London Rising Tide and Friends descended on Chelsea Tractor country on Friday night in a protest against the G8’s pathetic attempt to “consider” climate change and to reduce CO2 emissions.
Last year 800+ people descended on a field near Drax power station and built a
sustainable camp without the help of John Inman (although he would have been there
if able)! This was a base for 2 weeks of direct action, workshops and skillsharing
on climate change.
The camp was organised on a completely non-hierarchical basis with a series of
geographical "neighbourhoods" each providing their own kitchen, structures and
decision making bodies.
**Publish date modified due to system failure**
We seem to have been preparing for it forever, but the G8 is finally upon us. My London life is sorted enough to leave behind for 10 days - I hope - and now it's time to pull together whatever courage and creativity I have. After all, this psychotic system needs to be dismantled and the seeds of new ones need to be nurtured, and fast. That's what I try to tell myself when the doubts and fears drop by for a chat every now and then.
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.
This is the statement written jointly by members of London Rising Tide, and read out at the December 3rd 2005 rally outside the US Bombassy in London:
This day of action is undoubtedly the best supported and most international day of action on climate ever planned, which is an amazing achievement. Today’s a day to tell the world that we have had enough of being told that ‘the end could be nigh’ by scientists, only to see our leaders jamming their foot on the accelerator of a car that is already hurtling towards the cliff edge - whilst they shout ‘Trust me – I have your best interests at heart!’
And whilst today is a great achievement, maybe we should be asking ourselves some difficult questions, and re-examining our arguments and our tactics.
On Saturday, the busiest shopping day of the year, activists from London Rising Tide dressed up as Santas and elves and invaded Oxford Street to make the point that excessive Christmas consumption is causing climate chaos.
The Call Out for the Day of Action has now been translated into German, Dutch, French, Spanish and Portugese - click here for Translations
A collection of Flyers and Posters for the International Day of Action are now available for you to download.
If you want to organise a Critical Mass Bike Ride on the 8th of June a leaflet is now downloadable to help you - click here for more detail.
*Internationals Against the G8 Statement.
*For the G8 Page Click Here.
International Day of Direct Action Against Climate Change and the G8
Bike the Pipe
2007
I made it, 122 miles of pipe, quite a lot of hills and lots of leaflets distributed. In the next few days I will write something about the trip but for now, I';m safely back, rested and thank you to all those who supported me on this adventure - hope to return the favour one day soon - I have a good pair on paniers going!
Written before i set off....
When two guys turned up at the Brecon tree camp having cycled from Edinburgh I knew that I had to put my vague idea of cycling along the pipeline route in to action.
...spotted in London, 7.3.07
