EarthFirst! blockade at coal-fired power plant in Rotterdam, NL

8.12.2007
On Sat­ur­day morn­ing a col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam. This day, Decem­ber 8, has been announced as an inter­na­tion­al action­day in the protest against the coal indus­try. The grow­ing num­ber of coal-fired pow­er plants world­wide and in the Nether­lands at the moment is the biggest threath to the cli­mate. Sec­ond­ly, this action is part of the protest against the plans for a new E.on coal-fired plant, right next to the exist­ing one on the Maasvlak­te.

Maasvlakte lock-ons 2

8.12.2007
On Sat­ur­day morn­ing a col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam. This day, Decem­ber 8, has been announced as an inter­na­tion­al action­day in the protest against the coal indus­try. The grow­ing num­ber of coal-fired pow­er plants world­wide and in the Nether­lands at the moment is the biggest threath to the cli­mate. Sec­ond­ly, this action is part of the protest against the plans for a new E.on coal-fired plant, right next to the exist­ing one on the Maasvlak­te.

Sev­er­al activists have locked them­selves to the con­vey­or-belt which trans­ports the coals to the pow­er­plant. ‘Unfor­tu­nate­ly that won’t mean they’ll shut down the entire pow­er plant. There’s enough sup­ply at the fur­nace to keep it run­ning for a while. If we real­ly man­age to shut down the plant there’ll be enough oth­er plants to cov­er the short­age’, accord­ing to Flip, one of the par­tic­i­pat­ing activists. The activists plan to stay as long as pos­si­ble. They demand the can­cel­la­tion of the con­struc­tion plans for the new E.on coalpow­er­plant.

In the Nether­lands five new coal-fired pow­er plants are planned to be built. E.on is mak­ing a con­cert­ed effort to be the first com­pa­ny to start build­ing next spring. E.on is also plan­ning to build a coal-fired plant in Antwer­pen, Bel­gium. These new pow­er plants do not cor­re­spond at all with the cli­mate-ambi­tions of the Nether­lands and specif­i­cal­ly Rot­ter­dam to reduce CO2 emis­sions. Coals are the most pol­lut­ing ener­gy source pos­si­ble, because apart from CO2, the emis­sions also include heavy met­als, radioac­tive par­ti­cles and oth­er green­house gas­es. Because of this, build­ing a new pow­er plant makes sure any attempt to solve the cli­mate cri­sis will nev­er suc­ceed. Besides, the build­ing of new coal-fired plants inter­feres with the devel­op­ment of sus­tain­able ener­gy. The pol­lut­ing sources fill the ener­gy grid and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment invest­ments will only be used for car­bon cap­ture and stor­age.

The com­pa­ny E.on is run­ning a PR cam­paign, using pret­ty words like ‘Clean Coals’ and ‘the Cap­ture Ready prepa­ra­tion’ of the new plant to defend them­selves. Both these terms have been proved to be based on noth­ing. The min­ing of coals is extreme­ly pol­lut­ing; so there is no such thing as ‘Clean Coals’. Large part­sof the Earth are being destroyed; there is severe pol­lu­tion of water and soil in the min­ing areas of the Unit­ed States, Colum­bia, Indone­sia and South Africa. In the coalmines, min­ers are being exploit­ed and annu­al­ly thou­sands of peo­ple die as a result of dis­as­ters.

The term ‘Cap­ture Ready prepa­ra­tion’ used by E.on is a fraud. A car­bon-cap­tur­ing pow­er plant will use between 24 and 40 per­cent of its pro­duced ener­gy on the cap­ture process. It must there­fore burn more coal to pro­vide the same amount of out­put ener­gy as a non car­bon-cap­tur­ing pow­er plant.

The type of plant E.on is about to build has proven to be extreme­ly unsuit­able for car­bon stor­age. The fumes released by this spe­cif­ic type of plant con­tain many pol­lu­tants and thus are com­pli­cat­ed and expen­sive to treat. E.on’s promise to start cap­tur­ing car­bon ‘as soon as it is tech­ni­cal­ly and com­mer­cial­ly viable’ is there­fore com­plete­ly point­less and has only result­ed in an emp­ty spot on the blue­prints, reserved for a future cap­tur­ing instal­la­tion.

So what if you can­not burn coals as an ener­gy source? Flip: ‘Besides the pos­si­bil­i­ty of decen­tralised and actu­al sus­tain­able ener­gy, it is most of all nec­es­sary to use less pow­er. Sus­tain­able pow­er has its lim­its as well. If we real­ly want to antic­i­pate the deple­tion of nat­ur­al resources and the ensu­ing cli­mat­ic dis­as­ter, we’ll some­how have to find a dif­fer­ent way of liv­ing that won’t include dog­mat­ic eco­nom­ic growth. Play more with less’.

The Dutch Earth­First! action is part of the ‘Shrink or Sink’ cam­paign, fight­ing both the cli­mate and ener­gy cri­sis and rapid­ly decreas­ing biover­si­ty. Direct action against the con­struc­tion of new coal-fired plants is one of the main top­ics of the cam­paign.

Maasvlakte lock-ons locations
Maasvlakte banner

Plane Stupid activists shut down travel agents on route of climate march

Envi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid have shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of today’s Nation­al Cli­mate March in Lon­don as part of the Glob­al Day of Action against cli­mate change.

Climate march travel agents shutEnvi­ron­men­tal activists from direct action group Plane Stu­pid have shut down trav­el agents and air­line offices along the route of today’s Nation­al Cli­mate March in Lon­don as part of the Glob­al Day of Action against cli­mate change.

Plane Stu­pid spokesper­son Michael Kel­ly said,

“These busi­ness­es con­tin­ue, with full sup­port from the gov­ern­ment, to prof­it from wreck­ing our cli­mate.”

The march is set to coin­cide with the UN cli­mate talks in Bali where the British gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to talk big on cli­mate change whilst fail­ing to take mean­ing­ful action at home.

Kel­ly added:

“The government’s col­lu­sion with BAA over the Heathrow con­sul­ta­tion on the third run­way con­cretes over pub­lic debate and irre­spon­si­bly ignores cli­mate warn­ings from the UN Inter-gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change.”

Plane Stu­pid argues that we can­not afford to wait for gov­ern­ments, in bed with the likes of the avi­a­tion indus­try, to face up to the real­i­ties of the cli­mate threat. Today Plane Stu­pid will march as part of the grow­ing move­ment of cli­mate activists who have decid­ed that they must act them­selves to stop cli­mate change.

http://www.planestupid.com

Fossil Fools Day, April 1st 2008

Ris­ing Tide Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for a day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try on April 1st 2008…

Fossil Fools Day advance flierRis­ing Tide Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for a day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try on April 1st 2008…
FOSSIL FOOLS DAY!

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 join with thou­sands around the world in tak­ing one step clos­er to dis­man­tling the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

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

www.fossilfoolsday.org
www.risingtide.org.uk

(More info and resources com­ing soon… for now, put the date in your diary, spread the call-out above far and wide, and start schem­ing!)

All Manchester city centre Flight Centres & Hummer dealership targetted

For peo­ple inter­est­ed in some­thing a lit­tle more direct than the big cli­mate demo in Lon­don tomor­row…

Tonight, all Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre have been super­glued closed, in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don tomor­row. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et”

For peo­ple inter­est­ed in some­thing a lit­tle more direct than the big cli­mate demo in Lon­don tomor­row…

Tonight, all Flight Cen­tre branch­es in Man­ches­ter city cen­tre have been super­glued closed, in time for Sat­ur­day trad­ing and to coin­cide with the cli­mate march in Lon­don tomor­row. They were past­ed with notices say­ing: “Closed — we want your kids to have a plan­et”

The UK’s only Hum­mer deal­er­ship, Bauer Mil­lett, was also locked shut with a D‑lock.

Stick­ers have also start­ed appear­ing all over Man­ches­ter with “The Tide is Ris­ing” and a blue line…see ear­li­er post about a ban­ner drop, http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17886

Earth First!

The Tide Is Rising

7.12.2007
A ban­ner read­ing: ‘THE TIDE IS RISING’ with a blue wave across it now wel­comes all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way. This marks the begin­ning of a num­ber of Cli­mate cam­paigns this week­end.

7.12.2007
A ban­ner read­ing: ‘THE TIDE IS RISING’ with a blue wave across it now wel­comes all those enter­ing the city of Man­ches­ter on the Princess park­way. This marks the begin­ning of a num­ber of Cli­mate cam­paigns this week­end.

In the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing (Fri­day 7th Dec 2007) activists dropped a ban­ner from the pedes­tri­an bridge near Hulme. It was still there at eleven twen­ty and, as far as we know, remains hang­ing at this moment.

Sea lev­els may well rise by 6 metres if the worst reports come true. The 8th Decem­ber is the inter­na­tion­al day for Cli­mate Change. Whether you’re in Lon­don, Man­ches­ter or any where, you can join the tide for change. Use rib­bons, chalk, or any­thing non tox­ic to mark a sym­bol­ic tide line, 1 metre above the ground on trees, fences or any oth­er places this week­end. Let’s make fac­ing this urgent prob­lem unavoid­able.

Fred Pearce in his most recent book ‘The last gen­er­a­tion’ has sight­ed a num­ber of alarm­ing reports from sci­en­tists in both the Artic and Antarc­tic that state ice is melt­ing at an expe­ri­en­tial rate.
If these reports are right we have passed an irre­versible tip­ping point mak­ing sea lev­el ris­es immi­nent (in some reports as much as 6 Metres).

Action needs to be tak­en from the grass roots lev­el to the top.

Be the change!

Women Climate Activists Blockade the Department for Transport

7.12.2007
Women have this morn­ing block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and co-incides with the open­ing of their first ‘con­sul­ta­tion’ exhi­bi­tion.

Women blockade DfTWomen blockade DfT 27.12.2007
Women have this morn­ing block­ad­ed the Depart­ment for Trans­port pre­vent­ing staff from get­ting to work and car­ry­ing out their poli­cies which are cat­a­pult­ing us towards dan­ger­ous run-away cli­mate change. This action comes in response to the Trans­port Sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly con­firm­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s inten­tions to build a third run­way and a sixth ter­mi­nal at Heathrow and co-incides with the open­ing of their first ‘con­sul­ta­tion’ exhi­bi­tion.

This protest is part of a grow­ing direct action move­ment against cli­mate change inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action (1). On Wednes­day over 30 cli­mate activists includ­ing the colum­nist George Mon­biot invad­ed and occu­pied Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. On 28th Novem­ber, pro­test­ers from cli­mate action group Plane Stu­pid dis­rupt­ed the pro­ceed­ings of the Trans­port Select Com­mit­tee who were hear­ing evi­dence from BAA boss, Steven Nel­son and Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter, Jim Fitz­patrick in protest at the Heathrow expan­sion plans. This week­end thou­sands of peo­ple will march on the streets of Lon­don to protest about cli­mate change. This protest is a call to all to stand up and take action against the gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions who are fuel­ing cli­mate chaos.

Why the DfT?

Trans­port is the fastest grow­ing source of cli­mate change gas­es in the UK, now account­ing for 26% of emis­sions (2). In a time when we des­per­ate­ly need to reduce emis­sions, the DfT plans to build more roads and more air­ports encour­ag­ing us to dri­ve and fly more. The DfT was tar­get­ted dur­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action in August, and women have returned today to re-empha­sise the role of our gov­ern­ment in dan­ger­ous trans­port expan­sion plans. Groups will con­tin­ue to return to the DfT until the gov­ern­ment reviews its poli­cies.

Why women?

Women have act­ed today in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the res­i­dents of Sip­son, espe­cial­ly the women who con­tin­ue to cam­paign to pro­tect their homes, despite bul­ly­ing and pres­sure from BAA, and the women all over the world who fight every­day to sur­vive in the face of increas­ing cli­mate chaos.

NO 3rd run­way at Heathrow

Avi­a­tion is already the fastest grow­ing source of UK car­bon diox­ide emis­sions (3), and these emis­sions are released high in the atmos­phere mean­ing we feel their effects imme­di­ate­ly. Heathrow is already the busiest air­port in the world. Build­ing a third run­way will lead to even more flights and more pol­lu­tion. Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty recent­ly con­clud­ed that it will be impos­si­ble to meet the gov­ern­men­t’s own tar­get for a 60 per cent car­bon reduc­tion by 2050 with­out curb­ing avi­a­tion growth (4)

NO M1 Widen­ing

The DfT is build­ing a £5 bil­lion 115 mile long expan­sion of the M1 with an increase of 186,092 tonnes of CO2 every year (5). Is this tak­ing cli­mate change seri­ous­ly? We call for a scrap­ping of the cur­rent and pro­posed schemes up and down the length of the M1.

NO green wash

We call for a reduc­tion in trans­port, and reject dan­ger­ous green wash such as ‘bio­fu­els’ and car­bon off­set­ting. We can­not con­tin­ue with relent­less growth on a finite plan­et. We all need to reduce con­sump­tion, and our car­bon emis­sions. (6)

Jane Wil­son, on the protest says, “The gov­ern­ment does not like to admit it , but we can­not sus­tain our cur­rent lev­els of con­sump­tion or the growth econ­o­my and stop cli­mate change. Its time to stop tin­ker­ing at the edges and wake up to the real­i­ty of the threat & take seri­ous and dras­tic action. We have to cre­ate a soci­ety that is less depen­dent on ener­gy, and that is more local­ly self-suf­fi­cient.”

Notes for Edi­tors:

1 The Camp for Cli­mate Action 2007 (www.climatecamp.org.uk) was a large protest and edu­ca­tion­al event at Heathrow this year, high­light­ing the link between the avi­a­tion indus­try and cli­mate change.

2 The Cam­paign for Bet­ter Trans­port (www.bettertransport.org.uk)

3 Cam­paign for Bet­ter Trans­port

4 Cam­paign for Bet­ter Trans­port

5 Bio­fu­el­watch (www.biofuelwatch.org.uk)

==========================
Update and out­come

In the end: Hav­ing shut the DFT for over two hours, eight women who were locked or glued to the doors of the DFT were arrest­ed, held all day in Bel­gravia Police Sta­tion and then released on bail.

They are all charged with offences under SOCPA (seri­ous organ­ised crime and police act). At least one more was sum­moned to appear under SOCPA, although not arrest­ed.

Total amount of women involved was around twen­ty. They’re all ace and of course this is only the begin­ning of women pitch­ing in to stop cli­mate chaos on their own terms.

–

One of these women, hav­ing been released on bail for SOCPA, was rear­rest­ed at the Dec 8 March in Lon­don, for being in the SOCPA zone!!

She was held until Mon­day 10th when the court saw her and threw out the bail-breach on the grounds that she should nev­er had had such bail con­di­tions.

Anoth­er exam­ple of the MET endear­ing them­selves to us then.

70 stop old growth logging in 3 East Gippsland Coupes

2007-12-06
Today 70 con­ser­va­tion­ists stopped log­ging in three coupes in East Gipp­s­land, Vic­to­ria. The protest is in response to unfilled elec­tion promis­es to pro­tect old growth forests made by the Bracks/Brumby gov­ern­ment over a year ago. Four have attached them­selves to machin­ery halt­ing clear-felling oper­a­tions.

2007-12-06
Today 70 con­ser­va­tion­ists stopped log­ging in three coupes in East Gipp­s­land, Vic­to­ria. The protest is in response to unfilled elec­tion promis­es to pro­tect old growth forests made by the Bracks/Brumby gov­ern­ment over a year ago. Four have attached them­selves to machin­ery halt­ing clear-felling oper­a­tions.

Activists stopped oper­a­tions in Black Cut­tings, Aspen Bat­tery Track and Goon­garah Catch­ment. Cur­rent­ly two peo­ple are locked on to machi­nary in both Aspen Bat­tery Track and Black Cut­tings. Oth­er activists are black waller­by­ing (run­ning around) the coupes avoid­ing Depart­ment of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and Envi­ron­ment (DSE) offi­cers. 20 peo­ple were asked to leave Goon­garah Catch­ment and com­plied with that direc­tion, avoid­ing arrest.

“We are here today to hold politi­cians to account to ful­fil elec­tion promis­es. It is out­ra­geous that the Bracks/Brumby gov­ern­ment have not yet put these areas into reserves. Brum­by needs to act now and solves this issue.” said Mark Tylor spokesper­sons for the group.

Only two per­cent of Victoria’s old growth forests remains. These crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant areas are home to many endan­gered species, includ­ing sooty owl, pow­er­ful owl and long foot­ed potoroo.

“Forestry caus­es a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of Australia’s green­house gas emis­sions. If Labor is seri­ous about tak­ing real action to pre­vent dan­ger­ous cli­mate change they must com­mit to end­ing log­ging of high con­ser­va­tion forests now.”

“The gov­ern­ment needs to stop pan­der­ing to the multi­na­tion­al wood­chip indus­try, and have the courage to do what the sci­ence tells us is nec­es­sary to pro­tect the future sur­vival of all Aus­tralians and the plan­et” con­clud­ed James Ludd.

Ffos y Fran Coal Mine, 5th Dec 2007: activists chained to bulldozers to prevent work on open-cast coal mine (video added)

More than thir­ty cli­mate activists and local res­i­dents this morn­ing took mass direct action to pre­vent exca­va­tion work on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. (1)

open cast lock-onMore than thir­ty cli­mate activists and local res­i­dents this morn­ing took mass direct action to pre­vent exca­va­tion work on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales. (1)

Cli­mate cam­paign­ers from all over Wales (2) joined with local peo­ple from Merthyr Tyd­fil to evade police and secu­ri­ty before tak­ing over the 1,000 acre site on a hill­top near Cardiff. They have chained them­selves to bull­doz­ers and oth­er heavy machin­ery to pre­vent work on the mine and have unfurled large ban­ners. They’ve pledged to pre­vent work on the site for as long as they can by climb­ing onto, and chain­ing them­selves to the 1,300 horse­pow­er yel­low dig­gers. The lead­ing envi­ron­men­tal­ist and author, George Mon­biot, is amongst their ranks.

Cli­mate Pro­tes­tor, Tim Hel­weg-Larsen, from Mach­nyn­l­leth, said:

“Gor­don Brown’s offi­cials this week jet off to Bali for UN talks on cut­ting car­bon emis­sions but at home they’re try­ing to drag us into a new coal age.”

He added:

“Coal is the filth­i­est fuel known to man and projects like this mine could destroy all our chances of tack­ling glob­al warm­ing. The bat­tle over this hill­top in Wales is a fight for the sta­bil­i­ty of the glob­al cli­mate and it epit­o­mis­es this government’s hypocrisy on cli­mate change.” (3)

Merthyr res­i­dent, Leon Stan­field, explained:

“We’ve protest­ed this mine in all the con­ven­tion­al ways. Now we’re turn­ing to direct action as a last resort. This project is wreck­ing both the local and the glob­al envi­ron­ment and is putting the health of our com­mu­ni­ty and its chil­dren at risk.”

Over 10,000 local peo­ple peti­tioned against the pit.

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

(1) Back­ground about the mine is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/09/energy
Miller Argent is the con­sor­tium dig­ging this pit. They are min­ing for 11 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the site. When this is burned, it will emit more than 30 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide. The edge of the mine pit will be just 36 metres from people’s homes.

(2) Activists are from the group who organ­ised the Camp for Cli­mate Action out­side Heathrow dur­ing the sum­mer. www.climatecamp.org.uk

(3) The gov­ern­ment has con­vened a UK coal forum to “bring for­ward ways of strength­en­ing the indus­try, and work­ing to ensure the UK has the right frame­work to secure the long term future of coal fired gen­er­a­tion.”
http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file39568.pdf (page8)

- ENDS —

Stream­ing for online view­ing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuCn5HMI2M4

Full rez screen­ing copy
http://blip.tv/file/get/Undercurrents-PolarBearsPopulateWelshCoalMine312.mp4

International Hoax Targets US Business Consortium Amidst Bali Climate Negotiations

Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90 per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.

Cli­mate activists with the inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide net­work embar­rassed the U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a lob­by group com­posed of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, by dis­trib­ut­ing a spoof press release declar­ing that the consortium’s mem­bers had com­mit­ted to a 90 per­cent reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. In addi­tion, the spoof release called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of all new coal-fired pow­er plants.

“To sta­bi­lize our cli­mate, reduc­tions need to be based on sci­ence, not on cre­at­ing wind­fall prof­its for the world’s largest pol­luters,” said Matt Leonard. “Lead­ing sci­en­tists say deci­sive action must hap­pen now to reduce our emis­sions. How­ev­er, cor­po­rate inter­ests have stymied sub­stan­tive action and are derail­ing gen­uine efforts of civ­il soci­ety to ade­quate­ly address cli­mate change.”

The fake press release was picked up by sev­er­al media out­lets, includ­ing the Dal­las Morn­ing News, UK Hem­scott and sev­er­al blogs before jour­nal­ists real­ized that USCAP mem­bers would nev­er agree to such pro­gres­sive reduc­tions in car­bon emis­sions or a mora­to­ri­um on coal plants. Fur­ther­more, Ris­ing Tide activists have done dozens of inter­views with media and even received calls from real USCAP mem­ber com­pa­nies about the web­site and press release.

Ris­ing Tide used the pho­ny web­site www.climateactionpartnership.org to dis­trib­ute the release, which mim­ic­ked USCAP’s site, www.us-cap.org. USCAP’s mem­bers include many of the largest US cor­po­ra­tions, includ­ing Alcoa, BP, Cater­pil­lar, Cono­coPhillips, Dow, DuPont, Ford, Gen­er­al Elec­tric, Gen­er­al Motors Corp., John­son & John­son, Pep­si­Co, PG&E, Shell and Xerox.

The hoax was timed to coin­cide with the open­ing of a major Unit­ed Nations cli­mate sum­mit in Bali in an effort to expose the dis­pro­por­tion­ate influ­ence of large cor­po­ra­tions on the cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions and the lack of ini­tia­tive from cor­po­ra­tions on reduc­ing fos­sil fuel use. Ris­ing Tide said that they will now tran­si­tion the site into an archive of envi­ron­men­tal mis­deeds and human rights abus­es of USCAP’s mem­bers.

“USCAP says it is seri­ous about stop­ping cli­mate change, but these com­pa­nies have not put their mon­ey where their mouth is,” said Bri­an Sloan of Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca. “It’s time to base our poli­cies on sci­ence and the safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ties, not on someone’s bot­tom-line.”

Ris­ing Tide is an inter­na­tion­al net­work of all vol­un­teer grass­roots activists who tar­get cor­po­ra­tions respon­si­ble both for cli­mate change and for block­ing efforts to find solu­tions to it. Activists in Aus­tralia, the U.S., Cana­da, the Unit­ed King­dom and Indone­sia par­tic­i­pat­ed in the hoax.

###

SPOOF PRESS RELEASE
For Imme­di­ate Release
Decem­ber 3, 2007

Con­tacts:
Joan Adams, Par­sons & Fis­ch­er, 202–684-8097, jadams@parsonsfischer.com
Jack Esco­bar, Par­sons & Fis­ch­er, 202–683-8451, jescobar@parsonsfischer.com

Infor­ma­tion at www.climateactionpartnership.org

MAJOR US BUSINESSES ANNOUNCE COMMITMENT TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BY 90%

Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Dec. 3, 2007 — The U.S. Cli­mate Action Part­ner­ship (USCAP), a con­sor­tium of 33 promi­nent busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, announced today a com­mit­ment amongst its mem­bers to a 90% reduc­tion in green­house gas emis­sions by 2050. The announce­ment was timed to coin­cide with the open­ing of a major Unit­ed Nations cli­mate sum­mit in Bali.

“In an effort to encour­age deci­sive action in Bali this week, USCAP’s mem­bers have com­mit­ted to a 90% reduc­tion in their green­house gas emis­sions by 2050,” said Matt Leop­ard, a spokesper­son for the con­sor­tium. “This com­mit­ment should send a strong mes­sage to the assem­bled coun­tries and busi­ness­es about the type of reduc­tions need­ed to stop glob­al warm­ing.”

USCAP’s mem­bers include many US mar­ket lead­ers such as Alcoa, BP, Cater­pil­lar, Cono­coPhillips, Dow, DuPont, Ford, Gen­er­al Elec­tric, Gen­er­al Motors Corp., John­son & John­son, Pep­si­Co, PG&E, Shell and Xerox. USCAP’s goal is to fur­ther pub­lic pol­i­cy that will reduce green­house gas emis­sions and pro­tect the cli­mate.

The announce­ment from USCAP’s mem­bers also includes a mid-term com­mit­ment to reduce green­house gas emis­sions 45% from 1990 lev­els by 2020. Fol­low­ing the leads of NASA’s top cli­mate sci­en­tist James Hansen, as well as bi-par­ti­san polit­i­cal lead­ers, USCAP is also call­ing for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of new coal-fired pow­er plants.

Toward this end, USCAP is urg­ing the US and oth­er indus­tri­al­ized nations to enact a pol­i­cy frame­work for manda­to­ry reduc­tions of green­house gas emis­sions from all sec­tors of the econ­o­my. USCAP has pro­duced a com­pre­hen­sive set of prin­ci­ples and rec­om­men­da­tions for sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly effec­tive, social­ly respon­si­ble cli­mate pol­i­cy. This doc­u­ment, titled A Call to Action1, has been released by USCAP to under­score the urgent need for a com­pre­hen­sive pol­i­cy shift on ener­gy and cli­mate.

USCAP is the first con­sor­tium of major busi­ness­es to make such a com­mit­ment in hopes that it will yield to pol­i­cy deci­sions to accel­er­ate the deploy­ment of zero-emis­sion tech­nolo­gies and ener­gy effi­cien­cy. In par­tic­u­lar, USCAP is pro­mot­ing land­mark leg­is­la­tion for a gov­ern­ment fund­ed “Sus­tain­able Job Corps.” This polit­i­cal­ly pop­u­lar pro­gram would cre­ate 5 mil­lion jobs build­ing a new pub­lic util­i­ty grid based on renew­able tech­nolo­gies, with a goal of pro­duc­ing 50% of the US ener­gy sup­ply by 2020.

“USCAP has offered a plan for the US to lead by exam­ple in efforts to pro­tect the cli­mate,” said Matt Leop­ard. “The world gov­ern­ments assem­bled in Bali this week should begin a rapid tran­si­tion to zero-emis­sion ener­gy sources and com­mit to a 90% reduc­tion from 1990 lev­els by 2050″.2

USCAP’s web­site is www.climateactionpartnership.org.

http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org

Switzerland: Police brutality against RTS. 245 activists detained

3.12.2007
Near­ly 500 riot cops with tanks and water can­nons stopped a peace­ful Reclaim The Streets par­ty. The cops used pep­per­spray, non-lethal guns and did beat peo­ple. They detanied 245 peo­ple.

Swiss RTS 13.12.2007
Near­ly 500 riot cops with tanks and water can­nons stopped a peace­ful Reclaim The Streets par­ty. The cops used pep­per­spray, non-lethal guns and did beat peo­ple. They detanied 245 peo­ple.

Police hunt­ed peo­ple through the streets. In a park they sur­round­ed hun­dreds of activists. Each activist was filmed and brought to a near­by prison. The prison was absolute­ly new and it seems it was con­struct­ed for arrest­ing pro­test­ers. After some hours no one was allowed to go to the toi­let or to ask for drink­ing water. The detainees were forced to be naked. After the arrest peo­ple were brought by police not back into the city of Luzern — but in neigh­bour­ing vil­lages. Quote of a cop: “We don´t want you in the city”.

Repres­sion is on a new lev­el in Switzer­land. Time to act.