attack on bristol security firm

No peace for the defend­ers of com­mod­i­ty-soci­ety. Their secu­ri­ty = a joke once again. Our lat­est tar­get was Avon and Som­er­set Guard­ing, on Fish­ponds Rd, we broke half the store­front glass and attacked the CCTV cam­era, leav­ing an anar­chy sym­bol tagged on the scene. Enough uni­formed bas­tards in our lives, let’s trash the con­trol appa­ra­tus.

No peace for the defend­ers of com­mod­i­ty-soci­ety. Their secu­ri­ty = a joke once again. Our lat­est tar­get was Avon and Som­er­set Guard­ing, on Fish­ponds Rd, we broke half the store­front glass and attacked the CCTV cam­era, leav­ing an anar­chy sym­bol tagged on the scene. Enough uni­formed bas­tards in our lives, let’s trash the con­trol appa­ra­tus. Shouts to anti-fas­cist of action Jock Pal­free­man, held in Bul­gar­ia — love for our com­rades, hate for their jail­ers. That’s all for now

35 Arrested in Winona Frac Sand Protests 29th April

Thir­ty-five peo­ple were arrest­ed for tres­pass­ing dur­ing a large protest against frac sand Mon­day morn­ing staged at two sep­a­rate loca­tions in Winona.

Thir­ty-five peo­ple were arrest­ed for tres­pass­ing dur­ing a large protest against frac sand Mon­day morn­ing staged at two sep­a­rate loca­tions in Winona.

The Winona Police Depart­ment arrest­ed 19 peo­ple at the city’s com­mer­cial dock, after they were asked mul­ti­ple times to leave the pri­vate prop­er­ty. Offi­cers than respond­ed to a frac sand pro­cess­ing plant on Winona’s west end, where they arrest­ed anoth­er 16 peo­ple for tres­pass­ing there.

Pro­test­ers said their goal was to halt busi­ness oper­a­tions at each site.

“I think peo­ple see that the issue of sil­i­ca sand is some­thing affect­ing the entire region,” said pro­test­er Mol­ly Green­ing. “They’ve come to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with this issue.”

Dan Nis­bit, the own­er of CD Corp., which leas­es the com­mer­cial dock, said the protest cre­at­ed a dis­trac­tion for work­ers and tem­porar­i­ly slowed oper­a­tions at the facil­i­ty.

“Obstruct­ing busi­ness isn’t the right way to go about things,” Nis­bit said.

Winona Catholic Work­ers orga­nized the protest, reach­ing out to area res­i­dents who oppose the frac sand indus­try, as well as oth­ers in the region’s Catholic Work­er com­mu­ni­ty.

The protest was part of an annu­al cel­e­bra­tion of the region­al Catholic Work­er com­mu­ni­ty, and vol­un­teers from Iowa, Mis­souri, Wis­con­sin, Michi­gan and oth­er states in the Mid­west trav­eled to Winona to par­tic­i­pate.

Catholic Work­ers and oth­ers in the Winona area have protest­ed the indus­try for more than a year. They have blocked a rail load­ing ter­mi­nal, demon­strat­ed at the steps of the Winona City Hall pri­or to a city coun­cil meet­ing on frac sand reg­u­la­tions, and held oth­er ral­lies.

“As Catholic Work­ers liv­ing with the poor and mar­gin­al­ize, we come to this land to pre­vent the des­e­cra­tion of this land and the health of this com­mu­ni­ty,” they wrote in a state­ment sent Sun­day evening to area media out­lets.

“We declare Mon­day to be a mora­to­ri­um of busi­ness as usu­al at the sites of pro­duc­tion of sil­i­ca sand to elim­i­nate a nec­es­sary com­po­nent of frack­ing.”

There hasn’t been a his­to­ry of cita­tions or arrests at any of the demon­stra­tions, though dur­ing one ral­ly at city hall in May 2012 a pro­test­er was cit­ed for lit­ter­ing after he threw a hand­ful of frac sand on the front steps.

 

Lockdown Halts Keystone XL Work in Oklahoma 29th April

Spauld­ing, OK- Mon­day, April 29th, 6:15 AM- Ear­li­er this morn­ing two Texas res­i­dents locked them­selves to machin­ery being used to con­struct TransCanada’s dan­ger­ous and con­tro­ver­sial Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Spauld­ing, OK through Musco­gee Creek Nation land by treaty. Ben­jamin But­ler and Eamon Tread­away Danzig took action today to pre­vent the Cross Tim­bers biore­gion from being poi­soned by this inher­ent­ly dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline, just as the sur­round­ing wet­lands and res­i­den­tial areas have been poi­soned as a result of Exxon’s Pega­sus pipeline rup­ture near Mayflower, Arkansas.  Recent Tar Sands spills in Min­neso­ta and Arkansas, as well as an explo­sion at a Tar Sands refin­ery in Detroit have high­light­ed the urgency in stop­ping Tar Sands extrac­tion and trans­porta­tion.

But­ler and Danzig are act­ing as a part of Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance, a grow­ing coali­tion of groups and indi­vid­u­als ded­i­cat­ed to stop­ping the expan­sion of Tar Sands infra­struc­ture through­out the Great Plains. Their actions fol­low the esca­lat­ing num­ber of work-stop­ping actions that have occurred in Okla­homa this past month.  Both anti-extrac­tion activists cite con­cern of the effect a spill will have in the Cross Tim­bers bio-region that they call home. Their action comes in the wake of the rup­ture of Exxon-Mobile’s Pega­sus pipeline which spilled Tar Sands bitu­men in neigh­bor­ing Mayflower, Arkansas. In addi­tion to the high rates of sick­ness that the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty dis­played, the spill in Arkansas has pol­lut­ed Lake Con­way and has had dev­as­tat­ing effects on local wildlife. The per­ma­nent effect on people’s liveli­hoods and the health of affect­ed ecosys­tems remains to be seen.

“This pipeline is essen­tial for con­tin­ued tar sands exploita­tion which pos­es an immi­nent threat to the health of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties near the point of extrac­tion, fence-line com­mu­ni­ties around the tox­ic refiner­ies, and ulti­mate­ly the health of every liv­ing being along the route,” said Ben­jamin But­ler, who was born at Tin­ker Air force Base in Okla­homa. “I believe in a more beau­ti­ful world, one where the prof­its of a cor­po­ra­tion don’t out­weigh the health of the peo­ple and the plan­et.”

“These com­pa­nies come through with false promis­es and leave sick­ness and dev­as­ta­tion in their wake,” said Eamon Danzig of Den­ton, TX. “Peo­ple in Mayflower expe­ri­enced faint­ing, nau­sea, and nose­bleeds from the ben­zene gas which sep­a­rates from the dilut­ed bitu­men in a spill and hov­ers above the ground. Leaks, rup­tures, and oth­er acci­dents on tar sands pipelines are so com­mon­place and inevitable that I can’t let this pipeline be built through the Cross Tim­bers.”

The Tar Sands megapro­ject is the largest indus­tri­al project in the his­to­ry of humankind, destroy­ing an area of pris­tine bore­al for­est which, if ful­ly real­ized, will leave behind a tox­ic waste­land the size of Flori­da. The Tar Sands megapro­ject con­tin­ues to endan­ger the health and way of life of the First Nations com­mu­ni­ties that live near­by by poi­son­ing the water­ways which life in the area depends on. This pipeline promis­es to deliv­er tox­ic dilut­ed bitu­men to the nox­ious Valero Refin­ery at the front door of the fence-line com­mu­ni­ty of Man­ches­ter in Hous­ton.

Cur­rent­ly, there is staunch resis­tance to the expan­sion of Tar Sands infrastructure—Lakota and Dako­ta peo­ples in “South Dako­ta” have sworn to pro­tect their land and peo­ple from the Key­stone XL, life­long Okla­homans and Tex­ans are con­sis­tent­ly halt­ing con­struc­tion of the inher­ent­ly dan­ger­ous Key­stone XL, and the Unis’tot’en Camp has entered the third year of their block­ade of the Pacif­ic Trails Pipeline.

UPDATE: 11:27AM : Eamon and Ben are both being charged with tres­pass­ing. We need $500 to get them out of jail.

UPDATE:  Eamon has been charged with tres­pass­ing and is being held on a $250 bail in the Hugh­es Coun­ty Jail. We are still wait­ing to find out Ben’s charges.

&

UPDATE: 9:18 AM: Lock box has been cut in half with jaws of life. Ben and Eamon have been tak­en into cus­tody by the police.

UPDATE: 9:12 AM: Using jaws of life on the lock box

UPDATE: 9:08 AM: More police and firetruck has arrived

UPDATE: 8:12AM: Anoth­er sher­iff has arrived. Failed at saw­ing

UPDATE: 8:05AM: Pri­vate secu­ri­ty has giv­en the sher­iff a hack­saw. The sher­iff is saw­ing at the lock box

UPDATE: 8:02: Sher­iff talk­ing to Ben and Eamon. The sher­iff is inspect­ing the lock box

UPDATE 7:51AM: Hugh­es Coun­ty Sher­iff has arrived

UPDATE: 7:43 AM: Pri­vate secu­ri­ty try­ing to con­vince Ben and Eamon to unlock

UPDATE: 7:36 AM: More work­ers arriv­ing on site

UPDATE: 7:30 AM: Pri­vate secu­ri­ty has arrived on site. Head of secu­ri­ty has informed us that he is a retired sher­iff of Hugh­es Coun­ty.

UPDATE: 6:20 AM: Work­ers on site

Climate Activist on Day 29 of Hunger Strike

Ear­li­er this month, 350.org founder Bill McK­ibben, wrote about the new move­ment of fos­sil fuel resis­tance that was spread­ing around the world.

This resis­tance is need­ed now more than ever, as glob­al tem­per­a­tures edge towards the 400 parts per mil­lion (ppm) mark for the first time in mil­lions of years, some­thing that is seri­ous­ly wor­ry­ing sci­en­tists. “It looks like the world is going to blow through the 400 ppm lev­el with­out los­ing a beat,” argues Scripps Insti­tu­tion of Oceanog­ra­phy sci­en­tist, Ralph Keel­ing.

One per­son who is part of this resis­tance is a young Amer­i­can activist Bri­an Eis­ter, who has worked with John Kerry’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers, Green Par­ty, Pub­lic Cit­i­zen and was involved in the Occu­py Move­ment.

But now he has put his body on the line for cli­mate change. He is on day 29 of a planned 30 day hunger strike. For near­ly the last month, all he has con­sumed is water, salt and potas­si­um.

Eis­ter is cur­rent­ly camped out­side the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute (API) in Wash­ing­ton, DC, the oil industry’s most pow­er­ful lob­by group.

He is try­ing to raise aware­ness about cli­mate change. “I am on hunger strike,” Eis­ter writes, “because I can think of no action which could ade­quate­ly express the urgency of humanity’s present sit­u­a­tion. There are more than a few trends which, left unchecked, are like­ly to make life impos­si­bly dif­fi­cult for future gen­er­a­tions.”

He argues that, “Giv­en the urgency of what is com­ing, every one of our lives should, first and fore­most, be ded­i­cat­ed to pre­vent­ing this com­ing cat­a­stro­phe.”

Over the week­end, Eis­ter gave an inter­view as to why he is tak­ing what many would argue is rad­i­cal action. His anger is chan­neled towards those in pow­er: politi­cians, the press and of course the oil indus­try itself.

“There are the pol­i­cy­mak­ers, who treat this issue as though we had all the time in the world to fix it. They already know bet­ter,” he argues. “There are mem­bers of the press, who bury sto­ries about the impend­ing ruina­tion of the world’s econ­o­my by glob­al warm­ing on page 13 of the news­pa­per, while con­sis­tent­ly plac­ing sto­ries about mem­bers of con­gress wran­gling over bud­gets on front page. They already know bet­ter.”

Per­haps sad­dest of all, he says: “there are edu­cat­ed, intel­li­gent peo­ple who sure­ly love their chil­dren work­ing for groups like the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute and Amer­i­cans for Clean Coal Elec­tric­i­ty. They already know bet­ter.”

The lob­by­ists at the API do know bet­ter, but like the tobac­co barons before them, they are try­ing to still spin a web of denial and decep­tion over the sci­ence and urgency of cli­mate change.

As the world hur­tles towards 400 ppm, the win­dow for mean­ing­ful action on cli­mate is rapid­ly clos­ing. But, as Eis­ter says, politi­cians, the press and the oil indus­try, all know bet­ter but car­ry on as if noth­ing is the prob­lem.

If Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is to start lis­ten­ing to peo­ple like Eis­ter, one first small step would be to can­cel the Key­stone XL pipeline. But that would only be the first small step of true mean­ing­ful action.

Eis­ter argues, “In our minds, we imag­ine that some­how, some­way, this prob­lem will be solved: how, after all, could a world full of respon­si­ble adults allow all of our children’s lives, and their children’s lives, to be ruined?”

ALF Releases 29 Rabbits from Barcelona Factory Farm 27th April

On the night of April 13, 2013, Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front activists opened the cages of thir­ty rab­bits who were to be killed in a few days.
The ini­tial goal was to get many more out, but when we arrived we saw that because of their enor­mous size and weight it would be impos­si­ble to lib­er­ate the num­ber we had thought, so with great effort we car­ried away our back­packs full of our new and sur­prised friends.

If you’ve ever seen the ter­ri­fied eyes of an ani­mal in a cage and then felt their heart beat­ing next to yours at the time of their release, you know exact­ly the mean­ing of Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion.
After see­ing them locked in small cages with­out soil, and then lat­er see them walk and feel the wild life, you know that while you have strength, you won’t stop fight­ing for Total Lib­er­a­tion.

We’re not going to ask for their cages to be larg­er or com­fort­able.
We’re not going to ask that the con­di­tions in which they are tor­tured in exper­i­ments are ‘improved’,
We’re not going to ask that when they are killed, that it be done ‘humane­ly’ …
None of this is ever going to be enough.

We have learned that we can’t wait for the social con­di­tions to work in our favor, we can not hope for any­thing from the exploiters.
They will not change, but nei­ther will we!
We will always be there and we will do what we can to make their lives mis­er­able.

The oth­er night 29 rab­bits learned for the first time what it is to feel fresh air and that made us feel free as well. But there are still mil­lions of ani­mals in cages and unfor­tu­nate­ly we can’t get all of them out.
Any­way … TRY IT!

As a group we also want to say a cou­ple of things. One is that we want total lib­er­a­tion. And the oth­er is that we will fight wher­ev­er we can to achieve it, but we will not mix with fas­cist bas­tards to do it, in any way! We want noth­ing to do with them. They can use what­ev­er name they want, we will always con­sid­er them our ene­mies. Appear­ing to us as part of the sys­tem­at­ic dom­i­na­tion that sick­ens this plan­et, we repeat, we will nev­er accept or allow our­selves to be con­fused with such garbage.

AGAINST ALL FORMS OF DOMINATION
FOR TOTAL LIBERATION

We want to send a greet­ing of free­dom to Noelia Cote­lo, who has suf­fered alarm­ing­ly in recent months the tor­ture and abuse of a sys­tem based on exploita­tion, decep­tion and mur­der …
‘Noelia, the night of April 13, you were in the minds and hearts of those of us who car­ried out that lib­er­a­tion. We do not care if you’re veg­an or not, if you approve of our actions or if to the con­trary they mean noth­ing to you. Nonethe­less, this night is for you.
STRENGTH!’

Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front — Kodama Cell”

Lockdown Continues in the “Red River Showdown” 25th April

A pro­test­er with the group Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance has stopped con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline by lock­ing his arm into a con­crete cap­sule buried direct­ly in the pipeline’s pro­posed path. Fitzger­ald Scott, 42, is the first African Amer­i­can to risk arrest while phys­i­cal­ly blockad­ing TransCanada’s dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline, and the sec­ond per­son to take action this week. On Mon­day a 61 year old man locked him­self to a piece of con­struc­tion equip­ment effec­tive­ly shut­ting down anoth­er Okla­homa pipeline con­struc­tion site. This week of action, called the “Red Riv­er Show­down,” is intend­ed to pro­tect the Red Riv­er, which marks the bor­der between Okla­homa and Texas and is a major trib­u­tary of the Mis­sis­sip­pi.

The site Scott has block­ad­ed is a wet­land area where crews are attempt­ing to lay sec­tions of the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline direct­ly into the marshy waters. An unde­tect­ed pin­hole leak at this loca­tion would cause can­cer caus­ing chem­i­cals to mix direct­ly into the local com­mu­ni­ty water table.

Scott, who has a master’s degree in urban plan­ning from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, Chica­go, is a long­time activist for social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. While orga­niz­ing against Key­stone over the past five months, Scott has met many peo­ple strug­gling to pro­tect their homes from TransCanada’s abuse of emi­nent domain.

“I am doing this for the peo­ple who don’t have the finan­cial resources to pro­tect them­selves from a bul­ly like Tran­sCana­da,” explained Scott. “Imag­ine how much worse it is for them – like the most­ly African Amer­i­can neigh­bor­hood in Winona, TX, where pro­test­ers with the Tar Sands Block­ade found holes in welds of the pipeline sec­tion that runs right behind a children’s play­ground, and nei­ther Tran­sCana­da nor the gov­ern­ment will do any­thing about it!”

As con­struc­tion on the south­ern por­tion of Key­stone XL nears two thirds com­ple­tion, no reg­u­la­tors or politi­cians show any will­ing­ness to halt the project or even inspect those faulty welds. Accord­ing to George Daniel, spokesper­son for Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance, “Scott’s action sends a clear mes­sage: because every oth­er avenue has failed to stop this dead­ly project, we will block­ade – all sum­mer and on into the fall, if that’s what it takes.”

Today’s action comes just a few weeks after the dev­as­tat­ing tar sands spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, which has left com­mu­ni­ties across Okla­homa and Texas ter­ri­fied that they may be the next vic­tims of reck­less indus­try prac­tices. Sur­vivors of the spill in Mayflower have report­ed nau­sea, blurred vision, vom­it­ing, and black outs caused by the same blend of raw tar and poi­so­nous chem­i­cal sol­vents that will be trans­port­ed through Key­stone XL.

UPDATE 9:30 AM Work is still stopped on the ease­ment due to the large amount of police and emer­gency equip­ment need­ed for extrac­tion!  Show your sup­port for Fitzger­ald here!

UPDATE 9:10 AM: Fire­fight­ers have extract­ed Fitzger­ald and he’s now in police cus­tody. Please show your sup­port with a gen­er­ous dona­tion to his legal fund.

UPDATE 8:49 AM: Anoth­er fire res­cue vehi­cle on scene, offi­cer just com­mand­ed “every­one not involved in emer­gency ser­vices, back off now!” and work­ers retreat­ed slight­ly.

UPDATE 8:30 AM: Half a dozen work trucks, four police cars (3 sher­iffs and 1 state troop­er), four cops, four fire­fight­ers, 2 EMTs, one fire truck and a fire res­cue truck on scene. Spe­cial fire depart­ment equip­ment truck just arrived; large group of offi­cials crowd­ed around Fitzger­ald.

UPDATE 7:42 AM: Sher­iff on scene.

Drax AGM targeted over biomass conversion plans 25th April

50 peo­ple took part yes­ter­day in a demon­stra­tion and ral­ly out­side the annu­al gen­er­al meet­ing of Drax Plc, at the Gro­cers’ Hall in Lon­don, organ­ised by Bio­fu­el­watch and sup­port­ed by 16 oth­er groups.

50 peo­ple took part yes­ter­day in a demon­stra­tion and ral­ly out­side the annu­al gen­er­al meet­ing of Drax Plc, at the Gro­cers’ Hall in Lon­don, organ­ised by Bio­fu­el­watch and sup­port­ed by 16 oth­er groups. The protest opposed Drax pow­er station’s plans to con­vert half of its gen­er­at­ing capac­i­ty to bio­mass, and high­light­ed the impacts that this will have in terms of increased defor­esta­tion, land-grab­bing and car­bon emis­sions.

50 peo­ple took part yes­ter­day in a demon­stra­tion and ral­ly out­side the annu­al gen­er­al meet­ing of Drax Plc, at the Gro­cers’ Hall in Lon­don, organ­ised by Bio­fu­el­watch and sup­port­ed by 16 oth­er groups [1]. Demon­stra­tors chant­ed “Drax Drax, what do you say? How many trees have you killed today?” and hold­ing ban­ners read­ing “Big Bio­mass: Fuelling Defor­esta­tion, Land-grab­bing and Cli­mate Dis­as­ter”, “Big Bio­mass is Green­wash not Renew­able Ener­gy” and “Drax the Destroy­er!”. Bio­fu­el­watch called the demon­stra­tion to oppose Drax pow­er station’s plans to con­vert half of its gen­er­at­ing capac­i­ty to bio­mass, and to high­light the impacts that this will have in terms of increased defor­esta­tion, land-grab­bing and car­bon emis­sions.

The protest coin­cid­ed with the pub­li­ca­tion of an open let­ter to Drax Plc signed by 49 dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions and net­works world­wide, includ­ing Friends of the Earth Inter­na­tion­al, the Glob­al For­est Coali­tion and World Rain­for­est Move­ment [2]. The let­ter con­cludes: “We oppose com­mer­cial and indus­tri­al scale bioen­er­gy, and demand that the UK halt coal con­ver­sion plans and force these coal plants to shut down. Mean­while focus must be redi­rect­ed towards a seri­ous reduc­tion of ener­gy con­sump­tion and dra­mat­ic mea­sures to pro­tect and restore forests and oth­er ecosys­tems.”

Drax’s bio­mass plans will require pel­lets made from 15.8 mil­lion tonnes of wood each year, mak­ing it the biggest bio­mass-burn­ing pow­er sta­tion in the world. By com­par­i­son, the UK’s total annu­al wood pro­duc­tion is only 10 mil­lion tonnes. Over­all, ener­gy com­pa­nies in the UK are plan­ning to burn up to 10 times as much wood as the UK pro­duces ever year. Wood burned by Drax increas­ing­ly comes from whole trees felled for this pur­pose [3].

In addi­tion to issues of defor­esta­tion and land-grab­bing, recent sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies have shown that bio­mass used for elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion is actu­al­ly more car­bon inten­sive than burn­ing coal [4]. Dun­can Law from Bio­fu­el­watch said: “Burn­ing bio­mass on the scale pro­posed will be even more car­bon inten­sive than the coal it will replace, and result in a mas­sive car­bon debt stored just where we don’t want it, in the atmos­phere. Far from being a low-car­bon fuel, it’s a total cli­mate dis­as­ter!”.

For local com­mu­ni­ties, coal to bio­mass con­ver­sions will mean decades more of high lev­els of pol­lu­tion, since the con­ver­sions allow pow­er sta­tions to con­tin­ue oper­at­ing when they may oth­er­wise have to close down [5].

Notes:

[1] The fol­low­ing organ­i­sa­tions are for­mal­ly sup­port­ing Tak­ing DRAX­tic Action: Cam­paign Against Cli­mate Change; Car­bon Trade Watch; Chris­t­ian Ecol­o­gy Link; Cli­mate Jus­tice Col­lec­tive; Coal Action Net­work; Coal Action Scot­land; Colom­bia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­paign; Cor­po­rate Watch; Frack Free Som­er­set; Fuel Pover­ty Action; Gaia Foun­da­tion; Lon­don Min­ing Net­work; Lon­don Ris­ing Tide; Occu­py Lon­don Ener­gy, Equi­ty and Envi­ron­ment Group; Ris­ing Tide UK; World Devel­op­ment Move­ment.

[2] The Open Let­ter to Drax can be found at http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2013/drax-signon-letter/

[3] The Dog­wood Alliance, a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion work­ing to pro­tect forests in the South­ern US, released a report enti­tled “The Use of Whole Trees in Wood Pel­let Man­u­fac­tur­ing,” in Novem­ber 2012 doc­u­ment­ing the fact that the top exporters of wood pel­lets in the region rely heav­i­ly on cut­ting down whole trees to sat­is­fy demand from Euro­pean pow­er sta­tions. Scot Quaran­da, Cam­paign Direc­tor for Dog­wood Alliance said “Ener­gy com­pa­nies in the UK, includ­ing Drax, RWE and E.On are con­vert­ing large, old, dirty and inef­fi­cient coal pow­er sta­tions to bio­mass all in the name of reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions, but the real­i­ty is that this shift will accel­er­ate cli­mate change while also dri­ving destruc­tive indus­tri­al log­ging in the world’s most bio­log­i­cal­ly diverse tem­per­ate forests.” Through direct inves­ti­ga­tion and research, the report doc­u­ments the use of whole trees from South­ern forests by the largest wood pel­let man­u­fac­tur­ers and exporters in the South­ern US. Pel­let man­u­fac­tur­ers such as Geor­gia Bio­mass, a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of RWE, and Envi­va, a major sup­pli­er of Drax and E.On are high­light­ed in the report as using or if not open, plan­ning to use, whole trees. The report can be found here  http://www.dogwoodalliance.org/2012/11/new-report-discredits-uk-energy-company-claims-that-pellets-come-from-wood-waste/

[4] For a list of stud­ies into the car­bon impacts of bio­mass elec­tric­i­ty, see www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/resources-on-biomass. In addi­tion, the report “Dirt­i­er than coal?” pub­lished by RSPB, Friends of the Earth and Green­peace can be found here www.rspb.org.uk/Images/biomass_report_tcm9-326672.pdf

[5] Accord­ing to a brief­ing by Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate for the House of Lords on 14th Feb­ru­ary 2013, “the con­ver­sion of exist­ing coal gen­er­at­ing plant to bio­mass or high­er lev­els of bio­mass co-fir­ing is a way of keep­ing open some exist­ing coal plant that would oth­er­wise close before 2016 under envi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion, and there­fore improve capac­i­ty mar­gins over this decade.” ( http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldselect/ldsecleg/123/12306.htm)

Animal Activists Destroy Years of Research in Italy

Activists occu­py and bar­ri­cade them­selves on the fourth floor of a Phar­ma­col­o­gy Dept of a vivi­sec­tion lab in Milano (Italy).

Activists occu­py and bar­ri­cade them­selves on the fourth floor of a Phar­ma­col­o­gy Dept of a vivi­sec­tion lab in Milano (Italy).

Over the week­end ani­mal rights activists entered a lab­o­ra­to­ry con­duct­ing ani­mal stud­ies, set loose some of the ani­mals and switched cages, ruin­ing years worth of research, accord­ing to lab offi­cials.

Nature report­ed that the unau­tho­rized enter­ing of the lab­o­ra­to­ry in the phar­ma­col­o­gy depart­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Milan was part of a protest staged by peo­ple with the group Fer­mare Green Hill (or Stop Green Hill).

Phar­ma­col­o­gist Francesca Guidobono-Cav­al­chi­ni, who works in the build­ing, said, accord­ing to Nature, that they believe five activists obtained a key­card to enter the build­ing ille­gal­ly. Once inside, the activists set free some ani­mals and mixed up cages and labels. Two even put chains around their necks, attach­ing the oth­er end to the main dou­ble doors of the facil­i­ty, which could cause bod­i­ly harm if the opened by author­i­ties.

“These ani­mals did not choose to be there and have no chance to leave,” the activists stat­ed on their web­site (trans­lat­ed via Google Trans­late). “With this unprece­dent­ed action we want to doc­u­ment the con­di­tions in which ani­mals live and exper­i­ments that are con­duct­ed, show­ing them to the whole soci­ety with pho­tographs and films; give vis­i­bil­i­ty to the prob­lem of vivi­sec­tion and the places where it is prac­ticed, thus giv­ing a name also those who prac­tice it, to start a siege peace­ful inside and in front of the lab­o­ra­to­ry with the request that the ani­mals are released and that the Min­istry and the Palaces of an end to the false promis­es and real­ly start­ed to take steps towards the abo­li­tion of ani­mal test­ing.”

After 10 hours, activists from Con­tro Green Hill who had occu­pied the lab­o­ra­to­ry in the phar­ma­col­o­gy depart­ment of Milano, RESCUED HUNDREDS OF MICE AND ONE RABBIT. These ani­mals are now safe from the hands of vivi­sec­tors.

Nature report­ed Pao­la Viani, the deputy direc­tor with the phar­ma­col­o­gy depart­ment, say­ing he had to work with police to reach a com­pro­mise with the activists. They end­ed up tak­ing almost 100 ani­mals with them and were sup­pos­ed­ly told they could take more from the facil­i­ty lat­er.

“It will take three peo­ple at least a year to build up the colonies we had of mouse mod­els of dif­fer­ent psy­chi­atric dis­eases,” neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gist Michela Mat­te­oli said.

Guidobono-Cav­al­chi­ni told Nature the uni­ver­si­ty intends to press charges for the dam­age done.

On Sun­day, sci­en­tists issued a let­ter (trans­lat­ed by Google) stat­ing that the activists dam­age “goes far beyond the loss of ani­mals ille­gal­ly removed,” but extends to a loss of sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery and hun­dreds of thou­sands of euros.

Acknowl­edg­ing that there is a con­tro­ver­sial com­po­nent to ani­mal research, the sci­en­tists con­tin­ue in the let­ter stat­ing that it can be of ser­vice to human­i­ty and thus ask that the activists be brought to jus­tice for “the agen­cies, indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies of patients who fund our research.”

 

Harvard Announces Closure of Primate Research Center April 24th

Har­vard Med­ical School has issued a state­ment announc­ing that the New Eng­land Pri­mate Research Cen­ter will be clos­ing with­in 24 months. Harvard’s New Eng­land Pri­mate Research Cen­ter has been embroiled in an ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sy fol­low­ing the neg­li­gent deaths of at least 4 pri­mates.

Har­vard Med­ical School has issued a state­ment announc­ing that the New Eng­land Pri­mate Research Cen­ter will be clos­ing with­in 24 months. Harvard’s New Eng­land Pri­mate Research Cen­ter has been embroiled in an ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sy fol­low­ing the neg­li­gent deaths of at least 4 pri­mates. The facil­i­ty is cur­rent­ly under inves­ti­ga­tion by the USDA and faces a poten­tial­ly major fed­er­al fine for mul­ti­ple vio­la­tions of the Ani­mal Wel­fare Act. “Har­vard wants the pub­lic to believe that this clo­sure is due to eco­nom­ics,” said Michael A. Bud­kie, A.H.T., Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, SAEN (Stop Ani­mal Exploita­tion NOW!). “That is sim­ply not true. The only way Har­vard could quash this scan­dal is to close the pri­mate cen­ter, because even last year’s res­ig­na­tion of the Center’s Direc­tor could not end their inep­ti­tude. This clo­sure is the direct result of pres­sure from activists led by SAEN.” “The clo­sure of Harvard’s Pri­mate Research Cen­ter is the best news I have ever heard,” added Bud­kie. “The poten­tial exists to bring free­dom to many mon­keys and to redi­rect mil­lions of dol­lars into clin­i­cal and epi­demi­o­log­i­cal research which will more direct­ly ben­e­fit humans.” SAEN has announced plans to con­tact the Har­vard Med­ical School’s admin­is­tra­tion to explore the pos­si­bil­i­ty of plac­ing at least some of the pri­mates in sanc­tu­ar­ies. “These pri­mates have suf­fered enough,” added Bud­kie. “They deserve a chance to have a new life in anoth­er envi­ron­ment where their needs will be put first.”

Philippine climate activists expose risks of dirty coal. 24th April

300-strong cli­mate activists and anti-coal advo­cates stormed the Depart­ment of Ener­gy to voice out their oppo­si­tion to coal mines and coal-fired pow­er plants pro­mot­ed by the gov­ern­ment and to launch the group’s Cam­paign Against Dirty Ener­gy and for People’s Access to Safe, Renew­able and Demo­c­ra­t­ic Ener­gy Alter­na­tives.

This is in cel­e­bra­tion of Earth Day and the group’s Nation­al Day of Action against Coal.

Led by the Philip­pine Move­ment for Cli­mate Jus­tice (PMCJ), the groups brought body bags, gas masks and paper-made Philip­pine Cock­a­toos wear­ing masks to avoid the pol­lu­tion from coal and high­light­ed how coal dam­ages not only the envi­ron­ment and bio­di­ver­si­ty but our lives, lit­er­al­ly tak­ing lives -, thus, the state­ment: COAL KILLS.

COAL KILLS—Why is coal dirty, tox­ic

Ger­ry Arances, nation­al coor­di­na­tor of PMCJ explained: “The pro­mo­tion of coal as a major source of ener­gy of Fil­ipino com­mu­ni­ties is not the right solu­tion to the alleged pow­er cri­sis in sev­er­al parts of the coun­try. First of all, coal emits a large amount of heavy met­als such as mer­cury and arsenic – con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing our waters; gen­er­ates 500 tons of small air­borne par­ti­cles which cause asth­ma, bron­chi­tis, and aggra­vate heart dis­ease; coal ash dis­pos­al pos­es a very high risk of caus­ing can­cer to those exposed.

Sec­ond, coal plant emis­sions in sur­round­ing areas kill the liveli­hoods of host com­mu­ni­ties as the stud­ies in coal plants in Masin­loc, Zam­bales, and Naga, Cebu, among oth­ers, have clear­ly shown.

Third, coal burn­ing is the major cause of glob­al warm­ing and fur­ther pro­mot­ing it will aggra­vate the cli­mate cri­sis that we are fac­ing now. This I believe is a greater dam­age to the present and future gen­er­a­tions who will have to suf­fer the inten­si­fied impacts of cli­mate change.“

RESIST COAL—Increasing local oppo­si­tion to coal

Two of the major pro­posed projects now include the coal plants in Cebu and Palawan.

In Cebu, ash sam­ples test­ed from a coal plants in Naga, Cebu, revealed pres­ence of heavy met­als such as mer­cury and arsenic (carcinogen),both haz­ardous sub­stances. Despite this, more projects are still under­way. Naga is home to two coal plants.

“Health records in Naga for 2009–2012 reveal can­cer as one if not the lead­ing cause of mor­tal­i­ty inci­dence in the area. Though could not be direct­ly linked to the coal plant oper­a­tions, that its inci­dence in Naga is high­er than nation­al aver­ages should be suf­fi­cient basis for alarm. While we debate as to whether or not coal is the cul­prit for the deaths, can­cer-relat­ed deaths in the area con­tin­ue to rise,” said Atty. Aaron Pedrosa of San­lakas.

“The same could be said of com­mu­ni­ties in Tole­do City, Cebu where anoth­er coal plant oper­ates. But instead of address­ing the health con­cerns and con­duct­ing a probe into the sit­u­a­tion, the gov­ern­ment intends to put up anoth­er plant in the province”, Pedrosa added.

Can­cer is among the many dis­eases that could be attrib­uted to con­tin­ued expo­sure to coal com­bus­tion wastes

Also threat­ened by coal projects is our Last Fron­tier, Palawan—where a 15MW coal-fired pow­er plant project is being pro­posed to respond to a pro­ject­ed loom­ing pow­er short­age in the province. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists and con­ser­va­tion­ists in the province are strong­ly oppos­ing as the plant is to be set up 1.5‑kilometers away from Rasa Island, home to the crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered Philip­pine Cock­a­too.

Kather­ine Leuch of Palawan Alliance for Clean Ener­gy asserts that “The super­fi­cial cheap­ness of coal should not be the only con­sid­er­a­tion for allow­ing a coal-fired pow­er plant in Palawan because the risks of such far out­weighs the ben­e­fits giv­en that Palawan is an eco­log­i­cal­ly rich and sen­si­tive province. The neg­a­tive effect of coal is as dark as it is.

What is sad­den­ing is that based on our study the pro­ject­ed pow­er short­age is unfound­ed. It is main­ly due to dis­tri­b­u­tion prob­lems and not because of the exist­ing sup­ply. Palawan can also pro­vide clean­er and safer alter­na­tives like mini hydro, and oth­er renew­able ener­gy sources.”

RE-ENERGIZE ALL—Shift to REnew­able, sus­tain­able ener­gy for all Fil­ipino com­mu­ni­ties

The Philip­pine Ener­gy Plan (PEP) 2008–2030 reveals that coal pro­duc­tion will con­tin­ue to esca­late. From 39 coal oper­at­ing con­tracts (COCs) in 2007, there are now 76 COCs—16 of which were award­ed -– last Feb­ru­ary by the gov­ern­ment.

Arances con­clud­ed: “The PEPs mas­sive pro­mo­tion of coal-based pow­er is alarm­ing and is a major cause of con­cern for our frag­ile ecosys­tem and the Philip­pine pop­u­la­tion. — Coal is far from the best or even good solu­tion to our pow­er cri­sis.

Stud­ies show that the country’s poten­tial renew­able ener­gy can pro­vide as high as more than 200,000 MW even with­out tap­ping solar pow­er. It is about time that we look at this and do away with large-scale, dirty and envi­ron­men­tal­ly-destruc­tive projects.

If the gov­ern­ment is as seri­ous about using renew­able ener­gy as it claims, it had best do away with con­tra­dic­to­ry poli­cies. Gov­ern­ment needs to revise its Philip­pine Ener­gy Plan to ensure that vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties stop suf­fer­ing from the harm­ful effects of coal; start invest­ing in RE sources to make clean pow­er acces­si­ble and afford­able to our peo­ple.”

Local actions against coal

Anti-coal groups in host com­mu­ni­ties also led dif­fer­ent infor­ma­tion-aware­ness cam­paign activ­i­ties local­ly, includ­ing Cebu City, Davao City, Gen­er­al San­tos City, Palawan, Bataan, Leyte, and Que­zon.

In Cebu, around 100 activists dumped coal on a life-size map of the Philip­pines sym­bol­iz­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s rabid pro­mo­tion of car­bon-inten­sive tech­nol­o­gy and activ­i­ties treat­ing its adverse effects on the com­mu­ni­ty’s health, ecosys­tem and liveli­hoods as col­lat­er­al dam­age.

Last Sun­day, April 21, Supor­ta­do Move­ment and PMCJ also orga­nized a Bike Tour para sa Abot Kayang REnew­able Ener­gy in Marik­i­na, also in cel­e­bra­tion of Earth Day.

In Palawan, advo­cates from Palawan Alliance for Clean Ener­gy (PACE) installed stream­ers and COAL KILLS posters around Puer­to Prince­sa, while in Panacan, Nar­ra, Palawan sev­er­al dirty coal edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties were held Mem­bers of PACE also cam­paigned via local radio and a local forum the call against coal and oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed coal plant in Nar­ra, Palawan.