Category: Extinction Rebellion
Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion’s oil terminal protests
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.”
…
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]
…
[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
[10] IPCC key takeaways: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/key-takeaways-ipcc-report-climate-impacts-adaptation-2022-02-28/
[12] https://www.politico.eu/article/landmark-climate-report-details-an-atlas-of-human-suffering/
Just Stop Oil protests: Terminal operations suspended and arrests made
…
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.
…
and from the right-wing bigots …
Patrick Christys: Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are domestic terrorists who need locking up
…
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.
NOW: Oil protest: Arrests made as Exxon Mobil suspends operations
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.”
UK Tory government intends to criminalise the fundamental democratic right to protest
5 WAYS THE GOVERNMENT’S POLICING BILL JUST WENT FROM BAD TO WORSE
Jun Pang – Policy and Campaigns Officer on 02 Dec 2021 at Liberty
…
Not content with the already draconian powers in the [Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts] Bill to shut down protests and criminalise people trying to make their voices heard, the Government has recently added amendments to it.
…
1. LOCKING ON
…
Locking on only needs to be “capable” of causing serious disruption to “two or more people”. On top of that, no one knows what “serious disruption” means because it’s not defined in the Bill. Instead, the Home Secretary will get to define and re-define it at will.
…
2. WILFUL OBSTRUCTION OF THE HIGHWAY
The current punishment for someone who wilfully obstructs the highway is a fine. Amendments to the Policing Bill will change it to up to 51 weeks in prison, a fine, or both.
Such heavy punishments will stop people taking to the streets to stand up to power – and will add to existing pressures on courts, prisons, and the probation service.
3. OBSTRUCTION OF MAJOR TRANSPORT WORKS
This is another new offence that a person commits if they obstruct someone from taking any steps connected to the construction or maintenance of any major transport works, or they in any way interfere with “any apparatus” relating to that construction or maintenance.
…
4. STOP AND SEARCH
The Government’s amendments will also expand stop and search. Police will be able to stop and search a person or vehicle for items intended for use in connection with the offences in the Bill: obstructing the highway, public nuisance, locking on, and obstructing major transport works.
Police will also be able to put orders in place allowing for ‘suspicion-less’ stop and search for these items in a specific location for up to 24 hours (and up to 48 hours, if authorised).
…
5. SERIOUS DISRUPTION PREVENTION ORDERS – PROTEST BANNING ORDERS
…
People given a protest banning order will be subject to a set of conditions, including not associating with certain people, going to certain places, carrying certain items, or using the internet in a certain way.
They can last for up to two years, but there is no limit to the number of times a protest banning order can be renewed by the court.
…
Protest is a fundamental right, but protest banning orders effectively ban people from organising and making their voices heard, striking at the heart of what makes protest meaningful and effective: political community.
…
TAKE ACTION
These new offences will either deter people from protesting, or drag them into the criminal justice system for doing so. They will further entrench discrimination, with devastating consequences for marginalised communities.
But they are’t law yet, and this Government buckles under public pressure and u-turns time and again.
If you haven’t yet signed the petition against the Policing Bill, do so today.
We’ve also created this quick and easy tool to email your MP and tell them to stop this dangerous and discriminatory Bill from becoming law.