CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 74, DECEMBER 2007

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-

1) RISING TIDE ANNOUNCES FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — 1.4.08
2) NATIONAL CLIMATE MARCH, BRISTOL CYCLE CIRCUS, GLOBAL DOA — 8.12.07

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-

1) RISING TIDE ANNOUNCES FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — 1.4.08
2) NATIONAL CLIMATE MARCH, BRISTOL CYCLE CIRCUS, GLOBAL DOA — 8.12.07
3) RECLAIM THE PLANET PARTY — BATH, 1.12.07
4) THE WORST EU LOBBYING AWARDS — BRUSSELS, 4.12.07
5) CLIMATE CAMPER’S TRIAL — UXBRIDGE, 8/9.1.07
6) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08
7) GREENHOUSE BRITAIN EXHIBITION — WINTER 07–08
8) POPULAR EDUCATION GATHERING — HEBDEN BRIDGE, 18–20.1.08
9) LOW IMPACT COURSES — BUCKS, JANUARY 2008
10) WOODHEAD TUNNEL ACTION IDEAS? — 8.12.07
11) PROTECT TASMANIA’S FORESTS — JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008
12) CONTACT VEDANTA — EMAIL ACTION
———————————————-

RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) BUY NOTHING DAY RAT RACE — NORWICH, 24.11.07
2) LRT PROTESTORS INVADE ETS SUMMIT — 21.11.07
3) COAL TRAIN BLOCKADE — AUSTRALIA, 19.11.07
4) PLANE STUPID DISRUPT BAA PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE — 28.11.07
5) ACTIVISTS SHUT DOWN COAL POWER PLANT — AUSTRALIA, 15.11.07
6) TOTAL OUT OF BURMA — NATIONWIDE, 24.11.07
7) DOVER CLIMATE ACTION — 4.11.07
8) SOLIDARITY AGAINST SHELL — UK, NOVEMBER 07
9) LEGAL BLOW TO BP OVER TEXAS CITY BLAST — 21.11.07
10) PERMACULTURE UPDATE — NOVEMBER 07
11) CLIMATE JUSTICE TRIBUNAL REPORT — COLOMBIA, 29.10.07

———————————————-

UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-

1) RT ANNOUNCES FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — 1.4.08
FOSSIL FOOLS DAY, April 1st 2008
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.

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.

www.fossilfoolsday.org.uk /
www.risingtide.org.uk http://www.risingtide.org.uk/>

2) NATIONAL CLIMATE MARCH & BRISTOL CYCLE CIRCUS FOR GLOBAL DOA — 8.12.07

As the UN cli­mate talks take place in Bali, join peo­ple all around the world to demand urgent action to pre­vent cat­a­stroph­ic desta­bil­i­sa­tion of glob­al cli­mate.
In Lon­don, assem­ble 12 noon Mill­bank for main march. [West­min­ster Tube].
The Anti-Avi­a­tion (inc. No Run­way 3 at Heathrow) bloc meets in Vic­to­ria Gar­dens at 12

Ral­ly at US embassy 2.30pm. http://www.campaigncc.org

The Shell’s Wild Lie exhi­bi­tion will fea­ture at the Lon­don demo after-par­ty at the Syn­er­gy Cen­tre:
www.thesynergycentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=59&Itemid=109,
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk//content/view/41/2/

This will be one of many glob­al cli­mate demon­stra­tions tak­ing place on the 8th. There are actions planned in 80 coun­tries.
http://www.globalclimatecampaign.org

One of the events planned in the UK is a cycle-relay of mes­sages from Tran­si­tion Towns and Cli­mate Friend­ly Vil­lages in Corn­wall to Par­lia­ment.
http://www.transitionfalmouth.org.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=29

Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide are hav­ing a Cycle Cir­cus — Join a colour­ful crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple and ped­dlers of all shapes and sizes and let our cycling cir­cus upstage and reveal Bris­tol’s cli­mate crim­i­nals. Meet: Col­lege
Green, 1pm.
http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

3) RECLAIM THE PLANET PARTY — BATH, 1.12.07

Bath Activist Net­work are hav­ing a demo/party high­light­ing rad­i­cal alter­na­tives to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion.

Meet at Abbey Court­yard at 11.30 am, then mov­ing through Bath say­ing hel­lo to some of our favourite plan­et trash­ers, play­ing music, shar­ing food, play­ing games and mak­ing mis­chief!
http://www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

4) THE WORST EU LOBBYING AWARDS — BRUSSELS, 4.12.07

The annu­al award for decep­tive, manip­u­la­tive and uneth­i­cal lob­by­ing. This year there is a spe­cial Green­wash Prize. The win­ners will be announced at a cer­e­mo­ny in Brus­sels on 4th Decem­ber.
http://www.worstlobby.eu http://www.worstlobby.eu/>

5) CLIMATE CAMPER’S TRIAL — UXBRIDGE, 8/9.1.07

The case involves the arrest of Pen­ny, who glued her­self to the gates of the Cli­mate Camp to pre­vent re-entry by police offi­cers after mass action had per­suad­ed them to leave. Sol­i­dar­i­ty is urgent­ly request­ed for this court appear­ance. The tri­al is sched­uled to begin at Uxbridge mag­is­trates court, 10am on the 8th Jan­u­ary.
There will be a pop up cli­mate camp out­side court, more vol­un­teers are need­ed. Crash space is being organ­ised for the night before.
www.climatecamp.org.uk

6) CLIMATE CAMP NATIONAL GATHERING — LEEDS, 26–27.1.08

The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Jan 26–27 in Leeds. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/nextmeeting.php

7) GREENHOUSE BRITAIN EXHIBITION — WINTER 07–08

This exhi­bi­tion address­es the envi­ron­men­tal, polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges of ris­ing sea lev­els caused by cli­mate change. The cen­tral fea­ture will be a mul­ti­me­dia video pro­jec­tion onto a giant relief mod­el of main­land Britain, where the ris­ing waters are seen to redraw the coast­line.
http://greenhousebritain.greenmuseum.org/tour/

8) POPULAR EDUCATION GATHERING — HEBDEN BRIDGE, 18–20.1.08

Come and learn tech­niques and be inspired by pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion, share new skills and talk about how we can expand rad­i­cal edu­ca­tion net­works in UK and beyond.
http://www.trapese.org/

9) LOW IMPACT COURSES — BUCKS, JANUARY 2008

Low impact small­hold­ing / How to make biodiesel / Heat­ing with wood / Prun­ing & care of old fruit trees. For more details, see:
http://www.lowimpact.org/
http://www.lowimpact.org/course_outline_pruning_and_care_of_fruit_trees.htm>

10) WOODHEAD TUNNEL ACTION IDEAS? — 8.12.07

Whilst Nation­al and local gov­ern­ment have pushed for a destruc­tive Bypass to the A628 trunk road, Wood­head remains shut and alter­na­tives shut out. The own­ers of the Tun­nel, Nation­al Grid, are mov­ing to close it for good and
destroy any hope of future alter­na­tives to the car mon­ster.

A walk/bike ride is planned for Decem­ber 8th, to coin­cide with the nation­al cli­mate march, but oth­er ideas for action are most wel­come.
http://nomottrambypass.blogspot.com/2007/11/say-goodbye-to-woodhead.html
http://nomottrambypass.blogspot.com/or>

11) PROTECT TASMANIA’S FORESTS — JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008

Get involved in the cam­paign to pro­tect Tas­ma­ni­a’s old growth forests.

Don’t fly but still want to help? Then please con­sid­er hold­ing a film night or fund-rais­er, or become a mem­ber of the Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre.
http://www.huon.org/

12) CONTACT VEDANTA — EMAIL ACTION

Sol­i­dar­i­ty would be huge­ly appre­ci­at­ed as Indi­a’s Supreme Court looks like it is going to rule in favour of British min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta to be able to mine the Niyami­giri Hills in Oris­sa. This could lead to the death
of thou­sands of peo­ple and will set a prece­dent for the min­ing of all of Indi­a’s forests.

25,000 farm­ers are to form a human chain around one of the worlds largest dams in protest against this devel­op­ment.

Feel like con­tact­ing Vedan­ta to tell them how you feel?

By email; investorrelations@vedantaresources.com

By post; Vedan­ta Resources plc
16 Berke­ley Street
Lon­don W1J 8DZ

http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/6348

———————————————-

RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-

1) BUY NOTHING DAY RAT RACE — NORWICH, 24.11.07

Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide marked Buy Noth­ing Day with a rat race. Activists cre­at­ed a mobile rat race that stopped off at the city’s busiest malls and high streets.
Peo­ple in rat cos­tumes scur­ried hith­er and thith­er through a maze built from plac­ards read­ing; Work Hard­er, Earn More Mon­ey, Buy More Things, Keep Going… Mean­while Fat Cats advised that hap­pi­ness was just around the cor­ner if the rats would only keep shop­ping!
A thou­sand leaflets were hand­ed out and many passers-by expressed their sup­port.
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/237
https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386382.html

For reports of Buy Noth­ing Day in Leeds, Lon­don, Edin­burgh and Man­ches­ter see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17851

2) LRT PROTESTORS INVADE ETS SUMMIT — 21.11.07

On Novem­ber 21st Lon­don Ris­ing Tide inter­rupt­ed del­e­gates at the Avi­a­tion Emis­sions Trad­ing Sum­mit, held at Sel­f­ridges Hotel, cen­tral Lon­don. Free shares for pre-Emis­sions Trad­ing Scheme atmos­phere were giv­en out to each
del­e­gate at the con­fer­ence.
https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386382.html>The pro­test­ers were high­light­ing the huge risk of accel­er­at­ed cli­mate change through flights.

The ETS scheme will allow the indus­try to claim envi­ron­men­tal cre­den­tials when in fact stop­ping air­port expan­sion and reduc­ing flights is what is required. The fact that these per­mits will be auc­tioned at a bar­gain price will fur­ther add to the lack of impact that this scheme will have on the avi­a­tion indus­try.
http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk/node/399

3) COAL TRAIN BLOCKADE — AUSTRALIA, 19.11.07

Ris­ing Tide activists block­ad­ed a coal train on its way into the world’s biggest coal export port, at Koor­a­gang Island in New­cas­tle Har­bour. No trains are able to enter Koor­a­gang Coal Ter­mi­nal because of the block­ade.
“When faced with an over­whelm­ing prob­lem and a Gov­ern­ment unwill­ing or unable to take action to solve the prob­lem, it is the duty of all cit­i­zens to take action on the community’s behalf…There is no way Aus­tralia can con­tin­ue pass­ing the buck on cli­mate change. We are the biggest per capi­ta emit­ter of green­house gas­es and the biggest coal exporter in the world.”
(spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide, Georgina Woods)
http://www.risingtide.org.au/coaltrainblockade

4) PLANE STUPID DISRUPT BAA PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE — 28.11.07

Cli­mate activists opposed to plans for a third run­way at Heathrow dis­rupt­ed a Par­lia­men­tary inquiry going on inside the House of Com­mons. 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.
The team of pro­test­ers, wear­ing t‑shirts embla­zoned with No Third Run­way, hand­ed out copies of the Tyn­dall Cen­tre cli­mate change report about the impacts of fly­ing on glob­al warm­ing.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/plane-stupid-disrupt-parliamentary-committee-future-baa

5) ACTIVISTS SHUT DOWN COAL POWER PLANT — AUSTRALIA, 15.11.07

Green­peace activists occu­pied the Mun­morah coal-fired pow­er sta­tion today. A Green­peace activist pushed the but­ton to stop the con­vey­or belt. Now it’s time to push the emer­gency switch on all coal pow­er plants.
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/news/Climate-change/coal-kills-shut-down
https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386382.html>

6) TOTAL OUT OF BURMA — NATIONWIDE, 24.11.07

On Sat­ur­day 24 Novem­ber, protests were held at 36 Total petrol sta­tions across the UK. The protests called upon Total Oil to pull out of Bur­ma and stop financ­ing the Burmese mil­i­tary regime. Protest loca­tions includ­ed Brad­ford, Brighton, Chatham, Cardiff, Guernsey, Lon­don, Man­ches­ter, Oxford and Vir­gina Water. Some sta­tions were block­ad­ed and all the protests received great sup­port from the motor­ing and pedes­tri­an pub­lic.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17852

Also on the 13th Novem­ber, cam­paign­ers block­ad­ed a Total garage on Oxford Road, Man­ches­ter. http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17820

7) DOVER CLIMATE ACTION — 4.11.07

In the ear­ly hours of a Sun­day morn­ing, cli­mate activists made a bold state­ment about glob­al warm­ing with a ban­ner drop from a four-storey build­ing.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/6352

8) SOLIDARITY AGAINST SHELL — UK, NOVEMBER 07

While the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to flare gas in Nige­ria claim­ing lack of funds, peo­ple are tak­ing action…

On the 9th, sup­port­ers of the Inter­na­tion­al strug­gle against Shell demon­strat­ed out­side the Shell Gas offices in Duck­man­ton, Nr Chester­field with ban­ners, noise and images of the com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle in Ire­land. They leaflet­ed the work­ers at the offices and demand­ed an end to the ongo­ing vio­lence, intim­i­da­tion and bribery that the Shell project has unleashed on the local peo­ple of Mayo, NW Ire­land.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17808

In sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Ross­port and Nige­ria, the Shell petrol sta­tion on Dal­ry Road, Edin­burgh was block­ad­ed for 2 hours on the 11th by 20 peo­ple includ­ing mem­bers of the Clown Army. The Comis­ton Shell Petrol
Sta­tion was sub­ject­ed to a night-time redec­o­ra­tion.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/17805
Ross­port: Anoth­er Sea­son of Resis­tance is an excel­lent indy­media update.
https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386253.html

Also in the news; The Adver­tis­ing Stan­dards Agency (ASA) has upheld a com­plaint by Friends of the Earth against Shell over the oil com­pa­ny’s claims that it uses its waste CO2 to grow flow­ers.
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/shell_advert_is_ruled_misl_01112007.html

9) LEGAL BLOW TO BP OVER TEXAS CITY BLAST — 21.11.07

BP’s hopes of draw­ing a line under its prob­lems in the US after agree­ing a $380m (£184m) set­tle­ment with the author­i­ties have been dealt a blow by a legal chal­lenge over the fatal explo­sion at its Texas City refin­ery. An
attor­ney for vic­tims of the blast, has asked a fed­er­al judge to reject the set­tle­ment, say­ing it is “shock­ing­ly lenient”.
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk//content/view/42/2/

10) PERMACULTURE UPDATE — NOVEMBER 07

Novem­ber ebul­letin from the Per­ma­cul­ture Asso­ci­a­tion (Britain).
http://www.permaculture.org.uk/ebulletin.php

11) CLIMATE JUSTICE TRIBUNAL REPORT — COLOMBIA, 29.10.07

For a report on the grass-roots Tri­bunal into Cli­mate Jus­tice in Bogotá, see;
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=26987&search_text=colombia

———-

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

END

Sizewell Nuclear Power Blockade

1.12.2007
At 6:50 am this morn­ing 8 sleepy pro­tes­tors arrived at the gates of Sizewell A and B in Suf­folk. What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing ‘nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos’ and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.

Sizewell 11.12.2007
At 6:50 am this morn­ing 8 sleepy pro­tes­tors arrived at the gates of Sizewell A and B in Suf­folk. What else would you do at this time in the morn­ing at a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, oth­er than lay on the road, lock your­selves togeth­er, unfurl your ban­ner read­ing ‘nuclear pow­er is not the answer to cli­mate chaos’ and wait 15 min­utes for the secu­ri­ty to notice you.

As the shift change began, we lay com­fort­ably on the wet and cold road, and only one work­er threat­ened to run us over.
The griffins arrived (civ­il nuclear police), Suf­folk police, and a cou­ple of gnomes (or maybe secu­ri­ty peo­ple). Appar­ent­ly, peo­ple want­ed to go to work, and so the police asked us to move. We declined.
After 2 and a half hours of shift change dis­rup­tion (job done!) we made a deal with the cop­pers that we could leave, with all of our equip­ment, not get arrest­ed, and be free to come and do it again anoth­er day. Bizarrely, the police agreed to this. Watch the video below of what hap­pened just after release – appar­ent­ly, they couldn’t arrest us under the human rights act – pro­por­tion­al­i­ty and all that, innit.

Videos:
The rea­sons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i7-Z3wdjAM
Inter­ac­tions with the police http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57OiMfCGC94
Leav­ing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnPMcvj7BBQ

Below is the press release we sent out.

This week it was announced that Sizewell is one of the four sites pro­posed for the new build of nuclear pow­er plants. Brown indi­cat­ed that large gov­ern­ment incen­tives for new nuclear sta­tions will be promised in the new year. These would include a plan­ning reform bill that will speed up the plan­ning process. The pro­test­ers say that this will take away the abil­i­ty to refuse per­mis­sion on a local lev­el and that many safe­ty fea­tures were intro­duced dur­ing the exten­sive plan­ning phase for Sizewell B.

One of the pro­test­ers, Peter Lux from Nor­wich said, “Gor­don Browns state­ment is com­plete­ly at odds with what we should be doing to com­bat cli­mate change. The pro­posed avi­a­tion pol­i­cy with the expan­sion of Heathrow will cause sev­er­al times more green­house gas emis­sions than could pos­si­bly be saved by replac­ing our exist­ing nuclear pow­er sta­tions even if nuclear pow­er was car­bon neu­tral which it is not.”

Anoth­er pro­test­er said: “It is so frus­trat­ing to think that we do not even have a democ­ra­cy when it comes to our ener­gy needs and use. That’s why we have to come and take direct action, how can we sit back and watch when we know this is the wrong route to be tak­ing?.” Said Mell Har­ri­son, one of the pro­test­ers and Cam­paigns Coor­di­na­tor for East­ern Region CND. She went on “The gov­ern­ment are going ahead with build­ing new nuclear pow­er sta­tions with­out prop­er pub­lic debate and con­sul­ta­tion. All you ever hear from the Gov­ern­ment is about our grow­ing ener­gy needs, but the real answer is ener­gy con­ser­va­tion and more sus­tain­able life styles. For exam­ple we hear about China’s ever grow­ing ener­gy needs, but it’s the West’s desire for more cheap goods from Chi­na that is one of the biggest rea­sons for their car­bon emis­sions.”
Sizewell B was the last nuclear reac­tor to be built in the UK and was com­plet­ed in 1995. It took 15 years to com­plete, cost over £3billion with about £800 mil­lion in cost over­runs, which result­ed main­ly from addi­tion­al safe­ty fea­tures.
The nuclear indus­try also suf­fered a set­back ear­li­er this month when it was announced that the Nuclear Decom­mis­sion­ing Author­i­ty was unable able to say what the costs of clean­ing up Britain’s nuclear pow­er sta­tions would reach, but last month it raised its esti­mate by more than 12 per cent to £72.7 bil­lion. This ris­ing cost will be met by the tax­pay­er rather than the nuclear indus­try.

plunk@hushmail.com
http://www.easterncnduk.org

Maniac Motorist Marrs Mass in Glasgow

Last Fri­day’s Crit­i­cal Mass in Glas­gow was marred and cut short slight­ly by an assault on one of the rid­ers. Not over­bur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of a car (reg. no X754…) and pulled the cyclist off his bike.

Glasgow CM Nov. 07Last Fri­day’s Crit­i­cal Mass in Glas­gow was marred and cut short slight­ly by an assault on one of the rid­ers. Not over­bur­dened with fes­tive spir­it, a mid­dle-aged woman leant out of a car (reg. no X754…) and pulled the cyclist off his bike.

After gath­er­ing as usu­al, defy­ing rain and the inva­sion of George Square by a St andrews day icerink and a mil­lion Saltires, 20 cyclists went for their reg­u­lar ride around. About 0 min­utes into the event the atmos­phere turned nasty while head­ing up St Vin­cent Street.

After attempt­ing to dri­ve in between the Massers, always a dan­ger­ous and counter-pro­duc­tive thing to do, the sil­ver car near­ly hit a rid­er. after that and a short con­ver­sa­tion, the car’s pas­sen­ger, a mid­dle-aged blonde woman in a red jack­et grabbed the cyclist by the shoul­der, jerked him off of his bike.

The car with a reg­is­tra­tion num­ber begin­ning X754 and end­ing in either LGG or a sim­i­lar sound­ing com­bi­na­tion of let­ters, then sped off up the hill. a rid­er caught up at the next set of traf­fic lights (always hap­pens) but was unable to get a clear pho­to­graph of the vio­lent crim­i­nal and her accom­plice, who turned right up Pitt Street and got away.

Crit­i­cal Massers regrouped to catch breath on the pave­ment, then most of them con­tin­ued to ride for anoth­er 20 min­utes or so. Includ­ing the assault­ed cyclist, not seri­ous­ly hurt but slight­ly shak­en and, giv­en the police’s inac­tion over a pre­vi­ous assault, unlike­ly to both­er press­ing charges. From Argyle Street, past the most pol­lut­ed site in the city, over the riv­er and back over the foot­bridge to the pub for a warm­ing and well-earned drink.

“Motorist breaks law with impuni­ty.” It’s hard­ly a news sto­ry, as you can see from this pho­to­graph of a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent car on the same road. Two peo­ple in the car, wet road, lengthy stop­ping dis­tance, yet it’s the dri­ver who’s talk­ing on the mobile phone. Anoth­er idiot endan­ger­ing my life and my friends’ lives while slow­ly poi­son­ing the air we all share. Where’s the choice in lifestyle choice there?

While the assault might cause Crit­i­cal Massers to think more deeply about tac­tics, there’s no doubt that more than ever it’s a vital part of the bat­tle for qual­i­ty of life in Glas­gow.

Meets at George Square, 5:30pm for a 6:00pm depar­ture on the last Fri­day of every month.

Plane Stupid Disrupt Parliamentary Committee In Commons

28.11.2007
3.15pm — Cli­mate activists opposed to plans for a third run­way at Heathrow this after­noon dis­rupt­ed a Par­lia­men­tary inquiry going on inside the House of Com­mons. Pro­tes­tors 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.

3rd runway parliamentary committee disrupted28.11.2007
3.15pm — Cli­mate activists opposed to plans for a third run­way at Heathrow this after­noon dis­rupt­ed a Par­lia­men­tary inquiry going on inside the House of Com­mons. Pro­tes­tors 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.

The team of pro­tes­tors wore t‑shirts embla­zoned with “No Third Run­way” inter­rupt­ed the inquiry into “The future of BAA” and hand­ed out copies of a Tyn­dall Cen­tre cli­mate change report about the impacts of fly­ing on glob­al warm­ing.

Plane Stu­pid accuse the Gov­ern­ment of pre-judg­ing the deci­sion on the Third Run­way and ignor­ing recent sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence about the impacts air­port expan­sion would bring upon cli­mate change.

Activist for Plane Stu­pid, Richard George, said:

“The Gov­ern­ment are spin­ning that they want an open and thor­ough con­sul­ta­tion on expand­ing Heathrow but they’re ignor­ing mass oppo­si­tion and sci­en­tists’ warn­ings and are col­lud­ing with BAA to con­crete over pub­lic debate.”

He added:

“Despite over­whelm­ing evi­dence of the impact of car­bon emis­sions from avi­a­tion — the gov­ern­ment are delib­er­ate­ly ignor­ing con­cerns about cli­mate change. The plan for a third run­way flies in the face of the sci­ence and were it approved it would pol­lute more than the whole of Kenya!”

MORE INFORMATION/INTERVIEWS:

www.planestupid.com
press@planestupid.com

You can watch the action at:
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/VideoPlayer.aspx?meetingId=488&rel=ok

Workshop and Building Weekend, this weekend at Bilston Glen

You are invit­ed to the Bil­ston Glen Work­shop and Build­ing Week­end!

This Week­end — Fri­day 30th to Sun­day 2nd
Come down for the whole week­end or for how­ev­er much you can man­age.
Learn new skills and help us with some of our on-going projects in Bil­ston Glen

You are invit­ed to the Bil­ston Glen Work­shop and Build­ing Week­end!

This Week­end — Fri­day 30th to Sun­day 2nd
Come down for the whole week­end or for how­ev­er much you can man­age.
Learn new skills and help us with some of our on-going projects in Bil­ston Glen

What’s on:
# Learn how to climb
# Habi­tat enhance­ment for birds (rel­e­vant info — www.rspb.org.uk)
# Gar­den­ing
# Treeplant­i­ng
# Build­ing new sleep­ing spaces
# Dig, dig, dig
# Urban For­ag­ing (tour of the finest bil­ston skips!)
# Small par­ty on the Sat­ur­day night

Come to the woods, bil­ston always needs you!

Also in a cou­ple of week’s we’ll be hav­ing a bil­ston evening at the For­est Cafe. More info to come.

Links
http://bilstonglen-abs.org.uk
http://www.myspace.com

Golf course in Sydney dug in with warning

24.11.2007
The anony­mous vis­i­tors were clear about why they caused the dam­age they did. “Warn­ing!: you bas­tards kill one bird and we will destroy all your greens at our leisure. We will be watch­ing and wait­ing” read a note on a piece of card­board that was stuffed into one of the holes.

24.11.2007
The anony­mous vis­i­tors were clear about why they caused the dam­age they did. “Warn­ing!: you bas­tards kill one bird and we will destroy all your greens at our leisure. We will be watch­ing and wait­ing” read a note on a piece of card­board that was stuffed into one of the holes.

Syd­ney, Aus­tralia — Van­dals vis­it­ed the War­ringah Golf Club over the week­end and dur­ing the night wrecked exten­sive dam­age on four putting greens and dug holes in three oth­ers. The anony­mous vis­i­tors were clear about why they caused the dam­age they did. “Warn­ing!: you bas­tards kill one bird and we will destroy all your greens at our leisure. We will be watch­ing and wait­ing” read a note on a piece of card­board that was stuffed into one of the holes.

Ani­mal rights advo­cates and neigh­bours have been in an uproar since the club hired a marks­man to shoot native wood ducks who land on the course. The ducks are con­sid­ered by the golfers to be a nui­sance because the make small holes in the turf as they for­age for food. The club and some employ­ees have been inun­dat­ed with phone calls and emails since the shoot­er was hired.

Totally Immoral — A Day of Action against Total Oil

The Total out of Bur­ma Day of Action took place on Sat­ur­day 24 Novem­ber. Protests were held at 36 Total petrol sta­tions across the UK. Some sta­tions were block­ad­ed and all the protests received great sup­port from the motor­ing and pedes­tri­an pub­lic.

The Total out of Bur­ma Day of Action took place on Sat­ur­day 24 Novem­ber. Protests were held at 36 Total petrol sta­tions across the UK. Some sta­tions were block­ad­ed and all the protests received great sup­port from the motor­ing and pedes­tri­an pub­lic.

On Sat­ur­day 24 Novem­ber, protests were held at 36 Total petrol sta­tions across the UK. The protests called upon Total Oil to pull out of Bur­ma and stop financ­ing the Burmese mil­i­tary regime. Protest loca­tions includ­ed Brad­ford, Brighton, Chatham (Kent), Cardiff, Guernsey, Lon­don, Man­ches­ter, Oxford and Vir­gina Water (Sur­rey).

Block­ades occurred at some sta­tions, with sev­er­al last­ing for an hour or more. In Cam­den, Lon­don 10 pro­tes­tors blocked the York Way Total sta­tion for an hour, while 15 stu­dents in Sur­rey block­ad­ed the Vir­ginia Water petrol sta­tion for more than 2 hours. Through­out the UK the protests received sup­port from motorists and pedes­tri­ans alike. Many dri­vers turned away from the petrol sta­tions upon see­ing the protests, some inform­ing pro­tes­tors that they would not to buy from Total again. At all the tar­get­ted petrol sta­tions busi­ness was notice­ably slow, and in some cas­es vir­tu­al­ly non-exis­tent, dur­ing the protests.

Paul Gold­ing, one of the pro­tes­tors, said, “Total’s invest­ment in Bur­ma is the largest in Europe. By pay­ing mil­lions of dol­lars to the Burmese dic­ta­tor­ship every year they are help­ing keep it in pow­er. If the West wants to help end the oppres­sion and ongo­ing human rights abus­es in Bur­ma, then quite sim­ply, we must stop our com­pa­nies from fund­ing the oppres­sors.”

In Lon­don, protests took place at 14 Total petrol sta­tions dur­ing the course of the day. The final protest in Lon­don attract­ed over 30 sup­port­ers and took place at the Bak­er Street petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Rd, NW1, from 4pm to 6pm. In Guernsey, cam­paign­ers protest­ed at all 14 Total sta­tions on the island, and pick­et­ed the main sta­tion on the island for 3 hours. [2]

The day of action was part of a grow­ing glob­al cam­paign call­ing on French oil com­pa­ny Total to stop fund­ing the Burmese jun­ta:

- Boy­cott: Last week, the glob­al inter­net advo­ca­cy web­site Avaaz.org launched a glob­al boy­cott of Total, as well as US oil com­pa­ny Chevron, for their pres­ence in Bur­ma – with near­ly 50,000 sign­ing up in ten days [3].
— Divest­ment: Euro­pean pen­sion funds with­drew almost £110m in invest­ments from Total in a mat­ter of days in protest at the com­pa­ny’s involve­ment in Bur­ma. [4]
— Pop­u­lar protests: Since Octo­ber week­ly protests have tak­en place in Lon­don out­side Total Oil’s offices. Oth­er spon­ta­neous protests have occurred out­side Total garages around the UK. [5]

Pho­tos are avail­able from http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastyoneuk

For more infor­ma­tion & pho­tos con­tact:
— Jonathan Steven­son on 07818 651124, jjjstevenson@fastmail.fm
— Paul Gold­ing on 07984 799 958 or paul@pellarin.demon.co.uk

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

[1] Total Oil has had a joint busi­ness ven­ture with the Burmese gov­ern­ment since 1992. Its major project is the Yadana gas project in south­ern Bur­ma, which earns the mil­i­tary regime hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars every year. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s democ­ra­cy leader, has said that “Total is the biggest sup­port­er of the mil­i­tary regime in Bur­ma.” For more infor­ma­tion about Total Oil’s invest­ment in Bur­ma see the Bur­ma Cam­paign UK web­site: http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/total.php.

[2] A full list of protests on 24 Novem­ber, plus fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign, can be found at: http://totaloutofburma.blogspot.com.

[3] See http://www.avaaz.org/en/burma_corporate/. Total’s prod­ucts in the UK include its net­work of petrol sta­tions, as well as such brands as Bostik (mak­ers of Blu-tack) and Spon­tex clean­ing prod­ucts.

[4] See http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0„2204744,00.html

[5] For reports, see http://totaloutofburma.blogspot.com

Buy Nothing Day reports — Leeds, Norwich, London, Edinburgh, Manchester x2…

The truth is out — buy­ing stuff does­n’t make you hap­py! Cen­tral Leeds today saw a free shop sprout from the pave­ment to dri­ve the mes­sage home.


The truth is out — buy­ing stuff does­n’t make you hap­py! Cen­tral Leeds today saw a free shop sprout from the pave­ment to dri­ve the mes­sage home.

Despite the cold and rain, a hardy group set up a free shop in Cen­tral Leeds this morn­ing, offer­ing burg­ers, books, records and clothes. The man­i­fes­ta­tion of peo­ple giv­ing stuff away in the mid­dle of con­sumer-land raised a few eye­brows, enter­tained the tired mass­es and got the idea across that buy­ing loads of use­less stuff is a futile activ­i­ty. The assem­bled free-shop­pers sang a vari­ety of sub­ver­tised car­ols and hand­ed out gift vouch­ers which were “redeemable for what­ev­er takes your fan­cy” includ­ing a pic­nic in the park or play­ing your own music. All in all, a grand day out in town.

—–

BNDNorwich
To mark Buy Noth­ing Day, 12 peo­ple from Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide held a Rat Race in the city cen­tre.

Activists cre­at­ed a mobile rat race that stopped off at the city’s busiest malls and high streets.

Peo­ple in rat cos­tumes hur­ried hith­er and thith­er between the edges of the rat race maze, built out of plac­ards read­ing Work Hard­er, Earn More Mon­ey, Buy More Things, Keep Going, while Fat Cats advised that hap­pi­ness was just around the cor­ner if the rats would only keep shop­ping!

At Cas­tle Mall the rats were flum­moxed by secu­ri­ty guards who forced them to move on; after all, the rats were only telling peo­ple to buy more stuff!

A thou­sand leaflets were hand­ed out (see below), and many passers-by expressed their sup­port.
BND Norwich flier front
BND Norwich flier back

—–

It seems that Trans­port For Lon­don have bowed to activist pres­sure and decid­ed to remove all the adverts from the dis­trict line.

I nev­er would have thought that TFL would have tak­en part in buy noth­ing day, but it seems even Red Ken want­ed to join in the fun.

A group of Space Hijack­er agents were trav­el­ling across Lon­don when we spot­ted a TFL dec­o­ra­tion team, swift­ly turn­ing all of the adverts on the Dis­trict Line around so that their blank sides were fac­ing out.
Ad-free Tube action
They then post­ed up offi­cial Lon­dON stick­ers pro­claim­ing:

“As part of TFL’s £10 Bil­lion invest­ment pro­gram, Lon­don Under­ground are remov­ing all adverts from trains to improve the ambi­ence of car­riages and the over­all trav­el­ling expe­ri­ence of pas­sen­gers.”
Ad-free Tube poster
We can only applaud this bold move against the con­stant cor­po­rate assault on our sens­es.

The team we saw doing it were very quick, man­ag­ing to swap around entire car­riages of adverts in less than the time it took the train to trav­el one stop. Infact so impressed were our agents that we kept an eye on the trains and spot­ted the advert free car­riages sev­er­al days after.

On the trains we over­heard one of the pas­sen­gers ask­ing “but what are we going to read?”, the TFL spokesper­son replied “You could try talk­ing to each oth­er?”

Three cheers for TFL 😉

–

Half-price agents80’s slo­gan t‑shirts are back in fash­ion! A group of Space Hijack­er agents decid­ed to wear the very lat­ests trend set­ting t‑shirts on a ‘Buy Noth­ing Day’ jaunt around Lon­don.

A team of Space Hijack­ers secret agents head­ed into Knights­bridge in Lon­don on Sat­ur­day to cel­e­brate Buy Noth­ing Day, a day of cor­po­rate chain­store chaos.

Wear­ing the very lat­est ‘Nu Rave’ slo­gan t‑shirts our intre­pid agents decid­ed to go and have a look around some of Lon­don’s most exclu­sive stores. Our first stop was Har­rords, and after avoid­ing the piles of fer­rar­i’s, porsches and mer­cedes, we man­aged to get instore and up to the top floor.

Our trendy “EVERYTHING IN STORE HALF PRICE TODAY” t‑shirts cer­tain­ly raised some eye­brows from the fash­ion con­scious cus­tomers, sev­er­al even came up and start­ed ask­ing us for direc­tions etc. Help­ful and polite as always we direct­ed cus­tomers, tidied up messy rails of clothes and gen­er­al­ly played the part of good mem­bers of soci­ety as we walked around the store.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly the secu­ri­ty teams seemed to have oth­er ideas, and promt­ly attempt­ed to round us up and eject us from the store! Cries of the fact that our shirts were the very lat­est kather­ine ham­nett design­er shirts, seemed to fall on deaf ears, and we were told that we may be arrest­ed if we entered the store again!

Oh well, nev­er mind, onto Guc­ci and Louis Vuit­ton for some design­er win­dow shop­ping. Enter­ing the Guc­ci bou­tique in Knights­brige we quick­ly found out that there were more of us than actu­al staff present, which was an enter­tain­ing prospect. How­ev­er, in a move which was obvi­ous­ly down to brand envy, we were once again eject­ed. The secu­ri­ty even fol­lowed us across the road and into Louis Vuit­ton call­ing out “Don’t let them in, it’s a prank!” as we entered the store. Why the cheek of it!

After look­ing around and help­ing cus­tomers choose their lug­gage we decid­ed to leave the store and wel­come peo­ple inside from the streets. How­ev­er the weath­er was get­ting rather nip­py by this point, so after a swift drink we decid­ed to head into Oxford Street and onto Nike Town and Top Shop.

The secu­ri­ty here was rather oafish to say the least, with three of our agents being dragged down to a spe­cial Top Shop instore prison which they have behind the coun­ters. Thank­ful­ly after threats of sue­ing for wrong­ful impris­on­ment, and the fact we had a lawyer and crim­i­nal bar­ris­ter amongst our ranks things were soon put right.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly after all of the excite­ment of deal­ing with the grumpy secu­ri­ty, we for­got to actu­al­ly buy any con­sumer goods. Oh well, best go back next year 😉

http://www.spacehijackers.org

—–
Buy Noth­ing Day — Edin­burgh Action

Today was Inter­na­tion­al Buy Noth­ing day. Activists took to the streets all across the globe to try and per­suade those who can afford to live con­sumerist lifestyles to think about how much they need all the things they buy.

In the run up to the Christ­mas shop-a-thon it is easy for many peo­ple to for­get that the best things in life are free. Do we real­ly need those things we buy? Is spend­ing mon­ey on use­less crap the only way to show loved ones how much we care for them? Of course not!
Edinburgh Buy Nothing Day 3

Clowns from Ram­pant Reekies, the Edin­burgh gag­gle of C.I.R.C.A, played games, danced and were gen­er­al­ly sil­ly on the streets, enter­tain­ing peo­ple with­out sell­ing prod­ucts. They also joy­ful­ly invad­ed shops, includ­ing HNM, GAP, BHS and Schu, and “brought mirth and mer­ri­ment to the dazed monot­o­ny of Christ­mas con­sump­tion.”
Edinburgh Buy Nothing Day 1

A Food Not Bombs stall gave out free food in the form of pea soup, banana smooth­ies, bread and apple pie. Many shop­pers walked straight past the hot-dog stall and had some love­ly veg­an soup for lunch instead. A chalk mes­sage on the pave­ment read “there is such a thing as a free lunch!”
Edinburgh Buy Nothing Day 2

A mobile Free Shop set up on the street to give things away for free. Many peo­ple came and found use­ful items to take away, or gifts for peo­ple which they were oth­er­wise going to buy. One man said sim­ple “this is the best thing I’ve ever seen” and a pass­ing woman exclaimed “I’ve seen jum­ble sales, but nev­er this!” A pass­ing Police Offi­cer even inquired if there was any mobile phones, as he was going to buy one that day but could­n’t now he knew it was Buy Noth­ing Day.

A per­son claim­ing to be from Soci­ety for a Trans­for­ma­tion to Imag­i­na­tion Not Cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion (S.T.I.N.C) approached the stalls and informed the BNDers that they had released non-harm­ful stink bombs in a fast-food stores on Princes Street to “make it clear — Cap­i­tal­ism stinks”, although this remains unver­i­fied.

The recep­tion from passers by was gen­er­al­ly quite good. While some did­n’t under­stand the point of it, many skep­tics came and had a chat a left with an under­stand­ing of what Buy Noth­ing Day is about, along with some free stuff. Hope­ful­ly some shop­pers will decide to make gifts for Christ­mas instead of pay­ing some­one else to.

Many involved real­ly enjoyed the day and felt that it was effec­tive, so look out for more Food Not Bombs activ­i­ty in Edin­burgh.

The For­est Cafe (www.theforest.org.uk) is hav­ing a week long Free Shop upstairs begin­ning on the 14th of Decem­ber.

—

On Sat­ur­day the 24th Novem­ber Rhythms of Resis­tance Man­ches­ter and Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action (MCA) held a free stall where a wide range of things from plants, to clothes were well received. Even a cou­ple of police offi­cers joined in.

The two groups joined in the ‘Rein­state Karen’ demo which began in the Peace Gar­dens and marched through Man­ches­ter in sup­port of free speech and free health care.

Sev­er­al folks then went to the Arn­dale Cen­tre and released a ban­ner attached to pink heli­um bal­loons, which read: “Shop­ping Costs the Earth.” It float­ed up to the roof, right next to the giant Christ­mas Tree, to remind peo­ple of the social and envi­ron­men­tal expense of pur­chas­ing.

In the Traf­ford Cen­tre anoth­er activist from MCA dis­rupt­ed shop­ping, in protest at the mas­sive amount of car jour­neys it encour­ages in the name of prof­it.

For more info about free stuff and links check out www.freemanchester.orgShopping Costs the Earth

==

Activists from Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action evac­u­at­ed var­i­ous parts of The Traf­ford Cen­tre dur­ing this years buy noth­ing day, Sat­ur­day 24th of Novem­ber. The sprawl­ing palace to point­less con­sumerism owned by the £2bn Empire of Peel Hold­ings, the cli­mate crim­i­nals who bought you such delights as Liv­er­pool, Durham Tees Val­ley, Robin Hood Don­cast­er Sheffield and Sheffield City Air­ports also pub­licly opposed the Man­ches­ter con­ges­tion charge. Cam­ou­flaged cova­lent cam­paign­ers in their finest design­er labels moved stealth­ily amongst the madding crowds whilst acti­vat­ing fire alarms and inter­rupt­ing the dai­ly toil of tedious trans­ac­tions.

Alarms in the main malls cov­er cer­tain zones and not the whole com­plex. They are silent for 30 sec­onds, sound­ing only in the secu­ri­ty office. This leads to lots of peo­ple in red jack­ets run­ning around look­ing con­cerned. When the alarms did sound it was accom­pa­nied by a mes­sage over the P.A telling peo­ple to ignore it and approach a mem­ber of staff if con­cerned. How­ev­er, sound­ing the Alarms by the exits of the large depart­ment stores such as Sel­f­ridges and John Lewis leads to the entire shop being evacuated……Oh dear!

Bristol Cycle Circus 8th December

Join a colour­ful crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple and ped­dlers of all shapes and sizes and let our cycling cir­cus upstage and reveal Bris­tol’s cli­mate crim­i­nals.

Roll up Roll Up:

Call­ing all : bicy­cle trick­sters, bike pow­ered giz­mos, jug­glers, ban­ner mak­ers, poets, sto­ry­tellers, mobile musi­cians, per­form­ers.

Join a colour­ful crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple and ped­dlers of all shapes and sizes and let our cycling cir­cus upstage and reveal Bris­tol’s cli­mate crim­i­nals.

Roll up Roll Up:

Call­ing all : bicy­cle trick­sters, bike pow­ered giz­mos, jug­glers, ban­ner mak­ers, poets, sto­ry­tellers, mobile musi­cians, per­form­ers.

Lets bring the real­i­ty and caus­es of cli­mate change to our streets..

Meet: Col­lege Green, 1pm
8th Decem­ber

Inter­na­tion­al day of action on cli­mate change

We want to take cre­ative action on cli­mate chaos! We invite you to join us on our Cycle Cir­cus where togeth­er we will reveal the cli­mate crim­i­nals with their con­fi­dence tricks and green wash.

Our first stage will be The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land where last month saw 30 actions in the UK on this biggest investor of oil and gas projects, they haven’t gone away and nor have we.

The next stage is up to us all. Talk, share ideas, plan ‚pre­pare, turn up, trans­form!

Cli­mate change is the biggest issue of our time effect­ing every­one and most of all the poor. We can take back con­trol togeth­er, cre­ate the world we want to live in and have fun along the way! Lets take the stage of those who green wash our streets and our minds to make us think its all bet­ter. Pic­ture this, peo­ple tak­ing to the streets because enough is enough, no more exploita­tion! Our plan­et’s on the brink of eco­log­i­cal cri­sis and we won’t let cor­po­ra­tions get away with our world.

Lets halt the infra­struc­ture of more fos­sil fuel projects lock­ing us into a future of cli­mate chaos and that offer big buck high tech non-solu­tions.

Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide is an open group mak­ing col­lec­tive action ded­i­cat­ed to tack­ling the root caus­es of cli­mate chaos and cre­at­ing cli­mate jus­tice. We want to invite peo­ple to join this inter­na­tion­al day of action on cli­mate change.

Buy Nothing Day – 24th November 2007 — Steal Something Day

The last Sat­ur­day of Novem­ber sees Inter­na­tion­al Buy Noth­ing Day tak­ing place in many cor­ners of the globe; par­tic­u­lar­ly the afflu­ent cor­ners!

Steal Something Day
The last Sat­ur­day of Novem­ber sees Inter­na­tion­al Buy Noth­ing Day tak­ing place in many cor­ners of the globe; par­tic­u­lar­ly the afflu­ent cor­ners!

This year Buy Noth­ing Day will be marked in Birm­ing­ham city cen­tre by a num­ber of activ­i­ties aimed at rais­ing the pro­file of a range of aspects asso­ci­at­ed with mass con­sumerism.

Sev­er­al groups will be putting togeth­er Buy Noth­ing Day themed stalls, dis­plays and events, includ­ing a San­ta Claus parade, Free Shops, Free Food, Bicy­cle-pow­ered Free Drinks and (free) Music.

If you have any­thing to give away for free, be it pos­ses­sions, ideas or skills then leave your mon­ey at home and get out­side to enjoy a con­sump­tion free day.
Buy Noth­ing Day aims to chal­lenge con­sumer lifestyles on envi­ron­men­tal, human rights and polit­i­cal grounds, but if you have oth­er rea­sons to “Stop Shop­ping” then Sat­ur­day 24th would be an ide­al time to tell the world about them.

—

Come down to the peace gar­dens in man­ches­ter at 11 am. There will be a free stall and loads of info and music etc. Rhythms of Resis­tance band have organ­ised this plus a cou­ple of small tables and a web­site for free things — all addi­tions wel­come.
www.freemanchester.org .In the after­noon oth­er things are planned for after the Karen Reiss­man demo so it would be great to see you all any­time from eleven.

Any free stuff or info about free events or peo­ple want­i­ng to do mini work­shops would be very wel­come.

—

Sat­ur­day 24th Novem­ber. Get stuff you want for free! Give your old stuff away!
Don’t throw away things that could be use­ful to others…freecycle them! Bring things to give away, and pick up some­thing for your­self or for Christ­mas gifts…for free!
10.30am to 12.30pm The Southville Cen­tre, Beauley Road, Bris­tol BS3 1QG.
Event organ­ised by Tran­si­tion Bris­tol www.transitionbristol.org & Freecy­cle Ash­ton Bed­min­ster & Southville
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/freecycleashtonbedminstersouthville
This event coin­cides with Nation­al Buy Noth­ing Day
www.buynothingday.co.uk

—
Bristol Buy Nothing Day undead posterBristol Buy Nothing Day undead 1
Buy Noth­ing Day: Con­sumer Zom­bie Flash­mob

Broad­mead (junc­tion of Mer­chant St and Broad­mead), Bris­tol, 2pm, Sat­ur­day 24th Novem­ber

This Novem­ber, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, social activists and con­cerned cit­i­zens in as many as 65 coun­tries will hit the streets for a 24-hour con­sumer fast in cel­e­bra­tion of the 15th annu­al Buy Noth­ing Day.

Fea­tured in recent years by the likes of CNN, MSNBC, Wired, the BBC, USA Today, The Age and the CBC, the inter­na­tion­al event has been gain­ing main­stream momen­tum as the cli­mate cri­sis dri­ves aver­age peo­ple to seek out green­er alter­na­tives to unre­strained con­sump­tion.

Timed to coin­cide with one of the busiest shop­ping days on the retail cal­en­dar, as well as the unof­fi­cial start of the inter­na­tion­al hol­i­day-shop­ping sea­son, Buy Noth­ing Day has tak­en many shapes, from relaxed fam­i­ly out­ings, to free, non-com­mer­cial street par­ties, to polit­i­cal­ly charged pub­lic protests. Any­one can take part pro­vid­ed they spend a day with­out spend­ing.

In past years, street activists have proven par­tic­u­lar­ly imag­i­na­tive in their cel­e­bra­tions, bring­ing zom­bie march­es, cred­it-card cut-ups, and shopa­holic clin­ics to malls and pub­lic squares in an effort to expose the envi­ron­men­tal and social con­se­quences of First World over-con­sump­tion.

Kalle Lasn is the co-founder of the Adbusters Media Foun­da­tion, the orga­ni­za­tion respon­si­ble for launch­ing Buy Noth­ing Day as a year­ly, glob­al event. He explains that while most par­tic­i­pants used to see the day sim­ply as an escape from the mar­ket­ing mind games and fran­tic con­sumerism that have come to char­ac­ter­ize mod­ern life, the focus has since shift­ed in light of the new polit­i­cal mood sur­round­ing cli­mate change.

“So much empha­sis,” he notes, “has been placed on buy­ing car­bon off­sets and com­pact flu­o­res­cent light­bulbs and hybrid cars that we are los­ing sight of the core cause of our envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems: we con­sume far too much.”

“Buy Noth­ing Day isn’t just about chang­ing your rou­tine for one day. It’s about start­ing a last­ing lifestyle com­mit­ment. With over six bil­lion peo­ple on the plan­et, it is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the most afflu­ent – the upper 20% that con­sumes 80% of the world’s resources – to set out on a new path.”

Last year, Bris­tol Uni­ver­si­ty and UWE Peo­ple and Plan­et activists worked togeth­er to cre­ate a per­for­ma­tive and cre­ative way to cel­e­brate Buy Noth­ing Day, bring­ing the undead to the streets of broad­mead to par­o­dy the way in which first world over con­sump­tion is unques­tion­ing­ly march­ing towards eco­log­i­cal and social dis­as­ter.

This year on Novem­ber 24th join the zom­bie con­sumers as they stag­ger and stum­ble around Bris­tol’s soul­less retail dis­trict in an attempt to make peo­ple think about their con­sumer habits in an enter­tain­ing and enjoy­able way.

Rumours abound of pos­si­ble undead orches­tras and ghoul­ish cir­cus per­form­ers…

But as is the case with any flash­mob… no one quite knows what will hap­pen until it emerges and self-organ­is­es itself into exis­tence.

For videos doc­u­ment­ing last year’s BND actions check out

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMMaLqxXng

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMMaLqxXng
—

Steal Some­thing Day for the orig­i­nal call-out and cri­tique of Buy Noth­ing Day