For info check out http://www.risingtide.org.au/

What's happening

Hundreds of people will
peacefully occupy Newcastle Harbour, and prevent the passage of coal
ships. This will be the fifth action of its kind in Newcastle. No one
has ever been arrested. At the last, in March 2009, we successfully
stopped all ship movements in the harbour for the day.

There'll
be plenty happening on the shore too, so please come along and show
your support even if you can't get out on the water. Good food will be
available by donation, and there will be a couple of performances and
engaging speakers. The Australia Institute's Richard Denniss will kick things off.

The
protest takes place at Horseshoe Beach, in the mouth of Newcastle
Harbour. It will start at 10am, and go for the rest of the day.

What about boats?

Bring
your canoe, kayak, tinnie, surfboard, (yacht?), whatever pleasure craft
you like. Don't have your own boat? Don't fancy yourself a raft-maker?
That's fine. Rising Tide is organising as many kayaks as we can, and
making them available for general use. If you have access to a
multitude of kayaks, please get in touch!

There'll be a ceremony of home made rafts! Check out the funky floating masterpieces, and enter your own creation!

What about safety?

There
will be fast rescue boats, generously provided and operated by
Greenpeace. If you get into trouble, someone will save you. We will
also have a first aid tent on shore.

 If you haven't used a kayak before, and want to use one of the kayaks we're organising for the day, then get in touch. If enough people are interested we will put on a kayak safety workshop before the big day.

Why should we blockade the coal port?

Now,
more than ever, we need to be turning up the heat on the coal industry,
and their friends in government. The export coal industry is
Australia's single biggest, and fastest growing contribution to the
global climate crisis.

Newcastle, already
the world's biggest coal port, is set to open a massive new coal
terminal this year, bringing the export capacity of the Hunter Valley
coal chain to an incredible 178 million tonnes of coal per annum.
That's the climate change equivalent of 30 Bayswater Power Stations.
Within ten years, the coal corporations plan on exporting more than 300
million tonnes of coal per annum - a tripling of current export
capacity.

Tripling coal exports means
tripling coal mining. As Newcastle coal exports boom, more precious
bushland will be razed, more waterways polluted, more communities
ripped apart as the transnational coal companies carve their way
westwards into the Liverpool Plains. The profits will be exported, but
the devastation will stay here in the Hunter. The catastrophic effects
of climate change will hurt all around the world.

This
madness has to stop. The climate crisis is deepening, and time is fast
running out. Politicians are failing to take action against the rampant
coal companies, so we have to do it ourselves.

Hundreds
of people will be doing just that in Newcastle on 28th March, and we'd
love you to join us. We'll be taking to the harbour in a big way,
occupying the world's biggest coal port with a mass of people, and
demanding:

• an immediate ban on the expansion of the coal industry in Australia,
• a swift phase out of coal, replacing all coal industry jobs with jobs in renewable energy and other sustainable industries

Want posters and flyers?

If you can help distribute posters and flyers for the Blockade, that's fantastic. If you want to print your own off, the files are here.

If you want us to post you some, send an email to risingtide at risingtide dot org dot au,
with your name, address, what sort of material you want (flyers,
posters, both), and how many you want, and we'll see what we can do.

Thanks very much.

Ramsey Kanaan long-time activist and founder of radical publisher PM Press will be in Sydney again for a short time. He will be giving a political talk about the progress and prospects of a variety of anarchist projects in the USA. Followed by discussion on how we can use these ideas in Australia. Free! Snacks provided.

Jamez, a friend from Singapore, will lead an open discussion in the Fanya Baron Library on some of the political and social movements in Singapore. Jamez is active in animal protection with ACRES (see: http://www.acres.org.sg/) and is also active in the political DIY hardcore punk scene in Singaprore, so will be able to touch most on these topics but these are by no means the only topics that will be discussed. Come along and find out what our neighbours are up to!