LOGGING LOCK ON in Bridgetown

2007-12-13
Con­cerned south west cit­i­zens hold up Jar­rah log truck in Bridgetown to high­light the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of native forests.

Bridgetown action2007-12-13
Con­cerned south west cit­i­zens hold up Jar­rah log truck in Bridgetown to high­light the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of native forests.

Today 12 con­cerned res­i­dents of the South­west have stopped a log truck on Bridgetown’s main street to high­light the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of Aus­trali­a’s native forests.

Aus­tralia has just been named the biggest car­bon emit­ter in the world on a per-head basis. Indus­tri­al scale log­ging and burn­ing of native forests is a major con­trib­u­tor to car­bon emis­sions in Aus­tralia.

“By keep­ing the car­bon in the for­est and pro­tect­ing native forests is one of the eas­i­est and sim­plest solu­tions to reduce Aus­trali­a’s green­house gas emis­sions,” said Brett Thomp­son. “Native forests are the lungs of the plan­et they store vast quan­ti­ties of car­bon. By pro­tect­ing native forests Aus­tralia can sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce its green­house gas emis­sions and halt the dev­as­tat­ing affects of cli­mate change,” com­ment­ed spokesman Brett Thomp­son.

Bridgetown local res­i­dent Saf­fire Grant quotes” “We need to take action on a local lev­el. Native for­est log­ging in our own back­yard needs to be stopped now if our com­mu­ni­ty is to active­ly help pro­vide solu­tions to cli­mate change.”

“We call on Fed­er­al and State Labor par­ties to pro­tect native forests as an active strat­e­gy to reduce our green­house gas emis­sions and become a world leader in the strug­gle against cli­mate change.”

6 Arrest­ed in Brige­town halt­ing a Jar­rah Log Truck for 6 hours in main street

Con­cerned res­i­dents of the S.W have halt­ed a log truck for six hours on the S.W high­way in Bridgetown. This fol­lows an action at Sim­coa three weeks ago high­light­ing the con­tin­u­al destruc­tion of native forests through­out the S.W and Australia.Six protests were arrest­ed for dis­or­der­ly behav­ior with police con­fis­cat­ing mobile phones cam­eras and video equip­ment. Pro­test­ers have vowed to con­tin­ue to high­light the destruc­tion of native forests in W.A through­out the com­ing months with fur­ther actions planned. The six arrest­ed will face court in Bridgetown next Wednes­day the 19th of Decem­ber with a peace­ful gath­er­ing of sup­port out the front of the court planned for 9:30am.

Thurs­day the 13th of Decem­ber 2007, six pro­test­ers were charged with dis­or­der­ly con­duct after hold­ing up a log truck in Bridgetown.

Dur­ing the protest police seized cam­eras, video recorder, mp3 play­er, all record­ing equip­ment and mobile phones.

See the video footage here:
http://www.globalwarmingfg.com/

Fed Up Polar Bear Disrupts National BBC Wildlife Magazine HQ

This morn­ing, Tues­day Decem­ber 11th, at 10am, two mem­bers of “Arc­tic Asso­ciates” (aka Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide), and one grumpy refugee polar bear paid a vis­it to the nation­al offices of the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine at the top of Tow­er House in Broad­mead, Bris­tol. More than a hun­dred employ­ees looked on aghast (some wink­ing in sup­port) as “J. Smith” from Arc­tic Asso­ciates, flanked by Mr. Pole R. Bear, made a long and pas­sion­ate speech about the sad and dan­ger­ous irony of allow­ing the world’s sec­ond largest oil com­pa­ny- respon­si­ble for endan­ger­ing thou­sands of species through oil spills, tox­ic pol­lu­tion, and cli­mate change- to spon­sor their Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award Con­test, which is com­ing to Bris­tol Muse­um this Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 15th.

BBC Wildlife polar bearThis morn­ing, Tues­day Decem­ber 11th, at 10am, two mem­bers of “Arc­tic Asso­ciates” (aka Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide), and one grumpy refugee polar bear paid a vis­it to the nation­al offices of the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine at the top of Tow­er House in Broad­mead, Bris­tol. More than a hun­dred employ­ees looked on aghast (some wink­ing in sup­port) as “J. Smith” from Arc­tic Asso­ciates, flanked by Mr. Pole R. Bear, made a long and pas­sion­ate speech about the sad and dan­ger­ous irony of allow­ing the world’s sec­ond largest oil com­pa­ny- respon­si­ble for endan­ger­ing thou­sands of species through oil spills, tox­ic pol­lu­tion, and cli­mate change- to spon­sor their Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year Award Con­test, which is com­ing to Bris­tol Muse­um this Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 15th.

The vis­it evi­dent­ly cre­at­ed quite a stir, as employ­ees of BBC Wildlife gath­ered around to hear what the com­mo­tion was all about, and the press team, direc­tors, and build­ing secu­ri­ty simul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­verged on the pro­test­ers, who were final­ly asked to leave, after cir­cu­lat­ing through both the 9th and 14th floors of the build­ing, and speak­ing to the entire nation­al staff of the BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine, who are now more aware than ever of the his­toric blun­der than was made when Shell’s £1,500,000 two year spon­sor­ship deal was accept­ed.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the poster child of this year’s Pho­tog­ra­phy Award is a polar bear stuck on a melt­ing ice­berg, the most vis­i­ble sym­bol of the cli­mate-dam­ag­ing nature of Shell’s core busi­ness.

If you’d like to get involved, come to the sHELL Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­phy Exhib­it PROTEST this Sat­ur­day Dec. 15th start­ing at Noon, in front of the Bris­tol Muse­um at the top of Park St. Please come dressed as any wildlife that sHELL is endan­ger­ing, and invite all your friends- putting a stop to green­wash­ing is a key bat­tle in the war against cli­mate change, and we want to stop our pub­lic muse­ums being used for this pur­pose**

The exhib­it will remain at the Muse­um until the 13th of Jan­u­ary.

**We are hav­ing a cos­tume mak­ing party/ plan­ning ses­sion this Wednes­day the 12th at Kebele- 14 Robert­son Rd. in Eas­t­on from 1700 to 2200 or so, with an open dis­cus­sion hap­pen­ing at 1930. There will be at least one sewing machine there, so bring mate­r­i­al, (fake) fur of the Shell- dam­aged wildlife of your choice- avail­able at all fine fab­ric shops, news­pa­per, black felt, ban­ner and sign mak­ing mate­ri­als, and your favourite bev­er­age to share.**

More infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign:

Despite dozens of peo­ple con­tact­ing the Bris­tol City Coun­cil and the muse­um and ask­ing them to reject the exhi­bi­tion, these requests have been met with excus­es, buck pass­ing, or sim­ply silence. It’s clear that our lead­ers would rather not face up to the fact that our pub­lic muse­um is in fact adver­tis­ing and green­wash­ing one of the worst multi­na­tion­al oil com­pa­nies which is wreak­ing hav­oc on peo­ple, wildlife, and habi­tat the world over (all in the name of wildlife pro­tec­tion?)

Appar­ent­ly the Bris­tol Muse­um, Bris­tol City Coun­cil, the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um, and BBC Wildlife Mag­a­zine see no prob­lem with exhibit­ing pho­tographs of endan­gered polar bears on melt­ing ice as part of a pho­tog­ra­phy exhi­bi­tion spon­sored by Shell. Do they think we’re stu­pid?

Our goal is to put pres­sure on the lat­ter two organ­i­sa­tions to reject Shell as a spon­sor, and for Shell to decide that the neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty involved with spon­sor­ing the com­pe­ti­tion sim­ply isn’t worth it any­more.

More infor­ma­tion about Shell:

http://onthelevelblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/shells-wild-lie/

Shell oper­ates in 145 coun­tries world­wide- one of the worst impacts is in Nige­ria, where Shell was com­plic­it in the 1995 mur­der of Ken Saro-Wiwa, an envi­ron­men­tal activist, as well as eight oth­ers by the Niger­ian mil­i­tary jun­ta.

Shell has been work­ing in the Niger Delta since 1956, caus­ing prob­lems to:

• local com­mu­ni­ties — gas flares burn day and night, roar­ing like jet engines and pol­lut­ing the air with thick sooty par­ti­cles that stick to almost every­thing and have seri­ous health impacts

• liveli­hoods — oil is a root of con­flict and suf­fer­ing in Nige­ria. Over 1000 law suits have been filed against Shell, yet it still refus­es to pay com­pen­sa­tion costs.

• the envi­ron­ment — pol­lut­ing oil spills and fires have occurred for decades due to Shel­l’s rust­ing pipes seri­ous­ly affect­ing local vil­lages, bio­di­ver­si­ty, and con­tribut­ing towards cli­mate change.

Come to the protest at noon on Sat­ur­day, and let ‘em know that Bris­to­lians won’t stand idly by while our plan­et is rav­aged, and our muse­um is com­plic­it in cov­er­ing up oil com­pa­ny lies.

The time for blind obe­di­ence has passed- it’s time to start dis­obey­ing.….

“Where oil reigns, life is hell”

-Oron­to Dou­glas, Envi­ron­men­tal Law­er, Niger Delta

rampART gets eviction papers — meeting planned

12.12.2007 — the ram­pART social cen­tre in Lon­don today received court papers for re-pos­ses­sion on the grounds of Tres­pass. The hear­ing date is the 20th Dec.

squat logo 112.12.2007 — the ram­pART social cen­tre in Lon­don today received court papers for re-pos­ses­sion on the grounds of Tres­pass. The hear­ing date is the 20th Dec.

So much for the sea­son of good will.

The ram­pART and neigh­bour­ing hous­es have all been served court papers for a hear­ing on the 20th Dec. Bad tim­ing to say the least as a bunch of us were off to do a pre­sen­ta­tion about the space and show films at an event in Barcelona next week and are poten­tial­ly home­less by xmas.

We’ve start­ed the process of seek­ing advice regard­ing the court hear­ing but don’t hold your breath, the end is nigh.

This obvi­ous­ly impacts on a whole bunch of stuff. For exam­ple we’ve just had the a cam­paign group move their office into the ram­pART, Bicy­col­o­gy were plan­ning on doing up the bike work­shop this week­end and there’s var­i­ous groups got dates booked for events next year, not to men­tion the new years eve par­ty.

Basi­cal­ly we need to have a meet­ing of all the effect­ed groups/individuals to dis­cuss our response and plan what will hap­pen over the next month or so.

Assume this meet­ing will be at the ram­pART next mon­day 7pm.

Strike, demonstrations, clashes (Athens-Thessaloniki-Larissa) — luxury cars, cash machines, CCTV & McD all trashed or burned

12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

CCTV camera bagged12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

One-day long gen­er­al strike was called by fed­er­a­tions, labor unions and syn­di­cates that belong to the GSEE (gen­er­al syn­di­cal­ist union), PAME (tied to the Com­mu­nist Par­ty) but also inde­pen­dent syn­di­cates and oth­er groups, against gov­ern­ment plans to over­haul the pen­sion sys­tem (rais­ing retire­ment ages, cut­ting ben­e­fits etc).

Athens: The police repeat­ed­ly attacked with tear gas and flash light and sting ball grenades in order to tear apart the anarchist/antiautoritarian blocs (more than 1.500 per­sons) from the oth­er demon­stra­tors (more than 150.000) while the demon­stra­tors fought back with stones and sticks. A lux­u­rius car had its win­dows bro­ken and was set on fire, togeth­er with a bank’s ATM and a police sur­veil­lance cam­era. Near Great Britain hotel, the cops attacked again the demon­stra­tion but were held back by the peo­ple. In Omonoia Square, the cops attacked once again the demo and cut back the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs. In Panepis­timiou street, some demon­stra­tors attacked the cops and set free 2 per­sons that were hand­cuffed by the cops, in a pre­vi­ous police attack. Then, there was a con­stant tear gas attack and police strik­ing the demo in order to sep­a­rate the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs from the rest of the demon­stra­tors, though they nev­er man­age to do so, thanks to the strong self-defence of the anarchists/antiautoritarians and the sup­port of the rest of the demon­stra­tors that did n’t run away, regard­less the amounts of tear gas and police attacks. In the same time, employ­ees of “Olympic Air­ways” some of them protest­ing with greek flags against the bunk­rupt­sy of this state-spon­sored com­pa­ny, were offer­ing flow­ers to the police­men ouside the par­lia­ment house… Dur­ing the demon­stra­tions, bank ATMs and sur­veil­lance cam­eras were destroyed, and 2 line­men of the Pub­lic Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion got arrest­ed a few hours after the demon­stra­tions, for cov­er­ing up police sur­veil­lance cam­eras with bags. In total, there were dozens of arrests, and 4 of them are pros­e­cut­ed under mis­de­meanours (dis­rup­tion of pub­lic order, dam­ag­ing pub­lic prop­er­ty).

Thes­sa­loni­ki: Demon­stra­tors broke down the McDon­alds at Lagka­da street and bank win­dows, and burnt up pow­er sup­ply box­es of police sur­veil­lance cam­eras. In total, more than 30.000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in the demon­stra­tions.

Laris­sa: Paint bombs and eggs were thrown at banks and par­ty offices.

March­es and open gath­er­ing were organ­ised in most cities and towns of the coun­try.

Enawene Nawe blockade dam construction site

12th Decem­ber 2007
Con­tin­u­ing their strug­gle against a large hydro­elec­tric dam project in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, the Enawene Nawe set up a block­ade at one of the dam con­struc­tion sites late last week. Accord­ing to Sur­vival, about 100 mem­bers of the 420-strong tribe occu­pied the build­ing site, demand­ing an inde­pen­dent study into the impact they will have.

12th Decem­ber 2007
Con­tin­u­ing their strug­gle against a large hydro­elec­tric dam project in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, the Enawene Nawe set up a block­ade at one of the dam con­struc­tion sites late last week. Accord­ing to Sur­vival, about 100 mem­bers of the 420-strong tribe occu­pied the build­ing site, demand­ing an inde­pen­dent study into the impact they will have.

The Enawene Nawe main­tain the dams will have a dev­as­tat­ing effect on the breed­ing cycle of the fish they depend on to sur­vive. They say the fish might not even be able to make it to their breed­ing grounds. The grounds them­selves are of great cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance to the Enawene Nawe. If the 11 dams go ahead as planned, the area may be destroyed.

The grounds are already heav­i­ly bur­dened by cat­tle ranch­ers, and the Soya Industry–who is behind the dam project.

Of course, this would not be hap­pen­ing if the Brazil­ian Gov­ern­ment demar­cat­ed the area, in fact the entire Rio Pre­to, when they rec­og­nized Enawene Nawe ter­ri­to­ry in 1996. The gov­ern­ment refused to do so.

Since then, the Enawene Nawe have been work­ing to have the Rio Pre­to includ­ed, but so far their voic­es have fall­en on deaf ears.

When the dam project came into focus late 2006/early 2007, they increased their efforts, for one, by orga­niz­ing block­ades. The ongo­ing one is the third this year.

The pre­vi­ous block­ade, set up on May 31, 2007, was met with some suc­cess.

Brazil Ama­zon Indi­ans Take on Soy Barons Block­ing Dam Site
From Brazz­il Mag, 11 Decem­ber 2007

The remote Enawene Nawe Indi­ans have block­ad­ed the con­struc­tion site of a hydro­elec­tric dam in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, which they say will destroy their vital fish­ing grounds. Around 100 mem­bers of the 420-strong tribe occu­pied the build­ing site and a near­by high­way on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 6. They want to stop the con­struc­tion of a vast com­plex of hydro­elec­tric dams being built on the Juru­e­na riv­er, upstream from their land.

Com­pa­nies led by the world’s largest soya pro­duc­ers, the Mag­gi fam­i­ly, are push­ing for the con­struc­tion of the dams. But the Enawene Nawe, who eat no red meat, say that if the dams are built, the fish they rely on will no longer be able to reach their spawn­ing grounds.

The Enawene Nawe say they have not been con­sult­ed about the dams. They are demand­ing and inde­pen­dent study into the impact they will have.

A pre­vi­ous block­ade of a major high­way in June led the gov­ern­ment to nego­ti­ate with the Indi­ans, but plans for con­struc­tion of the dams con­tin­ued.

After the first oppo­si­tion action, the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment agreed to sev­er­al key demands of the Enawene Nawe. The government’s Indi­an agency, FUNAI, promised that it would sur­vey lands claimed by the Enawene Nawe and oth­er tribes, with the aim of offi­cial­ly rec­og­niz­ing the areas as indige­nous.

For three days in May, the Indi­ans erect­ed bar­ri­cades in Mato Grosso state to protest against plans to build a series of hydro­elec­tric dams along the Juru­e­na riv­er. They were also demand­ing the offi­cial recog­ni­tion of their vital fish­ing waters in the Rio Pre­to area, which are being rapid­ly destroyed by cat­tle ranch­ers.

Neigh­bor­ing tribes joined the protest in sup­port of the Enawene Nawe’s demands, swelling the num­ber of pro­tes­tors to 200. The gov­ern­ment respond­ed quick­ly by dis­patch­ing offi­cials to nego­ti­ate with the Indi­ans on the bar­ri­cade. It even agreed to pay for rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous tribes in Mato Grosso to trav­el to Brazil­ian cap­i­tal Brasília to meet with FUNAI’s pres­i­dent.

Tasmanian forest defenders halt logging in the Styx Valley

2007-12-11
Yes­ter­day morn­ing, for­est activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed log­ging in coupe SX10F in the Styx Val­ley, to high­light the ongo­ing dev­as­ta­tion of Tasmania’s World Her­itage val­ued forests. This coupe has gained an inter­na­tion­al pro­file over the past few years as an icon­ic exam­ple of Tasmania’s unique old growth forests.

Styx banners action2007-12-11
Yes­ter­day morn­ing, for­est activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened halt­ed log­ging in coupe SX10F in the Styx Val­ley, to high­light the ongo­ing dev­as­ta­tion of Tasmania’s World Her­itage val­ued forests. This coupe has gained an inter­na­tion­al pro­file over the past few years as an icon­ic exam­ple of Tasmania’s unique old growth forests.

“This pris­tine tract of ancient for­est, locat­ed with­in 1.5km of the World Her­itage bound­ary, is of out­stand­ing con­ser­va­tion val­ue and has been vis­it­ed by thou­sands of peo­ple. Right now, bull­doz­ers and chain­saws are rip­ping apart this irre­place­able ecosys­tem” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“We are call­ing on the fed­er­al Labor Gov­ern­ment to hon­our their inter­na­tion­al envi­ron­men­tal com­mit­ments and put an imme­di­ate halt to this sense­less dev­as­ta­tion of some of Australia’s most out­stand­ing nat­ur­al her­itage” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Jess Wright.

“Here we have yet anoth­er exam­ple of a unique for­est being dec­i­mat­ed in order to fur­ther the inter­ests of greedy wood­chip barons and cor­rupt politi­cians. As world lead­ers gath­er in Bali to dis­cuss the cli­mate emer­gency, the island’s most sig­nif­i­cant car­bon sinks are being destroyed, ren­der­ing Tas­ma­nia an inter­na­tion­al dis­grace” said Ms Majew­s­ki.

Bath Bomb issue 5 now! & Bristle statement

Just your Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­ble rousi­ness, from deep with­in gen­tri­fy cen­tral

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Nev­er mind the Chron­i­cle… here’s the ever-fes­tive
The Bath Bomb

Just your Christ­mas edi­tion of the month­ly Bathon­ian rab­ble rousi­ness, from deep with­in gen­tri­fy cen­tral

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Nev­er mind the Chron­i­cle… here’s the ever-fes­tive
The Bath Bomb
Issue #5
free/donation
Dec ‘07

Bath Activists — 2 BNP – 0

Nazi Nick Grif­fin must’ve been hav­ing flash­backs on the 26th Novem­ber as yet anoth­er BNP meet­ing got shaft­ed by anti-fas­cists. This time the venue was Oxford Union, an upper class debat­ing soci­ety who booked Grif­fin and holo­caust deny­ing bas­tard David Irv­ing to speak to try and raise falling tick­et sales. Bath Activist Net­work sent 9 activists to the 1,000 strong demo. After get­ting bored of speech­es and plac­ards, we put our­selves to good use blockad­ing a side entrance to the meet­ing, our pres­ence being enough to deter the cops from let­ting the doors open. All oth­er entrances were block­ad­ed and BNP sup­port­ers were turfed out of a pub they were hid­ing in! The demo most­ly stayed peace­ful, save a brief instance dur­ing which the cops tried to stop activists get­ting into the build­ing. The cops – as they often do – failed, and the build­ing was breached many times through­out the night. The meet­ing was delayed by near­ly two hours, and the meet­ing end­ed up last­ing just 8 min­utes, with Grif­fin and Irv­ing being held in sep­a­rate loca­tions for their own safe­ty!

Annoy­ing though the BNP were, they were near­ly topped by the spoilt tweed-wear­ing lit­tle Har­ry and Wills wannabe daddy’s boys that con­sti­tute the major­i­ty of stu­dents at Oxford. Judg­ing by the way they were whing­ing and cry­ing in favour of the BNP, you could almost get the impres­sion that they were fas­cists them­selves. The rich sup­port­ing the nazis? Hmm­mm. Added to this, they didn’t even try to con­ceal their supe­ri­or­i­ty com­plex­es derived from the over-priced crash course in sodomy and brandy quaf­fling that counts for an edu­ca­tion at Oxford.

The same hap­pened to Nazi Nick in Oxford as in Bath when the greasy hunch-backed lit­tle bas­tard came here, with a well-placed protest shut­ting his meet­ing down. The night was a huge suc­cess – block­ades, nazis get­ting pelt­ed with eggs, occu­pa­tions, out­wit­ting dozy cops – chaos! When will you get the mes­sage, Nick? Soci­ety hates you and your nazi views! Lis­ten­ing to sick bas­tards like Grif­fin is a good reminder that regard­less of colour or nation­al­i­ty, the only sig­nif­i­cant divide in soci­ety is rich and poor, the many and the few. As one chant went on the night, ‘They say race war — we say CLASS WAR!’

Bris­tle Mag: R.I.P.

We here at the Bath Bomb would like to tip our hats in fond farewell to our lit­er­ary fore­fa­thers at Bris­tle mag­a­zine. For many years, this rag pro­vid­ed Bris­tol and the south west With inspir­ing rad­i­cal news and rants. It was a great read, and well worth the odd £1.20 of dole!

http://www.bristle.org.uk

Kebab Shop Car­nage

Sta­tion Kebab Shop in Brad­ford-on-Avon has been forced to close after a vicious race attack left staff mem­bers with bro­ken bones. The attack comes short­ly after anti-racists were brand­ed fas­cists for shut­ting down a BNP meet­ing in Oxford. This attack is evi­dence enough to demon­strate what hap­pens when we let these bas­tards spread their poi­son. They whine about free­dom of speech, but they only use it to spread fear, vio­lence and hatred because of the colour of people’s skin – they’re racist thugs who need a fuckin hard boot to the face. The only debate worth hav­ing with a fas­cist is one where they end up inhal­ing their own teeth.

In a state­ment received by Bath Bomb today, local Antifa group have promised ret­ri­bu­tion against fas­cists oper­at­ing local­ly, and frankly, good luck to them! As Adolph Hitler once said ‘The only way the rise of the Ger­man Nazi par­ty could have been pre­vent­ed was if its ene­mies had have recog­nised it for what it was and smashed it in its infan­cy with the utmost force’. The only true words he ever said, and as true to the BNP and NF today as it was to him back in the 1930s’.

http://www.thisisbath.com/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=180730&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232315&home=yes&more_nodeId1=163047&contentPK=19121961

Hunt­ing As Usu­al, Sab­bing As Usu­al

It was a sun­ny autumn day when a group of us went for a trip to the coun­try. We ren­dezvoused with a group of peace­ful veg­gie com­man­does and went about our task. We were there to mon­i­tor and stop a group of sadis­tic inbreds who prance about on hors­es to sat­is­fy their blood­lust and infe­ri­or­i­ty com­plex­es (I am of course talk­ing about fox hunters, of the Ted­worth Hunt). Despite the ban, they are still hunt­ing, this was fur­ther clar­i­fied on a pre­vi­ous week when a group of sabs stopped a dig out (which involves the hunt send­ing a ter­ri­er down a fox hole to fight the trapped ani­mal, before yank­ing it out). They put on the pre­tences of drag hunt­ing (fol­low­ing a fake scent) but this is nor­mal­ly only for show or insur­ance should they “acci­den­tal­ly” kill any­thing.

On arriv­ing at the hunt there were the usu­al assort­ment of big-eared boys and oth­er odd­i­ties of the human species. We did our best to fol­low the hunt; jump­ing fences, blow­ing horns and chas­ing them around the coun­try­side. At one point after los­ing the hunt and then re-find­ing them again, some­thing must have flipped in the psy­chot­ic mind of the hunts­man and his fol­low­ers and they tried to ride us down (No sabs were seri­ous­ly injured). Short­ly after this inci­dent, their day thor­ough­ly ruined by the sabs, the hunt packed up ear­ly. We then went round a mate’s house for veg­an cake and tea. If you feel like get­ting involved give us a call on 07854 062336.

http://hsa.enviroweb.org/hsa.shtml

Events

every Mon­day Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ing — back room of the Bell, 8pm
every Wednes­day Lon­don Road Food Co-op; 4pm—7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road
8th Dec Bath FreeShop — Stall Street 12–3pm
10th-24th Dec Anti-fur fort­night http://www.caft.org.uk
15th Dec Day of action against foie gras; con­tact bathanimalaction@yahoo.co.uk
16th Dec ‘Bub­bling Under’ — Porter Cel­lar Bar, 1–4pm; show­ing The Yes Men
21stDec ‘Left­ism’ at the Crown on Bath­wick Street — 9–1am; funds towards RAINBOW
2nd Jan Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing — back room of the Bell, 7.30–8.30pm
3rd Jan Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing — down­stairs Hob­gob­lin, 7.30–9pm
7th Jan Pub­lic meet­ing against Tesco’s; St Mary’s Church, Bath­wick Hill; con­tact bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk for mnore details

Reclaim The High Street

Mem­bers of Bath Activist Net­work descend­ed on town last Sat­ur­day for the mam­moth day of demo­ing that was ‘Reclaim the Plan­et’. Mov­ing away from the orig­i­nal ‘eco’ theme, activists adopt­ed a more gen­er­ous­ly anti-cap­i­tal­ist approach to ques­tion the con­sumer night­mare that is Xmas shop­ping. Now, we’re not anti Xmas, but we did want to high­light why this time of year sees the sweat­shop, ani­mal abuse and cli­mate change indus­tries prof­its soar, in this, the sea­son of good will. We start­ed off help­ing out Bath Stop the War Coali­tion on their anti-war vig­il which has been tak­ing place every Sat­ur­day, between 11.30 and 12.30 out­side the Abbey for the past sev­er­al years. An unjust war for oil, so we can keep dri­ving our 4x4s, import­ing our apples and buy­ing our plas­tic crap.
From there, we moved on to Bistro No.5, an iso­lat­ed bas­tion of ani­mal abuse that con­tin­ues to sell the bloat­ed liv­er of force-fed geese, oth­er­wise known as foie gras. Hav­ing already promised to take this sick ‘del­i­ca­cy’ off the menu, but put it back on, they weren’t best pleased to see us again. The man­ager­ess called the cops, who threat­ened some arrests, exchanged some stern words, then left after the day’s first police-pro­test­er round of ban­ter. This left a very unhap­py man­ager­ess and dur­ing a short and sharp phone call, the own­er promised to take it back off the menu!

We then moved on to Dis­ney, who use their ‘cute and cud­dly’ image to hide the fact that they employ third world chil­dren in sweat­shops to pro­duce their toys for slave labour wages. A ban­ner was unfurled, leaflets dis­trib­uted, and many cus­tomers left to shop in a more cru­el­ty-free envi­ron­ment. The demo was effec­tive and well received – we even received a vis­it from our flu­o­ro-jack­et­ed friends from the Bath Con­stab­u­lary, who were hap­py to let us con­tin­ue our peace­ful protest, and moved off after a anoth­er spot of jovial ban­ter!

From there we moved to the ever unpop­u­lar McDon­alds, who were pleased as ever to see us. More ban­ners, free cake and hun­dreds of leaflets were deployed as dozens of poten­tial cus­tomers pledged to boy­cott the place on the grounds of their dis­re­gard for ani­mal wel­fare, employ­ee rights, the envi­ron­ment and the seri­ous health impli­ca­tions of eat­ing there! All in all a long but suc­cess­ful day despite the ter­ri­ble weath­er. A fol­low-up event is being planned for next sum­mer, and loads is gonna be going on in-between, so keep yer eyes peeled!

http://www.mcspotlight.org/
http://www.nosweat.org.uk/node/183
http://www.banfoiegras.org.uk/
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

Pup­py Punch­ers Pay The Price

On Sat­ur­day the 10th Novem­ber, activists descend­ed on Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences in Cam­bridgeshire, furi­ous at the company’s con­tin­ued ani­mal abuse. A research con­trac­tor for the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try, HLS kill 500 ani­mals dai­ly in the name of prof­it, with­out ever pro­duc­ing a sin­gle paper. But not just the cute and fluffy ani­mals suf­fer: 10,000 humans die every year in the UK alone as a result of dodgy drug side effects. But then what can you expect, when the gov­ern­ment refus­es to exam­ine whether ani­mal test­ing works or not? TGN 1412 hor­ri­bly injured 6 vol­un­teers in March of last year; like Vioxx, Con­ter­gan, and Thalido­mide did before, to name a few. But the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals have lob­bied hard for their priv­i­leges, and who cares about lives when there’s a quick buck to be made? Far eas­i­er to just lock up any­one who com­plains and call them ‘ter­ror­ists’ – just like the three SHAC activists in prison right now.

From 1 till 2, cam­paign­ers marched through Hunt­ing­don cen­tre, leaflet­ing and chant­i­ng, before mov­ing on to the labs itself. And what a place – ringed by razor­wire, fences and grim-look­ing cops, HLS is noth­ing short of a mod­ern day Auschwitz. For two hours we vent­ed our rage, with mega­phone, voice and siren, and heard how these bank­rupt mon­sters have been bailed out again and again by tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey, and also of the caught-on-cam­era HLS work­ers, laugh­ing as they hit cap­tive bea­gles in the face.

Recent­ly, anoth­er share­hold­er, Axa, pulled out; but when will sci­ence final­ly learn to move to non-ani­mal test­ing, so then we can all just get on with our lives, rather than wav­ing plac­ards, or bed-bound in cash-strapped hos­pi­tals?

http://www.shac.net/HLS/exposed.html

Who Are Bath Activist Net­work?

We are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

The Wheels Of Green Bull Go Round And Round

Ever strain­ing to prove its green cre­den­tials, B&NES have recent­ly invest­ed in a pilot scheme of school­bus­es being run on rape­seed oil/biodiesel , as a mea­sure to cut CO2 emis­sions– with one at Three Ways in Bath and anoth­er at Nor­ton Hill, in Mid­somer Nor­ton. While my tree­hug­ger side wel­comes this, my inner cyn­ic gets scep­ti­cal: nitrous oxide emis­sion from fer­tilis­ers are around 3oo times worse than fos­sil fuel emis­sions, so, unless organ­ic, bio­fu­els are no friend to the plan­et. Sec­ond­ly, there is bare­ly enough farm­land around for food crops nev­er mind fuel, which will jump food prices, when the world’s already got more than enough star­va­tion prob­lems. In the South, bio­fu­el plan­ta­tions will also ruin indige­nous cul­ture by forc­ing peo­ple from their land into the cities, and will also eat into nature reserves. Small scale pro­duc­tion and recy­cling cook­ing oils may not be a bad thing, but means lit­tle prof­it for the agro­fu­els indus­try: yet again, the smell of ‘green­wash’ is in the air, and it’s start­ing to stink.

http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/

Suits, Gold Lamé And Video­tapes

Car­ry­ing on from last month’s ‘Fourth World War’, the Porter Cellar’s keep­ing it up with anoth­er ‘Bub­bling Under’ screen­ing: Sun­day 16th Decem­ber, from 1pm till 4pm, free entry, show­ing ‘The Yes Men’. A dark­ly com­i­cal doc­u­men­tary, it fol­lows the sto­ry of how two anti-cor­po­rate activists who set them­selves up as bogus big busi­ness reps, mak­ing ever-more ridicu­lous pre­sen­ta­tions at swanky indus­try con­fer­ences. Fol­low­ing com­mer­cial log­ic to its nasty extreme, they hoped to shake the audi­ence from their stu­por by straight-faced­ly offer­ing up busi­ness plans so bru­tal and down­right dis­gust­ing, that even the most greedy and self-serv­ing of fat cats would be incensed. But, whether propos­ing elec­tro-shock­ing sweat­shop work­ers into line with inflat­ed gold­en dil­dos, or recy­cled human fae­ces into a new range of burg­ers, the only reac­tion they ever get is enthu­si­as­tic applause… Prov­ing that once again, fact is stranger than fic­tion! Must be seen to be believed.

http://www.moles.co.uk/porter/view_porter_listing.ihtml?per=future
http://www.theyesmen.org/

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk Large print e‑versions are avail­able on request.

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute to this newslet­ter, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of
the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

http://www.myspace.com/bathbomb

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»
bris­tle mag­a­zine (Bris­tol) — state­ment from the col­lec­tive

Whilst the com­rades at Bath Bomb are jump­ing the gun a bit by declar­ing ‘Bris­tle R.I.P’, the bris­tle Col­lec­tive, pub­lish­ers of bris­tle mag­a­zine, would like to advise activists, read­ers and Indy­media users of the fol­low­ing:

A state­ment from the bris­tle Col­lec­tive

Before the Bris­to­lian news-sheet came and went, before Bris­tol Indy­media was con­ceived, before the inter­net was a dai­ly (hourly) part of your lives, and before any­body & nobody had their per­son­al blog, there was bris­tle mag­a­zine.

What start­ed as a cut’n’paste A4 pho­to­copied & fold­ed freesheet (see image), in times of hope and high activ­i­ty when the Tories were beat­en and we were reclaim­ing those streets, devel­oped into a 2 or more colour mag­a­zine of between 24 and 40 pages. From a copied run of 50 to a pro­fes­sion­al print-run and sales of 1200, although nor­mal­ly half that, bris­tle evolved through the years. But its aim always remained the same: to give a space and a voice in Bris­tol & the south west to those shut out from the cor­po­rate media-main­stream of ads and bull­shit. To be a pub­li­ca­tion writ­ten by activists that would try to reach out beyond the activist scenes to com­bat the mis­in­for­ma­tion of gov­ern­ments and cap­i­tal.

Some 10 years and 24 issues (plus a book, var­i­ous free-sheets, t‑shirts, stick­ers etc) lat­er that task remains as valid and vital as ever, in fact more so! But for now bris­tle mag­a­zine is dor­mant. The con­tin­ued depar­ture over the last 2 years of long-term col­lec­tive mem­bers, and con­trib­u­tors, has not been coun­tered by suf­fi­cient new peo­ple. We have had some inter­est­ed new peo­ple, but their involve­ment, and usu­al­ly their stay in Bris­tol, has not been per­ma­nent.

Sad­ly there­fore, the remain­ing few col­lec­tive mem­bers, who are all deeply involved in oth­er projects too, have decid­ed to take a long term break and sus­pend pub­li­ca­tion of the mag­a­zine. We would like to thank all those who have con­tributed in any way to the mag­a­zine over the years, and send our love and sol­i­dar­i­ty to all those con­tin­u­ing to strug­gle for a free and bet­ter world. We look for­wards to see­ing you behind the bar­ri­cade of your choos­ing, be it wield­ing a pen, a spray can, or some­thing a lit­tle heav­ier.

For now we are look­ing into oth­er pos­si­ble ini­tia­tives involv­ing print media and the machin­ery need­ed. We would be inter­est­ed to hear from any­body con­sid­er­ing pub­lish­ing alter­na­tive print media. Indeed if you have the time, ener­gy, skills (research, writ­ing, dtp, dis­tro, art & car­toons, edit­ing etc) and longish-term com­mit­ment we could be per­suad­ed to relaunch bris­tle! Whilst we have closed the old bris­tle web­site & email, we can still be con­tact­ed c/o 14 Robert­son Rd, Bris­tol BS5 6JY, or email bristle@riseup.net

Salud!

French activist Bove to go on anti-GMO hunger strike

REUTERS, Dec 10 2007

TOULOUSE (Reuters) — French rad­i­cal farmer Jose Bove, who became a world­wide celebri­ty for his fight against junk food, said on Mon­day he would go on a hunger strike to win a one-year ban on genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GMO) crops.

REUTERS, Dec 10 2007

TOULOUSE (Reuters) — French rad­i­cal farmer Jose Bove, who became a world­wide celebri­ty for his fight against junk food, said on Mon­day he would go on a hunger strike to win a one-year ban on genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GMO) crops.

Speak­ing at the Mil­lau Court of Jus­tice in south­ern France, where his four-month jail sen­tence for trash­ing a GMO field in 2004 was com­mut­ed to a fine, Bove said he would start his unlim­it­ed strike on Jan­u­ary 3, along with 10 to 15 oth­er activists.

The wal­rus-mus­ta­chioed, pipe-smok­ing Bove, some­times dubbed France’s Robin Hood, spent six weeks in jail in 2003 for smash­ing up a McDon­ald’s restau­rant in protest at tar­iffs imposed by the Unit­ed States in retal­i­a­tion for a Euro­pean Union ban on imports of North Amer­i­can hor­mone-treat­ed beef.

While GMO crops are com­mon in the Unit­ed States, France — Europe’s biggest grain pro­duc­er — along with oth­er Euro­pean nations remain high­ly sus­pi­cious of them.

Sup­port­ers say it could lead to hardy strains to help feed the world’s poor. Oppo­nents, which polls say include a major­i­ty of French peo­ple, fear they could harm humans and wildlife by trig­ger­ing an uncon­trolled spread of mod­i­fied genes.

In an attempt to calm these con­cerns, France last week for­mal­ly sus­pend­ed the com­mer­cial use of GMO seeds until Feb­ru­ary 9 and ordered a biotech safe­ty study.

It also set up a com­mit­tee charged with assess­ing the health and envi­ron­men­tal impli­ca­tions of using the only GMO seeds used in Europe, which are reliant on the MON 810 tech­nol­o­gy devel­oped by U.S. biotech giant Mon­san­to.

‘This decree is ridicu­lous. It is a scare­crow,’ Bove said.

‘Every­one knows that there are no sow­ings dur­ing win­ter. We demand a real pause in GMO use in 2008. It must be a year with­out GMOs and we are stat­ing this hunger strike to show our deter­mi­na­tion,’ he added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL1011368420071210

Police manhandle Tesco biofuel protestors – corporate protection gone mad?

3 pro­tes­tors who arrived to set up a peace­ful protest against Tesco’s invest­ments into bio­fu­els were man­han­dled by Police in cen­tral Lon­don on Decem­ber 8th who forced them into a met­al pen. Despite, this a peace­ful protest was held for an hour includ­ing a stop by 300 cyclists and 1 min­utes silence for those who are suf­fer­ing or who have died as the result of mas­sive expan­sion of large scale bio­fu­el plan­ta­tions across the South.

Tesco biofuel protest 1Tesco biofuel protest 23 pro­tes­tors who arrived to set up a peace­ful protest against Tesco’s invest­ments into bio­fu­els were man­han­dled by Police in cen­tral Lon­don on Decem­ber 8th who forced them into a met­al pen. Despite, this a peace­ful protest was held for an hour includ­ing a stop by 300 cyclists and 1 min­utes silence for those who are suf­fer­ing or who have died as the result of mas­sive expan­sion of large scale bio­fu­el plan­ta­tions across the South.

The protest had been well adver­tised as a peace­ful protest, part of the cycle ride before the Lon­don Glob­al Cli­mate Action D8 march, that would start at 1030am and last until 1130am. On arriv­ing at 1000 to set up, one pro­tes­tor found that there were 5 police vans wait­ing on the cor­ner of Regent Street and Jermyn Street.

As three pro­tes­tors set up, police insist­ed that they stand with­in a met­al ‘pen’ that had been placed on the pave­ment. The pro­tes­tors refused as the pave­ment was very wide (see pho­tos), there was only going to be a few of them, and they did not intend to obstruct pedes­tri­ans. The police then man­han­dled the pro­tes­tors into the ‘pen’ (see pho­tos).

The 3 pro­tes­tors, Dr Andrew Boswell of bio­fu­el­watch and a Green par­ty coun­cil­lor in Nor­folk, Dr Derek Wall, Prin­ci­ple speak­er of the Green Par­ty and Claire Sims were joined by about 4 oth­er pro­tes­tors who leaflet­ed shop­pers going into Tescos and passers- by.

Around 300 cyclists arrived at 1115am, and Andrew Boswell and Derek Wall spoke to them (Andrew Boswell’s speech is append­ed below). The protest then con­clud­ed peace­ful­ly as it had start­ed.

Tesco describe their bio­fu­els invest­ments on their web­page at:
http://www.tescocorporate.com/biofuels.htm

‘We are already the UK mar­ket leader in bio­fu­els and dur­ing 2007 we aim to dou­ble the pro­por­tion we sell. This means that cus­tomers will be able to buy a 5% bioethanol mix at over 300 petrol sta­tions in the UK. This helps our cus­tomers reduce their emis­sions, as a car dri­ven with our bioethanol mix petrol is respon­si­ble for 4.5% less CO2. We were the UK’s first major retail­er to incor­po­rate bio­fu­el into our stan­dard petrol and diesel, with no price pre­mi­um.

We also use a 50:50 biodiesel mix in our own vehi­cles — the high­est per­cent­age blend used by any major dis­tri­b­u­tion fleet. We have a 25% stake in bio­fu­el sup­pli­er Green­er­gy, which has opened the UK’s largest sin­gle-line biodiesel plant, on the Hum­ber estu­ary, with an annu­al pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty of 100,000 tonnes. Green­er­gy buys rape­seed for con­ver­sion to biodiesel from around 1,500 farm­ers con­tract­ed through Grain­farm­ers, a large agri­cul­tur­al co-oper­a­tive in the UK.’

An arti­cle in Auto indus­try mag­a­zine
http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/news/02–04-07_6
describes how ‘Green­er­gy’s biodiesel plant in north-east Eng­land began com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion on Fri­day 30 March(2007), and should ramp up to full capac­i­ty of 100,000 tonnes/year in a cou­ple of weeks, accord­ing to the com­pa­ny. The plant refines biodiesel from rape­seed oil, palm oil and soya oil. Chief Exec­u­tive Robert Owens told Reuters that the sec­ond phase, which should take capac­i­ty to 200,000 tonnes is on sched­ule to be com­plet­ed in Novem­ber.’

Cyclist pho­tos from Mike Greenville’s web­site at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikegrenville/2096155112/in/set-72157603404734034/
etc. Oth­er pho­tos by Andrew Boswell.

Speech by Andrew Boswell

Thanks for join­ing us here for this protest against Tesco and their invest­ment in the large scale biodiesel indus­try. Thank you com­ing in a zero-car­bon way by ped­al pow­er.

Bio­fu­els are a cli­mate jus­tice issue, a social jus­tice issue, a human jus­tice issue. We are protest­ing here because of Tesco’s cor­po­rate involve­ment in the bio­fu­el indus­try and in par­tic­u­lar­ly Palm Oil for biodiesel.

Palm oil is in a lot of food prod­ucts. In fact it is 1 in 10 of Tescos prod­ucts.

But we are here today to protest against Tesco’s invest­ment in Green­er­gy Bio­fu­els Ltd and their role as a major dis­trib­u­tor of bio­fu­els. Tesco have been mar­ket-lead­ers of bio­fu­els amongst super­mar­kets. Green­er­gy uses palm oil, soya and rape­seed oil in their biodiesel and also sells Brazil­ian sug­ar ethanol, and they thus con­tribute to fur­ther glob­al warm­ing, defor­esta­tion and threat­en the liveli­hoods of many com­mu­ni­ties in the glob­al South.

Let’s just touch on the eco­log­i­cal, social and human issues with bio­fu­els. As the bio­fu­el indus­try expands, we see bio­fu­els cause pover­ty to indige­nous peo­ples. Peo­ple who have lived for gen­er­a­tions on land and in the for­est have their land grabbed. Social and land con­flicts result. There’s abus­es in human rights and labour rights.

When large mono­cul­tures are grown, often the peo­ple remain in vil­lages with­in the large plan­ta­tions of Soya or Palm. When pes­ti­cides are used, the pes­ti­cide plane does not select where to spray – peo­ple are often poi­soned, become ill and some­times die from pes­ti­cide poi­son­ing.

Food secu­ri­ty and sov­er­eign­ty is anoth­er big issue. Glob­al­ly we are see­ing mas­sive amounts of food crops for exam­ple Corn, Wheat, Soya, being sold for fuel. Or land where com­mu­ni­ties grew food becomes tak­en over for grow­ing full crops. A more imme­di­ate prob­lem is that bio­fu­els, along with oth­er caus­es (cli­mate change droughts and increas­ing afflu­ence in Chi­na and India – EXPAND), have forced up world food com­mod­i­ty prices. Wheat has gone up 75% in just the last few months. This impacts poor coun­tries who can­not grow all their food and have to buy on the inter­na­tion­al mar­kets – they can buy less food. These coun­tries often have peo­ple close to star­va­tion who are forced into star­va­tion by these ris­ing prices.

The UN has also high­light­ed that land dis­place­ment could cause up to 60 mil­lion bio­fu­el refugees – 5 mil­lion in Kali­man­tan in Indone­sia alone. Once dis­placed from their tra­di­tion­al lands, peo­ple may try to eak out a less than sub­sis­tence exis­tence on what remains of their home­lands, often hav­ing lost their tra­di­tion­al food sources, or they may migrate in the mega-cities of the glob­al South and become the urban poor.

We will have 1 min­utes silence at the end of this speech for those peo­ple suf­fer­ing now or who have died as a result of the rich world’s mad rush to bio­fu­els.

Mas­sive bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion will also con­tribute to sys­temic eco­log­i­cal prob­lems such as water deple­tion, soil ero­sion and chem­i­cal poi­son­ing of the land by exces­sive fer­til­iz­ers and pes­ti­cides.

But let’s return to Palm Oil.

Defor­esta­tion and peat­land destruc­tion is a mas­sive con­trib­u­tor to glob­al green­house gas emis­sions – about 20% of emis­sions each year. In real­ly badyears like 1997 when there was mas­sive peat­land burn­ing in South East Asia, even more – pos­si­bly 40% in 1997. Palm Oil plan­ta­tions are planned on a mas­sive scale across South East Asia and into pris­tine rain­for­est and peat­lands.

So right now, Indone­sia and Malaysia are set to destroy mil­lions of hectares of rain­for­est and peat­lands for Oil palm plan­ta­tions to feed Euro­pean cars.
And Tescos and Green­er­gy are help­ing them.

The New Sci­en­tist report­ed last month that palm oil biodiesel, pro­duced this way, can pro­duce up to 36 times – yes, 36 times, that is 3600% — more car­bon emis­sions than ordi­nary fos­sil diesel.

We would do all bet­ter to start dri­ving Hum­mers than use this fuel!

In South Amer­i­ca, our demand for bio­fu­els is push­ing up the price of soya and fuelling the destruc­tion of the Ama­zon, on which all our sur­vival depends.
And Tescos and Green­er­gy want to sell us Soya biodiesel too.

We have to also address Gov­ern­ments.
Europe’s bio­fu­el poli­cies are dri­ving defor­esta­tion and the EU wants a 10 fold increase in bio­fu­els by 2020. If we do not stop them, then every­thing else we do as a move­ment will become irrel­e­vant, because we will have no hope of stop­ping run­away cli­mate change.

Such mas­sive bio­fu­el expan­sion is set to fur­ther dam­age the cli­mate, fur­ther risk food sup­plies for many of the world’s most vul­ner­a­ble, cause more strife and vio­lence in land dis­putes, and cre­ate even more bio­fu­el refugees dis­placed from their tra­di­tion­al lands.

We can­not grow all the nec­es­sary crops in the North.
Even bio­fu­els grown on Euro­pean soil with heavy nitro­gen fer­til­iz­er regimes pro­duce nitrous oxide – a green­house gas 300 times more dam­ag­ing than CO2 that dam­ages the cli­mate.
And Tescos and Green­er­gy pro­mote oil seed rape biodiesel too.
A recent study showed that the fer­til­iz­er used in grow­ing it can pro­duce up to 70% more GHG emis­sions that fos­sil diesel.

So Tesco and Green­er­gy are mak­ing us cli­mate loosers, what­ev­er biodiesel they sup­ply – Palm, Soya, or Oilseed rape. We have to stop them, the EU and the our Gov­ern­ment.

The UK Gov­ern­ment is blind­ly fol­low­ing the EU and has man­dat­ed 2.5% bio­fu­els at the pump from next April 15th. This will go down in cli­mate jus­tice his­to­ry as April Bio­fools day. Unlike Apartheid South Africa, no one will be able to boy­cott their part in increas­ing glob­al warm­ing.

We need deep real cuts in our trans­port emis­sions … by trav­el­ling less, by using cars less, by using pub­lic trans­port more, by using cycling and walk­ing more, by mak­ing the car indus­try deliv­er strict fuel effi­cien­cy stan­dards, by trans­port pol­i­cy that builds mass tran­sit sys­tems, by social and plan­ning pol­i­cy that helps peo­ple live clos­er to their work and trav­el less, by pro­duc­ing most of our food local­ly and by reduc­ing imports and the vol­ume of trade.

We must resist this ‘mad rush to bio­fu­els’. Today, we will be hand­ing in a let­ter to Gor­don Brown at 10, Down­ing Street with demands for cli­mate jus­tice.

• The UK and EU gov­ern­ments must aban­don all tar­gets for bio­fu­els
• They must ban all imports of bio­fu­els
• They must imple­ment a mora­to­ri­um on grow­ing large-scale bio­fu­els in the EU

There is only one way to stop bio­fu­els from push­ing us into run­away cli­mate change and that is such a mora­to­ri­um. Over 200 NGOs from North and South have signed such a call to the EU, and this week a large num­ber of NGOs from Africa pub­lished their own African Call for an Agro­fu­el Mora­to­ri­um.

This won’t hap­pen just because we ask the gov­ern­ments for it. We are up against the largest cor­po­rate inter­est alliance ever : big oil, big agribusi­ness, chem­i­cal, biotech, car man­u­fac­tur­ers and ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists, with the sup­port of much of the glob­al polit­i­cal elite, includ­ing the top neo­con mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment of the US.

We won’t stop the destruc­tion with­out a large move­ment against agro­fu­els. We don’t want bio­fu­els, AND we don’t want the cli­mate, social and human injus­tice that they will cause. We must suc­ceed for all our oth­er efforts to com­bat cli­mate change to be worth­while.

This is why bio­fu­el­watch is call­ing for a nation­al week of local action against agro­fu­els from 26th Jan­u­ary and would like all of you to con­tribute how­ev­er you can in your area. Not just in Jan­u­ary, but for through­out com­ing years to help us build a grass­roots cam­paign through­out the UK.

Please help us with pub­lic­i­ty and events in your local area. Get one of our leaflets being hand­ed out today and check out our web­site www.biofuelwatch.org.uk.

We must demand that Tesco, and com­pa­nies like them, dis­in­vest from bio­fu­els. They must drop the plans to sell bio­fu­els.

We must resist and force the Gov­ern­ment to lis­ten.

We can defeat Brown’s bio­fu­el­ing bungling dri­ven by his US and EU mas­ters. We can defeat the bio­fu­el mad­ness. Let’s start resist­ing it today.

Let’s now have a min­utes silence for those who are suf­fer­ing for rapid, mas­sive bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion across the Glob­al South, and remem­ber those who have died in pro­tect­ing their land, or from pes­ti­cides, or from star­va­tion, or from pover­ty.

http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

Billboards pasted in Manchester

8.12.2007
Three air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed today in Man­ches­ter with the words “Stop wor­ry­ing about cli­mate change.

Climate guilt remover subvert8.12.2007
Three air­line bill­boards adver­tis­ing cheap flights to euro­pean cities were sub­vert­ed today in Man­ches­ter with the words “Stop wor­ry­ing about cli­mate change. Be hap­py with a free guilt remover™.”