Balcombe, 22 September. Photo: Gabrielle Lewry
On 16 September, a high court judge adjourned an application by the West Sussex county council to remove anti-fracking protesters from Balcombe after describing it as ‘flawed’.
Justice Beverly Lang said there was a need to consider the protesters’ right to peaceful assembly.
Demonstrators have been camped along London Road…
It’s possible for every person on the planet to have a good quality of life powered entirely by renewable energy, thus avoiding runaway climate change. That’s the message of ‘Two Energy Futures’, a new interactive website launched at the end of July by the UK Tar Sands Network, with evidence drawn from the Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future report from the Centre for Alternative Technology, and the book Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by energy expert Dr David Mackay.
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Platform is a unique organisation combining art, activism, research, and education. Based in London, for over a decade it has been exploring the multi-dimensional reach of the oil industry into society, a ‘Carbon Web’ that encompasses governments, giant oil companies, banks, and a myriad other organisations, from law firms to universities, NGOs to cultural institutions. Written by two members of Platform, The Oil Road is an important component of this project, focussing on the story of how…
On 7 September, two Bristol-based anti-fracking protesters were found not guilty of aggravated trespass, but a third was convicted of failing to leave as soon as practicable, at the Cuadrilla Resource’s test drilling rig beside the Ribble estuary in Lancashire. The three had shut down the gas-extraction operation for 13 hours on 1 December 2011.
During the trial it was established that Cuadrilla had been drilling for two months longer than allowed at the time of arrests.
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The Douglas Valley hosted the Earth First! Winter Moot at the end of February. People from across Scotland and the UK piled into the Glespin community hall to strategise, debate and plan.
Two events highlighted the importance of centring things like Earth First! gatherings in areas of community struggle.
On the Saturday, people from the local community shared their experiences of living next to opencast mines.
The anger and passion was both chilling and…
Satisfied with the European Commission's response to Fukushima, the European parliament petitions committee closed four petitions which raised concerns about the safety of nuclear power stations. However, Plaid Cymru's group in the parliament (Greens/EFA) has raised serious doubts about the Commission’s “stress tests”. An independent study highlighted their failure to assess the risks of accidents. For example, they do not evaluate the risks of fire, human failure or an aeroplane crash.…
Fossil-fuel consumers worldwide received about six times more state subsidies last year than were given to the renewable-energy industry, the International Energy Agency said on 9 November.
Aid to cut the price of petrol, gas and coal rose by more than a third to $409bn, compared to only $66bn of support for biofuels, wind power and solar energy.
In mid-March, activists at the Happendon Wood Action Camp disrupted the South Lanarkshire council planning committee meeting that gave approval to Scottish Coal’s plans to develop Happendon Wood for opencast coal mining.
On 8 March, as the planning committee convened to rubber-stamp the decision, activists set off two stink bombs to show just how much the council stinks. Outside, activists briefly occupied part of the council HQ’s roof, and unfurled a banner reading “South Lanarkshire…
Anyone heard of the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC)? No, neither had we until recently. It’s a Whitehall quango created to fast-track planning applications for projects “of national importance”. So what? Well, incinerators – dirty, environmentally unfriendly monstrosities that risk the health of surrounding communities – are not deemed “of national importance”. But airports, ports, and “energy from waste” (EfW) power plants are.
An EfW is essentially an incinerator –…
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…
I liked the Transition books the moment I saw them – they are well-designed and produced, and look and feel great. In a way they mirror the Transition movement itself, rolling together a mass of related ideas into an attractive package that promises a way out of the looming dead end that is peak oil and climate change. So they look good and offer much, but do the books deliver? And can the Transition movement itself deliver on its promises?
The Handbook is split into three sections –…
As the government opened the public phase of its energy review at the end of January, ministers were busy warning that “doing nothing is not an option”. They are right (for once!), although there are fears that the doom-mongering may also be an attempt to soften us up for a new generation of nuclear power stations, posed as a solution for meeting Britain's future energy needs.
However, in a comprehensive research study published earlier in the month, the Tyndall Centre for Climate…
This little book excites me more than the whole heavy stack that I recently received to review. It is immediate, politically and socially relevant, practical and comprehensive - we need it. Small-scale water power, that is.
The price of petroleum increases as reserves dwindle. Wars and coups are planned and executed to ensure the minority world gets what it considers “our oil”, no matter where it is. And those who complain about polluting coal based energy, also from a non renewal…
