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B4. Radical Ecology

Chile’s Wildfires: Another Pinochet Legacy

Global Justice Ecology Project - Fri, 02/16/2024 - 11:55

Chile’s Wildfires: Another Pinochet Legacy Orin Langelle  |  Langelle Photography Orin Langelle is the co-founder of GJEP, a photojournalist, and the Director of Langelle Photography. In January and February 2017, 5,274 wildfires raged in Chile, burning more than half a million hectares, destroying over 1,000 buildings, and killing eleven people. The fires started in monoculture […]

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Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Photo Essay Prelude Chile’s Wildfires: Another Pinochet Legacy

Global Justice Ecology Project - Fri, 02/16/2024 - 11:47

Leoardo Guajardo’s house was saved from the fire, but all the crops and fruit trees were lost – Investigations into the 2017 fires uncovered that the pine plantations were infested by a borer wasp. The insect burrowed into the trees, damaging them and causing their commercial value to decrease. The logging industry did not have […]

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Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Over 3,600 U.S. education leaders and professors urge Biden to prevent genocide

Global Justice Ecology Project - Fri, 02/16/2024 - 11:09

Note: The following is a press release from educational leaders from diverse ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds and a multitude of disciplines and professions, sent to President Biden and Senators  on Wednesday, February 14, 2024. Press Release: For Immediate Release: Wednesday, February 14, 2024   Contact for US Professors: Lara Jirmanus, MD, MPH, Clinical Instructor […]

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Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Climate Justice Forum: Idaho Nuclear SMR, Washington Biomass & Replaced Dam Energy, Asian Methane Demand, California Refinery & Appalachia Pipeline Protests, Unsafe Plastic Water Pipes 2-14-24

Wild Idaho Rising Tide - Wed, 02/14/2024 - 12:00

The Wednesday, February 14, 2024, Climate Justice Forum radio program, produced by regional, climate activists collective Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), features news, music, and reflections on an abandoned small modular reactor (SMR) test project for Utah nuclear power at the Idaho National Laboratory, a new English biomass pellet production plant under construction in Washington, an agreement among regional tribes and state and federal governments to replace removed Snake River dam hydroelectric with renewable energy, a predicted increase in Asian methane gas demand and imports, a California protest outside a Chevron refinery linking oil and gas interests to Israel genocide of Palestinians, on-site and solidarity actions against the Mountain Valley gas pipeline in Appalachia, and a report indicating the health and safety risks of plastic drinking water pipes, after an Ohio toxic chemicals derailment.  Broadcast for twelve years on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow, every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm Pacific time, on-air at 90.3 FM and online, the show describes continent-wide, grassroots, frontline resistance to fossil fuels projects, the root causes of climate change, thanks to generous, anonymous listeners who adopted program host Helen Yost as their KRFP DJ.

Talking Heads – [Nothing But] Flowers (Official Video), March 30, 2018 Talking Heads

The Collapse of NuScale’s Project Should Spell the End for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, January 31, 2024 Utility Dive

Carbon Free Power Project, February 5, 2024 Idaho National Laboratory

UK Largest Renewable Energy Supplier Building Longview Plant along Columbia River, February 10, 2024 Daily News (Longview, Washington)

Tribes to Sponsor One to Three Gigawatts of Renewables to Help Retire Dams and Restore Salmon, January 29, 2024 PV Magazine

BMI Says Outlook for Asia Natural Gas Demand Remains Bullish, February 12, 2024 RigZone

Chevron Get Out of Palestine, February 4, 2024 Indy Bay

Appalachians Against Pipelines, January 28 to 30, 2024 Appalachians Against Pipelines

New Report Raises Questions about Safety of Using PVC Plastic Pipes for Drinking Water, April 18, 2023 Beyond Plastics

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Love means…stop insuring climate chaos

Extinction Rebellion - Wed, 02/14/2024 - 08:48

Email: press@extinctionrebellion.uk | Phone: +44(0)7756136396

Extinction Rebellion issues a Valentine’s Day warning that insurance industry firms will be targeted by escalating protest and disruption from February 26 unless they stop greenlighting fossil fuel projects setting the planet on fire.

“Roses are red, violets are blue. Stop insuring fossil fuel crooks or we’ll come after you.”

That’s the Valentine’s Day message from Extinction Rebellion to insurance and reinsurance businesses in the City of London and in cities and towns across the UK as thousands of activists prepare to target them in a week of actions kicking off on February 26.

Chidi Obihara, of Extinction Rebellion said
: “Just 20 companies insure 70% of fossil fuel projects. Many of these companies are based in the City of London, or in cities and towns across the UK. Thousands of us will pay them a visit during our week of actions to convince them to abandon the oil, gas and coal industry completely.

“This is the insurance industry’s chance to be the climate heroes that we all need in these terrifying times. They have the power to pull the plug on the fossil fuel crooks once and for all. To play a huge role in saving us all from a future of drought, famines, killer storms and heatwaves and war.”

Today Extinction Rebellion has put the insurance industry on notice that ‘the clock is ticking’ for its members to pledge to deliver three key demands, or face mass protests in London and across the UK.

XR are staging their own independent set of protests from February 27 as participants in the Insure Our Future Global Week of Action. Other campaign groups, including Mothers Rise Up and Eko, are taking action in the UK

The three demands are:
– Stop enabling fossil fuels: immediately cease insuring new and expanding oil and gas projects
Respect human rights: only insure projects that respect the human rights of all, and have the informed consent of Indigenous Peoples and communities
Support a just transition: increase industry support for renewables, frontline communities, and those in energy-crisis.

Extinction Rebellion has created a list of more than 40 potential targets for protest and disruption in London and elsewhere in the UK that includes leading insurance, underwriters and managing agents. Leaders of firms on the list will receive personal letters of intention asking them to stop insuring climate chaos over the next week.

Todd Smith, of Extinction Rebellion, said: “The insurance firms on our list, alongside several household names who continue to insure fossil fuel projects, have until midnight on February 25 to pledge to meet the coalition’s three demands if they want to be removed as potential targets for protest during the week of actions.

“If they fail to do so, Extinction Rebellion and the other members of the coalition will use a wide variety of protest tactics to bring their behaviour to public and media attention with the aim of causing major reputational and revenue damage.

“This is only be the beginning. We won’t stop until insurers get out of the fossil fuel industry for good.”

The week of actions in the UK is part of a synchronised Insure Our Futures Global Week of Action that will include at least 33 protests against insurance firms in 24 countries around the world, including the USA, France, Germany, Switzerland, Czechia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Egypt, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, DRC, Costa Rica, Columbia, Peru, South Korea, Japan. (1)

The campaign is an escalation of global pressure by activists that has seen 45 insurance companies commit to ending or restricting insurance for coal projects, and 26 firms introducing policies to end or restrict insurance in tar sands projects.

Six major insurers stopped insuring Adani’s Carmichael coal mine in Australia last year, bringing the total refusing to insure the project to 45, after sustained campaigning by climate movements. A coalition of major reinsurance firms pulled out of EACOP (2) in January in the face of growing protests about fossil fuel expansion and fears about damage to their reputations. (2)

Facing rapidly rising and unsustainable costs insurers are passing on their costs to ordinary home owners. The insurance industry earned approximately $21.25bn from insuring fossil fuels in 2022, but was hit by global economic losses of $275bn in 2022, of which $125bn was insured. (3)

Families struggling with the cost of living crisis are being hit by soaring insurance premiums, and more and more of them are expected to find their homes rated ‘uninsurable’ as extreme weather events become more frequent and damaging in the decades ahead (4).

Extinction Rebellion hopes the insurance industry will see this as an opportunity to help change the course of history and become climate leaders.

Notes to editors:
1) Where the action is happening in the Insure Our Futures Global Week of Actions: https://global.insure-our-future.com/global-week-of-action-2024/
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1af0aMLex_v9v9j7syjWGIUqx7wyWNbs&usp=sharing
2) Insurers pulling out of carbon bomb projects: https://global.insure-our-future.com/lloyds-of-london-insurer-probitas-exits-controversial-adani-coal-mine/
https://www.pipeline-journal.net/news/east-africa-pipeline-faces-mounting-pressure-major-insurers-walk-away
3) Insurance industry losses in 2022 due to climate crisis: https://global.insure-our-future.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/11/IOF-2023-Scorecard.pdf
https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/sigma-research/sigma-2023-01.html
4) Homeowners facing threat of uninsurability due to climate crisis: https://www.ft.com/content/ed3a1bb9-e329-4e18-89de-9db90eaadc0b

About Extinction Rebellion

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.

Donate | Support our work
What Emergency? | Read about the true scale of the climate crisis
XR UK Local Groups | View a map of all local groups
XR UK website | Find out more about XRUK
XR Global website | Discover what’s going on in XR around the globe!

Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate and ecological crisis which is upon us, including the sixth mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn’t taken, we’re heading towards 4˚C warming, leading to societal collapse and mass loss of life. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the front-line. No-one will escape the devastating impacts.

The post Love means…stop insuring climate chaos appeared first on Extinction Rebellion UK.

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

The Guardian: Georgia police and FBI conduct Swat-style raids on ‘Cop City’ activists’ homes

Global Justice Ecology Project - Tue, 02/13/2024 - 08:38

On Saturday, February 10th, Timothy Pratt’s article “Georgia police and FBI conduct Swat-style raids on ‘Cop City’ activists’ homes” appeared on The Guardian’s website.  The following are excerpts from the article (headings added for clarity): Crackdown on activists results in no arrests  Police in Georgia, together with federal agencies, are conducting a crackdown on activists […]

The post The Guardian: Georgia police and FBI conduct Swat-style raids on ‘Cop City’ activists’ homes appeared first on Global Justice Ecology Project.

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

For the love of activism

Waging Nonviolence - Mon, 02/12/2024 - 14:21

This article For the love of activism was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Does getting involved in social change work help you meet people, make friends and even find love? And would it matter if it did?

If the goal is to grow resilient people-powered movements, then it is essential that participation improves lives, not just after we win, but now, as a direct benefit of participation.

I’d like to think that any activity through which we embody positive vision through action would lead to such communal and personal enrichment. Though if we’re honest, that isn’t always the case… yet.

The Singles Project is a new values-based dating app that aims to facilitate just this kind of social enrichment through activism while simultaneously channeling funds into liberatory organizations. It’s the startup concept of a virtuous circle aimed at movement building instead of profit. Perhaps it’s even mutual aid.

Over 30 percent of adults in the U.S. have used online dating services at some point, with numbers growing each year. Like most commodified products and services, we’re told there is “something for everyone” in the dating-app scene. 

Yet what if what we want is to decommodify love while still being able to take advantage of the technological and fundraising potential of a dating app? What if there was a convenient tool available for people interested in social change to meet each other while participating in activism?

In this interview, Niclas Widmark, activist and co-founder of the Singles Project, discusses these possibilities.

Please introduce yourself and the Singles Project.

I’m Swedish but I grew up in New England and now live in Sweden again, so I’m fairly well versed in both cultures. I realized that change was possible about 10 years ago and have been increasingly involved in various movements since then. Mainly in the climate justice movement, but since all areas of justice are inextricably linked, I work in a variety of them. My main focus is on raising awareness about ways of exercising democracy and power through collective democratic participation.

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I’m especially inspired by a Gandhian understanding of change, where the real challenge isn’t just making people realize what is wrong but mobilizing them to act on what they already know to be wrong. This mobilization can only be achieved if people understand the power they have. Beyond organizing, one of the ways this realization can be had is through participation. It becomes a symbiotic loop.

This leads to our app. Singles Project is a fundraising and volunteering platform in the form of a values-based dating app. We invite you to join our app once you’ve donated through our site to any of the participating nonprofits. The volunteering function facilitates participation beyond donating.

Our company is self-financed and structured as a worker cooperative here in Sweden, where we’re based, and as a public benefit corporation in New York (turns out international coops are quite tricky). We’re hoping to advocate for economic democracy by becoming a popular example ourselves.

What are your thoughts on the wider dating-app scene versus the Singles Project?

There are around 5,000 dating apps/sites in the U.S. alone, so I’m honestly not very well acquainted with it. Our goal is to appeal to the very best in people by asking them to engage in an act of goodwill to join our community of common causes and hoping that they carry that sense of goodwill and solidarity with them when interacting with others who share their values and interests. We also encourage members to go beyond a donation and get involved in the community, which can hopefully be harnessed into a form of movement building. I’ll let readers form their own opinions as to how that sets us apart from other dating apps.

What was the inspiration for the Singles Project and how did you get started? What was the process and experience like going from idea to launch?

I’ve been working on this for nearly 15 years in various team constellations, so it’s taken a lot of twists and turns. The fundraising aspect came about in conversation with a friend who mentioned the idea of bundling local newspaper subscriptions with donations to community causes, which I adapted to the context of a dating app as there’s a natural symbiosis between goodwill and love. I’ve always wanted to meet someone who dedicates themselves to humanity, so creating a forum aimed at attracting that particular crowd was a real driving force.

There have been lots of challenges along the way, but the most daunting was probably finding a co-founding programming partner who was willing and, perhaps even more importantly, able to work on this as a side project until we were ready to launch. Luckily I found that in Jørgen Teunis. 

Where is the project now and where do you hope to go? Have there been any significant changes in the vision along the way?

We’re in the process of onboarding nonprofits and aiming for a launch around Valentine’s Day here in Sweden and in New York, followed by Washington D.C. and California. This phase has focused a lot on seeking out and developing relationships with others who get excited about potentials for more love in activism and more shared activism in relationships. 

For example, regarding their collaboration with us, Pia Björstrand, an attorney in Sweden and spokesperson for the climate justice organization Klimataktion [Climate Action] says, “We need more love; both on and for the earth. Klimataktion is happy to help spread love while also getting an opportunity to increase awareness about how we can help protect the earth.” 

If readers know of any nonprofits registered in these mentioned regions that are seeking an extra fundraising channel and more volunteer engagement while also helping their supporters connect with one another, let us know.

In addition to sowing the seeds of love and solidarity, we’re looking to address urgent problems that require immediate attention, while also highlighting solutions to systemic failures in our political economy.

I’d like to explore more about how you see this project connecting with vision and strategy for social change — could you speak to that?

Generally speaking, businesses, and especially startups, are supposed to have one main focus. We have five.

Our most immediate goals are to be an effective fundraising incentive for nonprofits while helping our donor-members make meaningful connections based on mutual values and common causes. We also want to boost collective participation through our volunteering function, which we hope can be a conduit for movement building. As a company, we want to promote and advocate for the concept of the democratic solidarity economy by serving as a popular example thereof. All in all, we hope this combination adds to a more participatory and democratic society in general.

Most social change-oriented organizations engage in fundraising and for many, it’s a significant part of their workload and it even guides strategy. What are your thoughts on fundraising for social change? How does this relate to building community and collective power?

There’s a great quote from MLK that guides our broader thinking: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

So taken in isolation, we naturally understand that getting more people to be monthly donors won’t change the world. But there are plenty of causes, like homelessness and the climate crisis, that are extremely urgent and desperately need financial support. That’s a starting point, and needs to be kept up until such time as we manage to collectively solve these crises. We think the incentive of gaining access to our community of common causes can mobilize a major and rolling source of donations for organizations doing this work.

Building on this, we hope that our volunteering function can be one of many ways to catalyze mass collective democratic participation. A step toward movement building. Once you get involved you start to realize that your efforts do in fact make a difference. This realization is empowering and can lead to sustained participation.

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There are plenty of examples of building community and exercising collective power through people-powered campaigns with profound effect, like Obama and Bernie’s campaigns. Unfortunately, they both pulled the plug on those movements once their campaigns were over, but there’s nothing stopping us from gathering behind a common vision and doing it on our own.

How do you see the value of love and connection in a time of rising fascism?

We know that fascism, racism and sexism, just to name a few, are based on fear, “othering” and disconnection. In a word, hate. But as Mandela observed: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Well, love and connection also foster solidarity, which is the basis for democracy. It’s worth remembering that democracy isn’t just a mechanism or method, it is a value in and of itself. It is when a group of people collectively decide to codify everyone’s equality. What we need to do now is expand democracy, not limit it. This means increasing participation, which brings with it solidarity. Any approach that can help get people involved should be pursued.

So while you’re right that fascism is on the rise, so too is activism, and there’s no reason that our wave of solidarity and humanity can’t prevail. Like Mandela said, love comes more naturally than its opposite.

This article is co-published with ZNetwork.org.

This article For the love of activism was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Three trials of people who took action to defend lives to begin next week

Extinction Rebellion - Mon, 02/12/2024 - 00:04

We are witnessing genocide and societal collapse in Palestine and the UK government, alongside other powerful western governments, are complicit in it. It has been reported that, similar to the 2003 invasion of Iraq led by Britain and US, a motivating force behind Israeli military operation in Gaza is fossil fuel expansion. [1][2]

Last week it was revealed that the ‘safe’ limit for global heating has been breached for a whole year for the first time. Millions of people, including those in Britain, face death, displacement and disaster on an unprecedented scale. [3]

It is now indisputable that fossil fuel expansion needs to stop. [4]

On Monday 19th February three trials are due to begin of people involved in three different acts of nonviolent direct action to stop new fossil fuel expansion and protect lives.

The three trials are:

Extinction Rebellion JPMorgan Emergency Break Glass – five women charged with Criminal Damage for breaking glass at JPMorgan’s European HQ, September 2021

Insulate Britain M25 – eight Insulate Britain supporters charged with Public Nuisance for peacefully stopping traffic on the M25 motorway, September 2021

Just Stop Oil Tunnels Campaign – five Just Stop Oil supporters charged with Conspiracy to cause a Public Nuisance for occupying tunnels close to Grays Oil Terminal, August 2022.

These trials also come amidst fresh attempts by the UK Government to undermine trials by jury and increase the punishments given to people taking part in nonviolent civil resistance. On 21st February the Court of Appeal will consider whether the last remaining legal defence of ‘belief in consent’, should continue to be available to defendants in nonviolent direct action cases involving damage to property. The Attorney General announced last year that due to the high number of recent acquittals by juries in these cases, they had asked the Court of Appeal to undertake a review. [5][6]

Due to the coinciding of the JPMorgan Emergency Break Glass trial and the Court of Appeal review, it is possible that the group on trial in front of Judge Reid could be the last defendants allowed to run ‘belief in consent’ as a legal defence. As a result, more and more defendants of principle could find themselves in court, with no legal defence and prevented from explaining their motivations to a jury of their peers.

Extinction Rebellion co-founder Dr Gail Bradbrook has already been denied the use of this defence and was therefore left without any legal defence in her trial last November for breaking a window at the Department for Transport. [7]

Judges who deny people acting from their conscience the opportunity to defend themselves in court have been causing alarm both nationally and internationally [8].

Last month, in a report commissioned and released by the United Nations (UN), Special Rapporteur, Michel Forst, said: “It is very difficult to understand what could justify denying the jury the opportunity to hear the reason for the defendant’s action, and how a jury could reach a properly informed decision without hearing it, in particular at the time of environmental defenders’ peaceful but ever more urgent calls for the government to take pressing action for the climate.”

Further details about each case below:

Extinction Rebellion JPMorgan Emergency Break Glass
Five women from Extinction Rebellion (XR) will be on trial for breaking glass at JPMorgan’s European HQ in London Blackfriars on 1st September 2021. [9]

JPMorgan remains the largest funder of fossil fuel expansion in the world since the Paris Agreement in 2016. [10]

Of the eight people who undertook this direct action, only five have been summoned to answer charges of Criminal Damage to the value of £330,000. The trial will be in front of Judge Reid at Inner London Crown Court and is scheduled for seven days. Two of the defendants will be self-representing in court.

Judge Reid sentenced one of the defendants, Amy Pritchard, alongside two others, to prison last year for breaching his ruling not to mention the phrases ‘climate change’ or ‘fuel poverty’ or otherwise speak about the motivations for their actions to the jurors trying them during a trial relating to Insulate Britain’s campaign on M25. [11]

The imprisonment of people for speaking the ‘whole truth’ in British courtrooms sparked a wave of nonviolent direct actions designed to bring to public attention the principle of jury equity, which is deemed to be under threat by leading legal figures. [12][13][14]

This is the sixth jury trial of women from Extinction Rebellion who have ‘broken glass’ at major banks and fossil fuel headquarters. Of the twenty women who have stood trial so far, ten have been found guilty and ten have been acquitted (found not guilty). In July 2022, six medics also broke glass at the JPMorgan’s Canary Wharf Headquarters in anticipation of the hottest day ever recorded in the UK. [15]

The defendants on trial at Inner London Crown Court next week are:

The defendants on trial at Inner London Crown Court next week are:
Stephanie Aylett, 29, a former medical device representative from St Albans

Pamela Bellinger, 66, a vegetable grower from Leicester
Amy Pritchard, 38, a student from Liverpool
Adelheid Russenberger, 32 PhD student from Richmond, London
Rosemary (Annie) Webster, 67, a retired cook and beekeeper from Dorchester, Dorset

Insulate Britain supporters who sat on M25

At Reading Crown Court the trial of eight Insulate Britain supporters begins. The eight have been charged with Public Nuisance relating to a peaceful roadblock of junction 31, Purfleet Interchange on the M25 motorway on 13th September 2021.

Insulate Britain supporters undertook eighteen days of action on the M25 between 13th September and 4th November 2021 to demand that the government insulate Britain’s cold and leaky homes to end fuel poverty and decarbonise the UK, something which the government is legally obliged to do. [16][17]

The trial is due to be heard by Judge Campbell and is scheduled for fifteen days. Several of the defendants will be self-representing in court. The Prosecutor representing the Crown is Maryam Syed a former Judge turned-prosecutor who’s specialism is counter-terrorism. [18]

The defendants are:
David Crawford, 70, a retired Engineer from Dorking
Gabriella Ditton, 30, a waiter from Norwich
Janine Eagling, 62, a retired IT project manager from London
Lou Lancaster, 58, a teacher from Cambridge
Nick Onley,  61, a musician and community worker from ExmouthRob Stuart, 42, a mental healthcare professional from London
Nicholas Till, 68, a university professor from London
Biff Whipster, 56, a retired business analyst from Canterbury

Tunnel campaign supporters from Just Stop Oil

The trial of five Just Stop Oil supporters will be heard by Judge Graham at Basildon Crown Court. The charges of Public Nuisance and Conspiracy to cause a Public Nuisance relate to a series of tunnels that were occupied close to Grays Oil Terminal in Essex in August 2022. Some of the defendants spent thirteen days underground, demanding the government immediately halt all new oil, coal and gas projects in the UK. The trial is scheduled for four weeks. Two of the defendants will be self-representing in court. [19][20]

Judge Graham has been newly appointed to this case after Judge Collery (previously assigned) was shuffled out following increasingly high-profile and widespread criticism of the prison terms he imposed on two Just Stop Oil supporters last year which were the longest sentences received in modern history for a nonviolent direct action. [21]

The defendants on trial at Basildon Crown Court next week are:

Christopher Bennett, 32, a support worker from Bristol
Joe Howlett, 33, a musician from Somerset 

Samuel Johnson, 40, a construction worker from Reydon, Suffolk
Dr Larch Maxey, 51, a sustainability researcher and consultant from London  
Autumn Wharrie, a mother and grandmother from Stepney


Xavier Gonzalez Trimmer
This week marks one year since Xavier Gonzalez Trimmer, 22 from London, took his own life just two weeks after being sentenced by Judge Reid at Inner London Crown Court on 31st January 2023. [22][23]

Xavier had been ‘on’ electronic tag for 5 months before his death and prior to this had been remanded to prison for twenty-one days. Friends have said they feel that Xavier’s experience of prison and the restrictive ‘curfew’ electronic tag conditions he lived with in his final months were a major contributing factor to the suffering that led to his suicide. [24]

Xavier would have been on trial with his friends and colleagues in two of the cases detailed above, the Insulate Britain group and also the Just Stop Oil tunnellers.

Confirming the injustice currently being perpetrated by the UK Judiciary, UN Special Rapporteur, Forst, said: “Such severe bail conditions have significant impacts on the environmental defenders’ personal lives and mental health and I seriously question the necessity and proportionality of such conditions for persons engaging in peaceful protest.”

Press Contacts:
Extinction Rebellion: press@extinctionrebellion.uk / +44(0)7756136396
Insulate Britain: insulatebritainpress@protonmail.com / +44(0)7762 987334
Just Stop Oil: juststopoilpress@protonmail.com / +44(0)7762 987334

Images FREE TO USE available here:
Extinction Rebellion: https://show.pics.io/xr-global-media-breaking-news/search?collectionIds=612f22cd49d6920012aa40e5
Insulate Britain: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kTAV_CBp6GtbDrpO4h7-NRmLxj97uBm2?usp=sharing
Just Stop Oil: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Dgcuv5vJjzfdSrdpX6HJEaayoidc08xy

Notes to Editors
[1] Everybody wants Gaza’s gas:https://www.planetcritical.com/p/everybody-wants-gazas-gas.
This Genocide is about oil: https://atmos.earth/this-genocide-is-about-oil/
[2] Why the war in Iraq was fought for Big Oil: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html
[3] World’s first year-long breach of key 1.5 warming limit:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68110310
Global heating breaches 1.5C for full year for first time: https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/january-hottest-on-record-global-warming-b2492674.html
[4] New fossil fuels ‘incompatible’ with 1.5C goal: https://www.carbonbrief.org/new-fossil-fuels-incompatible-with-1-5c-goal-comprehensive-analysis-finds/
[5] Belief in Consent; Criminal Damage Act 1971 Section 5(2)(a)
[6] Attorney General seeks criminal damage clarity from Court of Appeal: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/attorney-general-seeks-criminal-damage-clarity-from-co
[7] Extinction Rebellion co-founder convicted after four-year legal saga: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-67288289
[8] Michel Forst UN Special Rapporteur:
https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2024-01/Aarhus_SR_Env_Defenders_statement_following_visit_to_UK_10-12_Jan_2024.pdf
[9] XR Press Release: IN CASE OF CLIMATE EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2021/09/01/in-case-of-climate-emergency-break-glass-extinction-rebellion-women-break-windows-at-worlds-worst-bank-jp-morgan/
[10] JPMorgan pour $434 billion into Fossil Fuels since 2016 Paris Agreement: https://www.desmog.com/2023/04/12/banks-fossil-fuels-finance-climate-chaos-royal-bank-canada-jpmorgan-chase/
[11] Amy Pritchard & Giovanna Lewis jailed by Judge Reid: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11818173/Two-Insulate-Britain-protesters-jailed-contempt-court.html
David Nixon jailed by Judge Reid: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/07/insulate-britain-activist-david-nixon-jailed-for-eight-weeks-for-contempt-of-court
[12] Professor Richard Vogler: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/27/trudi-warner-english-courts-juries
Court restrictions on climate protesters ‘deeply concerning’, say leading lawyers: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/08/court-restrictions-on-climate-protesters-deeply-concerning-say-leading-lawyers
[13]  Defend our Juries: https://defendourjuries.org/
[14] Jury Equity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
[15] Doctors for XR break glass at JP Morgan: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2022/07/17/breaking-doctors-for-xr-crack-glass-at-jp-morgan-as-uk-declares-heatwave-national-emergency/
[16] Insulate Britain: ‘We have to keep going’: https://insulatebritain.com/2021/09/13/we-have-to-keep-going/
[17] M25 protest: Insulate Britain releases statement: https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/m25-protest-insulate-britain-issues-5907713
[18] Maryam Syed’s Linkedin page: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/maryam-syed-7a54aa251?trk=public_post_feed-actor-name
[19] Just Stop Oil supporters block critical oil terminals with roadblocks and tunnels: https://juststopoil.org/2022/08/23/just-stop-oil-supporters-block-critical-oil-terminals-in-essex-and-warwickshire-with-roadblocks-and-tunnels/
[20] Just Stop Oil tunnelers leave Grays tunnel after 13 days: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-62790218
[21] Celebrities urge Home Office to reconsider Marcus Decker’s deportation:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/26/geldof-coleman-urge-home-office-to-reconsider-climate-activist-marcus-decker-deportation
UN criticises ‘severe’ Just Stop Oil sentences:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0p6ll3jjgo
Just Stop Oil pair in bid to challenge ‘longest’ sentences:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/just-stop-oil-court-of-appeal-thornton-london-essex-police-b2382289.html
[22] HS2: Activists spray paint HS2’s Euston offices bright pink:https://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/hs2-activists-spray-paint-hs2s-euston-offices-bright-pink
[23] Insulate Britain activist Xavier Gonzalez-Trimmer found dead: Insulate Britain activist Xavier Gonzalez-Trimmer found deadThe Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com › environment › feb › i…
[24] Just Stop Oil activist facing six court cases took his own life: https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/just-stop-oil-activist-facing-27308140

About Extinction Rebellion

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.

Donate | Support our work
What Emergency? | Read about the true scale of the climate crisis
XR UK Local Groups | View a map of all local groups
XR UK website | Find out more about XRUK
XR Global website | Discover what’s going on in XR around the globe!

Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate and ecological crisis which is upon us, including the sixth mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn’t taken, we’re heading towards 4˚C warming, leading to societal collapse and mass loss of life. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the front-line. No-one will escape the devastating impacts.


The post Three trials of people who took action to defend lives to begin next week appeared first on Extinction Rebellion UK.

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Thacker Pass, Super Bowl Commercials, and Why Taylor Swift Doesn’t Scare Me

Protect Thacker Pass - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 16:33
For the past three years, I’ve been involved in a campaign to stop the Lithium Nevada Corporation from destroying a beautiful mountain pass in northern Nevada – known as Thacker Pass in English, or Peehee mu’huh in the local Numic (Paiute) language – to extract lithium from the land for electric car batteries. Thacker Pass is some of the best remaining greater sage grouse habitat left on Earth. Thacker Pass is home to pronghorn antelope, coyotes, sage brush, meadowlarks, rattlesnakes, pygmy rabbits, kangaroo rats, golden eagles, a rare snail known as the King’s River Pyrg that is threatened with extinction by the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine, amongst many other creatures. Thacker Pass was also the site of two massacres of Paiute people including the September 12, 1865 massacre where federal soldiers massacred at least 31 men, women, and children in the Snake War which was fought over…wait for it…mining encroachments on Native land.

We lost the campaign. Mine construction proceeds full speed ahead and hundreds, if not thousands, of acres of Thacker Pass are being carved up right now by Lithium Nevada. Though we lost the campaign and the mine is being constructed, four Native folks and three settler allies (myself included) were sued by Lithium Nevada for “trespassing” on public land to protest the mine. We might end up owing Lithium Nevada – a corporation profiting from the destruction of threatened species’ habitat and the final resting places of massacred Paiutes – hundreds of thousands of dollars for our peaceful protest. The case against us is still in its early stages so we’ll probably be fighting that lawsuit for months, at least. All while the violation of Thacker Pass and all the creatures who live there only gets worse.

Tonight, I will watch the Super Bowl – and the inevitable deluge of electric vehicle commercials that corporations will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure are witnessed by millions if not billions of people worldwide. (Yes, I know the Super Bowl is not the biggest sporting event on Earth. Still, it is widely viewed in North America, Europe, and parts of Africa.) The electric vehicle commercials are infuriating, of course. But, truth be told, most commercials infuriate me because virtually every one of them are wickedly designed to manipulate both the conscious and unconscious parts of our mind to consume evermore stuff. And, what does consuming evermore stuff – whether it’s consuming evermore Coca-Cola, Coors Light, that new dog food brand that you refrigerate, or electric vehicles – do?

It destroys more of what’s left of the natural world. And, at a time when human population has overshot the Earth’s carrying capacity, literally anything you consume destroys the natural world in an unsustainable manner.

But, what will really infuriate me while watching the Super Bowl will be the echo of all the people who criticized those of us working to stop the Thacker Pass mine for owning automobiles (and using them to get to Thacker Pass to confront mining there), for owning computers (and using them to educate the world about what mining does), for owning cell phones (and using them to organize resistance to the mine.) I will be infuriated because these people seem to truly believe that the destruction of the planet can be stopped if the precious few of us who both 1. actually care about the destruction of the planet and 2. are willing to do more than just tell everyone how much we care about the destruction of the planet just give up our cars, computers, and phones. Meanwhile, the corporations who profit from destroying the natural world will gain access to the consciousness of billions of people with their commercials encouraging everyone that if they just spend a smooth $60,000 or $70,000 on a sleek new electric vehicle they can stop the destruction of the planet and appear very virtuous while they’re at it.

Unfortunately, manufacturing electric vehicles includes the same fossil-fuel intensive processes that manufacturing anything (including traditional vehicles) does. When you buy your groovy new Tesla, you need to see the destruction of places like Thacker Pass, the deaths of child laborers in mines in the Congo, the murder of golden eagles reflected in that polished gleam your car salesman is so good at achieving.

But you also need to understand that just like simply buying an electric vehicle isn’t going to save the planet, simply refraining from buying an electric vehicle isn’t going to save the planet, either. Why? Because the global economy is based on the destruction of the natural world. This is true whether we’re talking about destroying the natural world for electric vehicles, whether we’re talking about destroying the natural world for agriculture, or whether we’re talking about destroying the natural world with the pollution nearly 9 billion humans make just from eating, pooping, and sheltering themselves. (Yes, people in the so-called First World use many more resources than others, but per capita consumption by all humans is increasing).

Because nearly every human life today is only possible through the destruction of the natural world, we’re simply not going to convince enough people to ever make the sacrifices necessary to keep the world from ecological collapse. This is especially true when those most responsible for destroying the natural world can put their propaganda in every American living room through things like television commercials more or less constantly. And, please, if you think that a few of us “leading by example” or “being the change” by giving up tools like computers will ever be as persuasive as Super Bowl commercials, then please keep in mind that virtually every traditional culture that thrived with stone age technologies has been massacred, forcibly assimilated, or otherwise destroyed upon contact with the dominant industrial culture. Those 31 Paiutes murdered in Thacker Pass by federal soldiers for standing in the way of mines are just one of countless examples of that.

Am I saying “give up?” Hell, no. I’m saying that we have to think much bigger than personal responsibility, lifestyle changes, or consumption choices. We can’t pat ourselves on our backs for arguing with people who disagree with us online, for buying a “green” product, for writing passionate essays.

Which brings me to Taylor Swift. I played college football. And for the first 22 years of my life, playing the game of football was my favorite thing to do on Earth. So, yes, I have been watching the NFL this year and have followed the Travis Kelce – Taylor Swift story. I’ve watched as some conservatives – believing that God has mandated that they try to put in her place an uppity, successful woman who points out some forms of misogyny – lose their minds about Taylor Swift. I’ve watched as some environmentalists – believing Mother Earth has mandated that they put an individual woman who boards planes which burn fossil fuels – lose their minds about Taylor Swift. I’ve watched as some feminists – believing the Goddess has ordered them to protect a single billionaire because she’s a successful woman that some men have criticized – lose their minds about Taylor Swift. (Full Disclosure: I do not know Taylor Swift, but I have a partner who cheers my activism on like Taylor Swift cheers Travis Kelce on. And that means something to me.)

But, here’s the thing: I see far fewer of anyone losing their minds about the current mass extinction event we’re living through, far fewer of anyone losing their minds about the fact that we’ve lost over 70% of vertebrate species on Earth since 1970, far fewer of anyone losing their minds about the fact that we can’t convince anyone to do hardly anything to actually stop any of this.

We’re not going to convince most people to make the sacrifices necessary to make sure there’s a livable planet to watch the Super Bowl on, to complain about Taylor Swift on, to complain about those who complain about Taylor Swift on, to – you know – live on. The good news is we don’t need to convince most people. We just need to deprive most people of the tools they need to continue to destroy the Earth, our only home. Worried about misogyny and porn culture? You don’t have to convince internet servers to stop serving pornography if you smash them. Worried about climate change? You don’t have to convince oil refineries to stop refining if you break them. Worried about how mass media affects us? You don’t have to convince televisions to stop brainwashing people if you pull enough power lines down.

I know that’s scary to think about. I know it would be scary to do. But, isn’t the collapse of life on Earth scarier? Scarier, at least, than team mascots, football games, or Taylor Swift?

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Germany: Two Teslas and Two Tesla Charging Stations Set on Fire in Berlin

Earth First! Newswire - Sun, 02/11/2024 - 09:16

from Abolition Media

Two Teslas were set on fire in Rummelsburg on February 7 and two Tesla charging stations on Vulkanstraße on February 8.

We think that Tesla is an ideal target for our attacks.

Because:

> Several armies use Tesla’s Starlink satellite system in their wars. Including Israel in Gaza. Also Ukraine. Tesla’s Starlink infrastructure is an important military player and attacks on Tesla can be a sign everywhere: against every war!

> Tesla is a symbol of “green capitalism”. But it is anything but green: the lithium batteries come from toxic mines in Chile and devour other rare metals, which means misery and destruction for the mining areas. “Green capitalism” stands for colonialism and land theft!

> Tesla wants to further expand its Gigafactory in Grünheide near Berlin. We want to defend ourselves against this! We don’t want any more Teslas on the roads! The Gigafactory became known for its extreme exploitation conditions. In addition, the factory contaminates the groundwater and consumes huge amounts of this already scarce resource for its products.

> Tesla is militarizing our roads. Their cars are equipped with high-resolution cameras. In “guard mode”, they film everything and everyone. Make sure to make yourself unrecognizable during actions.

> Elon Musk is an arsehole!

Therefore:

Let the air out of the tyres of expensive cars? great.

Even better: let Teslas burst into flames everywhere!

A few barbecue lighters and spring can begin!

original source: https://de.indymedia.org/node/339237

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Atlanta Police, ATF, and FBI Raid Three Homes in Southeast Atlanta, One Arrested and Others Detained

Earth First! Newswire - Sat, 02/10/2024 - 11:14

by Aja Arnold / Mainline Zine

ATLANTA—On February 8, between 6 and 7 a.m., the Atlanta Police Department, FBI, and ATF conducted a joint multi-agency raid, with Georgia State Patrol also present, at three homes in southeast Atlanta. Two residences are in the Lakewood area, and the other in Starlight Heights. Police have arrested at least one person, and have charged them with first-degree arson, which police say is related to Stop Cop City protests.

At least one other individual was held in police custody until around 5 p.m., when they were released. the person arrested is currently being held in Fulton County Jail.

Their bond hearing took place on Feb., Fri. 9, and was initially closed to media and the public due to a cyberattack, which has closed courts in Atlanta down for nearly two weeks. Media were eventually permitted to attend the trial.

A judge denied them bond the next day, on the grounds that they perceived them to be a threat to the community and a flight risk. They will remain in Fulton County Jail until their trial.

According to one search warrant from the raids obtained by Mainline, police seized a number of items, including laptops, iPhones, “Defend the Atlanta Forest” stickers, posters, and flyers, video cameras and tapes, among other things.

Search warrant documents obtained by Mainline from the Atlanta police raids on Feb. 8, 2024. Personal information has been redacted.

A resident at one of the homes who was raided this morning and was present for the arrest, told Mainline that when they asked police to see arrest warrants, police refused. Our source says they asked three times and were told that the police would leave the arrest warrant behind them after the search was completed. Our source confirmed that an arrest warrant was not left behind.

The same resident also said that that police dug up a nude photograph of them that was hidden privately under their bed, and then propped it up on display for others to see during the raid. Residents also said that police left a trail of destruction in their homes behind them, and the person arrested was removed from their home in full-body chains. Witnesses also told Mainline police pointed assault rifles in residents’ faces during the raid.

“These raids are an escalation at the federal level and an attack on the movement to disappear dissenters against Cop City,” said Stop Cop City activists in a joint statement released to the media. “We demand the immediate release of all detained and arrested activists. We will not be intimidated and the community will continue to apply a variety of strategies to oppose the construction of this dangerous facility.”

Today’s raid is the latest development in a widespread crackdown from the State of Georgia in response to the movement to Stop Cop City. On Jan. 18, 2023, Georgia state police violently shot and killed 26-year-old queer climate activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán. In August, the Georgia Attorney General announced a sweeping RICO indictment against 61 activists. On Mon., Feb. 5, Atlanta City Council passed what critics call voter suppression legislation to make Cop City referendum requirements more restrictive.

On the heels of these past city and state escalations against the movement, more potential state repression appears on the horizon. The Georgia state legislature recently passed widely criticized Senate Bill 63, which requires cash bail for more than 30 new offenses and makes it illegal for nonprofits and charitable groups to bail out more than three people per year. Critics say that the bill targets activist bail funds and social justice movements, and will also exasperate Georgia’s already detrimental prison and jail crisis, in which facilities are already extremely overcrowded. (Georgia prisons are currently under a Department of Justice probes that are investigating multiple human rights violations.) The bill has been condemned by the Southern Center for Human Rights and will face a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia if signed by Gov. Brian Kemp into law.

“The resistance to Atlanta’s militarized police state is strong and continues to grow,” says Kamau Franklin, director of Black liberation group Community Movement Builders, in an official press statement. “The police and jails must be stopped. They continue to murder people like Johnny Hollman and Lashawn Thompson without any accountability. The community stands in solidarity with all affected by the police repression against the movement to Stop Cop City.” Organizers have announced a 5 p.m. press conference and rally today at the headquarters of the Atlanta Police Foundation at 191 Peachtree St. to provide further details on the raids.
Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Obagi – A Community Set on Fire

Global Justice Ecology Project - Thu, 02/08/2024 - 10:39

By HOMEf on Feb 05, 2024 12:13 pm The residents of Obagi, a rural community in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State, who happen to be the hosts of oil companies like the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG), Total Energies, and AGIP, have been forced to flee their community by January 17, 2024 […]

The post Obagi – A Community Set on Fire appeared first on Global Justice Ecology Project.

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

Climate Justice Forum: Ohio Derailment Aftermath, Idaho Logging Litigation, Northwest & Appalachia Pipeline Opposition, Canadian LNG Exports, Cancelled DC Protests 2-7-24

Wild Idaho Rising Tide - Wed, 02/07/2024 - 12:00

The Wednesday, February 7, 2024, Climate Justice Forum radio program, produced by regional, climate activists collective Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), features a Guardian report on the community health and policy aftermath during the year since the toxic plastic chemicals train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio.  We also share news, music, and reflections on litigation against a massive, north Idaho, lakeside logging scheme called Buckskin Saddle, a nationwide request for Environmental Protection Agency and White House intervention in federal approval of the GTN Xpress Northwest gas pipeline expansion, global export of Canadian methane through U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, cancelled Washington D.C. protests and further petition opportunities after a Biden administration pause on LNG facility permits, and local and widespread solidarity actions against Mountain Valley methane pipeline construction in Appalachia.  Broadcast for twelve years on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow, every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm Pacific time, on-air at 90.3 FM and online, the show describes continent-wide, grassroots, frontline resistance to fossil fuels projects, the root causes of climate change, thanks to generous, anonymous listeners who adopted program host Helen Yost as their KRFP DJ.

Infallible, July 25, 2018 Pearl Jam

Update on Litigation of Buckskin Saddle Lakeside Logging Scheme, January 24, 2024 Paul Sieracki (WIRT facebook post forthcoming)

Biden Urged to Use Obscure Law to Thwart Pacific Northwest Pipeline Expansion, January 16, 2024

Climate Activists Cancel Protests, Declare Victory after Biden’s LNG Freeze, January 26, 2024 Bloomberg

Tell the Biden Administration: Stop the Expansion of Oil and Gas Export Projects!, 2024 People vs. Fossil Fuels

U.S. Exporting Canadian Natural Gas as Global LNG Demand Surges, July 11, 2022 Energy Now Media

Plan a Solidarity Action, 2024 Appalachians Against Pipelines

Appalachians Against Pipelines, January 28 to 30, 2024 Appalachians Against Pipelines

A Year On from the East Palestine Toxic Train Derailment, What’s Changed? Podcast, February 2, 2024 Guardian

See also: Residents’ Lives Still in Limbo a Year after East Palestine Toxic Derailment, February 3, 2024 Guardian

Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

The only protection from nuclear catastrophe is prohibition

Waging Nonviolence - Tue, 02/06/2024 - 09:14

This article The only protection from nuclear catastrophe is prohibition was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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This article was originally published by TomDispatch.

What’s in your basement? Mine is full of things I’ve mostly forgotten about — tools I bought for projects I never completed, long abandoned sports equipment, furniture I planned on refinishing ages ago, and unused cans of paint I thought I wanted when someone was giving them away. 

We’ve owned this house for nearly 12 years, since just weeks before our son was born. In all that time, I’ve regularly gone down there to do the laundry and store my things (which never seem to stop accumulating). And somehow, it went from being empty when we bought it to chock-a-block full today in a way that would make Marie Kondo’s perfect hair stand straight up. 

One day recently, I noticed two booklets attached by a screw with an outdated head to one of the beams under the basement stairs. That roused my curiosity since I had no memory of putting them there and, without laundry to distract me, I tried to free them, using a dozen different screwdrivers, none of which had that old-fashioned head, so eventually I pulled them loose with the claw end of a hammer.

Keep calm and head west

The top one was entitled “Emergency Planning at Connecticut’s Nuclear Power Plants: A Guidebook for Our Neighbors” and was addressed to “Resident.” Nowhere in that 23-page booklet was there a date, but it referred to our power company as Connecticut Light and Power and mentioned Connecticut Yankee, a local nuclear power plant that closed nearly 30 years ago.

We still get a similar booklet every couple of years, because we live seven miles from the area’s remaining nuclear power plant, all too aptly named Millstone and situated on a picturesque peninsula that juts into Long Island Sound. I sat in my kitchen, holding that ancient booklet and listening to the hum of the refrigerator (powered by — yes! — nuclear energy). The current PR line on nuclear power is that it’s a cheap and reliable bridge to renewable energy and a crucial partner in generating a carbon-free future. Here in Connecticut, half of all our power comes from Millstone, which is managed by Dominion Energy.

On its peninsula between Pleasure Beach and Hole in the Wall Beach, Millstone draws 2.2 billion gallons of water from Long Island Sound daily to use in its cooling towers. That water, according to a report from the Yale School of Management, is then returned to the Sound 32 degrees warmer than when it was pulled out. Scientists are now studying warm water plumes from Millstone, Indian Point, and other East Coast nuclear power plants to try to understand their impact on oxygen and nutrient levels in those waters. The Yale report notes that “populations of several commercially important species, including lobster and winter flounder, have steeply declined in Long Island Sound over the past two decades, but scientists are unsure whether overfishing, habitat degradation, disease, or warm water discharge from Millstone is to blame.”

Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant, just about 80 miles due north of Baltimore, my childhood home, suffered a meltdown three days before my fifth birthday. So, I have a visceral fear of cooling towers and nuclear radiation. The booklet I found didn’t exactly allay my anxieties. It suggested that, in the event of a crisis at the plant, we should evacuate along a series of two-lane roads that have only gotten more congested in the decades since that booklet was published. “If possible, use only one car. If you have room, please check to see if any of your neighbors need a ride. Keep your car windows and air vents closed.” It suggested packing for a three-day trip and included a helpful list of things not to forget like pillows and toiletries. The booklet advised calm again and again, offering these (cold) comforting words, “Contrary to some popular misconceptions, a nuclear plant emergency would not be a sudden event. A severe nuclear accident would take considerable time to develop, enabling state and local officials to take the necessary protective actions in a timely fashion.” Tell that to the people of Chernobyl and Fukushima. How much time is time enough?

#newsletter-block_35e45a1c6685d71506656dcc616ec5b2 { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_35e45a1c6685d71506656dcc616ec5b2 #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter Build a bunker, survive the fallout (but not the blast)

The second booklet was emblazoned with the all-caps title “FALLOUT PROTECTION FOR HOMES WITH BASEMENT” and was sent to our address in May 1967 by the Department of Defense’s Office of Civil Defense with the descriptor “Family Residing At.” As I leafed through the 60-year-old pages, I realized that the long-time homeowner had screwed it to the underside of the basement stairs in response to a suggestion on the back of the booklet: “For quick reference, hang this booklet in the corner of your basement having the best fallout protection.”

The booklet was personalized for our very basement based on a questionnaire the homeowner must have filled out once upon a time, because we were instructed to follow plans C through F to increase our “Protection Factor,” or PF, from radiation by 40 percent. Any “Home Handy Man,” we were assured, could construct a permanent shelter in the basement or at least pre-plan one to be quickly constructed after a nuclear attack. The booklet also had recommendations for how to improvise a shelter once you were cowering in that post-nuclear basement of yours. It did warn, however, that even if you had indeed constructed one, a “fallout shelter provides only limited protection against blast.”

Previous Coverage
  • Nuclear weapons ruined my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way
  • There was, as it happened, no third booklet offering instruction to the home handyman on just how to protect his family from a future neighborhood nuclear blast and, of course, all these years later, there’s no fallout shelter in our basement and no stack of materials to make one with. Still, as someone whose parents were well-known anti-nuclear activists and who’s always feared the possibility of a future nuclear war, I found myself riveted to the spot in the basement of my 1905 home, imagining my family of five seeking shelter here during some kind of nuclear catastrophe. The walls are stones cobbled together with mortar and painted. That painted mortar regularly flakes onto the cement floor, coating it in a sort of crumbly dry snow. We occasionally squirt expanding foam into the holes in the foundation, but there’s still one corner where my kids like to hold their hands and exclaim: “I can feel the breeze” and “it smells like mud right here.” According to our Fallout Protection booklet, that corner is the “strongest” one, so before a nuclear attack, I do hope that I’ll get around to closing up all those holes.

    In truth, it would be a mighty grim existence in that basement of ours. Especially if I don’t fix the corner where the kids feel the breeze. There are lots of bikes, a massive canoe and life preservers, plenty of canning supplies, a dehydrator, heat lamps and other accessories for raising chickens, and my husband’s beer-making and distilling supplies. Most of these cool homesteadish things are useless without electricity, heat, or potable water.

    The booklet offers no advice on how to supply a fallout shelter with water or beer or anything else, nor does it tell us how long we’d need to be down there. It does say: “Until the extent of the radiation threat in your town is determined by trained monitors using special instruments, you should stay in your shelter as much as possible. For essential needs, you can leave your shelter for a few minutes.” It suggests we get a battery-powered radio.

    Previous Coverage
  • If doomsday prepping has taught me anything, it’s that we can’t survive alone
  • Of course, the information in that booklet is now 57 years old, long before the world of modern media arrived. I could go online and stream untold numbers of DIY tutorials on bunker-building and provisioning. By now, prepping for disasters, whether nuclear, conventional, or farcical is a multibillion-dollar business. You can even attend a weekend course on wilderness survival techniques for $800. However, nothing I read about that class offered guidance on surviving “a war, societal collapse, or some other calamity” with three kids, so I’m probably staying put. A battery-operated radio might not be a bad idea, though.

    You can’t hide from nukes

    I mostly head down to the basement in a “keep the laundry-train running” fog. Nuclear war is a constant hum in the back of my mind. It’s a fear that won’t go away and that sets me apart from most Americans. It seems as if most of us deal with nuclear issues by — should the thought even occur to us — trying to push them away as quickly as possible. In an annual survey, Chapman University has been tracking American fears for nearly a decade now. Government corruption and economic collapse top the list, which also includes loved ones getting sick and dying. Fears of war are similarly prevalent, but the specific fear that stalks my dreams isn’t there — the possibility that the nightmare that rained down on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, killing more than 100,000 of them, when the United States became the first and only nation to use nuclear weapons, could happen again.

    I know I’m an odd duck with my nuclear preoccupation. Of course, I live in the self-declared “Submarine Capital of the World.” New London/Groton has been building nuclear submarines since the 1950s and the U.S. naval base here is home port to 15 nuclear attack submarines. So that’s one reason nukes are on my mind.

    Then there are those two terrible wars raging right now between nuclear-armed invaders (Russia and Israel) and non-nuclear entities (Ukraine and Hamas).  Those nuclear-tinged wars worry me. And am I the only person who noticed that, just recently, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists decided to keep its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds (yes, 90 seconds!) to midnight? I also read enough to know that our government is going to spend more than $55 billion on nuclear weapons research, development, and testing in 2024 alone. And that figure doesn’t even include the whopping sums being invested in new nuclear delivery systems like Columbia class submarines or the upgrading of the B2 Spirit Stealth Bomber. I can get stuck there sometimes, especially when schools, clinics, and homeless shelters around me are struggling to keep their doors open.

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    Watching the (nuclear) clock at family gatherings

    Such facts swirl in my head all the time — sometimes emitting a low hum, sometimes growing uncomfortably shrill. But I work hard to have other interests and worries. My anti-nuclear activist mother was constitutionally unable not to talk about nuclear weapons and that’s a cautionary tale for me. I can still remember how we wouldn’t go to family weddings or reunions or anything else scheduled in the first 10 days of August, because we were memorializing the bombings of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). Since my mother was one of seven siblings in a big Irish Catholic family and had dozens of nieces and nephews, we missed a lot of family summer gatherings thanks to that principle.

    Perhaps it was for the best, though, since I do remember one truly awkward exchange between my mother and a relative:

    “Oh hi, Liz, good to see you. You look lovely. How have you been?”

    And my mom replied: “Well, I’ve been better. We’re three minutes to nuclear midnight, you know. It keeps us very busy.” (In those days, the Bulletin’s Doomsday Clock was slightly farther from “midnight.”)

    An uncomfortable silence followed, spreading like nuclear winter and eventually the relative excused herself to get another martini.

    I try not to do that myself to unsuspecting friends and relatives, but I’d be lying if I told you that sometimes I didn’t think like my mom.

    Unlike me, most people have, I suspect, stuck the whole history, science, and politics of that world-killing technology in the proverbial basement (though not ours, of course). So, imagine my surprise when I found all that strange history stuck in my own basement!

    The only protection is prohibition

    Now that I think about it, the best protection to be found in that basement of mine is our stash of anti-nuclear protest signs. In one corner are all the ones the Connecticut Committee to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons uses in its protests. There are “disarm now” signs, a sturdy yellow banner with quotes from the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and a stack of 70 “Thank You” posters for each of the nations that are party to that Treaty. My kids, some of our friends, and I made those signs to express our gratitude to countries like Benin, Honduras, and Thailand that have agreed (unlike the nine countries with such weaponry) not to develop, test, produce, manufacture, acquire, or possess, no less stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or accept nuclear weapons from other countries, or allow them to be stored on their territory.

    Mark Twain supposedly said that war is how Americans learn geography. In making those signs and waving them near the local General Dynamics complex contracted to design the next generation of nuclear-capable submarines, my kids and I are learning adifferent kind of geography. As we resist, we celebratethe geography of the true superpowers on this planet, the nations that are trying to lead the way to a nuclear-free, bunker-free future where children won’t have to even imagine hiding in their basements.

    In the meantime, I’m going to hang these two booklets back up under the basement stairs as relics of what I’d love to think of as a bygone era. I just have to find the right screwdriver.

    This article The only protection from nuclear catastrophe is prohibition was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

    Jessica Reznicek is Being Held in Segregation

    Earth First! Newswire - Mon, 02/05/2024 - 09:56

    from Unoffensive Animal

    Jessica Reznicek is a land and water defender who, among other things, fought against the Dakota Access Pipeline, in Iowa.

    In 2021, Jessica was designated a domestic terrorist and sentenced to 8 years in prison (for one count of conspiracy to damage an energy facility).

    Jessica is currently being held in disciplinary segregation (for a total of 60 days). Therefore, her communication is limited and she will not be able to respond to letters as quickly as before.

    You can still write to Jessica at the following address,

    Jessica Reznicek # 19293-030

    FCI Waseca

    PO Box 1731

    Waseca, MN 56093

    For instructions on how to write letters to Jessica, check out, http://supportjessicareznicek.com/contact

    For information about Jessica and her case, check out, http://supportjessicareznicek.com

    Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

    Chicago Bank of America Vandalized

    Earth First! Newswire - Sun, 02/04/2024 - 10:55

    from Scenes from the Atlanta Forest

    Early on January 27th, comrades gathered to honor Tortugita by wheat-pasting posters on the building and gluing the card reader outside the bank shut (although the tap function remained available, for anyone who was wondering). A belated day of the Forest Defender, may the pigs never expect us when we are always late. Viva Tortugita, may Bank of America stop funding ATL or crumble, and long live the struggle. Submitted Anonymously Over Email
    Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

    How older climate activists helped win the fight over LNG exports

    Waging Nonviolence - Fri, 02/02/2024 - 10:31

    This article How older climate activists helped win the fight over LNG exports was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    In a win for climate justice, the Biden administration announced a pause last week on the approval of new liquefied natural gas, or LNG, terminals in the United States. Long touted as a climate solution by the fossil fuel industry, LNG is better known among activists as “fossil gas,” given its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Although existing LNG facilities remain in operation, most new gas terminals were slated to be built in the Gulf region, where communities of color already bear the costs of environmental racism. While the decision has been listed as one of the Biden administration’s climate accomplishments, it is a huge win for the activists, communities and grassroots organizations that have been organizing and agitating for such an outcome with the #StopLNG campaign.  

    Among those organizations is Third Act. Founded in 2021 by journalist and environmental activist Bill McKibben, Third Act organizes Americans over 60 years of age in climate and democracy actions. There are 24 location-specific working groups across the U.S. with more in formation —  and five affinity groups to harness the talents of lawyers or creatives, for example. For the past several months, Third Act has been involved in the #StopLNG campaign, and were scheduled to undertake three days of nonviolent civil disobedience at the Department of Energy in early February.  In light of the Biden administration’s decision, the action has been canceled, but their organizing — especially for the upcoming election — continues. 

    I spoke with B Fulkerson, Third Act’s national organizer. A fifth-generation Nevadan and a lifelong activist, Fulkerson — now 63-years-old — began volunteering with Third Act in the wake of the Caldor and Dixie fires in 2021. We discussed the organizing that led to this decision, the power of nonviolent direct action, and why it’s important to stop and celebrate success.

    B Fulkerson protesting with fellow Third Actors. (Brooke Anderson)

    As an organization, how did Third Act react to the Biden administration’s recent decision on new LNG terminals?

    Our reaction went from shock to elation. Third Act — alongside frontline leaders such as Roishetta Sibley Ozane, Gwen Jones and a number of groups from throughout the country — took on some of the biggest, nastiest, richest, most powerful forces in the world and did an amazing job. It is a beautiful example of people and various sectors of the climate movement coming together and taking something that was really arcane and somewhat disconnected from the conversation five months ago, and kicking their asses and leaving them crying in the gutter. It feels really good. We all feel empowered. 

    How did you plan for the #StopLNG campaign over the past five months?

    Five months ago, Bill McKibben brought it up at one of our team meetings. He said that the Biden administration was getting ready to take a look at these massive fossil gas terminals that were going to be built, and it was probably something Third Act could weigh in on. Also, if we went deep and hard and fast — we might win. So we talked about it. We were in the middle of our Costco campaign, a Citibank campaign, and we were starting to get our work together for the 2024 elections, but we decided this could be a moment for us. We usually have a saying at Third Act: Because we’re all a bunch of geezers, we go slow to go fast. Well, this was one of those moments where we had to go fast to go fast. People across our team really stepped up as other organizations throughout the country did as well.

    Previous Coverage
  • Movements have a long history of playing the inside-outside game effectively
  • In terms of planning, I think this was a really great example of an inside-outside strategy. Bill, because of who he is, has the ability to have conversations with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and other people in the White House in order to gather intelligence to inform our strategy. We also have people who have been involved with the Mountain Valley Pipeline fight and involved very deeply in nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience. Because of that, we started a nonviolent direct action training series in November, which was in the works for months before that. We knew that looking back at nonviolent history that big things don’t really happen without the serious threat of mass civil disobedience, so we knew that had to be a part of it, as well.  The Climate Disobedience Center was involved in helping us with these trainings and getting hundreds of folks mobilized and ready to risk arrest during a three-day sit-in at the Department of Energy. I was really thrilled at the level of support we got from people who were willing to do that. 

    Do you think the three days of nonviolent civil disobedience planned as part of the #StopLNG campaign was the tipping point that led to the Biden administration’s decision?

    Absolutely. Definitely. We were quite clear to the administration that we were going to be out there for three days with 500 people getting arrested and more in support. They did not want that to happen. Absent the threat of mass civil disobedience, I don’t think the administration would have gone this way. You could also say that absent the leadership of the Gulf Coast folks who are on the front lines it would not have happened, and absent some of the great communications work other groups did it also would not have happened. It’s a great example of the whole being much greater than the sum of the parts and really being able to accomplish big things together. 

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    Given that the decision arrived before the planned actions in D.C., how has that impacted Third Act’s #StopLNG campaign? 

    Well, what we’re going to do now is pivot. Our nonviolent direct action trainers are still going to do a deep nonviolent civil disobedience training for our Third Act community in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia areas, where there is some really strong interest. Then we’re going to hold two additional trainings across the country. The idea is to use nonviolent direct action as a key strategy and a tactic in the fight to reduce carbon emissions — and to take on the fossil fuel industry whether that’s Citi Bank or other enemies. Frankly, I’m a little bit disappointed, as it would have been my third time getting arrested in D.C. But you know, what? It’s a good problem to have. Sometimes, as Bill says, the best actions are the ones you don’t have to have. 

    Prior to the #StopLNG campaign, was civil disobedience part of Third Act’s strategy?

    I wouldn’t have come to Third Act if nonviolent direct action was not part of our DNA, and it’s something that we’ve been talking about and knowing we need to have in our quiver for a long time. However, we’re only two and a half years old, so this was going to be the first time we were going to do it as an organization. We also don’t want to suggest that unless you’re getting arrested, you’re not really a climate activist — making phone calls and knocking on doors is just as important. But we know that this is an essential tactic and strategy that we’ll have to employ going forward. 

    How does Third Act take time to celebrate, reflect or learn from a win like this?

    Last night, we had a call with hundreds of our Third Actors and Gulf region frontline leaders. It was pretty emotional and pretty telling about how this is a moment for the Third Act to be in service. There was celebration and there was some debrief involved. On Tuesday, we had our first team meeting since the decision came down and we spent a long time going around talking about what this means and celebrating. We’ve all been part of those groups where it’s like, “okay, we did the thing, let’s move on.” We don’t stop to take a breath, let alone, say “hey, what was the meaning of that experience we had together? Let’s harvest that.” But again, we’re old, we have to stop, we have to rest, we have to look back. At Third Act, we slow down.

    What other organizing has been happening alongside the #StopLNG campaign?

    Citibank is our number one target. They’re the biggest funder of fossil fuel expansion, so we’d like to take them down. Part of it has been going through Costco because a lot of Third Actors have Costco credit cards. So we got 30,000 signatures and did an action at the Costco shareholders [meeting] a couple of weeks ago. Costco is famous for its sheet cakes, so we got a whole bunch of Third Actors to dress up in the Costco aprons and uniforms, the name tags, and delivered a sheet cake and the 30,000 signatures to the Costco headquarters in Kirkland [Washington]. Outside the headquarters, there were songs and a mobile billboard — so that when the shareholders went in, they saw the campaign in bright colors and letters. Meanwhile, across the country, Third Act working groups met with the branch managers at their local Costcos and delivered mock signatures. 

    Following that, the Costco CEO said at a board meeting, “We hear you and we’re in conversations with Citibank about these concerns.” Now, I don’t know what that means, but for the third largest retail store in the country to acknowledge our campaign is pretty big. We’ve talked about what this means in view of that campaign, in view of Citibank and where we’re going to go next. We haven’t made any big decisions yet, but we have to decide as we’ve got a lot of eager people out there. It’s incumbent upon us to make sure that our strategy is sound and that our targets have a reasonable chance of folding if we employ those tactics and strategies. 

    Third Actors delivering a sheetcake and 30,000 signatures to Costco headquarters. (Twitter/Third Act)

    You mentioned that there are local working groups across the country. How do the working groups operate in relation to the national organization?

    We have 35 working groups right now and about eight more in formation in key states across the country. They are all volunteers, so we’re getting hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours from people all over the country. We ask that the groups do 60 percent of their work on our campaigns — climate and democracy — and then a working group can spend 40 percent or less of their time on a local campaign that they’re interested in, say a community garden or something that’s related to climate or democracy. 

    There are also five affinity based groups for lawyers, educators, trade unionists, creatives and people of faith. In these groups people come together and lean into their profession to get Third Act strategies and campaigns implemented within their sector. For example, the retired trade unionists bring a real union organizing mentality to us about rigor, discipline and research.

    Could you elaborate on how trade union organizing informs Third Act’s work?

    One of the main things we can learn from trade unions is the approach to research. In Nevada, the reason the culinary union is the biggest, baddest outfit in the state — and brings the biggest gaming companies to their heels — is because they have a research department that’s working to find out the vulnerabilities of each of those companies. When it comes time for negotiations, they hit them and they hit them hard. So research is key. They also bring relational organizing to Third Act. The one-on-one is absolutely essential to organizing as change happens through relationships and undergirds the work that we do. A lot of that comes out of a union background. 

    Third Act collaborates, backs-up and supports youth-led climate initiatives. How is organizing alongside youth different from organizing those over 60 years of age?

    Previous Coverage
  • How young climate activists built a mass movement to be reckoned with
  • One of our working principles is to be humble and that’s really essential when geezers and boomers come into spaces with youth, especially Gen Z, who are primarily Black, Indigenous and people of color. We carry all our power, privilege, unconscious biases and our unearned advantage of those spaces and want to run the show, but it just does not work. You do a lot more listening when you work with youth, a hell of a lot more listening.

    With our Third Actors,  people are dying and they’re taking care of their loved ones who are dying. I have hundreds of calls a month, several of them canceled because a loved one has died, or they have to take care of a loved one or go to hospital. It’s a really tender moment in our lives. We don’t have time to waste. There’s a volunteer from Texas who encapsulated it really well. He said, “I just want to go out right.” We know that we’re closer to the exit than the entrance — and not that that makes us any more virtuous than young people, no way, but we don’t want to make any more mistakes. We want to get this shit right before we go. 

    Why is offering training such an integral part of Third Act? 

    Training is a huge part of what we do especially with so many new activists. We have people who have been teachers for 30 years, for example, and they’ve never been an activist before. Now they want to do something. Our culture says, shut up, you’ve got wrinkles (especially if they’re women). We don’t want to look at you, you know, disappear. But we’re saying, this is the best time of your life. Come on out and we’ll build community, we’ll build relationships. This will be great for your health, the health of the community, our country and our planet. We’re going to provide these trainings on how to do it, we’re not just going to say go forth and conquer. 

    We have a racial justice program that teaches our leaders how to build strategic collaborations with youth and Black, Indigenous and people of color communities, and how to recognize our unconscious biases, how to have authentic dialogue, how to check our privilege, our power and the unearned advantages that we have. We do “how to lobby” trainings, “how to organize” trainings, and “how to do one-on-one” trainings. Most of our stuff is available online on our Vimeo page

    There’s also a lot of peer learning that takes place within our working groups. One of our greatest volunteers is a woman named Lonnie Ritter Hall who was a school teacher for 35 years. With Roe v. Wade overturned, she wanted to do something, and two years ago she went to her very first protest. She is now our lead national volunteer and does training sessions along with a whole team of other elders to teach people how to run a Zoom call. Another team she runs is “how to work Google Docs.” But we also know there are some outstanding training sessions offered by groups like People’s Action or the Climate Disobedience Center and we send our people to those places as well. We have a real generous spirit and want to share our love and take theirs in.

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    There’s an upcoming training about hope and joy. Why is this important to activism and organizing?

    These are times of deep despair and we don’t want to sugarcoat everything because things are bleak. There’s no doubt about it, but it doesn’t do our bodies — let alone the movement — any good to go around looking like Eeyore all the time. Bill also says that the key to getting people to work together is having fun while doing it and putting some joy into that work. We want to build organizing homes where people do feel that joy, so why not tackle that head on? Why not talk about the grief and the despair that is absolutely part of this, but at the same time acknowledge the joy in the connections that we’re making with each other. There’s joy in knowing that there’s still beauty out there on this big, beautiful planet, and there’s joy knowing that people are still going to be able to love each other no matter what. 

    What are the next steps for Third Act?

    The next thing is to stop a goddamn fascist from getting elected in this country. We’ve been leaning hard into the elections and getting all of our Third Actors involved and engaged in key ways: making phone calls, knocking on doors, getting out the vote, doing whatever we need to do to ensure Biden wins. We also have a campaign called “Power Up Communities,” and it’s geared towards getting our Third Actors engaged with other efforts in their state to influence the public utilities commissions.

    They are the ones that are going to be leading the renewable energy transition at the state level and implementing the Inflation Reduction Act, but have been mostly insulated from public scrutiny. We want to piggyback on the work other groups are doing and get our Third Actors involved. 

    This article How older climate activists helped win the fight over LNG exports was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

    Science Museum event targeted by Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg over fossil fuel sponsors

    Extinction Rebellion - Thu, 02/01/2024 - 12:39

    Media assets: Photos; Videos

    Email: press@extinctionrebellion.uk Phone: +44(0)7756136396

    This evening (Thursday, 1 February) protesters from Extinction Rebellion, including medical doctors and scientists, targeted a panel debate organised by the Science Museum on scientific predictions for 2024 [1]. They were joined by climate activist Greta Thunberg who had just left the first day of her trial at Westminster Magistrates court [2].

    For the duration of the sold out event a member of Health for XR [6] stood next to the panellists in silence, holding a banner saying “2024 – MORE DROUGHTS, FLOODS AND DEATHS FUELLED BY SCIENCE MUSEUM OIL AND COAL SPONSORS”.

    The event became chaotic when the museum’s Science Director Roger Highfield started talking about climate change and he was challenged from the floor by a restive audience over his hypocritical support of the museum’s coal sponsor, Adani. 

    While the organisers tried to bring the event to an end, not allowing questions, Greta was forced to shout from the audience to challenge the museum’s partnership with coal giant Adani for their role in the escalating climate crisis: “The science is clear. During an escalating climate crisis, is it responsible for a public body like the Science Museum to invite Adani to sponsor its Energy Revolution gallery? Adani has just invested 16 Billion Australian dollars in a new coal mine and, as your own due diligence revealed, is accused of environmental crimes, human rights abuses and corruption.”

    Highfield refused to answer Greta’s question and left with the other panellists to a chorus of “Shame On You!

    At the start of the event, Dr Katherine Fallon, a retired GP from Cheshire announced that the activists did not intend to stop the debate but intended to remind the audience and the panel of experts that the Museum’s sponsors BP, Equinor and Adani were still investing in new oil, gas and coal projects, despite advice and warnings from climate scientists [3], the International Energy Agency [4] and the United Nations [5] that this is incompatible with keeping global average temperature rise within the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C.

    Fallon said: “We love the Science Museum but we are here to protest against the museum accepting sponsorship from companies that are planning to continue new expansion of fossil fuels. You do not have to be a rocket scientist or a doctor to know that in 2024, fossil fuel induced climate change will bring more droughts, floods and deaths. Despite advice from climate scientists, the Science Museum sponsors, Adani, BP and Equinor carry on drilling for new coal, oil and gas, bringing misery, death and extinction to the world.”

    Dr Kush Naker, infectious disease specialist from London who took part in the action said, “As a doctor it is my responsibility to warn people when their health is being threatened. The sponsors of the science museum are the greatest threat to the health of my patients. They are polluting the air we need to breathe, driving famines, droughts, and the spread of deadly infectious diseases. Accepting money from these companies is totally unacceptable, and that is why I am part of this protest.”

    A letter was sent to all the Science Museum panellists in advance, asking them to reconsider their participation. As a consequence, award-winning science presenter and Associate Lecturer in Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of York, Dr Emma Osborne withdrew from the event “Time: all an illusion” taking place the same evening [7]. By doing so, she joins a group of scientists and artists who have previously pulled out of events [8], organised by the Science Museum, to protest against the management decision to continue accepting sponsorship from fossil fuel companies. 

    This protest comes at a time when the UK is starting to feel the consequences of climate change [9], with more frequent and more severe flooding, affecting thousands of homes, infrastructure, farmland and wildlife; something [10] that other less fortunate countries have had to endure for years. As the impact of climate change intensifies, an increasing number of pressure groups are asking the Science Museum to cut ties with fossil fuel companies [11].

    Dr Tristram Wyatt, Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford, and member of Scientists for XR [12] who also took part in the event added “As we have seen this evening, the public is starting to join the dots. It’s not acceptable for the Science Museum to provide a space for fossil fuel companies to hypocritically claim to be clean energy producers, when the billions they still spend on fossil fuel extraction dwarf their investments in renewables”

    [1] 2024: Science Predictions for the Year Ahead https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/2024-science-predictions

    [2] Climate activist Greta Thunberg set London court appearance https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/climate-activist-greta-thunberg-set-london-court-appearance-2023-11-15/#

    [3] Unextractable fossil fuels in a 1.5 °C world https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8

    [4] IEA chief slams climate ‘contradictions’ from oil companies https://www.dw.com/en/iea-fatih-birol-new-oil-gas/a-65200519

    [5] New fossil fuels ‘incompatible’ with 1.5C goal, comprehensive analysis finds https://www.carbonbrief.org/new-fossil-fuels-incompatible-with-1-5c-goal-comprehensive-analysis-finds/

    [6] Health for Extinction Rebellion – Climate Crisis = Health Crisis https://healthforxr.com/

    [7] I’ve decided to withdraw my participation in next week’s panel event in protest to the Science Museum accepting sponsorship from fossil fuel companies https://x.com/Emmanigma/status/1750492327813033999?s=20

    [8] Science Museum cancels event as speakers withdraw over fossil fuel sponsorship https://cultureunstained.org/2022/04/27/science-museum-cancels-event-as-speakers-withdraw-over-fossil-fuel-sponsorship/

    [9] UK and Global extreme events – Heavy rainfall and floods https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/understanding-climate/uk-and-global-extreme-events-heavy-rainfall-and-floods

    [10] Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-affects-extreme-weather-around-the-world/

    [11] The Science Museum faces a barrage of opposition over its stance on fossil fuel sponsorship https://www.fossilfreesciencemuseum.com/our-campaign

    [12] Scientists for Extinction Rebellion https://www.scientistsforxr.earth/

    About Extinction Rebellion

    Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.

    Donate | Support our work
    What Emergency? | Read about the true scale of the climate crisis
    XR UK Local Groups | View a map of all local groups
    XR UK website | Find out more about XRUK
    XR Global website | Discover what’s going on in XR around the globe!

    Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate and ecological crisis which is upon us, including the sixth mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn’t taken, we’re heading towards 4˚C warming, leading to societal collapse and mass loss of life. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the front-line. No-one will escape the devastating impacts.

    The post Science Museum event targeted by Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg over fossil fuel sponsors appeared first on Extinction Rebellion UK.

    Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

    Honduras: Municipal Committee Blocks Highway, Calls On Government to Not Renew Los Pinares Mining Concession

    Earth First! Newswire - Thu, 02/01/2024 - 09:36

    by Brent Patterson / PBI

    On January 31, Guapinol Exige Justicia (Guapinol Demands Justice) posted a photo of a backhoe loader with the text: “Highway connection on CA 13 between Tocoa and Cayo Campo in the department of Colón.”

    The yellow banner on the backhoe says: “Alert. This January 28th the ASP mining concession of Pinares-Ecotek expires. We demand the government not to renew the mining contract.”

    The ASP mining concession is a 100 hectare area – inside a national park – where the mining company Inversiones Los Pinares would mine for iron oxide.

    The licence for this open pit mine was granted to Emco Mining (now Inversiones Los Pinares) on January 28, 2014.

    The community learned in October 2023 that Inversiones Los Pinares intended to renew the concession contract for up to 30 more years.

    The Municipal Committee in Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT) says: “We strongly call on the Government of Xiomara Castro to respond to our demands [that include an “Immediate response from INHGEOMIN [Honduran Institute of Geology and Mines] on the NON-renewal of the mining contract ‘ASP’ signed between Lenir Pérez de Inversiones Los Pinares and INHGEOMIN, in 2014 and which ended on Sunday, January 28, 2024.”

    Investigative reporting conducted by the Honduran digital media platform Contracorriente, the Latin American Center for Journalistic Investigation and Univisión Investiga, found that the US-based steel company Nucor was associated with Inversiones Los Pinares.

    Silive.com has reported: “The business relationship between Nucor and Lenir Pérez … began back in [March] 2015. Nucor said it left the project in [October] 2019 because of protests.”

    This would suggest that Nucor was involved in the mining concession on October 27, 2018, when more than 1,500 police officers and military personnel begin the forceful expulsion of a protest camp opposed to the Los Pinares mine.

    Also within that timeline, Guapinol River defender Jeremías Martínez was arrested in December 2018, thirteen other defenders faced charges in February 2019, and on September 1, 2019, seven defenders were indicted in charges related to their activism.

    Recent investors in Nucor include the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec ($73 million), the Royal Bank of Canada ($61 million), the Bank Of Montreal ($40 million), and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board ($36 million).

    The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied Municipal Committee processes and the criminalized Guapinol River defenders since January 2019.

    Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

    Climate Justice Forum: Israel Resource Theft & Genocide of Palestine, U.S. LNG Export Permit Pause, Responses, & Northwest Pipeline Connections, Cancelled Tacoma LNG Expansion 1-31-23

    Wild Idaho Rising Tide - Wed, 01/31/2024 - 12:00

    The Wednesday, January 31, 2024, Climate Justice Forum radio program, produced by regional, climate activists collective Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), features news, videos, and reflections on Israel’s theft of Palestine’s water and oil and gas resources, a historic, international court ruling on South Africa allegations of Israel genocide of Palestinians, a Biden-Harris administration decision to pause permit approvals of fracked, liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, responses of frontline communities, environmental groups, and the Canadian energy industry to the President’s announcement, a possible connection of the GTN Xpress Northwest methane pipeline expansion to Gulf Coast export terminals, and Puget Sound Energy cancellation of a liquefied gas plant expansion in Tacoma.  Broadcast for twelve years on progressive, volunteer, community station KRFP Radio Free Moscow, every Wednesday between 1:30 and 3 pm Pacific time, on-air at 90.3 FM and online, the show describes continent-wide, grassroots, frontline resistance to fossil fuels projects, the root causes of climate change, thanks to generous, anonymous listeners who adopted program host Helen Yost as their KRFP DJ.

    Proof: Israel to Steal Gaza’s Gas – Worth $500 Billion!, November 9, 2023 C.J. Werleman Show

    ICJ Rules on Allegations of Genocide by Israel in Historic Decision, January 29, 2024 Nation of Change

    Biden Takes a Step Forward on Ending Fossil Fuels, January 29, 2024 People vs. Fossil Fuels (WIRT facebook post forthcoming)

    Statement from President Joe Biden on Decision to Pause Pending Approvals of Liquefied Natural Gas Exports, January 26, 2024 White House

    Frontline and National Organizations Respond to Biden Administration Announcement to Pause New LNG Export Approvals and Reassess Public Interest Determination, January 26, 2024 Arc Initiatives

    Canadian Gas and Oil Polluters Pissed Off by Biden Pausing Unnatural Fracked LNG Approvals in the U.S.A…., January 27, 2024 Jessica Ernst

    See also: Canadian Energy Producers Dismayed by Biden’s Move to Pause U.S. LNG Approvals, January 26, 2024 Globe and Mail

    Is GTN Xpress Pipeline Expansion Gas Heading to LNG Terminals?, January 27, 2024 Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT facebook post forthcoming)

    Gas Transmission Northwest LLC Submits Notification of Acceptance of Certificate Order for the GTN XPress Project under CP22-2, January 30, 2024 TC Energy

    Puget Sound Energy Cancels Liquid Natural Gas Plant Expansion in Tacoma, January 24, 2024

    Categories: B4. Radical Ecology

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