Activists from a citizen’s coalition including members of Climate Action, Greenpeace Cornwall, FoE Cornwall & STIG we’re involved in a direct action that saw ‘Recycle Man’ (from the Community Litter Picking Project) scale the side of County Hall in Truro (Cornwall, UK). At 5am (17/01/06) activists climbed the centre of local government in England’s most south-westerly region, before the unfurling of a banner reading ‘No Incinerator in Cornwall, Yes to Recycling, Yes to Jobs’. Recycle Man remained on the roof for 7 hours, whilst at 9am more protestors entered the Council Chambers and disrupted the dirty proceedings.

[Above: children watch gas-flaring in the Niger Delta. There are thousands of gas flares in the region, where oil companies find it more economical to burn off gas rather than capture it.]

This week four oil workers were kidnapped by Nigeria resistance fighters in an effort to force justice for the people. The group has vowed to stop all oil exports from Nigeria and advised oil workers to leave. A flow station in Bayelsa has also been occupied by disenchanted Nigerians

Global warming could halt ocean circulation, with harmful results warns an atmospheric scientist. “This is a dangerous, human-induced climate change,” said Michael Schlesinger, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “The shutdown of the thermohaline circulation has been characterized as a high-consequence, low-probability event. Our analysis, including the uncertainties in the problem, indicates it is a high-consequence, high-probability event.”

Schlesinger presented his warnings at a talk at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal on December 8, 2005.

On Saturday, the busiest shopping day of the year, activists from London Rising Tide dressed up as Santas and elves and invaded Oxford Street to make the point that excessive Christmas consumption is causing climate chaos.

Brandishing placards and banners (reading Lapland is Melting! Santas Against Excessive Consumption! Help, I’m a Reindeer; I can’t Swim!, etc.), and singing subverted Christmas carols (Welcome to Consumer Wonderland, Oh Little Town of Oxford Street, etc.), the army of Santas made their way from Bond Street to Oxford Circus and back again. They paid visits to a few of the consumer temples on the ‘naughty’ list, and were unceremoniously ejected from John Lewis, the GAP and Selfridges – but not before disrupting consumer wonderland in their cheesy Christmas grotto.

There were at least 40 actions in at least 25 states on December 3, the International Day of Action to Stop Global Warming. Here's a [first draft] report on what happened in some of those places:

Anchorage, Alaska: Susanne Fleek of the Alaska Conservation Foundation reports that they had a rally on November 28th that "went pretty well. Got good TV coverage."

Baltimore, Md.: Tim Willard reports that he got an article into a Baltimore newspaper here
Tim also reports that "the Montgomery County Greens hosted a showing of 'We Are All Smith Islanders,' and they "lobbied Baltimore Mayor O'Malley to sign the Mayors' Climate Agreement on global warming," with indications that may soon happen.

Documents obtained by Greenpeace [ger] [eng] reveal a subversive plot to undermine European commitments to the Kyoto protocol. The startling revelation in the UK and other press [1] [2] [3] this week alleges a major plot involving a coalition of over 40 transnational corporations, academics, think-tanks, commentators, journalists and lobbyists. It shows how low some capitalists will go to deprive the world of international cooperation on climate change to suit the neo-con agenda, as they have succeeded in doing in the US. [article here]

The Montreal Conference Meeting of the Parties (MOP) has been met by thousands of protests globally. People from all over the planet protested the lack of government action on climate with demands of increased focus on the future and sustainable energy like wind and solar. 30 countries, including Japan, Germany, France, Bangladesh, Brazil, Australia and South Africa participated it the International Day of Action.

In Montreal a huge crowd of 40,000 turned out in near freezing conditions. [1] [2] [3]

As the world awaits the beginnings of the first meeting of the parties of the Kyoto Protocol in Montreal, the Carteret Islanders of the Pacific have already lost their battle to stay on their islands. This is the first instance of an entire cultural group forcibly displaced by climate change due to sea level rise doubling in the last 150 years caused by global warming. According to Norman Myers in A Citizens Guide to Climate Refugees, up to 200 million people may be displaced because of climate change by 2050. Many more islands and low level coastal areas are facing a crisis.