Monthly Archives: November 2021

Extinction Rebellion blockade Amazon warehouses on Black Friday

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Extinction Rebellion protest at Fife, Scotland.

Extinction Rebellion blockade Amazon over ‘exploitation of people and planet’

Extinction Rebellion (XR) blocked Amazon distribution centres on “Black Friday”—a day of sales and big profits for the business. 

The group occupied Amazon sites across Britain, in Germany and in the Netherlands in protest at its “exploitative and environmentally destructive business practices”. Climate activists are planning to continue the blockade for the next couple of days. 

Rosie, a student supporter of XR, spoke to Socialist Worker from the blockade at the company’s distribution centre in Doncaster in South Yorkshire. She said Amazon is exploiting “people and planet”. 

She said activists arrived at the depot at 4 am, with rebels locking onto concrete blocks and erecting a bamboo structure at one entrance. 

The group blocked the entrances that HGV lorries use to travel in and out of the centre, effectively halting distribution.

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Extinction Rebellion blockades Amazon UK hubs on Black Friday

Activists target distribution network to highlight company’s treatment of workers and environmental impact

Climate activists have blockaded Amazon distribution centres across the UK to highlight the company’s treatment of its workforce and what they say are its “environmentally destructive and wasteful business practices”.

Scores of Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists locked themselves together and used bamboo structures in an attempt to disrupt the online retail company’s distribution network on Black Friday – one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Unveiling banners reading “Infinite growth: Finite planet”, protesters said the blockade was part of an international action by XR targeting Amazon “fulfilment centres” in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spectator#Political_ideology_and_policy_positions

The Spectator is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs.[1] It was first published in July 1828,[2] making it the oldest weekly magazine in the world.[3]

It is owned by Frederick Barclay, [dizzy: [ed: the surviving] one of the ‘Barclay brothers’ who may be described as filthy rich i.e. extremely rich and extremely polluting and destructive] who also owns The Daily Telegraph newspaper, via Press Holdings. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture. It is politically conservative. Alongside columns and features on current affairs, the magazine also contains arts pages on books, music, opera, film and TV reviews.

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https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-snobbery-of-extinction-rebellion-s-amazon-blockade

The snobbery of Extinction Rebellion’s Amazon blockade

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Extinction Rebellion is fundamentally a movement for austerity. No wonder it is unpopular. We like our holidays, we like our comforts and we like our Black Friday bargains, so bugger off.

Tory MP Who Criticised Climate Action For Impact on World’s Poor Has Stakes in 18 Extractive Companies

A Tory MP who suggested it is “morally wrong” to discourage poor countries from pursuing high-carbon growth on climate change grounds has a financial interest in numerous fossil fuel and mining companies.

Among the 18 extractive companies listed under the MP’s entry in the parliamentary register of interests are Shell and the world’s largest oilfield services company, Schlumberger.

Marcus Fysh, a member of the “Net Zero Scrutiny Group” of MPs recently launched to push back against the government’s climate policies, told talkRADIO earlier this month the developing world should not be forced to follow greener economic pathways, speaking of the abject poverty he had witnessed in India.

“It is frankly morally questionable, morally wrong some might say, to try to withhold the prospect of development from such people that could improve their lives,” he said. 

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Continue ReadingExtinction Rebellion blockade Amazon warehouses on Black Friday

Extinction Rebellion unveils plans to mobilise millions for acts of civil disobedience after Cop26’s failures

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/extinction-rebellion-unveils-plans-to-mobilise-millions-for-acts-of-civil-disobedience-after-cop26-failures

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Extinction Rebellion (XR) vowed today to begin a major campaign of civil resistance in April, following on from large-scale protests before the coronavirus pandemic.

XR said that world leaders had failed to heed the pleas of experts at Cop26, with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Patricia Espinosa warning that Cop26 leaves the human race continuing to “invest in our own extinction.”

The criticism coincided with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) saying that, in order to avoid global warming exceeding the target of 1.5˚C, greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 45 per cent by 2030, but the world is on track for a 16 per cent increase in emissions by 2030.

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dizzy: Covid disrupted and frustrated climate activism while – of course – it didn’t disrupt or frustrate the continuing damage to the climate. COP26 was disappointing by failing to achieve any meaningful action, a wasted opportunity. Politicians are owned by the filthy rich and powerful.

Politics in UK is continuing to be dominated by the Brexit lies that promoted the Brexit fantasy. We’re on a path as a consequence and a continuation of those Brexit lies and delusions which are mostly xenophobic, racist and divorced from reality.

Continue ReadingExtinction Rebellion unveils plans to mobilise millions for acts of civil disobedience after Cop26’s failures

COP26 News review day 13

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COP26 overran into it’s thirteenth day today and produced the Glasgow Climate Pact.

Cop26 ends in climate agreement despite India watering down coal resolution

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The negotiations carried on late into Saturday evening, as governments squabbled over provisions on phasing out coal, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and providing money to the poor world.

The “Glasgow climate pact” was adopted despite a last-minute intervention by India to water down language on “phasing out” coal to merely “phasing down”.

The pledges on emissions cuts made at the two-week long Cop26 summit in Glasgow fell well short of those required to limit temperatures to 1.5C, according to scientific advice. Instead, all countries have agreed to return to the negotiating table next year, at a conference in Egypt, and re-examine their national plans, with a view to increasing their ambition on cuts.

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Continue ReadingCOP26 News review day 13

COP26 News review day 12

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The final day of the COP26 summit.

Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050 (feat. Greta Thunberg)

Hundreds of global civil society representatives walk out of Cop26 in protest

Carrying blood-red ribbons to represent the crucial red lines already crossed by Cop26 negotiations, hundreds of representatives of global civil society walked out of the convention centre in Glasgow on the final morning of the summit in protest.

The audience at the People’s Plenary in the conference blue zone heard speakers condemn the legitimacy and ambition of the 12-day summit before walking out to join protesters gathered on the streets beyond the security fencing.

“Cop26 is a performance,” the Indigenous activist Ta’Kaiya Blaney of the Tla A’min Nation told the meeting before the walkout. “It is an illusion constructed to save the capitalist economy rooted in resource extraction and colonialism. I didn’t come here to fix the agenda – I came here to disrupt it.”

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George Minbiot: Make extreme wealth extinct: it’s the only way to avoid climate breakdown

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A recent analysis of the lifestyles of 20 billionaires found that each produced an average of over 8,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide: 3,500 times their fair share in a world committed to no more than 1.5C of heating. The major causes are their jets and yachts. A superyacht alone, kept on permanent standby, as some billionaires’ boats are, generates around 7,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.

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I’ve come to believe that the most important of all environmental measures are wealth taxes. Preventing systemic environmental collapse means driving extreme wealth to extinction. It is not humanity as a whole that the planet cannot afford. It’s the ultra-rich.

Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds (An older article for context).

The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every minute, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed.

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Extra video from thejuicemedia

Continue ReadingCOP26 News review day 12

COP26 News review day 11

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‘We are not on course’: scientists warn action must match words at Cop26

Scientists attending Cop26 have sent a clear warning to policymakers: get a move on, because every moment of delay, every extra fraction of a degree of global heating will have dire consequences.

That message has been reinforced at Glasgow with reports, forums and discussions, but those involved in channelling the science to the world’s leaders are frustrated that words are still not being matched by actions.

Peter Stott, a climate scientist at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre who has been attending Cops since 1998, said he was marginally more optimistic than he had been before the Glasgow summit. “I have mixed emotions. I feel relieved that things have started to move, but I am concerned about the speed,” he said. “The scientific message we have talked about for 25 years is being acted on. That is a vindication. We might be starting to turn the corner. But I feel a strong sense of anxiety I haven’t felt before. I want to see the policymakers get a move on. In the next two years we have got to cut emissions rapidly.”

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Cop26 targets too weak to stop disaster, say Paris agreement architects

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Current national plans – known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – would lead to 2.4C of heating, according to an influential analysis this week by Climate Action Tracker.

Countries are currently expected to return with better pledges in 2025, but many are now demanding the deadline should be brought forward. This is seen as the most closely fought area of disagreement as the UK hosts struggle to broker a deal.

“If that [five years] is the first time that countries are called to increase their ambitions, honestly that’s going to be too late,” said Figueres, founding partner of the Global Optimism thinktank.

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COP26 aviation pledges ‘full of scams’, campaigners say

A COP26 declaration to cut aviation emissions is “full of scams”, environmental campaigners have warned.

The International Aviation ­Climate Ambition Coalition agreed to ­support measures to reduce the sector’s ­carbon emissions.

These included promoting the ­development of low-carbon aircraft, sustainable aviation fuels and carbon offsetting. It was signed by 20 countries ­including the UK, the US, France and Spain.

But Greenpeace is calling on ­European leaders not to support it, and urged them to ban short-haul flights and “massively invest” in rail instead.

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Better public transport is the only way to cut carbon emissions, unions and campaigners urge

CREATING universal and comprehensive public transport is the only way to effectively cut carbon emissions from travel at home and abroad, unions and campaigners have said during Cop26.

Campaigners and politicians condemned the lack of consideration of rail, bus, ferry and cycle transport during proceedings at the summit today, where the focus was put on cars and planes instead.

Officials and delegates at the gathering in Glasgow made a number of announcements on transport, including on zero-emissions vehicles, so-called green shipping corridors, and on decarbonising air travel.

Tory Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that travel, including aviation, should be “guilt-free.” He also said that the government did not see flying as “the ultimate evil,” after officials, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, were condemned for using planes for short journeys during Cop26.

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Continue ReadingCOP26 News review day 11