Climate Change Direct Action

This Year's Crop of Extreme Weather Suggests Climate Change and Global Warming Are Not a Myth - By: Alison Withers


Without doubt after this summer evidence is accumulating that something major and alarming has been happening to global weather patterns.

Unprecedented monsoon weather has put vast areas of Pakistan under water and displaced some 20 million people while mudslides have destroyed whole villages and towns in China. Russia is one of 16 countries that have declared 2010 its hottest ever summer and is facing the loss of up to a third of its wheat crop.

A large chunk of ice has separated from Greenland and Niger is suffering famine and floods and, again, the loss of its crops.

Is 2010 just one isolated and extreme summer?

Actually it's not if you look back over the last decade and remember from the Tsunami across S Asia in December 2004, the hurricane that destroyed much of New Orleans, major earthquakes in China and Haiti, flooding in the Irrawady Delta, Indonesia, and massive fires in dry weather in Greece and other parts of Europe because of dry, hot summers.

To the British-born environmental campaigner Lewis Pugh, who was recently interviewed by Riz Khan, on the TV Channel Al Jazeera, there's no question that the whole planet is at risk.

This is a man who has swum all the oceans, across the North Pole, where once there was ice, and in the Himalayas to highlight what is going on - and says he has witnessed for himself the changes that are happening in even the remotest parts of the planet, not just once but every time he goes back to these places.

He is in no doubt that the situation is urgent and of such overriding importance that all governments should be putting it at the top of their agendas.

Yet there is pessimism already about the possibility of agreement on action on global warming from November's next climate summit due in Cancun, Mexico.

US chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing is quoted in a BBC online article on August 7 as saying that many developed countries are back-pedalling from the progress that was made at Copenhagen last December.

He, also, warned that the extreme weather events of the summer were "consistent with the kind of changes" to be expected from climate change and that quick action was needed.

This is all putting even greater pressure on our abilities to make progress in producing enough food - at affordable prices - to make inroads into a scandalous situation where more than a billion people in the world are suffering from malnutrition if not outright starvation.

Of course, for some, it's all just another opportunity to make money. Speculators on the commodities markets must be rubbing their expensively manicured hands with glee at the fortune to be made in pushing up the price of such basics as wheat. Well, there's no money to be made in sub-prime mortgages any more and investors expect a return on their investment.

There have, however, been a few bright spots in the week's news.

They include an agreement between the US and Brazil that Brazil's £13.5 million of debt will be converted into a fund to protect Brazil's coastal rainforests. Ecuador, too, has announced a scheme to lock up as much as a fifth of its oil reserves if rich nations compensate it with £3.6 billion, half of the oil's value, payable over a ten year period.

If agreed the scheme would protect its Yasuni National Park, one of the most bio-diverse areas of rainforest in the world. The UN Development Programme has agreed to administer the project's trust fund and several EU countries are supporting the idea.

In London Ahmed Djoghlaf, secretary general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, also spoke out against countries cutting their protection of biodiversity because of the current global economic crisis, warning that destroying nature increases economic insecurity, not to mention countries' ability to produce enough food.

There are plenty of innovative ideas for improving the world's food production, from Genetically Modified crops, through cloning to the Biopesticides Developers' work on producing more environmentally friendly, bio-pesticides, fungicides and yield enhancers to contribute to increasing farm production sustainably without damaging the environment.

The sad thing is that too often governments are still relying on old and arguably discredited methods of pulling their countries out of recession.

While they are, perhaps understandably, focused on the current state of their own economies, if they don't soon change focus to the global situation the question is what, eventually, will they have left to govern?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Climate Change Direct Action: A "Crude Awakening" - By: J4TP


A coalition of climate change direct action groups, including the Camp for Climate Action and Plane Stupid, have joined forces to launch “a mass action to switch off oil” on Saturday, 16 October in London. The protestors are targeting the oil industry for its role in exacerbating climate change, as well as its devastating impact on local communities and environments around the world.

Protesters have been invited to amass in three different train stations in Central London at 10 AM on Saturday, and will then move on to a series of targets related to the oil industry, before gathering together at a final mystery location. The targets are being kept secret and will be revealed via an SMS service, but protesters are being advised on the website to come prepared to “HOLD A SPACE and to leave that space in a way that shows we've been there.”

Earlier this week, a list was revealed which showed 10 targets that HAD NOT been chosen, but gave an indicator of what might be expected. The list included the British Museum for its sponsorship links with BP, HSBC for its fossil fuel finance andChevron’s HQ, due to its move into North Sea deepwater drilling.

Sharon Viney, who is taking part on that day, said:
“If we’re to have a chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change, we need to switch off from oil. But oil companies relentlessly scour the earth for the last drops of dirty oil, and the government hands out massive tax breaks to the oil industry while decimating public services and environmental programmes. We’re inviting everything who thinks that we need to get our priorities straight to take action with is this Saturday – to start putting the needs of people and the environment above profit and greed.”

Clayton Thomas-Mueller, from the Indigenous Environment Network, and part of the UK Tar Sands Network, said:
“Indigenous Peoples in Canada are having their traditional ways of live, their health and their ecosystems destroyed by the involvement of UK companies in tar sands extraction. London is one of the centres of a global oil economy, so it’s important that climate-justice activists are taking action there in solidarity with oil-impacted communities around the world.”
The action is taking place as part of a global week of action for climate justice that will see people from around the world taking action against the fossil fuel industry.

For more information and interviews, call 07917 742175 or email crudeawakening2010@gmail.com

For live updates on the day, follow @crudeawakening on twitter

There are some possibilities for journalists to be ‘embedded’ with activists as part of the meet-up points on the day.