Climate change & climate action

1 September 2011News

Hywel Davies casts a skeptical eye over plans to revive coal mining in Wales.

My father was a coal miner in the Llynfi / Maesteg valley from 14 to 26; both my grandfathers were colliers in that valley; and a great grandfather was a miners’ agent and founding committee member of the South Wales Miners Federation which preceded the NUM.

People of my generation greatly admired the mining traditions of our Welsh communities. It was a particular privilege for me to have been trained as a journalist in the Heads of the Valleys and to have become editor of the weekly…

1 September 2011News in Brief

In July, Camilla Berens was fined £200 and Michelle Jackson £95 after pleading guilty to obstructing the highway. In April they blockaded all four lanes of the A302 outside the HQ of EDF energy company and alongside the grounds of Buckingham palace for six hours, using tripods, in protest at EDF’s plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK. The demo was organised by the “EDF Boycott Campaign”.
For brilliant video of event, see:…

1 September 2011News in Brief

On 17 July, Greenpeace activists, many dressed as polar bears, staged a sit-in at the Edinburgh HQ of Cairn Energy, and demanded a copy of the company's plan to deal with potential oil spills in the Arctic where they are drilling for oil and gas. Cairn Energy got an injunction the following day preventing Greenpeace publishing pictures of the protest. The injunction backfired against Cairn when hundreds of people broke the court order on behalf of the environment group by posting the photos…

1 September 2011News in Brief

The 20 climate activists convicted of conspiring to shut down Ratcliffe coal power station had their convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal in July, following the revelation earlier this year that the CPS had not disclosed evidence gathered by undercover cop Mark Kennedy which could have been useful to their defence. The ruling described Kennedy as “arguably an agent provocateur.”

1 September 2011News in Brief

17-18 September, campaigners will pitch near Blackpool for Camp Frack, a climate camp-style effort to burst the bubble of hydraulic gas fracking in the UK. Two activists scaled Blackpool Tower in August to drop a banner announcing a new anti-fracking website, www.frack-off.org. Fracking is a dangerous and highly polluting form of gas extraction which is banned in France.

1 September 2011News in Brief

The Huntington Lane camp in Shropshire has been evicted after more than 18 amazing months of disrupting UK Coal’s construction of an open-cast coal mine on the site. $1.8m action In the US, activist Tim DeChristopher was jailed for two years in late July following his fake $1.8m bids for oil and gas drilling licences in the final days of the Bush administration. The judge stated that DeChristopher’s sentence had been increased because he had spent the trial process encouraging mass civil…

13 August 2011Feature

On 27 February, a week-long Climate Camp gathering at Monkton Wyld decided to wind up the camp as we know it and make way for new forms of engagement

Towards the end of 2005, an assortment of environmentalists met to discuss squatting a field next to a big source of carbon emissions, in order to shut it down and kickstart more radical action on climate change. The Camp for Climate Action was born.

In February this year, a few of those people, with many others, met at Monkton Wyld in Dorset and decided not to hold a camp this year, and to freeze the ongoing process of the national climate camp.

Whether this marks a…

13 August 2011Feature

Before I am tempted to say I am just tired; activist-burn-out would be the technical term. But I feel that there is something more deep-seated at work undermining my ability to bounce back. We have less than a week to go until climate camp, and I had been wondering whether to go at all.

The intensity of stress experienced before Fossil Fools Day and the ongoing grind of the Ffos-y-Frân open-cast coal-mine campaign has made me nervous. The classic frustration of whether I should be…

13 August 2011Feature

Something is stirring on the hillsides and in the valleys. The whisper of Climate Camp Cymru 2009 is becoming a buzz.

For the first time at Kingsnorth there was a Wales Neighbourhood at a UK Climate Camp. Previously, Wales activists had joined with either our friends from the West Midlands or, together with Bristol, all formed the “Westside Hood”.

Now environmental justice activists are reaching out to a wider peace and justice movement in Wales, and extending an…

13 August 2011Feature

“Fossil Fools Day”, 1 April, began an international week of action against the fossil fuel industry, mobilising the Rising Tide network of people dedicated to building a movement against climate change.
In Wales, groups shut down Ffos-y-Frân, an open-cast coalmine in Merthyr Tydfil operated by the Miller Argent Consortium. Later in the week, the target was Aberthaw power station which burns coal from the mine.
These spectacular actions were the result of weeks of planning…

13 August 2011Feature

At the beginning of April protestors from Wales were out in force in Brussels. Supported by Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans and AM Bethan Jenkins, environmental groups petitioned the European Parliament against the National Grid’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline.
The European Commission has been looking into possible breaches of EU law relating to the pipeline, which stretches 150 miles from Milford Haven to Gloucestershire.
Meanwhile, residents opposed to the Hafod landfill…

13 August 2011Feature

Merthyr Tydfil residents and climate change campaigners staged protests at the Cardiff Hilton during the AGM of the UK Coal Authority on 10 September. Campaigners scaled the luxury hotel and hung a banner reading “Coal = Climate Disaster” over the main entrance.

Inside, with no hint of irony, the Coal Authority prepared to present its “Environmental Awards”. Residents sorely afflicted by Ffos-y-Frân opencast coalmine interrupted proceedings to present developers Miller Argent with…

13 August 2011News

Rob Newman, in a set that was surely as politically and historically informed as comedy gets, said that, when our descendants look back, the Camp for Climate Action will be the single most important moment of 2007. George Monbiot believes “a new political movement has been born”, though he is surely aware that this movement has been alive and doing its best to kick for some time. Whatever else we think about the Camp for Climate Action, it was certainly a major “victory” for creative NVDA.…

13 August 2011Feature

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13 August 2011Feature

The British campaign against climate chaos moved into a new phase on 4 August when Paul Morozzo became the first climate activist to be imprisoned. PN interviewed him after his release.

On 4 August, the first day of Climate Camp, Paul Morozzo, 41, was one of five environmental activists to publicly defy bail conditions banning him from attending the camp, knowing this could lead to days, perhaps weeks of imprisonment. Paul was arrested at an entrance to the Camp (the others were able to enter, apparently because of police incompetence) and served a week in prison. He was released by Selby magistrates on 11 August. He is believed to be the first person in Britain to be…