London Bulletin 31/5/12
1) FUEL POVERTY ACTION INFO NIGHT - 31 MAY
2) CLIMATE JUSTICE COLLECTIVE MEETING - 2 JUN
3) CARNIVAL OF DIRT - 15 JUN
4) ALTERNATIVE CONFERENCE FOR THE RIO SUMMIT - 16-17 JUN
5) GREECE: 'OUR PRESENT IS YOUR FUTURE' DVD AND TOUR - 22/28 JUN
6) CLIMATE SIREN - 23 JUN
7) TRANSFORMING OUR FOOD SYSTEM - 8-9 JUL
8) TAKE BACK THE LAND - 12-18 JUL
1) FUEL POVERTY ACTION INFO NIGHT - 31 MAY
Fuel Poverty Action Info. Night
Thursday May 31st
19.00-20.30
The Discus Room, Transport House, Unite the Union Building, 128 Theobald’s
Road, London, WC1X 8TN
www.fuelpovertyaction.org.uk
Our energy is controlled by six giant companies: Centrica (British Gas),
EON, EDF, NPower, SSE and Scottish Power.
The Big Six decide how our energy is produced and priced. We don’t have a
say.
¼ of UK households froze in fuel poverty last winter. But the Big Six’s
profits soared to a five year record high.
The government is in the pocket of the Big Six. They’re making the bills
bite harder with brutal welfare cuts.
Our energy system is driven by private profit at all costs. It’s killing
millions through fuel poverty and climate change.
The Big Six and the government want to keep things this way. We say:
things have to change.
Want to do away with the Big Six?
Get involved with Fuel Poverty Action!
Start by coming to our info night!
Come and discuss why our energy bills are rocketing and how this is
affecting us. Find out what Fuel Poverty Action are doing and how you can
get involved…
www.fuelpovertyaction.org.uk
Twitter: @FuelPovAction
Facebook: Fuel Poverty Action
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2) CLIMATE JUSTICE COLLECTIVE MEETING - 2 JUN
Climate Justice Collective meeting
Saturday 2nd June 2012
12 noon - 6pm
Manchester Metropolitan Students Union (top floor)
Oxford Road, MANCHESTER (M1 7EL)
www.ClimateJusticeCollective.org
Following on from the Winter Warm Up in January, and the Big Six Energy
Bash in May, join us for a day of reflection and future planning:
-- How can we continue to connect the dots between economic, climate and
social injustices?
-- How can we strengthen links between the anti-cuts movement, Occupy,
community action and climate groups?
Agenda for the Day:
Welcome and introduction to CJC for new comers
Brief updates from other initiatives (eg Fuel Poverty Action,
BiofuelWatch, Kick Nuclear, Frack Off, Plane Stupid, Campaign against
Climate Change, Occupy, UK Tar Sands Network) - unconfirmed -
Reflecting on the Big Six Bash mass action.
CJC + Climate Camp doing things differently
Planning for the Future
What is CJC?
Climate Justice Collective is a grassroots network of UK groups and
individuals. We support and take action against the root causes of climate
change and for a clean, affordable, democratic energy system. CJC formed
out of the Camp for Climate Action following its decision not to organise
on a national level in 2011.
For more info see: http://climatejusticecollective.org/#/about/4561591358
A travel pool will be made available to help cover transport costs.
A kidspace can be made available - please email
manchester@climatecamp.org.uk if you think you might require one.
Likewise if you think you need crashspace.
www.ClimateJusticeCollective.org
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3) CARNIVAL OF DIRT - 15 JUN
11AM Friday June 15 2012 Steps of St Paul’s Cathedral
COME DRESSED IN BLACK TO REMEMBER THE DEAD.
Link arms with those who have had their lands stolen, their governments
corrupted, their people turned against each other, their environments
poisoned.
Solidarity with those still paying with their lives for resisting Western
mining and extraction corporations.
Propped up by our pensions schemes, these corporations evade millions in
taxation and are protected by our government despite their financial,
environmental and human rights crimes.
Join the Carnival of Dirt - a funeral procession followed by speakers
and, from 6.00pm, a Reclaim the Streets party.
No to austerity! Resist corporate dictatorship! Another world is possible!
#J15
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4) ALTERNATIVE CONFERENCE FOR THE RIO SUMMIT - 16-17 JUN
Saturday 16th June to Sunday 17th
(the weekend preceding the summit Wednesday 20th to Friday 22nd)
Register a place at the conference: http://www.campaigncc.org/altsummit
Organised by the Campaign against Climate Change with the School for
Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Department for Development Studies.
Taking place at the central London Universities - SOAS, the Institute of
Education (IOE) and University College London (UCL). Opening plenary in
IOE, Thornhaugh Street off Russell Square, Russell Square Tube.
This is a free event but donations to help the campaign would be appreciated.
Rio to Rio: 20 wasted years?
Between 1992 and 2012:
The global surface temperature has risen by 0.38C.
The Arctic sea ice has decreased by 2.94 million square kilometres.
The CO2 in the atmosphere has risen by 35.19 PPM.
30 661 900 hectares of Brazilian forest have been lost.
More than 431,215.08 million tonnes of CO2 have been emitted.
The amount of CO2 emitted per year has risen from 21,421.45 to 30,398.42
million tonnes.
A wide range of workshops and seminars - and an exciting main plenary -
are planned. Full details at: http://www.campaigncc.org/altsummit
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5) GREECE: 'OUR PRESENT IS YOUR FUTURE' DVD AND TOUR - 22/28 JUN
The Reel News 2 hour special on Greece is being printed up now. Copies
will be mailed out on Saturday 2nd June to make sure of your copy, order
here: http://reelnews.co.uk/issue-32-june-2012/
Our UK tour starts on June 22nd come and see the front line of the
social war that’s engulfing Europe, and join in the discussions on how to
deliver practical solidarity and build a Europe wide movement against
austerity.
We are very pleased to announce that Georgia Mylonaki, Eleftherotypia
striker will be joining the tour up to July 2nd. Eleftherotypia is a
national newspaper where the workers have been on all out strike now for 5
months one of the longest strikes ever in Greece.
If we’re not coming to your area and you want to arrange a screening,
please get in touch: info@reelnews.co.uk, http://reelnews.co.uk/contact/.
Friday June 22nd 7pm HACKNEY Halkevi Centre 31 33 Dalston Lane, London
E8 3DF (with Hackney Trades Council; part of Turkish Kurdish
International Labor Film Festival)
Also Thursday June 28th: 7:30pm HARINGEY Chestnut Community & Community
Arts Centre, 280 St. Ann’s Road, N15 5BN (with UNISON North London Mental
Health & Community branch)
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6) CLIMATE SIREN - 23 JUN
www.climate-siren.com
We are calling for a great effort of civil disobedience in the UK.
We are calling for this great effort of civil disobedience in order to
demand urgent, concerted and meaningful action to tackle the unprecedented
national and global emergency presented by the catastrophic
destabilisation of global climate.
We have been watching with quiet anger and deep despair the relentless
approach of an unprecedented tragedy.
Since the path of human history is so littered with pain, cruelty,
catastrophe and tragic folly it is hard to imagine something yet more
unspeakably vast in the sheer scale of human anguish that it will
encompass. Yet we can see the spectre of such a monumental tragedy
approaching with a clarity that increases almost as fast as the time we
have left to prevent it slips away.
No amount of wishful thinking or double talk can obscure the fact that the
science is brutally clear. Without a radical change of course we will see
the deaths of billions before the century is out. It will simply be the
biggest catastrophe ever in human history. Given the course we're
currently on, any outcome less calamitous is now clearly unrealistic even
if the precise nature and ultimate scale of this oncoming catastrophe is
impossible to predict.
Many have already quietly lost hope. Others push the truth away or hide
from it within the concerns of day to day. Others believe or pretend to
believe that a certain level of tinkering with the problem will suffice
for a solution.
Whilst we respect, commend and encourage every effort taken to tackle this
desperate crisis the simple truth is that nothing that is being done now,
at a national or international level, approaches the scale of response
that is urgently required to stem the tide of tragedy.
Worse, the whole debate and public perception, even as shaped by the more
sympathetic media and the messaging of NGOs, is skewed towards and defined
by the political realities surrounding our painfully inadequate level of
response. This is not to mention the motley band of fools and knaves who
deny - to various and shifting degrees - the whole thing and the dark
sinister power of the blindly rapacious vested interests that stand behind
them, although they, of course, are also a big factor in exacerbating the
situation. The result in any case is a false perception about the true
scale of the crisis. The simple clear message that we need to mobilise the
whole of society for a massive urgent effort shaped by the science and not
wishful thinking or vested interests, and on a scale of a kind
unprecedented outside of wartime, is obscured by the constant hum of
superficial debate about what amounts to no more than the grossly
inadequate versus the marginally less grossly inadequate in our level of
response.
We respect that societies need a common code and laws to work by. We will
do no harm to person and nor do we intend any gratuitous harm even to
property. But there have always been values and goals that have
transcended the laws that society makes - as so many struggles for
suffrage, for self-determination, for justice and equality have shown in
the past.
We are calling for a great effort of civil disobedience as a clarion call
for urgency that will break the paralysing spell of apathy, creeping
despair, ignorance, myopia and self-deluding make-believe. If there ever
was a time when such an effort is needed it is now. If there ever was a
time when such an effort was justified it is now.
Even if we fail in what has become an almost superhuman task, to achieve
the ultimate goal of turning the tide of tragedy it will be important that
we made this great effort and did not stand idle, just watching it happen.
And given the stakes are so high even the slimmest chance of prevailing
makes failing to make the effort seem unforgivable.
We can't make this great effort of civil disobedience happen on our own,
but we want to help you make it happen.
We are calling initially for a conspicuous act of civil disobedience on
Saturday June 23rd 2012, in London, at the time of the Rio Earth Summit
(in actual fact just after), if you and enough others are willing to make
it happen. We have no time to lose.
Text Us
You can make a start by texting your mobile phone number to 07903 800 216
or alternatively you can e-mail it to us at
climatesiren@climate-siren.com. This will allow us to keep in contact with
you by text, and let you know what to do nearer the date as well as giving
us an idea of potential numbers.
The nature of what we are planning means that we have to keep it secret,
as you will readily understand, but in the end it will be your decision as
to whether it is a valid action you will want to be a part of, or not.
Please, let's make it happen: text us your mobile number.
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7) TRANSFORMING OUR FOOD SYSTEM - 8-9 JUL
Transforming our food system
How do we build a movement for food sovereignty in the UK?
Sunday 8 and Monday 9 July
Organiclea growing site, Hawkwood Community Plant Nursery
115 Hawkwood Crescent, Chingford, London E4 7UH
Join us for two days of strategy discussions and action planning aimed at
strengthening the movement for a democratic, sustainable and fair food
system in the UK and globally.
For more info and to register: www.foodsovereigntynow.org.uk
Are you a food producer, organic farmer, allotment holder,
anti-supermarket campaigner, rural food worker, food activist, health
worker or food lover? Are you setting up a food co-operative, buying food
from a local producer, volunteering in a community garden? Then join us to
develop the global movement for food sovereignty here in the UK.
Food sovereignty is an alternative food system that creates practical,
sustainable and democratic solutions to the failed industrialised food
model. The current system dispossesses small-scale food producers and
creates health and environmental crises while increasing the profits of
big corporations. Yet in every continent, millions of producers and
consumers are involved in trying to make their vision of a better food
system a reality.
This event is about planning the future of the movement for food
sovereignty in the UK. We want to:
• Celebrate the struggle for food sovereignty already underway in the UK,
in Europe and globally;
• Strengthen local actors to take control of their food system;
• Build a sense of common purpose and understanding, as well as a joint
agenda for action;
• Inspire and motivate people and organisations to work together.
Another food system is possible. Let’s make it happen!
Free campsite space and help with travel costs for long journeys is
available.
See www.foodsovereigntynow.org.uk for details.
Event supporters include: Soil Association, Friends of the Earth,
Permaculture Association, Youth Food Movement, Transition Towns, Reclaim
the Fields, World Development Movement, Pig Business, Peasant Evolution
Producers Co-operative, ACORD, World Family, GM Freeze, UK Food Group,
Scottish Crofters Federation, Organiclea, Community Food Growers Network,
Gaia Foundation, War on Want, Nourish Scotland.
More about food sovereignty online:
• Six principles of food sovereignty:
http://www.foodsovereignty.org/FOOTER/Highlights.aspx
• Origins of the food sovereignty concept and La Via Campesina:
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47:food-sovereignty&catid=21:food-sovereignty-andtrade&Itemid=38
• Website of Nyeleni Europe, the European food sovereignty movement, where
you can download the report and action plan from the 2011 European
gathering: http://www.nyelenieurope.net/en/
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8) TAKE BACK THE LAND - 12-18 JUL
Take Back the Land! // 12-18 July // Mass Action 14 July // Douglas
Valley, South Lanarkshire*/
* http://takebacktheland.org.uk/*
Opencast coal mining in the Douglas Valley is about the ruling class
destroying communities for their own financial gain. It's about ecological
destruction on a massive scale for capitalism's unquenchable
thirst for cheap energy. It's about absentee fat-cat land-lords making
millions off land that shouldn't be theirs. It's about morally corrupt
local (and national) government putting profit before people. *Join us
12-18 July in the Douglas Valley, South Lanarkshire, to build on 20 years
of community struggle and four years of direct action against the UK's
biggest opencast mining company.* It's time to /*Take Back the Land!
< http://takebacktheland.org.uk/>*/
*/Take Back the Land!/* will be a space for taking action, sharing skills
and learning through doing. It will be a welcoming and safe space for all
those wishing to challenge the social injustice and
environmental destruction caused by opencast coal mining operations in
Scotland and throughout the world.
Building on previous years experience at camps such as the Mainshill
Solidarity Camp < http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?page_id=415>, the
Happendon Wood Action Camp
< http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?page_id=1974> and events such as the
Outdoor Skillshares < http://outdoorskillshare.noflag.org.uk/>, we will be
establishing a base for a week of *high impact action and low impact,
sustainable living*.
In solidarity with the communities of the Douglas Valley, we will be
*directly confronting the power structures and infrastructures* which have
dominated and scarred the valley for too long with a mass action planned
for the 14th July and plenty of room for skilling up, recruitment and
affinity group actions to be taken.
The camp location will be announced nearer to the time, but will be in
close proximity to many of the opencast coal mines in the area.
Whilst we recognise the camp to be a space to take action against external
oppression we also hope a create a space which challenges socialised
behaviours that oppress and exclude others and we will try and make the
camp as inclusive a space as possible, for all people wishing to be
involved.
*/We are calling for all those wishing to take or support actions in
solidarity with community self determination, against destructive
fossil/**/fuel industries and towards a more sustainable and just
society, to come to South Lanarkshire from 12-18th July and help /*/Take
Back the Land!/
More updates are on their way. If you wish to find out more information or
contact us for any reason please get in
touch:/contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk/
For more information about the Douglas Valley and coal struggles in
Scotland visit: http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/
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