Climate change & climate action

A call for direct action against climate change has been made by Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, a state made up of a necklace of atolls whose maximum natural ground level is only 7 feet 7 inches above sea level (ASL), and whose average ground level is only 4ft 11in ASL. Speaking at the Hay literary festival at the end of May, Nasheed said: “What we really need is a huge social ’60s-style catalystic, dynamic street action.”
The main problem was the US, not China: “If the…

Public shareholders of RBS put the case for sustainable investment at the bank’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Edinburgh on 28 April. Since the bank bailout in 2008 the UK government owns 84% of RBS shares, effectively taking the bank into public ownership.

However, the public who amassed outside Edinburgh International Conference Centre, many suited and booted for the occasion, held their meeting from behind police barriers.

The meeting was supported by the World…

On 26 April, people involved in the Rising Tide Network literally put their necks on the line by blockading the railway line which carries coal from the controversial open-cast mine at Ffos-y-Frân in Merthyr Tydfil to Aberthaw power station, the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in Wales.

It took the combined efforts of British Rail police and South Wales police over eight hours to remove the protesters. Eighteen people from Bristol and Bath were charged under the Malicious Damages…

Hello everyone! This article here is supposed to be about how Peace News is getting on as a member of the 10:10 initiative to cut carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. For us, that mainly means using less electricity, switching off appliances and so on.

Anyhow, this month we respond to a criticism we’ve received of the 10:10 organisation. We’ve had a letter criticising 10:10 for accepting the carbon-cutting pledge of MBDA Missile Systems.

MBDA produces more than 3,000…

In March, the Heathrow Transition Towns group started its “Grow Heathrow” project, squatting a derelict market garden in Sipson, the town threatened by demolition to make way for the projected third runway at Heathrow.
“Grow Heathrow” has had instant, widespread and enthusiastic community support. To arrange a “Grow Heathrow” work day: 07890 751 568; www.transitionheathrow.com
Meanwhile, on 27 March, the high court dealt a hefty…

The Labour government says it is still committed to the third Heathrow runway, but on 12 April gave up on the idea of a second Stansted runway!

Vandana Shiva has a knack of bringing together issues we often see as separate, and linking our awareness to these connections.

In Soil Not Oil she argues that the triple crisis of the title is actually a triple opportunity – in relation to industrial farming, petroleum-based fertilisers and oil-based transportation on- and off-farm.

What better and more immediate way to reduce our CO2 emissions than to change our food habits? Shiva encourages us to power down our consumption…

I enjoyed David MacKay’s book unpicking energy issues and exploring the realities of the tough choices we face.

It’s had favourable reviews from influential quarters, including those in political power here in the UK. MacKay, a Cambridge physicist, has essentially made a book out of lots of back-of-an-envelope calculations, pulling them together to see, for example, whether potential UK renewable energy sources stack up against our energy consumption.

He’s done almost…

The UN COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen in December was a shambles. The little that was agreed reads like a paltry preamble to a treaty that never was – global average temperature rises should be held below 2oC; carbon emissions must be cut, but in a way that does not hinder economic progress of the developing world; a fund should be established to help poorer countries adapt to the threat of climate change (with an initial annual outlay of only $8bn, or about a third of what Shell…

The forced eviction of the Mainshill Solidarity Camp ended on 29 January, with over 70 people resisting the eviction, 45 arrests and a huge number of defences that kept the National Eviction Team busy for five days. At the same time digger-diving shut down the nearby Ravenstruther coal terminal for the third time in a year.

Mainshill Solidarity Camp was set up in June 2009, acting with local groups against proposed open-cast mining and its detrimental effects on public health. All…

I’m neither a summit-hopper nor a pacifist, yet the plan for mass nonviolent action at the COP15 Climate summit in Copenhagen caught my imagination.

“Using only the force of our bodies”, went the call-out by the Climate Justice Action network, “we will overcome any physical barriers that stand in our way” to “push into the conference area and enter the building, disrupt the sessions” and hold a “horizontal” assembly.

Images of the raid on the Dharasana salt works, 21…

First prize in the Copenhagen Greenwash Awards must go to Siemens and Coca-Cola for branding the host city “Hopenhagen”. Siemens set up a faux city, brightly lit in a mendacious green, extolling unsustainable technologies including super-fast electric sports cars. Coke posters proclaimed the mega-corp’s sugar- and exploitation-suffused product as “hope in a bottle!” Hopenhagen makes you sick.

There was never any hope of mitigating climate change or attaining climate justice via…

The chief constable of Kent, Mike Fuller, admitted in the High Court on 12 January that his police had conducted illegal “stop and searches” on 11-year-old twins, Dave Morris and other activists at the August 2008 week-long Climate Camp at the Kingsnorth power station. Police had already been heavily criticised for brutality towards protesters at the camp by officers who hid their badge numbers and for using loud music to stop activists sleeping.

The High Court was told that the…

On 16 June, Manchester Plane Stupid disrupted an airport industry conference using helium balloons reading “Happy Retirement”. The balloons floated to the top of the Manchester Central conference venue where they remained with their attached rape alarms ringing loudly.

This occurred just as the industry delegates were posing for a photo shoot for the launch of a new carbon reduction scheme at European airports – which will not include emissions from aircraft. The Airports Council…

Even for those who expected nothing, COP15 was still a huge disappointment; a body-blow to a stricken planet, its environment and its politics. For this we owe a “special” thank-you, as per usual on matters of war and justice, to the USA. For people who put their faith in Barack Obama, he proved more Judas than Jesus, for thirty pieces of silver read dirty piles of petrodollars. Nevertheless, there were signs of hope: ourselves, the climate justice movement.

Here participants in last…