climate protest

Just Stop Oil disrupt the BBC Proms

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Just Stop Oil disrupt the first night of the BBC Proms 14 July 2023.
Just Stop Oil disrupt the first night of the BBC Proms 14 July 2023.

Two Just Stop Oil supporters disrupted the first night of the BBC Proms. They are demanding that the UK government halt any new licensing or consents for oil, gas and coal extraction in the UK. 

At around 8:40pm, two Just Stop Oil supporters ran onto the stage at the Royal Albert Hall, sounding whistles, whilst holding a banner which read ‘Just Stop Oil.’ The pair attempted to address the audience before being quickly removed.

One of those taking action today, Kate Logan, 38, A mum of two from London, said:

“Many years ago I sang with a youth choir at the Albert hall, never imagining I would one day disrupt a performance here to draw attention to the planetary crisis we find ourselves in. But that’s what this has come to. Our leaders and the press have failed us for decades and now it’s up to ordinary people to demand the changes we need.”

“We cannot afford to fiddle while Rome burns, our children need us to drop everything and act like this is the emergency it truly is. We need the BBC and the wider media to change their tune, tell the truth and connect the dots. The BBC is there to serve the public, it cannot be a mouthpiece of this corrupt government and its big oil pals.”

Just Stop Oil disrupt the first night of the BBC Proms 14 July 2023.
Just Stop Oil disrupt the first night of the BBC Proms 14 July 2023.

Also taking action this evening, Pia Bastide, 29, a community worker from London, said:

“I’m sorry to harp on about it, but business as usual isn’t working anymore. We can no longer ignore this crisis, when extreme temperatures are scorching Europe right now. Last week, the Secretary General of the United Nations said that the climate crisis is ‘out of control’.” 

“I refuse to accept that my future is being sold away, one new oil licence at a time, and do nothing. The government is undertaking actions that will kill millions and the BBC is not doing enough to hold them to account. It’s the same old song and dance of false balance, the downplaying of the emergency and repeating government lies.”

Tonight’s action comes in response to the BBC’s underwhelming coverage of the climate emergency. In recent weeks the BBC has been accused of ‘false balance’ as well as uncritically regurgitating government and oil company propaganda. [2]

A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:

“Humanity is at risk, and so is everything we have ever created. Our works of art, our music and our traditions – we’re terrifyingly close to losing everything. Our cherished institutions like the BBC, are failing us. Along with the billionaire owned press, the BBC has failed to communicate the perilous urgency of our situation and they have failed in their fundamental duty to identify and hold to account those who are responsible.” 

“We are calling on the BBC to do better. You cannot remain ‘neutral’ on the breakdown of civilization. You cannot see both sides of extinction. You are either fighting for human survival or you are complicit with genocide.”

“It is immoral for cultural institutions to stand by and watch whilst our society faces inevitable collapse. We call on everyone involved in media, arts, heritage and culture to join us in civil resistance.”

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Last Generation activists pose as politicians to block roads

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https://www.dw.com/en/last-generation-activists-pose-as-politicians-to-block-roads/a-66226507

Masked climate activists blocked traffic in Berlin, claiming the government has broken the law. The group defended protests a day earlier that blocked airport runways.

Last Generation protest 14 July 2023
The protesters claim the government is breaking the law and not acting fast enough on climate change Image: picture alliance/dpa

Activists from Germany’s Last Generation climate protest group protested at one of Berlin’s most iconic intersections during the morning rush hour on Friday, with other actions planned across the city and the rest of Germany.

The campaigners, who claim the government has broken its own laws on climate change, wore masks depicting senior politicians.

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Further actions across the capital were planned on Friday, including one at Berlin’s main train station. Police also said protesters had blocked traffic near Germany’s Reichstag parliament building and the Brandenburg Gate.

Last Generation said 36 sit-ins were planned Friday in 26 cities across Germany.

A day earlier, protesters attached themselves to runways at Hamburg and Düsseldorf airports — prompting calls for tough penalties against activists. In May, large-scale raids targeted members of the group. 

However, Last Generation spokeswoman Lina Johnsen said the protests were out of necessity because the government had been breaking its own rules.

“It is the responsibility of politicians to protect what we need for life. And they are knowingly not doing that by continuing to break their own climate protection goals,” said Johnsen.

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https://www.dw.com/en/last-generation-activists-pose-as-politicians-to-block-roads/a-66226507

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Climate Coalition to UK Government: ‘You Had Your Chance—Now We’re Stepping It Up’

Read more about the article Climate Coalition to UK Government: ‘You Had Your Chance—Now We’re Stepping It Up’
The Big One protest April 2023 Central London
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Original article republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) licence. By BRETT WILKINS Apr 24, 2023

“Everything we do will be aimed at building and mobilizing the huge climate movement that turned out over the last four days,” said one Extinction Rebellion activist, referring to the Big One protests that ended Monday.

They gave British leaders until Monday to engage with their demands or face a renewed wave of civil disobedience, and as their deadline passed without a response, climate campaigners had a new message for the right-wing U.K. government: “You had your chance—now we’re stepping it up.”

Last week, a coalition led by Extinction Rebellion (XR) demanded that the U.K. government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, produce a plan for ending the fossil fuel era in the face of a worsening planetary emergency and include the climate movement in the process.

The green groups said that failure to meet their ultimatum would result in massive civil disobedience like last year’s demonstrations—in which activists blocked roads, bridges, and fossil fuel infrastructure; interrupted a speech by then-Prime Minister Liz Truss, a Tory; glued themselves to buildings; and splashed tomato soup on a protected Van Gogh painting.

“Collectively, we can unite, and demand better. We have the power in all of us.”

At the start of the year, XR vowed to no longer use “public disruption as a primary tactic” and to leave the “locks, glue, and paint behind” in favor of prioritizing large demonstrations like the “The Big One,” which ended Monday and featured nationwide protests including a massive Earth Day die-in outside Parliament attended by tens of thousands of people.

“The government had a week to respond to our demands and they have failed to do so,” XR co-founder Clare Farrell said in a statement. “Next we will reach out to supporter organizations to start creating a plan for stepping up our campaigns across an ecosystem of tactics that includes everyone from first-time protesters to those willing to go to prison.”

https://twitter.com/XRebellionUK/status/1650540639803658240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1650540639803658240%7Ctwgr%5E562723342bbbc7c7a8172db9d18b10a2d38a8cb1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fthe-big-one-climate

“Over the next three months, we will be translating the appetite for action amongst people at The Big One into a whole new range of campaigns and action across the country,” XR action coordinator Rob Callender said in a statement.

“Everything we do will be aimed at building and mobilizing the huge climate movement that turned out over the last four days so that we can return to Parliament this year from every corner and community in the country in even greater numbers,” he added. “And this time we won’t leave until our demands to the government are met. We are all ready to do the important work of taking back our power and creating a better future for everyone.”

Dominique Palmer of coalition member Fridays For Future said: “Collectively, we can unite, and demand better. We have the power in all of us.”

“As we have seen, we cannot wait for politicians to take action that prioritizes people and planet over profit, and so we must demand it,” Palmer added. “By applying pressure, we can win. And create an equitable future.”

Original article republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) licence.

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Endless debates about soup and paintings serve those who’d prefer we ignore the climate crisis

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Just Stop Oil activists with their hands glued to the wall after throwing tomato soup on Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery. Photograph: Just Stop Oil/AFP/Getty Images. dizzy: I’m assuming that this is a JSO image really.

Zoe Williams

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/01/debates-soup-paintings-action-climate-crisis-just-stop-oil-xr

Opponents of meaningful action are trying to sidestep the immediacy of the threat to our planet

Expert opinion is settled and public opinion united on the urgency of climate action. If our politics or our discourse were in any way functional, there would be no confusion, no debate. We would simply be proceeding from one bold practical action to the next, following the blueprints laid out by the Climate Change Committee.

Instead, we have energy policies stitched together from reheated cliches, which on the one hand doesn’t matter, since no prime minister has been stable or focused enough to iterate them since Brexit, but on the other hand does matter. There is nothing more depressing than to go back to Amber Rudd’s “energy reset” speech of 2015: what if, instead of dismissing renewables incentives as “Blairite”, she’d actually taken them seriously and built on them? What if she’d pushed energy-efficient homes instead of the “unfettered market”, what if she’d made a plan to reduce dependence on gas from Vladimir Putin rather than increase it? “Spoiler alert,” wrote the renewables entrepreneur Bruce Davis at the time: “this doesn’t end well for bill payers.” And nor has it.

Obviously, Conservatives are only interested in their own internal dumb-and-dumber popularity contests, and cannot be trusted to make sound, long-term decisions in the national interest. They degrade everything in public life. But they only get away with this because of the discursive cover provided by pointless debates about climate action.

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Continue ReadingEndless debates about soup and paintings serve those who’d prefer we ignore the climate crisis