Climate jobs caravan visit

It’s called ‘The Climate Jobs Caravan’. It will visit over 20 towns and cities in Scotland, England and Wales in a tour organised by the Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Group.

The southern leg will start on the 12th May in Central London and then move onto Grow Heathrow for lunch. The northern leg starts on the same day in Glasgow. Throughout the tour, there will be meetings, publicity stunts, cycle rides and the spread of information about Climate Jobs. The message of the tour will be simple: the creation of climate jobs – in public transport, home insulation, and renewable energy – can help solve both the economic and climate crisis.

Climate change is not a distant future. Its effects are being felt today. Britain has just experienced its driest March in 59 years with nationwide drought a looming possibility. But it’s not just Britain that is being hit by extreme weather. 2010 saw the warmest summer in 500 years in Eastern Europe, killing thousands and devastating crops. That same year, the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history occurred, killing 1,500 people. According to the Nature Climate Change Journal, extreme weather events have increased over the past decade and are very likely caused by human-induced global warming.

At the same time, austerity is ripping people’s lives apart. The UK currently has its highest levels of unemployment in a generation. According to government figures, 2.67 million people are currently unemployed in Britain. This figure understates the real number. In addition, 22.2% of 16-24 years are unemployed.

The Campaign Against Climate Trade Union Group (CACCTU) believes that these two crises do not have to be understood separately. Instead, we should unite the struggles emphasising the need not only to tackle the economic crisis and get people into jobs, but also put forward a positive programme to address rising CO2 emissions and reduce the prospect of catastrophic climate change.

In 2010, the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group published the pamphlet ‘One Million Climate Jobs’. It outlines how when unemployment is at its highest in a generation and climate catastrophe is looming, what is required is a National Climate Service which could provide one million climate jobs, in particular in renewable energy, transport and housing.

At a time of rising unemployment and further cuts, the Climate Jobs Caravan could not come at a better time. Rather than asking for people to work for free doing workfare, we want to demand the government creates climate jobs that help reduce both emissions and unemployment.

Guest Post by Josh who is part of the tour organising committee                                              

Crisis of Civilization film screening

If you liked the last film screening then this one could be even better. Weaving together film footage and animations, The Crisis of Civilization is a documentary feature that investigates the causes of global crises.

The screening will be followed by a Q & A session with the films director Dean Puckett and all the power needed will be generated from the sun and the wind. If popular we are hoping to make this a regular event on the first Thursday of every month showing different films at the Grow-Heathrow Off-grid cinema. Please get in contact (info@transitionheathrow.com) if you have a film you would like to show and ideally could offer some discussion afterwards.

WHEN: Thursday 10th May, 8pm

Building a straw bale long house

During the week of the 7th – 13th May, Transition Heathrow will be building a communal, straw bale long house entirely from recycled or reclaimed materials.

The structure will be wrapped around an existing, unused frame of the expansive old green houses that exist on site. The foundations will be made from old car tyres that were destined for the scrap heap, filled with rubble to provide structural integrity an drainage. The floor will be composed of salvaged scaffold boards. The straw bales, that will make up the bulk of the structure, provide great insulation from the summer heat, winter cold and the noise of the outside world. They will be rendered in clay dug from the site and this natural material will preserve the high carbon contents for many years, making the construction carbon negative. Ultimately the roof will be tiled using recycled reformed drinks cans.

In short we will create a beautiful, tranquil space for the community to use amidst the bustle of the Heathrow villages and virtually for free. However, we need your help to make this happen. Many hands make light work. You will leave the week equipped with knowledge of materials and techniques required to build one of these wonderfully cheap and sustainable structures for yourself. If you would like to have a hand in creating an inspirational space whilst learning these sought after skills from experienced practitioners then this is a great opportunity to do so. Food and fun shall be provided in abundance throughout the week.

Please email info@transitionheathrow.com to book a sleeping space.

Energize Grow Heathrow

April the 28th and 29th will see a weekend packed with activity at Grow Heathrow, all about grassroots renewable energy solutions. We’ll be working with wind turbines, solar panels, bike generators, rocket stoves, earth ovens, wood burners, solar ovens, sound systems, and more.

Joining us for the weekend will be renewable energy experts from V3 Power, Cambridge Greentech, the Tin Village, and Cultivate Brighton.

Saturday will be a day of designing, building discussing and tweaking. We’ll be continuing work on the Transition Heathrow bike generator, building some DIY solar panels, plumbing in hot water to our shower, building a rocket stove, and taking the Grow Heathrow wind turbine down for scheduled maintenance. In the evening there will be pizza from our earth oven and a special off-grid screening of ‘Pulling the Plug’, a documentary about the future of the UK’s electricity supply.

Sunday will be a renewable energy open day for locals to come along and check out all the projects that Transition Heathrow and our visiting guests have been working on, including some nifty practical demos. It will be a fantastic opportunity for people in the community to get hands-on experience of different types of renewable energies, and to learn more about what renewable energy is, and why it’s becoming increasingly important in our communities.

Join us from 2 to 6pm on Saturday, or 12 to 4pm on Sunday. All ages and levels of experience welcomed.

BAA: hands off the Heathrow villages

Here is a letter we sent off to all the local newspapers this week: The message is clear. BAA lost all the arguments on Heathrow expansion a long time ago and their latest desperate attempt to get a third runway is laughable to say the least. Local residents and environmental campaigners are tired of repeating the same old arguments that resulted in the plans being scrapped two years ago but we have to remember why we won.

Locally a third runway at Heathrow would mean 700 homes completely demolished with thousands more peoples livelihoods wrecked, the excellent Heathrow Primary School would be tarmacked and hundreds of dead bodies at Cherry Lane Cemetery would be dug up to make way for a new motorway. The whole of West London would be blighted by the extra noise and air pollution and then you have the massive impacts on climate change and the environment – a third runway alone would result in 220,000 extra flights a year, in emission terms equivalent to Kenya’s yearly emissions output.

Last week, thirty people gathered outside the gate of ‘Grow Heathrow’; our squatted community garden site which was originally occupied as part of the No 3^rd runway campaign, as a show of solidarity with everyone who would be affected by a 3rd runway. A banner was held up which read: “Return of the killer runway. You resurrect it. We will bury it. Again.”  This is a threat which we believe thousands of activists all over the country and all over the world will keep should the 3rd runway ever come back on the table.

MASS ACTION: Big six energy bash

On May 3rd, the same day as the London Mayoral elections, The Climate Justice Collective will be taking to the streets to block the energy monopoly going on behind closed doors at the UK Energy Summit.

The summit will see companies from the Big Six including EDF, EON, RWE Npower and Scottish Power, as well as oil giants like Shell and BP, conspiring with government to line their pockets at the cost of climate crisis and millions of people locked into fuel poverty. The UK Energy Summit is the wrong people asking the wrong questions and proposing the wrong solutions.

The Big Six energy companies are the obstacle to an energy system that could keep the sea levels down and get the heating on in fuel poverty homes. We want a fair, democratic and clean energy system, not a corporate monopoly – the UK Energy Summit cannot go ahead!

Be in Central London on Thursday 3rd May. Be ready to go at 11am. Keep an eye out on our Twitter (@CJ_Collective) for updates on meeting points and live and instant action plans.

Facebook Event: http://on.fb.me/HAKIdq

This blog was taken from the Plane Stupid website

The fight to save squatting

Today the House of Lords will debate plans to criminalise squatting for a final time. Clause 145 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (LASPO), which seeks to criminalise squatting in residential properties, will be scrutinised as Baroness Sue Miller (Lib Dem) and Baroness Lister (Labour) have tabled a number of amendments to mitigate some of its worst impacts on homeless and vulnerable people.

Additional concerns have also been raised in the last week, with the release of a report in The Guardian which suggests this clause could cost the taxpayer as much as £790million over the next five years, outweighing the entire savings that the rest of the Bill intends to make.

I’m a squatter myself, so it’s not surprising that I’m urging peers today to vote against criminalization. But the squatter community’s unlikely allies in this fight tell a different story, one of widespread opposition from many quarters.

Last summer the government held a three month consultation entitled “Options for dealing with squatting”. One might have expected negative results given the sustained right-wing media coverage attacking squatters both before and during the consultation period. However, out of the 2217 people who responded to the consultation, 96% didn’t want to see any action taken to criminalise squatting. Even more surprisingly, only 10 people bothered to write in to say they had been a victim of squatting. But the government ignored its own consultation, and three days before the LASPO bill was to be voted on in the House of Commons, Ken Clarke tacked on an amendment to criminalise squatting in residential properties – this despite the fact that there is no direct link between squatting and legal aid. 

From the Metropolitan Police to the Law Society, unexpected bodies have come out against the government’s proposals to criminalise squatting. The Law Society and the Criminal Bar Association are adamant that the existing laws are already more than adequate and the Metropolitan Police have even said that the law is already “broadly in the right place”. 160 leading legal experts wrote a letter to the government which explained the misleading information being put out around the already existing laws. Many organisations, including the Magistrates Association, have also expressed concerns about the cost of it all during a time of austerity measures.

The homeless charity Crisis have urged the Government to scrap the proposals and have argued strongly against essentially making homeless and vulnerable people criminals for attempting to gain a roof over their heads. Crisis research shows that 40% of homeless people have used squatting as a last resort to prevent sleeping rough. It’s one thing to criminalise squatting, it’s another thing to do it in the middle of a housing crisis when homelessness rates are soaring.

Even Channel 4 went squatting to investigate the situation. George Clarke’s programme ‘The Great British Property Scandal’ highlighted the fundamental problem. There are an estimated 1 million properties lying empty across the UK. Squatting attempts to utilise these empty buildings – criminalisation will only encourage owners who own empty properties to keep them empty.

Squatting for community self-defence

I live at Grow Heathrow, a squatted community garden in the path of the now cancelled Heathrow 3rd runway. Set up in March 2010 in opposition to the runway and the destruction of the homes in its path, the community market garden project continues to thrive with the support of the local community, local council and MP.  After 30 tonnes of rubbish were cleared from the site, what was an abandoned wasteland now hosts numerous community events and gatherings. Although exempt from the proposed new law (as commercial property and not residential), many more similar projects around the UK will be threatened if the LAPSO bill passes.

Now, more than ever before, we need places like Grow Heathrow to build community self-defence. As the majority in this country struggle under the government’s harsh austerity programme, it will be more important to reclaim space anywhere we can. Land distribution patterns in this country reveal the true extent of inequality and privilege – 1% of the population own 70% of the land. Squatting is one method for reversing this trend.

The creation of alternative worlds is inextricably linked to confronting this one and from my experience squatting does both things. ‘Occupy, create, resist’ is a notion that resonates strongly at Grow Heathrow. Occupy: take space, often made possible by squatting a piece of land or a building. Create: create the world you want to live in and would one day be willing to defend. And then Resist: once you come under attack for creating something which doesn’t match with the ideals of the state or global capitalism.

Today, squatters across the country are in ‘Resist’ mode, standing together with all those who recognise that criminalisation is unnecessary, unjust and unaffordable. We can’t allow the government to bypass democracy just in order to send out a message.

This blog has been re-posted from Open Democracy

Newsletter Issue #5

This Thursday, Grow Heathrow was left virtually empty as everyone got out and about in the Heathrow villages, delivering our newly pressed Newsletter Number 5. Around ten of us delivered nearly 2000 newsletters to residents in Sipson, Harmondsworth and Harlington.

Inside this issue: Tar Sands, Birthdays, Court Dates and more…

A PDF copy of the newsletter can be downloaded here.

Kaleidoscope performance residency

From the 6th- 10th June, Grow Heathrow needs YOU. Calling all with a background in; theatre, dance, poetry, movement, puppetry, music, visual arts, circus…. and anything else…

Grow Heathrow (our squatted community garden) are offering the opportunity to be part of a 5-day theatrical residency that explores the creative link between resistance, permaculture, occupation and transition. Immersed in the realities of group living within a place that would be destroyed by the third runway, we’ll build a freely creative and imaginative response to the history of Sipson’s fight against the third runway, Grow Heathrow and the Transition Town movement.

The residency will culminate in a performance in the local village and later on one at the Grow Heathrow site, both on Sunday 10th June. Although this is a 5 day residency, the first two days of devising are optional, and you can come on board just from Friday 8th to Sunday 10th if you are limited with time, although the whole shabang is advised

Timetable

Wed 6th – Thurs 7th: Nourishment, development and devising

Fri 8th – Sun 10th: Projecting, preparing, performing

Sunday 10th, 5pm and 8pm performances

This is a non-commercial, not for profit venture. £10 all-in to cover living costs on site. Deadline for applications: 01/05/2012 Please email kaleidoscope.transition@gmail.com for more information or to reserve a place, as numbers are limited, (including a little bit about yourself).

Happy Birthday Grow Heathrow!

On Saturday 4th March, Grow Heathrow celebrated two years of community food growing, bike maintenance and resistance to BAA’s plans for a third runway. Local residents and friends of the project gathered in the formerly abandoned greenhouses in Sipson for a day of live music, mural painting and a birthday cake competition.

Visitors were greeted by improvised tunes in the sunshine. The ad hoc band included a double bass, accordion and junk-yard drum kit. Around sixty people gathered in the main space as the cakes were being judged. Sipson resident Tracy said, “It’s great to see so many new faces here. Thanks to everyone who has worked so hard in making this project what it is today. It really shows what a community can do”.

The partially completed mural is taking shape nicely and is already brightening up the side of our donated construction site cabin. Conceived of by a friend of the project and street artist Barney, the design is centred around a train of leaves along the length of the building. Moving from left to right, the leaves change colour, to represent the transition from Autumn into Spring and Summer. Alongside this, the mural will display images from the world as it is today on one side, to the world that we’d like to see on the other.

Why not come down to Grow Heathrow as we’re finishing the painting to colour in a leaf or draw a wind turbine? Drop us a line at info@transitionheathrow.com for more details.

More photos from the day can be found on our Flickr