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Royal Bank of Scotland, Kingsnorth and Shell branded ‘Stupid’

Sam | 19.03.2009 15:11 | Climate Chaos

Thursday 19th March 2009: Groups have staged a series of actions to highlight the climate ‘Stupid’ and ‘Not Stupid’ of britain.

PRESS RELEASE – For immediate release

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theclevercrew@googlemail.com

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Royal Bank of Scotland, Kingsnorth and Shell branded ‘Stupid’ in series of actions.

Thursday 19th March 2009: Groups inspired by the film ‘The Age of Stupid’ have staged a series of audacious actions to highlight the ‘Stupid’ and ‘Not Stupid’ of Britain.

In a wave of protests, Shell, BP and Esso had 'Stupid' oil drums delivered to their petrol stations across London. Earlier this week Shell withdrew investment from clean wind and solar power. Last night, the headquarters of largely state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland, which continues to be a primary financier of the fossil fuels industry, was stickered with 'Stupid' stickers, while Kingsnorth Power Station, which has become a symbol of the government’s equivocation over environmental issues, had ‘Stupid Stupid Stupid’ projected onto it.

Wednesday saw climbers scaling one of the U.K’s highest wind turbines to display a banner reading ‘Not Stupid'. The actions culminated today with 'Not Stupid' flashmobs at Eurostar terminals in Paris and London, and at Manchester Piccadilly station.

One of those involved with this week's protests, Gemma Waite, said: “Everywhere we look, there’s climate stupidity. But it doesn’t have to be that way – we can solve the problem if we want to and we act quickly enough. The message we’re getting from the climate scientists is that we don’t have time to mess around. We’ve got to get on with it.”

Having seen ‘The Age of Stupid’ at last year's Climate Camp at Kingsnorth in Kent, members of the audience planned the events to echo the message of the film, which describes the need for urgent and direct action to avert climate catastrophe.

Last week climate scientists gathered in Copenhagen also lent their support to urgent action on climate change, warning that unless immediate and ambitious action is taken, we will face abrupt or irreversible shifts in the climate which would be near-impossible to adapt to.

Another protestor, Sam Elliott, said “I was inspired to do something by seeing ‘The Age of Stupid’ at climate camp. The police may have warned of a ‘summer of rage’, but the only anger we feel is towards a political system which has so spectacularly failed to deal with the problem of climate change. As the impacts of climate change become more and more obvious, we’re definitely going to see more direct action against those causing the problem.”

PHOTOS: Are available on Flickr at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cleverphotos They show climbers scaling the wind turbine, projections of 'Stupid' onto the side of Kingsnorth power station, oil barrels labelled 'stupid' at petrol stations, and flashmobs at London, Manchester and Paris railway stations.

VIDEO: A press reel of the actions is available.

INTERVIEWS are available with protestors.

More details and live updates are available on

http://clevercrew.wordpress.com

Ends.

EDITOR'S NOTES

The actions are:

Yesterday climbers scaled a wind turbine to drop a 'Not Stupid' banner.
Last night saw RBS stickered, oil barrels delivered to Esso, BP and Shell petrol stations, and 'Stupid Stupid Stupid' projected onto the side of Kingsnorth power station.
Today saw pro-rail flashmobs at London St Pancras, Manchester Piccadilly and Paris Gare du Nord.
The Age of Stupid premiered last saturday. It opens in cinemas tomorrow.

Sam
e-mail: theclevercrew@googlemail.com
Homepage: http://clevercrew.wordpress.com

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

Hmmm

19.03.2009 18:12

"The police may have warned of a ‘summer of rage’, but the only anger we feel is towards a political system which has so spectacularly failed to deal with the problem of climate change"

Hmmm... What about the route of the problem: Capitalism and industrialisation? No anger about that? T'aint JUST shell and BP causing the problems here. Climate change is inevitable if we continue to live the way we do and no amount of corporate built, centralised renewable energy production is gonna change that. Not sayin that theres no hope, but that our anger should go deeper. We need this rage at the system that put us in this position if we wanna change anything.

Peat

population growth

20.03.2009 13:17

This only holds true if Climate change through manmade emissions is true.
The biggest threat to the environment that can be easily proven is young mothers popping out 6+ children who all grow up and have 6+ children of their own, each needing a house/xbox + car of their own. Ultimately, this is root cause of the growth in resource consumption. Less growth in population = less damage to the environment.

Population growth of this magnitude is completely unsustainable in the long term.
There are no buts about this.

adam

While I appreciate the effort,

21.03.2009 02:13

looking at all this via the abstracted medium of the internet, not much of it makes sense and it all LOOKS a little bit smug and self-satisfied. I'm sure its not the intention but i do feel thats how it comes across. I feel labelling things as 'stupid' (even if it is in reference to a film most people havent seen) perhaps belies their true complexity. Although the kingsnorth one works pretty well, and im guessing probably used less people and time.

I honestly just trying to give some feedback here, please dont take this as a personal insult or anything.

...

re: population growth

21.03.2009 18:48

> This only holds true if Climate change through manmade emissions is true.
Sigh, this again. Of course, but either we believe the scientific consensus, the over 2,000 scientists of the UN IPCC, and not the oil industry-funded sceptics, or we say they might not be right, but due to the precautionary principle we might as well act on what they say, because if we don't and they are right, it'll be too late and we'll all die horribly.

> root cause of the growth in resource consumption. Less growth in population = less damage to the
> environment.
It's this kind of simplistic logic that gets us in trouble. As an example, but I'm afraid I can't remember the figures, when the small population of the US consumes a huge proportion of the world's resources, more than many heavily populated Southern countries put together, then it's consumption that we need to address first and foremost, if we're to take into account social justice. Which would be nice!

not a Malthusian

climate

22.03.2009 07:42

> Sigh, this again. Of course, but either we believe the scientific consensus, the over 2,000 scientists of the UN IPCC, and not the oil industry-funded sceptics....
The thing is 'climate change' study is funded. It is without doubt easier to get a research grant if you have the words "climate change" in its title.

A recent example:
The Arts Council recently sent a boat with Jarvis Cocker, a ceramic artist (ie. a potter) and lot of other artists to look a glacier off greenland. This was all grant money under the pretence of extending the climate change message through art. In reality, it was a big Jolly outing for them. They would not be able to have that outing if they didn't wrap it up with 'climate change' in the proposal's title.
Unfortunately, such "studies" then get swallowed up in the statistics and labelled as successfully proving climate change. I know there is a lot of good studies out there, but there are many many more bad ones.

> It's this kind of simplistic logic that gets us in trouble. As an example, but I'm afraid I can't remember the figures, when the small popu....
It is simplistic i agree, but you can't denounce things for being simplistic. The idea that oil resources will run out and therefore is unsustainable is simplistic.... but it is also true. The growth of the earth's population at its current rate is equally unsustainable. It cannot keep growing at the rate it is without a continued detrimental effect to the planet.
This is one of the simplist things people could do to save the planet.... stop having 6+ kids.

peat

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