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Adidas, West Papua, Egypt & Climate Crisis – 2012

Adidas, West Papua, Egypt & Climate Crisis were all subjects of protests in London on December 1st 2012

Adidas ‘Pay Your Workers’ – Oxford St

Adidas, West Papua, Egypt & Climate Crisis - 2012

The PT Kizone factory in Indonesia had made sportswear for Adidas, Nike and Dallas Cowboys for many years, its employlees often working for as little as $0.60 an hour. In January 2011 its owner fled the country and the factory closed in April 2011.

The 2,800 workers were left without jobs and by law were entitled to severance pay – a total of around US$2.8 million. Nike and Dallas Cowboys agreed to pay their share but Adidas were refusing to pay the $1.8 million they owed.

This led to a worldwide campaign to get them to pay up and on 1st December 2012 there were protests outside Adidas stores across the UK including this one on Oxford Street. Around a doozen people turned up, some wearing masks of Justin Bieber, the ‘global style icon’ for their NEO label.

They pointed out that Adidas had paid $157m to sponsor the Olympics but were refusing to pay around one hundredth of that amount to the destitute workers who had created their profits.

Pressure was growing on Adidas and in April 2013 they came to an agreement with those representing the former PT Kisone workers to pay compensation and in return the workers agreed to drop a legal case they were taking in the USA.

Adidas ‘Pay Your Workers’

Free West Papua – Indonesian Embassy, Grosvenor Square

December 1st is West Papua Independence Day, marking the day in 1961 when Netherlands New Guinea was granted its freedom by the Dutch, but that freedom did not last long.

The USA, driven by cold war fears that Indonesia might move towards the Soviet bloc decided in 1962 to set up a process that passed the area over to Indonesian control with a rigged election confirming this in 1969. Only a carefully selected group of 1,025 people out of the population of 800,000 were allowed to vote as representatives in a vote carried out by a show of hands and they were “coerced into voting against independence with threats of violence against their persons and their families.”

Since 1962 a movement for independence has continued, with peaceful protests outside the country and guerilla warfare guerrilla warfare against the Indonesian administration. The Free West Papua organisation is based in the UK and led by Benny Wenda, a tribal chief who escaped from an Indonesian prison and came to the UK. His wife, Maria Wenda and their children were present at today’s protest, along with other supporters of their struggle for freedom.

More on My London Diary at Free West Papua Independence Day.

Morsi’s Dictatorial Decree – Egyptian Embassy, South St, Mayfair

Over 50 protesters shouted noisily outside the Egyptian embassy condemning the decree by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi calling him a dictator. The decree gave him sweeping powers and made him immune from legal challenges until a new parliament was elected, and had led to violent protests in Egypt.

Morsi’s Dicatatorial Decree

Climate March Says ‘NO’ to Fracking

On the Global Day of Action on Climate Change, activists laid a pipeline from the US to Canadian embassies before marching to Parliament to erect a giant mock fracking rig with the message ‘No Fracking in the UK’.

The event began with a rally outside the US Embassy, then still in Grosvenor Square, chosen because the fossil fuel lobby in the USA, including the Koch Brothers has made the USA the main barrier to any effective world action over the climate crisis.

They then laid a pipeline from the US embassy to the Canadian Canadian High Commission at the opposite end of Grosvenor Square in protest against the Canadian exploitation of incredibly damaging high carbon tar sands.

Then the march set off on its way to parliament and a further rally in Old Palace Yard.

I arrived there in time to photograph the protesters raising a mock fracking rig and listen to speeches by Eve Macnamara from Ribble Estuary against Fracking, John McDonnell MP and Green Party leader Natalie Bennett.

More on My London Diary at Climate March Says ‘NO’ to Fracking.

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COP29 March For Global Climate Justice, London, 2024

COP29 March For Global Climate Justice: When this march was taking place on Saturday 16th November 2024, COP19 was just beginning in Baku, and there was still some small room for optimism, even though it seemed to be dominated by fossil fuel lobbyists, from its president Mukhtar Babayev, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan Republic and previously been Vice-President for Ecology at Azerbaijan’s national oil company SOCAR, down.

*London, UK. 16 Nov 2024. The start of the march*.

But now we know the agreement reached after many hours of argument at the end of the meeting we can only conclude ‘TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE’. Even in the unlikely event of the wealthier countries actually keeping their promises we will see dramatic catastrophes in much of the Global South in the coming years.

And of course we in the wealthier countries whose industrialisation created the mess the world is in as we burnt coal and oil resulting in a huge increase in carbon dioxide levels blanketing the world will also suffer.

Increasingly chaotic weather patterns, more and more serious storms with more floods and greater wind damage. Greater droughts too and more forest fires. More disruption of agricultural production and higher food prices.

More loss of species too, aided by other of the ‘benefits’ of industrial production with new insecticides coming to support those currently decimating pollinating insects such as bees.

As many of the marchers pointed out with their placards and flags, war and militarisation are huge drivers of climate change, both from the production of weapons and their use. One poster pointed out that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2023 produced roughly half as much CO2 as the UK’s emissions in the same year. War doesn’t just kill people but also is ecocide on a grand scale.

The continuing attacks by Israel on Gaza and Lebanon have also added huge amounts of carbon dioxide as well as killing many thousands of civilians both through direct bombing of homes, schools and hospitals but also through a deliberate policy of destroying infrastructure and preventing humanitarian supplies of food and medicines – for which the International Criminal Court recently issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallan.

Banners, posters and placards on the march rejected militarisation and called for an end to arming Israel. ‘THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT STANDS WITH PALESTINE – STOP FUELLING GENOCIDE AND CLIMATE BREAKDOWN’.

But however hopeless the world situation seems now, the election of Trump as US Pesident seems certainly to make things worse – already he has chosen Chris Wright, the CEO of Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy as Energy Secretary to lead his promise of increasing US fossil fuel production under his campaign pledge “Drill, Baby, drill”.

The current world political system dominated by institutions such as the IMF and World Bank and by Western governments increasingly seems unable to come up with any effective solutions to the climate crisis – as COP 19 and the previous 28 UN climate Change Conferences have shown. As the placards carried by many of the marchers stated, we need system change.

More pictures from the march online

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XR Zombie System Collapse Action – 30 Oct 2024

XR Zombie System Collapse Action: On Wednesday 30th October I returned to Trinity Square Garden to cover the third day and final day of Extinction Rebellion’s actions demanding the insurance industry end their support of new fossil fuel projects – part of a week of world-wide action, including protests the following two days in other UK cities. I’d missed Day 2 where they had marched with a giant potato.

XR had posted: “We Predict a Riot – mass action…..a zombie apocalypse! A wide range of creative actions will highlight what social collapse will look like in the UK as the population begins to panic in the face of repeated floods and food shortages over the next decade.”

And we had been promised a “Zombie die-in with flashmob, zombie insurers stumbling around” as well as a “Zombie Mass Dance Discobedience – This is the undead dance for life! – wear business suits with a zombie twist. We are the undead, dancing our way through the halls of power to expose the profiteers of destruction!”

I arrived to find a group of around 20 people practising the Zombie dance in Trinity Square, and a giant bomb of CO2 with protesters in business suits holding red boxes with the words WAR, FAMINE, EXTINCTION and FLOOD and a man reading a special copy of the ‘Daily Fail’.

Eventually the several hundred protesters set off on a march heading to Tower Palce, the home of insurers MarshMcLennan, where there was loud music from the Samba band, a short speech calling on them to end the insuring of new fossil fuel projects, a die-in, a few zombies runnning around and then the Zombie Mass Dance Discobedience.

*Reading The Crimes outside insurers MarshMcLennan*

Next stop was insurers AIG where a small group went inside the building to deliver a letter, but were soon ushered out.

The march continued around the City, before stopping for a lunch break outside the Howden Group offices on the corner with Bevis Marks.

After lunch the march continued, going back past Lloyds and on to the Sky Garden building in Fenchurch St, home to home to insurers Ascot, Talbot, Chaucer, Markel, Allied World, CNA Hardy, Tokio Marine Kiln, Sirius International and Lancashire Syndicates.

Here a small group had arrived before us to poster the windows with large signs, ‘INSURING FOSSIL FUELS = CLIMATE CHAOS’ and three campaigners were perched on top of the main entrance porch.

I’d been on my feet too long and things seemed to be at an end, so I sloped off for a pint of Brains (it was Halloween) in the Crosse Keys before making my way home. You can read about the protest in a press release from XR, and see more of my pictures here.

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XR Floods Are Here – Don’t Insure Fossil Fuels – 2024

XR Floods Are Here – Don’t Insure Fossil Fuels: On Monday 28th Oct 2024 Extinction Rebellion began three days of action in London demanding that insurers end supplying insurance to fossil fuel projects. This was a part of a week of action with protests taking place around the country and of a global campaign, ‘Insure Our Future‘.

On October 14th XR sent an ultimatum to senior executives at all the UK-based insurance companies who insure climate breakdown telling them that unless they made “a pledge to get out of new oil, coal and gas” they would face non-violent direct action and protests.

“Insure Our Survival spokesperson Steve Tooze said: “The insurance industry has the power to stop the fossil fuel industry in its tracks by withdrawing the insurance that protects them from huge financial losses when things go wrong in a high-risk industry.

“Currently, insurers are refusing to use that power. Instead, they are choosing to bet on profits from underwriting oil, gas and coal projects that are accelerating the climate crisis to levels that could destroy our civilisation in our lifetimes.

“In effect, Insurers are insuring the worst people in the world to dig up more fossil fuels that cause extreme weather and flood our homes. Then they are charging us more and more to insure our homes against the increasing risk of flooding. “

The letter, also published online, pointed out that one of the most respected climate research institutions in the world the Potsdam Institute had just issued a damning report which made clear we were facing a global emergency and “very fabric of life on Earth is imperilled.” They point out that global fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes account for approximately 90% of the carbon dioxide and “and other greenhouse gases are the primary drivers of climate change.”

Without insurance, new fossil fuel projects could not go ahead. At least one insurance company, Zurich Insurance, immediately announced that hey would no longer insure new oil and gas projects.

Monday’s protest theme was ‘The floods are here!‘ and this protest came the day before it was sadly demonstrated how true this was when “torrential rain … brought over a year’s worth of precipitation to several areas in southeastern Spain, including the Valencian Community, Castilla–La Mancha, and Andalusia.”

Several hundred XR protesters met at Tower Hill at 11am and set off to march around the City of London to stage protests outside insurance offices. Some wore southwesters and were carrying a pink inflatable boat, with others wore white hazard suits and held ‘CLIMATE CRIME SCENE’ police tapes.

Among the insurers the march targeted were Allianz and Lloyds and there were smaller groups picketing Hiscox which is supporting the the EACOP East Africa Crude Oil ‘carbon bomb’ pipeline and AXA.

Away from the march supporters Scientists for XR entered the lobby of the insurance industry’s regulatory body, the Prudential Regulation Authority. The march ended with a die-in in the open area next to St Mary Axe, facing Lloyds and next to the Leadenhall Building.

More pictures at XR The Floods Are Here action.

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Stop Fossil Fuel Dirty Money takeover of US

Stop Fossil Fuel Dirty Money takeover of US: The headline I wrote for the events of Wednesday 7th November 2012 could well have been written for this year’s US elections where Trump’s whole career in politics has been supported by fossil fuel companies.

Huge lobbying by these companies and a deliberate campaign of misinformation and pseudoscience, financing studies which cast doubt or contradict the scientific consensus of global warming happening because of fossil fuel use has resulted in US governments not taking effective action against these polluters.

According to the chairman of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, the Republican Party is controlled by the fossil fuel industry and as well as huge subsidies also gets “the license to pollute for free.”

Under the Democrats the US has finally taken some limited action with promises to phase out fossil fuel use but the government in 2022 still supplied around $15 billion a year in subsidies to the industry.

The protest in 2012 was calling on President Obama “to stand up against the lobbying, dirty money and media lies funded by the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel companies.” He didn’t.

You can read more about the protest, which began outside the London offices of the Koch Brothers, Koch International in Fenchurch St at the heart of the City of London with a huge banner ‘KOCH BROTHERS – DIRTY MONEY – FUNDING CLIMATE DENIAL’ on My London Diary.

A high wind made it difficult to hold up the banner while the protest continued with speeches. But the big banner certainly attracted a great deal of attention, though soon they had to take it down as it became impossible to hold. But there were plenty of placards showing heads of prominent US right wing politicians and media commentators, each with their names and some ridiculous quotations related to climate change, as well as those of Obama and Romney and the two Koch brothers, along with some smaller banners.

There was another big banner of the side of the open-top bus which the Campaign Against Climate Change had hired to take the protesters to the US Embassy.

I went with them for what was probably the most uncomfortable bus journey of my life. It was cold in the strong icy wind and the bus bumped and lurched ridiculously.

It was hard to keep standing as I took pictures and I had to hold on with one hand all the time, using the other to take pictures. There wasn’t a great deal of light and getting sharp pictures at 1/30 f4 (full aperture for my wideangle zoom) was difficult with the bouncing and vibration of the bus.

Somehow I managed, and Phil Thornhill managed to to use the megaphone, at least during some of the halts in traffic. But I was very pleased (and very frozen) when we arrived and got off the bus in Grosvenor Square.

Police at Grosvenor Square tried to herd the protesters into a small pen in a dark corner, but they refused and were finally allowed to go in front of the locked main entrance gates, with those faces and their quotations peering over the hedge from the gardens behind the main actors and speakers.

More on My London Diary at Stop Fossil Fuel Dirty Money takeover of US.

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Defend Our Juries – 24 Oct 2024

Defend Our Juries Free Political Prisoners: A week ago I went to photograph an unusual protest which took the form of an exhibition, the Free Political Prisoners Exhibition.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10169134705895467&type=3

The protest was organised by Defend Our Juries, a group set up following recent trials in which juries have been prevented from hearing the defences of those on trial and have been directed by judges that they cannot follow their consciences in coming to their verdict.

Here is a part of what was on the leaflet that they handed out during the exhibition. You can find more about the campaign on their web site.

Why do juries need defending

Juries put the moral sense of ordinary people into the heart of the criminal justice system. In recent years, juries have repeatedly acquitted those taking nonviolent direct action to advance climate, racial, and animal justice. These verdicts are deeply embarassing to the goverment and the arms and oil industries, industry lobbyists such as Lord Walney have promoted extraordinary measures to try and stop them.

People on trial have been banned from using the words ‘climate change’ or ‘fuel poverty’ in court and have even been jailed just for defying that ban,

Usual legal defences have been removed by seemingly biased jusges. People have been arrested and prosecuted for displaying the centuries-old principle of jury equite – juries can find a person on trial not guilty as a matter of conscience, regardless of what the judge directs.

They had come to the Justice Ministry to protest outside the office of Attorney General Richard Hermer KC to ask him to agree to Chris Packham’s and Dale Vince’s request for an open and transparent public meeting to discuss the measures necessary to restore the fundamental rights to protest and fair trial essential to a functioning democracy, as called for by the United Nations.

As well as some of the UK’s current political prisons including those from Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action currently serving long prison sentences for non-violent direct action the posters in the show featured many other political prisoner from around the world and throughout history such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Martin Luther King Jr “peaceful change-makers [who] should be celebrated as essential to upholding democracy.”

Reverend Billy of the NY Church of Earthalujah sits with pictures of political prisoners.

Among those taking part in the protest were William Talen, better known as the Reverend Billy, and members of his Stop Shopping Choir from New York, currently on a UK tour who I was pleased to meet again having photographed him at various protests in London in earlier years.

More pictures on Facebook

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Rev Billy, Chelsea Manning & Global Racism – 2013

Rev Billy, Chelsea Manning & Global Racism – On Saturday 27th July 2013 I followed the amazing Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir into a branch of HSBC to protest over their support for fossil fuels, went to a vigil supporting whistleblower Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning and then a march and rally against Global Racism and Injustice

Rev Billy at HSBC Victoria,

If you’ve not come across Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, a radical performance community based in New York City led by Billy Talen you have missed something. They perform guerrilla theatre actions which amuse and entertain while also highlighting the serious problems the world is facing and calling for action.

The performance in London was one of many at various JP Morgan Chase and HSBC banks in 2012 and 2013 which had begun in New York, a “radicalized midsummer cloud forest dream” against the support given to fossil fuels and climate chaos by the banks and the City of London.

Golden Toads had become extinct in their home in Costa Rica, one of many species that have already become extinct because of climate change. The message of the performance “was a simple one. Fossil Fuels are killing life on this planet. Already many species have suffered extinction, and the continuing huge investment in fossil fuel use backed by the banks and the stock exchange is driving climate change, threatening us all with extinction.“

As I wrote “London’s banks and the London Stock Exchange are playing a key role in the destruction of life on the planet, with over £900 billion of Fossil fuel shares on the London Stock Exchange – a quarter of the value of all the holdings and representing fossil fuel reserves of over 200 time the UK’s annual carbon emissions. Burning of all these reserves would create catastrophe. Between 2010-2012 … the top five UK banks raised £170 billion for fossil fuel companies, and the largest of these was the HSBC.”

On My London Diary you can read how I met the group as they trained for the performance opposite New Scotland Yard and then more about the performance which as well as the Golden Toads people also played moneys, eagles and jaguars and were joined by a gorilla. with the Rev Billy preaching about the need for the banks to repent and change their ways as the animals dropped dead on the branch floor.

One member of the team was there to reassure the bank staff and customers that there was no threat to them or property and that the performers would leave as soon as the event finished. And they did, leaving behind only some leaflets and small pools for water on the floor from the large ice eggs the Golden Toads had brought with them to help cool the planet down.

After leaving the bank the performance carried on for a few minutes on the wide pavement outside. A couple of police officers arrived and went inside the Bank to talk with the staff, and by the time they came out the Rev Billy and others were leaving to celebrate a successful action at a café and bar in Victoria station.

More at Rev Billy at HSBC.

Free Bradley Manning Vigil – St Martin’s, Trafalgar Square

People were begining to arrive to take part in a silent vigil on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Square as a part of the international day of action by the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Bradley – now Chelsea – Manning’s court-martial for passing classified documents to Wikileaks had begun over a month earlier and an inevitable ‘guilty’ verdict was expected shortly.

The documents had exposed a great deal of illegal and immoral actions by the US and other governments and Manning had been celebrated in countries across the world and awarded the Sean MacBride Peace Prize.

On July 30th 2013 Manning was sentenced to 35 years in the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, but in 2017 her sentence was commuted by President Obama to seven years and she was released. In 2019 she was again imprisoned for a year for contempt of court after refusing to testify at a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Free Bradley Manning Vigil

Against Global Racism and Injustice – US Embassy to Whitehall

Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK organised a march and rally against Global Racism and Injustice in solidarity with families of Trayvon Martin, Stephen Lawrence, Azelle Rodney, Jimmy Mubenga and many others to highlight the reality of racism and seek justice, both in the UK and US.

The event began with a rally outside the US Embassy, then still in Grosvenor Square, led by Zita Holbourne and Lee Jasper, founders and national co-chairs of BARAC, an anti-austerity, anti-racist campaigning organisation, with various other activists and poets speaking.

The event was supported by a wide range of anti-racist groups including Operation Black Vote, the National Black Students Campaign, Global Afrikan Congress, PCS, RMT Black Members, Counterfire, UAF, Love Music Hate Racism, Lambeth TUC, Lambeth People’s Assembly.

The protest was in part because of the global outcry over the acquittal in Florida of the murderer of Trayvon Martin under the Florida ‘Stand Your Ground’ law. But it was a protest against global racism and injustice, with a particular emphasis on several well-known cases in this country.

One was the attempt by the Metropolitan Police to smear both the Lawrence family and its supporters through a covert police surveillance unit while failing to properly investigate the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Lee Jasper stated “We march for Jimmy Mubenga, Mark Duggan, Kingsley Burrell, Smiley Culture and Azelle Rodney. We march for justice and equality in the 50th anniversary year of Dr Martin Luther King’s 1968 March on Washington. The truth is that his dream is a threadbare vision here in the UK where racism is on the rise amplified by austerity.”

More at Against Global Racism and Injustice.

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International Rebellion – Shut Down London 2019

International Rebellion – Shut Down London: Monday 15th April 2019 was the start of Extinction Rebellion’s International Rebellion which lasted for 11 days. They had said they intended to keep the roads closed until the government took necessary action on the global climate and ecological emergency. They said the government must tell people the truth about the disaster we are facing, halt biodiversity loss, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025, and set up and be led by a Citizen’s Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

Of course the government did nothing of the sort, but simply issued a number of intentionally misleading statements claiming they were world leaders in combating climate change and waited for the protesters to go home.

It’s not quite true they did nothing. They put increasing pressure on the Met Police to do something effective against the protesters, and later introduced some draconian laws that could be used against future protests like this.

Five years later every week brings more evidence that climate change is really happening and our government still fails to take this seriously, issuing licences for further fossil fuel exploration. What we need is urgency but what we see is complacency.

XR’s ‘International Rebellion’, with actions around the world as well as in London was just one of a whole long series of protests, international conferences, scientific papers and more over many years that have warned that the world is heading for catastrophe. Svante Arrhenius first warned that the increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would lead to global temperature increase back in 1896.

Back in the 1960s and 70s, when I first became interested (and spoke publicly though very few were listening) our main emphasis was on resource limitations and population growth. It was by then very clear that anyone who thought we could continue our exponential economic growth on a finite planet had to be an economist and not anyone living in the real world.

But both our major political parties (and most of the minor ones) are still committed to growth while paying lip-service to ‘net zero’. And that growth will be dirty growth, continuing to exploit our oil and gas resources as well as clear cutting forests elsewhere in the world to burn their wood.

I think it is more a failure of our political system, very much a top-down system designed to protect the interests of the wealthy, than of individual politicians. XR’s call for a Citizen’s Assembly on climate and ecological justice is an important one which would work from the bottom up and produce policies which were based on the interests of all of us – which is why it will almost certainly never be implemented.

While they went home after 11 days having failed to change government policies, these protests were impressive and did I think have some effect in changing public opinion, awakening more to the desperate situation we are now in. Even some of those working for the media if not their proprietors.

XR’s call to rebellion stated “Our leaders have failed us. It’s time to rebel – and have a damn good time doing it.” And for those eleven days they put on an impressive festival, but it was only a start of what need to happen.

Over those eleven days I went to XR’s events in London on several days, taking many pictures and writing about what I saw of this impressive protest. The pictures here all come from the first day, Monday 15th April 2019 and here are links to all my posts from that day – not all XR.

Extinction Rebellion Garden Bridge
Extinction Rebellion Sea at Oxford Circus
Anti-capitalist environmental action
Extinction Rebellion Marble Arch
Extinction Rebellion Funeral Procession
Extinction Rebellion at Shell
Save Lambeth Children’s Centres

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Time to Act on Climate Change – 2015

Time to Act on Climate Change – it was indeed time to act on climate change when over 20,000 of us marched through the streets on Saturday 7th March 2015, but though almost all the scientists and others who had studied their reports were convinced the nine years since then have been largely wasted years.

There have been some minor changes both in the UK and across the world, but nothing like enough to reverse the growing climate chaos – and our current government seems determined to stay on course for extinction, giving approval to new fossil fuel schemes.

Not that the current opposition, who may well become our government at the next general election seem any better. Instead of taking a firm line to oppose these climate-wrecking schemes and promising to reverse the decisions when they come to power they have said they will allow them to proceed. They have promised not to approve more, but then they have already abandoned most of the promises they had made earlier, including those related to climate change.

In 2021 Labour announced a £28 billion annual green spending plan creating new jobs in battery manufacturing, hydrogen power, offshore wind, tree planting, flood defences and home insulation in the first term when they came to power. They abandoned this pledge in Feb 2024, cutting by half or more its green investment plan.

Back in 2015 the climate march and rally demanded real action without delay with a total divestment from fossil fuels, an end to fracking and damaging bio-fuel projects and for a 100% renewable energy future which would create a million new jobs. The Labour policy would have been a watered down version of this, coming ten years at least too late, but now hardly coming at all.

The organisers of the march through London had refused to pay for any policing of the event, saying it was not needed and it proceeded peacefully largely in their absence. There were large groups of police protecting some businesses, particularly the Strand McDonalds, where some marchers stopped to protest.

A large group of the marchers, including a block from Frack Free Lancashire led by the Nanas, then sat down on the road and halted the march for around 15 minutes before getting up and continuing.

A black block of several hundred behind a banner ‘TIME TO ACT ON CAPITALISM’ made a lot of noise going down Whitehall, and then rushed off down King Charles Street rather than continue to the rally. I went with them for a few yards and then decided to go back and join the many thousands on the main march which ended with a rally on College Green, close to the Houses of Parliament.

Here is the list I gave of the speakers in the account I wrote in 2015, and there are pictures of most of them on My London Diary:

Among the speakers were John Sauven of Greenpeace UK, Kat Hobbs from CAAT, Bert Wander of Avaaz, Pete the Temp, Fatima-Zahara Ibrahim of the Youth Climate Coalition, Pete Deane from Biofuelwatch, Guy Shrubsole from Friends of the Earth, FBU leader Matt Wrack, Rumana Hashem an evironmental activist from Bangladesh, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, Tina-Louise Rothery who spoke toegther with a Frack Free Lancashire crowd, Dennis Fernando, UAF, Chris Baugh, PCS, John McDonnell, MP, and comedian Francesca Martinez. A woman from Paris (whose name I missed) invited us all to go there to protest at the climate talks there this December, and a 12 year-old read an excellent speech she had prepared.

There was then a performance by a large choir, Voices United, and the event concluded with John Stewart of HACAN who came on stage together with some polar bears from a protest earlier in the day at Heathrow who received prolonged applause.
Time to Act on Climate Change

At the end of the rally we were invited to take part in two other protests continuing the day’s theme and I went with ‘Art Not Oil’ proceeding with their Viking longship to protest on the steps of Tate Britain against the gallery accepting sponsorship to greenwash climate wrecker BP. Partly I chose this rather than the planned direct actions around Parliament as I thought it would get less press coverage, but it was also on my way to Vauxhall station where I could catch a train home.

Viking longship invades Tate steps
Climate Change Rally
Time to Act on Climate Change

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Extinction Rebellion Tries to Persuade Insurers

Extinction Rebellion Tries to Persuade Insurers – From 26th February to 3rd March 2024, Extinction Rebellion have been holding an ‘Insurance Week of Action’ with large peaceful protests and some non-violent direct actions directed at the insurance industry, particularly in the City of London,

London, UK. 28 Feb 2024. Only Fools Insure Fossil Fuels.

As the XR website put it:

“At the same time as Coal Action Network, Mothers Rise Up, Quakers UK, StopEACOP and Tipping Point, we will be targeting the global insurance industry – the people who could stop the fossil fuel crooks in their tracks overnight if they wanted to.

Because no insurance = no more drilling for oil and gas.”

*London, UK. 28 Feb 2024. Front of the march at Lloyds.*

The City of London is still the world capital for the global insurance industry, with one company, Lloyds of London insuring 40% of the world’s fossil fuel production and it is also home to many other major global insurers.

*London, UK. 28 Feb 2024. Insure Our Future – Not Fossil Fuels.*

Monday was a training day for XR, with lectures about the lessons which could be learnt from the West Cumbria coal mine campaign and the importance of the insurance industry in maintaining the fossil fuel industry and why it was important to try to convert them away from this and towards supporting a future for human life on our planet. There were also a workshop on non-violent direct action, examining the theories behind it and how to create support systems and keep safe.

Nothing could be further from the comments made by the Prime Minister and other cabinet members about ‘mobs’. The protests are well organised and take considerable trouble to remain within the increasinly restrictive laws on freedom to protest. In contrast they make our government speakers seem a rabid mob, making hate speeches about hate protests and disruption. XR are trying to save our planet for future human life.

*London, UK. 28 Feb 2024. A Faceless Financier.*

I was unable to go to the events on Monday or Tuesday when as well as some highly targeted actions including small groups of protesters protesting peacfully inside the foyers of some city offices there was a large rally on Tuesday followed by a Community Assembly on the subject “How do we Insure our Future?

*London, UK. 28 Feb 2024. The march begins.*

But last Wednesday I joined the XR supporters in Trinity Square Gardens at 10.30 for the start of the advertised “Insurance Mayhem – Wednesday Showstopper“. Some of them had followed the suggested dress code for the event, “business attire. Black suits with white shirts, preferably!” A group carried special and rather glossy small briefcases and there were banners and a few placards. Some in city dress had come with grey masks and labels as ‘Faceless Financiers’

*London, UK. 28 Feb 2024. Extinction Rebellion supporters march*

Little happened for the first hour or so, though there was a strong police presence in the area, and some officers came to talk with and warn protesters who told them they were not intending to break any laws.Finally at 12.15 the march moved off for a short march through city streets to the streets around the main Lloyds Building on Leadenhall Street and Lime Street. One man was arrested on the march, I think for setting off a smoke flare, which police left smoking on the ground.

*London, UK. 28 Feb 2024. Extinction Rebellion*

Protesters joined hands to surround the Lloyds Building on three sides, some holding banners and flags. They let people in and out of the building and tried to engage them in conversation about the urgent need to end fossil fuels. A few stopped to say they agreed but most simply walked past and there were a few angry remarks. It was lunchtime and quite a few city workers were out on the streets and stopped to watch what was happening and were clearly entertained, taking pictures on their phones of the speakers and the various events.

*London, UK. 28 Feb 2024. EACOP – the East African Crude Oil Pipeline is an environmental and human rights disaster.*

These included protests by ‘workers’ in red boiler suits against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, a 900 mile long heated pipeline from Ugandan oil fields to the Indian Ocean in Tanzania which would cause “large scale displacement of communities and wildlife“, threaten water resources and contribution massively to global warming. 24 banks have already distanced themselves from financing the project, with only two remaining involved, and it will certainly not go ahead if insurers can be persuaded not to insure it.

London, UK. 28 Feb 2024. City dressed dancers outside Lloyds.

The ‘Faceless Financiers’ now all had their dull grey masks on and were standing together in a row in front of the building on Lime Street where most of the event was taking place, its closure causing little or no disruption to traffic. In front of them came a large troupe of dancers for their spirited performance and on the other side of the road was a washing line hung with items of children’s clothing letters on the garments spelling out the message ‘THEIR FUTURE’.

The “Insurance Mayhem – Wednesday Showstopper” was still continuing as I left for home. I was back for the next day’s very wet protest which I’ll perhaps write about in a later post.

More pictures of Insurance Mayhem – Wednesday Showstopper.

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