Extinction Rebellion Nottingham
Act now – we are in the middle of a climate and ecological emergency
Fabulous day at the Green Hustle today. Wonderful atmosphere, thoughtful conversations, many connections made.
Lots of new sign ups to our email list and WhatsApp community – we’d love to have more people involved in taking climate action with us soon.
The government has made the terrible decision to keep subsidising Drax power station! Currently set at £2 million a day. Drax burns wood, including from trees shipped across the Atlantic from ecologically rich Canadian forests and pretends to be ‘renewable’.
🌳🔥Drax is toxic! Handing our money over to fund Drax’s dirty tree burning is far from a climate solution – it’s a climate disaster.
🌳🔥Drax power station is classed as a ‘renewable’ energy source. This is #greenwash and creative carbon accounting at it’s worst.
🌳🔥Drax emits more carbon than 29 countries!
🌳🔥Drax is currently receiving about £2m per DAY to burn trees and pollute our planet.
Our message is clear: NO SUBSIDIES FOR BURNING TREES.
Drax is actually the UK’s single largest carbon emitter and world’s biggest tree burner (woody biomass burning power station). Drax’s actions have been repeatedly linked to driving environmental racism and causing huge amounts of harm to communities, forests and biodiversity.
In the US, the organisation was found to have breached environmental regulations over 11,000 times.
Around 25 rebels from Nottingham made the visit to Windsor at the end of August to Upgrade Democracy. Some of us camped, others came down for one day.
It was so energising to spend time with like minded people and the mass (ass)embly on Saturday afternoon gave us all a glimpse of what our democracy could look like – everyone’s voice on upgrading our democracy being heard and debated. Debate that wasn’t dominated and influenced by the fossil fuel companies or the oligarchs controlling our media.
Citizen’s Assemblies – XR’s 3rd demand – is needed now more than ever before as our world leaders continue to fail to take the Climate and Nature crisis seriously enough, despite the evidence from around the world telling them otherwise with floods, droughts and storms occurring on every continent.
More information, photos and links to the livestreams can be found on the XRUK website.
High court dismisses case against Trudi Warner following public demonstrations of support across England and Wales.
Members of XR Nottingham were honoured to have supported this campaign. With 4 visits to the Nottingham Crown Court over the last few months (in all weather!).
This campaign created a huge boost and support for the case of Trudi Warner who has arrested and threatened with the possibility of a prison sentence for the very same action…. of holding up a sign stating the rights of juries.
Trudi’s original protest outside a London court was born out of concern about the increasing restrictions being placed on defendants in climate trials, which in effect removed their ability to explain their motivations for their peaceful but disruptive actions to a jury.
Read the Full Story in The Canary
Defend our Juries Campaign press release
Wed 13th December
COP 28 was a betrayal. After the hottest year on record, it is a complete failure that the COP summit didn’t actually agree to phase out fossil fuels. The lack of decisive action will directly result in the suffering and death of many people around the world, many of whom are already experiencing the impact of climate breakdown.
Climate breakdown will also directly impact UK and Nottinghamshire citizens through more heatwaves, droughts and flooding. The food we rely on from other countries is already less plentiful and prices will continue to rise.
Scientists and engineers already have the solutions to provide enough clean, renewable energy for all humanity, but this won’t stop global heating unless we also stop burning all fossil fuels.
Temperatures could be held at a 1.5C rise if governments acted rapidly to introduce these technologies. But to remain at 1.5c we need rapid action, not vague encouragement.
We are in a climate and nature crisis but once again world leaders have caved in to the power of the fossil fuel industry. The president of this COP was actually the head of the United Arab Emirates state oil company. Would you invite a weapons manufacturer to dominate a peace conference if you were serious about wanting peace?
The agreement from COP28 has been sold as groundbreaking, but really, after 28 years of debate, it is just stating the obvious – that we need to transition away from fossil fuels!
Right now the world is still creating more and more emissions from fossil fuels each year. This latest agreement is full of empty pledges and loopholes. There are no commitments, no legal requirements, no accountability and no justice for the global south or vulnerable island nations.
There has been almost complete radio silence from our Government about COP 28. They continue to grant hundreds of new licences for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, on the false argument that it makes us more energy secure – just what the world does not need.
Building strong alliances and connections locally is important because the climate and ecological crisis affects everything and everyone. Here are just a few events, actions and activities to get involved with locally with other groups:
Saturday 18th November 11.30-14.30.
Join to make a community quilt at Tiger Community Hub, in partnership with Friends of the Earth, Warm Homes campaign, Broxtowe Green Umbrella and Climate Action Notts.
Book a free place here.
Saturday 18th November 10.00-15.00
Want to have your say about climate crisis concerns? Head to the Civic Centre, in Arnold to hear expert speakers, ask questions, raise concerns and learn what we can do to address the climate and nature emergency.
Book a free place here
A few ways to join the exciting new Greenpeace campaign, canvassing locally to make a green vote in the next election…
Go to the next meeting on Monday 4th December 6-7pm at Shop Zero, Friar Lane.
Or go to the upcoming canvassing:
Bulwell on 13th November or Toton on 19th November. Contact email hidden; JavaScript is required for details and training.
Nottingham Greenpeace Website.
Saturday 9th December from 4pm.
Support Tiger CIC in their upcoming move and continuation alongside Punks 4 the Homeless. Acoustic music, lovely vegan food and community building in action.
Book tickets here.
Would you like to see a film about how it all began? Mammoth Climate Cinema are screening Conscientious Protectors: A Story of Rebellion Against Extinction, including a Q&A with the director afterwards. Friday 17th November from 6pm. Book tickets here.
While insect populations crash, the UK Government decided for a third year in a row and against the advice of its own experts, to allow ‘neonics’ to be used on sugar beet crop in fields around Newark.
People from various environmental groups in Newark and also XR rebels from around the Midlands joined forces to protest around the town centre, with samba drumming and a little bit of theatrics (see the video above).
This weekend over 400 Nottingham climate campaigners will join an estimated 100,000 people in London to demand urgent Government action on the climate and biodiversity crises. Extra buses have been arranged to The Big One, action which is expected to be the biggest ever held in the UK.
The programme for the weekend will include speakers including the naturalist, author and TV presenter Chris Packham, music and family friendly activities. People who have never been to a demonstration before, and people representing many different national and local organisations are travelling to Westminster.
Surveys conducted by campaigners in the city, Beeston, Mapperley, West Bridgford and Sherwood over the last 3 months show that 80% of people are either terrified or seriously concerned about the climate crisis. A similar percentage thought that our Government is not doing anywhere near enough about it. Their voices are not being heard and The Big One will take that message to our politicians.
Over 20 different local organisations are coming together for The Big One including Nottingham Wildlife Trust and Gedling Climate Action Group and also supported by local businesses such as the Tiger Hub Community Cafe, Mammoth Climate Action Cinema and Veggies Catering.
Over 200 national organisations are supporting – including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, PCS union and CAFOD (the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development)
You can by day return tickets here or make your own way to the event! Join our email list to stay connected to other Nottingham people.
Friday bus 2
Saturday bus 2
On Fri 23rd September volunteers form XR Nottingham came out with great enthusiasm to support the ‘bus stop’ in Nottingham – even though we were without a bus (it had to be left incongruously in Arnold with the outreach ‘kit’ transfer to a much smaller vehicle!)
During the day we signed up over 60 people to our email list.
We set up in West Bridgford and then in front of the Brian Clough statue in the city centre to talk to people passing by, do some art block printing and to engage them with our survey and hopefully sign them up to the email list.
The many conversations covered the energy crisis, cost of living crisis, the climate and ecological crisis and government inaction on both of these. We talked about Citizens’ Assemblies as a way to ‘upgrade democracy’ and help to tackle these issues.
Because the bus stayed in Nottingham for a few days, a few volunteers set off in a small car and small van to transport crew and kit to Derby then Leicester and back to Nottingham. Both places had picked quieter spots, Derby had talks and training, then Leicester invited both XR members and people from other groups to participate in a People’s Assembly as a way of demonstrating collaborative, fair and democratic ways for groups to make decisions and plans.
There was still time to engage with the public and the results of talking to the public in both these places can be seen on the survey board.
Every Saturday at 11am for just 10mins, you can join this action. Get a small group of friends together. Make a sign. Use the hashtag #SitForClimate and post on your social media. Or just chat to people passing by.
If you want to join XR Nottingham, get in touch on email hidden; JavaScript is required or follow our Telegram Broadcast for details of where we will be.
This campaign has been created by an independent group – find more details here on their website
