The situation remains unclear. Just Stop Oil have issued a press release saying that at least 15 people have been arrested at the organised soup event and at their homes. I noticed the number increase from 14 to 15 at about 10a.m. today and the press release url refers to 13.
28/6/24
While the situation still remains unclear, it appears that there was a huge police operation to arrest just Stop Oil supporters across England last night and the number arrested continues to increase.
The arrests took place in London, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Devon, Essex, Manchester, Surrey, Sussex, Norfolk and West Yorkshire on suspicion of planning to disrupt airports this summer.
It comes after six members of the group, some described as being ‘key organisers’ were arrested in Hackney, in east London last night.
They were at an event at Haggerston Community Centre, promoted by Just Stop Oil as: ‘From Roads to Runways – A Just Stop Oil Talk’.
Officers had warned the eco-activists are planning to disrupt airports and holidaymakers over the summer, saying the arrests were made under a section of the Public Order Act which makes it illegal to conspire to disrupt national infrastructure.
One Just Stop Oil source said the arrests were “pathologically evil”.
The number, they said, is likely to be higher as there are other members that they “are struggling to reach”.
Home visits are understood to have been made in cities including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Norwich and Oxford.
Arrests were made under Section 7 of the Public Order Act, which was passed by parliament at the start of 2023, preventing the conspiracy, planning and preparation for certain disruptive activities.
Climate activist targets Conservative election bus in protest at the government’s failure to adopt more ambitious climate policies
A Greenpeace activist climbed on to the top of the Conservative’s campaign bus this afternoon and unfurled a banner reading ‘Clean Power Not Paddy Power’, in protest at both the election date betting scandal engulfing the government and the Prime Ministers’ failure to deliver more ambitious climate policies.
Amy Rugg-Easey was able to get on to the bus at a campaign stop near Ollerton in Nottinghamshire, ahead of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s appearance in the last televised debate of the campaign, which is being hosted by BBC in Nottingham this evening.
“We’ve had enough of this government lurching from one scandal to the next, while gambling with our future,” Rugg-Easey said in a statement. “We need clean power, not Paddy Power.
“Fourteen years of Conservative governments has left this country broken. Sunak has gone backwards on climate action, ditching key pledges and promising to ‘max out’ the climate-wrecking oil and gas that are the cause of the cost-of-living crisis and our unaffordable bills. Our rivers are awash with sewage, and our economy, NHS and public services are on their knees.
“Enough is enough. We’ve climbed onto Sunak’s battle bus today to remind the British public that it is the Conservative government’s consistent failure to deliver greener, fairer policies that has created the mess we’re in. Don’t back the wrong horse – a vote for the climate is a vote for a better future.”
Rishi Sunak on stopping Rosebank says that any chancellor can stop his huge 91% subsidy to build Rosebank, that Keir Starmer is as bad as him for sucking up to Murdoch and other plutocrats and that we (the plebs) need to get organised to elect MPs that will stop Rosebank.Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
POLITICIANS have gone “awol” on the environment despite four in five voters expressing concern about the climate and the natural world, conservationists warned today.
New polling for conservation charity WWF shows that while 80 per cent say they care about issues relating to climate, nature and the environment, only 45 per cent believe that politicians share their level of concern.
They face increasing pressure to do more on the environment after tens of thousands of people marched through London at the weekend.
WWF warned today that the next five years will be “absolutely vital” for conservation efforts in Britain and abroad, with native wildlife from puffins to bluebells and mountain hares at risk from climate change, pollution and habitat loss.
Chief executive Tanya Steele said: “Our polling shows the environment is clearly a key issue for the public and they deserve to hear what the next government plans to do to restore nature and meet our climate targets.
“Unfortunately, politicians have largely gone awol on the environment during this campaign, but the next five years will be absolutely vital in bringing nature back from the brink, both at home and around the world.
“As the campaign enters the final straight, we’re calling on all parties to commit to action on nature and climate that’s hugely popular with the public.”
Two Just Stop Oil supporters who disrupted the Gallagher Premiership Rugby final in May 2023 were acquitted today at Kingston Crown Court. The unanimous 12-member jury found Samuel Johnson and Dr. Patrick Hart not guilty of the charge of criminal damage exceeding £5,000.
On 27th May 2023, the two supporters stormed the pitch in a cloud of cornstarch-based orange powder paint at Twickenham, where the Saracens were facing off against the Sale Sharks. They were demanding an immediate halt to any new licences for oil, gas, and coal projects in the UK.
Dr. Patrick Hart, a 38 year old GP from Bristol, said today:
“Normal people recognise that civil resistance is absolutely essential to break through the lies of the politicians, fossil fuel companies and banks who are destroying life on earth. I told the jury that I am taking the most effective action I can, on the best available evidence, to protect the health of my patients. To put it simply: I am doing my duty as a doctor.”
During the trial, the prosecution relied on the detailed, hours-long testimony of the groundskeeper. He explained that, unlike a similar action by Just Stop Oil supporters at the men’s Ashes Test at Lord’s, where the cornstarch was easily cleared with a leaf blower, the Twickenham pitch features a hybrid grass system that combines a natural grass sublayer with synthetic plastic grass. However, the testimony did not establish that ordinary people would have known the intricacies of Twickenham’s pitch maintenance, making it difficult for the prosecution to prove that the defendants had the criminal intent to cause the alleged damage.
One of those acquitted, Sam Johnson, a 41-year-old construction worker from Essex, commented on the outcome:
“A year ago, Patrick and I ran onto Twickenham during the Premiership final, throwing orange powder in the air. Today, we have been found not guilty of criminal damage. I took part in this action because our politicians continue to issue licences, knowing full well it will result in the deaths of millions of people. Thousands have died due to extreme heat brought on by climate change while we were on trial. This is happening now!”
A firefighter walks toward flames as the Highland Fire burns in Aguana, California, on October 31, 2023. (Photo: David Swanson/AFP via Getty Images)
“Climate change is not something off in the future,” said one scientist. “It’s happening before our very eyes.”
New findings about the rising frequency of extreme wildfires have “the fingerprints of climate change” all over them, according to an Australian scientist who led a study published on Monday.
Calum Cunningham, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tasmania in Australia, told The Washington Post that he was driven to examine current trends in the frequency of wildfires after climate deniers suggested that because the global area being burned in blazes is declining, the idea of a growing wildfire crisis is being overblown by concerned scientists.
While the area destroyed by wildfires is indeed on the decline, analyses that include all fires—the majority of which are small and cause relatively little damage—obscured how the most extreme and destructive wildfires are rapidly growing more frequent.
Cunningham and his team analyzed data from National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellites, collecting four images of wildfires around the world per day over 21 years. They used the images to identify the 0.01% most extreme wildfires—those that release the most smoke and greenhouse gas emissions due to their size and uncontrollable nature.
Out of 30 million fires across the world over two decades, the researchers identified the 2,913 most extreme fire events and found that the frequency and intensity of such wildfires has more than doubled since 2003.
“Climate change is making fire weather more extreme and more frequent in a lot of the world.”
The problem is rapidly getting worse, the team found: The six years with the most extreme wildfires had all occurred since 2017.
Trends were particularly troubling in particular regions, like temperate conifer forests in the western United States and the Mediterranean, where the number of extreme fires rose by more than 10 times in 20 years.
In boreal forests in places like northern Europe and Canada, the frequency of the most intense and hard-to-control blazes increased by seven times.
“It’s absolutely in keeping with what climate change is doing to fire weather around the world,” Cunningham told the Post. “Climate change is making fire weather more extreme and more frequent in a lot of the world.”
The “fire weather” that’s driven the increase includes hotter and drier conditions, with temperatures staying high even overnight when they ordinarily would have have dropped in previous decades, giving firefighters a chance to make headway in putting out blazes.
“Rarely did we have 100,000-acre fires 20 years ago,” veteran firefighter Bobbie Scopa told the Post. “But now, it’s not uncommon.”
The researchers pointed to a “scary” feedback loop created as extreme wildfires create carbon emissions—leading to more planetary heating and even more fires.
“Climate change is not something off in the future,” Cunningham told the Post. “It’s happening before our very eyes. This is the manifestation of the reshaping of the climate we are doing.”
The study was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution days after wildfires scorched more than 14,000 acres in Southern California and more than 24,000 acres in New Mexico, where two people were killed. Last year, climate scientists were stunned by an unprecedented wildfire season in relatively damp Eastern Canada, where wildfires were made twice as likely by the climate emergency according to the World Weather Attribution.
Climate scientist and author Bill McGuire called the findings “terrifying, of course, but just not a surprise,” considering governments in the countries that produce the most fossil fuels are continuing to support and subsidize energy sources that heat the planet.
