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Category: Climate Crisis

  • Protesters continue to block UK oil terminals despite arrests

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    Environmental protesters have continued to block UK oil terminals as part of a campaign to disrupt the fossil fuel industry despite dozens of arrests across the country.

    Supporters of Just Stop Oil began the action in the early hours of Friday morning at refineries near London, Birmingham and Southampton by climbing on to tankers and gluing themselves to roads.

    Despite at least 34 arrests, the activists continued to disrupt oil terminals on Saturday morning and said they had gained access to further sites.

    The group announced on social media that they had blocked Navigator terminals in Essex, posting photos of protesters in hi-vis jackets on top of a tanker and others blocking a road with a banner reading “Just Stop Oil”.

    They said protesters had blocked access to the Titan Truck Park and revealed a secret underground network of tunnels leading to the site. The development means the main and emergency access roads to the critical oil terminals are closed.

    “We need the government to stop funding new oil projects and we need it now! Our only means of highlighting this issue is mass civil resistance,” they said in a post on Instagram.

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    Conservative MP for South Thanet Craig Mackinlay calls for renewable sources of energy to be abandoned!

  • Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion’s oil terminal protests

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    News articles about the protests at oil terminals that started today.

    Inside Just Stop Oil, the youth climate group blocking UK refineries

    A band of 20-year-olds have made headlines disrupting football games, the Baftas and now oil facilities across the UK. But what do they want?

    …

    At a recruitment meeting last Thursday in Camden, north London, Larch Maxey, a veteran eco-campaigner, said the aim was “to build a community of civil resistance in response to the climate change science”.

    “In 2022 you have got tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers spelling out the climate science,” he said. Authorities such as David Attenborough and David King, the former government chief science officer, were in agreement, he said: there is a narrow window of two to three years in which to act. “We are facing the end of civilisation if we do not act on the climate emergency. We are heading towards societal collapse.

    “When your house is on fire, you stop pouring petrol on the flames,” he said. “That’s basically the demand – no new licences. We are in a crisis. Let’s stop digging out new oil and gas.”

    …

    The key shift in Just Stop Oil is what its supporters say is a move from civil disobedience and into civil resistance. What that means, as Jess Causby, 25, a supporter of the campaign, told the Guardian last month, “is stopping pointing out what the government should or shouldn’t be doing [and instead] actively stopping government doing what they shouldn’t be.”

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    END FOSSIL FUELS NOW: Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil block oil facilities across the UK

    April 01, 2022 by Extinction Rebellion

    …

    The government is making a choice to continue its addiction to fossil fuels as war wages in Ukraine, instead of accelerating the transition to a renewable led future. They could choose not to. Just a few months on from the “last chance” of COP26, Boris Johnson now claims the current crisis demands a “climate change pass”.[6] The Prime Minister says he wants to “remove barriers” to increased extraction of fossil fuels from the North Sea and has now gone begging Saudi Arabia to increase its oil supply.[7][8] The UK is also set to approve licenses for 40 new fossil fuel projects.[9]

    The recent IPCC report tells us in no uncertain terms that the window is closing on adaptation, let alone mitigation.[10] The Environment Agency put it bluntly in its October 2021 report: Adapt or Die.[11] Breakdown is happening in a way that isn’t allowing time for adaptation. According to the UN Secretary General, staying on fossil fuels will cause an atlas of human suffering and ‘delay means death’.[12][13]

    All of this is taking place despite recent polling showing that the UK public wants climate action now in face of the energy crisis.[14] As fossil fuel multinationals use the war in Ukraine to lobby for new extraction, they are also getting huge tax breaks, while its expected that 1 in 4 people in the UK will not be able to pay their bills by September.[15][16] 

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    [6] https://www.netzerowatch.com/boris-johnsons-climate-change-pass-for-natural-gas-welcomed/

    [7] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/energy-oil-gas-ukraine-boris-johnson-b2035408.html

    [8] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-saudi-oil-executions-b2037442.html

    [9] https://neweconomics.org/2021/10/40-new-uk-fossil-fuel-projects-emitting-triple-the-uks-annual-emissions-could-be-approved-by-2025

    [10] IPCC key takeaways: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/key-takeaways-ipcc-report-climate-impacts-adaptation-2022-02-28/

    [11] https://www.cityam.com/adapt-or-die-warns-uk-environment-agency-as-iea-cautions-worlds-coal-reliance/

    [12] https://www.politico.eu/article/landmark-climate-report-details-an-atlas-of-human-suffering/

    [13] https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/delay-means-death-un-climate-report-urges-immediate-drastic-action-2022-02-28/

    Just Stop Oil protests: Terminal operations suspended and arrests made

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    Extinction Rebellion spokesman Andy Smith said the group had “held” three locations of strategic importance to the UK’s energy network:

    • Esso West, near Heathrow Airport
    • Esso Hythe, Southampton
    • BP Hamble, also Southampton

    Campaigners from the Just Stop Oil group say they are protesting at seven other sites:

    • Inter Terminals UK, Grays, Essex
    • Navigator Terminals Thames, Grays, Essex
    • Buncefield Oil Depot, Hemel Hempstead
    • Esso Birmingham
    • Purfleet Fuels Terminal, Essex
    • Kingsbury Oil Terminal, Warwickshire
    • BP Depot, Tamworth

    Operations had been halted at Hythe, Birmingham, Purfleet and West London terminals, said ExxonMobil.

    The company said its terminal at Avonmouth, Bristol, was not affected by the demonstrations.

    It apologised for any inconvenience.

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    and from the right-wing bigots …

    Patrick Christys: Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are domestic terrorists who need locking up

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    And yet here we are. These environmental bandits are at it again.

    Hundreds of eco activists from Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil have blocked ten major oil terminals across England in a mass protest amid demands that the Government stops new oil and gas projects.

    They’re blocking oil tankers from leaving the sites, which, if it continues, would only serve to push up the price of oil more.

    …

    Some bloke who’s never worked a day in his life, doesn’t care about money because he wants us all to live in a vegan hippy commune using moss for mattresses is making the cost of living crisis even worse.

    …

    These eco bandits are a menace.

    Conservative MP for South Thanet Craig Mackinlay calls for renewable sources of energy to be abandoned!

  • NOW: Oil protest: Arrests made as Exxon Mobil suspends operations

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    Oil protest: Arrests made as Exxon Mobil suspends operations

    Six people have been arrested after a campaign group targeted fuel terminals in a protest against oil.

    The arrests were made at three sites in Thurrock, Essex Police said.

    Oil company Exxon Mobil has temporarily suspended operations at three other terminals due to a series of co-ordinated “small protests”.

    Campaign group Just Stop Oil said it had blocked 10 “critical” sites including in Birmingham, Hemel Hempstead and Hythe in Kent.

    Operations from these locations had been halted, Exxon Mobil said.

    …

    Just Stop Oil said in a statement: “The Just Stop Oil coalition is demanding an end to the government’s genocidal policy of expanding UK oil and gas production and is calling on all those outraged at the prospect of climate collapse and suffering from the cost-of-living crisis to stand with us.

    “Ordinary people can no longer afford oil and gas, it’s time to just stop oil.”

  • Climate news review

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    A few of today’s climate news stories

    Insulate Britain says 117 supporters have been charged over road block protests after 857 arrests

    Climate activists say they expect numbers to rise

    Climate group Insulate Britain has said 117 activists have been charged over road-blocking protests last year.

    Activists brought major roads – mostly in southern England – to a standstill during protests between September and November, which were aimed at drawing attention to the UK’s poorly heated homes.

    The Metropolitan Police, Kent Police and Essex Police have each issued charges in recent weeks.

    They include 146 charges of causing a public nuisance, 137 of wilful obstruction of the highway, and 10 of criminal damage.

    Insulate Britain said it is “likely these numbers will rise as we understand that further charges are still being issued”.

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    Greta Thunberg to publish a ‘go-to source’ book on the climate crisis

    The Climate Book will include contributions from scientist Katharine Hayhoe, economist Thomas Piketty and novelist Margaret Atwood

    Greta Thunberg is releasing a new book this autumn, which aims to offer a “global overview of how the planet’s many crises connect”.

    “I have decided to use my platform to create a book based on the current best available science – a book that covers the climate, ecological and sustainability crises holistically”, Thunberg said in a statement. “Because the climate crisis is, of course, only a symptom of a much larger sustainability crisis. My hope is that this book might be some kind of go-to source for understanding these different, closely interconnected crises.”

    In The Climate Book, which is due to be published by Penguin this autumn, Thunberg has assembled more than 100 contributors, from scientists Johan Rockström and Katharine Hayhoe to economist Thomas Piketty and novelist Margaret Atwood. The 19-year-old also shares what she has learned from her own experiences of climate activism. In particular, she discusses the prevalence of greenwashing, revealing the extent to which we have been kept in the dark about the issue. She names this as one of our biggest problems, but also our greatest source of hope – because, she believes, once we are all given the full picture, we will be able to act.

    “Right now, we are in desperate need of hope”, Thunberg said. “But hope is not about pretending that everything will be fine.”

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    France fails to meet court deadline to get Paris climate deal objectives back on track 

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    In a landmark ruling back in July 2021, France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, condemned the government’s failure to comply with the 2015 accord and tackle climate change.

    After a review, it concluded that the country was not doing enough to reach the agreement’s objective of reducing global greenhouse gases by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990.

    The court gave the government nine months to “take all useful measures” to get the country back on track.

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    UK parliament hunger strike ‘out of desperation’, climate activist says

    A climate activist who has been on hunger strike outside the UK Houses of Parliament for three weeks has said his protest was an “utter necessity” even though it was putting his life at risk.

    Angus Rose, a 52-year-old software engineer, tells The Independent he would rather be doing something else – such as hanging out with friends – than sat outside Westminster refusing to eat any food.

    But he says: “This is out of desperation.”

    …

  • Lismore flooding, Eastern Australia

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    Lismore in East Australia suffered extreme flooding at the end of February 2022. These 2 videos discuss that flooding. Further flood warnings have been issued in Lismore now – 29 March 2022 – a month later, warning people to evacuate.