Sheffield Energy Crisis Newswire Archive

It's time to talk honestly about collapse.

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Starts with a rant welcoming the new business Master of Washington. Then to Greenpeace Brazil, interview with Kiko Brito on the climate floods there. Feature interview with Nafeez Ahmed, author of "A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization." Ends with a speck of hope. Radio Ecoshock 110128

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Kennedy had no role in the birth of Icelandic environmentalism

Kennedy did not provide training to Icelandic protesters and did not play an important role in actions

Kennedy was never a key decision-maker in Saving Iceland

Kennedy did act as an agent-provocateur

Illegal Icelandic collaboration with British services?

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The next Sheffield Humanist Society meeting will be "Population 101 - An introduction to global population dynamics" with Mike Freedman, director of the documentary Critical Mass (  http://www.criticalmassfilm.com/ ). You will also be hearing soon about the Sheffield Humanist Society campaign for Census 2011 and the April meeting on Secularism with Terry Sanderson from the National Secular Society.

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Durham County Council are due to decide on UK Coal plc's Bradley Opencast Mine Application on Tuesday 15/2/11. Read how to join those who are planning to demonstrate against DCC approving the Application.

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The 2nd reading of the 500m Buffer Zone Bill takes place this Friday. This press release gives information about the reasons why this is an important Bill, provides information about a new Briefing Note (B6) that explains the Bill and provides info about how to get involved.

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The toppling of dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia in the wake of mass protests and bloody street clashes has been widely recognized as signifying a major transformation in the future of politics and geopolitics for the major countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). There is little doubt that the Tunisian experience triggered the escalation of unprecedented protests in Egypt against the Mubarak regime. The question on every media pundit’s lips is, ‘Will events in Tunisia and Egypt have a domino effect throughout the Arab world?’

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Details of a new UK film inspired by Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed's recent book "A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It"

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New information has come to light that suggests that any promises UK Coal plc make about providing Community Benefits when it works Opencast Sites need to be backed up with the assurance that a Banker's Guarantee underwrites that promise.

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You have seen food prices going up at the local grocery store. That could be just the beginning. According to Lester Brown, a leading expert in both the environment and world agriculture, those bulging supermarket shelves are part of a "food bubble", which could crash. Radio Ecoshock interview. 24 min

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"As China Goes, So Goes the World. How Chinese Consumers Are Transforming Everything." That's the title from a new book by Karl Gerth. He's a fellow at Merton College, teaching modern Chinese history at Oxford University, in Britain. We talk how big name brands and their knock-offs, plus cars as status symbols, invaded China. Why didn't they take the green energy route? Did the Chinese government know Western consumer culture was failing, unsustainable, and damaging the world?

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A by product of the work done to suggest that 553m metric tonnes of Carbon Dioxide from escaping into the atmosphere is the revelation that most of this coal lies so close to where people live. read more here.

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This press release accompanies the publication of MOPG's 5th Briefing Note in support of the 500m Buffer Zone Bill and explains why those concerned about Climate Change should support the Bill.

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This MOPG's latest Press Release emphasises a different aspect of the argument as to why Communities in England should benefit from a 500m Buffer Zone law. It shows how many areas of England could be prone to opencast mining because local communities, unlike those in Scotland and Wales do not benefit from having a 500m Buffer Zone policy in operation.

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An excellent summay of the unfolding situation in the UK.

 http://orwellianuk.blogspot.com/2011/01/britain-and-long-emergency.html

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Today was to have been the beginning of a trial of a further 6 people arrested during the police Operation Aeroscope

Ratcliffe: 2nd  Court Case of 6 activist Collapses

Over the last few weeks, 20 protestors had been appearing in Nottingham crown Court, accused of conspiring to shut down the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station. They were found guilty and were sentenced on the 5th January.

Today was to have been the beginning of a trial of a further 6 people arrested during the police Operation Aeroscope in which 114 people had been arrested by Nottinghamshire Police to prevent the action going ahead.

Integral to this case is the revelations of the work of the undercover Metropolitan Police Officer Mark Kennedy.

Mark 'Stone/Kennedy' exposed as undercover police officer? - Indymedia UK 21 October 2010
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/10/466477.html

Mike Schwarz,a solicitor at the Bindmans law firm who represented the activists,  said last night:
"I have no doubt that our attempts to get disclosure about Kennedy's role has led to the collapse of the trial. It is no coincidence that just 48 hours after we told the CPS our clients could not receive a fair trial unless they disclosed material about Kennedy, they halted the prosecution. Given that Kennedy was, until recently, willing to assist the defence, one has to ask if the police were facing up to the possibility their undercover agent had turned native."

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer was spotted in Nottingham Crown Court this morning. A few of us were wondering if that his presence had anything to do with the trial collapse?  A couple of journalist asked court staff if this was so.  But, no!!  Apparently he was on a routine visit to the court. We looked at each other and said: "yea right" at the same time :-)

Sitting in Court 3 the defendant initially seated in the dock [glass tank!] were invited to seating within the court. Before His Honour Judge Milmo QC, Miss Felicity Gerry for the prosecution said that on last Wednesday [5th January], the Crown Prosecution Service undertook a review of the case and that as a result, the crown had decided to offer no evidence.  The judge therefore declares all six defendants not guilty. The defendant were represented by six individual barristers each of which then applied to the court for an assortment of legal and travel costs all being agreed by the judge. 

He then rose.

The whole gig done and dusted in under ten minutes! 

Of course the defendants had had this case hanging over their lives since Easter 2009. Obviously being in possession of more of the facts than they had let on. It would of course have been nice if the prosecution might have alleviated their distress by pulling the plug earlier. But no! 

Outside, speaking on the court steps, solicitor Mick Schwartz said that the reason for the collapse of the trial was that:
"Previously unavailable material that significantly undermines the prosecution's case came to light on Wednesday 5 January'. The discovery of this material came at the time when the prosecution were informed that we planned to pursue disclosure of the evidence relating to PC Kennedy with the judge. Unsurprisingly, they have declined to confirm whether the new material relates to PC Kennedy. In my opinion the two are obviously connected. The timing speaks for itself. These events also beg wider, serious questions. Would this evidence have been uncovered had the defence not become aware of it through other avenues?"

The primary difference in the defence operated in these two trials was that the first 20 said in court, that they were going to carry out the action that they were accused of, but claimed that it was 'necessary'. A lawful excuse for action.  This latest trial of the six, would have said that yes, they were there, but had not decided whether to have taken part in any action, or not. PC Kennedy being present there, might have been able to help the court with that!!

It seems obvious to me that with the scale of the climate emergency in front of us, these [and similar] cases are only just the beginning.  As time progresses [runs out], many other concerned citizens will be taking direct actions on these issues.  The law will of course be 47 steps behind, uncertain if action is necessary or not, or, if democracy and political process can save us.  Having heard all the evidence from the last trial ..... I think not. Personally, I hope one day, the law might progress that we can eventually take action against companies / government for the new offence of ecocide, rather than defending individual peoples actions to be 'necessary'.

Why we need a law on ecocide - Polly Higgins barrister, international environmental lawyer Guardian 5 January 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2011/jan/05/ecocide-law-ratcliffe

This Is Ecocide | Making the destruction of our planet a crime
http://www.thisisecocide.com

I wish everyone with concerns about our future, the very best in any action they can take to help us protect it.  For all future generations and species on the planet. My thanks.

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Mike Schwarz's of Bindmans Solicitors statement on undercover policeman Mark Kennedy and the Ratcliffe trial

On Easter Monday 2009 over 400 police officers were involved in a raid  at Iona school in Nottingham, which led to 114 arrests. I represented 113 of those arrested. The 114th we now know was PC Kennedy, an undercover police officer. Six of my clients were due to face a long trial starting today. However, the prosecution told the defence on Friday 7th January 2011, just before the trial was due to begin, and almost 20 months after the investigation began, that 'Previously unavailable material that significantly undermines the prosecution's case came to light on Wednesday 5 January'. The discovery of this material came at the time when the prosecution were informed that we planned to pursue disclosure of the evidence relating to PC Kennedy with the judge. Unsurprisingly, they have declined to confirm whether the new material relates to PC Kennedy. In my opinion the two are obviously connected. The timing speaks for itself. These events also beg wider, serious questions. Would this evidence have been uncovered had the defence not become aware of it through other avenues? And is it appropriate that access to, and decisions about, disclosure of key evidence should exclusively be in the hands of a prosecution whose primary function is to secure convictions? Let me be clear about this. My clients were not guilty. They did not agree to join in any plan to occupy the power station. The evidence of PC Kennedy presumably confirmed this. Yet that evidence, had it been kept secret, could have led to a miscarriage of justice. Serious questions must be asked relating to the policing of protest, from the use of undercover officers, to the use of expensive and legally questionable mass pre-emptive arrest of protesters, to extremely restrictive pre-charge bail condition, to the seemingly arbitrary nature by which the 114 initially arrested were reduced to the final 26 who were eventually charged. The police need to answer some serious questions about their conduct relating to protesters generally.


Undercover officer spied on green activists - Rob Evans and Paul Lewis Guardian 9 January 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/09/undercover-office-green-activists

Mark Kennedy: A journey from undercover cop to 'bona fide' activist - Rob Evans and Paul Lewis Guardian 10 January 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/10/mark-kennedy-undercover-cop-activist

http://ratcliffeontrial.org
____________________________________________
ALAN LODGE
Photographer - Media: One Eye on the Road. Nottingham.  UK
Email:                 tash@indymedia.org
Web:                   http://digitaljournalist.eu
Member of the National Union of Journalists [NUJ]
____________________________________________
"It is not enough to curse the darkness.
                                   It is also necessary to light a lamp!!"
___________________________________________
<ends>

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When I first got involved in left/radical political organizing in the 1990s, I don’t recall any of us referring to our efforts as “phone activism” or calling ourselves “fax activists.” A friend who started organizing in the early 1960s assured me that he never heard the term “mimeograph activism” in those days. We used telephones, fax machines, and mimeographs in our organizing work, but the machines didn’t define our work and we didn’t spend a lot of time arguing about the implications of using them.

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A group in Leicestershire has produced evidence about the current and possible future locations for opencast coal mining.in England. In all it identifies 23 Current sites and 43 potential sites.The evidence is in the form of a two part review and it has been produced to support the arguments for the 500 Metre Buffer Zone Bill which gets its 2nd Reading in the House of Commons on 11/2/11.

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At 2pm today, 18 of the 20 defendants were sentenced after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass in December. The judge addressed each defendant individually, commenting on their previous convictions and the strength of their character, before passing their sentences. The judge spoke broadly about the defendants’ qualities as a whole – commending them for their references, which repeatedly described them as ‘honest’, ‘dedicated’, ‘committed’, ‘intelligent’ and ‘caring’.

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The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. —Aldo Leopol

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