London

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.

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.

Come and join us this Saturday the 4th of December, where we'll be joining Kick Nuclear and others from the Stop Nuclear Power Network in a vibrant "Green Energy Not Nuclear Greenwash" bloc at the National Climate Marchfor a Zero Carbon Britain. Our group will be kitted out in our white radiation hazard suits to bring the message to our government that the waste and risk involved in Nuclear energy mean that it is not a way out of our responsibilities to switch to genuinely responsible and sustainable energy.

The 10-year anniversary of Rising Tide is upon us this week! Isn’t that amazing – 10 years! So many actions, materials, trainings, reports, films, support for numerous other groups around the world and a growing international network… not to mention just a few meetings ;)

This one is going to be short and sweet.

Here’s your final checklist.
 
1. Sign up to your bloc. Will it be Dirty Money, Building Bloc or Body Bloc? The choice is yours – but do it now, because sign ups close at midnight on Friday night. If you don’t have a phone, not to worry, just turn up on the day – there will be plenty of people around you receiving texts and word of mouth will do the trick. http://www.crudeawakening.org.uk

Also here's very short text on - Why Rising Tide signed up to The Crude Awakening...

This Friday the 1st of October there's a fundraising party at an undisclosed location for Crude Awakening and the activists on trial accused of organising the noise at Copenhagen. Sign up here to be informed of the location on the night.