Category: RT Newswire

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“We are faced with … rising rates of
consumption that nature can’t match.
Increasingly, we are also threatened by the wave
of privatization that is sweeping across the
world, turning water from a precious public
resource into a commodity for economic gain.”

“The case gained international attention when it
was featured in the film and book Thirst:
Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water. The
public finally won out in July, when the city
council voted to get rid of the 20-year contract
and send the corporation packing.”
——————-

The late, great Corbin Harney-spiritual leader of the
Western Shoshone People of the dry Great Basin region
of the U.S.-dedicated his life to spreading this very
message.

Our Drinkable Water Supply Is Vanishing

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet
Posted on October 11, 2007, Printed on October 11, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/64948/

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the Hungarian biochemist
and Nobel Prize winner for medicine once said,
“Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and
medium. There is no life without water.”

We depend on water for survival. It circulates
through our bodies and the land, replenishing
nutrients and carrying away waste. It is passed
down like stories over generations — from
ice-capped mountains to rivers to oceans.

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Science is the process of disciplined dissent. The process of
disciplined dissent relies on evidence — evidence that can force a
change of mind by challenging the consensus that scientists had
earlier achieved.

That’s nowhere more true than in climate science, where the consensus
process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has
been challenging its own, earlier consensus about the speed and
seriousness of what lies ahead.  What climate researchers regarded as
mostly likely in 2001 had been seriously challenged by early 2007,
and it now looks very likely that even the better consensus climate
scientists had reached in the spring of 2007 will be seriously
challenged by new evidence expected to come out in November.

Few groups are as prepared to challenge their own consensus as the
science community is. But scientists saw need of change coming, and
you saw the preview when it was posted to this list in October ’06.
Lance

—————————————
” ‘… the extreme scenarios that tend to fall out of the IPCC
process may be exactly the ones we should most worry about,’ he says.”

“Michael Schlesinger, a climate scientist at the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, points to another example. ‘Things are
happening right now with the ice sheets that were not predicted to
happen until 2100.'”
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SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org
VOL 314    13 OCTOBER 2006

NEWS FOCUS

Trying to Lasso Climate Uncertainty

An expert on climate and population looks for a way to help society avoid a
“Wile E. Coyote” catastrophe
-JOHN BOHANNON

LAXENBURG, AUSTRIA – A few weeks ago, Brian O’Neill hunkered down
around a table with a dozen other climate scientists in Cape Town,
South Africa, to talk about the future of the planet. It was no idle
speculation: Whatever they agreed upon – they knew in advance – would
have clout. They were hammering out the final draft of a chapter on
research methods for the massive “Fourth Assessment” of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The product of 3
years of consensus-building among several hundred researchers from
around the world, the IPCC report is the scientific bedrock on which
policymakers will negotiate everything from carbon taxes to long-term
greenhouse gas targets.

But for all its authority, the IPCC exercise left O’Neill with a
nagging concern: What were they leaving out? “It’s important that we
climate scientists speak with a single voice,” he said in an
interview back in his office, high up in the attic of a former
Habsburg palace outside Vienna. But “the extreme scenarios that tend
to fall out of the IPCC process may be exactly the ones we should
most worry about,” he says.

O’Neill, a climate scientist at the InternationalInstitute for
Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) here, is frustrated to see
uncertainties in research used as a reason to delay action. At age
41, he is one of the youngest scientists in the IPCC network trying
to reformulate climate-change projections that can cope better with
uncertainty by accounting for “future learning.” O’Neill hopes the
strategy will make it clear that, even with gaps in understanding, it
pays to act now.

His work is gaining notice. Although an American, O’Neill has scooped
up one of the coveted European Young Investigator Awards (EURYI), a
$1.5 million grant meant in part to keep Europe’s most promising
scientists at home. “He is one of the brightest young scientists out
there, and we’re all watching to see what he does,” says Simon Levin,
an ecologist at Princeton University.

A winding path

O’Neill’s job is to predict the future, but his own career path has
been unpredictable. With 3 years’ training in engineering and a
degree in journalism, he became passionately involved in the 1980s in
efforts to prevent ozone depletion, working for Greenpeace in
California. After collecting a Ph.D. in earth-system sciences from
New York University, he did research stints at Brown University and
the Environmental Defense Fund in New York City. In 2002, he moved to
IIASA, a center for multidisciplinary research founded in 1972. Here,
O’Neill has built up a new program focusing on population and climate
change. The treatment of demographics in most climate-change
analyses, he says, is “simplistic at best.” With the EURYI money,
he’s assembled a team of a half- dozen demographers, economists,
statisticians, and physical scientists to sharpen the models.

A long-limbed basketball player who looks like he could be fresh out
of graduate school, O’Neill seems to peel away layers of uncertainty
as he speaks. His slow-paced answers to questions often begin with a
detailed preamble of assumptions, conditions, and footnotes. But as
the father of two daughters, he says, “thinking about how the world
will be in 50 years is not so abstract for me anymore.”

At IIASA, his work focuses on building realistic demographic
projections, and China has become his main beat. Different
predictions of how the country’s population will age and urbanize —
and how carbon-emission policies will shape Chinese consumption —
have an enormous effect on global climate change scenarios. But
obtaining accurate demographic data has been difficult. With the help
of a Chinese member of his new team, O’Neill has done an analysis
revealing that the IPCC assumptions about China’s rate of
urbanization and energy consumption could be off by a factor of 2.

Learning about learning

Earlier this year, O’Neill organized a unique meeting at IIASA,
bringing together experts from different areas of climate science,
economics, and demography to think about how they generate knowledge.
One of the most important questions that emerged, says Klaus Keller,
a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University in State
College, is how do you avoid “the Wile E. Coyote effect?” The cartoon
coyote often doesn’t realize he’s falling off a cliff until he looks
down, too late to turn back. One of the potential cliffs in climate
change involves the ocean’s conveyer-belt system — known as the
meridional overturning circulation (MOC) — which prevents a Siberian
chill from spreading across western Europe by carrying warm water
north from the equator. Scientists worry that global warming could
abruptly change or even shut down the MOC. “These are the kind of
climate thresholds that we need to identify,” says Keller.

Scientists need to know more about the natural variability in MOC
behavior, says O’Neill. But they don’t even know “how precise your
measurements have to be” or how large an area must be studied before
uncertainty could be sufficiently reduced to spot “the edge of the
cliff.” He argues that the only way to attack such complex
uncertainties with limited time and resources is to have scientists
from different fields work together, assessing observations over many
years to learn which approaches pay off the most. O’Neill and others
did exactly this with 2 decades of research on the carbon cycle,
finding that some kinds of observations narrowed uncertainty in model
parameters far better than others. Such big-picture,
multidisciplinary studies are low on the priority scaleof funding
agencies, but this is exactly what’s needed if you want “to learn
about the potential of an MOC shutdown,” he says.

The second big question to emerge from the IIASA sessions is how can
we tell if mainstream research is headed in the wrong direction?
O’Neill, Michael Oppenheimer, and Mort Webster, climate scientists at
Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge,
respectively, use the term “negative learning” to describe cases in
which scientific consensus builds around the wrong model. “This is
what happened with ozone,” says Oppenheimer. People believed that
ozone’s key interactions are with other gases, until scientists
realized that the critical reactions driving ozone depletion occur on
the surfaces of airborne particles. With revised reaction rates, it
was suddenly clear that the planet’s protective ozonelayer was in
much bigger trouble than had been thought. Oppenheimer proposes that
scientists team up with philosophers and historians to find common
signs of negative scientific learning. A search for such red flags
could be built into climate science’s regular review process.

And O’Neill says more funds should be set aside to explore hypotheses
outside the mainstream. Researchers desperately need a strategy for
tackling climate uncertainties, O’Neill says. Michael Schlesinger, a
climate scientist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,
points to another example. Polar ice sheets are melting more rapidly
than anticipated, and some observers fear that this could lead to a
catastrophic sea-level increase ( Science , 24 March, p. 1698).
“Things are happening right now with the ice sheets that were not
predicted to happen until 2100,” Schlesinger says. “My worry is that
we may have passed the window of opportunity where learning is still
useful.”

Whether a catastrophe can be averted using some form of scientific
introspection — or learning about learning, as O’Neill calls it —
remains unclear. The concept, like O’Neill’s career, is still at an
early stage of development.

MAINE VS. THE MULTI-TENTACLED PLUM CREEK ALIEN

Many people across Turtle Island (North America) are not aware that a relatively small but respectably-sized chunk of wild and nearly-wild forest ecosystem struggles for survival in northern Maine. The Maine North Woods essentially represents part of the southeastern edge of the Great North Woods, which stretch in an arc (mostly in Canada) across the North American continent from the Atlantic Seaboard to the prairies of the Great Plans. In Maine, this region encompasses most of the northern half of the state, is the largest undeveloped region in the U.S. east of the Mississippi River, and is home to, among many other species, loons, bald eagles, deer, moose, black bear, the threatened Canada lynx, wolves, and the extirpated caribou. A satellite photo of the eastern United States will show a significant dark region where no artificial light is visible in northern Maine. It is the largest wild, undeveloped area in the U.S. east of the Mississippi River.

Seattle-based Plum Creek Timber Co. is one of the nation’s largest private landowners. It is the largest landholder in Wisconsin, Montana, Washington-& Maine. These 4 states hold some of the last, best, healthiest remaining wild or nearly-wild lands left in the Lower 48. These 4 states also hold some of the most self-sufficient, fiercely- independent human populations anywhere in “American society.” Many people in the forest defense movement around the world are depressingly familiar with Plum Creek’s dismal forest management practices as well as their propensity toward “developing” forested wildlands into extravagant, exclusive playgrounds for those humans rich, white, and callous (or clueless) enough to afford them. Such “developments” as the Yellowstone Club in Montana and the Suncadia development in Cle Elum, Washington, are already in place-doing nothing but damage to local ecosystems, wildlife, and economiesand now Plum Creek has set its sights on northern Maine’s Moosehead Lake Region for another such resort complex that also will do nothing but damage to ecosystems, wildlife, and local/regional economies in Maine. Fortunately for the Moosehead Lake Region (and the rest of the Maine North Woods)-and contrary to what Plum Creek’s decision-makers want to believe-Mainers are far from stupid, and have been tracking these plans carefully. Plum Creek’s first proposal, submitted in 2005 to the Land Use Regulatory Commission (LURC), was rejectes after a vociferous outcry from concerned citizens. Their second, revised proposal, submitted in April of 2006, was also rescinded by Plum Creek because they knew the public would not accept it. Finally, in April of 2007, Plum Creek submitted their latest proposal, claiming-“You spoke, we listened.” Had they really listened they would be out of Maine altogether by now. While there are some people in Maine who welcome the development project-many, many others across the state, from all walks of life, want absolutely nothing to do with Plum Creek and its plans for commodifying the Maine North Woods for its own personal profit.

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CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 72, OCTOBER 2007 (please disregard previous impostor!)

Compiled and sent out by Rising Tide UK: info at risingtide.org.uk To receive this News Sheet monthly, email news-subscribe at risingtide.org.uk with the subject line ‘subscribe’ (without the quotes).

CONTENTS:

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UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
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1) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND – 15.10.07
2) PROTEST AT EUROPE’S LARGEST BIOFUEL CONFERENCE – 17.10.07 NEWARK
3) CAMP FOR HOPE AT STAVERTON AIRPORT – 20/21.10.07 GLOUCESTERSHIRE
4) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD – OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING – 3-4.11.07 OXFORD
6) CLIMATE CAMPS – 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
7) TARA UPDATE ( AND ROUTE WALKS ) – 25.9.07 IRELAND
8) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES – NATIONWIDE
9) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS – AUTUMN 2007
10) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART – OCT ’07, EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
11) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES – 17.9.07
12) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11-2.12.07
13) COIN & OXFORDSHIRE CLIMATEXCHANGE SPEAKER SERIES, OCT-DEC

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
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1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS – 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING, MADRID & IRELAND
2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL – AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING – ARTICLES 2006/7
4) GAGGED! SOUTH WALES ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER – SEPTEMBER 2007
5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING – 14.9.07
6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN-2 FUNDING – 15.8.07
7) “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT – 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA – 2/3.9.07
9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY – 12.9.07
10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION – SEPTEMBER 2007
11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS – 24.9.07
12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50

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UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION AGAINST ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND – 15.10.07
RBS, the self-described ‘Oil and Gas Bank’ and second-largest bank in Europe is the leading financier of climate change. From West Africa to the Ecuadorian rainforest, from the North Sea to the Middle East, RBS loans play a key role in forcing open the new carbon frontier. The thirty oil and gas finance deals RBS signed between 2001 and 2006 locked us all into 655 million tonnes of emissions over the next 15 years – more than the UK’s current annual emissions total! On 15th October, get together with your local group, build on connections made at the Camp, reach out to others in your area and confront RBS with your own chosen style of creative direct action. To find your nearest RBS branch or office: www.rbs.co.uk/microsites/general/branch_locator/step1.asp Download Platform’s report ‘The Oil and Gas Bank’: www.carbonweb.org/documents/Oil_&_Gas_Bank.pdf For help with planning effective actions: www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk One such action is being planned in conjunction with West Cornwall Friends of the Earth; Outside Royal Bank of Scotland, Green St (off Lemon Quay), Truro, 12 noon, Mon 15th Oct. Contact RTUK for others.

2) PROTEST AT EUROPE’S LARGEST BIOFUEL CONFERENCE – 17.10.07 NEWARK
Outside Europe’s largest biofuel Industry conference at Newark Show ground, Nottinghamshire. ( Meet 2pm ) Participants of the conference include BP, Virgin and D1 Oils. The biofuel industry is implicated in large-scale deforestation, high greenhouse gas emissions, human rights abuses, dispossession of local communities, and rising food prices. Please come along with banners, placards or suitable costumes. For more information, including transport, contact info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk. To find out more about the impacts of large-scale biofuels, see; www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

3) CAMP FOR HOPE AT STAVERTON AIRPORT – 20/21.10.07 GLOUCESTERSHIRE
Inspired by the Camp for Climate Action, activists and local residents are organising a camp to protest the expansion of Gloucestershire Airport at Staverton. “Camp Hope” will take place at a secret location near the airport on the 20/21 October, and will include workshops and peaceful protest. Location to be announced on website on the evening of 19th October. www.myspace.com/campofhope http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5124

4) SAVE SWALLOWS WOOD – OCTOBER 2007 UPDATE
A lot has been happening in the last few weeks, including the inaugural Glossop Critical Mass. Also, there are two URGENT letter actions that they need your help with. They should only take a few minutes of your time. www.saveswallowswood.org.uk

5) NATIONAL CLIMATE CAMP ACTION PLANNING MEETING – 3-4.11.07 OXFORD
The Climate Camp didn’t stop climate change – but it’s part of a growing social movement that can! Come and take the next steps forward at the upcoming UK-wide meeting on Nov 3-4 in Oxford. Everyone is welcome, whether you came to the camp, or were simply inspired by it. www.climatecamp.org.uk

6) CLIMATE CAMPS – 2008 GERMANY AND WORLDWIDE!
Following the model established by the Camp for Climate Action in the UK, plans are afoot for a Climate-Action Camp in Germany in 2008. This will include knowledge exchange (in workshops), self-organised living that minimises the ecological footprint, networking and direct action. There are plans for similar camps to be set up next year in several countries. watch this space…
www.climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.klimacamp.org/

7) TARA UPDATE ( AND ROUTE WALKS ) – 25.9.07 IRELAND
They would desperately like to see more people and supplies on site! There is currently just a small group of people trying to stop work all over the Tara Skryne valley. However, on Monday September 24th, thirty brave cultural conservationists donned face paints and headed off on a route walk from the Rath Lugh direct action camp. This was such a success ( destruction stopped, no arrests ) that they have decided to do it every Monday – Be at the Tara Solidarity Vigil camp on the hill by 9.30 am or at Rath Lugh by 10.00am. Route walk report; http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5132

www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.circlecommunity.org

For recent videos & photos of protests see; http://livevideo.com/tarapixie
8) CRITICAL MASS UPDATES – NATIONWIDE
For info. and updates check; http://www.urban75.com/Action/critical.html

9) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE FILM NIGHTS – AUTUMN 2007
Including “Reclaim Power” 19.10.07 at 7pm followed by discussion with Rising Tide representative. http://plymouthenvironmentcentre.org.uk/events.php#film-nights

10) TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ART SHOWS – OCTOBER 2007 EDINBURGH & MANCHESTER
Edinburgh 10th-14th October Manchester 24th-28th October For further info. check; http://www.randomartists.org/

11) WRITE IN DEFENCE OF ISOLATED PERUVIAN TRIBES – 17.9.07
Two companies planning to explore for oil in Peruvian rainforest have revealed their sensitive plans to ‘communicate’ with the previously uncontacted inhabitants using megaphones! In the past, oil company workers in the Amazon region have been killed by isolated Indians. Despite this risk to their own workers, and the equal danger of spreading fatal diseases to the Indians, the companies – Barrett Resources of the US and Repsol YPF of Spain – have refused to suspend their plans.
http://www.survival-international.org/news/2502
You can help by writing a letter;
http://www.survival-international.org/actnow/letters/isolatedindians

12) STUDENT CLIMATE PROJECT LAUNCH GATHERING – OXFORD, 30.11-2.12.07
‘The Student Climate Project came out of discussions at the 2007 Climate Camp, and seeks bring together students to take collective action against the root causes of climate change. It will also develop ways to build the student movement and deal with climate change issues in the education system. The project is non-hierarchical and based on consensus decision making, and the Launch Gathering is the perfect opportunity to get involved, share your ideas and plan for action. See www.studentclimateproject.org.uk

13) COIN & OXFORDSHIRE CLIMATEXCHANGE SPEAKER SERIES, OCT-DEC ‘07
8.10.07: ‘The Power of Community -_How Cuba Survived Peak Oil’
10.10.07: COIN will be running its new 3-hour high-speed course, ‘Climate Change Condensed’ at The Old Library above the Vaults in Radcliffe Square. 24.10.07: George Marshall launches his new book ‘Carbon Detox: your step-by-step guide to getting real about climate change’ Wesley Memorial Church – 7pm – £3/£2 concs.
3.11.07: Step It Up
7.11.07: George Monbiot – ‘Climate Change – a global injustice’ Wesley Memorial Church – 8.00pm – £5/£3 concs.
12.11.07: Ann Pettifor _ ‘Is there a green movement in Britain today?’ Wesley Memorial Church – 7pm – £3/£2 concs.
22.11.07: ‘Growing local in a changing climate: impacts and adaptations on allotments’ – an event in association with the Oxford Allotment Federation Oxford Town Hall, 7pm _ free
29.11.07: Rob Hopkins – ‘Planning for Life After Oil – the Transition Concept’. Find out how to inspire and plan energy descent in your town Friends Meeting House – 7pm – £3/£2 concs.

Other events to look out for:
* COIN & Oxfordshire ClimateXChange will be running an Oxfordshire Ecohouse Open Day on the weekend of the 24th and 25th of November; coinet.org.uk, www.ecovation.org.uk
* Oxfordshire ClimateXChange is running a range of events throughout * 8.12.07 is the National Climate March and Global Day of Action. See www.campaigncc.org for details
* January 2008: Transition City Oxford will be holding an Open Space meeting to get the ball rolling in the local area – if you are keen to get involved, email mim@coinet.org.uk and see www.transitiontowns.org for futher info about the Transition Towns concept www.coinet.org.uk

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-

1) ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY DEMOS – 14.9.07 LEEDS, LONDON, BRISTOL, READING, MADRID & IRELAND
There were a series of demonstrations held in solidarity with the day of action against Shell’s plans for a gas pipeline & refinery in Mayo, Ireland. In Rossport itself over 150 people occupied the refinery site. Bristol Rising Tide held a solidarity demo at a Shell Garage in Eastville, Bristol with leaflets and banners.
For more details about the various actions check;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5090
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=1&type=page
2) DIRECT ACTION IN BRISTOL – AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
Activists in Bristol have been busy. Parts of three golf courses have been dug up and the message “decadent waste of water” sprayed near a club house. A mobile phone mast has been sabotaged. A non-passenger line which transports cars and fossil fuel to the Midlands was cut three quarters of the way through in two places and marked with high visibility paint. A warning banner reading: “Stop: Trees on line” was fixed across the line several hundred yards in front of this. Also, within the last 6 months, the front tyres of forty 4x4s have been punctured in and around Bristol. Finally, a “corporate entertainment” company called 4-Play, which provides off road driving for 4x4s in the south west, has had vehicles spray painted with “4-play – blow-job the planet”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5050
3) WHY CARBON TRADING ISN’T WORKING – ARTICLES 2006/7
An excellent series of articles on why the neoliberal approach to climate change isn’t working can be found at;
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/subject/climate/
4) GAGGED! ANARCHIST NEWSLETTER – SOUTH WALES, SEPT 2007
Download the PDF here;
https://lists.riseup.net/www/d_read/gagged/gagged19.pdf
Alternatively you can read it here;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5052
5) FEDERAL COURT BLOCKS SHELLS ARCTIC DRILLING – 14.9.07
A federal court has denied Shell’s latest request to lift an order blocking the company’s Arctic Ocean drilling. This ruling likely dooms the Dutch oil giant’s drilling plans, at least for this year. http://www.pacificenvironment.org/
6) BANK PULLS SAKHALIN-2 FUNDING – 15.8.07
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development has decided to pull its funding for the $20-plus billion Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas project, located in Russia’s Far East. Since January, EBRD and the Sakhalin Energy shareholders (Gazprom, Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi) have held talks over the project’s finance. EBRD cut off discussions in favour of financing other projects, such as those that promote sustainable energy. http://www.pacificenvironment.org/
7) PROTEST AS RDA HOLDS “FLOOD SUMMIT” AT AIRPORT – 3.9.07 DONCASTER, YORKS.
Yorkshire Forward (Regional Development Agency) held an outrageous “Flood Summit” at Finningley airport. Local people visited with pop-up tents and banners to leaflet the conference’s participants and hold alternative workshops highlighting the link between aviation growth and worsening climate change. The conference was intended to congratulate the RDA on their response to the recent floods. The choice of venue shows just how out of touch with reality these half-wits are. http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5021
8) COAL ACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA – 2/3.9.07
On the 2nd September, twelve Greenpeace activists were arrested at the world’s biggest coal port at Newcastle, 160km north of Sydney, after painting the message “Australia Pushing Export Coal” on the side of a coal ship and unfurling a large banner in Chinese calling on China to be cautious of John Howard and George Bush’s attempts to sabotage Kyoto. The protest comes at the start of the 2007 APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) forum meeting being hosted by Australia. http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/media/releases/climate-change/apec-coal-protest The following day activists locked themselves on to a coal conveyor belt, forcing the shut-down of a generator and halving production from Victoria’s biggest coal fired power station. http://www.realactiononclimatechange.blogspot.com/
9) GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST HEAVY INDUSTRY – 12.9.07
People in South Africa, Iceland, Trinidad, Denmark and America held a series of coordinated protests against heavy industrialisation. This is the first event of a new and growing global movement that began at the 2007 Saving Iceland protest camp in Ã-lfus, Iceland. http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5067 A UK activist living in Iceland and involved with the protests there, has been threatened with deportation for being: “a threat to ‘public order and security’ and ‘fundamental societal values’. http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5117
10) GREEK DIRECT ACTION – SEPTEMBER 2007
For direct action news from Greece, check; http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/
11) CRITICAL MASS AND CARFREE DAY IN BRUSSELS – 24.9.07
For details and some great pics see; http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/381930.html
12) ART NOT OIL 2007 GALLERY HITS 50 and over 1500 hits.
Take a look and send in your own work: www.artnotoil.org.uk

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