Anti Airport Expansion Movement Grows

It looks like we have a convergence.

The people immediately threatened by the expansion of heathrow are converging with the people representing those more indirectly effected by the expansion. That right, residents and climate activists are finding a common strategy in high impact media stunts and non viollent direct action NVDA. All this after a hugely successful public meeting.

According to StopAirportExpansion:

Last Saturday's anti-Heathrow Expansion Conference (organised by HACAN, NOTRAG and GreenPeace) was a great success, agreeing a major offensive this Autumn to keep the pressure on the Government. Activities will include:

* a pledge to take direct action if the Government gives the green light to
expansion

* direct action training camps

* more flash mobs and demonstrations

* the promotion of alternatives to airport expansion

* further work to challenge the economic arguments for expansion

There is more about what sounds to have been a very exciting meeting here.

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Police and Climate Campaigners

The Ecologist's film unit has produced a short video that takes viewers on a guided tour of police tactics being used against environmental campaigners. This was facinating viewing for me as i have had a few interesting encounters with the police, hopefully it will also interest you if you believe in that crazy idea of democracy that some of us are so keen on. A great video, well worth a few minutes.

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The 300-350 Show: Agrofuels and Climate Camp

Phil England at the 300-350 [ppm] radio program has just put the latest episode online. Topics covered include the Camp for Climate Action and the dangers of Agrofuels.

Download show: here.

All of Phil's shows are available online at the COIN archive.

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2008 Climate Camp: It's Started!

The 2008 Climate Camp has just began according to the bbc, much more about that on the indymedia website. It's got me excited! See some of you there on the 3rd.

Photos: Here Latest Updates: Here.

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monkey business

With carbon offset and trading opportunities abounding in unexpected places, It's only a matter of time....

Tangentially connected link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/science/earth/23enviro.html

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Australian Camp for Climate Action halts Coal Train

This was one of my favourite stories of recent weeks. The Australian Climate Camp managed to obstruct the ralway line into one of the worlds largest coal ports in the world.

• ABC News
• Sydney Morning Herald

An article in solidarity with the protest from US youth blog Itsgettinghotinhere.

• Photos.
  

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Transit resurgence.

There seems to be something of a transit resurgence going on globally. This story is of a line extension in Tokyo. However this trend is not localised to the either the developed or developing world, everyone is struggling with oil prices of arond $140 a barrell. The various reasons for redesigning the transport infrastructure of cities are explained by Lester Brown in this earth policy institute article.

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China set to lead the world in wind power.

It's nice to see that the US and Europe are being joined by a third renewable energy super power.

According to projections at Renewable Energy World, China is going to be a world leader in wind power by next year!

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California uses more oil that China; a LOT more!

Here is an interesting fact that should supprise you if you read mainstream media coverage of China.

"According to the California Energy Commission, the state with its 37 million people uses more gasoline and diesel than any other country on Earth except the US as a whole. That's more than India with its 1.1 billion people. More than China with its 1.3 billion (California is 2.8% of China's pop.). So while demand has been increasing in China and everybody's talking about that, they forget to look at absolute numbers: 20 billion gallon of gasoline and diesel are used each year in California, 6.7 billion gallons more than in 1988."

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Nuclear power; what an awful answer.

Someone somewhere has a question to which the answer is nuclear power. That question is not "name a useful solution to climate change".

I`ve posted a few times about nucelar power on this blog, perhaps i shouldnt have. This is meant to be a climate change blog. However, a lot of people seem to be pushing this problem as a solution.

The cost of this problem is futher highlighted in a recent article, after reading that perhaps you can answer the question as to why exactly we are looking at this old and costly technology at the same time as renewable energies are growing in diversity and diminishing in price.

• Nuclear power.
  

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Al Gore: America Needs to Get Off Fossil Fuels in 10 Years

Al Gore has sketched out his vision for taking america beyond fossil fuels for electricity in the next 10 years. That sort of timescale appeals to me, not because its what is required--which it is--but because the psychology as testified with the "moonshot" rhetoric is entirely more in line with the attitude required for major rather than marginal change. If attempted i believe it would be more likely to succede that a 60% target by 2050. There is a sense of real urgency, and empowerment as the decisions being are being made now...the plan is immidiate to anticipatory.

• Video of talk.
  

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Protecting forests or entrenching inequality?

Deforestation is one of the most avoidable and meaningless sources of carbon emissions in the world. The productivity is appaulingly low. However, some of the frameworks being looked at to solve this problem have been labelled neo-colonial.

The worry is that in much of South America where much of the worlds great forests are to be found, the land ownership is amongst the most unequal in the globe. An artifact of Spannish colonialism the last thing we should be doing is supporting this system by paying for forrest preservation. The real solutions arent simple but land reform is virtually always a part of any realistic social and environmental plan. From past experiance we can make one prediction, if forest owners are paid to keep there forests pristine without a social solution then the local landless class will also be jobless. This will lead to huge numbers of disenfranchised people either moving to the cities or finding themselves on the wrong side of the law in illegal clearings.

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Heathrow getting a third runway = Odds of kingsnorth powerplant being built: why?

Sorry for the rather protracted absence. I`m back now with a few updates on the mad world of climate policy and protest from around the world.

My favourite story of recent times is from the Guardian. Apparently the odds of Heathrows' third runway being built and the odds of a new coal power plant being built in Kent are 5:1. Why do you think that these are the same? Take a guess.

Thats right, those are the odds of New Labour getting re-elected! You get that, the Tories are our best bet to avoid these two disastrous climate changing policies. Have a chew on that!

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material inaccuracies

Complaints against channel 4's "Great Global Warming Swindle" are upheld. But the damage has already been done.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article4361448.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/19/channel4.climatechange

whilst BAE plan to rush their ethics audit so as to expedite speedy resumption of their exploitation of the war on ambivalent abstract nouns.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df19a3e8-54fb-11dd-ae9c-000077b07658.html

Meanwhile.....an African Union plan, with backing from the European Union- to construct a Great Green Wall across north Africa to stop desertification eating its way further into the continent - is unveiled.

http://www.celsias.com/article/africas-great-green-wall/

http://biopact.com/2007/12/eu-and-africa-to-build-green-wall.html

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Two fearless warriors of consumerism

I've been reading about the varying green credentials of the two candidates in the enormously dragged out and prohibitively expensive American election. Far be it from me to try to interfere with the democratic choice of a sovereign nation - it's entirely up to them whether they vote for Obama or some vicious, clueless old bastard with incompetent advisors.
Of course both platforms are heaving with special interest groups and slippery with fear, lest the people get wind of the true scale of what's coming their way. The truth won't out till mid term, at least. Such is politics.
But it would be such an enormous relief, such a weight off our collective minds in the rest of the world, such a release of long held fearful tension - if they broke the mould and broke with tradition and joined us in our common cause.
America is of course peculiarly placed, as are all empires throughout time, to lead or to dominate as their internal dynamic dictates.

What was it Leonard Cohen said,

"It's coming to America first
The cradle of the best and of the worst
It's here they've got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they've got the spiritual thirst.
Democracy is coming
to the USA"

Let's hope so.

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Fox on the run

Although arctic foxes aren't as imperiled as polar bears - as they are more adaptable and a less threatening presence in human settlements - they are threatened.
Another canary in another coal mine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/15/climatechange.wildlife

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Nothin' to do with me, guv'!

I must confess that I haven't read the 6,300 pages of the State of the Future report as yet - nor shall I, to be frank - and I don't want to underestimate the many and varied non-western-derived problems facing out teeming billions as we crawl gasping towards "interesting times". A cartoon is a cartoon and cannot cover all bases.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/weve-seen-the-future--and-we-may-unotu-be-doomed-866486.html

I happen to like wind turbines -aesthetically as well as philosophically and practically.
I also love walking in wild country and one of the pleasures associated with that is the internal romance of timelessness that the absence of technology affords. Although the sight of a wind farm looming over the horizon as one crests a favourite hill might squash the wandering Viking fantasy, it's a sacrifice I'm more than happy to make. Wind farms are majestic and fruitful and we should welcome them into even our most precious panoramas.
Of course scale is an issue, but so is global climate chaos, which is rearing up over the horizon a lot quicker than we care to imagine.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4322739.ece

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/antarctic-ice-shelf-collapse-imminent-866504.html

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Goodbye from the world's biggest *******!

Dubya opted to demonstrate his contempt for the entire population of the planet with the phrase "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter" as he left the dumbfounded G8heads to return to his planet-razing agenda at home. What is there to say. It's hard to satirise someone who demonstrates that level of open, blase contempt. He might as well have bared his arse and given the assembly the finger. I await the footage on YouTube.

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the origins of specious

As the (theoretically) most powerful folk on the planet return from Japan having commited themselves to thinking a bit more about possibly doing something at some point in the future - subject to growth projections and the contingencies of the electoral cycle - the obvious speciousness of it all is left hanging in the air. The television media (who seem to grow worse by the year) seem disinclined to comment beyond the normal circumspect soundbites. Hints that the democratic world's brightest and best (!) dropped the ball spectacularly are whispered for fear of upsetting the cosy relationship twixt commentators and government, or otherwise frightening the horses. Then they move swiftly on to the staggering hypocricy of their middle east coverage and the tub thumping myopia of the petrol price crisis/bonanza (depending on your share portfolio)
So we all wait for the other fella to start the ball rolling - blaming the Indians and the Chinese for doing what we spent two hundred years bullying, badgering and bombing them into doing - all the while crying for more free trade, more trans-global movement of goods, more energy consumption and just plain more of everything.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/bush-to-g8-goodbye-from-the-worlds-biggest-polluter-863911.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/08/climatechange.g8

Cynics of the Diogenes school might be tempted to abandon their barrels and take to the streets with inflatable hammers. As a species we are in need of a good slap!

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Hard Snooze

This cartoon keeps drifting, unbidden, into my head every morning - between slaps at the snooze button. I'm hoping that drawing it will make it go away.

I have no illusions that drawing it will stop the Orag-utans going away.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/orangutans-on-fast-track-to-extinction-860884.html

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Lawsuit Accuses Big Oil of Conspiracy to Deceive Public About Climate Change

There have been climate change lawsuits in the past, but it's always encouraging to see action in this area. We all know that there has been a lot of deception going on and a lot of people with vested interests doing everything in there power to stop the public pushing for change. Now is the time to see if this dishonesty rises to the level of criminal conspiracy:

"This is the first lawsuit where the claim is made that the defendants, principally organized by ExxonMobil, have organized and orchestrated collusively a movement to deceive the public about whether global warming was occurring, whether it was occurring by cause of manmade activity or something else, and as a result, the public didn’t demand changes and let this go on for so long."

Stephen Susman, Democracy Now

Related:

• Full Story
• Video

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