UK Indymedia | Climate activist 'super-glued to door' of lastminute.com

I have been talking to several people about the idea of giving climate and
aviation briefings when arrested, as opposed to "no-commenting". I am
hoping that the gluing idea might be able to "go viral", and people could
do interviews on the lines of the one below (the police interview relating
to the lastminute action). I have edited out the "basically"s, and made
some minor grammar amendments, but otherwise it is pretty much verbatim. I
think the "I haven't got anything to hide" accountable interview technique
is quite a good one.

xx Penny

8th June 2007 13.31 Belgravia Police Station.
Interview with Penny Eastwood
And Police constables Maxine Leach
And James Towber

(Legal formalities)

MAXINE: You were arrested today on the 8th of June. Do you want to put
forward your side of the story.

PENNY. Yes. I haven't got anything to hide. Can I start off by giving a
bit of a climate briefing about why I think it is so urgent and why my
action was proportional.

There was a conference in Decemerber 2005 which was run by the Hadley
Centre, the Met Office - i.e. top scientists were attending this
conference - and their conclusion was that if the concentration went above
400ppm then we would be entering the
territory of very dangerous climate change. It is now 380ppm.

We are on a globe and energy comes in from the sun - two things can happen
to that energy - it can either bounce back off (like off icesheets) or it
can get absorbed by the earth’s surface. When it gets absorbed by the
earth’s surface it gets reradiated as heat energy. So light energy can
come in but heat energy is trapped by the CO2. There has to be a balance
between the energy coming in from the sun and the energy escaping back to
space. If you think about that that’s really good common sense - you
can’t just have more and more energy coming in. So if you put more CO2 in
the atmosphere the only way that the earth can restore that energy balance
is by radiating more heat energy until enough escapes back to space.

What’s happening is that we are putting over 6 billion tonnes of carbon
into the atmosphere every year. We are at the stage now where we are
incredibly close to the triggering point where the climate change goes
into runaway mode - where we start getting things like the melting of the
ice sheets, and of course if you start losing your icesheets less of the
sun's energy bounces back to space and more gets absorbed. The other
thing which is really serious is the prospect of losing the tropical
forests and getting huge source of carbon dioxide which will go into the
atmosphere when we pass that trigger point and the other thing is methane
releases from tundras, so were getting very very very close to the stage
where climate change goes runaway and becomes unstoppable.

I took this action today because there's obviously been the G8 summit with
all the leaders of the world's rich countries - they are not doing what is
needed to be done to bring this problem under control, basically because
they are really so bound up with industry and the big polluters.

I went to lastminute offices partly because of the point that I am trying
to make and get through to the general public - that we really are at the
last minute to deal with this stuff - it’s the whole aviation industry
that is complicit in it, and obviously other parts of the economy. Why
pick on aviation? The projections are that aviation is going to increase
by three times so it's not just at its present level we are talking about
a threefold increase in 1990 levels unless something is done to stop them.
CO2 emissions from aviation are 2.5 times more damaging that the
equivalent CO2 at ground level because they are emitted very high up in
the atmosphere and they have particularly damaging effects. The Royal
Comission on Environmental pollution says 2.5 times as damaging. You
often hear statistics that aviation is only 2 of global emissions but it
doesn’t take account of that additional effect and it also doesn’t take
account of the fact that a lot of the people in the world just don’t fly
at all. If you measure it for the UK then aviation is 13 of UK emissions

MAXINE
So you were targettijng lastminute.com about your feelings about aviation

PENNY
Yes it’s the aviation industry as a whole of which lastminute is a typical
example

MAXINE
When you explain your actions and obviously you have explained your
reasons behind it how strongly you feel about the environment and what's
happening at the minute. Can you tell me what your actions actually were?

PENNY
Yes I’m quite happy to do that. What I wanted to do primarily is that I
did not want to cause too much criminal damage and I knew that the glue
washes off - I didn't want to end up with a huge fine and I know that it
washes off. And also you were there and I said that I didn’t want to give
the cleaner a job and I was quite happy to wash it off myself once I had
been detached. And you were there and you heard that.

MAXINE. That's true.

PENNY. The second thing is that I wanted to make it very clear that I was
a peaceful protester, and obviously if I've got my hand stuck it's clear
that I'm not a terrorist, I'm not threatening anyboy and I am the person
who is at most risk because if somebody had pulled me off it would have
been not very nice. That was the reason why I chose that technique. It
was the minimal damage I could cause and the minimal amount of threat.
You observed me when I was glued on the door and I was at no time abusive,
I was just giving out my leaflets and making it clear why I was there to
the general public. You witnessed that.

MAXINE. Yeah. How did you actually stick your hands to the door.

PENNY. Well I just quickly opened the superglue and squashed it into my
hands and smacked it on.

MAXINE. Would you agree you were aware that it might cause some sort of
danage whether it would be permanent or temporary?

PENNY. It would be in my judgement the level of damage that would be
possibly equivalent to half an hours' cleaners wage at most. I want to
put that in proportion with the damage that is being caused by an industry
that is being allowed to do this. I think when you arrested me I might
have said something to the effect, and this is what I believe, "Can you
imagine what it would be like if Sadaam Hussein was putting poisonous
gases into the atmosphere which were damaging the fabric of the planet?
Can you imagine what the newspapers would say - 'evil, awful, terribe
thing' - but actually this is what is going on at the moment and the
people in that building are complicit in it. Government are not acting on
their scientific advice. My whole thing is that I was trying to do
something as peaceful and proportionate as possible. But equally if I
hadn't glued myself there you would have had me away in two minutes and I
wouldn't have made my protest, and I wouldn’t have been able to get that
information out into the public arena which is what I am trying to do.

MAXINE Did anyone give you permission to do that? I know that seems like
a silly question.

PENNY. I think it is a bit of a silly question.

MAXINE. I need to clarify for the tape.

PENNY. Well I didn’t ask

MAXINE. What time did you arrive to start your protest?

PENNY I think it was in the region of 8.30 but I can't be exact because I
havent got a watch on.

MAXINE. You put some leaflets up on the door. Do you agree with that?

PENNY. Stickers, not leaflets.

MAXINE. How did you put them on the door?

PENNY.- they’re adhesive, they’ll wash off like sticky labels on a wine
bottle all they need is a little bit of water. So in terms of the level
of the damage that I have done to their building I imagine it's about half
an hours' worth of cleaning - they probably don’t pay very well so it
would be less than £5.

MAXINE. Did they have a sticky back?

PENNY. Yes, you can take one for evidence.

MAXINE - We actually took one at the site.

PENNY - well you could put one up in the foyer. There's nothing wrong
with it and it's quite legal.

JAMES. Ive just got a couple of questions. When we were leaving, how
many posters were on the door?

PENNY - three.

JAMES - Can you tell me what they look like?

PENNY well one was pulled off and so that one got torn. It said "air
today, gone tomorrow" and it was a picture of a tropical island

JAMES - Can I stop you there, who pulled that one off?

PENNY the security guard.

JAMES and did he pull it off completely did he?

PENNY no there was a little bit left that would have been needed to be
pulled off, and the other two said "you fly, they die" and they had
picutes of polar bears on.

JAMES - did the others get pulled off while you were there?

PENNY - No, not while I was there.

JAMES - the security guard pulled off the first poster - was it completely
off, was the window completely clear?

PENNY - no, but it was no longer legible. As I said before it would have
taken a cleaner about 2 minutes to clear it off.

JAMES - you had your left hand attached to the brushes of the door, did
you intentionally do that?

PENNY- no, it was just that the security guard was coming really quickly
so I had to rush to grab the first thing.

JAMES - the brushes may possibly be stuck together now.

PENNY - no, it will wash off.

JAMES - You said you were handing out leaflets and talking to the people
passinhg by. What were you saying to them?

PENNY - I’m stuck on but if you want to see what I am doing there are
these leaflets in my bag. Some people took leaflets and some people
didn’t.

JAMES - what were the reactions of the people that did stop?

PENNY- there was one ARMS DEALER and I asked him if he flew. And he said
oh yes I work in the defence industries and have to do a lot of flying,
something about having to go to Khazikhstan or something like that.
Obviously he didn’t have a terribly environmental attitude. But then
other people came by and said "cool" and came and asked for my leaflets.
So I certainly wasn’t causing any distress to the public.

JAMES. The people who took your leaflets, were they asking about why you
were there? You mentioned the man who worked in defence what was his
reaction to you neing there?

PENNY - he didn’t look alarmed. He looked "oh what's going on, I'll find
out whats going on" and I engaged him in conversation and then somebody
from the police came and I had to give you some information for your book.

JAMES - did you identify any lastminute.com workers?

PENNY - I was asking people if they were part of it, but nobody positively
identified themselves as I was just saying "Are you a worker at
lastminute?"

JAMES - this was while you were there?

PENNY - I wasn’t blocking the entrance, that’s another thing. They were
coming in through the other entrance but it was obvious that I was there
and it was obvious why I was there. Which is what my purpose was.

JAMES - so you didn’t actually identify any lastminute stuff?

PENNY - no.

JAMES - are you aware about the govenerment security zone in that area?

PENNY - I wasn’t aware about the government security zone - I knew there
was something around the Houses of Parliament but I didn’t really realise.
I'm not from London and didn’t realise that I was in the exclusion area.
I was aware of that after I'd stuck myself on.

JAMES - did you at any time think to inform the police about the
demonstration?

PENNY. No, because you would have stopped me. To my mind the important
thing was that the G8 summit had been debating climate change the day
before and I knew that this was going to happen and I had a shrewd
suspicion that they were not going to come up with the goods that were
needed and so I needed to be there at that date.

JAMES - Is there any significance about the date?

PENNY - It is a global day of actionn on climate change.

JAMES - when we left the scene can you just describe what was left on the
door?

PENNY - exactly what I've said - there were 2 stickers up, there was a
splodge of glue, and there was one sticker which had been pulled down. I
repeat it would be cleanupable within half an hour.

MAXINE - it there anything you want to add?

PENNY. I'm hungry.

MAXINE - Well we'll get you some food.

PENNY. I think I've just about covered everything. I've got nothing to
hide.

INTERVIEW ENDED AT 13.52