Police Databases On Legal Protesters

The Guardian has breaking news on police holding details on thousands of legal protesters. When I was the webmaster of Red Pepper for 2 years, I took it as read that I had gained a MI5 file, but this level of surveillance, and holding details for seven years, is far beyond what people thought was going on.

It is legal to attend political demonstrations. It is legal to attend political meetings. It is legal to attend climate camps, like Kingsnorth. It is legal to be a journalist and cover demonstrations (members of the press are believed to have been monitored during at least eight protests over the last year). The police should not be treating legal activity as though we are criminals.

Corinna Ferguson, Liberty's legal officer, told the Guardian: "A searchable database containing photographs of people who are not even suspected of criminal activity may well violate privacy rights under article 8 of the Human Rights Act. It is particularly worrying if peaceful protesters are being singled out for surveillance."

Googlebombing E.ON

I've received a blog comment from Calvin Jones (he also has an email newsletter you can subscribe to) about the move to redirect Google searches for E.ON to www.nonewcoal.org.uk/.

The idea is that everytime you mention E.ON, you link to the nonewcoal website. Gradually, if dozens of sites do this, when people Google "E.ON" or "eon", then nonewcoal gets a higher and higher rating. It's now in the top 10 (#6 as of today).

Coal is the most polluting way of generating electricity. Every new Kingsnorth power station (E.ON) will produce the same amount of CO2 as Ghana.

Why should we keep, let alone expand, the world's use of coal? We need to boost renewable energy instead of continuing to use dirty coal.

- You can write to E.ON through Oxfam's website.
- You can write to your MP and ask them their position on coal and E.ON

"Kingsnorth is a terrible idea. One power plant with a lifetime of several decades will destroy the efforts of millions of citizens to reduce their emissions" - James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies

Climate Camp FOI Requests

Harvey Temple wants to know about helicopters and the Climate Camp:

"I'd like to know how much was spent on fuel, what type of fuel and how much fuel (in litres or gallons) was burned by the Essex Police helicopter under the auspices of "Operation Oasis" at the 2008 Climate Camp."

"I also want to know the type of helicopter and any details that you have as to its fuel efficiency and the distance it flew. I want to know this information so that I can work out the amount of carbon dioxide that was dumped into the atmosphere by the helicopter during your operation. I trust that Kent Police Authority concerned as it is with the health and safety of the public is considering offsetting the considerable pollution that it must have created for example by replacing routine city centre car patrols with bicycle units."

"I'd also be interested in seeing the environmental impact assessment that was carried out into the use of the helicopter and other police resources. At nighttime, Kent Police's disruption of the life of the local community due to noise pollution as well as by the burning of fossil fuels was very serious - I'm sure that a proper assessment must have been carried out, if not I believe that this is an issue that should be addressed in future operations."

Kingsnorth: Climate Camp Neighbourhoods

How the West Midlands neighbourhood works:

Each morning, the neighbourhood has a meeting that feeds back to the main site meeting through delegates. These meetings are based on non-hierarchical consensus techniques and have been efficient and productive. Any problems are resolved, tasks are divided and any camp-wide issues are discussed.

Workshops form an integral part of each day. They are wide-ranging, based mainly on participatory discussion rather than passive consumption of information.

They have focussed on political, technological and philosophical issues, and have included talks on the science of climate change, ecofeminism, the relevance of the miners strike, and the potential impact of a new Kingsnorth coal plant.

There have also been vegan cake making classes, banner making sessions and instruction in direct action techniques. In the evenings there is live entertainment, including performance poetry, a celidh and Seize the Day.

Kingsnorth: What The Cops Confiscated

Kingsnorth: International Opposition To Coal

The camp at Kingsnorth isn't the only place where people are contesting dirty coal's role in our future energy mix:

- a video on the US coal industry's greenwash efforts

- Venezuela
- Australia
- Kansas
- Michigan
- Germany
- Italy

Kingsnorth: Channel 4 Report

Kingsnorth: Police Repression

Police are blocking food deliveries to the climate camp. Police have confiscated such dangerous items as disabled access ramps, crayons, marker pens, radios, banners, nuts and bolts holding toilet cubicles together, blackboard paint, biodegradable soap, and toilet paper.

Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for the South-East:

"The climate camp protest is a peaceful and legitimate demonstration against a proposed facility that many view as a potent symbol of the government's misguided commitment to highly polluting and unsustainable fossil fuels."

"Activists from far and wide have travelled to register their disgust at government support for new coal-fired power stations and at the lack of urgent action on climate change."

"As climate campers hold workshops and debate some of the key issues of our time – peak oil, economic downturn, food shortages – scores of police sweat in their riot gear on the other side of the fence. They all clutch a copy of a pocket booklet entitled "Policing Protests" - produced by the ominously titled "National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit" - which appears designed to provide endless ways of shutting down legitimate protests. One such tactic has been to smash the windows of vehicles parked outside the camp and to try to tow away cars under the Abandoned Vehicles Act."

"I am shocked by the violent and excessive attack on civil liberties meted out by the police here, as is my Green colleague on the London assembly and member of the Metrolitan Police Authority, Jenny Jones, who has already raised concerns with Met commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, and New Scotland Yard. We will be calling for any Met officers who have acted inappropriately to be reprimanded, fined or even sacked. It is crucial that we defend the right to peaceful protest, a right that is under threat from the government's disproportionate anti-terrorism legislation and anti-democratic amendments to its planning bill."

Kingsnorth: Climate Camp And Social Justice

You can see some photos uploaded to Indymedia yesterday here. Medway Trades Union Council has announced its support for the Kingsnorth protest.

George Monbiot:

"Everything now hinges on stopping coal. Whether we prevent runaway climate change largely depends on whether we keep using the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Unless we either leave it - or the carbon dioxide it produces - in the ground, human development will start spiralling backwards. The more coal is burnt, the smaller are our chances of future comfort and prosperity ... Everything I have fought for and that all campaigners for social justice have ever fought for - food, clean water, shelter, security - is jeopardised by climate change. Those who claim to identify a conflict between environmentalism and humanitarianism have either failed to read the science or have refused to understand it."

Kingsnorth: Photos (1)

Protest march through Rochester:

Kingsnorth: Police Forward Intelligence Team

Kingsnorth: George Monbiot

The Guardian, 18 March 2008

"If Kingsnorth goes ahead, it will be operating by 2012, two years before the CCS [carbon capture storage] experiment has even begun. The government says that the demonstration project will take 'at least 15 years' to assess.

It will take many more years for the technology to be retro-fitted to existing power stations, by which time it's all over.

On this schedule, carbon capture and storage, if it is deployed at all, will come too late to prevent runaway climate change.

Kingsnorth will produce around 4.5m tonnes of CO2 every year; if all eight of the proposed coal plants are built, they will account for 46% of the emissions Britain can produce by 2050, assuming the government sticks to Brown's new proposed target of an 80% cut.

Aviation, using the government's own figures, will account for another 184% (these figures are explained on my website).

Even if we stopped breathing, eating, driving and heating our homes, the new runways and coal burners the government envisages would more than double our national greenhouse gas quota.

Kingsnorth: Breaching Bail To Attend

Ellen Potts, Oli Rodker, Johnathan Stevensen, Paul Morozzo, and Mel Evans:

"The climate camp is designed to challenge not just the expansion of coal but the idea that progress can only be attained through growth and the extension of "free" market ideologies. We need new ways of thinking and acting that put people and the planet we all live on back at the heart of things. We need a just transition away from fossil fuels. That is the singular and urgent task of this generation and that's what the Climate Camp is all about."

"On Monday at 3pm, we intend to breach our bail conditions and join hundreds, maybe thousands of others at the climate camp. We do not take this decision lightly; the legal implications are very serious. We may be arrested and jailed for our determination to be at the camp. Scientists tell us that from this week we have just 100 months to solve climate change. That's not long; from this moment on every week counts."

100 Months

"In just 100 months' time, if we are lucky, and based on a quite conservative estimate, we could reach a tipping point for the beginnings of runaway climate change."

Climate Camp, Kingsnorth -- 3rd to 11th August

You can read all about preparations for the climate camp protests at Kingsnorth in August here.

The climate camp has been held in 2006 (at the Drax plant in Yorkshire) and 2007 (at Heathrow).

Kingsnorth has been chosen, since it is the first proposed site of seven coal-fired power stations in the UK. These power stations would emit around 50 million tons of CO2 a year.

One of the 10 reasons not to build Kingsnorth is that, insted of employing people to burn coal, we need to talk about how about we build install and run an energy system based on renewables. Germany's renewables sector, for example, already employs 250 000 people. This is the only way forward -- figuring out how to shift employment from dirty industries to clean, sustainable industries, to jobs that pay living wages.

The organisers of the climate camp have issued an "open statement and invitation" to the trade union movement to attend the camp:

We want to clarify that this action is not against the workers at Kingsnorth, nor does it mean we think the UK coal industry should be shut down overnight. It means we want to show the seriousness of the threat both to humans and our environment, now and into the future. This crisis affects the world’s poorest people first and hardest and is a social justice issue.

We recognise the history of political attacks on the miners and the union movement and we firmly resist that. We recognise the need for jobs, viable communities and a strong trade union movement, and we want a decent, fair and long term deal for all, including miners, energy workers and their communities. Extremely rapid reductions in emissions are necessary if we are not to watch millions suffer and die in the most preventable disaster the world has ever known.

We have adopted the model of "Just Transition," in which the needs of workers are paramount within the transition to a new economy: their views are central, there should be adequate retraining where required, there should be no loss incurred. An increasing number of trade unions are adopting this model internationally. There will be ways we can make this transition protect, and benefit, workers and communities worldwide.

Protesters Halt Coal Train For Drax

Protesters have halted a coal train bound for the Drax power station.

The Drax plant is the largest single greenhouse gas polluter in the country.

20 protesters began shovelling coal out of the trucks after ambushing the train on a bridge over the River Aire. Other members of the group attached lines to the wheels and were hanging off them over the river to prevent the train moving.

Activist Ben Tennyson said: "We've stopped this train to prevent it delivering a thousand tonnes of coal to be burned at Drax and then released into the atmosphere. If we're serious about fighting climate change, we have to leave this dirty fuel in the ground and invest in clean, renewable energy sources instead."

Newsnight Looks At 42-Day Detention

- Newsnight tonight (1030pm, BBC2) will be looking at the 42-day detention without charge debate. Trevor Phillips, head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the EHRC may seek a judicial review, if the 42-days limit become law: "Human rights are essentially just that - you can't just get rid of them if you think they are inconvenient ... This measure would effectively suspend for the human rights and in particular they suspend them for one part of the community ... The application of these powers would be to Muslims in this country."

In other news:

- The EU is proposing to increase the amount of GM material included in imported foods, like maize, rice and soya

- Boffins at Leeds Uni have invented a nearly-waterless washing machine. A typical washing machine uses about 35kg of water for every kg of clothes that are washed - as well as large amounts of energy to heat the water and to dry the clothes afterwards. Their new model could be on the UK market by 2009.

- Amy Greenhouse: "Heathrow wants a 3rd runway, we say, no, no, NO"

- On Thursday, Coventry Friends of the Earth will meet at the council house, at 730pm. Their guest speaker will be Martin Yardley (Coventry City Council's planning department) on the proposed redevelopment of the precinct and retail quarter.

- Later in the month (25th and 26th June), at the Glasshouse (Earl Street, opposite the Council House and Brown's), students from Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School will be showing environmental art.

Protests Against 3rd Runway At Heathrow

Thousands of people are gathering at Hatton Cross in London to protest the 3rd runway planned for Heathrow Airport. Labour MPs across the capital are opposing expansion for fear of suffering defeat at the next election. The Archbishop of Canterbury supports the fight against the runway and has sent a letter to be read out to the marchers.

The Guardian has a good profile of the "Westminster Five" of Plane Stupid, who, in February, scaled the roof of the Houses of Parliament to demonstrate against the planned third runway.

Their quotes on the value of direct action are very interesting:

"In a situation where you need massive, urgent systemic change, we don't really have the system to achieve it," says Thompson. "Electorally, everyone is fighting over the middle ground. So the mere fact that you're not a moderate means you can't be listened to. That means anybody who had the answer to climate change would automatically be excluded from the debate. This is why you can't just think, if I vote for the greenest party at the election, I'll have done what I needed to."

Thompson adds: "If you look at the number of people who marched against Iraq, if you'd had 1% of that number taking direct action, they could have physically stopped the war. With 10,000 people sitting in the road at strategic points, you can bring the country to a halt."

"The reality of direct action is being prepared to put yourself on the line, and we need real casualties," Omond says. "If it's life imprisonment for going airside, if that's the penalty our society deems acceptable for someone protesting against a contributor to climate crisis ... then bring on life imprisonment."

News Round-Up -- 1st April 2008

- No stories about the royal family, then two come along at once ... The expansion of Heathrow might affect a certain someone who lives in Windsor Castle.

- George Monbiot criticises how job creation is being used to justify chain store expansion, nuclear power, and military contracts.

- A new study shows an alarming rise in suicides and self-harm amongst women prisoners -- 9 out of 10 women prisoners are in prison for non-violent offences.

- The government is finally changing its Low Carbon Buildings Programme, but no extra money is being put into the scheme. It has only been allocated £80 million over 3 years.

Friends of the Earth's low carbon homes campaigner, Ed Matthew, said: "The government's response continues to be woeful. The LCBP should be 10 times bigger, with funds of £1bn, providing at least 50% grants for renewable technologies for every household." Andrew Cooper of the Renewable Energy Association said he was "shocked". "Making a failing programme fail over a longer period is not a solution. It is no longer the Low Carbon Buildings Programme -- it is the Slow Carbon Buildings Programme."

The Budget - Transport

The green measures introduced by Alistair Darling today will be swamped by government policy on roads and aviation.

Labour supports a third runway at Heathrow, runway extensions at Stansted, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and expansion plans at twelve other airports.

£11.5 billion has been spent on new roads since 1997, but only £1.16 billion on new rail lines.

Instead of roads and aviation, Labour needs to begin to seriously fund green forms of transport.

The Coventry Green Party supports:

- a focus on walking and cycling projects within cities (aided by 20 mph zones to make walking and cycling safer)
- making public transport easier to use (buses that run on time, buses which are low-floor to aid elderly users)
- making public transport more affordable (we support the UK Youth Parliament’s campaign for all under 18s in full-time education to be allocated a national concession card)
- renationalisation and expansion of the rail network
- a moratorium on new motorways
- a moratorium on airport expansion

Aviation might employ 50 000 people at Heathrow, but we can generate hundreds of thousands of jobs if we pursue a new range of activities -- energy conservation, organic agriculture, renewable energy, and producing socially useful products from waste.