Bristol based 'Demand Energy Equality' are working with Bristol RT to roll out workshops enabling people to build their own solar panels from re-used materials. The objective of the workshops is both to ensure that renewable technology is available to low income households, at half the price of commercial panels, and to educate participants about reducing energy demand and demistify the technology involved.

News from our friends at Stop New Nuclear (for more info check out http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/).

FUKUSHIMA: The biggest industrial disaster in history. Japan, has been brought to its knees by the ongoing events at Fukushima.

The reactors that went into meltdown in March have now melted through the foundations and 40 years of accumulated nuclear waste is emitting vast amounts of radiation, contaminating the land, sea and air. In desperation, the Japanese government is transporting and burning radioactive rubble all over Japan and exporting highly contaminated food as “aid” to developing countries. Men, women and children are living in highly radioactive areas but they are not being evacuated as they should be. This intense radiation exposure has very serious health consequences for these people.

On 3rd December 2011 Rising Tide joined Kick Nuclear to support this year’s Climate Justice march in support of the tens of thousands mobilising in South Africa to demand climate justice at UN’s COP17 in Durban. Together with Kick Nuclear, Rising Tide marched and distributed leaflets to remind people that the British Government’s repackaging of nuclear power as a 'green' source of energy is a false and dangerous solution to climate change. The UK government is is planning to build new nuclear power stations at eight sites – all of which are existing nuclear sites. Hinkley Point is the first of these proposed sites for nuclear new build to go ahead. Activist action was key in stopping them here before in 1987, and we can do it again in 2012. If they fail at Hinkley, it is unlikely the “nuclear renaissance” will have the momentum to continue.

On 22nd December, two Bristol Rising Tide activists appeared at Lanark Sheriff's Court to be sentenced following an action to stop work at the Mainshill open cast mine back in March 2011. The two were fined £400 each for aggravated trespass by Sheriff Stewart.

They were part of a group who entered Scottish Coal's Mainshill mine in South Lanarkshire to disrupt coaling operations. The two Bristol activists managed to reach and scale a huge 260 tonne 'prime mover' in the bottom of the pit, one of the two biggest machines on the site. Other activists there to support them were brutally attacked by Scottish Coal employees and Trustcare Security. The action lasted over 4 hours before a specialist police team from Glasgow removed the people occupying the excavator, which had been in the process of loading coal from the seam on to dump trucks.

RT UK recently decided that we should put a story on our website to say thank you to those who have donated money to Rising Tide over the past few years. It also gives us a chance to inform you all who currently funds Rising Tide? While on occasion we receive grants from organisations like Artist Project Earth, LUSH or The Network for Social Change, and from time to time we organise benefit gigs, we also receive a few donations by cheque or standing order from individuals around the UK. To everyone and anyone who has donated (particularly Mrs W and Mr P) we would like to say a very big THANK YOU, as we have no paid staff, you can rest assured that we use the money you donate to directly confront the fossil fuel economy!

If you're in a hurry, here's the pitch: BP is sponsoring the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival in the UK. Do you have a creative response to this situation? If so, please contact us here: info@artnotoil.org.uk or 07709 545116. Let us know if you could help illustrate and/or design a leaflet on this issue.

Here's a more detailed explanation ...

BP is sponsoring the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival in the UK; http://www.london2012.com/cultural-olympiad. We'd like all this wonderful creative activity to be allowed to breathe free of the stench of BP, and in a step towards that eventuality, we're setting up a BP-free Cultural Olympiad gallery on our website. For that, we're inviting you to submit artworks which address this mismatch directly, poetically, peripherally, satirically, elegiacally, comically or hysterically. (Or using an adjective of your own choosing.) We'd also like to feature work that looks at the Olympics more generally.

Fracking is a nightmare! Toxic and radioactive water pollution. Tap water you can set on fire. Earthquakes. Runaway climate change. To produce expensive gas that will soon run out. Yet another false solution to try and maintain fossil fuel use!

The controversial proposed Fracking site in Hesketh Bank, Lancashire was shut down on the morning of 1st December as a group of Bristol activists stormed the drilling rig. Three of the climate justice campaigners from Bristol Rising Tide scaled the Cuadrilla Resources equipment with supplies and stopped work for over 13 hours. PHOTOS - http://www.flickr.com/photos/71113300@N08/.