Climate change & climate action

Some of the most influential professional engineering and science organisations (PESOs) in the UK have promoted fossil fuel and arms companies to schoolchildren – without discussing the ethical issues involved.

That was the finding of an investigation of 20 PESOs by Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) this October.

Separately, in November, SGR released a poll of climate-related attitudes among scientists, some working in fields connected to the climate crisis.…

Climate action coalition Divest East Sussex is gearing up for nonviolent direct action after the first phase of its campaign came to a head on 15 October.

That was the day East Sussex county council was forced to hold a debate on its continued role in funding climate change after Divest East Sussex collected over 5,300 signatures on a petition demanding it…

Several hundred peace activists took part in XR Peace actions in London during the October occupations and actions by the climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR).

There were 57 arrests on different charges: causing a public nuisance, highway obstruction, aggravated trespass, criminal damage, and breaching ‘section 14’ orders. (Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986…

20 September saw school children strike for climate again across Wales, supported by many adults. At the Centre for Alternative Technology, students, visitors, staff and volunteers showed their support for the Climate Strike, sounding alarms to signal that ‘time’s up’ for action on climate change, and reading out words from young climate strikers from around the world.

In…

Hundreds of students and activists marched to Jakarta city hall in the capital of Indonesia as they joined the 20 September Global Climate Strike. The demonstrations started in the Pacific islands (‘We are not sinking, we are fighting’) and Australia, where 300,000 took part in 100 rallies. They spread across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, involving over four million people in total. A week later, two million people…

My work as coordinator of the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) has kept me busy for some months now supporting the rights of Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaigners to exercise their freedom of assembly.

XR activists have been out on the streets since 7 October and over 1,400 have been arrested so far. Now the police have abandoned any pretence at facilitating their rights and have imposed a blanket ban on XR protests covering the whole of London.

As well as…

Climate change actions have been many and varied in the past few months.

On 6 July, members of West Wales Triratna Buddhist Group took ‘meditative action’ outside Barclays bank in Aberystwyth. Wearing blindfolds and carrying placards saying ‘Barclays – blind to the climate crisis’, the group cut a powerful image of compassion and determination during their two-and-a-half-hour meditation.

…

My generation is more aware of climate breakdown and its impact than any before.

It is outrageous that people like Trump and Bolsonaro will not be alive to face the consequences of their ecocide, that will define our lives. We are protesting and taking part in Youth Strikes for Climate because our government and others around the world have not taken…

Mike Berners-Lee’s 2013 book The Burning Question (TBQ), co-authored with Duncan Clark, provided a fantastic in-depth primer on the urgent need for the world to quit its addiction to fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas) and the forces that continue to prevent us from doing so.

As such, it remains a must-read title for anyone involved in the climate change movement. I personally know of several campaigners who joined the fossil fuel divestment movement directly after reading…

This is an extract from The Climate Resistance Handbook – or, I was part of a climate action. Now what? written by Daniel Hunter with a foreword by Greta Thunberg. Published by 350.org, this 68-page book is being mass distributed in the UK at cost price by Peace News.

Hashbat Hulan was disgusted with her government. The situation in the 1980s in…

The climate movement needs an acceleration of forward steps and more of the urgency of commitment that XR and the climate strikers have been demonstrating.

But urgency and commitment by themselves aren’t enough.

Daniel Hunter tells a powerful story in The Climate Resistance Handbook of when he was part of a group trying to stop the US war in…

The British military emits more carbon than the whole of Iceland. The annual emissions from the ministry of defence are equivalent to 3.2 million tonnes of CO2.

That was one of the revelations from Dr Stuart Parkinson, executive director of Scientists for Global Responsibility, at 'Save the Earth, Abolish War' on 29 June.

The London conference, organised by the Movement for the Abolition of War, also heard from Green MEP Molly Scott Cato and others.

On 12 July, 29 campaigners from climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) had their first court hearings at City of London magistrates' court. They were facing public order charges arising from XR's 11 days of mass action in London in April.

Two courtrooms have been reserved at Westminster magistrates' court in Marylebone Road to process 50 activists every Friday for 19 weeks.

1,130 arrests were made in April; only 79 people were charged at the time, XR reports.

On…

More than 6,000 activists from the Ende Gelände anti-coal alliance blocked parts of a giant opencast coalmine in the Rhineland, Germany, over 21–23 June. Hundreds cut off Germany’s largest coal-fired power station from its coal supply by occupying train tracks for over 24 hours. Thousands also entered the Garzweiler mine and stopped huge coal excavators. Police detained some activists for more than 13 hours, denying them food and water for hours. Photo: Jens Volle (CC BY 2.0)
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This is an edited extract from The Climate Resistance Handbook – or, I was part of a climate action. Now what? written by Daniel Hunter with a foreword by Greta Thunberg. Published by 350.org, this 68-page book is being mass distributed in the UK at cost price by Peace News.

I was eight when I won my first campaign for the environment.

It…