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The Lie of the Land – Hunting The Oil Machine in Inverness
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Nov 16, 2022
The words of Sir David King, head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, haunt me. Speaking at the launch of The Oil Machine film, he explained his view on what has been taking place since 2019. “What we have experienced in the last three years is a series of extreme weather events around the world,...
Enough is Enough! – Medway’s resistance to an unjust transition.
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Oct 24, 2022
Down the canyon of Chatham High Street comes the march. Banner of Medway Trades Council proudly to the fore. Chants and shouts echoing off the shopfronts and the buildings above. “Enough is Enough! Enough is Enough!” Past the pound shops and the charity shops. Past the boarded up windows and the off licenses. Through...
Who Owns the Wind? – the promise of a publicly owned renewable energy system
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Oct 3, 2022
The North Westerly gale billows and shakes the heavy white pvc of the marquee on the Portsoy harbourside, Aberdeenshire. Festival goers drift from stall to stall, under the pallid light of sun through plastic, dithering over the t-towels and pots of honey. At one end of the tent, a wall is taken up by a...
‘Oil is the poison: Action is the antidote’ – sixteen days in the movement to end fossil fuels
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Apr 22, 2022
At 8.25 on Friday 15th April, as the rush hour traffic poured off the M4 at Chiswick, four activists stepped out in front of an Eddie Stobart oil tanker. Two held up a banner declaring ‘Just Stop Oil’ whilst two others disabled the braking system and clambered up onto the back of the tanker. Passing...
Tectonic shifts – the energy crisis and the leap beyond – The Economic War, part 4
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Apr 4, 2022
Shell declares it may go back into Cambo and the oilfield’s exploration license is extended by two years. The British government pushes for renewed drilling in the UK North Sea. There is public outcry at the Chancellor’s failure to defend households from the attack on living standards driven by price inflation. The Russian government announces...
Fuel poverty and Shell profits – who possesses the gas system?
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Feb 10, 2022
Standing in the front benches of the Opposition in the House of Commons, Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared “Citizens Advice have said they have seen a record number of people in January … Only today Shell announced that their profits had quadrupled to 20 billion dollars. They described the results as momentous,...
Ukraine & the grip of gas – caught in the machine of Crude Britannia
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Feb 1, 2022
The newsfeeds hiss and rumble with stories of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. We are all of us left waiting. Is this truly going to happen, a military conflict between Russia and NATO? Or is this a fevered concoction that aids the Kremlin, the US Administration, and the UK’s flailing Prime Minister? Will the...
Cambo & Viking Energy – the common wealth of wind in Shetland
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Jan 18, 2022
In July 1881 a fleet of Sixareen boats were working the haaf fishing grounds 30 or more miles West of Shetland in the vast North Atlantic. Each craft twenty foot long, hand built from wood, with a crew of seven men fishing for Cod and Ling. This valuable catch was taken on lines of hooks,...
Cambo, a turning point for the North Sea? – Shell departs and leaves many questions
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Dec 8, 2021
Seven twenty in the evening of Thursday 2nd December the news breaks[1]: Shell announces that they are withdrawing from their joint venture with the company Siccar Point that intends to exploit oil in the Cambo field West of Shetland. The announcement is as dramatic as it is unexpected. That same evening it is long...
From Oil Road to Fire Road – of oil pipelines, gas pipelines and climate chaos
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Nov 26, 2021
Authored by James Marriott of Platform drawing on the collective experience of so many others in Platform and the multiple organisations we’ve collaborated with. Prompted by an invitation from the Climate Cultures Festival in Berlin to speak about Crude Britannia and The Oil Road, co-authored with Mika Minio-Paluello, I returned to the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline...
Just Transition in Glasgow – now is the time for ‘For’ and ‘Against’
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Nov 19, 2021
“We need a massive programme of retrofitting homes”. Francis Stuart of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) is outlining his understanding of the social project that needs to take place, the transformation of pretty much the entirety of the housing stock of Scotland – and indeed the UK. Stuart sits behind a long table...
The Open Wound – keeping eyes on the constant injustice of oil production in Nigeria
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Nov 9, 2021
26th Anniversary of the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 Ogoni comrades Authored by James Marriott of Platform drawing from the collective experience of so many others in Platform and the multiple organisations we’ve collaborated with. On the morning of 10th November 1995 in a Port Harcourt goal, Nigeria were murdered: Ken...
