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Invitation to the Climate vs Capitalism action planning meeting, London, Sat 13th February. Organised by Corporate Watch, Rising Tide UK and others.

This meeting is intended to be a follow up to the workshops Corporate Watch organised in 2015. The workshops aimed to bring people together to discuss capitalism and climate change and consider 'where next' for the movement in the UK.

This meeting will move on from more theoretical discussions to organising and action, focusing on 3 specific projects aimed at re-vitalising the grassroots, anti-capitalist climate movement in the UK. A draft agenda is at https://network23.org/climatevscapitalism .

Ahead of the meeting we said we would chose the themes in advance and tell everyone attending before the meeting. This way people will know if there are areas they are interested in and we get on with organising instead of spending the meeting deciding what we are going to discuss(!). There will be a chance in the wrap-up session to report on other campaigns/actions/projects that do not fall under these three themes:-

Oil and Gas:-
The Trans-National Oil and Gas Industry is ubiquitous and runs our world together with the Banks that finance their projects. Their products affect our everyday lives; dictate our energy supply; and their profits play a major role in pension funds. Anti-capitalist critique is rarely these days, transformed into action against these behemoths. We want to explore ways of addressing this, illustrating alternatives, whilst showing we can target not only those companies themselves but the Banks and service companies which facilitate their destructive projects around our world.

Aviation:-
There's growing resistance in local communities around expanding airports but an anti-capitalist critique which links these campaigns together is wholly absent. Vociferous campaigns like the one against Heathrow focus on noise and air pollution, whilst there has been little action to curb carbon emissions. So-called International Emissions fall outside any UN-COP CO2 reduction targets, so the Government looks like giving the go-ahead to expansion at BOTH Heathrow and Gatwick, despite UK climate legislation which should rule this out. It's time for us to halt all expansion and make binge-flying socially unacceptable.

Mobilisations
To plan for participating in climate mobilisations on an anti-capitalist basis, including getting people from the UK to the ZAD mobilisation in France on 27 Feb (http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2016/01/22/notre-dame-des-landes-… ) and the Ende Gelande open cast coal mobilisation in Germany on 13–15 May (https://www.ende-gelaende.org/en/). We will also discuss other possible mobilisations.

We emphasise again strongly that we think there's a gap in UK anti-capitalist climate organising. We know that issues around being explicitly anti-capitalist, reformist politics etc. were discussed at some of the previous workshops, and we know there are some differences of opinion over this. We are also aware that others are organising 'post-Paris' strategy meetings and while we see the need for a diverse movement, we want to use this space for those who want to focus on the more explicitly anti-capitalist side of the movement.

Join us on the:- 1)ART NOT OIL BLOC will be part of BLOC 5:Red:Fossil Free Future.
                           Meet from 12noon till 12.30pm to move off at 1pm,    at Meeting Point 5:Red, NE or top right hand corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC1, on the street, Newman's Row. Look for the Art Not Oil BP subvertised helios logo banner.
                          2)OIL SPILL ACTION AT TATE BRITAIN
                     Meet at the human Viking Longship about 4pm or during the last speaker, scheduled to be Caroline Lucas MP. Moving off ASAP along Millbank to create an oil spill on the steps of Tate Britain. See you there, further info below and at http://www.timetoact2015.org/ :-

London Rising Tide blockaded and shut down the Old Street Shell garage on the night of 14th March in memory of Shell activist and sambaista Val Dazzle, who lost her battle with Motor Neurone Disease in early 2010. They were joined by friends from Rhythms of Resistance samba band and other Shell2Sea friends in London. Val "Dazzle"- due to her winning smile - was a prominent member of London Rising Tide and the Band, with whom Val played for many years, even in a wheelchair just a few months before she passed away.

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 The Art Not Oil Coalition got underway with several spectacular Actions. A large turnout of London Rising Tiders helped our friends of Liberate Tate with theirs, organised at Tate Britain.

 Fifty veiled figures dressed in black carried out a performance art installation entitled ‘Parts Per Million’ throughout a series of rooms in the so-called ‘BP Walk Through British Art’ at Tate Britain during the art gallery’s official re-opening (Saturday 23 November 2013). The piece critiqued the role that Tate is playing in exacerbating climate change by bolstering the public perception of BP through its long-standing sponsorship relationship.

The last chance to get on the land before fences are up and footpaths closed.

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 ...

Thursday 10th November marked the sixteenth anniversary of the killing of ken saro-wiwa and eight other activists in nigeria. on the 9th, shell, complicit in their execution, was polishing its image by sponsoring an awards event for young entrepeneurs at the centrepoint building in central london. london rising tide organised a reminder of shell's bloody history outside the event, involving grim reapers, sombre drums, and hundreds of leaflets.

Click 'read more' to watch the video.