After the mass sit-in protest in front of the Whitehouse back in September when over 1,200 people took an action which they knew would result in their arrest, the campaign to give President Obama the political space to say no to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline continues this Sunday 6 November when more than 4,000 citizens have pledged to surround the Whitehouse. On the same day there will be a solidarity action in London in which campaigners will surround a mini model of the White House in front of the US Embassy.

The Keystone XL pipeline will escalate the exploitation of the Canadian tar sands and make climate stabilisation implausible. According to James Hansen:

… exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts. The tar sands are estimated (e.g., see IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) to contain at least 400 GtC (equivalent to about 200 ppm CO₂). Easily available reserves of conventional oil and gas are enough to take atmospheric CO₂ well above 400 ppm, which is unsafe for life on earth. However, if emissions from coal are phased out over the next few decades and if unconventional fossil fuels including tar sands are left in the ground, it is conceivable to stabilize earth’s climate.

As Bill McKibben says in the video above, the Keystone XL pipeline has become the defining issue of the environmental movement. If you can be in Washington or London on November, be sure you are there.

Thanks to Emily of UK Tar Sands Network.

Initial statement from Occupy London Stock Exchange assembly of over 500 people on the steps of St Paul’s, 16th October 2011:

1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

2 We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

3 We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.

Notes

[1] Article 8 was added to the statement following a proposal being passed by the Occupy London General Assembly on 19 November 2011.

Bill McKibben demonstrating the low-carbon “human public address system” during a speech as part of the amazing Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York.

Today in the New York Times there was a story that made it completely clear why we have to be here. They uncovered the fact that the company building that tar sands pipeline was allowed to choose another company to conduct the environmental impact statement, and the company that they chose was a company was a company that did lots and lots of work for them. So, in other words, the whole thing was rigged top to bottom and that’s why the environmental impact statement said that this pipeline would cause no trouble, unlike the scientists who said if we build this pipeline it’s “game over” for the climate. We can’t let this pipeline get built. [Read on…]

The CEOs of two of Britain’s largest companies were found guilty in the UK Supreme Court on Friday of the proposed crime of ecocide. The companies were found to have caused “extensive damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems” in their exploitation of the Canadian tar sands.

The one-day mock trial with real witnesses, real barristers, a real judge and a real jury showed how ecocide might be tried in practice. One of the CEOs (the only participants played by actors) was also charged with ecological destruction caused by an extensive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but found not guilty.

After the trial, jury foreman Huw Spanner said his panel felt the evidence in the case of the tar sands was “incontrovertible”. Large bodies of toxic water had been allowed to stand and it was inconceivable that the resulting impacts on animal and bird life would be anything other than substantial. In the case of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, he said the jury “was shocked how culpable the CEO was” in terms of actions leading to the spill. However, from the evidence presented on the day, they were not convinced that the resultant damage – especially in relation to birdlife as outlined in the indictment – was extensive.

Making ecocide the fifth crime against peace – along with genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression – is the brainchild of Polly Higgins. The lawyer said that the mock trial had been a great learning process, identifying a number of gaps in the draft legislation that needed to be filled.

Michael Mansfield QC, who acted as the prosecutor in the trial, said that making the topmost individuals in a company responsible was critical if the law was to act as a deterrent. The proposed legislation has therefore been drafted so that individuals rather than companies are in the dock. In an actual trial, board chairmen, heads of banks and even government ministers could also be on trial.

“I’m not keen to see lots of politicians in the dock,” said Higgins. “What I want to see is people making responsible decisions.” For example, a crime of ecocide could force governments to change the incentive structures for businesses by redirecting subsidises for fossil fuels towards clean energy sources. In this way the dirty energy companies that are wrecking the environment today could be transformed into the clean energy companies of tomorrow.

The crime of ecocide includes the concept of “strict liability” or “superior responsibility” which overcomes the current situation whereby company executives simply use what Michael Mansfield called “the Spanish waiter’s defence” and claim, “I know nothing.” This is something we saw recently, for example in the parliamentary select committee questioning of Rupert Murdoch in the News International phone hacking scandal.

But what is the prospect of such legislation ever becoming law? Higgins presented the legislation in draft form to the UN Law Commission back in April 2010. The lawyer who says the Earth is now her only client thinks we have a critical window of opportunity between now and the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June 2012 to enshrine the crime into international law. This would require an amendment to the Rome Statute – which established the International Criminal Court in 1998 – by a two third’s majority of the signatories.

If this is achieved, the human race will have created a renewed opportunity to overcome our greatest and, up until now, most intractable threat. At a time when international climate negotiations have effectively collapsed, Higgins asserts that a “crime of ecocide will close the door to fossil fuels.”

For more information about the campaign go to: www.thisisecocide.com

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Full sound recording of Rev Billy and the Church of Earthalujah! exorcising the evil demon of BP from the Tate. 35 minutes. July 18th 2011, 5pm at Tate Modern. TURN UP VOLUME. Starts quietly, levels vary, unadjusted original sound recording. “Got to listen hard: put your ear to the dirt!”

An op-ed by Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org, narrated and illustrated by Stephen Thomson.

The start of a major campaign. Instead of cutting jobs, create a million new ones to lower carbon emissions and kick start the economy. The full 33 minute version, plus seven more films, are on Reel News 27 – available at Reel News. For more information about the campaign download the One Million Climate Jobs booklet.

Published in The Independent, Friday, 22 April 2011

Phil England interviews Greg Muttitt – the source for The Independent’s revelations about how big oil firms influenced the invasion of Iraq – about the bigger story in his new book Fuel on the Fire.

“I would say the most surprising thing about my book is that someone else hasn’t written it in the past eight years. It’s an obvious question to ask, ‘what happened to the oil?’ ”

Published yesterday, Greg Muttitt’s explosive new history of post-occupation Iraq has been pulled together from hundreds of documents released under the Freedom of Information act – both here and in the US – as well as from numerous first-hand interviews. Muttitt was the source of The Independent’s front-page revelations on Tuesday that both BP and Shell had meetings with government officials in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq…

Encouraging signs from the Powershift 2011 conference in the US…