Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Hummer Dealership shut down by protesters against urban 4 x 4's in Manchester

reclaim power | 17.10.2006 11:39 | Climate Camp 2006 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Health | Social Struggles

Inspired by the camp for climate action, 40 people protested outside a Hummer dealership in Manchester about the environmental impact of SUV emissions which are contributing to climate chaos.








On the 16thof October around 40 individuals inspired by the camp for climate action shut down the Bauer Millettes hummer dealership in Manchester town centre.

The eco-activists fresh from helping to plan the next climate camp headed down to the SUV garage in various states of attire to highlight the link between our unseasonably warm weather and the emissions of the polluting 11 miles per gallon SUVs.

We began with a couple of women dressed as yuppies who went in and posed as potential buyers. They were informed by the dodgy car salesman that although the new Hummer 3 was technically classified as a Heavy Goods Vehicle it still fitted into some large parking spaces. Then the first of our “real” activists arrived and started telling our Yuppies why not to buy these vehicles of mass destruction.

A banner saying “Stop urban 4x4s” was then dropped from the tram bridge overhead. Several others then entered the forecourt and attached themselves to the front of the obscenely large vehicles, one lay covered in fake blood a casualty of the killer hummer. The other activists dressed as clown soldiers, pixies, a gas-masked bride, Tony Blair, a skeleton, Marylin Monroe with a half burnt American flag, the yuppies and various generically-modified hippies infiltrated the garage then bounced around the £50K+ luxury soft tops and SUVS.

A police motorcyclist then turned up on the scene and promptly called for 3 tactical aid units. The main concern of the 15 odd Police that turned up was not the protection of our planet for the future generations but wasting taxpayers money protecting these bourgeois assesories from scratches.

We had D-locked the electronic gates open so we could move in and out freely but after an hour and half the police turned up concealing their new specialised hydrolic cutting equipment and promptly cordoned off the whole gate. They did a good job of helping us to stop people from buying these vehicles. We continued to demonstrate and hand out flyers to the public and a special certificate to people who drove past in SUVs congratulating them for destroying our planet. We tried to keep the typically unresponsive police entertained with discussions about the complexities of the climate crisis.

We found lots of people on the street found it hard to see past the shiny SUVs to our sophisticated analysis that cars cause climate change, which is bad; so big cars cause more climate change, which is even worse!

We raised awarness of the link between the fact that all vehicles, but SUVS in particular, are a very significant contributer to climate chaos. We helped the police stop the selling of these killing, destructive machines. We handed out flyers to hundreds of people and managed to knock the hats of no less than 7 police officers as they passed under our banner.

It was agreed by all involved that we would not cause criminal damage on this action, resulting in no arrests, in what was a very easy to organise and effective action.

www.climatecamp.org.uk.
www.stopurban4x4s.org.uk

reclaim power

Additions

Some small additions (& other 4x4 local news):

17.10.2006 21:48

Hummer dealership is in fact Bauer Millett, the UK's only official Hummer murder weapon seller.
Many on the protest were protesting about 4x4s per se, not just urban ones; distinction is a bit of a red herring!
Another website on the leaflet handed out was suvsuck.org
Though good national & local press work was done, there was very little interest.

Some other 4x4 local news:
The new rising bollards in Manchester town centre that only let buses through, at a traffic 'accident' black-spot, have claimed some more cars including a 4x4! When cars ignore all the signs, luminous & audible warnings, and tailgate buses through, they get shafted (quite literally) by the rising bollards!

On Monday there was also a 4x4 protest at a Cheshire school, organised by Manchester FoE, about their use on the school run.

And a nice article & picture about fungus causing a tree to crush a car completely, for all you car lovers, at
 http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/225/225467_fungus_causes_tree_to_crash_onto_cars.html

protestor
- Homepage: http://earthfirst.org.uk


Comments

Display the following 15 comments

  1. Freedom of choice? — LC
  2. No Freedom of choice — Bill
  3. Hardly lifestylists! — Good show
  4. destructive comments — mike d
  5. Well done... — anon
  6. Well done, from the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s — Blake Ludwig
  7. Freedom of choice?! — camper
  8. urban 4x4s, rural workhorses? — mudpuppy
  9. inspiring — katy
  10. Rispeck! — Alphonse
  11. some coverage — mediaphobe
  12. a touch narrow minded ? — stu
  13. Get A Life — General Clark
  14. Get a Life — General Clark
  15. Visceral — Gruye
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech