PUBLIC MEETING — LONDON, 22.4.08
9) COIN WORKSHOPS — NATIONAL, MARCH-APRIL 2008
10) NATIONAL CLIMATE FORUM — LONDON, 14–15.6.08
11) EARTH ACTIVIST TRAINING — GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 12–26.7.08
12) ENVIRONMENT CAMPAIGNER AWARD – 2008
13) LILI COURSES IN APRIL — BUCKS/LONDON/SHEFFIELD

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE EMERGENCY AT HEATHROW, THEN WESTMINSTER — 25.2.08 / 27.2.08
2) RATCLIFFE ACTION VERDICT — NOTTINGHAM, 25.2.08
3) BP AMERICA, EXXON MOBIL AND CO. IN THE DOCK — ALASKA, 27.2.08
4) HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! ACTIONS — UK AND NETHERLANDS, 23.2.08
5) EARTH FIRST! BLOCKADES POWER PLANT CONSTRUCTION — FLORIDA, 18.2.08
6) RTNA/EARTHFIRST! PIPELINE ACTION — PORTLAND, U.S. 23.1.08
7) SABOTAGE AT GLENSANDA — YORKSHIRE, FEBRUARY 2008
8) PLANKTOS DUMPING SCHEME DEFEATED BY ANTI-WHALERS — MADEIRA, 14.2.08
9) COMMUNITY HALTS SHELL — IRELAND, 12.2.08
10) CRITICAL MASS HERO CLEARED — BRISTOL, 7.2.08
11) KLIMAX SURGE ON! — SWEDEN, JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008
12) TARA CAMPAIGN UPDATE — FEBRUARY 2008
13) 15 ACTIONS TO TOPPLE THE FOSSIL FUEL EMPIRE — FEBRUARY 2008
14) RISING TIDE POP-ED RESOURCE PACK — FEBRUARY 2008
15) “RISING TO THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE” BOOKLET — FEBRUARY 2008
16) “BURNING CAPITAL” — FEBRUARY 2008
17) SPIRIT OF FREEDOM — FEBRUARY 2008
18) CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTIONS CENTRE — FEBRUARY UPDATE 2008
19) “THE AGE OF STUPID” — FEBRUARY 2008
20) AIRPORT WATCH BULLETIN — FEBRUARY 2008
21) CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE — WEBSITE 2008

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — INTERNATIONAL, 1.4.08
Roll up, roll up…the cir­cus is com­ing to town, and it’s going to be big!
For over a cen­tu­ry the fos­sil fuel indus­try has been fool­ing with our lives. From extrac­tion to com­bus­tion they have poi­soned our air, pol­lut­ed
our water and ruined our cli­mate. On April 1st, we’re going to turn the
tables and show them who the real fools are. Ris­ing Tide’s call has been
backed by Net­work for Cli­mate Action, Glob­al Exchange and Rain­for­est
Action Net­work. There are actions planned across the coun­try and around
the world — let us know what you get up to! (Or tell us in advance if you
can and we’ll help spread the word, get media atten­tion, etc.) Con­tact
local groups or just do it your­self. Show the fos­sil fool clowns what you
think of their freak­show — It’s time to Pull a Prank that Packs a Punch!
Resources and ideas are avail­able from;
http://risingtide.org.uk/fossilfoolsday/resources
http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/
Also see; http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/
and; http://risingtide.org.uk/node/241
Con­tact no: 07961 917 535

2) MAYDAY! MAYDAY! INVASION OF THE CLIMATE SNATCHERS — INTERNATIONAL, 1.5.08
From bio­fu­els to nuclear pow­er, car­bon-trad­ing to hydro­gen fuel cells,
dump­ing urine in the ocean to car­bon cap­ture — every­where cor­po­ra­tions are
seek­ing the elu­sive elixir which allows them to con­tin­ue with busi­ness as
usu­al. All these tech­nolo­gies are a dis­trac­tion from the real solu­tions -
a mas­sive reduc­tion in our con­sump­tion and far-reach­ing social change. On
May 1st, Inter­na­tion­al Work­ers Day, we will chal­lenge these false
solu­tions to cli­mate chaos.
http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk

3) CLIMATE ACTION WITH A BITE! — INTERNATIONAL, 3.6.08
Cli­mate action starts on your din­ner plate, in the super­mar­ket, at the
food pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres, on the farm, in your allot­ment
or your back yard. The foods we eat are respon­si­ble for about a third of
our green­house emis­sions. It’s time for us to switch to plant-based,
organ­ic, sea­son­al and local­ly pro­duced food. Whether you’re into local
food, per­ma­cul­ture, ani­mal rights, allot­ments, human­i­tar­i­an issues, food
pol­i­tics or trans­port cam­paign­ing, make the links and take action to
high­light the role of the food indus­try in cli­mate chaos.
http://networkforclimateaction.org.uk

4) “PEOPLE ARE STILL THE SAME” — BRECON, 8.3.08
A one-day event show­cas­ing art­works cre­at­ed in response to inter­views,
dia­logues and doc­u­men­ta­tion of the con­struc­tion of the South Wales gas
pipeline.
From 3pm till dusk: Cur­rent State Dystopia — a video pro­jec­tion in the
tun­nel under­neath the A40 road and: Books — a sound and slide instal­la­tion
in Din­gle Wood. 6pm: Going Home — pro­jec­tion and music in Pen­pont Church.
RSVP morag@cooptel.net or tele­phone 01874 636269 www.penpont.com

5) PADDY’S DAY OF ACTION AGAINST SHELL — IRELAND AND BEYOND, 17.3.08
This year´s St Paddy´s day, 17th March, has been called as an
Inter­na­tion­al day of action against shell, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple
of Ross­port. Peo­ple from all over Ire­land are set to join forces and show
their unit­ed strength by going all the way to Lon­don to demon­strate on
Shell´s front door step.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20124
http://gluaiseacht.nologic.org/wordpress

6) BIKES NOT BOMBS TOUR — LONDON TO ALDERMASTON, 22–24.3.08
Bikes not bombs are plan­ning a bicy­col­o­gy bike tour from Lon­don to
Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment to mark the 50th anniver­sary of
the Alder­mas­ton Peace March. The ride is expect­ed to take 3 days
(22nd-24th March). More than 5000 peo­ple are expect­ed to attend the
“Sur­round The Base” event at Alder­mas­ton on the 24th. If you are
inter­est­ed please email; info@bikesnotbombs.org.uk
Also see www.cnduk.org/aldermaston

7) TERMINAL 5 FLASHMOB — HEATHROW, 27.3.08
Be at T5 Inter­na­tion­al Arrivals at 11am to put on (or strip to reveal)
your bright­ly coloured “Stop Air­port Expan­sion” t‑shirt: a vis­i­ble
pres­ence of pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the mad­ness of air­port expan­sion. Wan­der
round for a bit, have a cof­fee, leave when you like. Wear­ing a t‑shirt is
not (yet) a crime!
Order your free T‑shirt today: stopairportexpansion@gmail.com or 0845 458
2564.
The Government/BAA see the open­ing day of Ter­mi­nal Five (the biggest
ter­mi­nal ever built in the UK, and the sub­ject of the longest Pub­lic
Inquiry in British his­to­ry) as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to put the case for fur­ther
air­port expan­sion. Join the flash mob to high­light the real prob­lems that
air­port expan­sion caus­es: cli­mate change, noise, air pol­lu­tion and
com­mu­ni­ty destruc­tion.
http://www.t5flashmob.com/

8) CLIMATE BILL PUBLIC MEETING — LONDON, 22.4.08
Friends Meet­ing House, Euston, Lon­don, 7.30pm. A chance to attend a pub­lic
meet­ing with Hilary Benn MP (Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary) and Peter Ainsworth
(Shad­ow Envi­ron­ment Sec­re­tary) and join the calls for a strong cli­mate
change law.
More info: howard.whitehead@foe.co.uk

9) COIN WORKSHOPS — NATIONAL, MARCH-APRIL 2008
(a) Cli­mate Change Con­densed will be hap­pen­ing in Chel­tenham on the 6th
March.
(b) Cli­mate Action Groups match­mak­er evening, Tue 11th March 4:30 -
7:30pm, The Envi­ron­ment Coun­cil, Lon­don. Any­one who has attend­ed any of
the COIN/TEC series of train­ings can attend this for free.
© Do you work for the NHS? COIN is offer­ing a tai­lored Cli­mate Change
Speak­er Train­ing in Lon­don on March 14th. See;
www.healthandsustainability.net
(d) Com­mu­ni­cat­ing Cli­mate Change, a one-day work­shop, in part­ner­ship with
Vale
Roy­al Bor­ough Coun­cil on Fri­day, April 11th.
Fur­ther train­ings com­ing soon in Birm­ing­ham, Man­ches­ter and Scot­land.
Would you like COIN to run train­ings in your local area? — give Mim a call
on 01865 727911 or email mim@coinet.org.uk
See the COIN web­site for details on all the above; www.coinet.org.uk

10) NATIONAL CLIMATE FORUM — LONDON, 14–15.6.08
This event offers a wide range of work­shops and sem­i­nars all deal­ing with
dif­fer­ent aspects of the cli­mate change cri­sis, prob­a­ble solu­tions and
future devel­op­ments in nation­al and inter­na­tion­al cli­mate poli­cies. Venue;
South Cam­den Com­mu­ni­ty School, Lon­don. Fol­low the link below to look at
the pro­gram and speak­ers from last year cli­mate con­fer­ence.
http://www.campaigncc.org/conference.shtml

11) EARTH ACTIVIST TRAINING — GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 12–26.7.08
A per­ma­cul­ture design course and more for activists! Learn the skills to
trans­form a piece of land, a com­mu­ni­ty, and our polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic
sys­tems.
COSTS: (Includ­ing tuition, two weeks accom­mo­da­tion and all meals) £150 -
£500 slid­ing scale accord­ing to income. If you are inter­est­ed in tak­ing
part in the course, down­load an appli­ca­tion form from:
http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/
Or write to: Earth Activist Train­ing, c/o 59 Chelsea Park, Bris­tol, BS5 6AH.

12) ENVIRONMENT CAMPAIGNER AWARD
The Envi­ron­ment Awards (organ­ised by the Sheila McK­ech­nie Foun­da­tion) are
an oppor­tu­ni­ty for grass­roots cam­paign­ers to receive a bespoke pro­gramme
of sup­port and skills devel­op­ment designed to help them take their
cam­paign to the next lev­el. See www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk for details of
how to apply.

13) LILI COURSES IN APRIL — BUCKS/LONDON/SHEFFIELD
Low-Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive: (01296) 714184 www.lowimpact.org

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) CLIMATE EMERGENCY AT HEATHROW, AND THEN WESTMINSTER — 25.2.08 / 27.2.08
On the 27th, cam­paign­ers opposed to Heathrow expan­sion scaled the roof of
the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment and hung protest ban­ners from the build­ing. The
pro­test­ers also made paper aero­planes out of con­fi­den­tial White­hall
doc­u­ments and flew them into the MPs’ car park below! The doc­u­ments –
obtained under the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act — prove that air­port
oper­a­tor BAA wrote parts of the con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment and that the
gov­ern­ment has already decid­ed to build a 3rd run­way and 6th ter­mi­nal at
the world’s biggest inter­na­tion­al air­port.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-scales-parliament
Two days ear­li­er Green­peace cam­paign­ers had climbed on to one of
Heathrow’s short-haul flights and cov­ered the tail­fin of the plane with a
huge protest ban­ner that read “CLIMATE EMERGENCY – NO 3rd RUNWAY”.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/climate-campaigners-bring-peaceful-protest-to-heathrow-20080225
Also on the 25th, the Heathrow end-of-con­sul­ta­tion ral­ly at West­min­ster
was a packed-out suc­cess, with thou­sands of res­i­dents, politi­cians and
envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers pledg­ing to resist plans to extend Heathrow -
http://www.airportwatch.org.uk/
The dis­tri­b­u­tion of 50,000 leaflets and the actions of anar­chist art troop
Weird Load helped make the ral­ly such a suc­cess:
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20050

2) RATCLIFFE ACTION VERDICT — NOTTINGHAM, 25.2.08
Fol­low­ing their attempts to halt oper­a­tions and thus dimin­ish CO2
emis­sions at the Rat­cliffe-on-Soar pow­er sta­tion last April, 10 activists
were recent­ly back in court. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the defen­dants’ defence of
envi­ron­men­tal neces­si­ty was reject­ed and they were found guilty. The judge
had ear­li­er said that he wished to com­pli­ment all the defen­dants on the
pre­sen­ta­tion of their case.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392323.html

3) BP AMERICA, EXXON MOBIL AND CO. IN THE DOCK — ALASKA, 27.2.08
Mean­while, in Alas­ka, lawyers for the native coastal vil­lage of Kivali­na
have filed a suit argu­ing that 5 oil com­pa­nies, 14 elec­tric util­i­ties and
the coun­try’s largest coal com­pa­ny were respon­si­ble for the relo­ca­tion of
vil­lagers because of flood­ing caused by the chang­ing Arc­tic cli­mate.
“There has been a long cam­paign by pow­er, coal and oil com­pa­nies to
mis­lead the pub­lic about the sci­ence of glob­al warm­ing,” the suit says.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/us/27alaska.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Flooded+Village+Files+Suit%2C+Citing+Corporate+Link+to+Climate+Change+&st=nyt&oref=slogin

4) HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL! ACTIONS — UK AND NETHERLANDS, 23.2.08
In sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Iraqi peo­ples’ strug­gle against the plun­der of
their oil reserves, there were actions in Birm­ing­ham, Lon­don, Liv­er­pool,
Wrex­ham, Coven­try and Ams­ter­dam.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392315.html

5) EARTH FIRST! BLOCKADES POWER PLANT CONSTRUCTION — FLORIDA, 18.2.08
Dozens of con­cerned com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers from Palm Beach Coun­ty and across
the States put their bod­ies on the line to halt con­struc­tion of a mas­sive
gas-fired pow­er plant. A dozen activists locked them­selves togeth­er
through met­al pipes as 200 sup­port­ers ral­lied around them. The block­ade
stopped work on the con­struc­tion site for six hours before a total of 27
peo­ple were arrest­ed.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/02/19/blockade-shuts-down-south-florida-power-plant-construction-27-arrested/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20038

6) RTNA/EARTHFIRST! PIPELINE ACTION — PORTLAND, U.S. 23.1.08
The above block­ade fol­lowed anoth­er com­bined action where Cas­ca­dia Ris­ing
Tide joined forces with Stump­town Earth First! to hold an action and ral­ly
at the Port­land office of NW Nat­ur­al in protest at their involve­ment in
Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas pipelines, which threat­en to clear-cut strips of
for­est through­out Ore­gon for new fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture. Activists
piled trees around the office entrance and hung a large ban­ner which read
— “There’s noth­ing Green about Clear-cuts, No new pipelines”.
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/2008/01/23/cascadia-rt-organizes-anti-lng-action-at-nw-natural/

7) SABOTAGE AT GLENSANDA — YORKSHIRE, FEBRUARY 2008
An aggre­gates pro­cess­ing plant on the edge of the York­shire Dales Nation­al
Park has been sab­o­taged. 20% of the stone extract­ed will go to major road
net­work con­struc­tion across Europe. The plant in York­shire was entered and
vehi­cles, includ­ing all bull­doz­ers, had holes drilled in vital parts of
their engines and their tires. Both con­trol rooms were bro­ken into and all
com­put­ers and instru­ment pan­els were smashed. Keys to all build­ings and
machin­ery were removed from the site. The mes­sage “Stop Glen­san­da” was
left.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20043

8) PLANKTOS DUMPING SCHEME DEFEATED BY ANTI-WHALERS — MADEIRA, 14.2.08
Plank­tos, the Cal­i­for­nia com­pa­ny try­ing to turn a prof­it by fer­til­iz­ing
the ocean with iron dust, has pulled the plug on planned field tests. On
the com­pa­ny’s web-site, a sim­ple notice blamed the shut­down on a “high­ly
effec­tive dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign waged by anti-off­set cru­saders.” In
Novem­ber 2007, the anti-whal­ing ship Sea Shep­herd con­front­ed the Plank­tos
ves­sel and forced it to move onto Madeira. And there it stayed until its
recall last month.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19989

9) COMMUNITY HALTS SHELL — IRELAND, 12.2.08
The Erris com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to pro­tect the land — sur­vey work was
stopped and trucks were blocked. Local peo­ple pre­vent­ed Shell from ille­gal
work for 4 hours until Gar­dai forced through work­ers, injur­ing pro­test­ers.
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1686
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19977

10) CRITICAL MASS HERO CLEARED — BRISTOL, 7.2.08
In May last year, some­one stood in the road and tried to stop a car that
had hit a Crit­i­cal Mass cyclist, from dri­ving away. For that he was
arrest­ed for obstruct­ing the high­way, thrown to the floor by his neck
whilst hand­cuffed, and then — sur­prise sur­prise — also arrest­ed for
assault­ing a police offi­cer.
After 9 months of ner­vous wait­ing, he was final­ly cleared of all charges,
as Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court accept­ed a sub­mis­sion that the police
evi­dence was at best ‘severe­ly flawed’ and at worst, fab­ri­cat­ed, and the
tri­al was stopped.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19971

11) KLIMAX SURGE ON! — SWEDEN, JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008
Groups of activists con­nect­ed to Kli­max, Sweden’s direct action move­ment
against the root caus­es of cli­mate change, struck repeat­ed­ly last month.
At Malmö Air­port, sev­en activists were appre­hend­ed when try­ing to break
into the run­way, some of them dressed as polar bears. Some 30 activists
put up a block­ade in the mid­dle of the high­way run­ning through Umeå, the
largest city in north­ern Swe­den.
A sim­i­lar num­ber staged a protest out­side the office of Swedish Meat, a
major meat cor­po­ra­tion, to high­light the severe effects the indus­try is
hav­ing on our cli­mate. Anoth­er 50 activists marched into the traf­fic on
one of the major streets in inner city Stock­holm, seiz­ing it for 15
min­utes. The action was direct­ed against a planned mega-high­way, to be
built in the west­ern parts of the cap­i­tal.
http://klimatet.org/2008/02/17/action-report/
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20019
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20035

12) TARA CAMPAIGN UPDATE — FEBRUARY 2008
Lock-ons and dig­ger-div­ing, plus protest camp con­tact.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19996
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20126

13) 15 ACTIONS TO TOPPLE THE FOSSIL FUEL EMPIRE — FEBRUARY 2008
Ris­ing Tide’s newest resource, on why and how to take direct action
against the fos­sil fuel indus­try… includ­ing plan­ning tips, tar­get
loca­tions, exam­ples of suc­cess­ful actions and more. Email us for a hard
copy or down­load it here:
http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/other

14) RISING TIDE POP-ED RESOURCE PACK — FEBRUARY 2008
A pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion resource packed with tools to help you run engag­ing,
inter­ac­tive work­shops on all aspects of cli­mate change for a wide range of
peo­ple. Down­load it here: http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/other

15) “RISING TO THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE” BOOKLET — FEBRUARY 2008
Cli­mate change myth-bust­ing book­let designed to help peo­ple cut through
the fog of con­fu­sion and mixed mes­sages about cli­mate change and to be a
use­ful resource for com­mu­ni­ty groups and indi­vid­u­als all over Scot­land.
Down­load from the web­site at www.sead.org.uk

16) “BURNING CAPITAL” — FEBRUARY 2008
This com­pelling series of short films explores the role of Britain’s
largest cor­po­ra­tion in the grow­ing cli­mate cri­sis. Burn­ing Cap­i­tal is a
video voy­age through the murky world of oil giant BP, who kind­ly deliv­ered
1.3 bil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide to the atmos­phere last year.
Watch the films now at; http://www.platformlondon.org/burning

17) SPIRIT OF FREEDOM — FEBRUARY 2008
Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work newslet­ter. They’re in there
for us out here — Please write!
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/19960

18) CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTIONS CENTRE — FEBRUARY UPDATE 2008
A group of envi­ron­men­tal and com­mu­ni­ty-based organ­i­sa­tions in the South
West have made a bid to found an inde­pen­dent, inter-dis­ci­pli­nary ‘Cli­mate
Change Solu­tions Cen­tre’, on the site of an ex-agri­cul­tur­al col­lege
cur­rent­ly owned by Ply­mouth Uni­ver­si­ty. For more details, and infor­ma­tion
on how to sup­port the plans, please see; www.climatechangecentre.co.uk

19) “THE AGE OF STUPID” — FEBRUARY 2008
A cli­mate change doc­u­men­tary for the big screen from Fran­ny Arm­strong
(McLi­bel) and John Battsek (One Day In Sep­tem­ber). Mix­ing doc­u­men­tary
footage, dra­ma and cut­ting-edge ani­ma­tion, and star­ring Pete Postleth­waite
as an old man liv­ing in the dev­as­tat­ed world of 2055. As he watch­es
‘archive’ footage from 2007, he asks him­self: Why did­n’t we stop cli­mate
change when we had the chance? http://www.ageofstupid.net

20) AIRPORT WATCH BULLETIN — FEBRUARY 2008
For infor­ma­tion about the cam­paigns against sui­ci­dal expan­sion at
Heathrow, Bris­tol, Lon­don City, Lydd, Carlisle, Newquay and oth­er air­ports
see; www.airportwatch.org.uk

21) ‘CAUSES CLIMATE CHANGE’ WEBSITE
Sub­ver­tis­ing ideas and resources.
http://www.causesclimatechange.blogspot.com/

———-

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to Fitwatch

Fit­watch meet­ing — Sat­ur­day 8th March at the LSE (Con­naught House, Ald­wych) at 2pm. Room H103.

Fit­watch has proved to be a high­ly effec­tive tac­tic against sur­veil­lance by pub­lic order police.

Although real­ly, it is bet­ter described as a range of tac­tics. Some are as sim­ple as tak­ing a pic­ture, or mak­ing a note of police num­bers. Oth­er tac­tics are more con­fronta­tion­al and active­ly pre­vent the police accu­mu­lat­ing the data they use for their ‘pre­ven­ta­tive’ pub­lic order polic­ing. There is a tac­tic for every­one, and all of them are very effec­tive.

Fit­watch meet­ing — Sat­ur­day 8th March at the LSE (Con­naught House, Ald­wych) at 2pm. Room H103.

Fit­watch has proved to be a high­ly effec­tive tac­tic against sur­veil­lance by pub­lic order police.

Although real­ly, it is bet­ter described as a range of tac­tics. Some are as sim­ple as tak­ing a pic­ture, or mak­ing a note of police num­bers. Oth­er tac­tics are more con­fronta­tion­al and active­ly pre­vent the police accu­mu­lat­ing the data they use for their ‘pre­ven­ta­tive’ pub­lic order polic­ing. There is a tac­tic for every­one, and all of them are very effec­tive.

To get involved, you need only bring a cam­era, plac­ard or ban­ner to your next demo or meet­ing, and get fit­watch­ing. But you would also be very wel­come at the Fit­watch meet­ing on Sat­ur­day so that we can share expe­ri­ences, devel­op tac­tics and cre­ate an effec­tive response to FIT and pub­lic order polic­ing.

Just as an aside, it seems that even secu­ri­ty firms have tak­en notice. The fol­low­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­als are tak­en from a Group 4 Securi­cor brief­ing, and from the web­site of the secu­ri­ty out­fit Inker­man, who make it their busi­ness to pro­tect com­pa­nies from the atten­tion of trou­ble mak­ing pro­tes­tors. Accord­ing to Inker­man, we are ‘counter-sur­veil­lance’. Sounds posh innit?

8 March 08 – Lon­don – The anar­chist group, Fit­watch, is arrang­ing a series of meet­ings that begin in Lon­don to dis­cuss the nature of polic­ing at protests and demon­stra­tions. Fit­watch are an active group that pre­vents Police For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams (FIT) from gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion dur­ing protests and demon­stra­tions. Fit­watch insist FIT are an oppres­sive reflec­tion of the state’s atti­tude towards protest groups. Fit­watch aim to use the meet­ings to dis­cuss ongo­ing tac­tics and to attract sup­port. The first meet­ing is to take place at the LSE (Group 4 Securi­cor)

Anoth­er protest group against the use of cam­eras and sur­veil­lance of activists has been estab­lished and holds grow­ing weight with­in activist move­ments. FITWATCH is a counter-sur­veil­lance group, who take pho­tos and try to obtain the per­son­al details and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers of the offi­cers in FIT. Pho­tographs of the offi­cers con­cerned have been post­ed on activist web­sites.”
(Inker­man. See http://www.inkerman.com/static/files/1197479765-theinkermanmonitorecoterror.pdf for their report on ‘eco-ter­ror­ism’.)

defycops@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com

Free Paper War — LONDON LITtEr

15.2.2008
Ten tonnes of waste per week is gen­er­at­ed by the free news­pa­pers in West­min­ster alone, which is not a prob­lem that can be solved just by recy­cling. The only solu­tion to the prob­lem is to remove it — stop print­ing the papers.

Recycling is not answer insert15.2.2008
Ten tonnes of waste per week is gen­er­at­ed by the free news­pa­pers in West­min­ster alone, which is not a prob­lem that can be solved just by recy­cling. The only solu­tion to the prob­lem is to remove it — stop print­ing the papers.

In an attempt to get this mes­sage out, a group of intre­pid paper boys and girls decid­ed to use the tac­tics of The Lon­don Paper and Lon­don Lite, putting their own pro-recy­cling anti-waste pro­pa­gan­da into copies of the papers then aggres­sive­ly and relent­less­ly forc­ing them on the pub­lic.

At approx­i­mate­ly 5pm sharp, paper dis­tri­b­u­tion began. The Lon­don Paper and Lon­don Lite teams com­pet­ed for the atten­tion of com­muters, point­ing out the numer­ous dif­fer­ences between the papers and the qual­i­ty of their con­tents. The teams, while obvi­ous­ly agree­ing that they were both giv­ing away high­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed and intel­lec­tu­al­ly stim­u­lat­ing pub­li­ca­tions, did­n’t agree on which one was in fact supe­ri­or. Sar­casm aside, this is anoth­er issue with the free news­pa­pers — that they are filled with sec­ond rate celebri­ty gos­sip, inane half-sto­ries, and above all, adver­tis­ing. Real­ly, do these news­pa­pers con­tain any actu­al news? Is what they have to say so impor­tant that it’s worth 10 tonnes of waste paper a week?

As the com­pe­ti­tion grew more intense, war paint was smeared and the bat­tle began. Papers were giv­en and replaced and giv­en again, with dis­trib­u­tors from each team com­pet­ing over indi­vid­ual mem­bers of the pub­lic, lead­ing to vio­lent con­fronta­tions with each oth­er. The offi­cial employ­ees of both free papers seemed baf­fled but amused, tak­ing pho­tographs of the event. How­ev­er, an employ­ee of The Evening Stan­dard, dri­ving up in his van, seemed to be less than impressed, attempt­ing to take away some of the papers and gen­er­al­ly behav­ing in a rather ungentle­man­ly fash­ion.

Then, as two oppos­ing team mem­bers were locked in com­bat, a police­man on a horse appeared and polite­ly and calm­ly request­ed that all the stu­dents just stop that and come and speak to him right now. As only a cou­ple of the group were stu­dents, the action most­ly con­tin­ued until he got a bit upset. When all the paper boys and girls were gath­ered around the horse, they were told “You just can’t do that!” “Stop it!” “I’ll arrest you!” “Just stop it!” and “Calm down!”.

After agree­ing that it was indeed rude to force news­pa­pers on unsus­pect­ing pedes­tri­ans, but that they would calm down, the paper dis­trib­ut­ing con­tin­ued a lit­tle less vio­lent­ly. Passers-by were offered ‘The Lon­don Lit­ter’, ‘free rub­bish’, and ‘news’ (though unfor­tu­nate­ly there was no news avail­able), and were assured that they could throw it away when­ev­er and wher­ev­er they liked. In fact, the more they threw away the bet­ter. Some peo­ple seemed quite keen to get their free rub­bish, some were irri­tat­ed and a few were gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed in what was being said.

Sad­ly, some more police­men (who did­n’t have hors­es) turned up and told the paper girls and boys that real­ly it was time to stop it now. Mod­er­ate­ly aggres­sive at first, they were won over by the charm of the paper­ers, report­ed­ly even tak­ing some (100% recy­cled!) leaflets for their col­leagues. By this point all the news­pa­pers had gone and it was at least half past beer o’clock, so after a lit­tle chat with the police (and pick­ing up any lit­ter that may have been left), it was declared a vic­to­ry and they head­ed off.

http://www.spacehijackers.org

Latest details: Earth First! Winter Moot 2008 — February 22nd – 24th 2008 — Nottingham

Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

EF! fist tree 1Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

Cost: £15 (to include accom­mo­da­tion and food)
Crèche and dis­abled access both avail­able,
but please call to let us know if you need either or if you have oth­er needs.

At The Sumac Cen­tre, Glad­stone Street Not­ting­ham, www.veggies.org.uk/sumac
For more info call 01508 531636 (num­ber not avail­able dur­ing the event)

Fri­day late after­noon and evening will be a chance to arrive, and for intro­duc­tions, plus a G8 talk & film, and an Intro­duc­tion to EF!

We’ll be kick­ing off ear­ly on Sat­ur­day morn­ing (9am break­fast) — start­ing with all shar­ing the most impor­tant rea­sons why we’ve come to Not­ting­ham, we’ll get on with some prac­ti­cal dis­cus­sions around the EF! Action Update, the web­site, and the sum­mer gath­er­ing.
From what we’ve all said, we’ll be able in the after­noon to move on to ‘where next?’, plus shar­ing cam­paigns we’re involved with & see­ing what they need, and get­ting togeth­er local­ly and region­al­ly with oth­er folk who are there.

On Sun­day we’ll move into groups to con­crete­ly take the ideas for­wards from the Sat­ur­day, from the cam­paigns we’re already work­ing on and what we want to do togeth­er. We’ll fin­ish at 4pm, after hav­ing shared what we’ve come up with. Hoorah.

Earth First! is not an organ­i­sa­tion, but a way of using non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and the use of direct action to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. For fur­ther info check out www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/

Plus
All day Fri­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, Sav­ing Ice­land UK meet­ing, also at the Sumac Cen­tre. Open to those inter­est­ed in trav­el­ling to Ice­land or tak­ing part in sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against the con­struc­tion of large, wilder­ness wreck­ing dams in Ice­land.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion and essen­tial book­ing con­tact 01508 531636 or savingiceland@riseup.org

upcoming Shell to Sea protests — 14th, 23rd and big-up 29th Feb

12 Noon Feb­ru­ary 14th, Kil­dare Street Dublin 2.
On Thurs­day this week, there will be a protest at Lein­ster House in Dublin to bring atten­tion to the sweet­heart deal between the Irish Gov­ern­ment and the Cor­rib Part­ners (Shell, Statoil,and Marathon) for the exploita­tion of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. Pro­test­ers will gath­er at Kil­dare Street at 12 noon. More info here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86192

Shell sweethearts12 Noon Feb­ru­ary 14th, Kil­dare Street Dublin 2.
On Thurs­day this week, there will be a protest at Lein­ster House in Dublin to bring atten­tion to the sweet­heart deal between the Irish Gov­ern­ment and the Cor­rib Part­ners (Shell, Statoil,and Marathon) for the exploita­tion of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. Pro­test­ers will gath­er at Kil­dare Street at 12 noon. More info here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86192

1PM Feb­ru­ary 23rd, Shell Glas­nevin, Fin­glas Road Dublin 11
On Sat­ur­day 23rd of Feb­ru­ary there will be a pick­et of the Shell Ser­vice sta­tion oppo­site the main gate of Glas­nevin Ceme­tery. Although Shell no longer run the fore­court busi­ness, all the fuel sold in this and oth­er Shell garages is still sourced from Roy­al Dutch Shell. Pro­test­ers will be ask­ing motorists to boy­cott the sta­tion until con­cerns about the Cor­rib scheme are addressed by the company.The protest will start at 1PM sharp. More info here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86187

The next large-scale protest in Mayo will be on Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 29th. Shell are set to announce the new route for the pro­duc­tion pipeline link­ing the gas field to the Bel­lan­aboy Refin­ery site some­time towards the end of Feb­ru­ary. Many peo­ple in Erris expect the com­pa­ny to apply for per­mis­sion to run the pipeline under the water of Sruth Fáda Conn, the inlet bay that runs along­side Ross­port. This will mean the Min­is­ter for the Envi­ron­ment will have to apply for per­mis­sion from the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to break the rules which are designed to pro­tect endan­gered habi­tats and pro­tect­ed envi­ron­ments.

More details of the Feb­ru­ary 29th protest will fol­low near­er the time.

Keep up to date with Shell to Sea by check­ing indymedia.ie/mayo

You can see Shell to Sea videos on youtube here: www.youtube.com/shelltohell

For more infor­ma­tion call 0871323369.

Community halts Shell

Feb­ru­ary 12 2008

Sur­vey work was halt­ed
This morn­ing sur­vey work stopped when mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty ques­tioned Ollie Mur­ray (Shell Com­mu­ni­ty Lia­son Offi­cer) on whether he had the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion. He is a man of few words and our ques­tions were met with his mantra of ‘I don’t know, con­tact RPS’. ‘’Do you have the RPS num­ber? No. ‘’. It was a beau­ti­ful day and whilst we were wait­ing for the RPS engi­neer to ring back with details (at 22.00pm he still hasn’t), the sur­vey­or admired the view of the pris­tine bay in Glen­gad. No sur­vey work was under­tak­en. The bore hoels ille­gal­ly con­struct­ed 5 months ago are still there, despite Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley order­ing their removal asp.

BroadhavenFeb­ru­ary 12 2008

Sur­vey work was halt­ed
This morn­ing sur­vey work stopped when mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty ques­tioned Ollie Mur­ray (Shell Com­mu­ni­ty Lia­son Offi­cer) on whether he had the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion. He is a man of few words and our ques­tions were met with his mantra of ‘I don’t know, con­tact RPS’. ‘’Do you have the RPS num­ber? No. ‘’. It was a beau­ti­ful day and whilst we were wait­ing for the RPS engi­neer to ring back with details (at 22.00pm he still hasn’t), the sur­vey­or admired the view of the pris­tine bay in Glen­gad. No sur­vey work was under­tak­en. The bore hoels ille­gal­ly con­struct­ed 5 months ago are still there, despite Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley order­ing their removal asp.

Blockad­ing of trucks
Of course the com­mu­ni­ty are still attempt­ing to slow down con­struc­tion on the Shell refin­ery site. Block­ades hap­pen as much as pos­si­ble; last week work­ers were once again block­ad­ed and today lor­ries were blocked from enter­ing. When the author­i­ties fail to pro­tect the com­mu­ni­ty and the Spe­cial Pro­tect­ed Area, the com­mu­ni­ty have no choice but to active­ly do it our­selves. For rea­sons of health, safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, we can­not let this refin­ery be built at Bal­linaboy.

’Peo­ple are enti­tled to a healthy and pro­duc­tive life in har­mo­ny with nature. Envi­ron­men­tal issues are best han­dled with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of all con­cerned cit­i­zens. Devel­op­ment today must not under­mine the devel­op­ment and envi­ron­men­tal needs of present and future gen­er­a­tions.’ Local Agen­da 21

————–

12.2.08 Local peo­ple block Shell from ille­gal work in a SAC at Glen­gad, Erris for 4 hours until Gar­dai force through work­ers, injur­ing pro­test­ers.

At approx 8am this morn­ing, local res­i­dents became aware of a Shell con­tract­ed sur­vey team in the Glen­gad area on the SAC. To work in this area we under­stand that per­mis­sions must be obtained pri­or to any work being under­tak­en by Shell. Shell have still yet repaired the ille­gal work done last Octo­ber.

To our knowl­edge, they are only enti­tled to remove the ille­gal bore­holes, as ordered by Min­is­ter Gorm­ley. Our requests for evi­dence of oth­er per­mis­sion con­tin­ues to be ignored by both Shell, RPS and NPWS. Today’s sur­vey­ing had noth­ing to do with repair­ing the dam­age how­ev­er, despite claims to the con­trary by secu­ri­ty staff.

Despite con­tact­ing Shell’s sup­posed pub­lic lia­sons offi­cer in the last few days no attempt has been made by Shell to clar­i­fy if they have any oth­er of the required per­mis­sions.

A group of local peo­ple were forced to enter upon the land to stop this ille­gal work. Work was halt­ed between 8am until approx 12 noon when a force of over a dozen Gar­dai came to escort the sur­vey team back onto the SAC.

Despite explain­ing why the local com­mu­ni­ty had rea­son­able excuse to stop fur­ther dam­age being done, the Gar­dai very force­ful­ly removed all pro­test­ers from the entrance gate, ush­er­ing in the sur­vey team. In their zeal­ous pur­suit of Shell’s best inter­ests, the Gar­dai assault­ed many of the approx 10 pro­test­ers present at the time. 1 man was arrest­ed after being shoved onto a barbed wire fence, cut­ting his arm in sev­er­al places before hav­ing his head banged off the ground by sev­er­al Gar­dai. Oth­ers were dragged off, received kicks, shoves, had hair pulled, while the Gar­dai simul­ta­ne­ous­ly obstruct­ed the only cam­era from film­ing. The man who was arrest­ed was lat­er released with­out charge.

Bio-fuel protest North West — a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Around 20 activists, some dressed as wolves in sheep’s cloth­ing, vis­it­ed the D1 Oil refin­ery in Brom­bor­ough on the Wirral, on 2nd Feb­ru­ary 2008.

Bromborough biofuels protest 1Bromborough biofuels 2Around 20 activists, some dressed as wolves in sheep’s cloth­ing, vis­it­ed the D1 Oil refin­ery in Brom­bor­ough on the Wirral, on 2nd Feb­ru­ary 2008. They were there to high­light the dan­ger­ous con­se­quences of large-scale bio-fuel pro­duc­tion for the cli­mate and for peo­ple world­wide.

Video Video Footage — video/mp4 2.5M

The demon­stra­tors from Man­ches­ter and Liv­er­pool, inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action, erect­ed a 16 metre ban­ner read­ing, “Bio­fu­els cause Cli­mate Chaos” and anoth­er small­er ban­ner read­ing “Bio­fu­els + Big Busi­ness = Dis­as­ter”. The demon­stra­tion came at the end of a week of action called by Bio­fu­el­watch.

On arrival activists were told by secu­ri­ty that the plant was emp­ty and not oper­at­ing, how­ev­er when sev­er­al activists entered the site, at least twen­ty work­ers dressed in boil­er suits came out to meet them. Although the gates were shut cam­paign­ers remained for approx­i­mate­ly one hour to talk with staff and local res­i­dents. Police attend­ed but no arrests were made.

D1 Oils plc. have used palm, soya and rape­seed oil to make bio-diesel. Now they have joined forces with cor­po­rate giant BP, aim­ing to acquire and plant one mil­lion hectares of land with sup­posed ‘won­der crop’ Jat­ropha, with­in four years. For infor­ma­tion on the real impact of this crop and oth­er agro-fuels check out www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

Support the Eco-Prisoners — Imbolc 2008 — they’re in there for us out here, please write

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

Earth Liberation Prisoners logoSpir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

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

Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As we enter Feb­ru­ary so we await three major events. First off, Jeff ‘Free’ Luers is due to be re-sen­tenced. We hope its good news. Sec­ond­ly, Eric McDavid is also due to be sen­tenced. As soon as Eric has been sen­tenced we urge every­one to send him let­ters of sup­port. And third­ly, the police infor­mant Jacob Fer­gu­son is also due to be sen­tenced. His cow­ard­ly deals and treach­ery means he won’t be sent to prison. But we await with inter­est to see what sen­tence this piece of scum does receive. If any­one hears, please do let ELP know. But whilst we await those three sen­tenc­ings, please don’t for­get all the oth­er eco-pris­on­ers. Remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

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

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

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez — Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Jef­frey Luers, #1306729, Lane Coun­ty Adult Cor­rec­tions, 101 West 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401–2695, USA. Await­ing resen­tenc­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing been found guilty of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Daniel McGowan #63794–053, Unit I, FCI Sand­stone, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Christo­pher McIn­tosh #30512–013, FCI Fair­ton, PO Box 420, Fair­ton, NJ 08320, USA. Serv­ing 8 years for set­ting fire to a McDon­ald’s restau­rant.

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 2½ years. 1) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 2) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Julio Vil­lanue­va, C.P. Pri­sion De Pam­plona, 31080, Iruna (Navar­ra), Spain.
Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

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

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

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

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to his involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Nathan Block — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

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

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

Rod Coro­n­a­do, Voice of the Earth, PO Box 732, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA. Due to be sen­tenced to one-year impris­on­ment after Rod informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing.

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

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

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Down­view, Sut­ton Lane, Sut­ton, Sur­rey, SM2 5PD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

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

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

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

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

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

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

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

Joy­an­na Zach­er — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

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

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

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion that turned into a riot.

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

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic.
Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish.

Gub­s­ki Max­im, VK‑2 — 21, Batowa str. 4, Bobruisk, 213800 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Vladislav Vladimirovich Plyashke­vich, IK-10 otryad 4, Novopoltsk‑5 Viteb­skaya oblast, 211440 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, BNR: 727/07/7, JVA Tegel, Sei­del­str. 39, 13507 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties.

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

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spring into action (though storms may be at the door) — the latest issue of the EF! Action Update has burst forth

Read all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on w

Rabbit under fenceRead all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on whal­ing boats, Buy­ing Noth­ing, Reclaim­ing the Streets and the unstop­pable singing of Christ­mas songs, not to men­tion skat­ing pen­guins. Even some upcom­ing dates to get stuck in or to meet oth­er direct action cra­zies. We could­n’t make it up even if we tried.

Anoth­er bumper issue, with a spe­cial insert on Agro­fu­els includ­ing a list of refiner­ies ‘in the pipeline’ or already on the ground, plus a legal update about the recent changes to your access to solic­i­tors in police sta­tions.

The lat­est issue of the Earth First! Action Update burst forth at the lat­est nation­al meet­ing of the Camp for Cli­mate Action (see climatecamp.org.uk for how the camp idea is auda­cious­ly mor­ph­ing this year).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here.