Sunday stroll through RBS’ HQ and other climate camp actions so far — updated

For the lat­est action & oth­er news from the Camp for Cli­mate Action, read their twit­ter.

Mid Sun­day after­noon (22.8.10), 100s of peo­ple attempt­ed to stroll over the bridge from the Cli­mate Camp to the HQ of RBS. Police tried to stop them.

From the North­ern Indy­media time­line:

August 22, 2010 17:29 — Cli­mate Camp pro­tes­tors have now crossed the bridge and marched on to RBS build­ings.

August 22, 2010 17:17 — Green­wash gueril­la activists are going across the main bridge.

August 22, 2010 17:11 — two hun­dred activists in green­wash gueril­la out­fits are march­ing onto the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land Head Quar­ters site.

August 22, 2010 13:50 — “Bring­ing three vans down Gog­ar Sta­tion Road”

August 22, 2010 13:39 — Most of the Cli­mate Campers have moved away, but 4 or 5 are being searched on Sta­tion Road while head­ing back to the main Camp area. Legal Observers are with those Campers who have been stopped.

August 22, 2010 13:36 — Forty Police are now present in the same area as the Cli­mate Campers who are try­ing to enter RBS grounds. Police are now threat­en­ing to invoke Sec­tion 60 on any­one wear­ing a face mask.

August 22, 2010 13:32 — Cli­mate Campers are mov­ing back through the hedge.

August 22, 2010 13:30 — Twelve Police are stood behind the crowd.

August 22, 2010 13:27 — Push­ing match has end­ed. Police are watch­ing Cli­mate Campers dance!

August 22, 2010 13:26 — Police do not have a rea­son for why they are not let­ting Cli­mate Campers cross the bridge. No com­mand­ing offi­cer present to give a rea­son. Push­ing match between Campers and police has begun.

August 22, 2010 13:23 — Police and two vans have met Cli­mate Campers on the bridge and are try­ing to pre­vent them cross­ing the bridge.

August 22, 2010 13:22 — For­ward Intel­li­gence Team (F.I.T.) of the Police have joined the Cli­mate Campers. Police have made attempts to stop the group enter­ing RBS land. We think the police have been unsuc­cess­ful in stop­ping the Cli­mate Campers gain access to the land.

August 22, 2010
There are also a cou­ple of videos avail­able online, one of which appears to show Campers on top of the RBS build­ing (and anoth­er video, slight­ly ear­li­er).

From the Camp twit­ter feed:

* After a pro­longed stand off with the police we are now in a mass ple­nary hear­ing from two Cana­di­an #tarsands activists. #cli­mate­camp 2 min­utes ago via Tweet­Deck
* In an unre­lat­ed inci­dent two activists were also arrest­ed. Molasses rep­re­sent­ing dirty oil was flung at RBS HQ in cater­paults #cli­mate­camp 3 min­utes ago via Tweet­Deck
* dur­ing the ear­li­er site incur­sion two win­dows were smashed by activists angry about RBS fos­sil fuel invest­ments #cli­mate­camp #tarsands
* Overheard_it Over­heard police say­ing an offi­cer had lost their radio in scuf­fles with #Cli­mate­Camp pro­test­ers about 1 hour ago via twit­ter­feed Retweet­ed by cli­mate­camp
* Sophi­aCR Bal­loons full of ‘oil’ just burst on the RBS build­ing. #cli­mate­camp about 3 hours ago via txt Retweet­ed by cli­mate­camp and 4 oth­ers
* Pic­tures from our incur­sion onto RBS HQ. Cur­rent­ly a stand off and bridge and peo­ple up tripods too http://tweetphoto.com/40722969 about 2 hours ago via Tweet­Deck
* Mass incur­sion at RBS HQ. Hun­dreds threat­ened with arrest if they don’t cross back over the bridge #cli­mate­camp

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Activists Force RBS Branch­es to Close Over Week­end
August 22, 2010

* Cli­mate pro­test­ers use super­glue and stink bombs to close branch­es
* Lady Gaga song per­formed on hijacked Fringe stage

The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land came under attack from pro­test­ers this week­end, who are demon­strat­ing against its invest­ment in dan­ger­ous fos­sil fuels.

Activists super­glued shut RBS branch doors on Fri­day night, and graf­fi­tied RBS logos around the city. RBS branch­es were forced to close on Sat­ur­day as Cli­mate Camp pro­tes­tors tar­get­ed city cen­tre branch­es.

One set of pro­test­ers per­formed ‘Dirty Oil’, a spoof ver­sion of the Lady Gaga song ‘Pok­er­face’ with the words changed to high­light RBS’ invest­ments in the Tar Sands. The St Andrew’s Square branch was closed to pre­vent activists per­form­ing inside. The group lat­er hijacked an RBS-spon­sored stage at the Edin­burgh Fringe.

The song includ­ed the lyrics:

“It’s get­ting hot, the plan­et’s near­ly shot
We’ll make ’em stop, we’re putting up a block.
Can’t deny, can’t deny that tar sands is dirty oil
Tar Sands is dirty oil.”

A dif­fer­ent group set off stink bombs in RBS branch­es, forc­ing them to close for the day.

Ruth McTer­nan from the Cli­mate Camp said:

“These invest­ments are fill­ing the atmos­phere with the stench of car­bon and has­ten­ing cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change, so we gave RBS a sam­ple of their own smelly emis­sions.”

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Police Search Street The­atre Activists Under New Pow­er
August 21, 2010

A group of street the­atre activists plan­ning on demon­strat­ing against RBS lat­er today have been stopped and searched by Loth­i­an and Bor­ders Police under Sec­tion 60.

A team of 30–40 peo­ple gath­ered at the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land HQ in Gog­a­r­burn, Edin­burgh this morn­ing. Dressed in white foren­sics bio­haz­ard suits and car­ry­ing “green­wash detec­tor” probes they enact­ed street the­atre to poke fun at RBS’ attempts to spin their image away from their sta­tus as the oil and gas bank.

The pro­test­ers were searched under a sec­tion 60 pow­er which has been in place on Edin­burgh and sur­round­ing area since 10.30 am on Sat­ur­day morn­ing and will remain so for 48 hours. The group were stopped and searched for offen­sive weapons just out­side the Cli­mate Camp at Gog­a­r­burn. For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams took pho­tographs of the pro­tes­tors. All refused to give their details and there were no arrests.

This move accom­pa­nies the instal­la­tion of flood­lights on the roof of RBS HQ, and the intro­duc­tion of mount­ed police in the area sur­round­ing the camp.

The pro­tes­tors from Camp for Cli­mate Action plan on head­ing into the Roy­al Mile at 3pm for more green­wash bust­ing.

Char­lotte Wirth, one of the pro­tes­tors who was stopped and searched, said:
“Street the­atre is a great way to high­light how what RBS says about its envi­ron­men­tal record doesn’t match up with the real­i­ty. RBS is financ­ing bil­lions of pounds worth of coal, oil and gas both across the world and here in the UK.

“It’s ridicu­lous that the police are using stop and search pow­ers across Edin­burgh on street per­form­ers just because our mes­sage is polit­i­cal.”

More pho­tos

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Activist super-glued to RBS front desk as 150 Cli­mate Campers mount an incur­sion into RBS
August 20, 2010

At noon today, approx­i­mate­ly 150 activists breached the secu­ri­ty between the Cli­mate Camp (which is on the grounds of Roy­al Bank of Scot­land head­quar­ters) and the build­ings com­plex which hous­es the head­quar­ters.

As the activists com­plet­ed their tour of the grounds, one pro­tes­tor dis­guised as a banker gained entry to build­ing and super-glued her hands to the front desk. She was arrest­ed, and an ambu­lance was called to facil­i­tate removal.

The activists invit­ed the bankers to lunch to find out more about the Cli­mate Camp and the role of RBS in financ­ing cli­mate chaos at the many work­shops and train­ings planned for this week­end, before the day of mass action.

The activists man­aged to enter the revolv­ing doors of the RBS build­ing, where they held a dance par­ty and held a ban­ner declar­ing “we won‘t pay for their cri­sis”. They then moved to the front of the build­ing, where there were speech­es about RBS’ destruc­tive invest­ments into fos­sil fuels.

One of the speak­ers said:
“This is a call to action because RBS is financ­ing fos­sil fuel projects around the world. They are know­ing­ly dis­plac­ing and endan­ger­ing com­mu­ni­ties, destroy­ing ecosys­tems and lead­ing us towards cli­mate chaos. We’re hear to join with those com­mu­ni­ties in oppos­ing a finan­cial sys­tem which pri­ori­tis­es prof­its for the few over all of our futures”