RT CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 83, SEPTEMBER 2008

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UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
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1) SHELL TO SEA — HELP NEEDED IN MAYO — ONGOING
2) FLASHMOB AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION, 23.09.08
3) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER, 26–28.09.08
4) LOW CARBON COMMUNITIES NETWORK CONFERENCE, 04.10.08
5) DRAX COAL TRAIN DEFENDANTS APPEAL AND RALLY, 07.10.08
6) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
7) CLIMATE RUSH, 13.10.08
8) LOW IMPACT LIVING AND RENEWABLE ENERGY COURSES, SEPT/OCT
9) NATIONAL CLIMATE MARCH, 06.12.08
10) FANTASTIC FOOLERY, FFD 2009, 01.04.09

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
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1) ECOTOPIAN REPRESSION – AUGUST
2) 7 GERMAN BANKS TARGETED – ‘NO TO UK COAL’ – 14.08.08
3) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, 15–24.8.08
4) KINGSNORTH SIX RESULT — NOT GUILTY — 10.09.08
5) HUNGER STRIKE IN MAYO, SEPTEMBER
6) CARDIFF HILTON COAL PROTEST – 10.09.08
7) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009,13–14.09.08
8) CLIMATE CAMP LEGAL UPDATE – ONGOING
9) ‘OIL WAR’ DECLARED IN NIGERIA — SEPT
10) COIN TRAINING — SEPT/OCT/NOV
11) ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS – 2008 EDITION OF SPIRIT OF FREEDOM
12) NEW FILM — WAKE UP, FREAK OUT, THEN GET A GRIP.
13) OILWATCH POSITION PAPER ON VOLUNTARY CARBON MARKET
14) NEW CORNER HOUSE ARTICLES ON CLIMATE

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UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
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1) SHELL TO SEA — HELP NEEDED IN MAYO — ONGOING
The Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Mem­bers of the Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta recent­ly deployed at the E.ON coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth, have made their way from Cli­mate Camp UK to Erris, in order to assist Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers in their oppo­si­tion to this pipeline con­struc­tion at Glen­gad. http://www.corribsos.com/
(Also see sto­ry below regard­ing the hunger strike in Erris).

2) FLASHMOB AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION, 23.09.08
A flash­mob to protest against the expan­sion of Heathrow, Man­ches­ter and all UK air­ports is being called to coin­cide with the Labour Par­ty Con­fer­ence in Man­ches­ter. It also marks the launch of the new­ly-formed Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port group (SEMA).For more info see: www.stopmanchesterairport.org.uk
Date: Tues­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber. Time: 12.45pm (sharp!) Loca­tion: Albert Square, out­side Man­ches­ter Town Hall. Turn up and reveal your red T‑shirt (keep it cov­ered before hand!) 3 ways to get your free ‘Stop Air­port Expan­sion’ T‑Shirt:
Email info@stopmanchesterairport.org.uk, meet at Friends Meet­ing House (Mount St) at 12.15pm and col­lect one, or make your own!

3) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER, 26–28.09.08
All are invit­ed to the first Post-Cli­mate Camp Nation­al Gath­er­ing. The gath­er­ing will offer a chance to reflect on where we are at, decide where we go from here, and pro­vide info as to how to get involved in the ongo­ing direct action cam­paign to stop Kingsnorth. Ques­tions? Email process@climatecamp.org.uk
For full details of the gath­er­ing go to http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/node/448

4) LOW CARBON COMMUNITIES NETWORK CONFERENCE, 04.10.08
A nation­al day of net­work­ing and strat­e­gy plan­ning for low car­bon com­mu­ni­ty groups across the UK. This free event in Llan­gollen is open to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of com­mu­ni­ty groups work­ing towards a low car­bon future for every­one. A range of work­shops, net­work­ing ses­sions and inspir­ing speak­ers offer the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn from each oth­er as we move towards a low car­bon soci­ety. To find out more vis­it — http://low.communitycarbon.net/2008-conference/

5) DRAX COAL TRAIN DEFENDANTS APPEAL AND RALLY, 07.10.08
On 13th June 2008 pro­tes­tors halt­ed a coal train car­ry­ing fuel for Drax pow­er sta­tion, which burns around 9 mil­lion tonnes of coal per year and emits some 21 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide. The Drax pro­test­ers were arrest­ed and 29 of them face crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings. The Dis­trict Judge sent the case to crown court because he thought it too seri­ous for the magistrate’s court: the max­i­mum sen­tence in the magistrate’s court is 6 months. The Drax defen­dants face cus­to­di­al sen­tences. They need help with expens­es so that the case can be heard. Peace News has launched an appeal and you can donate: Account Name: Mid­lands Con­ser­va­tion Club, Sort Code: 30–98-00 (Lloyds TSB), Account No: 291140002.

Or rather than give mon­ey sup­port then in per­son! Say ‘No’ to Coal and Cli­mate Change! Vigil/Rally in sup­port of the Drax 29 Tues­day 7th Octo­ber — 12.30 to 2.00pm
Out­side York Crown Court (next to the Cas­tle Muse­um). This is the first of two pre-tri­al appear­ances before the main tri­al when York Eco-Action shall be call­ing much big­ger actions. But lets show the media how big the issue is right from Day 1!

6) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
A meet­ing to bring togeth­er groups and com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing coal in the UK, from open cast and deep coal mines, to pow­er sta­tions and coal imports. Share infor­ma­tion, plan for action, and build a strong net­work of resis­tance.
Vis­it — www.leaveitintheground.org.uk for more details.

7) CLIMATE RUSH, 13.10.08
Par­lia­ment Square, Lon­don — 5.30pm
100 years ago the Suf­fragettes went to Par­lia­ment and demand­ed that their soci­ety change. They held a mass ral­ly out­side Par­lia­ment to which thou­sands came, before a num­ber of them rushed into Par­lia­ment and got every­one’s atten­tion. We invite you all to cel­e­brate the 100th anniver­sary of this world chang­ing event. No air­port expan­sion. No new coal. The cre­ation of poli­cies based on the most recent cli­mate research.
The Cli­mate Rush: www.climaterush.co.uk and info@climaterush.co.uk

8) LOW IMPACT LIVING AND RENEWABLE ENERGY COURSES, SEPT/OCT
Through­out Octo­ber the Low Impact Liv­ing Ini­tia­tive are run­ning a range of cours­es to help you pre­pare for a low car­bon future. From com­post­ing to build­ing solar water heaters, green wood­work to low-impact small­hold­ings, wood burn­er con­struc­tion to advanced recy­cling. For more infor­ma­tion check out — http://www.lowimpact.org/courses.htm
AND
Green Drag­on Ener­gy are run­ning renew­able ener­gy cours­es through­out Octo­ber at var­i­ous loca­tions across the UK and Europe. Intro­duc­tion to Renew­able Ener­gy, Wind & Solar Elec­tric­i­ty Course, Solar Elec­tric­i­ty Instal­la­tion Course — Off-grid Appli­ca­tions for more see http://www.greendragonenergy.co.uk/courses.htm

9) NATIONAL CLIMATE MARCH, 06.12.08
Thou­sands will gath­er to March through Lon­don on Sat­ur­day 6th of Decem­ber, coin­cid­ing with the piv­otal UN inter­na­tion­al cli­mate talks in Poland. The march will be one of many hap­pen­ing in major cities through­out the world with all call­ing on world lead­ers take the urgent and res­olute action need­ed to pre­vent run­away cli­mate change. To find out about the Lon­don March — con­tact the Cam­paign Against Cli­mate Change at info@campaigncc.org or phone 0207 8339311.

10) FANTASTIC FOOLERY, FFD 2009, 01.04.09
Just in case you missed the news last month. Four con­ti­nents, 150 actions, and an April Fools Day with a fan­tas­ti­cal­ly sub­ver­sive (and rad­i­cal­ly nec­es­sary) twist — we’re def­i­nite­ly doing that again! So Fos­sil Fools Day 09 is a go — start pick­ing your fos­sil fuel tar­get now! Info and resources will be post­ed on the web­site soon, and look out for leaflets to dis­trib­ute in Decem­ber.

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
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1) ECOTOPIAN REPRESSION — AUGUST 2008
Greens, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, peace and nature sup­port­ers, and NGO’s from all over the World gath­ered on the 9th of August to join the 20th inter­na­tion­al Eco­topia gath­er­ing being held at Sarikum nature reserve in Sinop, Turkey. Eco­topia gath­er­ings pro­mote sus­tain­able ways of liv­ing, har­mo­ny with nature, and dis­cuss social jus­tice issues. This year, Eco­topia has sup­port­ed local anti-nuclear groups, raised con­scious­ness of nuclear issues and pro­mot­ed alter­na­tive ener­gy sources. On Wednes­day 20th August, 6 inter­na­tion­als and 5 Turk­ish peo­ple were placed under cus­tody while stag­ing a peace­ful vig­il out­side the Atom­ic Ener­gyA­gency (TAEK) in Sinop. On the 22nd August, approx­i­mate­ly 10 armed offi­cers, ordered by the gov­er­nor of Sinop, raid­ed the Eco­topia camp, threat­en­ing force­ful evic­tion if the site was not emp­tied with­in 3 hours. See Indy­media for more details — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/407393.html

2) 7 GERMAN BANKS TARGETED – ‘NO TO UK COAL’ – 14.08.08
Com­mu­nique sent via e‑mail to direct action news from ger­many (http://www.directactionde.blogspot.com/) “On the night of Thurs­day 14th August, in Berlin, we made 7 attacks on Deutsche Bank, Com­merz Bank, Allianz AG and Dres­den­er Bank. The locks to the banks and the card-read­ers were glued and ‘no to UK Coal’ was spray­paint­ed. Deutsche Bank is the sin­gle biggest Euro­pean investor in agro­fu­els in Latin Amer­i­ca. Along with Allianz, Deustche Bank is also one of the biggest share­hold­ers in UK Coal who cur­rent­ly plan to build 7 new coal fired pow­er sta­tions across the UK. The tar­gets cho­sen are both cli­mate change and cap­i­tal relat­ed. Exploita­tion of the envi­ron­ment and peo­ple by State and indus­try go hand in hand. They can­not be sep­a­rat­ed and both must be attacked. This attack coin­cides with the end of the UK Camp for Cli­mate Action and the begin­ning of the Kli­ma Camp and Anti-Raciss­mus Camp near Ham­burg. Social war not cli­mate chaos!” For more info see — http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21289

3) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, 15–24.8.08
From 15 to 24th August anti-racists and envi­ron­men­tal­ists pitched their tents in Ham­burg, in a joint camp with shared infra­struc­ture, spaces and time. Both in the camp itself and dur­ing actions attempts were made to stand togeth­er and build alliances, the action high points of the camps includ­ed the block­ade of the depor­ta­tion air­port Fuhls­büt­tel and the occu­pa­tion of the Moor­burg coal pow­er plant. At Ham­burg air­port, which was both an anti-depor­ta­tion and anti-cli­mate change action, an esti­mat­ed 2,000 peo­ple took action in the area. Toi­lets were flood­ed, var­i­ous actions inside the ter­mi­nals occurred and demon­stra­tions and bar­ri­cades were built on roads into the air­port. At Moor­burg, 800 peo­ple marched to the police lines in front of coal pow­er plant. Although Moor­burg had been suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied ear­ly in the week, police were now pre­pared. Water can­nons, pep­per spray, and batons were all used in full force against demon­stra­tors. A ‘five fin­ger tac­tic’ did man­age to get through police lines at times, as well as through forests and fences, but demon­stra­tors found each fence con­cealed yet anoth­er line of police and fences. For more infor­ma­tion and pic­tures see — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/407468.html

4) KINGSNORTH SIX RESULT — NOT GUILTY — 10.09.08
To recap on how impor­tant this ver­dict is: the defen­dants cam­paign­ers were accused of caus­ing £30,000 of crim­i­nal dam­age to Kingsnorth smoke­stack from paint­ing. The defence was that they had ‘law­ful excuse’ — because they were act­ing to pro­tect prop­er­ty around the world “in imme­di­ate need of pro­tec­tion” from the impacts of cli­mate change, caused in part by burn­ing coal. So the evi­dence for the defence cen­tred around the enor­mous dam­age burn­ing coal does to ecosys­tems, peo­ple and prop­er­ty around the plan­et — and the UK gov­ern­men­t’s abject fail­ure to take any mean­ing­ful action.
This could be a very impor­tant prece­dent for envi­ron­men­tal activists across the UK! For more infor­ma­tion vis­it — http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/kingsnorth-trial-breaking-news-verdict-20080910

5) HUNGER STRIKE IN MAYO — SEPTEMBER
Hunger Strike in Erris as Shel­l’s Pipe Lay­ing Ship Arrives.
On Sep­tem­ber 9th the world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land. Local fish­er­men are wor­ried about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the waters they depend on, and many local peo­ple who are con­cerned that the off­shore sec­tion of the Shell scheme is being put in place while no plan­ning per­mis­sion exists for the onshore sec­tion. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy. In recent weeks there have been 29 sep­a­rate arrests in thee area around Glen­gad beach, where the pipe is due to make land­fall.

A local school prin­ci­pal has vowed to refuse food until the ship leaves the area. She has parked her car in front of the Shell com­pound. The Irish gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Green Par­ty Min­is­ters of the Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, have backed Shel­l’s scheme. Last month the Gar­da released fig­ures show­ing that 11 mil­lion euro had been spent polic­ing the project since 2006, more than half the amount the force spent on fight­ing organ­ised crime. Activists on the ground in Mayo have asked for assis­tance. Those not in a posi­tion to trav­el to Mayo can hold sol­i­dar­i­ty protests at the Irish embassy or Shell petrol sta­tions. For more info see www.indymedia.ie/mayo, http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21448, http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/408913.html or con­tact rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com

6) CARDIFF HILTON COAL PROTEST – 10.09.08
Merthyr Tyd­fil res­i­dents and cli­mate change cam­paign­ers staged dis­rup­tive protests at the Cardiff Hilton dur­ing the AGM of the UK Coal Author­i­ty. Three cam­paign­ers scaled the main entrance of the lux­u­ry hotel and hung a ban­ner read­ing “Coal: Leave it in the Ground”, while oth­ers inside the con­fer­ence chal­lenged coal indus­try del­e­gates on their industry’s record of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age. The UK Coal Author­i­ty is a gov­ern­ment-fund­ed body tasked with pro­mot­ing and sup­port­ing the UK coal indus­try. Their AGM fea­tures ses­sions on expand­ing open­cast min­ing, length­en­ing the lifes­pan of aging pow­er sta­tions, and a range of oth­er con­tro­ver­sial activ­i­ties car­ried out by the indus­try, which has faced wide­spread oppo­si­tion over the past year to its plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of coal-fired pow­er sta­tions, and ongo­ing expan­sion of open­cast min­ing across the coun­try. media@thecoalhole.org
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21423

7) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009,13–14.09.08
Reports com­ing out from the first inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing in Copen­hagen sug­gest that it was a great suc­cess. The meet­ing finalised a call out text, which will be up on the Ris­ing Tide web­site short­ly, and start­ed mobil­i­sa­tion for direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change in Copen­hagen and through­out the world dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence (30 Nov ‑11 Dec 2009).
More info: http://klimax2009.org/?p=33&langswitch_lang=en
To get involved in this ongo­ing and open process, sign up to the email list: climateaction@klimax2009.org

8) CLIMATE CAMP LEGAL UPDATE — ONGOING
Return of prop­er­ty — A col­lec­tion of the items seized under the war­rant was to hap­pen Tues­day 16th Sep­tem­ber but annu­al leave deferred because of the Cli­mate Camp and rest days fol­low­ing Kent Police’s activ­i­ty at the Chan­nel Tun­nel fire means they can’t find an offi­cer to return the prop­er­ty at the moment. If you want items col­lect­ed from indi­vid­ual search­es, col­lect­ed and brought to the Man­ches­ter Gath­er­ing please email legal ASAP for advice — legal@climatecamp.org.uk
Wit­ness­es to an arrest of a white male, 6′1″ tall, slim, black fleece top, blue jeans with blue ruck sack and cam­era at the Deans­gate Golf Club search area on Sat­ur­day 9th August at 10.35am. Uni­formed inspec­tor (red shoul­der flash­es) grabbed him vio­lent­ly and frog- marched him to the exit. Email legal@climatecamp.org.uk

9) ‘OIL WAR’ DECLARED IN NIGERIA – SEPT
Nige­ri­a’s main mil­i­tant group in the Niger Delta has declared an “oil war” against for­eign-owned oil com­pa­nies work­ing in the region. The Move­ment for the Eman­ci­pa­tion of the Niger Delta (Mend) said on Sun­day it had launched “hur­ri­cane Bar­barossa” and destroyed flow sta­tions and oil pipelines, killing 22 Niger­ian sol­diers. Mend said it was launch­ing the “war” after gov­ern­ment troops attacked one of its posi­tions a day ear­li­er with aer­i­al and marine forces. Chevron con­firmed one of its oil plat­forms was attacked by rebels on Sun­day. Roy­al Dutch Shell, Exxon­Mo­bil, Total, Eni, and Chevron, are among the numer­ous oil com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the Niger Delta. http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21446

10) COIN TRAININGS — SEPT/OCT/NOV
COIN’s train­ings in Lon­don this autumn are book­ing up fast — please see www.coinet.org.uk for details and book now to avoid dis­ap­point­ment.
The train­ings are: 30th Sept: Com­mu­ni­cat­ing Cli­mate Change; 28th Oct: Cli­mate Change Speak­er Train­ing; 18th Nov: Cli­mate Change Con­densed; 2nd Dec: How to win the cli­mate change argu­ment in a 15-minute tea break. COIN is also run­ning 2 train­ings in Sep­tem­ber for Trade Union­ists, see www.coinet.org.uk if you are a mem­ber of trade union and fan­cy some train­ing on cli­mate change com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

11) ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS – 2008 EDITION OF SPIRIT OF FREEDOM
See­ing so many good peo­ple removed from their fam­i­lies & loved ones for mere­ly act­ing out of com­pas­sion and a desire to stop envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and ani­mal abuse is heart­break­ing. Some of the pris­on­ers ELP lists are very well known, oth­ers are less well known. How­ev­er ALL of them deserve our love and sup­port. ALL of the list­ed pris­on­ers wel­come let­ters of sup­port. Even if it’s just a card say­ing “Hi. I’m think­ing of you”. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21341

12) NEW FILM — WAKE UP, FREAK OUT, THEN GET A GRIP.
A great new short film about cli­mate tip­ping points and why we need to act now. Watch it and pass it on — and it’s great for work­shops! http://wakeupfreakout.org/

13) OILWATCH POSITION PAPER ON VOLUNTARY CARBON MARKET
This doc­u­ment is now avail­able to down­loaded from the Oil­watch web­site — www.oilwatch.org

14) NEW CORNER HOUSE ARTICLES ON CLIMATE
Includ­ing how the pay-to-pol­lute prin­ci­ple killed South African activist Saji­da Khan, six sound­bites against car­bon mar­kets, why cli­mate change is becom­ing a social and polit­i­cal rather than tech­no­log­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic prob­lem, and a new video called the ‘CO2 Ali­bi’. http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/subject/climate

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RT CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 83, SEPTEMBER 2008
Com­piled and sent out by Ris­ing Tide UK: info at risingtide.org.uk
To receive this News Sheet month­ly, email news-sub­scribe at risingtide.org.uk with the sub­ject line ‘sub­scribe’ (with­out the quotes).