On the anniversary of the imprisonment of the Rossport Five, Shell’s peat stripping continues

Bel­lan­aboy, Fri­day June 29th 2007

In Erris, protests con­tin­ue every day at the site of the pro­posed refin­ery at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo.

Rossport imprisonment 2nd anniversaryBel­lan­aboy, Fri­day June 29th 2007

In Erris, protests con­tin­ue every day at the site of the pro­posed refin­ery at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo.

Last Fri­day, June 29th, was the sec­ond anniver­sary of the impris­on­ment of the Ross­port Five. The day saw the con­tin­u­ing of the oper­a­tion to strip the sur­face peat away from the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site, and as is now nor­mal, local peo­ple protest­ing were joined by sup­port­ers of the Shell to Sea cam­paign from oth­er parts of Ire­land and abroad.

As usu­al, the Gar­da response to the protests was bru­tal. One pro­test­er was arrest­ed and many more were assault­ed. Gar­daí also threw activists into the deep ditch­es near the Bel­lan­aboy site.

Videos of the protests on Fri­day morn­ing can be seen here: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=kAXKHu3_bKo

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=tSMF4GgnC_I

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=u7jnUOq8LYA

or check www.youtube.ie/shelltohell

The Gar­daí were said to be sur­prised at the num­ber of pro­test­ers at the site on Fri­day morn­ing, while many peo­ple present com­plained that the police were suf­fer­ing from the effects of the night before. Pro­test­ers com­ment­ed on the notice­able smell of alco­hol com­ing from a lot of the offi­cers, and their gen­er­al­ly dishev­elled appear­ance, as well as their aggres­sive and juve­nile behav­iour. One gar­da, when con­front­ed with the fact that his behav­iour was not accept­able, loud­ly declared “I’m allowed to drink when I’m off duty!”.

Many peo­ple are still angry with the Gar­daí over their treat­ment of a local landown­er whose prop­er­ty they tres­passed onto to allow Shel­l’s con­trac­tors to install a secu­ri­ty cab­in near the pier at Pol­lo­tomais, across the estu­ary from Ross­port. The por­ta­cab­in has recent­ly been removed by Shell, but not before legal action had to be threat­ened.

Many local peo­ple accuse the Gar­daí of intim­i­da­tion of the elder­ly landown­er, putting him under such stress that he had to be admit­ted to hos­pi­tal. His fam­i­ly have said that he has been upset by a series of inci­dents includ­ing vis­its by up to six gar­daí to the house. Offi­cers asked him ques­tions and video-taped the respons­es. How­ev­er, the Gar­daí have denied there was any pres­sure or intim­i­da­tion involved.

Over the last few months thou­sands of tons of sur­face peat have been removed from the refin­ery site at Bel­lan­aboy and dumped 11KM away, in advance of the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency deci­sion on whether the refin­ery will receive a licence to oper­ate.

New min­is­ter with respon­si­bil­i­ty for the scheme, Eamon Ryan, has been asked for a meet­ing with local peo­ple and oth­er sup­port­ers of Shell to Sea, but so far has not respond­ed. In the com­ing weeks and months, it is expect­ed that more peo­ple from out­side the area will join the protests.

One of the Ross­port Five, Micheál Ó Seigh­in said recent­ly:
“We wel­come peo­ple tak­ing non-vio­lent direc­tion to stop Shel­l’s scheme. This has nev­er been a pure­ly local issue. It has always had nation­al and inter­na­tion­al dimen­sions. Not only are peo­ple con­cerned enti­tled to protest, they are oblig­ed to stand up for what is right.
Relat­ed Link: http://www.youtube.ie/shelltohell

==============

The activist who was arrest­ed on Fri­day morn­ing was tak­en in hand­cuffs to Bell­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion where he was detained for four hours before being charged with var­i­ous pub­lic order offences, includ­ing that he “did with­out law­ful author­i­ty or rea­son­able excuse, wil­ful­ly pre­vent or inter­rupt the free pas­sage of a vehi­cle…”.

See also : A Taint­ed Process http://www.indymedia.ie/article/83016, Pros­e­cut­ing the Gar­daí http://www.indymedia.ie/article/83096, Court Report http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82730, Por­ta­cab­in inci­dent http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82983,

Enawene Nawe blockade succeeds

29 June 2007
The Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment has agreed to sev­er­al key demands of the Enawene Nawe Indi­ans after they block­ad­ed a major high­way. The gov­ern­men­t’s Indi­an agency, FUNAI, will sur­vey lands claimed by the Enawene Nawe and oth­er tribes, with the aim of offi­cial­ly recog­nis­ing the areas as indige­nous.

29 June 2007
The Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment has agreed to sev­er­al key demands of the Enawene Nawe Indi­ans after they block­ad­ed a major high­way. The gov­ern­men­t’s Indi­an agency, FUNAI, will sur­vey lands claimed by the Enawene Nawe and oth­er tribes, with the aim of offi­cial­ly recog­nis­ing the areas as indige­nous.

For three days in May, the Enawene Nawe, a small and remote Ama­zon tribe, 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.

Neigh­bour­ing 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 agreed to pay for rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous tribes in Mato Grosso to trav­el to Brasília to meet with the Pres­i­dent of FUNAI.

Despite the recent con­ces­sions, how­ev­er, the dams still look set to go ahead.

For pre­vi­ous news on the block­ades go to: http://www.survival-international.org/news/2459

Miffed by Miffy

I don’t know how it came about but the Miffy rab­bit char­ac­ter has for a long time been asso­ci­at­ed with the Earth First! move­ment and rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action. But do the cre­ators and copy­right own­ers of the char­ac­ter know or approve of Miffy’s polit­i­cal activ­i­ties?…



Rabbit under fence

EF! summer gathering 2007 logo



Rabbit with wrenchEF! gathering '07 logo (rabbit/fence)

I don’t know how it came about but the Miffy rab­bit char­ac­ter has for a long time been asso­ci­at­ed with the Earth First! move­ment and rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action. But do the cre­ators and copy­right own­ers of the char­ac­ter know or approve of Miffy’s polit­i­cal activ­i­ties?…

Miffy is a pic­ture book char­ac­ter cre­at­ed by Dick Bruna in 1955, after telling his one-year-old son Sierk sto­ries about a rab­bit they had seen on hol­i­day. Miffy now fea­tures in about 30 titles which have been trans­lat­ed into 40 dif­fer­ent lan­guages, sell­ing over 80 mil­lion copies all over the world.

Drawn in a very min­i­mal­ist style, Miffy requires only a few lines and one or two pri­ma­ry col­ors drawn in two dimen­sions to be recog­nis­able. Per­haps this, and the sense of air of inno­cence over mis­chief explains why she become involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action.

It’s unclear exact­ly when exact­ly it began but you can trace her polit­i­cal activ­i­ties, in this coun­try at least, back to the ear­ly 90’s and the anti-roads move­ment. Seen coy­ly hold­ing a span­ner behind her back, one could only imag­ine the trail of mon­key wrench­ing she left behind her in her efforts to defend the fields, wood­land and hedgerows she loved.

By the late nineties, with the roads build­ing pro­gram in retreat, Miffy joined the grow­ing anti GM move­ment, tak­ing up a spade to join the resis­tance. More recent­ly, Miffy joined her fel­low pro­test­ers for a game of golf up in Scot­land dur­ing the 2005 G8 sum­mit and who know, per­haps she also took part in the block­ades in Heili­gen­damm this year.

At over fifty years old you’d think that Miffy would be her own per­son, free to express her polit­i­cal beliefs as she sees fit but sad­ly it appears not. The copy­right own­ers of all Dick Bruna’s char­ac­ter con­stant­ly hunt down unli­censed users of her image in order to defend their prof­itable mer­chan­dis­ing busi­ness.

While Miffy was cre­at­ed for a chil­dren’s book, the design has been cap­i­talised on to sell numer­ous oth­er prod­ucts like clothes, sta­tionery, toys, glass­es, house­hold items etc. A search for Miffy prod­ucts on google brings up over 100,000 pages and no doubt many of the prod­ucts sold are unli­censed copies made in far east­ern sweat shops.

How­ev­er, Mer­cis, the Dutch com­pa­ny that owns the copy­right, are not con­tent to sim­ply take action on those pro­duc­ing ‘fake’ mer­chan­dise, they appears to have stum­bled on Miffy’s rad­i­cal secret life and they are not amused. They are deeply offend­ed, iron­i­cal­ly, by Miffys involve­ment in the cam­paign against patents on life, as depict­ed in stick­er pro­duced many years ago pro­mot­ing the (long dead), www.resistanceisfertile.com web­site — copies of which can now only be found in resource archives of the (no longer main­tained) Totnes Against Genet­ics (ToGG) web­site.

Mer­cis (www.mercis.nl) have unleashed their legal team to threat­en expen­sive legal action against who­ev­er might be held account­able — the inac­tive Totnes Genet­ics Group who’s long unmain­tained web­site sill con­tains a pic­ture of that Miffy stick­er.

While ToGG vol­un­teers try to get long for­got­ten pass­words and access from the inter­net ser­vice provider which hosts the web­site in order to remove the offend­ing image, more impor­tant ques­tions have been raised. Will Miffy tol­er­ate this attack on her free­dom of expres­sion and will her friends in the move­ment stand idly by and watch as her free­dom to protest is tak­en away?

Oth­er sit­ing of Miffy can be found at https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374195.html?c=on#comments

manchester bike stuff this weekend — critical mass, bike polo, summer party, critical commute, climate carnival

We cycle round the city to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle:

It’s for any­one that rides a bike;
Its a cel­e­bra­tion of get­ting round the city with­out pol­lut­ing it;
Its about every jour­ney being an adven­ture instead of just sit­ting on a bor­ing bus or in a stress­ful car;
Its about cyclists rid­ing togeth­er to demand more respect from oth­er road users;
Its a way to meet oth­er cyclis­tas;

We cycle round the city to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle:

It’s for any­one that rides a bike;
Its a cel­e­bra­tion of get­ting round the city with­out pol­lut­ing it;
Its about every jour­ney being an adven­ture instead of just sit­ting on a bor­ing bus or in a stress­ful car;
Its about cyclists rid­ing togeth­er to demand more respect from oth­er road users;
Its a way to meet oth­er cyclis­tas;

man­ches­ter crit­i­cal mass meet every last fri­day 6pm cen­tral library

woooo it will not only be an amz­ing bike ride to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle, to meet oth­er cyclists, to have an excuse to ride around, to feel part of a bike gang, to have a fun evening etc etc

but!

this month we will also be hav­ing an ace bbq with the bike soundsystem..woo a nice out­door bicy­cle sum­mer party.ace.

woo. so please bring veg­an stuff to put on it and things to drink! we will be quite near shops so if you dont its easy to get stuff.

last month we had around 120 cyclists on crit­i­cal mass, lets make this one even big­ger!

see http://www.myspace.com/mcrcriticalmass

Sat­ur­day 2pm bike polo prac­tise, platt fields park on the clay pitch behind the bas­ket­ball courts. every­one wel­come to join in!

see http://www.myspace.com/mcrdropouts

ALSO:

don’t for­get that it’s Crit­i­cal Com­mute this Fri­day morn­ing.

Details of start­ing points and times at

http://www.manchesterfoe.org.uk/lyb/critical.php

AND:

Cycling Con­tin­gent

sat­ur­day 30th June 4 Cli­mate Change Car­ni­val

[Man­ches­ter]

There will be a parade with sam­ba band and kids enter­tain­ment and speak­ers to talk about Cli­mate Change.

Starts at 1pm from Peace Gar­dens (between St. Paul Square (Man­ches­ter Cen­tral Library) and Pic­cadil­ly Gar­dens.

mcrcriticalmass@yahoo.co.uk
http://velorution.x21.org.uk

Welsh Anarchist Radio

Gagged! 17 has been pro­duced in audio for­mat, with some music in the back­ground and a few songs, check it out and let us know what you think!

Check it out here:

http://www.archive.org/details/GaggedAudioVersion

Gagged! 17 has been pro­duced in audio for­mat, with some music in the back­ground and a few songs, check it out and let us know what you think!

Check it out here:

http://www.archive.org/details/GaggedAudioVersion

info@gaggedanarchist.tk
http://www.gaggedanarchist.tk

PAD Cardiff Social Centre — OPENING

21.06.2007
P.A.D. open­ing bar­beque this Sun­day
from 3pm (come ear­li­er if you wan­na help)
food, music and all the usu­al treats, find out more about what’s going on in the pad.

PAD re-opening21.06.2007
P.A.D. open­ing bar­beque this Sun­day
from 3pm (come ear­li­er if you wan­na help)
food, music and all the usu­al treats, find out more about what’s going on in the pad.
There’s also a work day on fri­day in the pad from 12noon.

PAD re-launched: a new Social Cen­tre!
118 Clifton Street, Adams­down, Cardiff has been trans­formed into a col­lec­tive­ly run social cen­tre. The “Peo­ples’ Autonomous Des­ti­na­tion” (PAD) is due to be open in June. It will be a place, inde­pen­dent from gov­ern­ment or com­mer­cial con­trol, to socialise, meet oth­er like-mind­ed peo­ple, share ideas & enjoy food, drink, music & films. Impor­tant­ly, the PAD will be a place for peo­ple to come togeth­er & organ­ise around social strug­gles both local­ly & glob­al­ly.

The PAD is run vol­un­tar­i­ly so nobody gets paid & nobody makes a prof­it, every­one involved can have a say in how it func­tions, with no lead­ers or hier­ar­chies. Any­one can come along to a meet­ing to help organ­ise & take part in mak­ing deci­sions about the PAD. The space will be inclu­sive, open to all indi­vid­u­als, with dis­crim­i­na­tion not tol­er­at­ed & diver­si­ty respect­ed. For more about upcom­ing events or to get involved, e‑mail thepad@riseup.net or come along to a meet­ing on Wednes­days at 7:30pm at The PAD itself. Find out more about oth­er social cen­tres: www.socialcentresnetwork.org.uk

http://www.thepad.org.uk

Ramona Africa — ON A MOVE tour of UK

Ramona Africa is tour­ing the UK speak­ing about the incred­i­ble sto­ry of MOVE. MOVE are a large­ly black eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group based in Philadel­phia. They have cam­paigned on envi­ron­men­tal, ani­mal rights and anti-police repres­sion issues for thir­ty years. They have nev­er backed down in the face of overt racist police repres­sion.

More info: www.onamove2007.org.uk

Ramona Africa is tour­ing the UK speak­ing about the incred­i­ble sto­ry of MOVE. MOVE are a large­ly black eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group based in Philadel­phia. They have cam­paigned on envi­ron­men­tal, ani­mal rights and anti-police repres­sion issues for thir­ty years. They have nev­er backed down in the face of overt racist police repres­sion.

More info: www.onamove2007.org.uk


In 1978 nine mem­bers of MOVE were impris­oned for a bla­tant­ly framed mur­der, they are still impris­oned with their first chance of parole in August 2008. In 1985 the city of Philadel­phia sort the ‘final solu­tion’ for the MOVE ‘prob­lem’ by attack­ing their home with 10,000 rounds of ammu­ni­tion, tear gas, water can­nons and final­ly a bomb that burnt 60 homes to the ground. 6 MOVE adults and 5 chil­dren were burned to death. Ramona man­aged to escape with one of the chil­dren.
She was sen­tenced to sev­en years for ‘riot’.

MumiaMumia Abu-Jamal is a MOVE sup­port­er who also has also expe­ri­enced the injus­tice of the sys­tem whilst spend­ing over 26 years on death row for a crime he did not com­mit.

Come and hear about all these events and see the MOVE doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by Howard Zinn.

.
.

June:
Thu 21ST @ 1in12 Brad­ford
Fri 22nd @ The Work­shop Cafe Bar Nor­wich 7pm
Sun 24th @ The Com­mon Place Leeds 6pm
Mon 25th @ The West Indi­an Club Leeds 6.30pm
Wed 27th @ The Cow­ley Club Brighton 7pm
Thu 28th @ The Ram­part Cen­tre Lon­don 7pm
Fri 29th @ Bath Place Leam­ing­ton Spa
Sat 30th @ The Drum Birm­ing­ham 7pm
July:
Sun 1st @ The Star and Shad­ow Cin­e­ma New­cas­tle 7.30pm
Mon 2nd @ The Cube Cin­e­ma Bris­tol 8pm
(Kebele are also turn­ing their reg­u­lar Sun­day Veg­an cafe into a
ben­e­fit for MOVE on Sun­day 1st July)

West London residents halt traffic outside DfT Headquarters

20.06.2007
West Lon­don res­i­dents protest­ing about plans to expand Heathrow dra­mat­i­cal­ly stopped traf­fic this morn­ing out­side the Depart­ment for Trans­port (DfT) offices in Cen­tral Lon­don before attempt­ing an inva­sion of the build­ing.

Heathrow DfT protest 1
Heathrow DfT protest 2Heathrow DfT protest 3Heathrow DfT protest 4Heathrow DfT protest 520.06.2007
West Lon­don res­i­dents protest­ing about plans to expand Heathrow dra­mat­i­cal­ly stopped traf­fic this morn­ing out­side the Depart­ment for Trans­port (DfT) offices in Cen­tral Lon­don before attempt­ing an inva­sion of the build­ing.

The pro­tes­tors car­ried a bed along Mar­sham Street from the flat of BAA Chief Exec­u­tive Stephen Nel­son (1) to the Depart­ment for Trans­port. In the bed were two fig­ures sym­bol­is­ing the close rela­tion­ship between BAA and the DfT under the slo­gan “DfT in bed with BAA”.

As they crossed Mar­sham Street a dozen res­i­dents halt­ed the traf­fic when they paint­ed a run­way on the road. The res­i­dents, assist­ed by the direct action net­work Plane Stu­pid, then left the bed out­side the DfT offices.

The action fol­lows the rev­e­la­tion last week that the Depart­ment for Trans­port had secret­ly passed key infor­ma­tion sup­port­ing expan­sion of Heathrow to BAA six months before it is due to be pub­lished (2).

Ear­li­er in the year, on March 5th, West Lon­don res­i­dents invad­ed Chatham House and dis­rupt­ed a speech by Trans­port Sec­re­tary Dou­glas Alexan­der.

Long-time West Lon­don res­i­dent Dr John Hunt and mem­ber of the Green Par­ty said, “This action is to expose the unhealth­ily close rela­tion­ship there is between BAA Fer­rovial and the Depart­ment for Trans­port. While BAA and the Depart­ment plot and plan the expan­sion of Heathrow, res­i­dents and local author­i­ties are left in the dark”.

Mag­gie Thor­burn, a long-time West Lon­don res­i­dent, said, “Although I live under the flight path and am affect­ed by the noise of the planes, I took part in today’s action not just because of the increased noise lev­els I would expe­ri­ence if expan­sion went ahead, but also because I firm­ly believe that any fur­ther expan­sion at Heathrow should be ruled out on cli­mate change grounds.”

ENDS

Notes for Edi­tors:

(1). BAA owns a flat for its Chief Exec­u­tive (Flat 905, St Johns, Mar­sham St) about 60 yards from the Depart­ment for Trans­port head­quar­ters at 76 Mar­sham St.

(2). Ear­li­er this month (6th June) the Times www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1890224.ece revealed that “The Depart­ment for Trans­port has secret­ly passed key infor­ma­tion sup­port­ing the expan­sion to the Span­ish-owned com­pa­ny six months before it is due to be pub­lished in a con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment. The depart­ment has also allowed senior BAA offi­cials to influ­ence a series of tests designed to show whether the third run­way would breach lim­its on air pol­lu­tion and noise. The Times has learnt that BAA has a team of 34 peo­ple work­ing with civ­il ser­vants, influ­enc­ing the tests so that they find in favour of build­ing the new run­way. The depart­ment has giv­en BAA a full copy of the pre­lim­i­nary results but is refus­ing to allow any oppo­nents of the expan­sion to see them. Mike Forster, BAA’s head of strat­e­gy for Heathrow, admit­ted at a recent con­fer­ence that he had seen the results and that they were “encour­ag­ing”.” The full report is not expect­ed to be made pub­licly avail­able until just before a con­sul­ta­tion into plans to expand Heathrow, expect­ed in the autumn.

Common Ground Community Garden — EVICTION UPDATE — Resistance successful so far.

Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den, is a self-man­aged squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty project in the heart of Read­ing. The land and sur­round­ing build­ings are coun­cil owned, and they have tried to obstruct this ini­tia­tive every step of the way — and thanks to the spir­it of the squat­ters and our neigh­bours, they have failed every step of the way.

Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den, is a self-man­aged squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty project in the heart of Read­ing. The land and sur­round­ing build­ings are coun­cil owned, and they have tried to obstruct this ini­tia­tive every step of the way — and thanks to the spir­it of the squat­ters and our neigh­bours, they have failed every step of the way.

Today, 20th June, is sup­posed to be evic­tion day. The day when the coun­cil takes back con­trol of our land, and is able to flog it off to the high­est bid­der, for devel­op­ment of yet more unnaford­able prison block flats. How­ev­er, so far, its not going accord­ing to their plan…

Bail­lifs showed up ear­ly this morn­ing, about 9am. How­ev­er, activists were all­ready busy bar­ri­cad­ing the build­ing that has been our home for the last 9 months and our beau­ti­full squat­ted gar­den. Reporters and tele­vi­sion cam­eras showed up, tak­ing inter­views from us and our neigh­bours (so if you are in the South­east or Thames Val­ley, check local news ser­vices out!). A mix­ture of activists and local neigh­bours are hold­ing a pick­et out the front of the build­ing, and oth­ers are sit­ting in the gar­den enjoy­ing the sun­shine! At this point bal­liffs have left, and we have won for now. But we are sure they will be back fair­ly soon with back­up, so any help is appre­ci­at­ed.

So long as the bail­lifs keep their dis­tance, the rest of the day will be enjoyed in the gar­den with a pic­nic and acoustic punk rock show lat­er.

EXISTANCE IS RESISTANCE!

P.S. Our sol­i­dar­i­ty greet­ings to Bre­con evic­tion resisters! FIGHT THE PIPE!

========================================

01:07
Hi,

Just to give a last quick update, the bail­lifs stayed well away all day, and the rest of the day has been fan­tas­tic!

Quite a lot of local res­i­dents have been through dur­ing the day, telling us how much they love the gar­den, use it all the time etc etc.

Some res­i­dents have even showed a fair amount of inter­est in anti-cap­i­tal­ist/a­n­ar­chist pol­i­tics, includ­ing ex-Labour mem­bers who agreed all polit­i­cal par­ties are the same now and ‘this’ (i.e. direct-action, DIY etc like the gar­den) IS the alter­na­tive now, and a local cou­ple hav­ing trou­ble at work who are now inter­est­ed in join­ing IWW!

A cou­ple of local peo­ple were among those who stayed in the gar­den past evic­tion time, being pre­pared to face arrest to defend the gar­den.

This evening the day has been fin­ished off with a pub­lic BBQ and absolute­ly fan­tas­tic acoustic punk-rock show. Again, sev­er­al neigh­bours stuck around all night hav­ing a drink and enjoy­ing the music, and the tunes were amaz­ing. Big thanks to the artists who trav­elled down to play tonight for free!

Obvi­ous­ly, this project is most like­ly not going to last much longer (although you nev­er know and we’ll keep fight­ing!), but all our neigh­bours are say­ing they want the squat­ters to stay and do sim­i­lar things, and who are we to refuse!? 🙂

Spir­its are high,
LA LUCHA SIGUE!

Greenpeace gives away free train tickets at airports across the UK

19 June 2007.

UPDATE (9.25am): The booths have now all been moved by secu­ri­ty.

Over the past hour or so, impromp­tu tick­et exchange booths have been appear­ing in air­ports across the UK.

Climate ticket exchange @ airport19 June 2007.

UPDATE (9.25am): The booths have now all been moved by secu­ri­ty.

Over the past hour or so, impromp­tu tick­et exchange booths have been appear­ing in air­ports across the UK.

Green­peace vol­un­teers (fetch­ing­ly dressed as stew­ards and stew­ardess­es — pics here) have been offer­ing BA pas­sen­gers check­ing into domes­tic flights cli­mate-friend­ly train tick­ets.

It’s not just because we’re gen­er­ous souls — it’s also because fly­ing caus­es 10 times more dam­age to the cli­mate than tak­ing the train. And it’s respon­si­ble for 13 per cent of the UK’s impact on the cli­mate (that’s the gov­ern­men­t’s own fig­ures).

It’s also the fastest grow­ing source of emis­sions in the UK; between 1990 and 2050, emis­sions from avi­a­tion could quadru­ple, which sci­en­tists say could wipe out all oth­er emis­sions sav­ings we make in every oth­er sec­tor.

The main cause of this mas­sive growth in the UK is the pro­lif­er­a­tion of short haul flights — often unnec­es­sary domes­tic ones like the 30 or so a day between Lon­don and Man­ches­ter.

British Air­ways (despite its claims to be green) is one of the worst offend­ers, open­ing new and unnec­es­sary domes­tic routes, fierce­ly oppos­ing any mea­sures that will curb growth in emis­sions, keep­ing a tight hold over gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy and lob­by­ing hard for air­port expan­sion.

You can find out more about avi­a­tion and cli­mate change here.

And you can email BA’s Chief Exec­u­tive, Willie Walsh, ask­ing him to ground unnec­es­sary domes­tic UK flights on routes that are already well served by trains, and to end BA’s lob­by­ing for more run­ways and big­ger air­ports.