Action:Greenwash

Reading Rising Tide's campaign to get the town centre's shops and offices to switch off unnecessary lights at night is now under way.

Campaign Update 23rd April 2010

Jenny tackles Barclays Bank
Veteran campaigner, Jenny Nicholson, tackled Barclays Bank as to why their new branch on Broad Street always left their lights on at night. For once we got a result: the manager phoned her back to say their timer switch had stuck. The manager at this branch is commended for not being dismissive or defensive about being tackled on their energy usage. This is in contrast to the majority of office buildings previously approached, the facilities managers of which, have normally attempted to fob us off with excuses about people working late (we never see people working there).

On November 10th 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni colleagues were hung by the Nigerian state for campaigning against the devastation of the Niger Delta by oil companies, especially Shell and Chevron.

On the eve of the tenth anniversary of this execution, activists from London Rising Tide, Rhythms of Resistance, Rossport Solidarity Camp and London Earth First! came together to take action against Shell for its activities in Nigeria, in Ireland and worldwide.

Nine nooses were hung from lampposts directly in front of Shell’s UK headquarters on London’s South Bank. A pipeline decorated with slogans celebrating resistance to the curse of oil in the Niger Delta and in County Mayo in the past and right now were also on site, as were banners and a small but noisy samba band.

please spread far and wide!
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indignation – inspiration – creation…solution?

ART NOT OIL

at The Forth, Pink Lane, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 5DW; Tel: 0191 232 6478

EXHIBITION RUNS OCTOBER 5th-28th
FREE PUBLIC OPENING, WED OCT 5th, 7pm: art – music – food – talk

As the BP Portrait Award settles in at the Sunderland Museum and Winter
Gardens, its alter ego Art Not Oil comes to the Forth Hotel to offer up
what could be a truer portrait of an oil company, as well as celebrating
our creative dissent.

indignation – inspiration – creation... solution?

ART NOT OIL
at Oxford House, Derbyshire St., London E2 6HG
Bethnal Green tube

EXHIBITION RUNS AUGUST 5th-28th
Mon - Fri: 9am - 10pm; Sat & Sun: 10am - 6pm
Leaflets & posters available from info@artnotoil.org.uk

FREE PUBLIC OPENING, THURSDAY AUGUST 4th, 6-10pm:

Pix available on Indymedia

The Art Not Oil exhibition was mounted onto a sturdy trike on June 13th and ridden gently through the rush-houred streets of central London. The destination was the National Portrait Gallery, which was hosting the presentation ceremony for the BP Portrait Award.

On arriving, it was clear that after last year's blockade of the main entrance, BP security, NPG security and Metropolitan Petroleum (also known as the police) were taking no chances...

Bringing the climate message home: an account of London Rising Tide's treesit at BP HQ, April 26-29th 2005

Very early on April 26th 2005, eight concerned squirrels nipped over the gates of the park in the centre of St. James' Square, and scampered up two imposing London plane trees which happened to overlook the headquarters of one of the world's largest oil companies. (Actually, the phrase 'scampered up' doesn't do justice to the way they threw a rope over a strong branch, climbed up it and into their tree while wearing seriously loaded-down backpacks. It also doesn't do justice to the way one brave member of their group had to climb a smaller tree in between the two planes to free the banner rope, without which their action would have been completely stripped of meaning. She also deserves being mentioned in dispatches for the way she spoke convincingly to the police who clambered over the gates about twenty minutes later that the group was indeed carrying out a survey of the trees' insect population, as they had discovered from a document abandoned on the grass which attested to this fact.

One activist will spend a third night in the tree-tops opposite BP's corporate headquarters, in protest at the greenwashing of the company's environmental and social record.

Outfoxing police and BP security, eight London Rising Tide activists took to the trees in St. James' Square at dawn on Tuesday April 26th. They occupied two trees throughout the day, hanging a massive banner reading "BP FUELS CLIMATE CHAOS" opposite BP office workers' windows.

In a bid to add muscle to claims of being a 'green force', many vanloads of London's Metropolitan Police will be present at BP's Annual General Meeting from 10.15am on April 14th. They will be joining forces with little-known group the Greenwash Guerrillas to ensure that the public are kept out of the newly-renamed Oil Festival Hall[1] during BP's Annual General Meeting.