SEAD (Scottish Education and Action for Development)
Norton Park
57 Albion Road
Edinburgh
EH7 5QY
t: ++44131 475 2612

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Join our photo petition today by sending a message to RBS to stop investing our money in companies extracting oil from tar sands.

Submit your photo to the RBS photo petition today in three easy steps:

• 1. Write your message on paper, your body, your bank card…
• 2. Take a photo of you and your message
• 3. Email the photo to gone32hint@photos.flickr.com

And in 5 or so minutes your photo will appear below.

Please try to reduce the size on the picture to below 1Mb before you email it, there are many ways but an easy guide to doing this is here (for XP) or here (for Vista).

We will be bringing these photos to the RBS AGM so please send us your photo by 18 April 2011, the evening before the RBS AGM.

Monday 18 April, 7-9pm, Edinburgh University

Indigenous people in Canada are fighting ‘the most destructive project on earth’ – the extraction of oil from tar sands and the building of a super-pipeline through their ancestral lands.  RBS is financing companies mining tar sands and planning the pipeline.

Hear powerful first-hand accounts of the destruction caused by tar sands extraction and the fight to stop the Enbridge pipeline, and help stop RBS making it worse with our money.

An area the size of Wales in Northern Alberta has been strip-mined for tar sands.  Now the planned 1,170 kilometre long oil pipeline will cross the territories of over 50 First Nations communities, as well as 785 watercourses.  RBS is financing Canadian company Enbridge who are behind this plan.

From this test-bed, the tar sand industry is now expanding globally; to Madagascar, Venezuela and Congo.  After a massive public bailout RBS continues to provide finance for companies mining tar sands around the world.  On the eve of the RBS AGM in Edinburgh this event is a vote against UK tax money financing fossil fuels.  RBS must not go back to black this way.

Speakers will include:

Jasmine Thomas, a member of the frog clan from Saik’uz British Columbia, Canada. Jasmine is strongly opposed to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Project that plans to cross through her own and 52 other First Nations unceded traditional territories in British Columbia and Alberta.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo,  is Lubicon Cree from Northern Alberta. She is an advocate for indigenous rights, a documentary maker and works as Greenpeace Canada Tar Sands Climate and Energy Campaigner.

The event is free and will take place at Edinburgh University Chaplaincy, Bristo Square, Edinburgh EH8 9AL.  Register here to come along (navigates to FoE Scotland webpage)

Organised by WDM, Indigenous Environmental Network, People & Planet Edinburgh, UK Tar Sands Network, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Platform and SEAD.

The Camp for Climate Action is a grassroots movement taking direct action against the root causes of climate change, has today, started to swoop on Edinburgh.  This years target is the Royal Bank of Scotland head quarters at Gogar Station road.

Last year RBS were bailed out with £50 billion of public money. This bank is one of the world’s largest investor in oil, gas and coal.  From tar sands extraction in Canada to coal infrastructure here in the UK, we’re paying to trash our future.These projects are not just causing catastrophic climate change, but destroying the lives and livelihoods of people across the globe. Meanwhile, we’re told there is no money left and we should be braced for decades of public sectors cuts.

Ecological destruction is built into the mechanics of the financial system, with communities disenfranchised from their own futures. This is why, today until the 24th August, people from across the UK will be converging to take back the power and Break the Bank!

for more information go to http://climatecamp.org.uk/actions/edinburgh-2010

The Robin Hood Campaign proposes a tiny tax on banks, hedge funds and other finance institutions  that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad.

Find out more about related Actions and Events at the Robin Hood Tax site.

RBS is holding its Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh on 28th April 2010.  But we are not invited, despite being the majority shareholder. We want RBS to listen to the public, so we are holding an RBS Public Shareholder Meeting at the Mercure Point Hotel, Bread St, Edinburgh at 6:00pm, on the same day, which anyone can attend.

The event will be chaired by Sunday Herald environment correspondent, Rob Edwards; we’ll have inspirational speakers representing indigenous communities around the world who are suffering the direct effects of RBS’s dirty investments, as well as representatives of the renewables industry that RBS currently underfunds:

Speakers:

• ERIEL TCHEKWIE DERANGER, First Nations tribe member from Canada
• SIMON CHAMBERS, Documentary-maker and campaigner
• RICHARD GAULD, Founder and MD of Orkney Sustainable Energy
• KEVIN SMITH, Climate & Finance Campaigner, PLATFORM

We want you – the public owners of RBS – to submit your own Motions for discussion.  Send us your suggestions for how RBS could become the Royal Bank of Sustainability and how you’d like to see your money invested for good.  We’ll vote on the motions at the meeting and send the winning ones to the UK Government and the Board of RBS. Read motions submitted so far here.

This event is organised by SEAD  Amnesty International Scotland, Friends of the Earth Scotland, People & Planet, Platform and the World Development Movement.

The event is free and open to everyone, but please register below if you want to come along.

If you want to get further involved on the day why not join the ‘public shareholders’ protest outside the RBS AGM (12 noon, Edinburgh International Conference Centre). Wear your smart suit; we are now shareholders after all! Find out more.

“We are seeing a terrifyingly high rate of cancer in Fort Chipewyan where I live. We are convinced that these cancers are linked to the Tar Sands development on our doorstep. It is shortening our lives. That’s why we no longer call it ‘dirty oil’ but ‘bloody oil’. The blood of Fort Chipewyan people is on these companies’ hands.” –  George Poitras, former chief of Mikisew Cree First Nation.

The higher oil prices in recent years have meant that it’s become a more attractive prospect for oil companies to expand their operations in the costly process of obtaining and processing the thick bitumen into a usable form. It’s estimated that the industry is looking for a capital investment of $120-$220 billion over the next 20 years to build the new pipelines, mines, refineries and upgraders that are necessary to sustain the boom.

This report looks at the role that UK banks are playing in providing the necessary capital, and how RBS, which is 84% owned by the UK public, has been the bank the most heavily involved in underwriting loans to companies engaging in tar sands extraction.

The report is written by Platform London in partnership with SEAD, Friends of the Earth Scotland, People & Planet, WDM, Bank Track, New Internationalist, Rainforest Action Network, Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace, PiPLiNKS, Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign  and  Campagna per la riforma della Banca Mondiale.

Click here to download a copy of the full report. (PDF 2.1Mb)

The report entitled ‘Are we Switching On? Challenges and Opportunities for Climate Change Education’ identifies and profiles projects which empower people to take action to tackle climate change in their own lives and communities, rather than those which simply give information without an action-based focus. It serves as a dynamic overview of some of the key approaches to creating behavioural change through climate education, as well as an inspiring bank of ideas which organisations large or small can use to develop their own work.

• It examines the challenges and opportunities faced by groups in Scotland working to create climate action – and places an emphasis on creating positive solutions, and community-based action which builds resilience on all levels.
• It offers advice on how to avoid preaching to the converted, and to reach out to involve the wider community.
• The report also recommends that communities must have access to support at all levels to help them develop – from funding to mentoring, resources and training.
• It also highlights a need for sharing of experience between projects.

The report, written by community educator Jamie Auldsmith, is published by SEAD as part of our Switch On to Climate Change project, showcases the work of groups and projects including Going Carbon Neutral Stirling, PLANEspeaking, the John Muir Trust, EcoCongregations, the Transition Scotland network, Eco Schools and the Centre for Human Ecology.

Click here to download a copy of the full report. (Pdf 750Kb)

The Stop Climate Chaos Scotland coalition rally was held just two days before the TICC Committee of the Scottish Parliament is due to publish its Stage 1 report on the Bill. It was a carnival atmosphere from the crowd and over 30 MSPs turned out along with other parliamentary staff, reporters and chief executives from Scotland’s leading charities and faith groups.

Representatives from all the political parties made speeches with the strong message that action is urgently needed now!

SEAD, an active member of the coalition,  joined the rally to support them in commending the Scottish Government for showing leadership and committing to at least 80% cuts in greenhouse gases by 2050 in the Bill.

However, if we are to really tackle climate change, we need to act urgently so there are three main things that the Bill needs to address:

• Statutory annual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 3% year on year starting now
• The inclusion of emissions from international aviation and shipping from the beginning
• Ensure that the action to tackle climate change takes place in Scotland and is not ‘bought in’ from overseas.

You can read more about the coalition and the policy briefings we have put together by visiting our coalition partner’s website stopclimatechaos.org.