1.5.2008
Lon­don: at 07.45 this morn­ing E.ON offices on Pall Mall were tar­get­ed by the new upstart Coal Clean­ing Com­pa­ny as part of a nation­al­ly co-ordi­nat­ed Day of Cli­mate Action against False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions.

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***

FOR ONSITE INTERVIEWS AND UPDATES CONTACT : 07790 430 620

The Coal Clean­ing Com­pa­ny launched their enter­prise with E.ON as their first cus­tomer. Accord­ing to the chat­ty clean­ers, “There’s no mess too big! We make coal Fos­sil Fuel Fresh ™”.

The cli­mate activists tar­get­ed E.ON for their pro­mo­tion of ‘false cap­i­tal­ist solu­tions’ to cli­mate change. E.ON is exploit­ing the idea of a future Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age sys­tem to jus­ti­fy build­ing a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth — where the utopia of low-impact liv­ing // edu­ca­tion // high-impact direct action that is the Cli­mate Camp will spring up this August.

CCS requires up to 40% more coal per unit of elec­tric­i­ty than coal gen­er­a­tion with­out CCS. So more coal needs to be burnt; increas­ing the over­all pol­lu­tion caused. It also neglects to address the wider prob­lems of over con­sump­tion or deal with coal’s oth­er social and envi­ron­men­tal impacts.

The Coal Clean­ing Com­pa­ny can be con­tact­ed on 07790 430 620 for onsite inter­views and updates.

www.daysofclimateaction.org.uk 07880 937511 for nation­al updates

www.climatecamp.org.uk

Video: Coal Clean­ers at E.ON — video/mp4 29M
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RBS Ban­ner Protest in York

Peo­ple from groups across the city and both Uni­ver­si­ties took part in a ban­ner protest out­side Roy­al Bank of Scot­land’s cen­tral branch in the city. Leaflets were hand­ed out sumaris­ing RBS’s cli­mate crimes.

If the action was unim­pres­sive in and of itself, then the fact we’ve final­ly bro­ken the iner­tia around actions in York was prob­a­bly a suc­cess in itself. The rain man­aged to hold off (only just) and even the pass­ing cops had noth­ing what­so­ev­er to say on the mat­ter.

The action was held today because, well, its May­day and its the day of action against False Cap­i­tal­ist Solu­tions, of which invest­ment in new oil is per­haps the dimmest idea of the lot!

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Green Liv­ing show Inspect­ed in Cana­da

Green Liv­ing show inspect­ed and green­wash fly­ers hand­ed out yes­ter­day in Toron­to Cana­da.

For pic­tures of the stalls on dis­play with green­wash stick­ers, vis­it here

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Urban devel­op­ment sab­o­taged

The Earth and its inhab­i­tants are being raped of their nat­ur­al resources by the Cor­po­rate-State Com­plex. This is why for the Day of Cli­mate Action we sab­o­taged this smooth oper­a­tion in the ear­ly hours of April XX

Mem­bers of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front joined forces to car­ry out an action against unnec­es­sary urban devel­op­ment in the south-west. Eco­teurs broke into the con­struc­tion site that is build­ing yet anoth­er bridge for the trans­port of motor­ized vehi­cles. A 4x4 was found, paintstripped, all sides com­plete­ly scarred, tyres dam­aged, whilst a truck and JCB had logos removed and sides stripped. The flawed con­cept of “build­ing our way out of con­ges­tion” will no longer be tol­er­at­ed at the expense of the rivers wildlife and £8 mil­lion of tax pay­ers mon­ey spent on this project.

No Com­pro­mise in Defence of Moth­er Earth.

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INRA — French agri­cul­tur­al research — chalked about bio­fu­els

The words AGRO-CARBURANTS = DANGER were chalked on the side of the French Agri­cul­tur­al Research insti­tute, as were var­i­ous cars through­out Paris.

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Sizewell May­day Crit­i­cal Mass

In sup­port of the May­day Cli­mate Action Day, some peo­ple from Ris­ing Tide and Earth First got togeth­er this Sat­ur­day for a Crit­i­cal Mass to Sizewell nuclear pow­er sta­tion to high­light that nuclear is not a solu­tion to cli­mate change.

We turned up at the meet­ing point – a train sta­tion in the tiny Suf­folk vil­lage of Sax­mund­ham – to be greet­ed by 15 police offi­cers includ­ing some FIT from Lon­don. As we set out on a love­ly sun­ny ride through the coun­try­side, the extent of the over-the-top police oper­a­tion became clear as we passed sev­er­al unmarked cars full of FIT pho­tog­ra­phers, the entrance to Sizewell guard­ed by anoth­er twen­ty cops, and a fur­ther ten con­gre­gat­ed at our end-point on Sizewell beach. All told we reck­on there were fifty cops on hand to police our fun fam­i­ly day out to Sizewell. It was a great crit­i­cal mass, a good time was had by all, and the local press seemed as bemused as we were by the ridicu­lous­ness of the police oper­a­tion. Won­der if there are any red faces in police intel­li­gence this week­end?

Why Sizewell on May­day week­end?
This demo was part of a nation­al week­end of action against false solu­tions to cli­mate change. As cli­mate change ris­es up the polit­i­cal agen­da, a huge num­ber of tech­no-fix­es are form­ing a new eco­nom­ic sec­tor: from bio­fu­els to nuclear pow­er, car­bon-trad­ing to hydro­gen fuel cells, dump­ing urine in the ocean to car­bon cap­ture and stor­age. Every­where cor­po­ra­tions are seek­ing the elu­sive elixir which allows us to con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al. All of these tech­nolo­gies are a dis­trac­tion from the real solu­tions: a mas­sive reduc­tion in our con­sump­tion and the end to eco­nom­ic growth.

Let’s chal­lenge these false solu­tions to cli­mate chaos and show the real solu­tion: far-reach­ing social change.

http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

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On May 1st, Leam­ing­ton Ris­ing Tide vis­it­ed the E.on head­quar­ters at West­wood Busi­ness Park in Coven­try to expose the truth behind E.on’s green­wash and show that car­bon cap­ture is a false solu­tion to the prob­lem of cli­mate change.

E.on are plan­ning to build a £1.5 bn exten­sion to their coal fired plant in Kingsnorth. They jus­ti­fy this on the grounds that it will be ‘car­bon cap­ture ready’ even though the tech­nol­o­gy for car­bon cap­ture has yet to be invent­ed and even when it does exist it will emit more pol­lu­tants try­ing to cap­ture and store the car­bon than if they just left the emis­sions unchecked. To protest against this, Leam­ing­ton Ris­ing Tide arrived at 8am to hand fliers to the work­ers.

Ban­ners were erect­ed read­ing “POLLUTE.ON NO MORE GREEN WASH”. There was jug­gling and a pic­nic out­side the doors of the build­ing as the pro­tes­tors wait­ed for a march of stu­dents from War­wick Uni­ver­si­ty Peo­ple and Plan­et to arrive at 1.30. The marchers came with a repli­ca mod­el of the coal pow­er sta­tion and a game of ‘catch the car­bon’ with bal­loons and nets. The pro­test­ers gath­ered out­side the build­ing and then the sign out­side was paint­ed green to sym­bol­ise the e.ons green­wash and one pro­test­er occu­pied the roof of the build­ing. The day was a great suc­cess with a pos­i­tive, fes­tive vibe and no arrests.