We at London Rising Tide love Christmas – reconnecting with family and friends, the rosy glow of happiness that spreads through the country as people have a chance to get closer to whatever and whoever’s most important to them. The frosty weather that envelopes us and makes us appreciate what we have all the more, and the sound of people drawn out of their houses to play in the snow. We can’t spend all our time scheming plans to topple the climate criminals working to turn our world and environment into a machine for their profit, and Christmas comes as a welcome break.

Seven Australian Rising Tide activists are being pursued by Port Waratah Coal Services, which is made up of Rio Tinto and Xstrata, for US$525,000 in "victim's compensation" as a result of a non-violent blockade of the world's largest coal port on September 26 last year.

Rising Tide has never believed that national governments are capable of truly and fairly tackling climate change. This is partly because they refuse to accept the root causes and partly, as people have seen in Germany, even an elected "Green" Party is quickly co-opted into mainstream political approaches. So over the past ten years, rather than lobbying, we have focused our attention on tackling these root causes and building grassroots alternatives to the crisis. Our analysis – that climate change is intimately connected to social justice struggles and indeed, is a product of global inequality – has gained ground during that time.

Crass Xmas commercialisation - aren'tcha just sickovit?

Well, here's the antidote: a Christmas fluffy-ish singing action - brave entrepid counterculture guerrilla warriors don Santa Suits, sing anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist Xmas carols and leaflet for more mindful attention to love, gifts, and climate change - in Oxford Street, the heart of the shopping district, on one of the busiest shopping days of the year!

On a chilly Saturday afternoon on 27th of November, Oxford street shoppers were distracted by the launch of London Rising Tide's sales and advertising team's new product, Nothing(c).

We decided to mark the annual Buy Nothing Day this year by giving out a thousand free samples of '˜Nothing' to the desperate shoppers scrabbling for the latest must-have item. On our stall we had Nothing for everyone: “ Nothing for Men, Nothing for Women, Nothing Lite, Nothing for Those who have Everything and Nothing - Now with even Less. A cheeky flyer explaining the authenticity of our product and giving a link to the Buy Nothing Day website was given out along with the box of Nothing.