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GREENPEACE SHUT DOWN LAND ROVER FACTORY

J | 16.05.2005 08:08 | Ecology | Birmingham | World

35 Greenpeace activists have locked on to a land rover production line in an SUV factory in Solihull.

Early this morning 35 Greenpeace volunteers shut down the assembly line making gas-guzzling Range Rovers. Urban 4x4s made at this site are wrecking the climate.

The volunteers used safety shut-down buttons to cut off power to the assembly line before handcuffing and chaining themselves to unfinished vehicles along the 150m long assembly line and branding it a climate crime scene. It's the first time anywhere in the world that protesters have shut down a factory making Sports Utility Vehicles.

Climate change is the greatest threat the planet is facing. According to the World Health Organisation, 150,000 people are already dying every year as a result of the impacts of climate change including droughts, floods and storms. Yet Land Rover continues to make gas-guzzling vehicles, most of which will tackle nothing steeper than a speed bump.

The Range Rover is the UK's least fuel-efficient 4x4 doing a criminal 12 miles to the gallon in urban areas. The new Range Rover Sport, which "has been tuned primarily for on road performance," does fewer miles to the gallon than the Model T Ford built 80 years ago.

Making cars like this for urban use is crazy. Land Rover aggressively markets its range of 4x4s - like Discovery and Range Rover - in towns and cities. It spends £3 million on advertising in London alone. Land Rover's parent company Ford has also stood in the way of government action to tackle climate change both in Europe and the US.

In the UK, road transport accounts for about a quarter of the emissions that cause climate change, which makes it the second biggest source of greenhouse gases. The trend of 4x4 vehicles as urban run-arounds is increasing the amount of emissions going into the atmosphere.

Greenpeace executive director Stephen Tindale is one of the volunteers currently chained to Range Rover chassis. He said: "We've taken direct action to stop Land Rover making these gas-guzzling urban 4x4s. The company used to have a reputation for making working vehicles, but now they market themselves as the car company for people who love the wilderness while simultaneously producing cars that threaten our environment with catastrophic climate change."

Range Rover's parent company, Ford, is losing money and shedding jobs in America because sales of their gas-guzzling models are falling, whereas Asian companies are thriving by making fuel efficient vehicles. With a climate crisis developing and oil at over $50 a barrel, car-makers who want to save jobs have to stop making gas guzzlers.

There's no future and no jobs in making cars that wreck the climate. Land Rover and Ford have the technology to develop far more fuel-efficient vehicles but they choose not to. It's time for Land Rover to stop making gas-guzzlers and time for Tony Blair to tax them off our roads.

J
- Homepage: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 12 comments

long-range rovers

16.05.2005 12:28

FYI- 4x4s aren't just for parents in the city. Land Rover also have a tidy market in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Baghdad, selling bullet proof cars with service options to invading businessfolk.
 http://www.iraqsupplier.com/docs/profiles/lfpv/home.htm
 http://www.no-lemon.com/Locations.htm

thepikie


Well Done.

16.05.2005 13:40

Well done.

bubba


take it to the factories

17.05.2005 01:31

Nice one - sounds like a brilliant idea!

Krop


Workers View

17.05.2005 09:26

Comment from the Transport and General Workers.

"At a time when car manufacturing and engineering in general throughout the West Midlands is under such pressure this publicity stunt by Greenpeace is crass stupidity of the worst kind."

5000 people lost their jobs at Rover with another 10,000 affected in the local area. These are working class people whose jobs are at threat. To stop production at this time because Greenpeace needs a top up of the bank account in bloddy disgusting.

ex Rover Worker


What about the workers in these factories?

17.05.2005 09:51

What about the workers in these factories? Don't they have a right to a job? Why should they be inconvienced and stopped from working? The people who work in these factories are working class and have a right to work!

Tom


Waste

17.05.2005 13:46

another fuckin stupid Greepeace stunt. Rainbow Warrior bit low on fuel oil again ?

Tosser


Poor poor workers...

18.05.2005 11:35

Perhaps they'd like to go to work making cars they cannot afford, enrichening bosses with money they will never see, to help the rich pollute the planet and the air they breathe.

“What a sad and bitter irony that those who were predicted to be the grave diggers of capitalism, the western working class, have become, to a considerable extent, the foot soliders in this war against the planet.”

R


Nice one Greenpeace

18.05.2005 15:01

Like the T & G stood up for the dockers??? Fucking wank union with wank leadership. There is a real problem with saving jobs just for the jobs sake. How far do you want to take it you ignorant twat? lets savbe jobs in the arms industries, GM industries, Nuclear industries, police state industry. You pthetic English moron - perhaps you deserve to die as a result of climate change/ pollution relate dillness/being run over/ a bomb planted by people who'sx country you have helped to rape ( and there are plenty of them ). Lucky you got your job in the first place - old sun reading boys network like the fucking trains. Tried to get a job with those as well. Difficult. greta employment prospects for reactionary sexist pricks. You managed to fuck the peole up of this country and now your happy for climate change too. Grow up you wimps.

play dead rover


Worker bollocks

18.05.2005 19:30

Play dead rover is spot on. Best comment I've seen on IMC for a while, and I like the quote about the workers as footsoldiers in the war against the planet. Never trust trots.

When will people get it...

Climate change to be worse than AIDS, worse than the world wars, worse than the plague...but those sun reading tosser dickheads in the factories wana keep their jobs so they can buy their own fancy cars and cut flowers from ecuador for their girlfriends. well, fuck off. It's about time someone took some responsibility. Ok, so the bosses are worse, but does that mean that those carrying out the crimes get off scott free. don't think so. Anyway, Greenpeace werent targetting the workers, they were merely taking direct action to stop climate crime.

Greenpeace are supposed to be the mainstream shit liberal organisation that's "part of the problem, not part of the solution." Well, seems to me, there arent too many others taking it to the factories at the moment...

Too busy reading the sun...

dennis


T&GWU bullsh1t

05.06.2005 05:40

Someone tell that T&GWU tw@t that there will be NO jobs for anyone on a dead planet.

Finn


Go green? Go GAS!

15.08.2005 18:12

I appreciate, your comments on the amount of fuel a Range Rover consume, so in order for out in the "sticks" people like me, to feel justified in owning one and not feel guilty, why doesnt Land Rover make the Range Rover with factory fitted LPG. We have 3 Range Rovers all gas converted, so that makes us as enviromently as green as we can be, bar electric cars.
Please don't assume that all Ranger Rover Drivers flick the "V" sign to the enviroment as its just not true.

Regards
Petra

Petra
mail e-mail: petraclare@aol.com


I totally agree.

05.11.2005 22:15

Totally agree.

Also shame on the brainless idiot who thinks that jobs in Solihull (Landrover plant)
justify making gas guzzlers like the Landrover. Guess the guy doesnt get out much or
doesnt read the papers - CLIMATE CHANGE YOU MORON.

Please see attached link for posters to download and display - I like this site because
rather than being a complete hard-ass on a serious subject they seem to have
decided that mocking humour is the best way to show urban landrover drivers what idiots they are.

Apart from that - never seen so little style, some people really need a "car make over" if they think the new Discoverys look good - more like a shoe box.

jon
- Homepage: http://clix.to/no4x4


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