Climate Camp in The City: Final Update

Final update on The Swoop, for the April 1st Climate Camp in the City
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

Hi campers, not long to go before we join each to set up camp in the city
on April 1st! This is the final update, please read it carefully and
forward it to all your friends who are coming…

WHAT TO BRING:

We hope many of us will be staying overnight, please bring a popup tent,
food, 4 litres of water, warm clothes, hand cleaning gel (for hygiene, we
might not get water) and whatever you might need for 24 hours of rebel
camping adventure. (a full list is here
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/what-to-bring)

HOW TO DO IT:

1) SYNCHRONIZE YOUR WATCHES: It is important that we swoop at exactly the
same time, and those arriving too late or too early might not make it in.
You can use the speaking clock or this: http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com

2) PLUG IN: Sign up to text messages here:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/text-updates You will only get text
messages if there is a change of plan.

3) PREPARE: Print out the map from http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/map
and if you still need somewhere to sleep the night before check
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/sleepspace Remember that there may be
limited toilet facilities so don’t arrive with bursting bowels !!!

3) SWOOP DOWN: Arrive at 62 Bishop's Gate, the European Climate Exchange
at 12:30 on the dot. Swoop swiftly and stealthily from a location of your
choice. It might be good to avoid Bank and Liverpool Street stations where
other protest groups are meeting at 11.00am as you may be unable to leave
due to police Kettles (when police surround a crowd). Avoid kettles at all
costs and if when you get to the Climate Exchange the police invite you
into a protest pen, say “no thanks, we’ll camp elsewhere”, keep moving and
wait for text messages.

4) SPREAD INSPIRATION: You can use your phone to send reports, pictures,
audio etc from the streets to Indymedia. Its very easy – see
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/425262.html for numbers and
details.

If you are covering the action using twitter, please include the hashtags
#g20cc or both #g20 and #protest so we can pull tweets into one single
feed of the event.

5) AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST - ENJOY: The next few days will be extraordinary
days for extraordinary times...

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The g20 police scare, issues and the reality so far.

The world is suffering from a bad case of neo-liberalism. People are up in arms at the failure of this ideology. Not surprisingly the police are being used by the state to marginalise the protesters and confuse the issues. Just as unsurprisingly the media are eating up the propaganda despite a coalition of formidable diversity; religious, development, environmental, labour and other groups all standing together for a better way of doing things.

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Parliamentary scrutiny of political policing (via indymedia)

(H/T Indymedia)

Mike Schwartz, a partner at London law firm Bindmans, said:

"The police have adopted mission creep. One of the symptoms is their misuse of the power of stop and search under the Terrorism Act. It is being misused because the police have the power to impose a blanket area, where any police officer can search anyone without reason for suspicion on the basis that a senior police officer has thought that there might be terrorist activity or terrorists operating in the area."

Also under the spotlight was Police intimidation and monitoring of journalists, refusal to recognizing press cards, and accusations of obstruction and assault. The committee said it was unacceptable that journalists had to resort to taking court action against officers interfering with their work.

London's Metropolitan Police Service excused their wide-ranging misuse of power by saying,

"We will always facilitate lawful protest and are committed to doing so but do have to minimize the disruption caused to others going about their lawful business".

The criticism follows a report was made to parliament last week into the abuse of police powers during the climate camp protests at Kingsnorth in 2008. The report and accompanying video documented systemic abuses of power including blanket stop and searches, arbitrary seizure of property, and a campaign of psychological intimidation which included sleep deprivation through helicopter overflying late into the night, mock night and dawn raids by tooled up riot police, and the infamous 'Flight of the Valkyries' incident.

David Howarth, Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Secretary said,

“What happened at the Climate Camp was deeply disturbing and part of what seems to be a disturbing national trend. Political agendas have no place in policing."

Defending Kent police's handling of the Kingsnorth protest, Home Office minister Vernon Croaker had claimed that seventy officers had sustained injuries in clashes with protestors. However a Freedom of Information act request proved that the police chiefs had misled parliament as no officers had really been injured in clashes at all.

Lib Dem MP David Taylor told the Commons:

"We were told that [the police behavior] was justified because dozens of injuries were incurred. We have now found that those injuries were of a more prosaic origin—they were due to things such as insect stings and sunstroke. Unless the protesters are to be held responsible for wasps and the weather, are we not to conclude that the justification used at the time was wholly bogus and vacuous?"

Attempting some damage control after the damning report, the Kent Police chiefs have now voluntarily referred complaints about the actions of it's officers to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Even before the these two reports in Parliament, the extent of political policing had been further exposed by the Guardian article revealing that the police have been building up a database of thousands of political activists as well as harassing sympathetic journalists.

Meanwhile however, the police propaganda department has launched it's annual offensive against mass protester. They've flooded the mainstream media with pieces on the much hyped 'summer of rage' in which they began to lay the foundations to justify heavy handed suppression over the coming months.
Download the report and read the details for yourself: Committee Website

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Hethrow Expansion Update

Two important developments with regards the planned expansion of Heathrow have occoured today.

Firstly, the govornments plan to spin and spin and get the expansion done, has been leaked:

Must read: govornment spin plan over heathrow leaked RT@greenpeaceuk http://tinyurl.com/cek8pv

Also, guardian has "Heathrow Runway Dealt Massive Blow":

Planning application cannot be lodged before general election, meaning Tories could scrap scheme.

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G20 in London: protest and propaganda

You may have heard in the news that the G20 are meeting in London in the coming week.

The main notable aspect of the runup to the meeting is the sheer quantity of negative and frankly terrifying propaganda coming out of all the 'independent' press we have here in the UK. On the basis of what the police tell them the media are out of control frothing at the mouth. It's rare to get such confusion, conflation and crap all mixed together into one basic narative. the very diversity of the views involved has caused the media to narrow it's focus to a tiny range--questions range from 'are these people dangerous' all the way to 'just how dangerous are these people'.

On the positive side:

• An awesome group of people created a special edition of the Financial Times.
• A march is being organised by Unions, green groups, religious, aid and development charities. Thats a pretty broad swathe of society. They are all very reasonable in there demands: jobs, justice, climate action.
• You can sign up for live on the day txt updates from the climate camp!
• There are loads of events planned.
  

Related:

• #g20 on twitter.
• put people first march.
• climate camp in the city.
  

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Bear essentials

While humans concentrate on launching an "affordable" car for billions of bicyclers, and prepare to meltdown the amazon for palm-oil, the incredible shrinking polar bear seeks protection where it may

Water and space are at a premium

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Bang bang, you're dead.

Frank is a cartoon character. Shooting people is wrong. Of course Frank would never actually DO anything like this. It's probably just a dream. We'll all wake up soon.

The great ice sheets may not be set to completely collapse overnight, but the processes being set in motion today will make that collapse unstoppable.

With our current "democratic" processes falling short, and road traffic increasing 25% in just 15 years, it looks like we're grabbing the shit end of the stick with both hands

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Baby, you're a rich man too.

Opportunities abound for those who dare, as China asks he who calls the tune to pay the piper, and we are all cordially invited to Cap the rich

Elsewhere, both Shell and the UK government go into bat for the opposition

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Climate Camp by Twitter or By TXT!

The climate camp(main/g20) has now got two active twitter accounts one national and one for the london group.

Also, and this is the cool part...since twitter has stopped sending txt's in the UK we have a special climate camp txt messaging service so that you can subscribe for mobile phone updates.

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Ed Miliband very uncomfortable at Age of Stupid Premiere

Really awesome video bellow. Pete Postlethwaite, star of the Age of Stupid, pledges to return his OBE if Kingsnorth is built. Look out for Ed Milliband looking ver uncomfortable and a great deal of positive vibes in the audiance



The age of stupid is really starting to get press attention (google news search)

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People's Premiere - The Age Of Stupid

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Equal Rights

Stern warnings followed by stern warnings, as drought pushes up grain futures

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Cognitive Malfunction

Our closest cousins show definite signs of being... well... our closest cousins, while the Heartland Jamboree keeps churning out the misinformation. There's a lot of it about

I'm not sure whether I'm contravening RealClimate's "Advice to Climate Bloggers" number 6, or adhering to number 13 here. It's a complex situation

Oh, and this story sums us up nicely, don't you think?

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Susan George: Building a fairer global economy.

Because Susan George is always interesting to listen to...

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Still nothing to fear....

Another repost (plain lazy, me) to celebrate the Guardian's uncovering of what everybody already knew - that the police keep information about anybody and everybody who pops their head up to exercise their democratic rights. They maintain an extensive database of personal details. Its all terribly selective and contains only absolutely everything they can get on absolutely everybody. Far be it from me to suggest that they do this in an effort to intimidate the citizenry into accepting whatever comes their way.

We've - got - a - file - on - YOU!

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News Corpse

Yes. It seems that Uncle Rupert will henceforward be using the unfathomable might of his media empire for good rather than, well, ...the other thing

meanwhile...In the spirit of quantative easing I went down to my local gargantmart with some freshly minted banknotes of my own design, in order to stimulate the economy. They didn't seem to appreciate the sound financial wisdom of my actions and there was an ugly scene involving a lot of shouting, some custard and a security guard. There's no helping some people.

In the news - there's a lot of stuff about Rainforests
and a lot of stuff about biofuels

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Climate Rush RBS (Video)

(via The Herald)

A protest outside the Royal Bank of Scotland offices in London yesterday was "a shot across the bows", its organisers said.

A spokeswoman for Climate Rush, the group that led the demonstration in Bishopsgate in London, said it was to protest against government bailouts of the banking industry.

She said: "We demand that our money is spent on renewable energy and invested in business that promotes a more sustainable way of life."


She added that in the last two years RBS had been involved in loaning £16bn to the coal industry.

Video:

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Birds of Prey

Birds - forever the canaries in our coalmine -are first off the blocks in the race over the edge. Our own migratory upheavals will not be far behind.

Meanwhile - The EU bottles out of Climate Funding for poor nations whilst the media call for it all to be left to the philanthropic urges of uber-capitalists (who have been doing such a bang-up job lately)


Whilst the US goes to Washington to protest Dirty Coal, senior UK police officers set up a self fulfilling prophecy by predicting mass outbreaks of middle class wickedness in reaction to recession/depression etc.

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Plane Stupid disrupt Aberdeen Airport (video)

3rd March - Nine young protesters from the climate action group Plane Stupid Scotland have this morning shut down Aberdeen airport by setting up a golf course on the taxiway. They have surrounded themselves with fortified security fencing whilst another group are occupying the roof of the terminal building and have unfurled a banner reading, “Nae Trump Games with Climate Change”.

The peaceful protest began at 02.15am this morning whilst the runway was closed. Plane Stupid aims to prevent the scheduled reopening of the runway at 5am. The group intends to maintain its blockade for as long as possible to prevent the release of thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

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Police 'over the top' at climate camp.

More than 2,000 'potentially harmful' items were confiscated from protesters by officers - including balloons, crayons and a clown's outfit

Tracy McVeigh

The Observer, Sunday 1 March 2009 (link)

Police have been accused of setting a "dangerous precedent" when they confiscated hundreds of items of property - including children's crayons, a clown's outfit and a pensioner's walking stick - from people attending an environmental protest camp at Kingsnorth power station.

A list of more than 2,000 possessions taken from protesters, who were repeatedly searched going to and from the camp last August, has been obtained through a freedom of information request by Liberal Democrat justice spokesman David Howarth.

It shows that officers took packets of balloon, tents, a clown's outfit, camping equipment, cycle helmets and bike locks, plastic buckets, bin bags, blankets, soap, banners and leaflets, books, party poppers and nail clippers. A toy plastic gun, life-jackets, inflatable dinghies, paddles and foot pumps were also confiscated, police say, to stop protesters taking to the river around the Hoo peninsula in Kent. Much of the property has yet to be returned.

It is the latest attack on what has been criticised as over-the-top policing of the Climate Camp near the site where the government is planning to allow the construction of a £1bn coal-fired power station by the energy firm E.on. The project is seen by activists as damaging to the environment and a key obstacle to the UK achieving carbon reduction targets.

Kent police were embarrassed over the event last year when, after ministers had justified what they called the "proportionate" £5.9m cost of the security operation by pointing out that 70 officers had been injured at the event, they then had to admit that the injuries reported by officers included heat exhaustion, toothache, insect bites and headaches.

Howarth said:

"It is not the police's job to confiscate protesters' banners, pensioners'
walking sticks and children's crayons.

"The police admit that almost all the items seized had a legitimate purpose. The
idea that it is appropriate to seize ordinary people's property on the
off-chance that it might be used to commit a crime is a dangerous precedent.

"Almost anything can be invested with sinister intent with enough
imagination. I even heard of one case where police confiscated a camper's soap
on the basis that it could be used to make them slippery and evade capture by
police. This is simply farcical.

"This kind of pre-emptive policing is
out of all proportion to the threat posed by environmental direct action and
should not be acceptable in a democratic society."

Sarah Perkins, a member of the Climate Camp's legal team, said their main concern was that they believed police misused "stop and search" legislation.

"It certainly was disproportionate policing and a real sea change in the
way police are using their powers. Absolutely everyone was searched, many people
several times over, and then police raided the camp and searched yet again."

Green party MEP Caroline Lucas, who attended the week-long event, said at the time that she had witnessed police confiscating disabled access ramps, board games and fire safety equipment.
Kent's assistant chief constable, Allyn Thomas, defended the actions, saying the aim was always to enable a lawful and peaceful protest to take place. "This included our objective to prevent unlawful incursion of the power station," he said. "Had the station been shut down, there would have been a possible loss of power to over 300,000 homes.

"There was also the need to protect protesters who trespassed on the site as Kingsnorth is very hazardous for people without the appropriate training and safety equipment.

"While the majority of people were law abiding," he added, "it was clear from the first day of the camp setting up that a number of people were intent on causing trouble.

"By seizing items which could be used to commit a crime, we were able to ensure criminal acts were not carried out and more importantly no one was injured by some of the items which potentially could have been used to harm others. Arrests were prevented and many of the items have now been returned.

"We hope that anyone who attends a similar event in future accepts their responsibility to do so lawfully and in a legal manner."

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