protest

Heathrow expansion: fight back begins

Smash and Grab

This just in: three female climate change activists carried out a nocturnal smash-and-paint on the Department for Transport. Draped in red sashes, they hurled bricks through the windows and chucked paint over the front of the building.

A spokeswoman said: "The government has opened the flood-gates for radical action. Yesterday they sacrificed all of our futures and spat in the face of democracy. The third runway is unwanted and is a global threat. When they make democracy meaningless what other reaction could they expect?"

"We have less than ten years to turn climate change around. Women cannot just stand by and let this government treat our futures as a joke. We fight for the safety of humanity, and if the government will only listen to the smash of windows, then so be it."

Airplot! Greenpeace buys land to scupper third runway

Airplot

Psst... want to own a piece of West London? Pop over to Greenpeace and sign up to Airplot!: the latest ploy to monkeywrench the Government's plans for Heathrow expansion. They've purchased a couple of acres of land in the middle of the area designated for the third runway, and are doling it out to anyone who fancies becoming a member of the propertied classes.

I've signed up, as have most of Plane Stupid, tons of environmentalists, a few journalists and Tory, Labour and Lib Dem MPs. The plot has been turned into a giant banner visible from the air, with the words 'Our Climate, Our Land' written on it in chalk. By slicing and dicing this patch of earth Greenpeace plans to disrupt the compulsory purchase order process (where the State decides it's having your land, whether you want to sell it to them or not).

It's a tried-and-tested method, pioneered by an anti-roads group in the 1980s. Wheatley Friends of the Earth, fighting the construction of the M40 through Oxfordshire, sold off portions of Alice's Meadow - so-named because it inspired sections of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. What Greenpeace have planned is slightly different, but no doubt equally effective. I can't wait to head over to my new patch of dirt and start digging a tunnel - first one to Australia wins a free BAA t-shirt!

Why we shut Stansted Airport

Stansted 5

Monday's action has shown the power of young people determined to turn the climate talk into climate action. We took the decision to disrupt the airport to directly reduce the CO2 impact of Stansted, as a response to the government's consent to its expansion. We did so with heavy hearts, knowing it would disrupt passengers, because we knew the consequences of this action couldn't be worse than the consequences of inaction. If irreversible climate change kicks in, millions of lives will be destroyed.

We are genuinely grateful for the level of support from people who have agreed with us that desperate times call for desperate measures. We have used this action to ask for everyone to 'please, do something'. We hope that all those that have expressed support for today's action will now think about what they are going to do to ensure the survival of our planet and people on it.

'Commons Five' slapped on the wrist

Parliament roof 3

The five Plane Stupid activists who marked the end of the Heathrow consultation by scaling Parliament and unfurling banners have been found guilty... and punished with a £365 fine. Not bad, all things considered. The day-and-a-half trial saw the five - Olivia, Leo, Tamsin, Graham and myself -  accused of section 128 of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act: trespass within a restricted area.

Given that the world's media had covered the action and had photographed us up there we didn't deny it, but were arguing that we had broken the law to prevent a greater crime. It's the same defence Greenpeace used last month when they were acquitted of damaging Kingsnorth coal-fired power station. We spoke about the corruption that had gone on between the DfT and BAA - the moving of the NOx meters further from the source of the emissions to make the readings lower; the invention of new 'green' planes that no one planned to build and other desperate attempts to rig the outcome from the start.

The judge wasn't convinced our defence applied - it all comes down to whether we used force or not - but after being presented with written evidence from climatologists, MPs, campaigners and other experts he agreed that something untoward had gone on. He found us guilty (because he remained convinced we couldn't run our defence) but then handed out the most minor of punishments: £150 fine, £200 costs and a £15 'victim surcharge' (presumably to buy some locks for the unlocked doors we waltzed through). It's a great result, and I just hope that the activists who boarded a coal train earlier this year get off equally lightly...

Observer and NETCU smear environmental activists as terrorists

Earth First!

This morning the Observer carried a National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit press release, in which they claimed to have alerted a number of major carbon polluters to watch out for eco-terrorists, with advice on how they can withstand being targeted. The article goes on to say that "green extremists" - Earth First! and the Camp for Climate Action - may be about to launch a campaign of intimidation and fear aimed at disrupting businesses. Is this an attempt by the police to prime public opinion and pave the way for a crackdown on climate activists?

My words can only represent my own feelings but I know that many activists share the following views. We are in the grip of a global emergency: climate scientists are telling us that we have reached a 'tipping point' and if we do not take measures to drastically reduce our carbon footprint then our children will inherit a dying planet. Our abuses of the earth have already committed us to climate changes that will result in the deaths of many, many thousands of people and most of these will be from poorer nations that have played no part in creating this situation. My actions seek to highlight this and to attempt to slow it down. I want to preserve life, both of my friends and families but also of my fellow humans and creatures from around the globe.

Three cases dropped for Plane Stupid Scotland

Case dismissed

Is the Government scared of taking climate activists to court now? Just two weeks after the widely-publicised and successful trial of the ‘Kingsnorth Six’, three Plane Stupid Scotland cases were dropped by the Scottish Crown Courts in one week.

The ‘Kingsnorth Six’ were found to have a ‘lawful excuse’ to cause damage to climate-destructive Kingsnorth coal fired power station because they were acting to protect property around the world "in immediate need of protection" from the impacts of climate change, caused in part by burning coal.

Climate Rush disrupts Energy Minister at Labour Party Conference

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Malcolm Wicks 2

On Saturday night, at one of the opening debates of the Labour Party Conference, Malcolm Wicks MP (Energy Minister) found his New Labour Spin was challenged by seven modern day suffragettes. One hundred years ago 'Women's Lib!' rang out in political meetings such as these. Today the cry was 'Climate Action!'

In one of the first talks of the conference Malcolm Wicks placed climate change as his number one energy priority before reassuring the audience that the construction of eight new coal-fired power stations was his number one solution. He congratulated himself for the UK's leadership in the energy and climate debate - "we will lead the world in clean coal technology." Clean coal. Clean coal. CLEAN COAL. Does it seem believable to you?

Nature fights back - newts make Climate Camp to stop Carlisle Bypass

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Newts block road

A couple of weeks ago I made a disparaging comment about the Department for Transport, claiming that their environmental policy only extended so far as protecting newts. Following this, Plane Stupid has been in close contact with an up-for-it band of amphibians, who have been making plans to take the fight to the DfT and its roads-and-runways plans.

This week they struck, setting up a Camp for Climate Action on the site of the proposed Carlisle Bypass (located, oddly enough, near Carlisle). Under cover of night (they're nocturnal) the Great Crested newts crawled on their bellies onto the site and have been making little newty homes. Reports that sections 6 notices have gone up are as yet unconfirmed.

The state moved fast to disrupt the protest, installing fencing to keep the newts out, and laying traps for those newts already in tunnels or splashing about in ponds. They've hired newt-baliffs Herpetosure to remove the newts, who will be "taken to a safe area" where they can protest in peace. Given that great crested newts are endangered because their habitats are being destroyed, wouldn't it be nice if they were just left alone and the road scheme stopped?

Climate Camp returns to Heathrow: where next debate

Sipson Grave

Although the decision on Heathrow has been delayed until later this year (so that Ruth Kelly and her lackeys can pretend they're reading our submissions to the consultation) the mobilisation against the runway continues. Next weekend the Camp for Climate Action and local residents groups will meet to discuss where next - i.e. what they're prepared to do if (and when) the decision to expand goes against us.

The conference will build on the solidarity between greens and residents, which culminated in last year's occupation of BAA's car park and a week of action against aviation industry targets. There'll be speakers from a number of anti-expansion groups, and the aim of the day is to face up to the enevitable decision to expand.

So get yourself down to Harlington Baptist Church on Saturday the 26th of July, 12-5. Let's show the Government that whatever the decision, the struggle against airport expansion goes up regardless. For more info see the Camp for Climate Action website - and see you there!

From our own correspondent: Nantes International Airport

Nantes non

Heard about Nantes International Airport? You will if the Mayor of Nantes get’s his way. Forget the fact that the existing airport only operates at 30% capacity. Forget that Charles de Gaulle can be reached in a couple of hours on the TGV train. Forget that oil prices are rising and passenger demand is falling. What you must remember is that the Mayor of Nantes has one, big, enormous ego. That ego demands an international airport.

And, of course, forget that the new 2 runway airport and the proposed 4 lane highway would destroy swathes of beautiful countryside where lots of smallholders in their farmsteads are living sustainable lifestyles. Nowhere is the clash between sustainable living and a grossly unsustainable way of travelling more stark than in this battle between these rural people and the forces behind the plans to build the airport.

Plane Stupid was invited to speak at a big rally the protestors held towards the end of June. We met people determined to win by whatever means possible. They told us what the struggle means to them, in no uncertain terms:

We know that this fight will be long and difficult. That’s why we are launching an appeal to all of France, to all of United Kingdom, and to the whole of Europe. We must support the movement against the airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, with all our force, and with means rarely used on the scale that we envisage; occupation of the site, civil disobedience, total and definitive refusal.

The campaigners have already made common cause with a number of the radical movements in France. And they know they are part of the bigger battle against climate change:

The world is sliding towards a frightening climate crisis, but our politicians continue to speak a dead language. People who defend the project of an airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes are imagining the future with words from a past which will never exist again. They are the heirs of those who stood behind the Maginot line waiting for the German army only to be submerged by General Guderian’s tanks in just one night in May 1940. In the same way, they are mistaken, because they take one epoch for another.

If it weren’t so serious, we might be tempted to laugh at the promoters’ arguments concerning the new airport. Like Toinette in Molière’s play, Le Malade Imaginaire, who replies ‘the lungs’ to every question about Argan’s health, they repeat ‘growth’, ‘growth’, ‘growth’, as if hypnotised. They don’t know, because they will never know, that our planet has already reached its physical limits in most of its vital domains, one of which is transport. In a finite world, only the dangerously blind are still advocating the destruction of spaces and species.

Nantes is a winnable battle. The Mayor with the ego can’t find the funds to build the airport. And private developers may be put off by the rising oil prices and the coming recession. But the local campaigners remain worried. They are not rich and, because the area is sparsely populated, they are not numerous. But their battle could become a cause celebre. If the philistine airport developers even threatened to smash their sustainable way of life, Plane Stupid, and many others across Europe, would be straight back on that fast train to France. Allez Nantes!