Green

The climate crisis is a racist crisis. That was the message of a Black Lives Matter UK protest at London City Airport on 6 September, when nine activists used a tripod and chains to close down a runway for over six hours, grounding over 130 flights.

The action sparked two debates. One was about the relevance of climate change, aviation and pollution to the anti-racist struggle.

Black Lives Matter UK (BLM) said: ‘Black people are the first to die, not the first to fly,…

Hastings anti-roads group Combe Haven Defenders (CHD) continues to campaign against a road planned for a ‘site of nature conservation interest’. During a pop-up camp (18–20 September) in threatened Hollington Valley, CHD re-planted trees on the planned route.

Local ‘development’ quango SeaChange cut down trees in the valley in preparation for the ‘Queensway Gateway’ road, but…

I remember talking to a friend about this book when it was first published in 2013. Climate change, its potential to end civilisation as we know it, and a practical plan for how to tackle it, had been the central topics of his previous book, Heat (see PN 2480-81). But now it looked like George Monbiot had gone off on a tangent. And, while clearly it was something that he was passionate about, it didn't sound like it was much of a priority for either of us.

In fact,…

On 7 July, the Hastings anti-roads group Combe Haven Defenders received an urgent message on our Facebook page: a big tree was being chopped down in Hollington Valley. I immediately jumped in a taxi, headed to the site, and sat under the tree.

The tree-fellers had to stop work, the police were called, and thus began a five-hour standoff.

The planned fate of this particular tree…

As PN went to press, the Green Party was reporting that its UK-wide membership had doubled in the past year, and was approaching 48,000 – more than UKIP (42,000) or the Liberal Democrats (45,000).

This figure includes membership of the Scottish Green Party, which has gone up five-fold, from 1,700 in September to around 9,000 at the time of writing.

Other parties committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament are also doing well.

Scottish National Party…

What sort of future do we want to invest in? Last month’s NATO summit offered a dystopian vision. Here, ‘building stability’ involved turning Cardiff and Newport into militarised zones, overtaken by security fences and armed police, while warplanes roared overhead. It also involved promoting the commercial interests of the weapons manufacturers that have been the main beneficiaries of NATO’s militarism and force projection.

Defence ministers dined aboard the BAE Systems’ Destroyer…

On 20 September, the British Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Group launched a revised, expanded and updated edition of its excellent One Million Climate Jobs booklet at an ‘International Fight for Climate Jobs’ conference.

Speakers at the launch event included Kjersti Bartos, vice-president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, Fernando Losado from the US Nursing Union, and Philip Pearson, the TUC’s senior officer for energy and climate change. There…

James-Lovelock and his daughter Christine collecting air samples in
Adrigole, South West Ireland, 1970. Photo: Irish Examiner.

To say that James Lovelock is a divisive figure in the environmental movement would be a considerable understatement.

Describing himself as an 'old-fashioned green', he is fêted by some…

Nant Llesg opencast coalmine protest.
PHOTO: WALESONLINE

Desperate to stop the plans for the opencast coalmine development at Nant Llesg, campaigners staged a spectacular mock funeral ‘the death of the valley’ at Caerphilly County Borough Council’s headquarters on 22 April. The council decision is still pending.  

Following the controversial Ffos-y-Fran open cast mining in Merthyr Tydfil, the mining conglomerate Miller Argent now push to extend their operations towards Rhymney to open cast at Nant Llesg for the next 15-20 years.

Residents Against Ffos-y-Fran, (RAFF), and the United Valleys Action Group are gearing up to protest against the planning application at Caerphilly Council offices in Pennallta on Tuesday 22 April. They are planning a full day of action, starting with a demonstration…

Zombie roads hungry for public money gather outside the office of Hastings MP Amber Rudd, 30 October. Photo: Milan Rai

On 30 October, campaigners against the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) staged a battle between ‘road busters’ and ‘zombie roads’ outside the office of Hastings MP Amber Rudd.

Combe Haven Defenders wanted to highlight her role – and that of the chancellor, George Osborne, to whom she is parliamentary private…

Road building is back on the national agenda. Courtesy of the chancellor, George Osborne. It had been assumed that major new roads were a thing of the past, killed off by the 'anti-roads' protests of the 1990s. But, in an attempt to pull the country out of recession, the treasury has been looking to invest in infrastructure projects, including new roads.

The first major scheme to come on-stream could be the £100 million, 5.6 km Bexhill to Hastings Link Road. It would cut straight…

‘Not again, not ever!’

In Rhymni (Rhymney), the United Valleys Action Group are bracing themselves for another environmental campaign on behalf of local communities.

UVAG who, with the support of Friends of the Earth Cymru, have just defeated plans for a ‘monster incinerator’ in the area, expect the Miller Argent consortium to apply for planning permission for an open-cast coal mine at Nant Llesg on Merthyr Common.

Nant Llesg is very close to Miller Argent’s infamous Ffos-y-…

On 23 June, Climate Siren activists hung banners on the gates of Buckingham palace. PHOTO: Peter Marshall

The human race may be pushing the Earth towards a rapid, catastrophic and irreversible ‘state shift’ leading to mass extinctions, according to a paper by 22 leading scientists published in the world’s top scientific journal, ­Nature, in the run-up to the failed Rio+20 environment conference. The Nature paper set out possible measures for avoiding or limiting the state shift, which may…

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.…