On the 23rd of February, the EU will vote on the EU Fuel Quality Directive. This would effectively ban Tar Sands from the EU, but the UK is opposing it and is actively lobbying other countries to vote against the measure (under pressure from Canadian lobbying).

What can you do about it?

Stop Climate Chaos and People & Planet are targeting Norman Baker and Nick Clegg to support this crucial legislation.

On February 17th they want to get as many emails as possible sent to Nick Clegg and Norman Baker. They’ve made it easy for you by creating a model email on their website:

http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/tar-sands-action
You could try tweeting to get all your friends, family and followers on board too.

Sample tweet: Join a new push to keep dirty #tarsands oil out of Europe – crucial vote next week http://ow.ly/95ePO

On February  20th try tweeting Nick Clegg directly to ask him to back the legislation.
For more info and a direct link to the P&P action:
http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/takeaction/eu-ban
http://peopleandplanet.org/news/tar-sands-ban-push

‘ … As If People Mattered’

Saturday 11 – Sunday 12 February 2012

Swarthmore Education Centre
2-7 Woodhouse Square Leeds LS3 1AD

E.F.Schumacher’s ground-breaking book, Small is Beautiful, was subtitled ‘Economics As If People Mattered’. In the centenary year of his birth, the theme is being taken up with increasing urgency by social movements across the globe. In our next conference Schumacher North joins the big conversation, looking at critical areas of our collective life and asking the question:

Currently we are being told that spending on essential public services, health, education and the environment must be slashed because of debts incurred by financial speculation. At the same time we are asked to accept the same financial institutions paying 7 figure bonuses to the very people responsible. Clearly people’s rights and well-being are not being given the highest priority in policy-making.

We are determined to go beyond asking challenging questions to frame some radical answers; to commit to building the social infrastructure and activist networks that will catalyse deep social, economic and environmental change in our region and beyond.

We are inviting participants from the widest possible range of backgrounds, interests and ideological views to engage in two days of intense discussion, encounter and networking that will challenge accepted ideas and help forge new ways of working together.

To this end, we’ll be placing less emphasis on separate workshops and presentation of individual projects, and providing more space for collective exploration of wider questions, along with space for working groups and for experiential groupwork.

• How can we organise and empower ourselves to meet our material, social and emotionalneeds in a way which is inclusive, just and sustainable?
  
• Is it possible for the current global economic system and political institutions to be reformed, brought under democratic control and made to serve human need – or is this a contradiction?
  
• · What are the tensions and commonalities between the social movements of our time (eg Transition, the Occupy movement, student and labour movements, movements for equality/inclusion of diverse social groups, faith- and spirituality-based movements )?
  
• ·Is it possible for a coherent social movement to be truly inclusive, participatory and egalitarian?
  

Please join us on February 11-12 to work towards an inspired,
positive vision for the future of our communities and our world.

Please note that entrance to the conference is free; however, we would welcome donations from those who feel able. The Swarthmore Centre is kindly supporting us by donating the space, and we would like to support them if possible.

To ensure access for people travelling from a distance, we will also be operating a fares pool (put in if you can, and take out if you need it). Also, please contact us as soon as possible if you are able to offer someone a place to sleep on the Saturday night (and possibly the Friday), or if you will be needing a bed yourself.

For more information and bookings, contact
schumachernorth-info[at]riseup.net

If the Dales Way Tidal Trail walk is not for you but you like cycling, why not join us on the same Spring Bank Holiday weekend for a four-day bike ride around the Dales and raise some money to help Tidal to do what it does even better.

We’ll start from Gargrave near Skipton and follow aloop around the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, finishing with the walkers in Ilkley. The average daily cycle will be a fairly leisurely 30 miles, so there will be plenty of time for breaks and the occasional detour to points of interest  and refreshment – and at that time of the year sunset will not be until well after 9:00 pm. There are some big hills, but you can take your time and it’s perfectly all right to get off and push your bike up the steep bits! Group cycling is fun, even more so when it’s for a good cause.

The Route

At the moment the planned route is as follows:

Day 1 (Sat 2 June): Train to Gargrave, then cycle via Airton, Settle, Ribblesdale and Dentdale to Dent  or Sedburgh (the latter being where the walkers will be staying that night).

Day 2 (Sun 3 June): Dent/Sedburgh,Garsdale Head, Kirkby Stephen, Tan Hill to Keld in upper Swaledale.

Day 3 (Mon 4 June): From Keld, via Swaledale to Leyburn, Castle Bolton, Askgrigg to Hawes.

Day 4 (Tues 5 June): Hawes via Langstrothdale to Buckden, then down Wharfedale to Grassington, then via Appletreewick to Ilkley, mainly on back roads, and hopefully waving to the walkers somewhere along the way.

For those who would like to do some of the ride but don’t have the time to do it all, it might be possible to join us from Garsdale Head or Kirkby Stephen stations, but you would need to coordinate this with us in advance.

Accommodation

As we decided to arrange this ride somewhat later than the walk, we have only just started to look at accommodation options. It is the May Bank Holiday weekend, so accommodation will be tight, but we are hopeful of working something out. Most probably we will have to camp on at least one night, but will try to get the tents delivered so you don’t have to carry them; other options we are looking out include bunkhouses and community halls. If deposits are needed we will let you know soon.  If you want more comfortable accommodation, you will need to book this yourself.

Costs

We will do our best to keep these as low as we can, with cheap accommodation a priority. We will pick up meals  from shops, cafes and pubs as we go. You will also need to buy  a train ticket to Gargrave on the first morning, and from Ilkley on the last evening unless you still feel like cycling home!

Fitness and Bikes

You absolutely don’t have to be a Tour de France cyclist for this  (if you are, this is probably not for you!), but please make sure you have a basic level of fitness – doing a bit every day over a few weeks is better than doing nothing then trying to do 30 miles on the weekend before we set out. And make sure your bike is in good repair – there are no more bike shops once we leave Settle, and although we will carry basic spares and tools, if something serious goes wrong we probably won’t be able to fix it. So take your bike to an experienced bike mechanic a couple of weeks before we set off and make sure everything is likely to last the distance. We will tell you more about these things when you decide to join us.

Sponsorship

As with the walk, we are setting a minimum fundraising target of £100 per person for the whole ride, or £25 per day. We will provide more accurate mileages soon, but if all your sponsors together add up to a quid a mile, you’ll make the £100.

We are hoping that this will fill in the gap in our income and mean that we break even this year. With funding pots getting smaller and smaller, this is vital for Tidal to continue its work.

How to register

If this sounds like a good way to start the summer, just fill out the online registration form.

Registration deadlines

This is still somewhat uncertain until we know more about accommodation, but most probably we will need to know by 15^th March. But the most important thing at this stage is to let us know that you are interested.

Want to help without cycling?

We are not intending to have a support vehicle, but it would be really helpful to have someone deliver camping equipment on the night(s) we are camping, and to be on call in case someone needs to be rescued

It’s January. It’s freezing. Christmas emptied the coffers and now the bills are starting to bite. As the Big Six energy companies rake in profits of 700% and the government freezes the fuel allowance, it’s time to tell the Big Six and the government that we’ve had enough!

Read more…

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Date: 27th January
Time: 10AM
Location: To be disclosed, meet outside Leeds City Museum
What? Responding to a national call to action by Fuel Poverty Action to warm ourselves up this winter!

It’s January. It’s freezing. Christmas emptied the coffers and now the bills are starting to bite. As the Big Six energy companies rake in profits of 700% and the government freezes the fuel allowance, it’s time to tell the Big Six and the government that we’ve had enough!

Fuel poverty is a public issue, not a private pain. One in four families in the UK is shivering, out of sight, behind closed doors. The government and energy companies may want to keep it this way, but we say this can’t go on.

In the UK, six companies are deciding how 99% of our energy is sourced, produced and priced. Under this monopoly, we have no say in these decisions, despite them having a major effect on our health and our climate.

From 27th to 29th January Leeds Fuel Poverty Action is joining up with other groups all over the country to heat things up!

We’re calling for people to come out of their cold homes and into the warm offices of the Big Six: E.ON, EDF, Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern, Centrica (British Gas), and Npower.

We can also warm-up at the town halls and housing associations, which are putting profit and cuts before people’s welfare.

Bearing flasks of tea and our own experiences of landlords that won’t listen, unaffordable bills, tuition fees, and debts, as well as cuts in services, benefits and working conditions, our winter warm-ups will be taking place wherever cuts are biting and warm spaces look inviting.

This is a call to anti-cuts groups, local youth and pensioner organisations, and anyone suffering in the cold this winter because they can’t afford the heating.

We can find ways forward, collectively, by making ourselves heard by the government and the energy companies. But what do we demand? Some things are clear: Decent shelter and warmth are a right, not a privilege. We should all have well insulated, warm homes and affordable bills that don’t make us choose between eating and heating. But how do we achieve this? What alternatives are there to a corporate controlled energy industry? How do we shift to sustainable, renewable energy? As we Warm-up we’ll be discussing these important questions and forming a plan to achieve it, come and join us!

Stop shivering in silence, let’s warm-up together!

For more information, get in touch with Jon at jon.owen[at]leedstidal.org

Fuel Poverty Action marching to the 'die-in' 22nd November 2011

Key details
Date: Saturday 10th December
Time: Meet at 12 midday
Place: Leeds City Hall

What’s this all about?

As the UN climate change talks and COP are currently taking place in Durban, South Africa, one thing politicans never agree on is how to fill the $100 billion proposed to fill the climate fund.

One solution is a Robin Hood Tax or Financial Transactions Tax.

A Robin Hood Tax is a 0.05% tax on international bankers transactions that would create $400 billion globally a year to help fight climate change and poverty in the UK and in developing countries- there is a lot of information about the Robin Hood Tax on the website: http://robinhoodtax.org/

Many countries already support this solution; France, Brazil, South Africa, for example, as well as some key figures, such as Bill Gates and the Archbishop of Canterbury. This is making David Cameron look increasingly isolated in his rejection of the idea. It is a vital time to be campaigning about the RHT and a petition of 80,000 signatures that was sent into David Cameron was recently mentioned on Question Time.

The plan is to get as many people as possible dressed up as Robin Hood in Leeds city centre on Saturday 10th December from 12pm. We will be meeting on the steps at Leeds City Hall at 12pm for a briefing and then we will march through the city centre using a pre agreed route, carrying a large banner, signs, handing out flyers and badges and using megaphones. Anyone wishing to join the march is encouraged to dress up as Robin Hood, however, there will be about 8 robin hood hats and lots of green jumpers available to lend so if people could just try and wear green then that would be great. There will also be posters on sticks for people to carry.

Join the facebook group to get updates.

If you’re coming along you are very welcome to just turn up, but it would be helpful to know numbers. So get in touch with Kathryn Roche on 07929189339 to let her know you’re coming.

See you there!

Find out about our current Fuel Poverty and Tax Justice campaigns – and get in touch if you’d like to join in the fun.

On Tuesday 22nd November the the statistics for ‘excess winter deaths’ are being published. These are the stats that show how many more people died last winter as a direct result of being cold in their homes. We think it’s completely unacceptable that over 200 people die each day during the winter months from cold when we have the means to stop it.

Moreover, the government seems inclined to decimate funding from all renewable energy projects that may be able to solve the problem, and seems content to let the so-called ‘Big Six’ energy companies make a real killing – this year their profits rose 733% per customer!

At 1pm on Tuesday 22nd November we are going to say enough is enough by holding a die-in in or around one of Leeds’ more opulent shopping centres to draw attention to the absurdity that in a country of such spectacular wealth, people still die from cold homes while the government dismantles any sensible attempt to tackle the issue.

Meet 12.15 at Occupy Leeds in City Square for a quick briefing and discussion before heading to the action location.