Northern Climate Rush visit to UK coal headquarters
Around 15 climate activists from the North of England visited the headquarters of UK Coal near Doncaster yesterday, 26th February, in a protest against new coal and calling for tougher measures to control CO2 emissions.
Two people climbed up lamposts to suspend a 6m banner reading ‘Leave it in the Ground’, while on the ground below the protestors played a bit of samba, danced, and had a picnic. The protestors wore Edwardian themed dress including red sashes with the words ‘No New Coal’ written across them.
UK Coal is the UK’s largest coal company. The Doncaster protest was timed to coincide with the Climate Rush at the UK Coal Awards, hosted by UK coal, in London.
The police reaction was fairly low-key and non-obstructive, although they did take an awful lot of photos (I suppose they had nothing else to do). A van driver was hassled by cops, had his details checked and was told he was not insured to drive the vehicle (which was not the case).
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Thursday 26th February 2009
PRESS RELEASE: Northern Climate Rush visits UK Coal headquarters
Climate activists from the North visited the headquarters of UK Coal near Doncaster today in a protest against new coal and calling for tougher measures to control CO2 emissions. The protest coincided with the ‘Climate Rush’ in London where people intended to gatecrash the Coal UK Conference and Awards 2009 at the Landmark Hotel in Regents Park. However, the London protesters arrived to find the Conference had moved venue at the last minute. Around 200 protesters in London occupied the lobby of the Landmark and dropped banners. They asked that the hotel to refrain from hosting any future events with fossil fuel industries such as UK Coal, to which the management agreed.
The protestors of both demonstrations wore Edwardian themed dress including red sashes with the words ‘No New Coal’ written across them. In Doncaster two female protesters scaled lamp-posts to hang a banner reading ‘Leave it in the ground’ across the entrance to the UK coal headquarters.
Coal is the dirtiest form of energy production yet the government has plans to expand the coal industry, including a new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. UK Coal are responsible for operating several open cast mines across the UK. Open cast coal mining is particularly damaging to the local environment since it involves scalping the landscape and typically provides an average of only 40 jobs per site, for a handful of years only.
Vanessa Hall, spokeswoman for the Northern Climate Rush said, “It is essential that we take climate change seriously and move away from dirty fossil fuels like coal. There is no way we can avoid runaway climate change if we continue to burn coal.”
Megan Beech, 24, said, “The coal industry talk about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as the magic bullet that will allow us to keep burning coal. However CCS is as yet an unproven technology. You don’t start a fire on the promise that one day we”ll invent a fire extinguisher with which to put it out.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
This is the third major ‘Climate Rush’ event, following from the first in Parliament square in October 2008 on the centenary of the Suffragette rush on Parliament. Protesters demanded ‘Deeds Not Words’ on climate change, including an end to airport expansion and no new coal. The second was at Heathrow and Manchester airports to draw attention to the threat of aviation and climate change.
The Northern Climate Rush is made up of campaigners from Manchester, Leeds, Huddersfield, Bradford and Liverpool.
www.climaterush.co.uk
www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com
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Climate Rush hosted cocktail party for the coal industry outside of the Landmark Hotel on Marylebone Road, London.
Coal UK planed to presented celebratory awards to the most damaging companies in the coal industry. Climate Rush offered an alternative awards based on the ecological damage that the coal industry is inflicting on the environment.
However after several tries at rushing the hotel people discovered that the award dinner had been cancelled.
Brochure for the awards dinner:
http://conf.mccloskeycoal.com/journals/McCloskey/Conferences/Conferences/attachments/Coal%20UK%20Brochure%20web.pdf
Climate Rush calls for:
1. No new coal to avoid runaway climate change
Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, and by far the dirtiest way to produce electricity. We must leave coal in the ground and not build any new coal fired power stations if we want to avoid runaway climate change. CCS is an unproven technology that may never be a viable option. Climate change is happening now and we must act now to stop it.
2. We can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet
At this outdated and fossilized awards ceremony UK Coal is celebrating the worst excesses of our failing economic system. Just like overpaid bankers these heads of corporations are receiving plaudits for plundering the planet.
3. A transition to a low carbon society with sustainable jobs
We must counteract any jobs losses from the coal industry with a major re-skilling program in sustainable trades. Many more jobs will be created by a huge retrofitting program of old housing stock and in the new renewable energies sector than in new coal. The German clean energy revolution has seen the creation of 250,000 new jobs.
More photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/filkaler/tags/climaterush/
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Landmark Decision Against Coal Industry
For immediate release: 26 February 2009
LANDMARK DECISION
A top class London hotel has vowed companies and organisations which contribute to climate chaos will no longer be welcome to use their facilities for corporate promotion and entertainment
The move follows a Climate Rush action on the Landmark Hotel in Marylebone, where hundreds of protesters converged on Thursday to halt a coal industry awards ceremony.
Coal is acknowledged among scientists and climate change activists as the world’s worst contributor to climate change in the form of CO2 emissions.*
The coal industry under the banner of UK Coal were booked into the Landmark to host an awards ceremony with five star food and drink where they planned to hand out gongs for UK coal personality of the year and the best open cast miners among other categories.
Protesters dropped banners and staged a peaceful sit-in to speak out at the hotel’s support and the coal industry’s insistence of “business as usual” in the face of evident escalating climate chaos.
The Landmark’s landmark decision has been applauded by activists. “At Last! For too long profiteering from climate change has been sold to the public as a necessity of ‘business as usual’. But with global temperatures rising and climate chaos running riot in the form of drought (Africa and Australia) and flooding (low lying lands all over), we all need to work together.
“ We applaud the Landmark for their good sense and the vision to say ‘enough is enough’. They rightly don’t want to be associated with the corrupt system that needs overturning. We welcome the Landmark to play their role in the new way of doing things so needed.”
The Landmark now plans to deny companies such as the Royal Bank of Scotland (the biggest single investor in coal and oil industries) and oil companies, such as ESSO, BP and Shell, as well as the coal industry from using their ballrooms and banquet halls to promote their cause.
The hotel has also pledge to communicate with the 24 other five star hotels in its’ group to suggest they do the same.
Climate Rush has pledged to work with the Landmark Hotel to ensure the right companies are blocked, to send a clear message to polluters: they’re not welcome.
ENDS
Notes and footnotes to Editors
Coal is responsible for 50 % of the climate change gases in the atmosphere caused by human activity.
Climate Rush is a cutting edge movement of carbon cutting individuals who have seen the light and want to spread the word through their remit: Deeds not words, based on the clarion call of the suffragettes
For high quality photos and further comments please ring 075 2839 8441 or email media@climaterush.co.uk
For comments from the landmark hotel please ring Francis T Green 0207 631 8000
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UK No New Coal Awards
Climate Rush is delighted to announce that it will be presenting the following “Canary in the Coalmine” awards:
Science Fiction award
goes to the most unbelievable technology not yet available to stop CO2 emissions, Carbon Capture and Storage.
Financial Fool award
goes to the Royal Bank of Scotland, for helping to raise $16 billion in loans to finance the worldwide coal industry over the past two years.
Lifetime Achievement award
goes to Drax coal fired power station, for the Greatest Emissions in the UK, equivalent to that of the 54 poorest countries in the world.
Best Supporting Role
goes to the biggest Climate Coward, Gordon Brown, for his useless leadership over Climate Change.
Best Newcomer
goes to the next likely “factory of death”, Kingsnorth coal fired power station in Kent.
and finally…
UK Coal Personality of the Year
goes to Paul Golby, CEO of energy company E.ON, for outstanding services to Greenwash (whilst plotting to build Kingsnorth)
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CLIMATE RUSH: THURSDAY 5TH MARCH, 1PM, RBS HQ
GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK and STOP TRASHING THE PLANET
Royal Bank of Scotland: £33 billion in bail outs SO FAR!
Using OUR MONEY!
RBS boss 50-year-old Sir Fred: retires early with a whopping £16 million pension fund.
Using OUR MONEY!
OUR bank: arranges £16 billion in loans to the coal industry in just two years.
RBS: the BIGGEST investor in climate chaos.
FOR THE LOVE OF OUR MONEY, WHAT PLANET ARE THEY ON?
Grab your mates, bring some lunch and get down to the bank to demand OUR money back.
Royal Bank of Scotland HQ
Thursday 5th March
1.OOPM PROMPT: think flashmob…
280 Bishopsgate, near Liverpool Street Station
ANGRY? You better believe it: Let’s rush!
See what they’re saying about the RBS Climate Rush in the Guardian here
Facebook invite here: invite ALL your friends
Please help spread the word by downloading the poster as a pdf here to print out and stick up wherever you go!
Be sure to keep checking the site for updates… and don’t forget to subscribe and join our facebook group!