Climate change & climate action

1 December 2018News

Group heralds blockade as 'largest action of civil disobedience for climate justice that Germany has ever seen'

Ende Gelände blocks the Hambach Forest coal train near Cologne, Germany, 28 October. Photo: Christian Willner CC BY-SA 2.0

Climate activist group Ende Gelände described its occupation in late October as the ‘largest action of civil disobedience for climate justice that Germany has ever seen’.

On 27 October, 6,500 people took part in the action at Tagebau Hambach, a large opencast coalmine near Cologne, Germany, where highly-polluting brown coal (lignite) is extracted by German…

1 December 2018News

'Historic victory' for anti-coal campaign

Local residents and campaigners were jubilant on 20 September when the Planning Inspectorate upheld Caerphilly county borough council’s 2015 ruling and rejected developer Miller Argent’s appeal for an opencast coal mine at Nant Llesg.

The United Valleys Action Group (UVAG), local activists and residents worked with Friends of the Earth (FOE) to oppose the opencast mine. Haf Elgar, director of FOE Cymru, said it was a ‘historic victory’ for people power.

UVAG’s Alyson…

1 December 2018Feature

A PN staffer comments on the new climate direct action campaign

This essay was written on 1 November, before the bridges actions on 17 November that we report on p5.

If Extinction Rebellion plans to gradually build capacity for its big demands by winning smaller-scale victories then why has it launched itself with (apparently) no indication as to what these smaller-scale wins are going to be?

Lots of people seem to be very excited about Extinction Rebellion (XR)’s ‘declaration of rebellion’ and its plans to ‘bring large parts of…

1 December 2018Feature

XR responds to criticisms around goals

These are questions and answers taken from the XR FAQs (frequently asked questions) section. Some of them are responses to Gabriel’s
1 November criticisms.

Q: ‘Some people seek to mobilize people around a general concern, like climate or war or poverty, but such mobilizations are like one-off protests – they don’t win…

1 December 2018Feature

Extinction Rebellion's 'strategy' can't work but there are alternatives, argues Gabriel Carlyle

Several people responded to my original piece, in which I raised doubts about Extinction Rebellion (XR), suggesting that I was proposing ‘inaction’ as the alternative to joining XR. Nothing could be further from the case.

For example, unlike XR, the global fossil fuels divestment movement has an evidence-based strategy that makes sense, with an…

12 November 2018Blog

Cedric Knight comments on Theo Simon's recent piece on Extinction Rebellion.

I hope to join at least some Extinction Rebellion events. I'd like to add further cautions, though, that aren't in any way meant to reduce enthusiasm but might affect tactics as regards communication, prompted partly by the talk by Dr Gail Bradbrook on the XR website. I'm a layperson but familiar with some of the climate science (less of the general ecology), and also some of the debates in science communication. In brief, we need to reflect the science accurately but also make those…

8 November 2018Blog

Theo Simon responds to Gabriel Carlyle's recent article.

Gabriel's Peace News piece, “Why I'm sceptical about the Extinction Rebellion initiative (and why I hope I'm wrong)”,  contained some really interesting and valuable insights for structuring political  campaigns, but I think it missed the point entirely about what the Extinction Rebellionrepresents.

This isn't a…

1 November 2018Blog

If Extinction Rebellion plans to gradually build capacity for its big demands by winning smaller-scale victories then why has it launched itself with (apparently) no indication as to what these smaller-scale wins are going to be?

Lots of people seem to be very excited about Extinction Rebellion (XR)’s ‘declaration of rebellion’ and its plans to ‘bring…

1 October 2018News

Activists blockade Europe's largest gas field

Climate activists march to the biggest gas field in Europe, in Groningen in the Netherlands, 28 August. Photo: Code Rood

From 18–24 August, Time to Cycle organised a bike ride from London to the Code Rood week-long climate action camp in Groningen in the Netherlands. Over 700 people from Code Rood held a 48-hour sit-down blockade of Europe’s largest gas field in Farmsum, near Groningen, starting on 28 August.

Our cycling trip, that was to become a beautiful shared experience…

1 October 2018News in Brief

As PN went to press, police were suspending the clearing of treehouses in Hambach Forest in western Germany, and memorial vigils were being held throughout the country.

On 19 September, a freelance journalist covering the resistance to opencast coal mining fell over 60 feet to his death from a rope bridge linking two treehouses. Steffen Meyn, 27, was working on a documentary about the occupation of Hambach Forest.

The forest is being cleared to make way for the…

1 August 2018News in Brief

In June, protesters in County Durham prevented construction of an access road to a planned opencast coal mine near Dipton. The Campaign to Protect Pont Valley argued that this meant the Bradley mine could not go ahead. The council said the access road was not a condition of planning permission, but a separate agreement.

Despite huge efforts, including lock-on blockades in Newcastle and Bradley, campaigners did not succeed in preventing contractor Banks Mining from breaking ground…

1 August 2018News in Brief

In June, protesters in County Durham prevented construction of an access road to a planned opencast coal mine near Dipton. The Campaign to Protect Pont Valley argued that this meant the Bradley mine could not go ahead. The council said the access road was not a condition of planning permission, but a separate agreement.

Despite huge efforts, including lock-on blockades in Newcastle and Bradley, campaigners did not succeed in preventing contractor Banks Mining from breaking ground…

1 August 2018Comment

A poem by Peter Phillips

Photo: Arun Kulshreshtha via Wikimedia Commons

Sun hangs over London, as if she’s stalking me. The lawn
has burnt patches, like a blister which won’t heal. The weather
forecasters are excited. The weather forecasters are lying.

In the arctic, a mammoth iceberg hunches its shoulders, splits,
topples over. The cast-off, a small country, floats towards
the warmth, its watery cargo melting.…

1 August 2018News

How you can get involved

Image

https://peacenews.info/node/9413/ten-ways-join-climate-strikeEurope’s largest single-issue peace group, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is joining Ethical Consumer magazine, Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham, 10:10 Climate Action and Freedom Bookshop in London, Peace News and many others in the Global Climate Strike.

Here…

1 August 2018News

Adults join the global climate strike on 20 September

Climate strike Manila, Philippines, 24 May. Photo: Leo sabangan II /350.org cc by-nc-sa2.0

Candidates will step off the campaign trail; sports stars off the pitch; celebrities will scrub off makeup and teachers will lay down chalk; cooks will close restaurants and bring meals to protests; pensioners too will break daily routines and join together in an unprecedented historical moment.

As we deal with devastating climate impacts and hurtle towards dangerous climate tipping…