Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Pedal Power Bike Rush Mo 1 June

Peter Marshall | 02.06.2009 16:40 | Climate Chaos | World

Several hundred climate change activists took part in a Pedal Power Bike Rush organised by the 'Climate Rush' around London yesterday evening (Monday 1 June 2009) demanding the UK government take effective action to counter climate change and global warning.
Pictures Copyrigh (C) 2009, Peter Marshall, All rights reserved.

Before the ride
Before the ride

A garden in a bike basket
A garden in a bike basket

Tasmin at BP
Tasmin at BP

A breif halt before going down Oxford St
A breif halt before going down Oxford St

Coming to the Mall
Coming to the Mall

At BAA in Victoria
At BAA in Victoria

Celebration
Celebration

Remember the 5th of December
Remember the 5th of December


The 'Bike Rush' gathered around 5 pm outside Chatham House, where earlier in the day 5 Climate Rush activists were arrested when they tried to block the entrance to the conference, 'Coal: An answer to our energy security’ with a bike sculpture and a banner reading 'NO NEW COAL – CLIMATE RUSH'.

By 18.10 when the protest moved off there were almost 300 cyclists and a tandem pulled sound system. The rush toured the main streets of the West End including Piccadilly Circus, Shaftesbury Avenue, Oxford St, Regent St, St James St and The Mall, passing Buckingham Palace and then cycling around Victoria before heading to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge.

Some of the protesters rode in white dresses and hats evoking the Suffragette era, and one came in black as a widow, mourning the end of coal. Many more wore red sashes, copied from the purple sashes worn by the Suffragettes, but red, to signifying the we are at the highest level of danger - and some carried the message 'Climate Code Red'. Others bore the suffragette motto, 'Deeds Not Words', and there were also sashes saying 'No Airport Expansion'. 'Action on Coal Now!, Trains Not Planes' and 'Pedal Power.'

Police on pedal bikes rode with the protesters, stopping the traffic at some junctions so the ‘Rush’ could safely and legally go through red lights, and at several points there were a couple of police Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) beavering away as usual behind their long-lens cameras and video collecting thousands of images of protesters and journalists for the database they deny having. There were also police vans and more police outside several places occupied by 'climate criminals', including the government’s clumsily-named Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), responsible for promoting much of its anti-environment climate warming activity.

The 'Rush' halted outside several of these offices of companies they accuse of criminal irresponsibility towards the environment, including BP in St James Square, the British Airports Authority at Victoria, and BERR. At each stop people came to the microphone to comment on the activities of these organisations and others we had passed, explaining how these companies were harming our environment.

Police on pedal bikes rode with the protesters, stopping the traffic at some junctions so the ‘Rush’ could safely and legally go through red lights, and at several points there were a couple of police Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) beavering away as usual behind their long-lens cameras and video collecting thousands of images of protesters and journalists for the database they deny having. There were also police vans and more police outside several places occupied by 'climate criminals', including the government’s clumsily-named Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), responsible for promoting much of its anti-environment climate warming activity.

The 'Rush' halted outside several of these offices of companies they accuse of criminal irresponsibility towards the environment, including BP in St James Square, the British Airports Authority at Victoria, and BERR. At each stop people came to the microphone to comment on the activities of these organisations and others we had passed, explaining how these companies were harming our environment.

After cycling around Parliament Square, and stopping to express support for the Tamils on hunger strike there, the mass of cyclists came to a halt on Westminster Bridge, and after a few minutes, decided to have the end of ride picnic in the middle of it.

A very long banner with the text 'Remember Remember the 5th of December' - the date of the Climate Demonstration - as well as a reference to the man often claimed as the only person to have entered parliament with honest intentions, was hung briefly from both sides of the bridge and displayed it on the roadway.

Police quickly cleared the cyclists from the southbound carriageway, but when I left around 15 minutes later the picnic was still continuing on the northbound side of the bridge, and no traffic was moving across the bridge in either direction.

There are a few more/different pictures on Demotix:
 http://www.demotix.com/news/pedal-power-planet-climate-rush-london

Quite a few more pictures on My London Diary in a day or two:
 http://mylondondiary.co.uk

Peter Marshall
- e-mail: petermarshall@cix.co.uk
- Homepage: http://mylondondiary.co.uk

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World 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

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure 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.

IMCs


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