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."

Letter On 42-Day Detention

This was published in the Coventry Telegraph ... and Touch FM also interviewed me on the issue:

People should write to Coventry's three Labour MPs, and urge them to oppose the extension of detention without trial to 42 days. Emergency measures already exist, under the Civil Contingencies Act (2004). If police are overwhelmed by multiple terror plots, the government can use this Act to temporarily extend pre-charge detention. A wide variety of experts -- the current director of public prosecutions, the head of counter-terrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service, the former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, the former lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, the former lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, and the former head of the Met, Lord Condon -- are unconvinced of the need for 42 days. Gordon Brown is determined to take away our civil liberties, and he must be stopped.

Scott Redding
Coventry Green Party
Mayfield Road, Earlsdon

Cluster Bomb Treaty Approved

Well, some good news! Britain signed up, and the treaty outlaws the two types of cluster bombs/munitions that Britain has in its stockpile.

Simon Conway, from the Cluster Munitions Coalition, said there would now be "massive" pressure on the US: "We think now that all of America's key allies have just renounced the weapon it will be very difficult for the US to engage in operations with countries who have banned this weapon and continue to use them."

Summer's Here - Euro 2008

The World Development Movement has put together a nifty site to help you choose who to support now that all the "home countries" aren't in it.

The Netherlands creates the highest amount of carbon dioxide of countries in Euro 2008, emitting 16 tonnes for each huge Dutchman. Turkey, Romania and Croatia emit the least with 3-to-4 tonnes per person.

Austria, Switzerland and Croatia were best on renewable energy as a percentage of electricity generated.

Hence, I'm leaning Croatia. Eduardo is recovering from his horrific injury, but they still have Vedran Ćorluka, Luka Modrić, and Niko Kranjčar.

Stylish football, sustainability, what's not to like?

Video: A wind turbine for Manchester City

Green Candidate For Henley By-Election

The Oxfordshire Green Party has re-selected Mark Stevenson as our candidate for the forthcoming Henley by-election. In the 2005 General Election, Mark was the only candidate other than Boris to improve his party's share of the vote. He is a parish councillor (Dorchester Parish Council), and he also ran in the 2001 election in Whitley against some guy named David Cameron.

Sid Phelps, Chairman of Oxfordshire Green Party, said "With Mark, you see Green politics in action. His projects have helped invigorate the local economy, have improved recycling and environmental awareness in his parish, have encouraged local food production, and he has championed a local vision on planning issues. We believe he would make a great MP for South Oxfordshire."

Food Prices, Petrol Prices

100 lorry convoys are protesting today around Britain, with hauliers talking about "the hardest time we've ever had," crisis and catastrophe, that "they need help."

With a drastically-higher cost of petrol, we can drive less.

In contrast, tens of millions of the world's poor could die of hunger as a result of soaring food prices.

The Guardian is starting a five-day series of articles -- on the impact of global food price rises -- by looking at Egypt.

Adel Beshai, an Egyptian economist: "It has to do with the food-fuel equation. The real issue now is that the price of oil hit the $100 mark and the price of oil will continue to rise. There is now competition between fuel consumption in the developed countries, where food is being turned into cheaper fuel, and food consumption in poorer ones where they want to eat what is being turned into fuel."

A higher price for oil means a higher price for fertiliser, higher prices for tractors and farm machinery, and higher prices for pesticides (which rely on oil). The US diverting 30% of its corn crop -- to fill SUV tanks with biofuel rather than feed the world-- isn't helping either. Barack Obama represents the corn belt, make of that what you will.

The other factor is more of the world eating meat, eggs and dairy products. Over 30% of the world's grain goes to feeding animals rather than people directly. If we had a more global vegan diet, we wouldn't be having this kind of strain.

Yes, we have to pay for higher petrol, and we have to pay 50p more per portion of rice at certain curry houses. But what we're experiencing is nothing compared to the impact of food price rises in the developing world.

Video: Corn and rising food bills

The Home Growing Act 2018

Transition Culture is always worth a weekly read ... Rob has reposted an article from Organic Gardening Magazine:

"It took a bunch of rapidly greening politicians to realise that punitive taxation aimed at mitigating environmental meltdown wasn’t half as effective as persuading people, with the help of a real financial incentive, to do something about it in their own gardens. The Green Party laid the foundations of what became the Home Growing Act, which was included in the King’s Speech of 2018. No British monarch has ever looked quite so chuffed at seeing his own personal passion enter the statute book."

Smaller Cars - Lower Petrol Bills

Summer's Here - Cutting The Lawn

What is the carbon impact when you cut the lawn?

According to Which? magazine, cutting a lawn with a push mower allows a 60kg person to burn 360 calories an hour ... It costs an average of 20p every 100ml of fuel for a mower with a petrol tank and about 4p for every 20 minutes that you use a 1700W electric mower.

Of the seven hand mowers put to the test by Which?, the winning model was the Husqvarna Novocut 64 (http://www.husqvarna.co.uk/, £80), scoring highly on how the lawn looked and the speed with which ground was covered. The second best was the Brill Razorcut Premium 33 (http://www.manualmowers.co.uk/; £95).

Individual Carbon Allowances

A committee of MPs, the Environmental Audit Committee, has called for individual carbon allowances. There would be a national amount of carbon allowed, and each of us would have an equal portion of that quota. If you want to use more carbon than your allowance, you "buy" unused carbon from people who aren't using up their entire allowance. Year on year, the national amount gets reduced, so that, year on year, we meet our targets for domestic emissions.

Other stories:

Grease lightening, go, grease lightening.

Earlier this month, the Nigerian militant group Mend unexpectedly announced that it would halt attacks on multinational oil installations if Barack Obama requested a ceasefire.

Antony Sheehan, chief executive of Leicestershire NHS Trust, has told the BBC that government attempts to improve mental health services for the South Asian community have not worked.

Sheehan: "We really should acknowledge the impact of institutional racism in mental health and wider health and social care services, in the same way it is recognised in the criminal justice system. The real issue is just how we've chosen not to connect with these communities."

Alternatives To Gordon Brown

Why not Jacqui Smith or Harriet Harman? It says a great deal about sexism in the media that all the runners and riders being discussed to succeed Brown (including relatively inexperienced people, like James Purnell and Andy Burnham) are men.

YouTube Roundup 1

- A Christian Aid-funded fashion scheme in the favelas of Brazil

- Kind of like "The Birds" but plastic bags

- See Osama / is Brer Rabbit / the Briar Patch / that's Iraq / he masterminded an attack / to get us to fight back

- A Sky News expose of the BNP ... 2 years old, but still valid

$200 A Barrel Oil

Goldman Sachs predicted last week that the price could rise to $200 a barrel over the next year.

Gordon Brown, in trying to show he "gets" the results of the local elections, and Crewe/Nantwich, says he's "incredibly focused" on oil.

"It is a scandal," Brown says, "that 40 per cent of the oil is controlled by Opec and that their decisions can restrict the supply of oil to the rest of the world." For an educated guy, he doesn't seem to get it. Perhaps OPEC can't turn on the tap anymore.

I mean, Brown keeps talking about making the right long-term tough decisions for the country. So, why has he avoided the big one? For ten years as chancellor, he avoided carrots to make the existing housing stock more environmentally-friendly. He avoided carrots to encourage the use of electric/hybrid cars. Why did people think he was going to address this when he became PM?

With oil providing 95% of the energy used in transport, what bigger, long-term, decision is there than peak oil?

Video: Matthew Simmons on peak oil

Labour's Lesson From Crewe By-Election

Harriet Harman was on the Today programme this morning to talk about the by-election defeat.

She was asked about the "crass language of authoritarianism", but she reiterated Labour's support for "tough immigration rules" and "biometric ID cards for foreign nationals."

Labour seems intent on moving the country towards harsher and harsher positions on immigration. This seems inane in an era where we will face tens of millions of climate change refugees over the next few years.

More broadly, Labour has set out positions (on ID cards, on 42-day detention, on trial by jury, on the criminalisation of youth) that move the mood of the country towards an anti-civil liberties point of view.

Labour has had 10 years to develop a new way of addressing youth involvement in crime (investing in communities, empowering youth), to develop a foreign policy so we don't need to worry about terrorism so much (42-day detention, ID cards).

Instead, they have retreated, arguably since Tony Blair was Shadow Home Secretary, and two boys in the Bootle Strand shopping centre in Liverpool took a toddler by the hand and led him away to his death. Labour thought that right-wing rhetoric was appropriate for moving the country towards social democracy.

They are finding out the hard way that, whilst the Tories are opposed to ID cards and the trial by jury changes, right-wing Labour rhetoric is paving the way for a right-wing Tory majority government.

An International Treaty On Cluster Bombs

Over 100 nations will gather in Dublin today to begin discussions on an international treaty to ban cluster bombs.

Cluster bombs open in mid-air and drop hundreds of individual sub-munitions or "bomblets" over a wide area.

Unexploded bomblets, in populated areas, can sit on the ground for years, effectively becoming landmines. Their victims are often children, who mistake them for toys. When they explode, hundreds of metal fragments tear apart flesh and sever limbs. In rural areas, unexploded munitions make it dangerous or impossible to use land.

Is the UK pushing for a total ban on cluster bombs? No.

Is the UK saying that "our" cluster bombs "only" have a failure rate of 2% ... and that's ok? Yes.

2% is what the arms manufacturers say, whilst independent analysis says 10% remain unexploded.

Cluster munitions caused more civilian casualties in Iraq in 2003 than any other weapon, and the UK should be pressing for a total worldwide ban.

Video: Cluster bombs and farming in Laos