About 35 supporters of the Just Stop Oil campaign staged blockades at the Cobham services in Surrey and the Clacket Lane services in Kent, both on the M25, smashing the display glass on petrol pumps with hammers and defacing them with spray paint.
The action against new fossil fuel targets came after the companies controlling the fuel terminals that had previously been targeted obtained civil injunctions banning protests at their sites.
The activists struck at the two motorway services at 7am. A video from one site showed a campaigner using a small window-breaking hammer to smash the glass on one pump, and spraying the broken dial with orange spray paint.
Ten more arrests have been made after a protest outside a giant Midland oil terminal today. It was the second demonstration in two days at the Kingsbury depot, near Tamworth.
Activists stood and held placards outside the UK’s largest inland oil depot on April 27. According to protesters, they were arrested “pretty swiftly”.
Yesterday, April 26, some 16 people were taken into custody for blocking the entrance to the site. Activists on the ground told BirminghamLive it was the first action since they wrote to Boris Johnson demanding a halt to all future licensing and consent for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK.
Campaigners from a group called ‘Axe Drax’ covered the headquarters of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy with paint using a fire extinguisher.
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According to the group’s social media account, they want to pressure the government into cutting ties with the Drax Group.
It’s part a string of protests targeting the company, which operate a biomass fuel station in North Yorkshire.
Three members of Insulate Britain have disrupted a magistrates court trial, gluing their hands to court furniture and paying tribute to the environmental activist who died after setting himself on fire outside the US supreme court.
Dr Diana Warner, a retired GP from Bristol, had been due to face trial at Stratford magistrates court on a charge of causing a public nuisance by obstructing junction 14 of the M25 on 27 September last year.
But when she entered the dock, fellow Insulate Britain members Liam Norton and Ana Heyatawin followed her into the court, began filming and broadcasting with their phones, and glued themselves to the furniture.
A number of activists have been arrested after breaching an injunction outside an oil terminal in Tamworth.
Members of the Just Stop Oil group blocked access to the Kingsbury Oil Terminal from 07:30 BST on Tuesday.
A new High Court injunction in the area grants police “enhanced powers to prevent and disrupt any unlawful activity”.
Warwickshire Police said it had detained 16 people following the demonstration.
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dizzy: If you count the people in the article photographs, it looks very close to 16 so we might assume that they’ve all been arrested which is probably the protesters’ expectation and intention
This evening, Mr Gardner urged protesters not to return. He said: “The High Court injunction remains in place. I would strongly advise against people coming to Kingsbury to conduct any protest activity.
“Although the force respects the right to a peaceful protest, we will always take action against anyone found to be acting outside of the law. If you’re believed to be in breach of the order, officers will arrest you and you will be taken into police custody until appearing before the courts.”
“Protest can be predicted by prior levels of public attention to the environment,” said Ms Kirby, “but a surge in protest levels also leads to increased public attention in the following months”.
“This effect is largely driven by recent protest, which indicates it played a role in recent rise in public concern.”
The research also suggests that the sheer number of people involved in recent protests has a bigger impact on raising concerns about the environment than protesting methods.
A US climate activist has died after he set himself on fire outside the US supreme court building in Washington.
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On Sunday, Kritee Kanko, a Boulder-based climate scientist and Zen Buddhist priest, said Bruce was a friend and member of her Buddhist community, who had been planning the self-immolation for “at least one year”.
“This act is not suicide. This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis,” Kanko said in a tweet.
In a subsequent interview with the New York Times, Kanko said she could not be certain about Bruce’s intentions. She told the newspaper that “people are being driven to extreme amounts of climate grief and despair” and that “what I do not want to happen is that young people start thinking about self-immolation”.
In an open letter to the UK judiciary, the group wrote: “We understand that this is a difficult time for the UK judiciary and we trust that you will connect to our shared humanity as we come to ask you for help…
“If a government insists on destroying the nation state, then that government is involved in tyranny. It is involved in an act of criminality of the highest order.
“It becomes the duty of all people of conscience to oppose that tyranny as an act of self-defence.
“The criminalisation by the judiciary of ordinary people attempting to preserve lives and the very fabric of our society is abhorrent.
Just Stop Oil has said it will suspend its direct actions against fuel distribution for a week, but has told the prime minister its members will escalate their disruptive protests “if you do not fulfil your duty to the people”.
For two and a half weeks, the climate activists have been targeting oil terminals and oil tankers in the Midlands and the south-east of England with blockades and mass trespass.
The government and petrol retailers have attempted to downplay the scale of the disruption to fuel deliveries. But there have been widespread reports of petrol station forecourts running dry in various parts of the country.
Just Stop Oil’s activists have vowed to continue their campaign until the government agrees to a ban on new oil and gas extraction projects, or until they are all jailed.
CLIMATE activists today targeted the London HQ of Israel’s largest private arms firm in protest at “brutal” attacks on al-Aqsa mosque by Israeli forces in recent days.
Members of the youth branch of Extinction Rebellion teamed up with the Palestine Action group to blockade the entrance of Elbit Systems’ offices in Holborn on Wednesday morning.
The groups said the action, which saw activists lock on to the entrance of the building at 77 Kingsway Road and hurl red paint across the facade, forced the offices to shut for the day.
Palestine Action said the activists wanted to show solidarity with Palestinian worshippers during Ramadan after Israeli forces launched a series of raids on the al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, injuring dozens of Palestinians.
Members of Extinction Rebellion (XR) marked Tax Day with the “No Wars, No Warming” demonstration outside a federal building in NYC where various agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), have offices.
Demonstrators perched on top of and locked themselves to two 15-foot tripods installed near the Charging Bull sculpture to block traffic on Broadway, according to organizers. Nine activists were arrested.
“We recognize that the people who are most often placed in harm’s way from armed conflict are also the people who have and will continue to face the brunt of the climate crisis,” says the XR event webpage. “In this moment, after two years of Covid-19, our tax money should be funding social services that benefit the communities most impacted by the climate crisis and most affected by decades of systemic underfunding.”