London Rising Tide in 2010

London Rising Tide has been working as furiously as ever over the last 5 months, but alongside this work, we've also put together a bit of detail on the HUGE number of things we got up to last year. Click here to find links to details of ALL our work last year, including some info on things we haven't told you about yet. There’s no doubt that 2010 was a critical year; the global economy has continued to suffer a collapse under the weight of its own mistakes and the UK government has shifted to a conservative leadership keen to use this collapse to push its own agenda. At the beginning of the year the public was subjected to a battering as to the true nature of the science of climate change and then the largest British fossil fuel company’s reputation was sunk in Deep Water in the Gulf of Mexico.

London Rising Tide has been working through all of this and we had a very active year pushing back against the people making profit from the planet’s misery. We are not a small group of people following our own agenda, we are a part of a social movement taking action against the damage that those in power feel they can ignore. All of our actions rely on the people who come and get involved in them and the groups and networks who support them, so we’ve had a look back over the year and have produced a list of the many things that they’ve all helped make happen. Thank you very much all of you for being a part of them!

Events and Actions 2010:

• 28/01: Tar Sands film night – 60 people crammed into a full London Action Resource Centre (LARC) for an introduction to Tar Sands and to plan actions and discuss strategy. The BP fortnight of shame was born!
• 13/02: Oil-ympics – At least 25 plucky competitors took part in the Tar Sands Oil-ympics, against the backdrop of the Trafalgar Square screen showing the ceremony marking the opening of the Canadian Winter Olympics and in front of Canada House - go to the full story here.
• 17/03: Protest at Canadian Finance and Energy Minister Visit – LRT and the UK Tar Sands Network were waiting for this high-level delegation from Canada when they visited trying to push the false-solution of Climate Capture and Storage – see the full story on Tarsandsinfocus.
• 22/03: Tar Sands Film Night at Goldsmiths – Thank you all that came to this very successful showing of H2Oil to spread the word a bit further about our main campaign in 2010.
• 01/04: BP ‘Back to Black’ PR campaign launch - Kicking off The BP fortnight of shame, for Fossil Fool's Day, LRT’s new undercover PR company and its fully attired delivery people presented 22,000 subverted BP logos to their London HQ to help them recast their image once more, this time a little more honestly - and a shiny new sign was D-locked to their railings - see the full story here.
• 10/04: Party At The Pumps BP – BP Party At The Pumps - An excellent day with over 200 people raving, samba-ing and ceilidhing it up at BP’s Shepherd’s Bush petrol station, closing it down at one of its busiest periods and generating a lot of positive vibes from the public – see all the awesome videos made here, here and here!
• 15/04: BP AGM Demo - In partnership with the UK Tar Sands Network, Indigenous Environmental Network, Colombia Solidarity & Espacio Colombia, some 25 of you helped push the message to BP’s shareholders inside and outside Excel about the enormous catastrophe that is the Tar Sands - see the full story here & see also an excellent video on the issues at You and I films.
• 28/04: RBS AGM Protest – LRT people joined the World Development Movement and their big yellow digger to protest against RBS and their involvement in tar sands outside their London HQ. Since the bailout, our RBS has funded Total with £300m to exploit the tar sands of West Madagascar.
• 15/05: Shell Party At The Pumps – Another excellent turn out of more than 125 people for more of the most enjoyable kind of samba-subversion, this time at one of Shell’s Islington petrol stations with help from Rossport and Niger Delta campaigners - see our story here & more pictures here & here!!
• 18/05: Shell AGM Demo – Thank you to the brave souls that demonstrated against Shell and their rapacious exploitation in Canada and globally, on their most important day!
• 22/06: Greenwash Guerrillas at the National Portrait Awards - An excellent action that made sure people knew that the BP logo staining these awards was much more insidious than it appeared – and we tried to plug the spew of greenwash with old golf balls - see the full story here.
• 01/07: ‘Save Canada’ – At the planet’s second biggest Canada Day celebrations in Trafalgar Square, we were out there trying to Save Canada from itself, giving the Canadians we met the chance to say what they felt about the hugely destructive Tar Sands project - see what people said here & see the full story at tarsandsinfocus, here.
• 17/07: International Tar Sands Day of Action – We mobilised support from the Camp for Climate Action and others and were back at Canada House again to keep up the heat from the UK.
• 19-24/08: Climate Camp 2010 – A brilliant Climate Camp targeting your 84% owned RBS at the headquarters in Scotland. Our Greenwash Guerrillas had an excellent wave of hundreds of new recruits to go clean up Edinburgh - see pictures here.
• 23/09: Climate Action Film Night – Again over 60 people crammed into a full LARC as we hosted a screening of the Tar Sands film Petropolis, plus some of the best videos produced of LRT’s own actions to date as an introduction to the Crude Awakening Mass Action.
• 16/10: Crude Awakening – An inspiring action that completely shut down the busiest oil refinery in the UK, Coryton in Essex, for most of the day, with no arrests and a great deal of party-vibes among the lock-ons and tripods! - Rising Tide's report is here, & see also the official crude awakening website, & a selection of the videos and media responses to the event here & here.
• 18/11: Rising Tide UK Ten year party – Not so much an action as an opportunity for some well deserved inaction, in a pub, with drinks and a lot of friends! Here’s to the next 10, mine's a pint thanks!
• 27/11: Buy Nothing Day Product Launch – For Buy Nothing Day this year the shoppers of Oxford Circus were treated to some free samples of Nothing in a box, to cherish above all else - the full story is here
• 04/12: ‘Green Solutions not Nuclear Greenwash’ bloc at the annual Climate March - LRT joined the Stop Nuclear Power Network, to remind people of the false solution of 10 new Nuclear Power Stations that are to be built in their names and with their money. That must be why we bailed out the banks! The bail-out cost £1400 for every person on the planet. The views of the Kalahari Bush people are not known. Cuts, what cuts?
• 18/12: 6th Annual Santas Against Excessive Consumption - In a jolly farewell to 2010, LRT and Santa teamed up to make the Climate Change links and save Christmas from the icy fingers of capitalism on Oxford Street , meeting up with UK Uncut for a serenade - go the full story here.

Phew! Once again, well done everyone and thank you!

And to anyone whose interest has been piqued by these shenanigans, have a look at the ‘Contact’ section of the website to find out how to get involved!